Page:Biographical catalogue of the portraits at Weston, the seat of the Earl of Bradford (IA gri 33125003402027).pdf/54

 the ensuing year he was summoned before the Council and sentenced to imprisonment for refusing to contribute to a loan (levied without the consent of Parliament), on which occasion he made a noble speech expressing his loyalty to the person of Charles the First and his desire to serve him in any way consistent with his duty to his country. On his release from prison he became a strong leader of the Opposition and an eloquent advocate of the famous 'Petition of Rights,' to which the King was compelled to yield his unwilling consent. Then suddenly came the adoption of that line of conduct, so differently judged and so differently accounted for by different biographers. Wentworth declared his conviction that the nation might now be content with the concessions made by the Crown, bade adieu to the party of the 'Pyms and the Prynnes,' walked over to the other side of the House and offered his services, head, heart, and sword, to the royal cause. By some he was termed a traitor, a time-server, an apostate, while others upheld the conduct of a man who chose the moment of impending danger to rally round the unsteady throne and the unpopular sovereign. Charles naturally received him with open arms, and loaded him with favours; but his old ally, Pym, meeting him one day, uttered these ominous words, 'You are going to leave us, but I will never leave you while you have ahead on your shoulders'; words too cruelly redeemed.

The murder of the Duke of Buckingham made way for Wentworth's advancement. Raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Wentworth, he was appointed Lord-Deputy and Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, and sailed for that 'distressful country' with a code for his own government, drawn up by himself, in his pocket, from which he never swerved. Lord Wentworth's administration of Irish affairs, his transient popularity, his reforms in matters civil, military, and religious, his quarrels with the Irish nobles, his punctilio