Lord Strafford

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Chapter I Early Life 1593-1625

In that momentous struggle between the rival principles of Parliamentary Government and Monarchical Eule which fills the annals of our country throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century, the latter of the two contending theories is popularly and not unnaturally associated with the name and personality of Charles the First. The purpose of the following pages is to delineate the character and to trace the career of a man who might be much more justly regarded as the historical representative of the Absolutist cause — of a man who dedicated to it an intellect incalculably keener and a will immeasurably stronger than the most fanatical of cavaliers has ever attributed to Charles, and who sealed his loyalty to it in a higher sense than did his unhappy master by a death upon the scaffold. Of him it can be said, as it never could be said of the monarch who used and betrayed him, that if any man could have held firm the flood-gates of authority against the rising tide of democratic aspiration, it was he. To his powerful arm and to none other would the Trojans of Royalism have been justified in committing the defence of their citadel ; and IE B

STRAFFORD chap.

only from Im failure to preserve it could they have had a right to draw the Virgilian omen of an irresistible fate. He alone was entitled to appropriate the boast of Hector and to declare that

His life, in short, was the life of the Absolutist cause, his temporary mastery its fleeting hope, his defeat and death its destruction.

Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford and Baron Wentworth, was born in Chancery Lane on Good Friday, April 13th, 1693, at the house of his maternal grandfather Robert Atkinson, a bencher of Lincoln's Inn. He came of an old Yorkshire family which had been seated on the manor of Wentworth since the Conquest. His father, Sir William Wentworth, does not appear to have taken any active part in public life, but the family had in the course of its history given not a few servants to the State ; a Lord Chancellor and a Bishop were numbered among its members. The greatgrandfather of the subject of this memoir was in favour, it would appear, at the Court of Henry the Eighth, and the appendix to Radcliffe's collection of the Strafford Letters contains a curious grant under the hand of that monarch authorising his well-beloved subject, Thomas Wentworth, for " certain diseases and infirmities which he daily sustegneth in his hede,'* to wear " his bonet on his said hede " in the royal presence.

As the eldest son of an important county family, Wentworth, of course, received the education deemed

I EDUCATION AND FIRST MARRIAGE 3

necessary to fit him to become its head. He was sent at an early age to St. John's College, Cambridge, where, without being known to have particularly distinguished himself, he must have laid the foundations of a sound scholarship, and whence he bore away with him affectionate remembrances of his University, which were to reveal themselves on more than one occasion in later life. To the usual academical course he added a careful study of modem letters, and he appears to have sedulously trained himself in those arts of expression, oral and literary, which were afterwards to become such powerful weapons in his hands. A letter to Sir William Wentworth from a friend of the family, under date of 1611, when Thomas Wentworth had reached his eighteenth year, and was probably just concluding his university course, congratulates the father on the son's " honourable fortunes," and at the same time suggests that the younger brother William should be entered of the Middle Temple. He himself was to go through a steady course of legal training at a future period, but the first step towards the completion of his education was a year of continental travel. Accompanied by his tutor, the Rev. Charles Greenwood, a Fellow of University College, to whom he became much attached, and whom he afterwards warmly recommended to his nephew, Wentworth left England probably in 1611 or 1612 for the Continent, where he made a stay of some fourteen months. The only noteworthy or indeed known incident of the tour was his having made the acquaintance of Sir Henry Wotton, then our ambassador at Venice. On his return from abroad he appeared at Court, and was knighted by James the First. The origin of this honour seems pretty clearly indicated by the age of the recipient. Like his father's baronetcy, which was apparently conferred at the same time, they were probably granted by the royal founder of the latter title for a "valuable consideration." It had doubtless been procured for him in contemplation of his marriage, which took place at this time, to Lady Margaret Clifford, eldest daughter of Francis, Earl of Cumberland.

The year 1614 was an eventful one in Wentworth's life. It witnessed at once his attainment of his majority, his succession to the baronetcy and family estate by the death of his father, and his first entrance into Parliament as member for Yorkshire. His voice, however, was not heard during the single session of that shortlived assembly. "Till such time," he afterwards wrote to his nephew, " as experience hath ripened your judgment it shall be great wisdom to distrust yourself, and to fortify your youth by the counsel of your more aged friends before you undertake anything of consequence. It was the course that I governed myself by after my father's death, with great advantage to myself and affairs, and yet my breeding abroad had shown me more of the world than yours hath done, and I had natural reason like other men, only I confess I did in all things distrust myself, wherein you shall do, as I said, extremely well if you do so." We shall see hereafter how widely Wentworth's account by himself here given differs from the estimate formed of him by Clarendon.

Wentworth, however, had many other things to occupy his mind at the time besides public affairs. The estate to which he had succeeded was large for those days — six thousand a year ; and besides, in addition to

I APPOINTED CUSTOS ROTULORUM 5

the work always entailed by a succession, there had, at the same time, devolved upon him the care of the interests of two nephews, the sons of Sir George Savile, who had married his sister, and who died the same year as Sir William Wentworth. To this trust he dedicated himself with that energy and loyalty which were to be his most salient characteristics as a statesman, devoting minute and laborious study to the affairs of his wards, and personally attending the courts at every hearing of a long-protracted law-suit in which their property was concerned. This last sacrifice of time and labour, however, was no doubt made to serve a double purpose, for we know that he systematically studied law for several years at this period of his life, and was a regular attendant at the sittings of the Star Chamber.

From 1614 to 1621 no Parliament sat in England, but Wentworth soon found an opportunity of gratifying that desire for public employment which seems to have been always his strongest passion. In 1616 Sir John Savile, having for some cause or other made himself " impossible " as Keeper of the Records for the West Eiding of Yorkshire, received an intimation that he must resign his office, and being allowed to recommend a successor, he determined, or was induced — the form of appointment contains the words "out of his love," but this may be mere "common form" — to nominate Sir Thomas Wentworth, who was duly installed in the office. After two years* service, however, he was suddenly informed by Buckingham that the King had received Sir John Savile into favour again, — which, no doubt, being interpreted, meant that Savile had purchased the good offices of the favourite, — and that

Wentworth would do well to resign. But his Grace did not yet know the man he had to deal with. Wentworth was not to be so easily dislodged. He defended his post with spirit, pointing out that Savile's resignation had been a matter of necessity and for cause of misconduct, and declaring that if further pressed to resign, he would come up to London and make good his case. Buckingham gave way, with the graceful pliancy which came so easily to him when he had a purpose to serve ; but it is more than probable that he remembered the rebuff, and resolved to clear scores at the first opportunity which offered.

In 1621, after seven years' intermission, another Parliament was summoned, and Wentworth stood again as candidate for Yorkshire, in conjunction with Sir George Calvert, the Secretary of State. He, — or rather his fellow -candidate, for his own seat was regarded as safe, — was opposed by Sir John Savile; but official influence was brought to bear in favour of the Minister, after the usual unscrupulous fashion of the time, and both Wentworth and Calvert were returned. In the records of this brief Parliament, Wentworth has left behind him some traces of his individual action. He supported, with Pjon, a Bill for keeping the Sabbath, a fact which sufficiently indicates his then connection with the Puritan party. Also we find him, when the House was threatened with compulsory adjournment, urging the members to pass as many of the more important bills as they could in the shortened time. And on the resumption of their sitting he moved, in view of similar tactics on the part of the Crown, that no member leave town till the session was ended. In January 1622 the Parlia-

SECOND MARRIAGE ment was dissolved, to the grief of Wentworth, as he assured a friend, to whom he described the event as a disaster.

This year, moreover, was one to be remembered with sorrow on private grounds. In the summer he lost his wife by a fever contracted during his residence at Austin Friars, whither he had transferred his household in order to fulfil his parliamentary duties. He was himself visited with a severe attack of the same disease, which left him only to be followed by an ague, which troubled him for long afterwards.

To the last Parhament summoned by James in 1624 he was again returned — this time for Pontefract — and again sat as a silent member. On February 24th in the following year he married his second wife, Lady Arabella Holies, a younger daughter of Lord Clare, who became the mother of the children who survived him, his first wife having died without issue. In March 1626 James the First died. Writs were issued for a new Parliament, and Wentworth stood for York. He was opposed by a son of his old opponent^ Sir John Savile, but was returned. Savile petitioned, alleging illegality, and a new election was ordered, when Wentworth a second time secured the seat. With this event the important period of his career begms.

Chapter II The First Parliament Of Charles

1625-1628

Charles the First, though always subtle and often stubborn, was not a prince remarkable for either grasp of intellect or force of will ; but one may admit that even a much more abundant supply of both qualities might have failed to equip him adequately for the singularly difficult task which lay before him on his accession to the English throne. There have been many stronger players at the game of kingcraft than he, but few who ever sat down to the table with a worse hand. When, moreover, to the external difficulties of his position we add the constitutional defects of his character, we may well doubt whether from the outset he ever had any real chance of winning the game. The conditions adverse to him make up at any rate a most formidable array. A heavy legacy of debt bequeathed him from his father besides financial embarrassments of his own ; the reflected unpopularity of an ill-conducted continental war; a distrusted French Catholic wife and a detested Minister-favourite; the menace of a levelling religious movement^ daily allying itself ever more and more closely with new and dangerous political ideas ; — these troubles alone would have been

CHAP. 11 THE FIRST PARLIAMENT OF CHARLES 9

sufficient in all conscience to engross the energies of the strongest and to try the tactics of the most skilful of rulers. But in Charles's case the external enemy found treacherous confederates within the camp, and the unhappy King had to contend not only with hostile circumstance, but with the gravest moral and mental failings of his own — with a narrowness of vision which forbade him to see farther than those dangerous expedients of the moment which he saw all too clearly, with a coldness of heart which left him without any of those emotional promptings to honesty and staunchness which often supply the place of principle, and with a will at once obstinate and irresolute, wavering when firmness might have won the day, and immovable when concession was the only path of safety.

His first Parliament assembled at Westminster on June 10th, 1625, and Charles, whose needs were too pressing to admit of circumlocutory statement, told them in plain terms that he wanted money. His father had left £700,000 of debts : he had already contracted considerable liabilities of his own ; and the money voted for the war with Spain in the Palatinate was long since swallowed up. He did not hint at a peace ; he said, on the contrary, that the war must be pushed dti with vigour. He reminded the Parliament that they themselves had had recourse to arms, and that therefore, the war being their own work, the dishonour would be theirs if it were not followed up with spirit from a want of necessary supplies. Charles, however, had already anticipated some of these supplies in a manner which did not tend to predispose the Commons to liberality. During the interval between his accession to the Crown lo STRAFFORD chap.

and his summons of Parliament he had issued warrants for the levying of troops for the Palatinate, and had exacted a tax, or rather a forced loan, from the people in the form of "coat and conduct" money — as the charge for the equipments and transport of troops was called — the payers of the irregular impost receiving a promise of a payment from the Treasury. This and other grievances, and the increasing hatred of the Parliament for the allpowerful favourite, determined the character of their response. They limited their votes to two subsidies, amounting only to about £140,000, and the duties of tonnage and poundage not for life, as had been the practice for two centuries, but for one year only. The Bill, however, for thus limiting these duties was thrown out by the House of Lords, and Charles, much disgusted by the niggardly reply to his application, adjourned the Parliament, appointing it to meet again on August 1st at Oxford, London being at that time under a visitation of the plague. Here accordingly the Commons reassembled, but in no more pliable mood than before. They declined to alter their decision in the matter of tonnage and poundage, and broke out into fresh complaints of grievances. Charles endeavoured, not very happily, to quicken their movements by a hint that " the plague might touch them " if they were too dilatory, and that if they would not give answer about the supplies without loss of time, " he would take more care of their health " than they themselves seemed disposed to take, and shift for himself as he could. This threat of dissolution only drew from the House an address in which they declared themselves " abundantly comforted by his Majesty's care for their health," but

II WENTWORTH'S PARLIAMENTARY ATTITUDE ii

proceeded to notify their fixed intention of doing their utmost to discuss and reform the " abuses and grievances of the realm and State," and (but afterwards) to "afford all necessary supply to his most excellent Majesty upon his present occasions and designs," etc. The declaration, however, was never presented, for before this could be done the King dissolved the Parliament after an adjourned session of eleven days.

In this Parliament Wentworth sat as member for York, and took a more active part in its proceedings than he had done in those of either parliaments of the preceding reign. It becomes therefore of much importance to determine what his attitude was towards the Court and the popular party respectively at this his first really active participation in political affairs. It has been usually believed, and it is even now sometimes said, — principally indeed by those who have a motive for giving a more dramatic turn to his subsequent apostasy, — that he threw himself at once and unreservedly into the popular cause. The accessible evidence, however, does not seem to me to support this conclusion. It is true that Wentworth appears to have acted in the Parliament of 1625 with Pym, Selden, Sir Francis Seymour, Sir John Elliot, and others of their party ; that his name has ever since been associated with them in responsibility for all the protests and proceedings of that party in this Parliament; and that such historians as Hume, for instance, hesitate not to reckon him among their number. True it \% also that he was regarded by the Court as formidable enough to be worth including in the list of those whom it was ingeniously attempted, by a peculiar exercise of the prerogative, to prevent from serving in the next Parliament. But nevertheless it seems impossible to draw any other conclusion from documentary evidence brought to light in later times than that, even as early as 1625, Wentworth was no single-minded and disinterested opponent of the Court. Had he been so it is incredible that he should have amicably received overtures made to him by the hated favourite, and should even, as it seems he did, have complied with the request which they prefaced. Yet this in fact happened. Buckingham made advances to him through Weston, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, soliciting his good offices in Parliament, and was informed in reply that Wentworth would be ready " to serve him in the quality of an honest man and a gentleman." For this he received the Duke's thanks; and the treaty was some time later ratified by a personal interview. Wentworth, to quote his own words, received Buckingham's command "to kiss his Grace's hands" before leaving town, and on doing so was very graciously entertained. The favourite appears to have sent him away crammed with pretty speeches and fair promises, and he departed, as he says himself, " with a great deal of content and full security."

The interchange of such courtesies as these between one of the reputed leaders of the Opposition and the Minister against whom they were directing every parliamentary weapon within their reach would, even alone, have been a suspicious incident ; but matter of yet stronger suspicion is to come. Pressed by his necessities, Charles found himself compelled to summon a second Parliament, and in order to rid himself of a few of the most troublesome of the opponents of

II SHELVED AS SHERIFF 13

the Court in the last Parliament, the King appointed seven of them sheriffs of their counties, so as to disqualify them for parliamentary seats. Among them was Wentworth, who, naturally attributing the inclusion of his name to the instigation of Buckingham, was highly indignant at the supposed act of treachery on the part of a professed friend. Buckingham however, who was then in Holland, assured him, whether truly or falsely, that the appointment had been made entirely without his knowledge and after he had left England. Wentworth's suspicions were allayed, or so he allowed it to be believed, and within a very short time after the summons of Parliament, and before its meeting, we find him actually approaching Buckingham, through another minister, as a suitor for office. The moment, manner, and specific object of the application are one and all of so much significance that it is desirable to set out in extenso the letter in which it was conveyed.

"Sib Thomas Wentworth to Secretary Conway.

" My much honoured Lord — The duties of the place I now hold [the Keepership of the Rolls] not admitting my absence out of these parts, I shall be bold to trouble your Lordship with a few lines, whereas otherways I would have attended you in person. There is a strong and general belief with us here that my Lord Scroop purposeth to leave the Presidentship of York, whereupon many of my friends have earnestly moved me to some means to procure it ; and I have at last yielded to take it a little into consideration, more to comply with them than out of any intent or inordinate desire thereunto in myself. Yet, as on the one hand I have never thought of it, unless it might be effected with the good liking of my Lord Scroop, so will I never move further in it till I know also how the suit may please my

Ijord of Buckingham : seeing, indeed, such a seal of his gracious good opinion would compel me much, make the place more acceptable, and that I am fully resolved not to ascend one step of this kind except I may take along with me by the way a special obligation to my Lord Duke, from whose bounty and goodness I do not only acknowledge much already, but, justified in the truth of my own heart, do still repose and rest under the shadow and protection of his favour. I beseech your Lordship, therefore, be pleased to take some good opportunity fully to acquaint his Grace herewith, and then to vouchsafe (with your accustomed freedom and nobleness), to give me your counsel and direction, which I am prepared strictly to observe as one [who], albeit cheerfully embracing better means to do his Majesty humble and faithful service in these parts where I live, yet can with as well a contented mind rest where I am, if by reason of my many imperfections I shall not be judged capable of nearer employment and trust.

" There is nothing here to add for the present, save that I must rest much bounden unto your Lordship for the light I shall borrow from your judgment and affection herein, and so borrow it too as may better enable me more effectually to express myself hereafter.

" Your Lordship's most humble and affectionate kinsman to be commanded, T. Wentwobth.

" Wmtworth, the 20th of January 162|^."

Now when it is remembered that the post to which Wentworth then aspired was one of high authority, and that the applicant for it was a man still young in years, and who had never yet held any office of greater importance than that of Custos BotiUorum, it becomes difficult indeed to resist the suspicion that more and more valuable services must have been rendered by him to the favourite than any mere maintenance of a " benevolent neutrality'* towards him in the former Parliament.

II WENTWORTH AND BUCKINGHAM 15

Something more, too, than mere past expressions of good-will on Buckingham's part would surely appear to be indicated by Wentworth's reference to the Duke, as one " from whose bounty and goodness I acknowledge much already." Without a positive straining of charity it is hard to doubt that the relations between the Minister and the so-called Oppositionists must have been niuch such as became common enough in later days when ministers had perfected the arts of parliamentary management, and Opposition members had learnt to carry their parliamentary influence to the best market. In any case it must be felt by every one that the conception of Wentworth as a man who approached the Court with solicitations before the Court approached him with bribes, and as one who was a petitioner before he became a patriot, must materially modify, whether for the worse or not may be matter of opinion, the once popular historical estimate of his subsequent career.

It is to be assumed that Wentworth's application, as above set forth, was duly conveyed through Conway to Buckingham, and it is not impossible that that most arrogant of men was astonished at its audacity. Anyhow, the price asked was at the time regarded as too high — perhaps as preposterously so; and so far from entertaining the request the Duke seems suddenly to have come to the conclusion that the ambitious aspirant was not worth buying at all. He was out of Parliament and likely to remain so ; and instead, therefore, of conferring a new and important office upon him, it seemed a happy thought to deprive him of the minor dignity which he already enjoyed. Or if this were not Buckingham's idea, it must have been his master's. The fact at any rate is that shortly afterwards Wentworth was suddenly and without warning dismissed from the office of Keeper of the Rolls, the king's writ being actually handed up to him as he sat in Court. Excluded from Parliament and now publicly humiliated, he was in the fittest possible mood to volunteer for active service in that army to which up till then he had hardly more than nominally belonged. But his parliamentary disability for the moment paralysed him, and before the removal of that disability replaced him in a position to resume the offensive in the struggle with the Crown, he was destined to be compelled to defend himself against its attacks.

The Parliament of 1626 proved as intractable as its predecessor, and after a troubled session of four months — from February 6th to June 15th, during which Charles contrived to embroil himself quite gratuitously in a dispute on " privilege " with the peers by way of strengthening himself in his standing quarrel with the Lower House — it was dissolved. Thrown upon their own resources to obtain funds, the King and the favourite — the latter now with his back to the wall, for the Commons had, before the dissolution, demanded his impeachment — devoted their whole attention to the raising of money by illegal or disputable means. A warrant was issued under the Great Seal for levying duties on all imports and exports ; a commission was appointed to inquire into the arrears of fines due from Popish recusants, and to compound with them for immediate payments ; a circular letter was addressed to the nobility, gentry, and merchants reminding them that on pressing occasions it had always been the custom to exact contribu-

II THE FORCED LOAN 17

tions from the king's subjects, and £100,000 were at once demanded from the City of London under this claim. The capital and the seaport towns were, moreover, commanded to furnish ships, well armed and provisioned, for three months, for the defence of the coasts and the protection of the narrow seas. None of these exactions, however, nor all of them together, offering promise of a sufficient replenishment of the Treasury, the King was compelled to resort to a forced loan on something like a national scale. Orders were sent under the Privy Seal to men of all ranks requiring them to lend money to the King in proportion to their means ; and to Sir Thomas Wentworth, as a Yorkshire landed proprietor, there came a demand in this form for a sura of £40. Wentworth refused payment, and was summoned before the Commissioners at York. He replied with a deferential but dignified letter praying to be excused on the ground of health from attending the Commissioners on the day appointed by them, and thanking them for their " gentle proceeding " in having only summoned him, when they might have sent for him "by pursuivant,'* but adding that if they did not think good to grant him the further delay which he asked, he would wait upon them by the end of the week, " albeit I be carried on a litter." To the Commissioners, before whom he shortly afterwards presented himself, he made "fair and dutiful answers," but firmly refused to recede from his position. Thereupon he was summoned to London to appear before the Privy Council, to whom he displayed the same respectful but inflexible bearing. He was first committed to prison in the Marshalsea, and afterwards transferred to a sort of semiconfinement at Dartford in Kent.

L.

His detention, however, was not destined to last long, for Charles could live neither with Parhaments, nor, — until his present prisoner himself taught him the secret, — without them. An economical and prudent king, with exclusive control over his own foreign relations, might have been able to sustain a contest with the power that held the purse-strings; but Charles possessed neither economy nor prudence nor an independent foreign policy. He turned from a Parliament which refused to relieve his necessities only to throw himself into the arms of a Minister who continually increased them ; and the vain and reckless favourite, whose unpopularity did so much to alienate the Commons from their sovereign, was the very man whose costly counsels were perpetually compelling him to seek their aid. Buckingham's next and last extravagance was to embroil the King with France, and to organise and take command as general and adrairal-in-chief, though he possessed neither military nor naval experience, of the disastrous expedition to Eochelle, whence he returned, outgeneralled and outadmiralled, with a disgraced flag and the discontented residue of a decimated force, at the latter end of November 1627. Having now succeeded in inflaming the national hatred of him to the highest possible pitch, he had at the same time rendered it necessary for his "master to summon a new assembly of the nation's representatives. The debts of the Government for wages, shipping, and material alone were reckoned at nearly £200,000.