The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (388 page)
Read The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 Online
Authors: David Hume
The draught of this petition being conveyed to the king, he was prevailed on, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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somewhat imprudently, to countersign it himself as a mark of his approbation. But as several difficulties occurred, the project was laid aside two months before any public discovery was made of it.
It was Goring who betrayed the secret to the popular leaders. The alarm may easily be imagined, which this intelligence conveyed. Petitions from the military to the civil power are always looked on as disguised, or rather undisguised commands; and are of a nature widely different from petitions presented by any other rank of men. Pym opened the matter in the house.
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On the first intimation of a discovery, Piercy concealed himself, and Jermyn withdrew beyond sea. This farther confirmed the suspicion of a dangerous conspiracy. Goring delivered his evidence before the house: Piercy wrote a letter to his brother, Northumberland, confessing most of the
particulars.l
Both their testimonies agree with regard to the oath of secrecy; and as this circumstance had been denied by Pollard, Ashburnham, and Wilmot, in all their examination, it was regarded as a new proof of some desperate resolutions, which had been taken.
To convey more quickly the terror and indignation at this plot, the commons voted, that a protestation should be signed by all the members. It was sent up to the lords, and signed by all of them, except Southampton and Robarts. Orders were given by the commons alone, without other authority, that it should be subscribed by the whole nation. The protestation was in itself very inoffensive, even insignificant; and contained nothing but general declarations, that the subscribers would defend their
religion and liberties.m
But it tended to encrease the popular panic, and intimated, what was more expressly declared in the preamble, that these blessings were now exposed to the utmost peril.
Alarms were every day given of new conspiracies:n
In Lancashire, great multitudes of papists were assembling: Secret meetings were held by them in caves and under-ground in Surrey: They had entered into a plot to blow up the river with gun-powder,
in order to drown the city:o
Provisions of arms were making beyond sea: Sometimes France, sometimes Denmark, was forming designs against the kingdom: And the populace, who are always terrified with present, and enraged with distant dangers, were still farther animated in their demands of justice against the unfortunate Strafford.
The king came to the house of lords: And though he expressed his resolution, for which he offered them any security, never again to employ Strafford in any branch of public business; he professed himself totally dissatisfied with regard to the circumstance of treason, and on that account declared his difficulty in giving his assent to the bill of attainder.
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The commons took fire, and voted it a breach of privilege for the king to take notice of any bill; depending before the houses. Charles did not perceive that his attachment to Strafford was the chief motive for the bill; and that, the greater proofs he gave of anxious concern for this minister, the more inevitable did he render his destruction.
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when the bill of attainder was brought into the house. Yet of these, nineteen had the courage to vote against it;
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A certain proof, that, if entire freedom had been allowed, the bill had been rejected by a great majority.
In carrying up the bill to the lords, St. John, the solicitor-general, advanced two topics, well suited to the fury of the times; that, though the testimony against Strafford were not clear, yet, in this way of bill, private satisfaction to each man’s conscience was sufficient, even should no evidence at all be produced; and that the earl had no title to plead law, because he had broken the law. It is true, added he, we give law to hares and deer; for they are beasts of chace. But it was never accounted either cruel or unfair to destroy foxes or wolves, where-ever they can be found; for they are beasts of
After popular violence had prevailed over the lords, the same battery was next applied to force the king’s assent. The populace flocked about Whitehall, and accompanied their demand of justice with the loudest clamours and most open menaces. Rumours of conspiracies against the parliament were anew spread abroad: Invasions and insurrections talked of: And the whole nation was raised into such a ferment, as threatened some great and imminent convulsion. On which-ever side the king cast his eyes, he saw no resource of security. All his servants, consulting their own safety, rather than their master’s honour, declined interposing with their advice between him and his parliament. The queen, terrified with the appearance of so mighty a danger, and bearing formerly no good will to Strafford, was in tears, and pressed him to satisfy his people in this demand, which, it was hoped, would finally content them.
Juxon alone, whose courage was not inferior to his other virtues, ventured to advise him, if, in his conscience, he did not approve of the bill, by no means to assent to it.
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Strafford, hearing of Charles’s irresolution and anxiety, took a very extraordinary step: He wrote a letter, in which he entreated the king, for the sake of public peace, to put an end to his unfortunate, however innocent, life, and to quiet the tumultuous people by granting them the request, for which they were so importunate.
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“In this,”
added he, “my consent will more acquit you to God than all the world can do besides.
To a willing man there is no injury. And as, by God’s grace, I forgive all the world with a calmness and meekness, of infinite contentment to my dislodging soul; so, Sir, to you, I can resign the life of this world with all imaginable chearfulness, in the just acknowledgment of your exceeding favours.” Perhaps, Strafford hoped, that this unusual instance of generosity would engage the king still more strenuously to protect him: Perhaps he gave his life for lost; and finding himself in the hands of his enemies, and observing that Balfour, the lieutenant of the Tower, was devoted to the popular party;
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he absolutely despaired of ever escaping the multiplied dangers, with which he was every way environed. We might ascribe this step to a noble effort of disinterestedness, not unworthy the great mind of Strafford; if the measure which he advised had not been, in the event, as pernicious to his master, as it was immediately
After the most violent anxiety and doubt, Charles at last granted a commission to four noblemen to give the royal assent, in his name, to the bill: Flattering himself, probably, in this extremity of distress, that, as neither his will consented to the deed, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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nor was his hand immediately engaged in it, he was the more free from all the guilt which attended it. These commissioners he empowered, at the same time, to give his assent to the bill which rendered the parliament perpetual.
The commons, from policy, rather than necessity, had embraced the expedient of paying the two armies by borrowing money from the city; and these loans they had repaid afterwards by taxes levied upon the people. The citizens, either of themselves or by suggestion, began to start difficulties, with regard to a farther loan which was demanded. We make no scruple of trusting the parliament, said they, were we certain, that the parliament were to continue till our repayment. But, in the present precarious situation of affairs, what security can be given us for our money? In pretence of obviating this objection, a bill was suddenly brought into the house, and passed with great unanimity and rapidity, that the parliament should not be dissolved, prorogued, or adjourned, without their own consent. It was hurried in like manner through the house of peers; and was instantly carried to the king for his assent. Charles, in the agony of grief, shame, and remorse, for Strafford’s doom, perceived not that this other bill was of still more fatal consequence to his authority; and rendered the power of his enemies perpetual, as it was already uncontroulable.
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In comparison of the bill of attainder, by which he deemed himself an accomplice in his friend’s murder, this concession made no figure in his eyes:
NOTE [Y]
A circumstance, which, if it lessen our idea of his resolution or penetration, serves to prove the integrity of his heart, and the goodness of his disposition. It is indeed certain, that strong compunction for his consent to Strafford’s execution attended this unfortunate prince during the remainder of his life: and even at his own fatal end, the memory of this guilt, with great sorrow and remorse, recurred upon him. All men were so sensible of the extreme violence which was done him, that he suffered the less, both in character and interest, from this unhappy measure; and though he abandoned his best friend, yet was he still able to preserve, in some degree, the attachment of all his adherents.
Secretary Carleton was sent by the king to inform Strafford of the final resolution, which necessity had extorted from him. The earl seemed surprised, and, starting up, exclaimed in the words of Scripture,
Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of
men: For in them there is no salvation.
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He was soon able, however, to collect his courage; and he prepared himself to suffer the fatal sentence. Only three days’ interval was allowed him. The king, who made a new effort in his behalf, and sent, by the hands of the young prince, a letter addressed to the peers, in which he entreated them to confer with the commons about a mitigation of Strafford’s sentence, and begged at least for some delay, was refused in both requests.
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Strafford, in passing from his apartment to Tower-hill, where the Execution of scaffold was erected, stopped under Laud’s windows, with whom Strafford.
he had long lived in intimate friendship; and intreated the
assistance of his prayers, in those awful moments which were approaching: The aged primate dissolved in tears; and having pronounced, with a broken voice, a tender
blessing on his departing friend, sunk into the arms of his attendants.b
Strafford, still superior to his fate, moved on with an elated countenance, and with an air even of greater dignity than what usually attended him. He wanted that consolation, which commonly supports those who perish by the stroke of injustice and oppression: He PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)
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was not buoyed up by glory, nor by the affectionate compassion of the spectators: Yet his mind, erect and undaunted, found resources within itself, and maintained its unbroken resolution, amidst the terrors of death, and the triumphant exultations of his misguided enemies. His discourse on the scaffold was full of decency and courage.
“He feared,” he said, “that the omen was bad for the intended reformation of the state, that it commenced with the shedding of innocent blood.” Having bid a last adieu to his brother and friends who attended him, and having sent a blessing to his nearer relations who were absent; “And now,” said he, “I have nigh done! One stroke will make my wife a widow, my dear children fatherless, deprive my poor servants of their indulgent master, and separate me from my affectionate brother and all my friends!
But let God be to you and them all in all!” Going to disrobe, and prepare himself for the block, “I thank God,” said he, “that I am nowise afraid of death, nor am daunted with any terrors; but do as chearfully lay down my head at this time, as ever I did when going to repose!” With one blow was a period put to his life by the
Thus perished, in the 49th year of his age, the earl of Strafford, one of the most eminent personages that has appeared in England. Though his death was loudly demanded as a satisfaction to justice, and an atonement for the many violations of the constitution; it may safely be affirmed, that the sentence, by which he fell, was an enormity greater than the worst of those, which his implacable enemies prosecuted with so much cruel industry. The people, in their rage, had totally mistaken the proper object of their resentment. All the necessities, or, more properly speaking, the difficulties, by which the king had been induced to use violent expedients for raising supply, were the result of measures previous to Strafford’s favour; and if they arose from ill conduct, he, at least, was entirely innocent. Even those violent expedients themselves, which occasioned the complaint that the constitution was subverted, had been, all of them, conducted, so far as appeared, without his counsel or assistance.
And whatever his private advice might be,d
this salutary maxim he failed not, often and publicly, to inculcate in the king’s presence, that, if any inevitable necessity ever obliged the sovereign to violate the laws, this licence ought to be practised with extreme reserve, and, as soon as possible, a just atonement be made to the constitution, for any injury which it might sustain from such dangerous precedents.
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This first parliament after the restoration reversed the bill of attainder; and even a few weeks after Strafford’s execution, this very parliament remitted to his children the more severe consequences of his sentence: As if conscious of the violence, with which the prosecution had been conducted.
In vain did Charles expect, as a return for so many instances of unbounded compliance, that the parliament would at last show him some indulgence, and would cordially fall into that unanimity, to which, at the expence of his own power, and of his friend’s life, he so earnestly courted them. All his concessions were poisoned by their suspicion of his want of cordiality; and the supposed attempt to engage the army against them, served with many as a confirmation of this jealousy. It was natural for the king to seek some resource, while all the world seemed to desert him, or combine against him; and this probably was the utmost of the embryo scheme which was formed with regard to the army. But the popular leaders still insisted, that a desperate plot was laid to bring up the forces immediately, and offer violence to the parliament: PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)