had been brought forward, before they sent up to accuse him. "Delay," it was replied by Pym, “would ruin all their hopes. Such was the earl's credit with the king, that if allowed to approach his majesty, a dissolution of parliament, in order to escape its justice, would be the certain result; whereas, if they proceeded on the instant, the Lords would have no alternative but to commit him to immediate custody." In allusion to some doubts which had been thrown out, whether all the particulars alleged would, if proved, amount to high treason, he added, that "the House of Commons were not judges, but accusers only." The Lords, who probably had a suspicion that these unwonted proceedings regarded some of their own body, and are accordingly supposed to have sent their messengers, under cover of a conference, in reality to gain information, were at length relieved from suspense by the apparition of Pym at their bar; where "in the name of the Commons assembled in Parliament, and of all the Commons of England," he accused Thomas Earl of Strafford, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, of high treason;" and desired their lordships, in their name, that he might forthwith be committed to prison.

The scene which followed will be described in the words, nearly as they stand, of that gossiping annalist of the day, Principal Bailie, whose curiosity and garrulousness, stimulated by Presbyterian spite to the accused nobleman, have left posterity a narrative of it, which, for graphic liveliness, no historian has equalled." As soon as Mr. Pym withdrew, the Lords began to consult on that strange and unexpected motion. The word goes in haste to the lord-lieutenant, where he was with the king. With speed he comes to the house; he calls rudely at the door; James Maxwell, keeper of the black rod, opens. His lordship, with a proud glooming countenance, makes towards his place at the board-head: but at once many bid him quit the house; so he is forced, in confusion, to go to the door till he was called. After consultation, being called in, he stands, but is commanded to kneel, and on his knees to hear the sentence. Being on his knees, he is delivered to the keeper of the black rod, to be prisoner till he was cleared of those crimes the House of Commons had charged him with. He offered to speak, but was commanded to be gone without a word. In the outer room Maxwell required him, as a prisoner, to deliver his sword. When he had got it, he cries, with a loud voice, for his man to carry my lordlieutenant's sword. This done, he makes through a number of people towards his coach; all gazing, no man capping to him, before whom, that morning, the greatest of England would have stood uncovered. Coming to the place where he expected his coach, it was not there; so he behoves to return that same way, through a world of gazing people. When at last he had found his coach, and was entering, Maxwell told him, 'Your lordship is my prisoner, and must go in my coach;' so he behoved him to do." From the house of this James Maxwell, who presents no unimportant figure in the events of the period, the earl was, after a few days, committed to the Tower; that last home, on earth, of so many of the great and brave of England.

This terrible feat of infant Freedom shews to what strength she had already been fostered in her cradle, the Commons' house of Parliament. To venture to will, to dare to resolve, was all that was now needed there to give success to any project conceived in her name. With a hurried hand, merely, can we touch even the prominent incidents

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that now marked her growth. Persons who had been in any way concerned in monopolies, were voted by the house to be unworthy of occupying its benches. The ship-money tax, and the judgment in Hampden's case, were declared subversive of property, of the laws, of the resolutions of former parliaments, and of the Petition of Rights. A petition prepared at the instance of the Scotch commissioners, signed by fifteen thousand inhabitants of London, praying that episcopal government might be abolished, with all its dependencies, roots, and branches, was received without objection. In this petition Laud was struck at the remaining great obstacle in the path of reform. Farther to prepare the at―the way for the archbishop's impeachment, the canons issued by the convocation, which sat during and for some time after the last parliament, were condemned as contrary to the fundamental laws of the realm, the prerogatives of the king, and the rights of the subject; while articles were delivered, in a conference of the two houses, by the Scotch commissioners, in which he was charged, with Strafford, as the prime author of all the miseries that had befallen the two nations. Two days later, viz., 18th December, an accusation of high treason was brought forward against "William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury,' in the name of the Commons of England. It was adopted, after a short but strongly vituperative debate led by Pym: for this time, however, the leader waved his peculiar office, and Denzil Holles carried up the impeachment to the bar of the Lords. The primate was consigned to the custody of Maxwell; and after a costly durance of ten weeks, under the roof of that useful person, the gates of the Tower opened to him likewise.

Retribution now reached minor delinquents. Sir George Ratcliffe, who, as the friend and "confederate" of Strafford, had been sent for from Ireland, immediately after the earl's impeachment, on an accusation of treason, followed his master to the Tower. Informations were laid against the Bishops of Ely and Bath, and against a Durham prebendary, for "idolatry and superstition;" they were obliged to give securities, the prelates to the amount of £10,000 each, the prebendary in £4000. "Complaints," we are told by the historian of Puritanism, "were made against several other bishops and clergymen, but the house had too many affairs upon their hands to attend to their prosecution." Yet the records of parliament show that the clergy of inferior rank were not so commonly overlooked, as minor delinquents among the laity certainly were; and it is observable that, from the opening of the session, accusations against all classes of ecclesiastics were entertained with marked encouragement. Windebanke, the secretary of state, and the lord-keeper Finch, were driven to the Continent, to avoid the charges of high treason suspended over them. Such of the other judges as had concurred with Finch in the decision respecting ship-money, were bound in recognisances to the amount of £10,000 each, to abide the judgment of parliament; one only, Sir Robert Berkeley, excepted. That "learned man, and good orator and judge," as Whitelocke styles him, was impeached before the Lords, and by their command taken off the bench, in the open court, by their usher Maxwell, and carried to prison: "which," the memorialist subjoins, "struck a great terror in the rest of his brethren then sitting in Westminster Hall, and in all his profession." Prynne and his fellow-martyrs, in obedience to the order of the

Commons, entered London in triumph, amidst the acclamations of the citizens; their sentences were declared illegal, and heavy damages were awarded them out of the estates of the archbishop and the other members of the council who had sat on their trial. The house also voted a gratuity of £300,000 to their "brethren" of Scotland. We might wonder whither had flown the valiant and haughty spirit of the English, when we find them thus lavishing endearments and liberality on those who, at this time, actually held, as if by right of conquest, some of the best provinces of England; did we not know that, independently of all party exaggeration, the vexations of the people had been such, as made them willing to hold out the grateful hand of fellowship to any party who brought, or professed to bring, deliverance for them from the evils of arbitrary power. As to the parliamentary leaders, they were not to be deterred by the remonstrances of national honour, from a vote which at once so deeply obliged their serviceable friends, and added to the embarrassments of the sovereign.

In the midst of every other business, the great affair of Strafford's impeachment was zealously urged forward. For more than four months, through which the preliminary arrangements extended, the anxious attention and boundless power of the House of Commons were taxed, that nothing might be left undone to secure justice on the accused, to manifest the dignity and authority of the house, and to vindicate the laws. On the side of the defence, the way was not so clear. It has already been noticed that Strafford's impeachment was instantly followed up by that of his friend and assistant Ratcliffe; at the same time, all intercourse between the prisoners, and all visits to either from members of parliament, were prohibited. The Commons were unwilling that counsel should be allowed; this, though overruled by the Lords, in respect to points of law, was agreed to as regarded matter of fact: intending to manage the accusation by their own members, the Commons desired to be present at the trial as a house of parliament; the Lords not assenting, it was agreed they should sit as a committee of the whole house. The articles of accusation, as reported by the committee of impeachment, at their first presentation in November, were only nine; as finally taken up to the Lords by Pym, on the 30th of December, they had swelled to the number of twenty-eight. These charges were of great length, and referred to the public and private incidents of fourteen years of a life of unusual activity. The earl desired three months to prepare his answer: the Commons opposed: the Lords directed three weeks to be allowed; at the end of which period, February 24th, the answers to each several accusation were read to the house in the presence of the king, and the trial was fixed for the 22nd of the following month.

While these preparations were in progress, nothing was omitted on Charles's part which appeared likely to soften the hostility of Strafford's enemies. He sent for the houses, and addressed them in an exceedingly conciliatory speech. He had been long and loudly inveighed against for suffering the impunity of Papists; he now placed at the disposal of the Commons the life of a condemned priest, on whom they had desired justice to be done. He consented to a bill for triennial parliaments; and intimated his willingness to wave the claims of the crown in regard to the royal forests. A further plan to which the king