yielded, was no less than to throw the great offices of state into the hands of the patriots. The framework of a cabinet, to be constructed on this principle, was actually laid down, and the project in part executed. But the members, disagreeing on the two great conditions required by the king,―viz. security to the church, and the preservation of Strafford,— the negotiation fell to the ground, leaving the whole party more incensed than ever. Finally, Charles gave what has justly been termed a "suicidal" consent to the examination of the members of his privy council, on oath, at the approaching trial.

Strafford's trial was the most solemn and august judicial inquiry, in its circumstances, as it was the most elaborate in its preparation, which England had ever witnessed. It was for the life or death-or rather for the death only; for that was a point to be gained, at all events-of one so great and dangerous, that three realms rose up by their representatives to be his accusers; and, as the day approached, the eyes of their millions of citizens (of whom all, and to the remotest posterity of each, had a vital interest involved) were turned, with earnest emotion, towards Westminster Hall; that largest abode of "the British Nemesis" being chosen as alone not unworthy of the occasion.

At an early hour on the appointed morning the noble prisoner came from the Tower, accompanied by the lieutenant and one hundred soldiers, armed with partizans, in six barges, rowed by fifty pair of oars. On landing at Westminster, he was received by double the number of the trained bands; those citizen-soldiers, whose subsequent familiarity with the view of great men in adversity had now its beginning, in the instance of one who in bearing it nobly has not been excelled. Disease and care, not age, had begun to impress on Strafford the appearance of bodily decay; but his countenance was marked with intellectual vigour, and bore the impress of authority. Awed, in spite of hate, by the actual presence of the individual whose name had often stirred them with terror, the crowd falls back; even the rudest vail their bonnets-a token of respect which the earl courteously acknowledges.

The entrance by which Strafford was brought into the hall was on one side, at the lower end. He is preceded by Maxwell; advancing to whom, an officer inquires whether the axe is to be borne before the prisoner: "The king," replies Maxwell," has expressly forbidden it!" Balfour, the lieutenant, now conducts the accused to the bar, where a space, furnished with seats and a bench, is enclosed for him, for his gaoler, his counsel, and secretaries. "After obeisances given," he kneels; and, rising, looks calmly round upon a scene of imposing grandeur.

In the centre of that proud historic chamber sit Strafford's judges, the Lords of England. They are covered, and all wear the habits of temporal peers; for the prelates have been persuaded to take no part in the judgment. With them, in scarlet robes, appear the lord-keeper and his brethren of the legal bench; and, at their head, fronting his comperes, sits the Earl of Arundel, for this occasion lord-high-steward of England. At the upper end of the hall, under a canopy of state above the peers, are placed two raised seats, designed for the king and the Prince of Wales, but unoccupied. On either other side the canopy of state runs a small gallery, closed with trellis-work; one of these contains the king and queen, the prince, and their attendants; the other accommodates such foreigners

of distinction as have been attracted by this high solemnity. Scaffolds, rising stage above stage, on each side the hall, are filled, respectively, by the great accusing parties; the Commons of England, uncovered, on the lower benches; in those above, their assessors, the Lords of Ireland and the Commissioners of Scotland: with whom are mingled many spectators, mostly persons of quality. The peeresses and other ladies present occupy a gallery at the foot of the throne. Adjoining the place assigned to the accused, a similar space encloses the managers of the impeachment; a band of the ablest lawyers and most eloquent statesmen of that great age of English intellect.

The lord-steward rises, and commands the trial to proceed.

The treason charged against the prisoner, it was contended by his accusers, was either particular, consisting in individual acts of a treasonable nature; or cumulative, the aggregate result of many acts tending to a treasonable design. The articles of impeachment were distributed over his whole official life-as president of the North; in his government of Ireland; as chief minister, since his return, of England. In proportion, however, as it became clear that the evidence could not sustain this accumulated charge, the Commons altered their accusation to "an attempt to subvert the fundamental laws of the country, and to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government." But, as no such offence is specified in the statute, or recognized by the common law, they demanded that he should be tried, not merely by the rules of the courts, but by certain maxims said to be inherent in what we now call the constitution.

To Pym, chiefly—if not to him alone-belonged the credit of that philosophic tact, or that vindictive boldness, by which it was resolved to carry out the substantial allegation, beyond the reach of law, into the awful, but dangerous and indefinite, regions of Eternal Right. Into that abyss-whither an arbitrary power in a state may, at any time, on the falsest pretences, thrust to their destruction the doomed victims of its will-Strafford, remembering he stood before the legal tribunal of his peers, deemed it needless to look: with the question as one of law, it was not hard for such a mind to deal.

For fifteen days, he, with manifest success, directed his defence to this point. Though suffering grievously from disease, and surrounded with embarrassing difficulties, some, and the worst of them, thrown in his way by his accusers, once only in all that time did he permit himself to be led by his natural heat of temper to make a recriminatory observation. He asserted, indeed, on all occasions, his right; when that was allowed, modestly thanked his judges; complained not when it was refused; and, in reference to an angry and insulting remark by one of the managers, on his insisting upon a point of order, which he regarded as of vital importance to his defence, merely observed, that he thought he had as good a right to defend his life, as any person had to endeavour to take it away. His eloquence, acknowledged by his accusers to have been "full of weight and reason," was regulated by manly temper combined with the finest flow of diction and the most finished grace of delivery; while his countenance, exhibiting a severe loftiness-natural to the man with conscious intellectual power, shaded by suffering and a just sensibility to his condition-harmonized well both with his past greatness

and his present misfortunes. The effect is described as strikingly favourable. The clergy, the courtiers, above all, the ladies, in that illustrious auditory, are loud in admiration. The general sentiment penetrates to the judicial benches; and the Commons perceive, with undissembled vexation, that the peers are recovering the courage to be just. Vehement cries of "Withdraw! withdraw!" resounding from their galleries, startle the court. The members retire within their own walls, and there, amid tumultuous confusion, debate the question, "What is next to be done?"

23

CHAPTER III.

STRAFFORD'S FAREWELL.

THE genius of Pym had long since anticipated the reply. Should so pernicious a foe to liberty be allowed to escape for want of a specific statute, or known law, capable of reaching his great crimes? It was not to be thought of! To the remedy for their difficulties he had pointed, when he argued for the existence of a treason against the principle of justice, as well as treason in violation of the law; for a treason against the people, no less than against the sovereign. The remedy was a bill of attainder-the ready instrument of tyranny, and tacitly acknowledged such by these statesmen themselves, when they inserted in it the much-lauded proviso (what action may not win praise from partisans ?) that this attainder should not be acted upon by the judges as a precedent in determining the crime of treason. To give the necessary support to his plan, Pym, resorting once more to the solemnity of closed doors, announced a discovery involving important supplemental evidence of Strafford's guilt. It consisted in a minute of the privy council on Scotch affairs, in May, purporting to contain words spoken by Strafford to the king, advising his majesty to employ the army of Ireland to reduce England. These minutes had formerly been found by the younger Vane, in his father's library. The bill-it was already prepared—was produced, and instantly read. The trial now proceeded upon the additional evidence; to which Strafford having replied, was called upon to make his final answer to the facts.

The earl began by alluding to the advantages possessed by his accusers, and-in gentle terms-to the violence with which those advantages had been pressed, to bear down a man standing alone against the whole authority and power of the House of Commons; his health impaired, his memory weakened, the order of his thoughts discomposed. In a tone of cheerful and generous confidence, he threw himself upon the justice of his judges; giving God thanks that they were the peers of England, and celebrating the wisdom of those times "which had so ordained."

"My lords,” he said, "I have learned that in this case which I did not know before, that there are treasons of two kinds-statute treasons, and treasons constructive and arbitrary. First, then, I shall, as I hope, clear myself of statute, and then shall come to constructive, treason."

Having, at great length, and with surprising acuteness and force, replied severally to the articles which charged him with treason against the statute, he proceeded:

"My lords, I have all along watched to see if I could find that poisoned arrow that should envenom all the rest,-that deadly cup of wine, that should intoxicate a few alleged inconveniences and misdemeanours, to run them up to high treason. That those

should be treason together that are not treason in any one part, and where one thing will not do it of itself, yet woven with others it shall do it.—I conceive, my lords, under favour, that neither statute law nor common law hath declared this. It is hard I should here be questioned for my life and honour upon a law that is not extant, that cannot be showed. My lords, where has this fire been lying all this while, so many hundred years together, that no smoke should appear till it burst out now, to consume me and my children? That a punishment should precede promulgation of a law; that I should be punished by a law subsequent to the fact, is extreme hard! What man can be safe, if this be admitted? It is hard in another respect, that there should be no token set by which we should know this offence, no admonition given by which we should avoid it. Where is the mark, where is the token upon this crime, to discover it to be high treason? My lords, be pleased to have that regard to the peerage of England, as never to expose yourselves to such moot points, such constructive interpretations of law; if there must be a trial of wits, let the subject be of something else than the lives and honours of peers. It will be wisdom in your lordships, for yourselves, your posterity, and for the whole kingdom, to cast into the fire those bloody and mysterious volumes of constructive and arbitrary treason, as the Christians in the primitive time did their books of curious arts, and betake yourselves to the plain letter of the statute, that tells you what is and what is not treason; and not to be ambitious to be more learned in those killing arts than our forefathers! It is now full two hundred and forty years since any man was touched for this alleged crime, to this height, before myself. Let us not awaken these sleeping lions to our destructions, by raking up a few dusty records that have lain by the wall so many ages, forgotten or neglected. May it please you, my lords, not to add this to my other misfortunes, that a precedent should be derived from me, so disadvantageous as this will be to the whole kingdom. Do not through me, wound the interest of the commonwealth: and howsoever those gentlemen say they speak for the commonwealth, yet, in this particular, I indeed speak for it, and show the inconveniences and mischiefs that will fall upon it: for, as it is expressed in the statute of Henry the Fourth, 'no man will know what to do or say for fear of such penalties.' Do not, my lords, put such great difficulties upon ministers of state, that men of wisdom, of honour, and of fortune, may not with cheerfulness and safety be employed for the public: if you weigh and measure them by grains and scruples, the public affairs of the kingdom will lie waste; no man will meddle with them who hath anything to lose.

"My lords, I have troubled you longer than I should have done, were it not for the interest of those dear pledges a saint in heaven hath left me."-[At this word, we are told, he stopped awhile, letting fall some tears to her memory: then he went on.] "What I forfeit for myself is nothing; but that my indiscretion should extend to my posterity, wounds me to the very soul. You will pardon my infirmity,—something I would have added, but am not able; therefore let it pass. And now, my lords, for myself I have been, by the blessing of Almighty God, taught that 'the afflictions of this present life are not to be compared with the eternal weight of glory which shall be revealed hereafter.' And so, my lords, even so, with all tranquillity of mind, I submit myself freely