Each captain of foot was ordered to pick thirteen of the best unmarried men out of the ranks, and the number was thus made up. Scots were carefully weeded out, lest they should be tempted to correspond with their own countrymen. The drafts were ordered to Ulster on pretence of garrisons being required for Carrickfergus, Londonderry, and Coleraine. ‘For keeping a place,’ said Wentworth, ‘shot is of more use than pike, and without controversy muskets of more execution than calivers.’ Three hundred and fifty were therefore musketeers and the residue pikemen. Willoughby landed at Whitehaven on April 1, 1639, and was at Carlisle a few days later, where he remained until all idea of fighting the Scots had been given up. His regiment was the admiration of the whole country, and commanding officers begged eagerly ‘for the loan of some of our soldiers to come and learn their soldiers to exercise.’ No glory was to be gained in that war, but the excellence of Willoughby’s men was so evident, that Charles determined to raise a new Irish army of 8000 men, expressly ‘to reduce those in Scotland to their due obedience.’ Wentworth had conceived this idea long before, but he intended all the men to be Protestants, and of British extraction as far as possible. By the middle of 1639 he had not only his standing army of 3000 men in perfect order, but had provided 8000 spare arms with twelve field pieces and eight heavy guns.[249]

Wentworth was in England from September to March 1639-40, and as the result of this visit steps were taken to levy 8000 foot and 1000 horse in Ireland. This was the germ of the policy which ruined both Charles I. and James II., and which has never succeeded with any statesman. To lean upon Irish Roman Catholic support in order to crush opposition in Protestant England was plainly the idea of Charles himself much more than of Strafford; for the latter saw the danger clearly enough, though he wilfully neglected it in pursuit of his ‘thorough’ ideal. It may be said that Strafford would have succeeded if his King had seconded him properly, but then no really able sovereign would have adopted such a scheme. Lady Carlisle has recorded that in addition to that which Charles consulted there was ‘another little junto, that is much apprehended,’ consisting of Strafford, Laud, and Hamilton only. ‘They have met twice, and the world is full of guesses for the occasion of it.’[250]

The King’s order to raise the new army was issued on March 2, and Strafford hurried over to provide funds in Ireland; he seems really to have believed that love and not fear made the Irish Parliament so subservient as to vote what he asked for. The raising of the new men was taken in hand at once, and he hoped to have them all ready at Carrickfergus by the middle of May, and in Scotland by the end of June. He would keep them together and pay them for eighteen months, provided the King did his part. The conditions were that 10,000l. should be at once given to buy necessaries in Holland, and 40,000l. more at short intervals. ‘We are resolved,’ Strafford told Windebank, ‘to bring as much as possible to Ireland in specie, which will give a life even to the payment of our subsidies here, by the passing of so much ready money from hand to hand, than which I assure you nothing is so much wanting in this kingdom.’ The rents of Londonderry and Coleraine were to be remitted from the English to the Irish Exchequer. All powder was to be provided in England without payment. The King’s ships were to keep the channel clear, two thousand foot and five hundred horse were to join the Irish army in Cumberland, and Ireland was to be relieved from payment of the garrison at Carlisle. Orders were sent to London to draw the 10,000l. at once, but when Strafford, suffering agony and borne in a litter, reached Coventry in the middle of April, he was told that there was no money in the Exchequer. Strafford had done his part, but the King could give him no help, and the Irish army never crossed the channel. The mere fact that it had been raised cost them both their heads.[251]

No one saw possible danger more clearly than Strafford, but his political position forced him into courses which in his cooler moments he knew to be desperate. To enlist no Scots was an obvious precaution, but there were other dangers not less real though more remote. The Irish, he told the King, might do good service, for they hated the Scots and their religion; ‘yet it is not safe to train them up more than needs must in the military way, which, the present occasion past, might arm their old affections to do us more mischief, and put new and dangerous thoughts into them after they are returned home (as of necessity they must) without further employment or provision than what they had of their own before.’ Nevertheless, his first and much safer plan of a Protestant army was forgotten, and he proceeded to impress large numbers of Irish Roman Catholics. The dreaded result followed, but before that time he had perished on the scaffold, and the evil that he had done lived after him. The command of the new army was given to Ormonde, the enrolment and preliminary drill being left to St. Leger with the title of Sergeant-Major-General. The commissioners for raising the subsidies were entrusted with the levy, and officers were appointed at once. The old army consisted entirely, or almost entirely, of Protestants, and one thousand men, drafted proportionally from each company, became the nucleus of the new force. Carte would have us believe that in consequence of these veterans ‘being invested with authority or in a state of superiority over the rest of the new army, had it absolutely in their power; and it was of little or no consequence what religion the other private sentinels which composed it professed.’ This might have held good if the army had been kept together with regular pay and under a stable Government. But it was the day of disbandment that Strafford feared, and it was the disbanded soldiers who made the greatest difficulty when the struggle between King and Parliament had almost paralysed the Irish Government. The bulk of the men who were raised to put down the Scotch Covenanters were Irish Roman Catholics, and would be sure to take sides against England when occasion offered. Even the officers were to some extent open to the same objection. In the regiment raised by Colonel John Butler in Leinster Rory Maguire and Arthur Fox, both well-known in the subsequent rebellion, had companies. Theobald Taaffe was lieutenant-colonel of the regiment raised by Coote in Connaught, and Sir John Netterville had a company in that levied by Bruce in Connaught, and there were many Roman Catholics among the junior officers. The headquarters staff were all English Protestants, but their influence ceased with disbandment. There were many delays, but the whole force was at Carrickfergus by the middle of July, and a month later St. Leger was able to say that no prince in Christendom had a better or more orderly army. The rout at Newburn took place a few days later, and after the treaty of Ripon there could be no real chance of using the Irish army against the Scots. They were, however, kept together, and when the Long Parliament met in November this was not unnaturally regarded as a threatening cloud.[252]

Strafford was beheaded on May 12, 1641. Four days before Charles ordered Ormonde to disband the new army, adding that to prevent disturbance he had licensed certain officers to transport 8000 foot ‘for the service of any prince or state at amity with us.’ These officers were Colonels James Dillon, Theobald Taaffe, John and Garret Barry, Richard Plunket, John Butler, John Bermingham, George Porter, and Christopher Bellings. Of these the first seven at least were afterwards active confederates. Bellings alone sought to secure a regiment for the French service, and, as became one who worked for Richelieu, he lost no time, but slipped away ‘very quietly’ with a thousand picked men before the end of June, in spite of the efforts of priests and friars. Lieutenant Flower, who understood Irish, heard a priest tell the soldiers at Drogheda that they ought to stay, though they got only bread and water. Flower said the King allowed them to go, to which he answered that the King was but one man. The other colonels, having to deal with Spain, were of course late, and did not appear until Bellings had gone. Then, yielding to parliamentary pressure on both sides of the channel, Charles changed his mind in August and would only give leave to the two Barrys, Porter, and Taaffe to transport a thousand men each. In the end no shipping could be had, for the English House of Commons passed a resolution against the transportation of soldiers by merchants from any port in the King’s dominions. The Spaniards had no ships of their own, and so the men remained in Ireland. Colonel John Barry did manage to embark some 400 men, but his vessel never left the Liffey. There can be no doubt that the disbanded soldiers were more dangerous in Ireland than they would have been in Spain, but it is unnecessary to suppose that the parliamentary leaders had any wish to make mischief in this way. Rudyard probably expressed the ideas of the majority when he objected to strengthen France by recruiting her armies, or Spain in order to enable her to crush Portugal. ‘It was never fit,’ he said, ‘to suffer the Irish to be promiscuously made soldiers abroad, because it may make them abler to trouble the State when they come home. Their intelligence and practice with the princes whom they shall serve may prove dangerous to that kingdom of Ireland.’ He thought work could be found for them as harvesters in England.[253]

The new army of which St. Leger had been so proud had become somewhat disorderly when their pay began to be irregular. But the actual disbandment was quietly effected. Pay ceased on May 25, but the Council managed to scrape up 8000l., out of the 18,000l. due. Each soldier was persuaded to take seven shillings as a donative and three shillings on account of pay, while 50l. was assigned to each company for the officers, many of whom got nothing more until the Restoration. The men gave up their arms quietly, and dispersed, having been reminded that they were amenable to the law and not privileged in any way. There were no outrages, and sheriffs of counties were specially charged to keep the peace.[254]

The disbanded soldiers in Ireland constituted a grave danger, as every one could see when the rebellion had actually broken out, and which some saw at the time of disbanding. But the other danger from great bodies of Irishmen in the pay of foreign powers seemed to many greater at the time, and was certainly not small. Antrim had failed, but Lord Barrymore had succeeded in raising men for service in England, most of whom must have drifted back to Ireland after the treaty of Ripon. Barrymore complained bitterly of a ‘swarm of interloping French mountebanks who wander on their levies with titles and commissions of their own stamp and coinage, with which they are so prided up, as some of them have dared to contest for pressed men with my employed servants.’ Three hundred volunteers, collected for him by an O’Sullivan were thus enticed away, and he believed that Strafford’s enemy Sir Piers Crosbie was at the bottom of it all. Barrymore landed in Lancashire before the middle of June 1639, but with much less than the thousand men whom he was authorised to raise. He had no money to tempt recruits, and when his agents visited Kinsale the common people ran away as from an enemy. They took bribes from the better sort. These crimps even seized men actually engaged by the Government and employed in the public service, and appear to have taken a malicious pleasure in pouncing on English settlers whenever possible. Strafford observed that this was not the way to encourage English enterprise, nor to make intended plantations a success. If the King wanted Irish soldiers let him send over money to the regular officials, and they would do the work much better and cheaper than these Irish lords, ‘who always either out of too much love to their own, or out of over little knowledge of the customs of England in these cases, express some Irish manner or other, either very unseemly in itself, or pretending their own greatness, further than well consists with the modesty of subjects.’ Barrymore, however, proved a brave and loyal soldier in spite of this bad beginning.[255]

The Spaniards were allowed to recruit in Ireland during the whole of Strafford’s reign, though he had his misgivings from the first, and though he warned Charles even before he crossed the channel for the first time. ‘It had been the safer for your Majesty to have given liberty for the raising five times as many here in England; because these could not have been debauched in their faith, where those were not free of suspicion, especially being put under command of O’Neill and O’Donnell, the sons of two infamous and arch-traitors, and so likely not only to be trained up in the discipline of war, but in the art of rebellion also. Secondly, as your Majesty’s deputy I must tell him, if the state of this kingdom were the same as in Queen Elizabeth’s time, I should more apprehend the travel and disturbance which two hundred of these men might give us here, being natives, and experienced in their own faculty as soldiers, being sent to mutiny and discipline their own countrymen against the Crown, than of as many more Spaniards, as they sent in those days to Kinsale for relief of the rebels.’ This opinion he retained to the end. He was allowed to appoint two officers, and he selected men who could be trusted to give him a true account of what went on in the Spanish Netherlands. Owen Roe O’Neill became the favourite leader of the Irish in Belgium, but Wentworth preferred Preston. Nevertheless men who were engaged for the latter’s regiment very often went over to the former. The French also got no small number of Irish recruits, though they were less favoured by the Government of Charles I. Intercepted letters in 1635 showed that Paris was ‘pestered with Irish of all sorts, from all parts,’ while whole companies raised for the Spanish Netherlands ‘suffered themselves to be debauched by the French ambassador, and now serve under the French colours.’ Irish officers deserted the Spanish for the French service to get better and more regular pay, and Secretary Coke was clear-sighted enough to see that the Irish troops of both powers would probably turn against England in the end, ‘and join together to replant themselves at home.’[256]

CHAPTER XVIII
TRIAL AND DEATH OF STRAFFORD

Having done what was required of it, the Irish Parliament was prorogued to June 1, and on April 3 Strafford sailed for the last time, leaving Wandesford behind as Deputy. The gout, which he had neglected, took its revenge at Chester, preventing him from being at the opening of the Short Parliament, and he had to stay at Bishop Wright’s house for a full week. He then travelled by litter all the way to London, and reached Leicester House on April 18, where he remained, generally very ill, until August 24. Few believed that he would recover, still fewer that he would return to Ireland, and when the next session began Wandesford found that the Government was no longer feared. Of course it had never really been loved. But of the old Irish army which he had improved, or of the much larger force which he had given orders to raise, Strafford had no doubts. Ill as he was, he wrote to the King from Coventry begging him to provide the necessary funds, otherwise he would lose the fourth part of his army, and that the part most to be depended on for absolute, unquestioning obedience. Charles paid him several visits when he was unable to go out, but he did sometimes get to the Council, and it was by his advice that the King went to the House of Lords and persuaded them to declare that supply ought to have precedence of grievances. It is not quite certain how far Strafford was to blame for the fatal dissolution of the Short Parliament. He had advised that it should be called, and he urged the King not to run great risks because he could not get exactly what he wanted. But the popular fury fell upon him and Laud. Lambeth was attacked and the archbishop withdrew to Whitehall, whereupon a lady remarked: ‘Black Tom hath more courage than his Grace, and therefore will not be so apprehensive as he is, nor suffer a guard to attend him, knowing he hath terror enough in his bended brows to amaze the ’prentices.’[257]

When Wandesford met his Parliament on June 1, the wind had changed. Strafford was believed to be at the point of death, and the subsidies were being assessed upon an increased estimated value. This was arrived at by fixing a quota for each county, and spreading it as equally as possible upon the properties therein contained. The Government had hitherto been able to secure a majority by the votes of public servants in the Commons, but many were now absent with the army, and the Roman Catholic members were in power, nor, as it was a question of money, were they without plenty of allies. Radcliffe was in England, and it was found impossible to resist the passing of a declaration against the new method of taxation. Wandesford was forced to allow the enrolment of the document in chancery and elsewhere, and thus the administration of Supply was transferred from the Executive to the House of Commons. The constitutional point having been gained, the first subsidy was allowed to be levied as assessed, and yielded over 46,000l. The second and third together, raised in the old ‘parliamentary way,’ came to less than 24,000l., and the fourth was never levied at all. Seeing that he could do no better, and that the House became more intemperate daily, Wandesford prorogued Parliament on June 17 until October 1.[258]

Meanwhile the man upon whom the weight of both kingdoms lay was so ill that his recovery was doubtful. He could not turn in his bed, and relief was obtained by losing twelve ounces of blood. In writing to Ormonde Wandesford mourned over the unhappy dissolution of the Short Parliament. Strafford’s mind was wearing out his body, and he could hardly bear to speak of him, ‘if you did not love this man well. It is true, if the favour and grace of a Prince shall recover him he shall not perish, for those are heaped upon him every day; but if the good man’s heart be more willing to spend himself in great business than to contemplate his own safety, or to live upon such favours, who can help him? I know you love him, and you shall know when we hear better of him.’ When he seemed to be recovering Charles paid him a visit that nearly proved fatal. Strafford left off his warm gown to receive the King, which caused a relapse and involved the loss of eighteen ounces of blood; it is surprising that the doctors did not bleed him to death. It was not till a month later, at the end of June, that Radcliffe reported steady progress towards recovery. Early in July Strafford was at Sion House, and can have derived little comfort from association with Northumberland, who disagreed with his views and believed an invasion of Scotland impossible. But Charles was determined to go to the north, and at this time intended that the Lord Lieutenant should return to Ireland and take charge of the new army. In the meantime he ordered him to attend every day at Oatlands until he himself started for York, which was not till August 20, and at that moment Wandesford was expecting him in Ireland. But Northumberland was ill, and Strafford became commander-in-chief. Conway had been routed at Newburn, and the Scots were in possession of Newcastle before the unfortunate general had time to do anything. ‘Pity me,’ he wrote to Radcliffe, ‘for never came any man to so lost business. The army unexercised and unprovided of all necessaries. That part which I bring now with me from Durham the worst I ever saw. Our horse all cowardly, the country from Berwick to York in the power of the Scot, an universal affright in all, a general disaffection to the King’s service, now sensible of his dishonour. In one word, here alone to fight with all these evils without any one to help. God of His goodness deliver me out of this the greatest evil of my life.’[259]

After Newburn there was no serious attempt to fight the Scots, and Strafford never had any opportunity of showing what he could do as a general. His health was bad, his army unpaid and without enthusiasm, and the people generally but half-hearted. Even his own Yorkshiremen were anxious for a new Parliament, and many could see clearly that the Scots were upholding the cause of both nations. Still he had influence enough to get the gentlemen of the county to undertake for the payment of their train-bands, and for this last piece of service he was made a Knight of the Garter. He had now reached the utmost height to which, according to the last Roman poet, the Gods raise men in order that their fall may be the heavier. The Great Council of Peers met at York on September 25, and sat till October 28, and Strafford took an active part in the debates. He had a sharp encounter in the King’s presence with the new Lord Clanricarde, ending in the latter’s Connaught titles being confirmed and all his privileges restored. The negotiations with the Scots were carried on at Ripon, by commissioners representing both sides, but ‘the Earl of Strafford,’ says Clarendon, ‘had not amongst them one friend or person civilly inclined towards him.’ The King wished them to meet under his eye at York, but the Scots positively refused to put themselves into the power of an army commanded by Strafford, whom they denounced as a chief incendiary. They were quite justified in saying that he talked freely of them as traitors and rebels, and desired their utter ruin. He had already suggested the use of his Irish army against them, and ten days later he offered to bring over at two days’ warning 8000 foot, 2000 horse and 60 guns ‘if there be shipping to convey them.’ In Scotland it was believed that these troops had actually landed in England, and a battle was expected. The Scots at Ripon were so far successful as to have an allowance made to their forces of 850l. a day for two months, and to get the negotiations adjourned to London, where they would be among friends. At the head of an army whose discipline he might be able to improve Strafford was still formidable, and he had more friends in Yorkshire than anywhere else; but both King and Queen urged him to leave this comparative safety, and to trust himself in London. After looking his last on Wentworth Woodhouse, where he spent three or four days, he set out for the south, having the King’s written assurance that he ‘should not suffer in his person, honour, or fortune.’[260]

‘I am to-morrow to London,’ wrote Strafford to Radcliffe, ‘with more dangers beset, I believe, than ever any man went with out of Yorkshire.’ He arrived on Monday the 9th, rested the next day, and on Wednesday morning went down to the House of Lords. That he intended to attack the Parliamentary leaders is clear, but the plan was not mature, and he went away without speaking. This gave Pym his chance, and later in the day he appeared to impeach Strafford and demand his arrest. The accused man was with the King, but he hurried back to the House as soon as he knew what had been done. He was not allowed to speak, and had to kneel at the bar, when he was told that he must remain in custody until he had cleared himself from the Commons’ charges. The Usher of the Black Rod, James Maxwell, a Scotchman, took his sword and carried him off in his coach. Baillie, who gloats over the fallen statesman, notes that he had to walk some distance through gazing crowds, ‘no man capping to him, before whom that morning the greatest of England would have stood discovered.’ Maxwell was not a severe gaoler, and for a while his prisoner had many visitors, but the Commons objected, and a few days later he was sent to the Tower, of which another Scot, Sir James Balfour, was Lieutenant. Balfour, whom Baillie calls ‘our good kind countrieman,’ might be trusted to obey the orders of the House. Ultimately Strafford was confined to three rooms, in the outer one of which was a guard, and no visitors were admitted to see him without the Lieutenant’s special permission. It must, however, be supposed that he was allowed some exercise. Communication of any kind was forbidden with Sir George Radcliffe, who was soon brought to London and imprisoned in the Gatehouse. Clarendon is probably quite justified in saying that the object of impeaching Radcliffe was to prevent Strafford having his help as a counsellor or witness. When the principal was once condemned, it was not found worth while to continue proceedings against the accessory.[261]

The Irish Parliament was prorogued from June to October, when Wandesford found it as unmanageable as before. The House of Commons lost very little time in attacking the method of levying the subsidies, and then agreed to a Remonstrance which criticised adversely all Strafford’s policy, and formed the basis of the charges at his trial. This document was presented to the Lord Deputy, and he was several times asked for an answer. While waiting for this, the House appointed a committee of twelve members to go to England and represent the Irish case there. Clarendon says, and there can be no doubt of the fact, that Strafford’s fate was largely determined by the conduct of this committee, who kept up communications between the revolutionary wire-pullers on both sides of the channel; some of the members were afterwards engaged in the Irish rebellion. They were empowered to call for all public papers in Ireland, and to have copies free of charge. The Remonstrance was carried over by them, and was reported to the English House of Commons a few days later. On the next day Wandesford gave his answer by proroguing Parliament. During the recess, by the King’s special order, he had the journals brought before the Council, and there in the presence of several members of Parliament, tore out the two orders relating to the subsidies. Afterwards, when the tide had turned hopelessly against Strafford, Charles ordered the leaves to be reinserted, but they do not appear in the printed journals. The Lords were surprised by the sudden prorogation, but most of those who were in Dublin met and deputed Lords Gormanston, Dillon, and Kilmallock to carry their grievances to London. When Parliament reassembled this action was confirmed, and Lord Muskerry was added to the number.[262]

Wandesford died three weeks after Strafford’s arrest. The autopsy showed that his heart was diseased, so that distress of mind may have killed him, though his daughter does not say so. He was not long enough at the head of affairs to make much figure in Irish history, but he was an upright judge, made many reforms in the Rolls Court, and seems to have been generally liked. He advised his son to lead a country life, excusing himself for having done the contrary. ‘The truth is, my affection to the person of my Lord Deputy, purposing to attend upon his lordship as near as I could in all fortunes, carried me along with him wherever he went, and no premeditated thoughts of ambition.’ Bramhall attended him on his deathbed and preached his funeral sermon in Christchurch. His daughter says there were not many dry eyes among the multitude present, and ‘the Irish did set up the lamentable hone, as they call it, for him in the church, which was never known before for any Englishman.’[263]

The trial of Strafford, with the intrigues and discussions leading to it, belongs to the general history of these islands. The impressive scene in Westminster Hall has been dwelt on by historians, and is indeed of surpassing interest. The King and Queen were present throughout, and the concourse was such as England had never seen till then. Even hostile witnesses have testified to the inimitable life and grace with which the prisoner under every disadvantage maintained his cause against the accusing Commons, and before judges who had little sympathy with him. Lord Cork, though only a peer of Ireland, had been called up by writ, and Baillie noticed that he sat covered daily, his black cloak being conspicuous among the coloured robes. As the trial proceeded Strafford’s courage and eloquence gained him many supporters; the ladies were all on his side, and the Queen had ample opportunities of admiring his beautiful white hands. His object was to show, and it is generally thought he succeeded in showing, that no single count of the impeachment amounted to treason, and that he was entitled to an acquittal even if every charge was proved. In Fuller’s homely phrase, no number of frogs will make a toad. The Commons, on the contrary, maintained that he had persistently striven to upset the fundamental laws, that there was a cumulative force in repeated offences, and that he ought to die the death of a traitor.[264]

The articles of Strafford’s impeachment were twenty-eight in number, and of these seventeen, from the third to the nineteenth, bore directly upon his government in Ireland. The third article charged that he had in a public speech in 1634 declared that Ireland was a conquered nation, and that the King might do what he liked there; and that the charters of cities were obsolete and at the royal discretion. This was proved by several witnesses, of whom Cork was one, who declared that he had come to England with Strafford’s leave, that he had determined to make no complaint, and that he had purposely left all his papers behind him. The answer to this evidence was that Ireland was in fact conquered, that the charters had been often violated, and that the object of his dealing with the corporation of Dublin was to encourage the English Protestants who had been depressed by native competition and combination. All that he had done, however, was at most a misdemeanour, and no treason. In support of the fourth article, which declared that the prisoner had seized property by Order in Council, Cork deposed that this had been done in his case, that he had tried to appeal to the law and ‘that my lord of Strafford answered “call in your writs, or if you will not, I will clap you in the Castle; for I tell you I will not have my orders disputed by law nor lawyers”’; and that on another occasion the Lord Deputy had told him that he would make an Act of State as binding as an Act of Parliament. There were other witnesses on the latter point. Strafford replied that there was no breach of Magna Charta, since the law and custom of Ireland had been followed, and that during the long interval between Parliaments it was necessary to depend upon the action of the Executive. The fifth and sixth articles dealt with Lord Mountnorris’s case, which has been sufficiently discussed, and the eighth with the Loftus case and other accusations of arbitrary treatment by the Lord Deputy and Council, the general defence being that they had acted according to the established custom of Ireland. The ninth article contained a charge of unlawfully stretching the secular arm to support the power of certain bishops. One case was proved, but Strafford answered that he had discontinued the practice when he found its legality was doubtful.

The tenth article charged Strafford with procuring the customs to be farmed, and the rates upon merchandise raised for his own profit. The facts could scarcely be denied, but the accused was able to show that he had objected to having a personal interest in the revenue, and that he was persuaded to do so by Portland as the only means of inducing other speculators to undergo the risk. The twelfth article attacked the tobacco monopoly which Strafford had created by proclamation, and the thirteenth with doing something of the same sort in the case of linen. He looked upon tobacco as a superfluity, and therefore a fit subject for heavy taxation, but there can be no doubt that many traders suffered severely. The linen business had always existed in Ulster, and he tried to improve and regulate it, but no doubt he went too fast and much hardship was caused. ‘He did observe,’ he said, ‘that the wool of that kingdom did increase very much, that if it should there be wrought into cloth, it would be a very great prejudice to the clothing trade of England, and therefore he was willing, as much as he might lawfully and fairly, to discourage that trade; that on the other side, he was desirous to set up the trade of linen cloth, which would be beneficial there and not prejudice the trade of England.’ He made rules for the management of the manufacture which he believed would greatly add to its value, but they had turned out too rigid for the working people, who could not so quickly be induced to change their habits. He had himself lost 3000l. by his share in the business.

The fifteenth article charged that Strafford did traitorously ‘by force of arms and in a warlike manner’ strive to subdue Ireland to his arbitrary will by quartering soldiers upon private persons without warrant of law. Hallam thought this came nearer treason than anything of which he was accused, but that the cases proved were too few to constitute levying war. There was much hearsay evidence, but enough was proved to make out a strong case. Edmond Byrne testified that soldiers were quartered on him by the Lord Deputy’s order for not paying ‘a pretended debt of a matter of ten pounds’ to a Mr. Archibald, and that they had done him damage to the value of 500l. The sixteenth article was directed against Strafford’s system of denying appeals to England except through himself, and of preventing anyone from leaving Ireland without his leave. In this, as in many other things, he had found the practice in existence, and had carried it further than his predecessors, so that it was thought worthy of special complaint in the Remonstrance of the Irish Parliament. The nineteenth article was concerned with the imposition of the Black Oath on the Ulster Scots, and the fact was undeniable; but Strafford pleaded danger from the Covenant which bound 100,000 people in the North to their near neighbours and fellow-countrymen across the channel. The seventh, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth articles were postponed, and in the end were not proceeded with at all, and it was a Bill of Attainder and not a verdict of the Lords on the Impeachment that brought Strafford to the scaffold. It may be granted that none of the charges taken separately amounted to treason, but the Lord Chief Justice ‘delivered the opinion of all the judges present upon all that which their Lordships have voted to be proved that the Earl of Strafford doth deserve to undergo the pains and forfeitures of High Treason by law.’ It is evident that the majority of the Commons were determined to have the Lord Lieutenant’s head, for they did not feel safe as long as he lived. St. John brutally said that the laws of chase were not for him, and that he should be hunted down without mercy as a beast of prey. ‘Stone dead hath no fellow,’ was Essex’s answer when Hyde suggested a milder penalty. Nor can it be said that the fears of the Puritan party were unfounded. The King, after hearing every word of the evidence, admitted that Strafford was unfit to hold even a chief constable’s place; but Charles was not to be trusted, and his word gave no guarantee that the hated statesman would not again be a minister and at the head of an army.[265]