a faithful servant, though he had no great
attachment for him—was in some doubt what
to do; but he gave his consent to both bills,
although he in his heart believed that the
bill against the Earl of Strafford was
unlawful and unjust. The Earl had written to
him, telling him that he was willing to die for
his sake. But he had not expected that his
royal master would take him at his word
quite so readily; for when he heard his doom
he laid his hand upon his heart, and said,
"Put not your trust in Princes!"

The King, who never could be straight-
forward and plain, through one single day
or through one single sheet of paper, wrote a
letter to the Lords, and sent it by the young
Prince of Wales, entreating them to prevail
with the Commons that "that unfortunate
man should fulfil the natural course of his
life in a close imprisonment." In a postscript
to the very same letter, he added, "If he must
die, it were charity to reprieve him till
Saturday." If there had been any doubt of
his fate, this weakness and meanness would
have settled it. The very next day, which
was the twelfth of May, he was brought out
to be beheaded on Tower Hill.

Archbishop Laud, who had been so fond of
having people's ears cropped off and their
noses slit, was now confined in the Tower
too; and when the Earl went by his window,
to his death, he was there, at his request, to
give him his blessing. They had been great
friends in the King's cause, and the Earl had
written to him, in the days of their power,
that he thought it would be an admirable
thing to have Mr. Hampden publicly whipped
for refusing to pay the ship-money. However,
those high and mighty doings were over now,
and the Earl went his way to death with
dignity and heroism. The governor wished
him to get into a coach at the Tower gate,
for fear the people should tear him to pieces;
but he said it was all one to him whether he
died by the axe or by their hands. So, he
walked, with a firm tread and a stately look,
and sometimes pulled off his hat to them as
he passed along. They were profoundly
quiet. He made a speech on the scaffold
from some notes he had prepared (the paper
was found lying there after his head was
struck off), and one blow of the axe killed
him, in the forty-ninth year of his age.

This bold and daring act the Parliament
accompanied by other famous measures, all
originating (as even this did) in the King's
having so grossly and so long abused his power.
The name of DELINQUENTS was applied to
all sheriffs and other officers who had been
concerned in raising the ship-money, or any
other money, from the people, in an unlawful
manner; the Hampden judgment was
reversed; the judges who had decided against
Hampden were called upon to give large
securities that they would take such
consequences as Parliament might impose upon
them; and one was arrested as he sat in
High Court, and carried off to prison. Laud
was impeached; the unfortunate victims,
whose ears had been cropped and whose
noses had been slit, were brought out of
prison in triumph; and a bill was passed,
declaring that a Parliament should be called
every third year, and that if the King and
the King's officers did not call it, the people
should assemble of themselves and summon
it, as of their own right and power. Great
illuminations and rejoicings took place over
all these things, and the country was wildly
excited. That the Parliament took advantage
of this excitement, and stirred them up
by every means, there is no doubt; but you
are always to remember those twelve long
years, during which the King had tried so
hard whether he really could do any wrong
or not.

All this time there was a great religious
outcry against the right of the Bishops to sit
in Parliament; to which the Scottish people
particularly objected. The English were
divided on the subject, and, partly on this
account, and partly because they had had
foolish expectations that the Parliament
would be able to take off nearly all the taxes,
numbers of them sometimes wavered and
inclined towards the King.

I believe myself that if, at this or almost
any other period of his life, the King could
have been trusted by any man not out of his
senses, he might have saved himself and kept
his throne. But, on the English army being
disbanded, he plotted with the officers again,
as he had done before, and established the
fact beyond all doubt, by putting his signature
of approval to a petition against the
Parliamentary leaders, which was drawn up
by certain officers. When the Scottish army
was disbanded, he went to Edinburgh in four
days—which was going very fast at that time
—to plot again, and so darkly, too, that it is
difficult to decide what his whole object was.
Some suppose that he wanted to gain over the
Scottish Parliament, as he did in fact gain
over, by presents and favours, many Scottish
lords and men of power. Some think that he
went to get proofs against the Parliamentary
leaders in England of their having treasonably
invited the Scottish people to come and help
them. With whatever object he went to
Scotland, he did little good by going. At
the instigation of the EARL OF MONTROSE, a
desperate man who was then in prison for
plotting, he tried to kidnap three Scottish
lords, who escaped. A committee of the
Parliament at home, who had followed to watch
him, wrote an account of this INCIDENT,
as it was called, to the Parliament; the
Parliament made a fresh stir about it; were (or
feigned to be) much alarmed for themselves,
and wrote to the EARL OF ESSEX, the
commander-in-chief, for a guard to protect them.

It is not absolutely proved that the King
plotted in Ireland besides, but it is very
probable that he did, and that the Queen did too