Thomas Strafford

“ We might quote pages: but we will content ourselves with a single specimen: “The debts of the Crown being taken off, you may govern as you please: and most resolute I am that may be done without borrowing any help forth of the King’s lodgings.”
Such was the theory of that thorough reform in the state which Strafford meditated. His whole practice, from the day on which he sold himself to the court, was in strict conformity to his theory. For his accomplices various excuses may be urged; ignorance, imbecility, religious bigotry. But Wentworth had no such plea. His intellect was capacious. ”

“ In a visit to England in 1636, the King assured Strafford personally of his cordial approbation of all he had done, encouraged him to proceed fearlessly in the same course, and conferred on him the higher rank of Lord Lieutenant. Three years later, on the first rumour of a Scottish invasion of England, Strafford was enabled to remit his master 30,000 pounds from the Irish Treasury, and to tender the services of the Anglo-Irish army, as he thought they could be safely dispensed with by the country in which they had been thus far recruited and maintained. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Many of his contemporaries had a morality quite as lax as his: but very few among them had his talents, and none had his hardihood and energy. 417He could not, like Sandys and Doddington, find safety in contempt. He therefore became an object of such general aversion as no statesman since the fall of Strafford has incurred, of such general aversion as was probably never in any country incurred by a man of so kind and cordial a disposition. A weak mind would have sunk under such a load of unpopularity. But that resolute spirit seemed to derive new firmness from the public hatred. ”

“ We are now upon the point of giving, as much as in us lies, the final sentence unto death or life, on a great minister of the state and peer of this kingdom, Thomas, Earl of Strafford, a name of hatred in the present age for his practices, and fit to be made a terror to future ages by his punishment. ”

“ He was brought up in the house of Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford. When Strafford became lord deputy of Ireland, he was at sixteen made ensign to Strafford's own company of foot, and soon afterwards lieutenant of his guard. The earl detected in him much military capacity, and foretold that he would 'outdo many of our old commanders.' After Strafford's death, Morris became captain in Sir Henry Tichborne's regiment. ”

“ Strafford. [The Statesman and the Historical Period of the Poem.] It is so important that the reader of the tragedy of Strafford should start with a clear idea of the historical facts with which it deals, that I have included in my article the following extract from Professor Gardiner’s Life of Strafford in the Encyclopædia Britannica. For the benefit of such of my readers as may have forgotten the fact, I may state that, before the earldom was conferred on Strafford, he was Sir Thomas Wentworth:—“High-handed as Wentworth was by nature, his rule in Ireland made him more high-handed than ever. ”

“ The most remarkable attendants were, considering the circumstances of their Province, the prelates of Connaught. Strafford's reign of terror was still painfully remembered west of the Shannon, and the immense family influence of Ulick Burke, then Earl, and afterwards Marquis of Clanrickarde, was exerted to prevent the adhesion of the western population to the Confederacy. ”

“ Such was the project that had presented itself to his brain; but before he could make any movement, Sir Marmaduke had dismounted from his horse, and placed himself between the opposing parties.
“Captain Scarthe!” said he, addressing himself to the officer, and speaking in a calm tone—in which a touch of irony was perceptible; “In this matter, it appears to me, you overstep the limits of your duty. Men may differ in opinion about the merits of the ‘noble Strafford,’ as you have designated Thomas Wentworth. ”

“ After a single indecisive campaign, the King entertained the overtures of the Covenanters, and the memorable Long Parliament having met in November, one of its first acts was the impeachment of Strafford for high crimes and misdemeanors. The chief articles against him related to his administration of Irish affairs, and were sustained by delegates from the Irish House of Commons, sent over for that purpose: the whole of the trial deserves to be closely examined by every one interested in the constitutional history of England and Ireland. ”

“ Strafford's Deputy, Sir Christopher Wandesford, having died before the close of 1640, the King appointed Robert, Lord Dillon, a liberal Protestant, and Sir William Parsons, Lords Justices. But the pressure of Puritan influence in England compelled him in a short time to remove Dillon and substitute Sir John Borlace, Master of the Ordnance—a mere soldier—in point of fanaticism a fitting colleague for Parsons. The prorogation of Parliament soon gave these administrators opportunities to exhibit the spirit in which they proposed to carry on the government. ”

“ Far better were it to live by no laws at all; but to be governed by those characters of virtue and discretion, which Nature hath stamped upon us, than to put this necessity of divination upon а man, and to accuse him of a breach of law before it is a law at all! ”

“ 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 these things be strained to take away life, and honor, and all that is desirable, this will be a silent world! A city will become a hermitage, and sheep will be found among a crowd and press of people! No man will dare to impart his solitary thoughts or opinions to his friend and neighbor! ”

“ I have ever admired the wisdom of our ancestors, who have so fixed the pillars of this monarchy that each of them keeps a due proportion and measure with the others—have so admirably bound together the nerves and sinews of the state, that the straining of any one may bring danger and sorrow to the whole economy. ”

“ And for delivering my mind openly and freely, shall I be in danger of my life as a traitor? If that necessity be put upon me, I thank God, by his blessing, I have learned not to stand in fear of him who can only kill the body. ”

“ If there must be a trial of wits, let the subject matter be something else than the lives and honor of peers! It will be wisdom for yourselves and your posterity to cast into the fire these bloody and mysterious volumes of constructive and arbitrary treason, as the primitive Christians did their books of curious arts; and betake yourselves to the plain letter of the law and statute, which telleth what is and what is not treason, without being ambitious to be more learned in the art of killing than our forefathers. ”

“ They are fellows and companions that are, and ever must be, inseparable in a well-ordered kingdom; and no way is so fitting, so natural to nourish and entertain both, as the frequent use of Parliaments, by which a commerce and acquaintance is kept up between the King and his subjects. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the question be whether I must be traitor to man or perjured to God, I will be faithful to my Creator. And whatsoever shall befall me from popular rage or my own weakness, I must leave it to that almighty Being, and to the justice and honor of my judges.
My Lords, I conjure you not to make yourselves so unhappy as to disable your Lordships and your children, from undertaking the great charge and trust of this Commonwealth. You inherit that trust from your fathers. You are born to great thoughts. You are nursed for the weighty employments of the kingdom. ”

“ If, my Lords, words spoken to friends in familiar discourse, spoken at one's table, spoken in one's chamber, spoken in one's sick-bed, spoken, perhaps, to gain better reason, to gain one's self more clear light and judgment by reasoning—if these things shall be brought against a man as treason, this (under favor) takes away the comfort of all human society. By this means we shall be debarred from speaking—the principal joy and comfort of life—with wise and good men, to become wiser and better ourselves. ”

“ The impeachment and attainder of Strafford occupied the great part of March and April, 1641, and throughout those months the delegates from Ireland assisted at the pleadings in Westminster Hall and the debates in the English Parliament. The Houses at Dublin were themselves occupied in a similar manner. Towards the end of February articles of impeachment were drawn up against the Lord Chancellor, Bolton, Dr. ”

“ The prerogative must be used as God doth his omnipotence, upon extraordinary occasions; the laws must have place at all other times. As there must be prerogative because there must be extraordinary occasions, so the propriety of the subject is ever to be maintained, if it go in equal pace with the other. ”

“ But if it be once admitted that a counselor, for delivering his opinion with others at the council board, candidè et castè , with candor and purity of motive, under an oath of secrecy and faithfulness, shall be brought into question, upon some misapprehension or ignorance of law—if every word that he shall speak from sincere and noble intentions shall be drawn against him for the attainting of him, his children and posterity—I know not (under favor I speak it) any wise or noble person of fortune who will, upon such perilous and unsafe terms, adventure to be counselor to the King. ”

“ II. As to the other kind, viz., constructive treason, or treason by way of accumulation; to make this out, many articles have been brought against me, as if in a heap of mere felonies or misdemeanors (for they reach no higher) there could lurk some prolific seed to produce what is treasonable! ”

“ A weight of tragedy is laid upon the heart, and at the same time we are inspired with deep interest as to how it shall be acted out.
Strafford appears before us as he does in history, a grand and melancholy figure, whose dignity lay in his energy of will, and large scope of action, not in his perception of principles, or virtue in carrying them out. For his faith in the need of absolute sway to control the herd, does not merit the name of a principle. ”

“ 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." ”

“ By his eminent talents and abilities, Strafford merited all the confidence which his master reposed in him: his character was stately and austere; more fitted to procure esteem than love: his fidelity to the king was unshaken; but as he now employed all his counsels to support the prerogative, which he had formerly bent all his endeavors to diminish his virtue seems not to have been entirely pure, but to have been susceptible of strong impressions from private interest and ambition. ”

“ It is clear that no one could possibly tell the whole truth about the life and death of Strafford, politically considered, in a play. Strafford was one of the greatest men ever born in England, and he attempted to found a great English official despotism. That is to say, he attempted to found something which is so different from what has actually come about that we can in reality scarcely judge of it, any more than we can judge whether it would be better to live in another planet, or pleasanter to have been born a dog or an elephant. ”

“ So the Queen; but the King loved Strafford, who had served him to this end of ruin, and when he looked across at the dauntless figure pleading his cause to ears deaf with prejudice, he vowed in his heart that his minister should not die, and cursed the barking commoners who forced him there to witness the humiliation of this his faithful servant.
The genius of one man was triumphant over the malice of many. Strafford argued away every charge raised against him. ”