hold of Presbyterian faith! Rumours of plots, true and false, were in every man's mouth, and easily found credence. The Lords began to think their own lives in danger from the populace, if they delayed the trial any longer. Having already voted the facts of some of the articles of impeachment proved, they now appealed to the judges on the question of law. The judges unanimously declared that upon all their lordships had voted to be proved, the earl was guilty of high treason.' On this the Lords passed the Bill of Attainder, voting the earl guilty, not upon all the articles, but only upon the fifteenth, the quartering of troops upon the people of Ireland, and the nineteenth, the imposing an unlawful oath upon the Scots in Ireland. In voting on the bill, it is important to observe, that they acted as nearly as possible as if they had been giving judgment on the impeachment, for they used the forms in which they were accustomed to vote as judges, not as legislators.* Thirtyfour lords stayed away; twenty-six voted for the bill, nineteen against it (7th May). Lords pass Bill of Attainder. Strafford's warning that the precedent of the case might be used against others no doubt had weight with many who had supported the king in unconstitutional acts, but these only succeeded in protecting themselves so far as to insert a clause in the bill, to the effect that the judges should count nothing as treason in consequence of this bill which was not treason before. As the judges had pronounced the acts were treason, the clause was unmeaning. But now Charles' turn was come. If he had in him the courage to resist, if not to resent, intimidation, in these desperate circumstances he had still the opportunity of securing one of two triumphs, either of saving the life of the earl, or of throwing on Parliament the reproach of executing him against law, for that he possessed the legal right to refuse his consent to any bill was at that time undisputed. It might have been thought, therefore, that the king would have been glad of the substitution * The difference between voting on a Bill of Attainder and an impeachment is, that in giving judgment on the latter a peer professed to be bound by the letter of the law and of the rules of evidence; in voting for the former, though bound by the spirit, he professedly held himself emancipated from the letter. Further, there was a great difference in form. In voting for a bill a peer says 'aye' in his seat, and if a division is called, walks in silence past the teller of his side; in voting on an impeachment each peer stands up in his place, puts his hand on his breast, and says, 'Guilty (or not) on my honour.' 1641.1 TRIAL OF STRAFFORD. 97 of the bill for the impeachment, since the change gave him an opportunity of making good his promises to Strafford. But these were not Charles' feelings. His chief misery lay not in the fact that Strafford must die, but that his own hand must Attainder. consent to his death. The angry rabble followed Charles him to Whitehall, with their shouts of "justice, jus- passes Bill of tice, we will have justice." The queen wept bitterly, in fear, it seems, for her own safety, as she began to make preparations to leave the country. In anguish of soul Charles asked his councillors how the rioters were to be suppressed; they bade him please his Parliament and pass the Bill of Attainder he asked five bishops how he was to remove his scruples of conscience; all but one told him he had both a public and a private conscience, and that the duty of saving the life of a friend or servant was as nothing compared with that of preserving his kingdom. The same day a letter was handed him from the earl bidding him pass the bill-"Sire, my consent shall more acquit you herein to God than all the world can do besides; to a willing man there is no injury done." 66 'My Lord of Strafford's condition," said Charles, "is more happy than mine."* He shed tears, but sent a commission for others to sign the bill, a mode of relieving his conscience suggested to him by his council. 'Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, for in them there is no salvation,' Strafford exclaimed when told that the king had consented to his death. After passing the bill, Charles sent a letter to the House of Lords by the hands of the Prince of Wales, requesting the Parliament to commute the punishment of death into that of perpetual imprisonment; the letter, however, had a postscript: 'If he must die, it were charity to reprieve him till Saturday.' But the discovery of the plot for Strafford's release had made longer imprisonment impossible, and the House ordered the execution for the next day (12th May). In forming a judgment on the justice of the conviction upon which Strafford suffered, we must recall the various Question of points-that the lawyers and judges in serving the justice of interests of the crown, had really enlarged the statute; conviction. that undoubtedly the earl had technically offended against the * 'Radcliffe's Life in Straff. Despatches. Strafford's law, by quartering troops to coerce the people; that the Commons heard the points of law argued at length in their house, and decided that his acts fell within the provision of the statute, before they passed the third reading of the bill; that after this the judges declared that the facts voted to be proved amounted to high treason by law; that the Lords, by voting judicially upon the bill, were acting as supreme judges when they also declared that in their view the offences came within the statute; and lastly, that proceeding by bill only gave the king a chance of exercising his prerogative of mercy, which he would not otherwise have had. Briefly put, the case would amount to this, that the judicial competence of the House of Lords was unquestioned, but in this case Strafford's peers, acting simply as a jury, declared certain facts proved, the judges of the land declared the law on these facts against him, and the peers then pronounced the verdict; and though the fact that the conviction itself was on small and technical grounds might well be pleaded as an extenuating circumstance to reprieve him from the full punishment of death, yet his own conduct towards others deprived him of any such claim to exceptional mercy. It has hardly been sufficiently observed that, whatever the contemplated object of the bill, its actual effect was not to enlarge the statute retrospectively, but only to alter the procedure. If we apply the standard of the nineteenth century to judge of the procedure of the seventeenth, we shall say that this conviction of treason was not just, though it was far more just than any other of that day. So far as to the technical issue. At the bar of history, Strafford is arraigned as a traitor to the constitution. He is proved guilty by the undoubted evidence of his own correspondence. The two restraints on the executive are, the freedom of Parliament and the independence of the judges. According to Strafford's scheme, judges were to receive percentages on verdicts for the crown, and dismissal for verdicts against it. Parliament was only to vote subsidies, and not inquire into grievances. Discontent at grievances unredressed was to be quelled by a standing army. This standing army was to be supported by taxes levied, like shipmoney, on the sole authority of the crown. If we turn now to Pym's ideal, since realized, and look upon this picture and on that, we shall with Hallam 'distrust any one's attachment to the English constitution, who reveres the name of the Earl of Strafford.' CHAPTER V. GRAND REMONSTRANCE.-IMPEACHMENT OF FIVE MEMBERS. * * 1641-1642. It is not so, thou hast misspoke, misheard ; Be well advised, tell o'er thy tale again: It cannot be; thou dost but say 'tis so: I trust I may not trust thee; for thy word I have a king's oath to the contrary.—KING JOHN, iii. 1. DURING Strafford's trial, the Commons had not been unmindful of reform. Early in the year Charles had given his consent to a bill which required that a Parliament should be elected once every three years, and that no future Parliament should be dissolved or adjourned, without its own consent, in less than fifty days from the opening of the session (16th Feb.). In order that the act might not remain a dead letter, it provided that if the king failed in his duty, various officers employed in the Government should send out writs for elections in his stead; and that if these failed in their duty, the electors should meet of themselves and choose their representatives. The too long continuance of the same Parliament changes the character of the House of Commons from that of a popular assembly to that of an oligarchical senate, by making the members heedless of the wishes of their constituents, and apt to sacrifice their duties to their interests. The too frequent election of new Parliaments renders members subservient to their electors, so that instead of following some settled course of action according to their own convictions, they act merely as delegates apt to reflect every prejudice that obtains amongst the multitude. There is no universal rule of right in this matter. In the seventeenth century, new Parliaments might, without injury to their character, have been elected every year, so slight was the control constituents possessed over their representatives. The House of Commons was subject to the influence of the court; the county members were gentlemen by birth, often connected by blood or marriage with peers and ministers; while the members for small boroughs were returned according to the directions of neighbouring peers and gentlemen. No public meetings were held for the debate of political questions. No petitions of a political character had been presented to any previous Parliament. No newspaper press existed before the commencement of the civil war. The votes of members were unrecorded. Parliamentary debates were never published. The privilege of excluding strangers from the House was constantly exerted by the Commons. London, however, in stirring times, knew much and judged freely; but at duller periods there was a want of the coffee-houses of a later date to bring public opinion to a focus. The knowledge of events in London took months in circulating through the country. The action, therefore, of a Triennial Bill would have been beneficial in itself, and the experience of the last eleven years had shown the absolute necessity of a guarantee for the meeting of Parliaments. The measure which followed was of a different character. Parliament cannot be dissolved without its own con At the same time that he gave his consent to the Bill of Attainder, Charles, sick at heart, without heeding its contents, passed a second bill, depriving him of the right to dissolve the Parliament without its own consent (10th May). This bill had been introduced into the Commons upon the disclosure of the Army Plot, which gave Pym and Hampden good cause to doubt, whether their own lives or the liberties of the people would be safe, were the Parliament once dissolved. sent. Danger of assembly which cannot be dissolved, If too long Parliaments become oligarchical, much more will a Parliament which is indissoluble. It may now, in fact, be taken as an axiom that a Parliament which can only dissolve of its own consent, will never dissolve unless forced to do so by some power external to itself. Either it is in accordance with the popular feeling, in which case there is no reason it should dissolve as it is still representative; or, again, if the pulse of popular opinion beats feebly, it feels it can go on governing as it likes; or, lastly, public opinion is strongly against it, and under these circumstances it feels that dissolution is suicide, so it is then most determined to ride over the storm and wait for a time when sympathy is restored. But in a moment of terror like this such far-sighted calculations would have seemed |