27—
The King and Strafford

Preliminaries over, Parliament turned to establish its normal procedural machinery and Friday 6 November, 1640, was spent in appointing committees for religion, grievances, trade, privileges. On the following day the petitions began to be read and Member after Member rose to enumerate with compelling eloquence the evils to which his constituents had been subjected — monopolies and taxation, innovations in religion, religious persecution, arbitrary courts, ship money, coat and conduct money, fine, imprisonment. Some of the speakers fumbled towards the cause — 'arbitrary government', 'evil counsellors', 'intermission of Parliaments'; or towards the remedy, mostly expressed in terms of Parliament, for Parliament was 'the great physician of the Commonwealth', as Sir Francis Seymour put it. Even Benjamin Rudyerd gave Charles no comfort, for he spoke against the Declaration of Sports. Many of the speeches were immediately printed and distributed round the country; for the statement of grievances, as well as being an indication of the Members' reforming intent, was now an established propaganda exercise and a method of justifying themselves to their constituents. On November 8 motions for the release of Prynne, Bastwick, Burton and Leighton were approved; on the 9th Cromwell spoke similarly for John Lilburne, thus beginning a love-hate relationship between them which would last for well over a decade. On the same day monopolists were excluded from the House and twelve more Court votes were conveniently lost. There was a fire running through the House of Commons which was being fed by the ardour of the Members themselves. Pym knew well enough that the flame would in time burn less brightly and that he must act quickly. Charles also perceived that he was facing a situation different in intensity from anything he had known before. Both men turned to Strafford.

Strafford, as Commander-in-Chief, had remained with the army in the North, and both he and Charles were aware that there was danger for him at Westminster. Nevertheless Charles sent for him. Possibly they planned some joint action, like the impeachment of the opposition leaders. More likely it was simply Charles's need for someone stronger than himself to lean upon. He assured Strafford that he need fear for neither life nor fortune. Strafford needed no such assurance and he did not hesitate: he was too 'great hearted', as Hamilton put it after he had warned Strafford of the danger he was running into.

For Pym had moved as quickly as Charles. He knew both that speed was the essence of the situation and that the opposition must plan more carefully than it had done with Buckingham, who had slipped through the net. A preliminary meeting of the opposition leaders had named Strafford, Laud, Finch, and Cottington as the 'evil counsellors' to be impeached and when Pym moved in the House of Commons for a committee to consider Irish affairs, with an invitation to the Irish to bring their grievances before it, Strafford's friends knew that he was to be the first target. He reached London on November 10, less than a week after the opening of Parliament, and fully aware of the situation. His prompt arrival indicated that no time could be lost and two days later, before a detailed charge could be drawn up, Pym charged Strafford with High Treason before the House of Commons. In vain the judicial Falkland urged that they should examine evidence and digest the charges made before converting them into treason. The opposition made much of alleged troop movements round the Tower with the suggestion that Strafford intended to subdue the City, Pym raised the bogey of a Catholic plot and Clotworthy 'revealed' the intended use of the Irish army against England. Tension was heightened by Pym calling for doors to be locked, and in a conspiratorial atmosphere, tense, as yet unused to their position, capable of being led, the Commons listened to the charge of High Treason against the Earl of Strafford. There was no one critical, detached or fearless enough to support Falkland. The committee appointed to draw up the charge was ready to go to the Lords that same evening, evidence enough of the deliberate plan and the detailed preliminary work that had preceded the opening of Parliament.

Strafford was with Charles and other friends at Whitehall when a sympathetic peer came hurrying over from Westminster with the news. Strafford's instinct was to be in his place in the Lords when the

charge was brought against him. But he was too late. Pym had already made the short journey from the Commons House to the Lords and as Strafford made to take his seat he was met with cries of 'Withdraw!, Withdraw!' and was compelled to wait outside the Chamber while the Peers considered their attitude to the charge which Pym had brought against him in the name of the Commons of England. When, after about ten minutes, Strafford was called in he was made to kneel while the brief, formal charge of treason was read. He was forbidden to speak, deprived of his sword, and taken away in custody. Outside the House the crowd that grew as rumour spread had no more sympathy than his colleagues within: so Strafford learned how bitterly he had alienated both his peers and the populace.

In contrast the following days were filled with rejoicing as the Puritan martyrs were released. Lilburne, being imprisoned in London, was the first to be welcomed; Prynne and Burton reached the capital from their remote prisons on November 28, Bastwick on December 4. A hundred coaches, 2000 horsemen and a great crowd on foot wearing twigs of bay and rosemary in their hats as signs of triumph and remembrance, escorted them. It was not until the middle of November that Parliament approached the City for a loan and were promised £21,000 while Members pledged themselves to bring the sum up to £90,000 so that interim payment could be made to the Scots. On December 7 ship money was declared illegal by the Commons, and only then, with this tax out of the way, did they consider subsidies. On December 10 two, on the 23rd two more, were voted. This was satisfactory except that Parliament gave no indication that the King would control any of the money. He received a further snub in November when Parliament appointed Commissioners to meet the Scottish delegation at Westminster. Charles assumed he would be present, as he had been at Berwick, and perhaps looked forward to demonstrating once more his dialectical skill. But it was the last thing that either side wanted, and Charles was firmly repulsed.

Though it laid aside the Root and Branch petition received on December 11, Parliament was occupying itself with excluding Catholics from positions of influence, and instructions were sent to the Northern armies to eject Catholic officers. It was established that few priests and Jesuits had felt the weight of the recusancy laws during the personal rule and that their immunity had generally been authorized by Windebank. The Commons were far too excited to ask, perhaps they did not want to know, on whose authority Windebank had acted,

14
Charles as Van Dyck saw him at the height of his personal happiness and seeming 
prosperity — serene, elegant, fastidious, slightly ethereal, the great star of the Garter 
blazing on his blue cloak.

15
Charles, the proud and happy monarch and husband, being presented with a laurel wreath by his Queen; a portrait symbolic of victory over strife and discord. 
Similar pictures were painted by both Mytens and Van Dyck This one is by Van Dyck.

16
Charles dining with his Queen in Whitehall Palace, talking to his friends, waited on by his great lords and courtiers, 
privileged onlookers at a discreet distance. Painted by Gerard Honckgeest.

but the Secretary had his own reasons for alarm, for it was he who had acted for Henrietta-Maria in forwarding a request for Papal aid. Windebank took no chances and, with Charles's permission, he fled the country on December 10, the first of the King's supporters to do so. Did he know that even as he was fleeing from the results of his indiscretion the Queen was preparing to appeal again to Rome for aid?

On the day of Windebank's flight Charles announced to his Privy Council that his second daughter would marry Prince William of Orange. It had been natural to consider their eldest daughter as a future Queen of Spain: whatever past relations had been, or however much Spain's position in the world had declined, it was still a high-ranking position. But those negotiations had fallen through and they were now seeking an alliance where money lay. Europe was well aware of their desperate position and when the Prince of Orange again offered his son in marriage, with considerable financial backing and a suggestion of mediation between Charles and his Parliament, or even of troops to help the English King, he stepped up his demand to take the elder, rather than the second daughter. Charles and Henrietta-Maria, though it was not a match they had envisaged in their happier days, had no alternative but to agree. Mary was nine, her intended bridegroom was nearly fifteen years old and was a bright and attractive boy. Like the marriage of Charles's sister to the Palatine, it was not a marriage of great prestige, but Mary would go to a comfortable and wealthy Court and her future husband had in person, and so far as was known in character, a great deal to commend him.

Eight days after the wedding announcement it was the turn of Laud, twin pillar with Strafford of all that the Commons detested. Laud was impeached of High Treason on December 18, sequestered from his place in the House of Lords and committed to custody. Harbottle Grimston had pronounced him to be 'the root and ground of all our miseries'. But the specific charges would have to wait. Now they turned on Lord Keeper Finch and his impeachment followed inevitably. Finch made a strong and not ignoble speech in his own defence but the virtually unanimous vote of the Commons to proceed with the charge was a foregone conclusion. Two days later, on December 21, Finch, again with Charles's permission, fled to The Hague in a ship belonging to the royal navy.

Two of the King's 'evil counsellors' had slipped away within six weeks of the meeting of Parliament, two more were confined and the

charge against one of them was being prepared as hurriedly as the lawyers would permit. Meanwhile it was essential to keep control of Parliament. Charles might dissolve it as he had done before, helped by the money already voted and by the prospective dowry of his daughter. But Pym was too quick for him. A Bill for triennial Parliaments laid down that the monarch was obliged to call a new Parliament within three months of ending the old. The Bill passed the Commons on January 20, the Lords on 5 February 1641. While Charles was considering how to avoid parting with so large a part of his prerogative, Strafford's trial was proceeding.

He was brought before the House of Lords to hear the details of the charge against him on January 30 — gaunt and ill after two months' confinement in the Tower. He had misappropriated the revenue, encouraged Papists, fomented war with Scotland, subverted the government of Ireland, acted with tyrannical despotism as President of the Council of the North, betrayed the army, broken the Short Parliament, prevented the calling of another, and finally agreed to its meeting only in order to discredit it. His vehemence against London Aldermen who had refused to lend the King money was not forgotten, he was accused of advising the King to seize the bullion in the Tower and to debase the coinage. Finally — and this was estimated to be the most telling charge against him — he was accused of offering to bring over the Irish army to subdue the kingdom of England. The charge was an undigested mixture of the general and the specific.

While Strafford was preparing his defence, Charles was considering the Triennial Bill. He had declared he would never part with so large a part of his prerogative as the Bill implied but when it came before him on February 15 he found that the old subterfuge had been employed and it was coupled with a subsidy bill. There were rumours of Parliament ceasing all business until it was passed and, between threats and inducement, Charles gave way on the 16th. He was, he said, 'yielding up one of the fairest flowers of his garland' by abandoning his right to call Parliament when he wished, but since he had, in any case, determined to govern in future through Parliament, it made little difference. Three days later Charles made what appeared to be a half-hearted attempt to gain support from the House of Lords by appointing as Privy Counsellors seven of their Members who had been opposing him — Bristol, Bedford, Essex, Hertford, Saye, Mandeville, and Saville. He may have read the situation correctly in assuming that their opposition arose partly from their exclusion from

office, but it was a little naive to offer such a sop at this late stage to men of such calibre.

Eight days after Charles had given way on the Triennial Bill Strafford was at the bar of the House of Lords to answer to the charges against him. He had had only three weeks in which to prepare his preliminary answer but appeared to be cheerful and composed. He and Charles reached the Lords at about the same time and Charles called Strafford to him in an inner room. For about an hour they spoke privately while the House waited. When Charles took his seat upon the throne and Strafford was brought to the bar the King publicly greeted his minister across the floor of the House with an affectionate gesture and a smile. In a long answer which took three hours to read and covered over 200 sheets of paper Strafford rebutted all the charges against him. The next stage was the open trial which was fixed for March 22.

While Strafford worked upon his detailed defence Pym and his friends, with a grim determination that no part of their quarry should escape, adopted in practice, though they would not have expressed it in so many words, the concept that the end justifies the means. Public feeling against Laud was not allowed to sleep and on the day on which Strafford was making his defence in the Lords the impeachment charge was made in the Commons against Laud. It was voted unanimously that the Archbishop was guilty of treason in attempting to alter religion and the fundamental laws of the realm. Without an opportunity of making a defence he was committed to the Tower on March 1, angry crowds attempting to drag him from his carriage as he passed by under the protection of the guard. Meanwhile, with a total disregard of the principle of justice or fair play, and without consulting the Lords, the House of Commons caused to be printed and published the articles of the charges against Strafford. To the people who read them the printed words were the truth, and Strafford was condemned by an angry populace before one word had been spoken at the actual trial. He came to Westminster Hall on 22 March 1641 guarded by soldiers. The royal family sat in a screened box where they might see without being seen, but Charles tore down the lattice. Henrietta-Maria stayed for only a couple of hours, but Charles stayed throughout with the Prince who occasionally came forward to take his seat by the throne, which remained unoccupied.

Pym brought forward his most telling evidence, which was the note of Strafford's speech in Council taken down by Sir Henry Vane

on May 5 in the previous year. Vane's son, an enthusiastic supporter of Pym, had found the paper in his father's study and had made a copy which he took to Pym. Now the alleged substance of the notes was brought forward in evidence against Strafford to prove that he had urged the bringing over of Irish troops to subvert England. Had Strafford used the words 'this country', meaning England, or 'that country', meaning Scotland? Had he not said that, being reduced to extreme necessity, the King was absolved from all laws of government? Vane senior was troubled and inconclusive in his answers. Northumberland, Hamilton, Juxon, Goring and Cottington failed to remember words that could have had any such interpretation. On April 10 the trial was adjourned in some confusion with nothing proved against Strafford. As the court broke up Charles and Strafford looked at each other across the Hall. The King laughed.

In other respects Charles had less reason for satisfaction and little room for manoeuvre, and his thoughts turned to the army in the North, still not disbanded and still only partly paid. When on March 6 £10,000, previously assigned to the English army, was handed over to the Scots, discontent was ready to take positive form. Edmund Verney, with the army, writing to his brother Ralph, with the Parliament, two days later, depicted a dangerous situation: 'The horse . . . will not muster till they are paid. If the foot do the like . . . believe me, it can tend to no less than a general mutiny.' Two groups of people were preparing to take advantage of this situation. In the army Henry Percy, the brother of Northumberland, was the leader of a group of officers who prepared a letter embodying their grievances which was presented first to Northumberland and then to the King. In London two courtiers, the Queen's favourite, Henry Jermyn, and the poet Sir John Suckling, were in touch with George Goring, another friend of the Queen, who had recently been appointed Governor of Plymouth. Their wild scheme involved bringing the army to London and securing the Tower while Goring used Plymouth to receive the aid the Queen expected from the Continent.

Charles and his wife were both aware of what was going on, and Charles engineered a meeting between the two groups. But they were completely incompatible and Charles's worst fears were realized. 'All these ways are vain and foolish!', he exclaimed, 'and I will think of them no more.' Goring, in frustration, disclosed the so-called 'army plot' to Members of the House of Lords on April 1, but it is likely that rumour had already been at work. With fears of an army plot spread-

ing and their case against Strafford halting, the opposition once more took stock of its position. The words were spoken by Essex but they were Pym's too, and those of his associates: 'Stone dead hath no fellow.' Since the charge of treason looked like faltering they would obtain the death penalty against Strafford by the savage procedure of a Bill of Attainder, which required no more formality than the passage of an Act of Parliament. It was Haselrig who drew the Bill from his pocket, ready prepared, on the evening of the 10th — the opposition's reply to the King's laughter. To obtain votes for this procedure Pym produced his own copy of young Vane's copy of his father's scribbled notes taken in the agitated meeting of the Scottish Committee ten months earlier. Confusion surrounded the whereabouts of the original copy and the original document itself, though the elder Vane maintained it had been burnt on the King's command. What was certain was that in the copy which Pym now produced the impression was conveyed that Strafford was reported as saying that the Irish army could be used here  — in England — to subdue this country . No one could remember exactly how the minute had read before.

While this document of Pym's was being used as evidence first in the House of Commons and then in the House of Lords, in the main trial itself the final defence had yet to be heard. When on April 13 Strafford came again to Westminster Hall to make his last speech the Bill of Attainder had already been presented to the Commons by Haselrig. It made little difference that Strafford's defence was clear and eloquent and that for two hours he tore down article after article of the charge made against him; that he was able to show that so far from committing any treason he had always acted in accordance with the laws and traditions of his country. He warned his hearers: 'These gentlemen tell me they speak in defence of the commonweal against my arbitrary laws; give me leave to say that I speak in defence of the commonweal against their arbitrary treason.' The power was now with the opposition and when the Bill of Attainder was put to the vote in the Commons on April 20 it passed by 204 votes to 59.

It needed courage to be one of the 59. Outside the House as well as within, the opposition had worked up a furious dislike of Strafford, and all who supported him. The apprentices, always ready for a riot, were streaming day after day from the City to Westminster and were joined by older and more sober citizens all crying for the blood of Strafford. Notable among those who dared to confront the Commons and its allies was young George Digby, son of the Earl of Bristol. With

his father's insight, but with more than his father's passion, he risked his life in telling Pym openly in the House that the piece of paper he had copied from young Vane's copy of his father's garbled notes was no evidence against Strafford: no one, he pointed out, not even old Sir Henry himself, would say categorically that the Earl had offered to bring over an Irish army to subdue England. Digby was supported by the Member for Windsor who was courageous enough to warn the Commons that if they passed the Bill they would 'commit murder with the sword of justice'. Evidence of the deliberate policy of intimidation practised by the House was the posting up in London and Westminster of a list of the names of those who voted against the Bill with the superscription: 'These are the Straffordians, enemies of justice, betrayers of their country.' Digby survived the attack upon him but the Member for Windsor was expelled the House.

Charles remained confident, even after this vote, and on the following day wrote to Strafford. 'I cannot satisfy myself in honour or conscience', he said, 'without assuring you now, in the midst of your troubles, that, upon the word of a king, you shall not suffer in life, honour, or fortune.' But the opposition would not be deflected now, and in order to make sure of the Lords a gigantic petition was engineered said to bear 20,000 signatures, which on April 24 was brought to Westminster by the customary noisy crowd calling for vengeance upon Strafford. Two days later the House of Lords gave the Bill its first reading and the following day, the 27th, passed it a second time. At this eleventh hour there appeared signs that Charles was taking action. Cottington resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer, it was rumoured that the post was being offered to Pym, and that the Earl of Bedford would become Lord Treasurer and lead a group of moderate men acceptable both to Charles and to Parliament. Charles had two interviews with Pym of which nothing leaked out. But this revival of an earlier scheme came to nothing. Pym refused the proferred post, Bedford was taken ill and died shortly afterwards, leaving the moderates with no strong leader. In view of all he had said and done Pym was bound to refuse office at this point. Bedford, but for his death, might well have accepted and brought into the ambit of government the peers recently appointed to the Privy Council. For exclusion from office and influence had been one of their chief grievances and, even at this late stage, Charles might have made amends. He lost heavily by Bedford's death and might have pondered whether earlier conciliatory action might not have altered the sequence of events.

At the same time Charles was engaged in yet another plot, this time to engineer Strafford's flight. The Earl himself seems to have agreed to the plan and offered £20,000 to Sir William Balfour, the Lieutenant of the Tower, to connive at his escape while his faithful secretary, Guildford Slingsby, waited at Tilbury with a ship ready to sail. The plan was frustrated by Balfour's loyalty to Parliament, and by the 28th news of the attempted escape was flying round Westminster and the City. Charles chose the same day to make an extraordinary announcement in person to the House of Lords, telling them that he intended to keep the Irish army in being until the English and Scottish forces were disbanded. It was inevitable that the announcement should bring with it some of the overtones of Strafford's alleged assertion of the previous year: was it bravado on the King's part? Was it a threat? The House looked askance at the King. Charles sat for some time looking around him as though expecting some support 'but there was not one man gave him the least hum or colour of plaudit to his speech', wrote one who was there, and the King left the House. If it did anything Charles's statement reinforced the case against Strafford. On the following day Oliver St John, speaking in favour of the Bill of Attainder, argued that 'it was never accounted either cruelty or foul play to knock foxes and wolves on the head . . . because they be beasts of prey'.

Charles now employed two contradictory tactics. He was persuaded by his supporters and by Strafford himself that he might be able to put in the right plea to Parliament for the Earl's life. It was a delicate situation that needed careful handling. There was already a core of 'Straffordians' in the Houses and in spite of the army plot and other rumours that Pym was assiduously nursing there was a middle group that might be won if Strafford were shorn of all power. Charles went to Parliament on May 1 and, as he had so often done, he misjudged the situation. He promised, indeed, that he would never employ Strafford again in any capacity. He assured his hearers that no one had ever advised him to bring the Irish army to England or to change even the least of the laws of England. But he made no attempt to speak against the Attainder Bill, to question the constitutional issues it raised, to point out the dangers of such a Bill being used as a precedent. Nor did he refer to Strafford's defence or to the extent to which the case against him had failed or succeeded. Instead Charles made a personal appeal concerning his own conscience, which, he said in effect, would not allow him to sign Strafford's death warrant, and

he begged his hearers to relieve him of the dilemma he was in: he was not asking for Strafford's release from the death penalty, but for his own release from a matter of conscience.

Strafford heard of the speech with resignation and no hope. Laud was saddened. The speech, he later wrote, 'displeased mightily and I verily think hastened the Earl's death'. On the same day Charles attempted to infiltrate the Tower guard with his own men, but again the Lieutenant frustrated his intentions and immediately informed the Parliamentary leaders. The state of uncertainty and alarm was not only for Parliament itself — was it to be dissolved? Would Charles use force against it? — but was felt in a deep uncertainty over the City as a whole, where business and trade had virtually stopped in the general confusion, men hardly knowing who was their leader and what was the position of the King. Charles himself was distraught. His mind was partly on other things. For if the life of Strafford was important so also was the fortune of his eldest daughter who was due to be married the following day to Prince William of Orange.

The Prince had arrived on March 13 with 400 gentlemen attendants and was staying at Arundel House. He had been officially welcomed by the Earl of Lindsey at Gravesend and had been brought to Whitehall where he was met by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York who conducted him to their parents and other members of the family; it was noted that the Queen and Princesses would not let him kiss them, presumably because he was not of sufficiently high rank. But he and Mary were immediately attracted to each other — like another young couple 27 years before — and Mary very soon allowed herself to be kissed. She and her mother took some interest in her clothes. The wedding could not be so grand as her aunt's had been, even though that was held under the shadow of her uncle's death, but her dress was of silver, round her auburn hair and her throat were ropes of pendant pearls, her long train was carried by attendants dressed in white. Her bridegroom was bright and gallant in a suit of rich pink velvet and satin. From a curtained recess in the chapel at Whitehall Henrietta-Maria watched the simple Protestant ceremony and saw Charles give his daughter away. The marriage was popular with the people, yet nothing demonstrates more clearly the desperate straits to which Charles had been reduced than this marriage of his eldest daughter whose terms, and the very person of the bride herself, had been dictated by the Dutch. To add to the incongruity of the

occasion the Elector Palatine had arrived unexpectedly on the same day as the Prince, to the dismay of the King and Queen, claiming that the Princess had been promised to him. He sulked in his room during the wedding ceremony.

Henrietta-Maria walked with her children in the park that afternoon as a substitute for the celebrations that would normally have followed. In the evening she went through the accepted ritual of undressing the little girl and putting her to bed in the presence of her father, her brothers and sisters and members of the Court. The bridegroom was then brought in by the Prince of Wales and Charles led him to the bed to kiss the bride. He was allowed to lie with her for half an hour with the drapes of the bed open and in the presence of the courtiers. The marriage was then pronounced consummated and William spent the rest of the night in Charles's room where, it was said, the King made much of him.^[1]

Henrietta's delight in pageantry and the masque should have had ample scope in the marriage of her eldest daughter. The intrigue in which she was indulging was possibly something of a substitute for here she could combine the drama of play-acting with what she believed was positive assistance to her husband. While Strafford's trial and her daughter's wedding preparations were proceeding she was making clandestine appointments with various members of the opposition, hoping to influence them, descending by back stairs and the light of a single candle to her rendezvous. Not surprisingly the news of such meetings soon got about and did no good to Strafford, to her husband, nor to her own reputation. The crowds were continuing to flock day after day to Westminster and Whitehall and after two big demonstrations on the 3rd and 4th demanding the life of Strafford the Earl himself wrote to the King absolving him from any promise he had made to save him. On the 5th Pym opportunely disclosed, officially, the details of the army plot, intimating that the Queen intended to go to Portsmouth to await French forces while the King went North to take command of his troops. On the 6th Jermyn, Suckling and others concerned fled the country. On the 8th the Lords gave the Bill of Attainder its third reading by 26 votes to 19 — an appallingly thin House and a shockingly small majority and evidence of considerable support for Strafford. But how could Charles make use of it?

The Bill of Attainder now came before Charles for the most momentous decision of his life. Many of his supporters had fled; the London populace was seething not only in the streets and in

Westminster but round the Queen's apartments in Whitehall; rumours of her backstairs intrigues had now swollen to include charges of infidelity with Henry Jermyn. Again it was being said that Parliament would impeach the Queen if Strafford was not surrendered. Charles called his bishops to him. They were divided. His Council advised him to yield. The opposition let it be known that, even if he refused his consent to the Bill, Strafford would still die. The Judges, when questioned, alleged they held Strafford guilty of treason. Henrietta-Maria lost some of her defiance and was reduced to tears of frustration and fear. Through the night of the 8th there was panic in the City and in the King's household. Charles, after all, had Strafford's letter of release. Should he use it? On the evening of the 9th he gave way and signed with tears in his eyes. The news was carried to Strafford. In spite of his letter he was incredulous and the statement had to be repeated. 'Put not your trust in princes nor in the sons of men for in them there is no salvation', he cried out in his anguish. The news was carried to Laud in his room in the same fortress.

Charles took the one remaining action that was possible and sent the Prince of Wales with a letter to the House of Lords begging mercy for Strafford: not, indeed, pardon but the commutation of the death penalty to life imprisonment. The boy, who was still outside factional strife, would be a better instrument than his father. But it was a strangely abject letter, not seeming to expect compliance. The postscript: 'If he must die, it were charity to reprieve him till Saturday' was an abandonment of hope and was disregarded. The Earl of Strafford was beheaded on Tower Hill on the morning of 12 May 1641 in front of a concourse of some 100,000 people very few of whom expressed anything but satisfaction at the sight. One of the few was John Evelyn who recorded in his diary that he saw 'the fatal stroke which sever'd the wisest head in England from the shoulders of the Earle of Strafford; whose crimes coming under the cognizance of no human law, a new one was made'.^[2]