enemies, and reinstate him in more than his old
arbitrary power— the power which poor Strafford had
lost his head for trying to consolidate and extend.
On Monday, the 3rd of January, 1641-2, while
the Commons were listening moodily to the royal
answer which refused the train bands and offered
himself, the king, as their protector, the Lords
were listening to an impeachment of five
members of the Lower, and one of the Higher House,
on seven counts of treason. The Lords were
"appalled," not knowing where all this was to
end; and, in spite of their royalist predilections,
not willing to be delivered over, handbound
and footfast, into the power of the king, they
waived the demand of Attorney-General
Herbert for the immediate possession of the accused,
and sent a message to the Commons to demand
a conference; and though they had before
refused to join in the request for a guard, they now
did so, earnestly enough. Lord Digby, who had
all along known of this intended arrest—which
quite disposes of the question of spontaneity—
and who was to have moved the commitment of
Lord Kimbolton—the member of the Upper
House unavoidably, from his position as one of
the Scottish commissioners, included in the fray
—was so taken aback by his calm and resolute
demeanour, that he failed his part, and whispering
in his ear, with great seeming agitation, that
the king was very mischievously advised, and
that it would go hard but he would find out who
had so advised him, hastily quitted the House.

While all this was passing, Pym was speaking
in the Commons on the necessity of a guard,
little knowing how near he and others were to
the need of some such protection; when, in the
midst of his speech, servants and messengers
came hurrying to the House with the news that
all the trunks, papers, &c., found in the lodgings
of Denzil Holles, Pym, and Hampden, had been
seized and sealed by the king's order. Close
on the heels of these, and in the thick of the
noisy agitation produced by the information,
came Mr. Francis, the king's serjeant-at-arms,
bearing the mace and a message, and demanded
admittance on the king's business. The Commons
made him put down his mace, and come
up to the bar humbly, without sign or symbol
of independent rank or outside allegiance; and
there, standing suitor at the bar, he, in the
king's name, did demand the persons of the five
members, namely, Denzil Holles, John Pym,
John Hampden, Sir Arthur Hazelrigge, and
William Strode, who had fallen under the royal
displeasure as traitors and misdemeanants. When
he had done speaking, Mr. Francis was civilly
turned out again, and bade to wait while the
answer was being considered: which was not
likely to be a very subservient one. The House
first proceeded to its ordinary business. The
impeached members were ordered to attend
from day to day in their places, no notice
whatever being taken of the king's charge of high
treason; an order for a guard was passed at
once, without deliberation or delay; another
order was made to break open the seals placed
on the trunks and papers of certain members,
and to arrest the men who had imposed them—
Sir William Fleming, and Sir William Killigrew;
but the latter was not to be found. And then
the last act of the Commons that great day was
to send their answer to the king by four of their
own members, two of whom were privy
councillors, to the effect that the House was willing
to take into consideration any legal charge
against any of its members, which his Majesty
had to make. All this time the unhappy man
Francis was kept at the door of the Commons,
as a kind of sign and symbol that the king's
messenger had no recognised position there, had
no footing by reason of right, and that the
House was perfectly competent to do its own
business without help from the king's majesty.

It was midnight when that deputation of four
arrived at Whitehall. Charles did not waste
much courtesy on them. He spoke only to one
—Falkland, whom lately he had made his privy
councillor, to detach from the parliament, and
whose loyalty and conscience jarred fearfully
together during the warlike times that came.
Addressing him only, he promised an answer
the next day—it was always the next day with
Charles—then went straight to the queen's
apartments, full of this latest insult and wrong.

The queen, who, womanlike, reasoned less
than did even Charles himself, and who, womanlike
again, believed that great results could be
accomplished with insufficient means, thought
Charles had only need of determination to make
his will triumphant over every obstacle. " Allez,
poltron!" she cried; " go pull these rogues out
by the ears, ou ne me revoyez jamais!" The
king made no answer, and left the apartment.
But whatever the issue of the morrow might be,
there was one precaution he must take; he
must prevent that guard the Commons spoke of.
So he sent to the Lord Mayor, the Royalist
baronet whom he had so lately honoured, ordering
him not to grant a guard to the House, but
to enrol one for himself instead. They kept bad
time at Whitehall, with clocks an age too slow
—significant; Charles the First always had his
clocks too slow! The messenger found the
Lord Mayor in bed, and found also that Ven
and Pennington, the House of Commons'
messengers, had been before him. So Charles took
nothing by that move, and the order remained
as before. What great events may have been
lost—and gained— to history by the bad
timekeeping of the Whitehall clocks!

The next day, the fourth, Pym read out the
seven charges of high treason which the king
had made against him and the rest, and with
consummate skill and cleverness turned them all
against the court; Holles, Hazelrigge, and Strode
rose to defend themselves; and Hampden made
a masterly speech. They complained of the
number of armed men about the court; of the
dissolute ruffians whom Charles had feasted at
Whitehall, and gathered by hundreds around
him; and, even while they were speaking,
Charles, at the head of five or six hundred of
these desperadoes, was preparing to set out for
the House, to take by force what neither law