began to perceive how few friends he really had, relied mainly on the genius, the energy, and faithfulness of the lord-lieutenant, to support him in the approaching shock: "he could not want his advice," he said, "in the great transactions that were likely to be in this parliament. As he was king of England, he was able," he added, "to secure him from any danger; and the parliament should not touch a hair of his head." Strafford yielded.

The day-the 3rd of November, 1640-arrived, when an eagerly expectant nation saw assemble the most extraordinary and eventful parliament in English history. Laud was advised to have the ceremony deferred; the 3rd of November being of ill omen in the history of parliaments, as signalized by the opening of that, in Henry the Eighth's reign, which was fatal in its commencement to Wolsey, and at its close to the dominant church. As if to countenance these forebodings, the ceremonial of the day was shorn of its usual pomp. "The king," observes the noble historian of the period, "did not ride with his accustomed equipage, or in his usual majesty, to Westminster; but went privately in his barge to the parliament stairs, and after to the church, as if it had been to a return of a prorogued or adjourned parliament." Never had king of England been less supported by valour, virtue, ability, or attachment in his nobles, than Charles I. on that day; never had king of England beheld in the Commons so many countenances expressive of haughty confidence in the justice of the cause they designed to assert, or in their ability to assert it with success, as Charles in that numerous assemblage, which thronged to hear the royal speech! There stood Pym-by experience, learning, industry, and a grave, yet facile eloquence, undisputed leader; Hampden, formidable by his great abilities, more formidable by his arts of popularity; the dark St. John; the accomplished Denzil Holles; the able though less decided Nathaniel Fiennes; the rich-minded enthusiast, the younger Vane. Of the Peers, were associated with them the Earls of Bedford and Essex, the Lords Kimbolton and Say, who, in their house, took the lead, echoed and supported by the Earls of Warwick, Holland, and Hertford, the Lords Brooke, Paget, and William Fiennes. The truest and ablest friends to the king, the admirable Falkland and the romantic Digby, Hyde, Selden, Rudyard, equally distinguished by their talents and their virtues, were also, at this time-as, for a little longer, it became such men to be-on the side of the opposition.

If the despondency of the court was indicated in the absence of its accustomed splendour at that great solemnity, and in the subdued tone of the king's speech, its weakness also was manifest in its failing to carry the election of the person whom the king had designed to fill the Speaker's chair. All circumstances, indeed, surprisingly concurred to confirm the patriots in their lofty ground and determined front. Even Hampden, therefore, at length fitting his exterior to his views, stood forth a "root-and-branch" reformer. Their conscious strength in parliament; the well-ascertained support of opinion without; the maturity of their vast plans;-everything justified a mien and language which were characterized, not by the indecorum, but by the boldness and nerve of menace and defiance. In fact, the real power of the state had already passed into the hands of a few bold, active, and large-thoughted men, who embodied the national demand for a secure

settlement of public liberty. These swayed the house by their eloquence; governed the empire by their committees; drew after them the house of Peers; and, finally, bowed the sovereign at their feet. Issuing from the bar of the Lords, scarcely a member entered the Commons' house without a petition in strong language from his constituents against grievances in church and state; others were brought to the door by the petitioners in person, accompanied in several instances, by processions, on horseback and on foot, from distant counties. The presentation of these was taken advantage of by many members to deliver speeches of extreme violence and acrimony, against every act of the government during the greater part of the king's reign. The appointment of above forty committees followed, including five called grand; i. e. committees of the whole house, for trade, religion, Irish affairs, general grievances, and courts of justice. These, under the mask of inquiry, assumed substantial jurisdiction over all the public institutions, and over the rights and liberty of the subject. A day was appointed for a general fast; on which occasion both the clergymen nominated to preach, respectively, before the Lords and Commons, were known to be dissatisfied with the existing church government; and each recommended in his sermon a solemn league and covenant for reforma tion. To swell the popular cry against grievances, orders were issued to the gaolers to dismiss from prison the victims of the law: Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton, with Leighton and Lilburne, their fellow-sufferers, under sentence from the courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, were sent for "to prosecute before the house the business of petitions presented on their behalf." So passed the first week.

Meanwhile, the Earl of Strafford was still with the army. His friends in parliament, startled by the temper and tendency of the debates, warned him that they had reason to apprehend a design to procure his impeachment. He hastened up to London, ill, as usual; but not till he had taken the precaution to furnish himself with such proofs of the correspondence with the Scots, as might justify his anticipating that measure, by first impeaching his enemies.

It was the 10th of November when the earl arrived in the capital. On the 11th rose Pym, in the midst of a fierce debate on Ireland; and, with the gesture of one who embraces on a sudden a great resolve, demanded the attention of the house. He had a business, he said, of that weighty importance to impart, that it might reach the ears of none but members. Strangers were immediately excluded from the lobby, the doors locked, and the keys of the house laid upon the table. The report, from Clarendon, of the speech that followed, may serve, slight as it is, to convey some notion both of the temper and ability of the speaker. "Mr. Pym," says the noble historian, "in a long, formed discourse, lamented the miserable state and condition of the kingdom, aggravated all the particulars which had been done amiss in the government, as done and contrived maliciously, and upon deliberation, to change the whole frame, and to deprive the nation of all the liberty and property which was their birthright by the laws of the land, which were now no more considered, but subjected to the arbitrary power of the privy counsel, which governed the kingdom according to their will and pleasure; these calamities falling upon us in the reign of a pious and virtuous king, who loved his people and was a great lover

of justice." And thereupon enlarging in some specious commendations of the nature and goodness of the king, that he might wound him with less suspicion, he said, "We must inquire from what fountain these waters of bitterness flowed; what persons they were who had so far insinuated themselves into his royal affections as to be able to pervert his excellent judgment, to abuse his name, and wickedly apply his authority to countenance and support their own corrupt designs. Though he doubted there would be many found of this class, who had contributed their chief endeavours to bring this misery upon the nation; yet he believed there was ONE more signal in that administration than the rest, being a man of great parts and contrivance, and of great industry to bring what he designed to pass; a man who, in the memory of many present, had sat in that house an earnest vindicator of the laws, and a most zealous assertor and champion for the liberties of the people but that it was long since he turned apostate from those good affections, and, according to the custom and nature of apostates, was become the greatest enemy to the liberties of his country, and the greatest promoter of tyranny that any age has produced." And then he named "the Earl of Strafford, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and Lord-President of the Council established in York, for the northern parts of the kingdom; who, he said, had in both places, and in all other provinces wherein his services had been used by the king, raised ample monuments of his tyrannical nature; and that he believed, if they took a short survey of his actions and behaviour, they would find him the principal author and promoter of all those counsels which had exposed the kingdom to so much ruin :" and so instanced some high and impious actions done by him in England and in Ireland, some proud and over-confident expressions in discourse, and some passionate advices he had given in the most secret counsels and debates of the affairs of state; adding some lighter passages of his vanity and amours; that they who were not inflamed with anger and detestation against him for the former, might have less esteem and reverence for his prudence and discretion: and so concluded, "That they would well consider how to provide a remedy proportionable to the disease, and to prevent the farther mischiefs which they were to expect from the continuance of this great man's power and credit with the king, and his influence upon his counsels." Several other speakers took up and carried on the discussion; and so passionately intent on it were all sides of the house, that a request of the Lords for a conference on Scotch affairs, by which they were unwillingly interrupted, was put aside; while, at the same time the Commons, by an intimation sent to some of their friends in the Lords, desired that house not to rise: "which," observes Clarendon, "would otherwise have very much broken their measures. In conclusion," he continues, "after many hours of bitter inveighing, and ripping up the course of his life before his coming to court, and his actions after, it was moved, according to the secret resolution taken before, 'that he might be forthwith impeached of high treason.""

Lord Falkland, though no friend to Strafford, was the only man in the house-such was the sweep with which Pym had carried passion, conviction, and resolve along with him-who offered to interpose, by even qualifying his assent. That excellent person "modestly" desired the house to consider, that it might be more consistent with the dignity of their proceedings to examine and digest in a committee the particulars which