The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (386 page)

The end, on which the king was most intent in changing ministers, was, to save the life of the earl of Strafford, and to mollify, by these indulgences, the rage of his most furious prosecutors. But so high was that nobleman’s reputation for experience and PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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capacity, that all the new counsellors and intended ministers plainly saw, that, if he escaped their vengeance, he must return into favour and authority; and they regarded his death as the only security which they could have, both for the establishment of their present power, and for success in their future enterprizes. His impeachment, therefore, was pushed on with the utmost vigour; and, after long and solemn preparations, was brought to a final issue.

Immediately after Strafford was sequestered from parliament, Strafford’s trial.

and confined in the Tower, a committee of thirteen was chosen by the lower house, and entrusted with the office of preparing a charge against him.

These, joined to a small committee of lords, were vested with authority to examine all witnesses, to call for every paper, and to use any means of scrutiny, with regard to any

part of the earl’s behaviour and conduct.k
After so general and unbounded an inquisition, exercised by such powerful and implacable enemies; a man must have been very cautious or very innocent, not to afford, during the whole course of his life, some matter of accusation, against him.

This committee, by direction from both houses, took an oath of secrecy; a practice very unusual, and which gave them the appearance of conspirators, more than

ministers of justice.l
But the intention of this strictness was to render it more difficult for the earl to elude their search, or prepare for his justification.

Application was made to the king, that he would allow this committee to examine privy-counsellors with regard to opinions delivered at the board: A concession which Charles unwarily made, and which thenceforth banished all mutual confidence from the deliberations of council; where every man is supposed to have entire freedom, without fear of future punishment or enquiry, of proposing any expedient, questioning any opinion, or supporting any argument.
m

Sir George Ratcliffe, the earl’s intimate friend and confident, was accused of high treason, sent for from Ireland, and committed to close custody. As no charge ever appeared or was prosecuted against him, it is impossible to give a more charitable interpretation to this measure, than that the commons thereby intended to deprive Strafford, in his present distress, of the assistance of his best friend, who was most enabled, by his testimony, to justify the innocence of his patron’s conduct and

behaviour.n

When intelligence arrived in Ireland of the plans laid for Strafford’s ruin, the Irish house of commons, though they had very lately bestowed ample praises on his administration, entered into all the violent counsels against him, and prepared a representation of the miserable state, into which, by his misconduct, they supposed the kingdom to be fallen. They sent over a committee to London, to assist in the prosecution of their unfortunate governor; and by intimations from this committee, who entered into close confederacy with the popular leaders in England, was every measure of the Irish parliament governed and directed. Impeachments, which were never prosecuted, were carried up against Sir Richard Bolton the chancellor, Sir Gerard Louther chief justice, and Bramhall bishop of Derry.
o
This step, which was an exact counterpart to the proceedings in England, served also the same purposes: It PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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deprived the king of the ministers whom he most trusted; it discouraged and terrified all the other ministers; and it prevented those persons, who were best acquainted with Strafford’s counsels, from giving evidence in his favour before the English parliament.

The bishops, being forbidden by the ancient canons to assist in 1641.

trials for life, and being unwilling, by any opposition, to irritate the commons, who were already much prejudiced against them, thought proper, of themselves, to withdraw.
p
The commons also voted, that the new-created peers ought to have no voice in this trial; because the accusation being agreed to, while they were commoners, their consent to it was implied with that of all the commons of England.

Notwithstanding this decision, which was meant only to deprive Strafford of so many friends, lord Seymour, and some others, still continued to keep their seat; nor was

their right to it any farther questioned.q

To bestow the greater solemnity on this important trial, scaffolds were erected in Westminster-hall; where both houses sat, the one as accusers, the other as judges.

Besides the chair of state, a close gallery was prepared for the king and queen, who

attended during the whole trial.r

An accusation, carried on by the united effort of three kingdoms, against one man, unprotected by power, unassisted by council, discountenanced by authority, was likely to prove a very unequal contest: Yet such were the capacity, genius, presence of mind, displayed by this magnanimous statesman, that, while argument and reason and law had any place, he obtained an undisputed victory. And he perished at last, overwhelmed and still unsubdued, by the open violence of his fierce and unrelenting antagonists.

The articles of impeachment against Strafford are twenty-eight in March 22.

number; and regard his conduct, as president of the council of York, as deputy or lieutenant of Ireland, and as counsellor or commander in England.

But though four months were employed by the managers in framing the accusation, and all Strafford’s answers were extemporary; it appears from comparison, not only that he was free from the crime of treason, of which there is not the least appearance, but that his conduct, making allowance for human infirmities, exposed to such severe scrutiny, was innocent, and even laudable.

The powers of the northern council, while he was president, had been extended, by the king’s instructions, beyond what formerly had been practised: But that court being, at first, instituted by a stretch of royal prerogative, it had been usual for the prince to vary his instructions; and the largest authority, committed to it, was altogether as legal as the most moderate and most limited. Nor was it reasonable to conclude, that Strafford had used any art to procure those extensive powers; since he never once sat as president, or exercised one act of jurisdiction, after he was invested

with the authority so much complained of.s

In the government of Ireland, his administration had been equally promotive of his master’s interest, and that of the subjects committed to his care. A large debt he had PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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paid off: He had left a considerable sum in the exchequer: The revenue, which never before answered the charges of government, was now raised to be equal to them.
t
A small standing army, formerly kept in no order, was augmented, and was governed by exact discipline: And a great force was there raised and paid, for the support of the king’s authority against the Scottish covenanters.

Industry, and all the arts of peace, were introduced among that rude people: The

shipping of the kingdom augmented a hundred fold:u
The customs tripled upon the

same rates:w
The exports double in value to the imports: Manufactures, particularly

that of linen, introduced and promoted.x
Agriculture, by means of the English and Scottish plantations, gradually advancing: The protestant religion encouraged, without the persecution or discontent of the catholics.

The springs of authority he had enforced without over-straining them. Discretionary acts of jurisdiction, indeed, he had often exerted, by holding courts-martial, billetting soldiers, deciding causes upon paper-petitions before the council, issuing proclamations, and punishing their infraction. But discretionary authority, during that age, was usually exercised even in England. In Ireland, it was still more requisite, among a rude people, not yet thoroughly subdued, averse to the religion and manners of their conquerors, ready on all occasions to relapse into rebellion and disorder.

While the managers of the commons demanded, every moment, that the deputy’s conduct should be examined by the line of rigid law and severe principles; he appealed still to the practice of all former deputies, and to the uncontroulable necessity of his situation.

So great was his art of managing elections, and balancing parties, that he had engaged the Irish parliament to vote whatever was necessary, both for the payment of former debts, and for support of the new-levied army; nor had he ever been reduced to the illegal expedients practiced in England, for the supply of public necessities. No imputation of rapacity could justly lie against his administration. Some instances of imperious expressions and even actions may be met with. The case of lord Mountnorris, of all those which were collected with so much industry, is the most flagrant and the least excusable.

It had been reported at the table of lord chancellor Loftus, that Annesley, one of the deputy’s attendants, in moving a stool, had sorely hurt his master’s foot, who was at that time afflicted with the gout.
Perhaps,
said Mountnorris, who was present at table,
it was done in revenge of that public affront which my lord deputy formerly put upon
him:
BUT HE HAS A BROTHER, WHO WOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN SUCH A REVENGE. This casual, and seemingly innocent, at least ambiguous, expression, was reported to Strafford; who, on pretence that such a suggestion might prompt Annesley to avenge himself in another manner, ordered Mountnorris, who was an officer, to be tried by a court-martial for mutiny and sedition against his general. The court, which consisted of the chief officers of the army, found the crime to be capital, and

condemned that nobleman to lose his head.y

In vain did Strafford plead in his own defence against this article of impeachment, that the sentence of Mountnorris was the deed, and that too unanimous, of the court, PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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not the act of the deputy; that he spake not to a member of the court, nor voted in the cause, but sat uncovered as a party, and then immediately withdrew, to leave them to their freedom; that sensible of the iniquity of the sentence, he procured his majesty’s free pardon to Mountnorris; and that he did not even keep that nobleman a moment in suspence with regard to his fate, but instantly told him, that he himself would sooner lose his right hand than execute such a sentence, nor was his lordship’s life in any danger. In vain did Strafford’s friends add, as a further apology, that Mountnorris was a man of an infamous character, who paid court, by the lowest adulation, to all deputies, while present; and blackened their character, by the vilest calumnies, when recalled: And that Strafford, expecting like treatment, had used this expedient for no other purpose than to subdue the petulant spirit of the man. These excuses alleviate the guilt; but there still remains enough to prove, that the mind of the deputy, though great and firm, had been not a little debauched by the riot of absolute power, and uncontrouled authority.

When Strafford was called over to England, he found every thing falling into such confusion, by the open rebellion of the Scots, and the secret discontents of the English, that, if he had counselled or executed any violent measure, he might perhaps have been able to apologize for his conduct, from the great law of necessity, which admits not, while the necessity is extreme, of any scruple, ceremony, or delay.
z
But in fact, no illegal advice or action was proved against him; and the whole amount of his guilt, during this period, was some peevish, or at most imperious expressions, which, amidst such desperate extremities, and during a bad state of health, had unhappily fallen from him.

If Strafford’s apology was, in the main, so satisfactory, when he pleaded to each particular article of the charge, his victory was still more decisive, when he brought the whole together, and repelled the imputation of treason; the crime which the commons would infer from the full view of his conduct and behaviour. Of all species of guilt, the law of England had, with the most scrupulous exactness, defined that of treason, because on the side it was found most necessary to protect the subject against the violence of the king and of his ministers. In the famous statute of Edward III. all the kinds of treason are enumerated, and every other crime, besides such as are there expressly mentioned, is carefully excluded from that appellation. But with regard to this guilt,
An endeavour to subvert the fundamental laws,
the statute of treasons is totally silent: And arbitrarily to introduce it into the fatal catalogue, is itself a subversion of all law; and, under colour of defending liberty, reverses a statute the best calculated for the security of liberty, that had ever been enacted by an English parliament.

As this species of treason, discovered by the commons, is entirely new and unknown to the laws; so is the species of proof, by which they pretend to fix that guilt upon the prisoner. They have invented a kind of
accumulative or constructive
evidence, by which many actions either totally innocent in themselves, or criminal in a much inferior degree, shall, when united, amount to treason, and subject the person to the highest penalties inflicted by the law. A hasty and unguarded word, a rash and passionate action, assisted by the malevolent fancy of the accuser, and tortured by doubtful constructions, is transmuted into the deepest guilt; and the lives and fortunes PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)