Earl of Strafford

“ Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, was declared guilty of high treason. On this sad passage, the saddest of all in Charles’s sad life, we need not dwell long. He had pledged his royal word to his noble friend, ‘You shall not suffer in honour, in fortune, or in life.’ Yet after some hesitation and delay, weeping all the time, he signed the death-warrant, laying up for himself hours of deep remorse during the few years he survived. The generous prisoner wrote to his master, indeed, to absolve him from his promise ”

“ Dean and prebendaries were soon humbled under such discipline.
In court and country, in Church and State, Laud, next to the Earl of Strafford, must be considered to have been the most powerful minister in England. [52] Pledged to a thorough policy of arbitrary kingship, he helped in all things his royal master, and his able fellow-councillor. When Strafford was in Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, the Archbishop was the great power at home behind the throne. "He is the man," said courtiers, when they would point out the most favourable medium for approaching royalty. ”

“ England could not boast of a greater patriot than the great Earl of Strafford, while he was yet a private commoner. No man exposed better, or more zealously, the encroachments and oppressions practised by the court upon the kingdom, or contended more loudly for a redress of grievances: But he was no sooner got into the court, but he began openly to counter-act the whole course of his past life: He devised new ways of terror and oppression, heightened all those grievances of which he had complained ”

“ There must be something fell wrong when the nobility themselves turn against him. Well I mind when the great Earl of Strafford himself came south and stayed the night here. If he had lived things would have been different, for he looked more the King than the King himself. ”

“ P. 103, No. xcv.—This is nothing more than a broad-sheet ballad published in 1641, the year of Strafford’s execution, with the title Verses lately written by Thomas Earl of Strafford. Two copies, of different issues, but of the same date, and identical in text, exist in the British Museum, while in The Topographer, vol. ii. p. 234, there is printed another, and in some respects an improved text. The fall of the great statesman from his pride of place has here kindled one with perhaps but ordinary gifts for ordinary occasions to a truly poetical treatment of his theme ”

“ On 13 July 1634 he was knighted at Dublin Castle on becoming secretary to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, the Earl of Strafford (Metcalfe, Book of Knights, p. 214; Strafford Papers, i. 54, 211, 263, ii. 360, 414) . In 1650 he ventured to return to London, when he was forthwith committed to the prison of the upper bench as a delinquent, and was only released on 27 Oct. ”

“ On the 11th of November, 1640, assuming an outward air of unconcern, Strafford went to take his seat in the House of Lords. The Earl of Northumberland, writing to the Earl of Leicester on the 13th, declared that "a greater and more universal hatred was never contracted by any person than he has drawn upon himself, yet he is not at all dejected." Before he appeared in the House, the impeachment had been carried thither from the Commons. Strafford at once hastened to meet his enemies. ”

“ Because you hate the Earl ... (turn not away,
We know you hate him) —no one else could love
Strafford: but he has saved me, some affirm.
Think of his pride! And do you know one strange,
One frightful thing? We all have used the man
As though a drudge of ours, with not a source
Of happy thoughts except in us; and yet
Strafford has wife and children, household cares,
Just as if we had never been. Ah, sir,
You are moved, even you, a solitary man
Wed to your cause—to England if you will!
Pym. Yes—think, my soul—to England! Draw not back!
Cha. Prevent that Bill, sir! ”

“ It will be seen in this interesting correspondence how ready Strafford was, from the love of power, to sacrifice both the religion and liberty of his country, while the little party about the Queen thwarted his every design, sometimes finding that he did not go fast enough, at other times using the sure argument against all able men, that he was too deep to be trusted. The fact is that all Courts and Princes have a dread of talents, and they consider ability and roguery as synonymous. ”

“ A hint of Strafford as he appears in this scene may be taken from Clarendon who writes "The earl of Strafford was scarce recovered from a great sickness, yet was willing to undertake the charge out of pure indignation to see how few men were forward to serve the King with that vigor of mind they ought to do ”

“ We can scarcely conceive a man so wicked and so dangerous that the whole course of law must be disturbed in order to reach him, yet not so wicked as to deserve the severest sentence, nor so dangerous as to require the last and surest custody, that of the grave. If we had thought that Strafford might be safely suffered to live in France, we should have thought it better that he should continue to live in England, than that he should be exiled by a special act. As to degradation, it was not the Earl, but the general and the statesman, whom the people had to fear. ”

“ They may also think, as some did at the time, that "stone dead hath no fellow"—that the only effectual way of getting rid of so formidable an enemy was at once to put him in his coffin; and, as a matter of state policy—overriding all statute and common law—such persons will pronounce the execution of Strafford perfectly justifiable. But when the moralist comes to investigate the matter, it assumes a different aspect. He will admit—unless he be under the influence of strong political prejudices—that the Earl was guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours ”

“ The noble Strafford came forth walking to the scaffold on Tower-hill, but craved permission to do his last observance to his friend. For a moment he feared the old primate had forgotten him, but just then he appeared at the dismal window of his own prison. “My Lord—your prayers and your blessing”—said Strafford, kneeling down: and the benediction was given accordingly; after which the primate swooned in a fit of sorrow, while the stout Earl rising, said, “God protect your innocence,” and then stepped onward with a military bearing, and passed to his execution, as if it were to a triumph. ”

“ He inherited the family hatred of the Wentworths, and zealously seconded his father in his struggle with the future Earl of Strafford. He also attached himself to the Duke of Buckingham, into whose family he subsequently married, and it was probably through the duke's influence that he was created Viscount Savile of Castlebar in the peerage of Ireland on 11 June 1628. Savile succeeded to the English peerage at his father's death on 31 Aug. ”

“ The laws whereby all other parts of a kingdom are preserved would be very vain and defective, if they had not a power to secure and preserve themselves.”
Charles was anxious to save Strafford’s life, but his blundering interventions during the course of the trial ended in failure. When it was discovered that 53the King’s agents were plotting to get possession of the Tower and to bring the English army up from Yorkshire to overawe the Parliament, the Earl’s fate was sealed. ”

“ He knew secretly that his minister was right, and he already regretted the moment of spleen in which, after a three weeks' sitting, he had dismissed the first Parliament he had called for eleven years—had called in desperation for aid against the Scots—for he saw that what Strafford said was true, and that in the present temper of the nation he was unlikely to get men so loyal in their temper as even the Members of the so-called Little Parliament had been.
"Yea, call none at all," returned the Earl, "and where are we for money? Is there any king or country to whom we can turn? ”

“ Strafford, sensible of the load of popular prejudices under which he labored, would gladly have declined attendance in parliament; and he begged the king’s permission to withdraw himself to his government of Ireland, at least to remain at the head of the army in Yorkshire; where many opportunities, he hoped, would offer, by reason of his distance, to elude the attacks of his enemies. But Charles, who had entire confidence in the earl’s capacity, thought that his counsels would be extremely useful during the critical session which approached. ”

“ Whatever his faults, the new Lord Lieutenant hunted down those who had preyed on the country since Elizabeth’s reign, and in the eight years he served as Viceroy he earned the hatred of every confiscator. Those whose avarice he checked or penalised, including Patentees like the Earl of Cork and Sir John Clotworthy, were Strafford’s chief enemies. When he perished on the scaffold, their self-interested testimony spoke his doom. Many of his processes were, of course, expedients to provide revenue for the King in order to dispense with the summoning of Parliament. ”

“ So passed away on the 9th of May 1641 Francis Russell, called the wise Earl of Bedford, a loss to the unfortunate Strafford, whose sentence was carried out in a few days; a loss to the King, whose wholesome adviser he was; a loss to the popular party, whose violence he would fain have curbed. ”

“ It must be said, however, that Strafford was, in a manner, impartial, and robbed, his master granting full approval, without distinction of creed. We can not help feeling thankful that the London companies which swallowed, in the reign of King James, the lands of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, were compelled by “Black Tom,” as the earl was nicknamed, to pay £70,000 “for the use of the king.” Out of all this plunder, and much 191more beside, Strafford was enabled to maintain in Ireland 10,000 infantry and 1,000 excellently equipped horse, “for the service of his royal master.” ”

“ It was utterly impossible, indeed, that there could be harmonious action between men of such consuming ambition placed in circumstances where their vital interests so conflicted. At first Strafford had the advantage, but the Earl of Cork's patience and self-control, disciplined by a long course of trials and hardships, never for a moment failed him. ”

“ An earnest request to be allowed to visit his attached friend and fellow-prisoner, Archbishop Laud, was cruelly refused, and he was only permitted to send him a message, entreating the prelate’s blessing as he passed to execution. Accordingly, on the 12th of May 1641, Strafford, on his way to the scaffold, raised his eyes to the window of the cell where the Archbishop was confined, and perceived the aged and trembling hand waving through the bars a solemn farewell to the man he had so long and so faithfully loved. ”

“ The conclusions which a student will reach, or the doubts that he will entertain touching the righteousness of Strafford's attainder and sentence, depend entirely upon the point of view from which he may regard the question. No wonder that lawyers now pronounce the attainder infamous. [180] Looking at the statutes of treason, it is impossible to bring [138] the conduct of the Earl within their scope. The subversion of the fundamental laws of the kingdom, with which Strafford was charged, can never be fairly construed into an act of treason against the King. ”

“ His growing enmity to Strafford led him into violent opposition to the government as the earl’s power increased, and in 1640 he entered into correspondence with the Scots, to whom he sent a promise of support to which he forged the signatures of six peers. ”

“ In 1639 he succeeded his brother as sixth earl, and applied for the governorship of Clare, which Strafford refused him on the ground that his conduct differed entirely from that of his brother, and that he deserved nothing. ”

“ Here the Earl brought forward the replies which he had previously made to these articles, which contained all the charges of individual acts of treason. The fifteenth article affirmed that he had "inverted the ordinary course of justice in Ireland, and given immediate sentence upon the lands and goods of the King's subjects, under pretense of disobedience; had used a military way for redressing the contempt, and laid soldiers upon the lands and goods of the King's subjects, to their utter ruin." ”

“ The Earl replied that "this money was freely and voluntarily offered by them of Yorkshire, in a petition; and that he had done nothing but on the petition of the county, the King's special command, and the connivance, at least, of the Great Council, and upon a present necessity for the defense and safety of the county, when about to be invaded from Scotland." The twenty-second and twenty-third articles were the most pressing. ”

“ If a waterman upon the Thames split his boat by grating upon an anchor, and the same have no buoy appended to it, the owner of the anchor is to pay the loss; but if a buoy be set there, every man passeth upon his own peril. Now where is the mark, where is the token set upon the crime, to declare it to be high treason?
My Lords, be pleased to give that regard to the peerage of England as never to expose yourselves to such moot points, such constructive interpretations of law. ”

“ And for the grief it gives Lord Savile here.
Queen. [Who has been conversing with Vane and Holland.] The King will see you, sir!
[To Lady Carlisle.] Mark me: Pym's worst
Is done by now: he has impeached the Earl,
Or found the Earl too strong for him, by now.
Let us not seem instructed! We should work
No good to Strafford, but deform ourselves
With shame in the world's eye. [To Strafford.] His Majesty
Has much to say with you.
Straf. Time fleeting, too!
[To Lady Carlisle.] No means of getting them away? And She—
What does she whisper? Does she know my purpose? ”