With regard to the objection from the alleged want of warning, which, in fact, is included in the preceding, if it be admitted that the first sufferer by a process of this nature may not have had all that warning which usually precedes the offence, this cannot be said when a precedent of this highly admonitory character has once been established. The first favourite or minister called to his account by this great act of the legislature, is set up as a beacon before all of his class who afterwards may be disposed to tread in his steps. It is very important that men who have so much power of good and evil at their bidding, should be made aware, that to wrong their country, though with a scrupulous observance of the forms of law, is conduct which that country may be found to have the means of punishing without regard to those forms, by thus assuming to itself its primitive functions, its original power and independence.

Nor is it correct to say that warning is the only end of punishment. The preservation of society from evils deemed inevitable without it is not to be overlooked. The form of proceeding by a bill of pains and, penalties, resorted to in particular cases, even in seasons of comparative tranquillity, is the same in its principle with an act of attainder; and objectionable as measures of this sort have almost always been, especially in later times, since the powers of parliament, and the whole province of the law and of its administration, have become so much more definite and effectual, yet few will hesitate to admit, that in our earlier history much less danger was to be apprehended from the con. duct of parliament when exercising its high arbitrative jurisdiction in such cases, irrespective of the strict forms of law, than there would have been in its stretching the acknowledged statutes of the realm beyond their due compass for the purpose of making them include such cases; -an evil course, be it remembered, which every victim of a state prosecution in our previous history had reason to expect.

In the case of Strafford this course was chosen for the manifest purpose of visiting him with capital punishment. Was this extreme course really necessary? It is thought by many that his degradation from his ill-acquired rank, and his perpetual imprisonment or exile, would have been sufficient to protect the affairs of the country from being in the smallest degree influenced by him in future, and that this extent of punishment, to which the king would have assented, and which the lords would have awarded almost unanimously, would have furnished an example of retribution sufficiently instructive and memorable. And it is perhaps to be regretted that the commons should have shown themselves so much indisposed to this more moderate policy. Looking back to that period, aware as we now are, not only of the great unpopularity of the prisoner everywhere, but of the very uncertain footing on which he stood at court, and of the little hold which he really possessed on the esteem or affection of the monarch, we may feel satisfied that this course might have been pursued with safety.

But the men who lived amid the rumours, the agitations, and the real dangers of that season, must not be regarded as capable of looking on those things with the calmness of distant spectators. They could not place confidence in any promise from the king; they knew that in his tory, favourites and ministers, thrust from the royal presence to-day, had sometimes returned on the morrow, to scorn and tread down the enemies of their ascendency; and when they remembered also the long time through which they had seen bad ministers retain their power, at one period in the face of all the remonstrances which parliaments could present, and again in heedlessness of the complaints which arose from an injured people who were denied their parliaments, they appear to have concluded, and with a confidence which nothing could move, that their liberties would never be secure until some terrible example should be given of the fate which the instruments of arbitrary power might in future expect; and among all living men, no one was deemed so justly deserving of this bad eminence as the earl of Strafford.

Nor were his prosecutors ignorant, that with his party this severity would raise him to a species of martyrdom-that many who were by no means his admirers were not disposed to proceed so far-and that a sympathy with his fate, which would not otherwise exist, might thus be excited among the men of that time, and of later times. But these considerations were all outweighed by the recollections which placed the delinquent before them as the betrayer of the liberties of his country, as vested with the pomp of rank and office in return for that betrayal, and as employing the powers of his high station to subdue a free people by the force of terror, and to gratify his imperious and selfish passions by subjecting the living and the unborn to the humiliations and the wrongs of servitude. It was when the conduct of Strafford was thus viewed, that the heart of these men, still hardly conscious of their escape from the fangs which had been upon them, seemed to lose all pity, and to call, as with the indignation of natural instinct, for an infliction of the heaviest penalties ever resorted to in defence of social order, as alone proportioned to the guilt of such high acts of treason against it. Men who are bold enough to place themselves in the path of these revulsions from injured humanity, have their standing in slippery places; and their fall, even when their blood flows upon the scaffold, is an act of retribution which the voice of religion and of all nations has approved as just and holy.

We would not be held responsible for everything said or done by the prosecutors of Strafford, though most of the censures passed on the manner in which their process was conducted are founded very much in ignorance of the law and the practice of those times. But still less

Thus it is alleged, that in cases of treason the law required the evidence of two witnesses, and that rule was departed from in the case of Strafford; but it is certain the judges had often declared the contrary to be law; nor is it easy to find a single instance in which the benefit of that rule had been allowed to such offenders. It is also matter of complaint that Strafford's counsel should have been allowed to

would we mean to join with those who, beside complaining of the haste and severity too much observable in the temper of the commons, denounce their object as being revenge rather than justice, describing them as more concerned for the strength of their party than for the good of their country. It would perhaps have been wiser to have been content with a mitigated penalty; but their proceeding further, all things considered, was neither unnatural nor unjust. The children of the sufferer were losers both of the rank and property of their parent by the act of attainder, but these were reserved to them by a bill passed immediately for the purpose, an instance of lenity shown in such a case for the first time in our history *.

CHAPTER VII.

Character of proceedings in the Long Parliament from this period-King's visit to Scotland Massacre in Ireland-The Incident-Affairs of England during the King's absence-Schism among the Parliamentary Leaders-The King entertained by the Citizens-Alarm of the Patriots-Remonstrance of the Commons -Distrust of the King-Impeachment of the Bishops-Impeachment of the Five Members-The King enters the House to apprehend them-Triumph of the Parliament-Claim respecting the Militia-Attempt of Charles on Hull-The Nineteen Propositions-Petitions to the Parliament-Conduct of the QueenInsincere declarations of the King-Siege of Portsmouth-The Royal Standard raised at Nottingham-Justice of the Civil War considered.

liament from this period.

We have now arrived at that point in the history of the Long Parliament when its proceedings begin to be of a mixed character; Character of proceedings in not often, indeed, so censurable as its enemies represent, the Long Par- but too frequently of a complexion not to be justified without conceding much in favour of its leaders on account of the circumstances in which they were placed. The fate of Strafford not only tried the strength of the two great parties, but certainly drew the patriots close upon the line which separates between the lawful and the forbidden ground. In the judgment of their opponents, the object of the popular leaders on that occasion was not accomplished without passing the sacred boundary; and it is certain that two evils, which became the parents of many more, were consequent upon their success:-the king became more difficult to reconcile, on account of the necessity which was thus laid upon him to become accessory to the death of a servant of the crown whom he did not believe to be worthy of death; and, at the same time, the great patriotic party, speak to points of law only: but the fact seems to be generally overlooked, that it was not until after the trial of Middlesex in 1624, that the aid of counsel at all was permitted to persons on their trial upon such charges.

Rushworth, iv. 284. The eighth volume of Rushworth's collections is wholly occupied with the trial of Strafford, and should be compared with the account given in the third volume of the State Trials.

which had been upon the whole agreed in their estimate of the past, and with regard to the measures necessary for the future, began to show signs of discord.

These indications of disunion were magnified in the eyes of the court and of the monarch; and by exciting hopes in that quarter, in a great degree ill-founded, led to acts, both of intrigue and violence, which served to remove the prospect of a tranquil settlement of affairs to a greater distance than ever. It is admitted that there were instances in the conduct of the Long Parliament from this period, which discovered that its most patriotic members were capable of exercising the power that had fallen to them with somewhat of the irregularity which had been chargeable on the crown as its great delinquency; but along with this concession we must not overlook the unusual posture of affairs which was viewed as making those acts just or indispensable; nor can we forget, that to the actors themselves England is indebted for that acquaintance with the principles of freedom, and that high estimate of their worth, by which it has been distinguished, and without which the most admirable constitution that philanthropic wisdom could devise must prove altogether valueless.

land.

The death of Strafford was followed by the king's visit to Scotland, where the monarch gave his sanction to various measures The king's which seemed to promise the return of tranquillity to that visit to Scotcountry. But it was during the period of this visit that much alarm was diffused through both kingdoms by the massacre of the protestants in Ireland, and by a court intrigue in Scotland, known by the name of the "Incident."

Ireland.

Oct.

In the commotions which had spread through Scotland and great part of England, there had been little devastation, and a careful avoidance of all unnecessary bloodshed. But the insur- Massacre in rection in Ireland was altogether of another character. It had been provoked principally by the tyranny of Strafford, raging most in those quarters where his rapacity had been chiefly exercised; but must also be traced to those laws against the catholic worship, any relaxation of which was more strongly opposed by the majority of the protestant settlers than by the viceroy. The property of the English was everywhere destroyed or borne away. In Ulster the massacre was perpetrated without respect to age or sex, and often by a death of the most studied torture. Husbands and wives, parents and children, the infant and the man of gray hairs, were laid prostrate together. Those who surrendered perished, and those who resisted were often beguiled into submission by the most perfidious promises; while some were induced to destroy their nearest connexions as the price of their own escape, and then were themselves immediately numbered with the victims. Some were buried alive, hundreds were drowned, and many were consumed with the flames of their habitations. The women were

more ferocious than the men-such was the effect of the superstitious madness that raged; and so contagious was it, that even children were found to thirst for the blood of children. The only protestants who proved capable of acting with sufficient promptitude and concert to protect themselves against the savage hordes who traversed the country, were the Scots, who fled to the places of strength in Ulster. The number of the murdered was said by some catholic writers to have been two hundred thousand, and the accounts vary from that amount to less than four thousand. Clarendon, whose means of information were of the best kind, and whose inclinations in this case would not lead him to exaggerate, fixes the number at forty thousand.

It was well known that Charles had hoped to control his opponents in the English parliament by means of the army which Strafford left in Ireland, and that with a view to this object, an active correspondence had been maintained with those who were either parties to these outrages, or should have prevented them. The insurgents everywhere gave out that they acted by the royal authority, the destruction of the puritans being as necessary to their own religious liberty, as to the freedom and power of the crown. The court at the same time manifested every disposition to throw discredit on the reports of these excesses: the jealousies of the king retarded the measures necessary for sending the required assistance; and the monarch who had not been slow to denounce the Scots as traitors when they appeared in arms, discovered much reluctance to do so in the case of the authors of such atrocities in Ireland*. With this event, which served from these circumstances to increase

The "Incident."

the popular distrust of the king, the "Incident" was connected, which embraced some mysterious occurrences tending to excite still further suspicion. In the recent proceedings of the Scottish parliament, Hamilton had divided the popularity of its measures with Argyle, but had fallen in the esteem of his sovereign as he had risen in that of the people. These noblemen were informed that a plot had been laid for their destruction:-it was, that on going to court that evening, they were to be arrested as traitors, and sent prisoners to a vessel in the roads; or be assassinated, if resistance were made. They remained at home after nightfall instead of going to the conference at court, and adopted means to protect themselves against any attack that might be made upon them. The night passed in quietness; but their alarm the next day was much increased on learning that the king had gone to the parliament with the unusual retinue of five hundred armed men. That no tumult might ensue from any fray between the king's attendants and their own followers, who

*Rushworth, iv. 398–563, passim. Temple's History. May, 81-87. Carte's Life of Ormond, i. 244 et seq.; iii. 49 et seq. Clarendon, Hist. ii. 19-23, Hutchinson's Mem. i., ubi supra.