Page:Biographical catalogue of the portraits at Weston, the seat of the Earl of Bradford (IA gri 33125003402027).pdf/61

 one of his biographers, to uphold the liberty of the subject against such despots as James the First. On the accession of Charles the First, Lord Bedford continued the same independent line of conduct, and several times fell under the displeasure of the Court. In 1628 he distinguished himself by his steadfast advocacy of the famous Petition of Rights (to which Charles was in the end compelled to give an unwilling consent); and he received in consequence the royal commands to betake himself to the distant county of Devonshire, of which he was Lord-Lieutenant. Both political bias and private friendship attached him to the so-called popular party, which laid down as their principle for action 'to prescribe limits to the monarchical power.' The profession of such opinions naturally led to the fact that Lord Bedford, among many others, became an object of suspicion to the Court. A rumour was set on foot that he had been instrumental in the circulation of a seditious pamphlet, and on this plea he was arrested and imprisoned for a short time. In 1630 he took a prominent part in the drainage of the Fens in the centre of England, including the counties of North Hants, Lincoln, Hunts, Bedford, Cambridge, and Norfolk; called the Great Level, and subsequently in his honour the Bedford Level. In 1637 this generous and public-minded man had expended for his own share of this great work £100,000, but he was not destined to witness its completion. The part that Lord Bedford took in the political events of the day—in the struggles between King and Parliament, in the differences with the Scots—is not all this written in the chronicles of the civil wars of Charles the First's disastrous reign? Suffice it to say that some of the popular Lords, and Lord Bedford in particular, became aware of the advisability of moderation, and the necessity of curbing the headlong opposition of the popular party. But we cannot do better than to quote the eloquent words of the great historian Lord Clarendon (then