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Home Charles I and Domestic Affairs, 1625-42 1640-1642 1640-1642; Part 3 |
1640-1642; Part 3Eventually the House of Commons gave up the impeachment and passed instead a Bill of Attainder, condemning him as guilty of treason (Consequently they had not got to prove his guilt; they merely asserted that he was guilty and ought to be executed). The bill was sent up to the House of Lords, which, after some hesitation, passed it. The only hope of life left to Strafford lay in the king. But after two days of agonizing doubt Charles, with his palace surrounded by an angry crowd, afraid that if he held out his beloved queen herself would be impeached (The House of Commons intended to impeach the queen for her intrigues with foreign powers if the king had refused to pass the bill), and advised to surrender by his Council, by the judges and by some of the bishops, and even by Strafford himself, eventually gave his consent to the bill. Strafford, brave and noble to the end, was executed on Tower Hill (May, i64i) (I thank God," he said, when he took off his doublet at the scaffold, " I am not afraid of death, nor daunted with any discouragement rising from my fears, but do as cheerfully put off my doublet at this time as ever I did when I went to bed"). To the 200,000 who were present, as well as to the great majority of Englishmen, his execution was necessary for the safety of the nation.At the end of the summer of 1641 Englishmen had come to the parting of the ways, and the work of the Long Parliament was to be no longer unanimous. The final split between the two parties came in the debates on the Grand Remonstrance (November). Previously to this Charles had made a journey to Scotland (September) with the hope, no doubt, of organizing a party favourable to his cause—a hope in which he was disappointed. It was whilst he was playing a game of golf in that country in October that he heard news of the Irish Catholic rebellion (According to tradition, Charles finished his game) (p. 428). That rebellion had important results in England. Even its horrors were exaggerated in the accounts received in England, Consequently Protestant feeling was inflamed and affected the king, because he was suspected of some complicity with the rebels. Moreover, to suppress the rebellion an army would be necessary. This aroused a fresh question of the very greatest consequence—Who was to control the army, the king or the Parliament? Upon the answer hung the liberties of England. It was now that Pym brought forward the document known as the Grand Remonstrance. This was, partly, a recapitulation of all the evil deeds of which Pym and the Puritan party held |
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