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ON 22 MARCH 1641 the vast space of Westminster Hall was packed with spectators for Strafford’s impeachment trial. There had never been a trial like it, with tickets sold to the public. Demand for the tickets outstripped supply and onlookers who could not get inside crowded at the doorways. The Junto’s intention was to see Strafford ‘sacrificed on the altar of public satisfaction’, the Venetian ambassador reported.1 What was said and seen in that room would be reported by word of mouth, in letters, and in print to a national audience.
The southern end of the hall had been set out in the same rectangular shape as the Chamber of the House of Lords, England’s court of last resort. The peers sat in long rows on benches opposite each other, dressed in crimson and ermine, the judges, bareheaded, sitting amongst them. Holland was absent, although he was due to be called as a prosecution witness. This may have been because of his hopes of being a bridge between the king and the more moderate members of the Junto. For the first time the entire Commons was also present with MPs seated on a grandstand of sharply rising tiers, juxtaposed on either side of the peers’ benches.2
Strafford stood in a panelled dock between the grandstands, his hair uncombed as a symbol of grief, his black suit adorned only with his George, the insignia of the Garter with the figure of St George killing the dragon of rebellion.3 He faced the raised dais on which sat the king’s empty throne and, beside it, a seat for the Prince of Wales. Viscount Saye and Sele had argued a few days earlier that the king’s sovereign authority was vested in the two Houses of Parliament while it was in session, and that his physical presence in the court would violate this premise. On this basis a committee of peers had decided that Charles would not sit on his throne, but in a box, of the kind seen in theatres, placed near the throne, but where he would be hidden behind a lattice screen. Court officials would not bow to the king, but to ‘the state’ represented so strikingly by the empty chair.4
Charles entered the hall at 9 a.m. with his wife and his tall, dark eldest son. Charles’s cloak glittered with the areole of the Garter Star. The prince, graceful in his movements, went and stood next to his seat, at the right hand of the throne. Charles walked on past the dais with the queen. When he reached the box allocated for him he sat down with his wife, then tore down the lattice screen. He would be seen, his visible expressions showing the support for his servant that he was determined to give.
The Scots and Strafford’s enemies in Ireland had been lobbying hard against Strafford, but this theatre of justice was no mere show trial. They did not have the judges and peers in their pockets. Strafford, meanwhile, was prepared to fight hard for his life. He had a wife, a son and three daughters waiting at home. He was also confident he had a strong defence, ‘which certainly he has much reason for’, Lucy Carlisle remarked, ‘both from his own innocence and the weakness of his charge’.5
Twenty-eight articles of impeachment were read out that first morning. The following day the prosecution began, led by Pym. It was easy to see why Pym had been chosen. He ‘was at that time … the most popular man and the most able to do hurt that has lived’.6 He could be a powerful performer in the Commons where his righteous conviction gave his speeches emotional force. But he was nevertheless humourless, bad at reading an audience, and slow to respond to a change in mood. Strafford, meanwhile, had no intention of allowing himself to be simply ploughed down by Pym’s rhetoric.
The most serious accusation Strafford faced was of seeking to introduce illegal and arbitrary government. Here the prosecution case suffered one outstanding difficulty. Pym argued Strafford had committed treason against the state. In English law treason was to act against the king. Charles’s evident support was a reminder that Strafford had acted for the king. ‘Sure,’ Strafford observed, ‘it is a very hard thing, I should here be questioned for my life and honour, upon a law that is not extant, that cannot be shown.’7
For over two and a half weeks Strafford picked apart the articles laid against him, calmly, politely, and with occasional flashes of scornful humour. Even a hostile spectator admitted, ‘when he speaks he does so with so much bravery … as begets admiration in all the beholders’.8 By contrast Pym’s ‘language and carriage was such’ it seemed he was expressing ‘personal animosity’ rather than seeking justice.9 Pym’s inner conviction was, this time, playing against his performance.
The Scots and their allies feared that Strafford might even be found innocent. If so, he could return to office and strike back against them on Charles’s behalf. The Irish army was still standing, as was the humiliated English army, its soldiers left unpaid while money poured into Scottish coffers. English officers were now petitioning their desire to get back at the invaders, ‘if the perverse endeavours of some [traitors] do not cross us’.10 The Junto knew that drastic action had to be taken to bring the trial to its conclusion and the guilty verdict they needed.
The key witness against Strafford was a former Secretary of State, Sir Henry Vane, whose enmity was personal. Vane claimed Strafford had intended to use the Irish army to subdue the English and not merely the Scottish rebels. His testimony was uncorroborated and flatly contradicted by other councillors. Vane’s son and namesake, a youthful former governor of Massachusetts, had, however, found his father’s council meeting notes and had passed them on to Pym. With the prosecution case slipping away, Pym decided to deploy Vane’s stolen documents.
On 10 April the prosecution lawyers asked to introduce their new evidence. Strafford countered that, if so, then he should be allowed to introduce new evidence of his own. This would inevitably drag out proceedings and, given Strafford’s winning performance thus far, would likely cost the prosecution their case. When the Lords accepted Strafford’s request, the Commons men in the grandstands erupted in anger. Pym’s party shouted at the prosecution counsel, ‘Withdraw! Withdraw!’ In the heat of the moment many MPs heard this as ‘Draw! Draw!’ and reached for their swords. To calm the situation the Earl of Southampton called for the Lords to adjourn, but as the peers filed out of the hall, the Commons followed still in ‘great confusion’, crowding at the doors in a ‘tumultarie’.
Strafford looked on, smiling in the knowledge that he might now be saved. Charles, in his box, laughed aloud.11 Their celebration was to be short-lived.
Strafford’s enemies had already found a way around the difficulties of a trial. In the crush at the doors, heading for the Commons Chamber, was Lord Brooke’s brother-in-law Sir Arthur Hesilrige.12 He had in his pocket a white scroll in which the charges against Strafford had been redrafted as a bill of attainder. The plan was to deny Strafford any further hearing. The trial had failed but he could simply now be pronounced guilty, and condemned by Act of Parliament. A fellow MP, Sir Philip Stapilton, introduced the bill in the House of Commons that afternoon.13
Attainder was not a tool, however, likely to appeal to anyone who revered common law, and some MPs saw it as threatening ‘judicial murder’.14 Time also remained on Strafford’s side. Anti-Scots and anti-Junto feeling was building, not least over Scottish demands for the abolition of episcopacy. Plenty of Englishmen wanted ‘leave to make laws in England ourselves without their directions’, and prayed ‘God for the church’s safety’ from Presbyterians.15
Charles sent Strafford a letter reassuring him ‘upon the word of a king, you shall not suffer in life, honour or fortune’. This was ‘but justice and therefore a very mean reward from a master to so faithful and able a servant’. The king signed himself ‘Your constant, faithful friend, Charles R’.16
Charles hoped to bring round the more moderate elements within the Junto to find a compromise that would preserve Strafford’s life. Henrietta Maria, encouraged by Holland, was also anxious to help. Not only was her own safety threatened by the Junto radicals, so was that of the king’s Catholic subjects, whom it was her duty to protect. In an unpublished letter to Richelieu, recommending the merits of a Catholic who had fled into exile, she described a ‘storm that is falling upon the poor Catholics of this land’.17 The role of conciliator was a traditional one for a queen. Henrietta Maria seized this opportunity to take it up. Years later, in France, she would give dramatised accounts of the night-time conferences she now had with ‘the worst’ members of the opposition – by which she meant Pym. Their meetings took place at the foot of the back stairs to the rooms of one of her ladies-in-waiting, their faces lit only by the torches they carried.18
Pym not only had clandestine meetings with the queen. He also saw the king. Charles offered high offices for Junto members in exchange for assurances that Parliament would grant the Crown adequate revenue to replace his tax-raising powers, that episcopacy in England would be preserved – and that Strafford’s life would be spared. Junto moderates were willing to accept this. Unfortunately there were also several figures who shared the Scots’ view that the only way to guarantee that Strafford would never again be restored to office was to cut off his head. ‘Stone-dead hath no fellow’, as the Earl of Essex put it.19
The arrival in London of the fourteen-year-old Prince William of Orange should have been a cause for national celebration. He represented the valiant Dutch rebels against the might of Habsburg Spain, as well as being the groom for Mary, to whom her father had given the title ‘Princess Royal’. Prince William had, reportedly, brought gifts worth upwards of £23,000 as well as a substantial sum in gold. This generosity had, however, raised concerns amongst Junto hardliners that Charles would use it to pay the army’s arrears. There were already rumours of a Royalist plot by discontented army officers. If Parliament was now adjourned for the wedding celebrations, the army might ensure Parliament would never be recalled.20
On 21 April a crowd of 10,000 ‘ready at command’ of the hardliners and ‘upon a watch word given’, descended on Westminster.21 Three officers of the City militia handed in a petition carrying 20,000 signatures calling for Strafford’s death. With the mob at the gates, MPs passed the attainder bill against Strafford and sent it up to the Lords. Strafford asked for mercy, that he might ‘go home to my own private fortune, there to attend my own domestic affairs, and education of my children’. But, he observed, if things went differently and ‘I should die upon this evidence, I had much rather be the sufferer than the judge’.22
On 26 April, the peers passed the first reading of the attainder bill. Army officers, meanwhile, issued a new petition complaining of ‘ill-affected persons’ using mob violence to overawe Parliament and threaten the king. A diplomat reported nervously that ‘Every one fears that if the fire of these differences is not extinguished by the more prudent, it will finally break out in a terrible civil war.’23
On 1 May, following another, failed attempt to reach out to hardliners, Charles went to Parliament to intervene himself in the debates on Strafford’s fate.
Again he sought compromise. He accepted that Strafford had committed misdemeanours which required punishment, but not that he had committed treason. Kings were answerable directly to God for their actions. To sign the death warrant of someone he believed to be innocent would be a grave sin. ‘I hope you know what a tender thing conscience is,’ Charles told the Lords, ‘and no fear or respect will make me go against it.’24 He then issued a warning. He would not disband the Irish army until the Scots had left England. This statement left open the possibility that he might yet deploy the Irish army in England. The king’s speech ‘astonished us’, an MP recorded. This was, perhaps, what Charles intended. He had given notice that he was taking a stand.
The following day was Princess Mary’s wedding. The mood in London was fearful and behind the scenes Charles had made one of his ‘extreme resolutions’.25 The ceremonies were to provide cover for a plot to spring Strafford from the Tower.