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 down through Charles's fault or not cannot be said. Even if it was his fault, it was the more incumbent on him to gain over the majority of the peers by showing that he was resolved to seek Strafford's liberation from death by constitutional methods only. It is beyond doubt that he and the queen intended to save him by assisting him to escape, and at the same time were plotting to seize the Tower, where they expected Balfour, the lieutenant, to be ready to play into their hands, and to retire to Portsmouth, where they believed the governor, Goring, to be ready to admit them, and then to summon Irish and Dutch forces to their help, while a dissolution of parliament was to render their opponents helpless. Unluckily for Charles and Strafford, some of this plan was certain to leak out, especially as Goring was betraying to Pym so much as he knew of the secret. On 28 April the commons learnt that a vessel chartered by Strafford's secretary had been for some time lying in the Thames, evidently to enable him to escape, and the king's reiterated refusal to disband the Irish army increased their suspicions.

On the following day St. John, arguing on the legal point before the lords, denied that any consideration ought to be shown to Strafford. ‘We give law,’ he said, ‘to hares and deer, because they be beasts of chase; it was never accounted either cruelty or foul play to knock foxes and wolves on the head … because they be beasts of prey.’ It was the present, not the past, danger to which St. John and the commons were looking, and the lords were gradually coming round to the same conclusion. On 1 May Charles tried to stem the tide by assuring the peers that he had resolved that Strafford was unfit to serve him even as a constable. On 2 May, which happened to be a Sunday, took place the marriage of the Princess Mary to the Prince William of Orange, and there is little doubt that the prince brought over money to enable Charles to enter on an armed struggle with the commons. On the same day Captain Billingsley appeared at the Tower gate, asking in the king's name for the admission of a hundred men, only to find that Balfour, the lieutenant of the Tower, refused to let him in. Sir John Suckling, too, was collecting armed men under the pretence of levying them for Portuguese service. The next day London was wild with excitement. A mob beset the House of Lords, crying for justice on Strafford, and posted up the names of the fifty-nine members of the House of Commons who had voted against the bill of attainder as ‘Straffordians, betrayers of their country.’ Of course there were wild tales bandied about in addition to those now known to be true. Pym still attempted to shield the king, and carried the house with him in voting a protestation, binding those who took it to endeavour to suppress plots and conspiracies. On 4 May the protestation was taken by the lords. Rumours, this time of French intervention, were widely spread, and on 5 May Pym at last revealed his knowledge of the army plot and of the danger of Portsmouth.

The knowledge which the lords now possessed, or believed themselves to possess, of the intrigues of Charles and the queen was fatal to Strafford. They did their best to stop the queen's intended journey to Portsmouth, and on 8 May passed the attainder bill. All that was now wanting was the royal assent. Strafford had already acknowledged that he could no longer avoid his fate. He had already, probably on 4 May (for the date see Hist. of Engl. ix. 362 n.), asked Charles to pass the bill, and, by sacrificing his minister, to come to an agreement with his subjects. On the 8th, when the attainder bill was passed, London was wildly excited by a rumour that a French fleet had seized Guernsey and Jersey. The queen's carriage was actually at the door of Whitehall to carry her to Portsmouth. When she abandoned her design, the lords sent two deputations to urge Charles to assent to the bill. An armed mob flocked to Whitehall to enforce their request.

Strafford made one last effort. In a paper addressed to the king, he asked him to refuse to pass the bill except conditionally on its being understood that he was to pardon the earl in respect of life, or otherwise to set it aside in favour of another bill incapacitating the prisoner from all offices or from giving counsel to the crown, with the penalty of high treason annexed if the earl failed to fulfil these conditions (‘Papers relating to Strafford,’ ed. Firth, Camden Miscellany, vol. ix.). All through the next day, Monday the 9th, the king hesitated. Having obtained from the judges an opinion that Strafford had committed treason, he consulted four bishops. Juxon and Ussher advised him to stand firm; Williams urged him to yield. He could not make up his mind. A last attempt to bribe Balfour to forward his escape had failed, and Newport, who was now constable of the Tower, had announced that if the king did not assent to the bill he would have Strafford executed without legal warrant. The mob was again howling outside Whitehall and threatening violence to the queen and her mother. Before this latter menace Charles gave way, and