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WEN opinions of the people." Knowing that the army was the keystone of the vast superstructure which he was striving to rear, he spared no pains to increase its numbers and efficiency, and to improve its discipline and its equipments. He directed his earnest attention also to the improvement of trade and commerce, though rather for the purpose of establishing a permanent revenue, than with the view of promoting the public prosperity. Under his superintendence the produce of the customs rose within five years from £12,000 a year to £40,000, the shipping increased a hundred fold, and the linen manufacture, which has proved such a blessing to Ireland, was introduced. Wentworth's economical opinions, however, were by no means sound or liberal, and his measures were often arbitrary and oppressive. He projected a gigantic monopoly of woollen cloth and salt for the benefit of the king and himself, and farmed the exclusive privilege of retailing tobacco. In order to increase the revenue of the crown, he caused the court lawyers to find or make flaws in the titles of the estates, in the whole province of Connaught. He browbeat and terrified by his threats the juries who were summoned to try the validity of these deeds, and when the jury at Galway refused to find a verdict for the crown, he fined the jurors £4000 each, and the sheriff who had selected them £1000, and also cast that official into prison, where he soon after died. His treatment of all who ventured to thwart his schemes, or to interfere with his personal inclinations, was equally arbitrary and unjust. "For a word," says Macaulay, "which can scarcely be called rash, which could not have been made the subject of an ordinary civil action," Wentworth dragged Lord Mountnorris, the treasurer of Ireland, and a kinsman of his second wife, before a court-martial composed of his own creatures, and wrung from them a sentence of death, which was passed, though not actually inflicted upon the unhappy victim of this tyrannical proceeding. He was, however, deprived of all his offices, and ruined—the object which the deputy boldly avowed he had in view in bringing him to trial. The treatment which Lord Ely, the chancellor, experienced, was still more scandalous. The lord-deputy had debauched the daughter of that nobleman, and then commanded him to settle his estate in a manner agreeable to the wishes of the lady. The chancellor refused, and Wentworth immediately turned him out of office, and threw him into prison. No wonder that proceedings such as these raised a loud and daily increasing clamour, both in England and Ireland, against the government of the lord-deputy; but secure in the favour and support of the king and his ministers, he set his enemies at defiance, and carried out his ambitious and daring policy with unflinching firmness. He made a hasty visit to England in May, 1636, and was received with the highest favour by Charles and the lords of the council. Brief as was his stay he found time to go down to Yorkshire, where he gave his energetic support to the collection of the obnoxious ship-money, which in that county alone was borne without murmurs or threats.

To the successful prosecution of Wentworth's plans, however, it was essential that peace should be maintained both at home and abroad. But fortunately for the liberties of the country, Laud's foolish innovations on their forms of worship roused against the government the whole Scottish nation, who flew to arms in defence of their most sacred rights. In this extremity the counsel and aid of Wentworth were urgently solicited by the king, and, though labouring under a severe illness, he hastened over from Ireland with troops and money, and made arrangements for bringing over a much larger force. Charles now spontaneously conferred upon him an honour which he had twice before solicited in vain, and created him Earl of Strafford and Baron Raby. and invested him with the title of lord-lieutenant of Ireland—a title which had remained in abeyance since the days of Essex. His advice was taken respecting the measures which should be adopted to coerce the refractory Scots, and he applied himself with characteristic energy to raise supplies for the contest. But all his efforts were vain. The royal troops would not fight in such a quarrel, and the king was compelled to conclude a treaty with the Scots, and to summon the famous Long parliament. Strafford was well aware of the danger to which he was now exposed, and entreated the king to allow him to return to Ireland. Charles, however, knew the value of his minister's services at this crisis, and refused; at the same time pledging himself that "not a hair of his head should be touched by the parliament." But as soon as the houses met, the first step of the popular party was to impeach their formidable enemy of high treason; and on the 18th of November, 1640, Pym carried up the indictment to the bar of the house of lords. The earl was immediately taken into custody, and a committee, consisting of the leading members of the popular party, was appointed to draw up the charges against him. The proceedings were conducted with unusual pomp and solemnity. The grand object of his accusers was to prove him guilty of a systematic attempt to subvert the fundamental laws of the country, and with this view twenty-eight articles of impeachment were exhibited against him; but it was not alleged that more than three of these amounted to high treason. Strafford made an intrepid and masterly defence. Though labouring under a severe attack of stone and gout, and with a constitution completely shattered both by anxiety and sickness, he spoke with extraordinary energy and eloquence, and continued day by day, single-handed, to baffle the attacks of his accusers. The tide of popular feeling, which ran strongly against him at the outset, now began to turn in his favour. "Never any man," wrote Whitelocke, who was the chairman of the committee of impeachment, "acted such a part, in such a theatre, with more wisdom, constancy, and eloquence, with greater reason, judgment, and temper—with a better grace in all his words and gestures—than this great and excellent person did; and he moved the hearts of all his auditors, some few excepted, to remorse and pity." On the 10th of April the leaders of the prosecution asked permission of the lords to bring forward fresh evidence on a concluded article. Strafford requested that the same liberty should be granted to him as was allowed to his accusers. They very unfairly opposed his demand, but the lords pronounced in his favour. The commons, inflamed with party spirit, received this decision with loud murmurs of disapprobation, and after a debate with closed doors, Pym proposed that the impeachment should be abandoned, and brought forward a bill of attainder, which was adopted by the house.—(See .) The justice of this course may fairly be questioned, and no impartial person can doubt that it was most unfair to impeach the witnesses whom Strafford intended to call in his defence, with the sole intention of depriving him of their testimony. At this juncture too, Pym produced a note made by Sir Henry Vane the elder, of an opinion said to have been expressed by Strafford at the council board respecting the employment of the Irish army "to reduce this kingdom to obedience."—(See .) This note, which had been in Pym's possession for months, was stolen by the younger Vane from the cabinet of his father, and though really worthless as a piece of evidence—to say nothing of the disgraceful manner in which it was obtained—was, as we are told by May, the principal cause of the death of Strafford. In his first memorable defence, delivered on the 13th of April, the earl exposed with singular ability and unanswerable argument the weakness and worthlessness of this evidence; but the commons were determined to have his head, and on the following day read the act of attainder a second time by a great majority, which included both Falkland and Hyde. It was read a third time on the 21st, when two hundred and four members voted in favour of the measure, and fifty-nine against it. The house of lords, overawed by armed rioters, by a small majority found Strafford guilty on two charges; and Charles, who had given the earl a solemn pledge on the word of a king, that he should not suffer "in life, honour, or fortune," with singular baseness and ingratitude, as well as shortsighted policy, gave his assent to the bill. On learning that this had been done, Strafford, laying his hand on his heart, and raising his eyes to heaven, uttered the memorable words—"Put not your trust in princes, nor in the sons of men, for in them there is no salvation." Three days were allowed him to prepare for death. On the day of his execution (12th of May, 1641) Towerhill was crowded by an immense multitude, on whom the dignified composure and firmness of the fallen minister produced a visible effect. His step and manner, says Rushworth, were those of "a general marching to breathe victory, rather than those of a condemned man to undergo the sentence of death." After a brief and affecting address to the friends around him, he laid his neck upon the block, and his head was cut off at one blow. The more severe consequences of his punishment were mitigated to his children by the parliament within a few weeks of his death; and in the succeeding reign his attainder was reversed, and his son restored to the earldom.

Strafford was the ablest instrument of tyranny that England has ever produced. He was a man of extraordinary energy of