Str afford

[ The Statesman and the Historical Period of the Poem. ] It is so important that the reader of the tragedy of Str afford should start with a clear idea of the historical facts with which it deals, that I have included in my article the following extract from Profe or Gardiner’s Life of Str afford in the Encyclopædia Britannica . For the benefit of such of my readers as may have forgotten the fact, I may state that, before the earldom was conferred on Str afford, he was Sir Thomas Went worth:—“High-handed as Went worth was by nature, his rule in Ireland made him more high-handed than ever. As yet he had never been consulted on English affairs, and it was only in February 1637 that Charles asked his opinion on a proposed interference in the affairs of the Continent. In reply, he a ured Charles that it would be unwise to undertake even naval operations till he had secured absolute power at home. The opinion of the judges had given the King the right to levy ship-money; but, unle his Majesty had ‘the like power declared to raise a land army, the crown’ seemed ‘to stand upon one leg at home, to be considerable but by halves to foreign princes abroad.’ The power so gained, indeed, must be shown to be beneficent by the maintenance of good government; but it ought to exist. A beneficent despotism supported by popular gratitude was now Went worth’s ideal. In his own case Went worth had cause to discover that Charles’ absolutism was marred by human imperfections. Charles gave ear to courtiers far too often, and frequently wanted to do them a good turn by promoting incompetent persons to Irish offices. To a request from Went worth to strengthen the position of the deputy by raising him to an earldom he turned a deaf ear. Yet, to make Charles more absolute continued to be the dominant note of his policy; and, when the Scottish Puritans rebelled, he advocated the most decided measures of repre ion, and in February 1639 he offered the king £2000 as his contribution to the expenses of the coming war. He was, however, too clear-sighted to do otherwise than deprecate an invasion of Scotland before the English army was trained. In September 1639, after Charles’ failure in the first Bishops’ War, Went worth arrived in England, to conduct in the Star Chamber a case in which the Irish chancellor was being prosecuted for resisting the deputy. From that moment he stepped into the place of Charles’ principal adviser. Ignorant of the extent to which opposition had developed in England during his absence, he recommended the calling of a parliament to support a renewal of the war, hoping that by the offer of a loan from the privy councillors, to which he himself contributed £20,000, he would place Charles above the nece ity of submitting to the new parliament if it should prove restive. In January 1640 he was created Earl of Str afford, and in March he went to Ireland to hold a parliament, where the Catholic vote secured a grant of subsidies to be used against the Presbyterian Scots. An Irish army was to be levied to a ist in the coming war. When, in April, Str afford returned to England, he found the Commons holding back from a grant of supply, and tried to enlist the peers on the side of resistance. On the other hand, he attempted to induce Charles to be content with a smaller grant than he had originally asked for. The Commons, however, insisted on peace with the Scots; and on May 9th, at the Privy Council, Str afford, though reluctantly, voted for a di olution. After this Str afford supported the harshest measures. He urged the King to invade Scotland; and, in meeting the objection that England might resist, he uttered the words which cost him dear: ‘You have an army in Ireland’—the army which, in the regular course of affairs, was to have been employed to operate in the west of Scotland—‘you may employ here to reduce this kingdom.’ He tried to force the citizens of London to lend money. He supported a project for debasing the coinage, and for seizing bullion in the Tower, the property of foreign merchants. He also advocated the purchasing a loan from Spain by the offer of a future alliance. He was ultimately appointed to command the English army, but he was seized with illne , and the rout of New burn made the position hopele . In the great council at York he showed his hope that, if Charles maintained the defensive, the country would still rally round him; whilst he proposed, in order to secure Ireland, that the Scots of Ulster should be ruthle ly driven from their homes. When the Long Parliament met, it was preparing to impeach Str afford, when tidings reached its leaders that Str afford, now Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, had come to London, and had advised the King to take the initiative by accusing his chief opponents of treason. On this the impeachment was hurried on, and the Lords committed Str afford to the Tower. At his trial in Westminster Hall he stood on the ground that each charge against him, even if true, did not amount to treason; whilst Pym urged that, taken as a whole, they showed an intention to change the government, which in itself was treason. Undoubtedly the project of bringing over the Irish army—probably never seriously entertained—did the prisoner most damage; and, when the Lords showed reluctance to condemn him, the Commons dropped the impeachment, and brought in a bill of attainder. The Lords would probably have refused to pa it if they could have relied on Charles’s a urance to relegate Str afford to private life if the bill were rejected. Charles unwisely took part in projects for effecting Str afford’s escape, and even for raising a military force to accomplish that end. The Lords took alarm and pa ed the bill. On May 9th, 1641, the King, frightened by popular tumults, reluctantly signed a commi ion for the purpose of giving to it the royal a ent, and on the 12th Str afford was executed on Tower Hill.” [ The Tragedy. ] (Published 1837, and dedicated to William C. Mac ready.) Str afford , a tragedy in five acts (written for the stage at Mac ready’s request), has for its plot the impeachment of the Earl of Str afford and his condemnation and execution. It tells the story of the faithful statesman who loved his sovereign, and sacrificed his life from an almost insane devotion to an utterly unworthy man. The tragedy deals with a period of English history which was richer than any other in the a ertion of the rights of the people against the tyranny of their rulers. We are introduced to the band of patriots who secured for us the rights which are to-day the most precious heritage of every English man—the brave men who, like Hampden and Pym, resisted the system of forced loans, and the obnoxious tax called “ship-money.” Str afford has been carrying fire and sword through Ireland, and Charles is proposing to persecute the Scotch with similar severity. Went worth has answered the summons of the king, and has yielded to his request to undertake the Scotch war. He now begins to see how treacherous his sovereign is. Charles, by bribes and promises, has detached him from the people’s cause only to use him as a catspaw, to bear the hatred and fury of the people in his stead. Pym tries to win back “the apostate” to the cause of liberty. They loved each other as David and Jonathan; and the efforts of Pym to touch the heart of his friend, and win him from his chivalrous devotion to Charles to his duty to his country, are finely described in the play. But neither duty, danger, nor the imminent approach of death itself, can divert for a single moment the nobleman who is devoted body and soul to the wretchedest semblance of a “king by right divine” who ever secured such devoted service. Str afford, deaf alike to the calls of friendship and patriotism, serves one man only—Charles,—and leaves the patriots to fight for England as best they may. Lady Car lisle interposes her influence, warns Str afford of his danger, and begs him to secure his retreat while he may; but he is as little moved by the appeals of a woman’s love as by those more powerful and legitimate motives which he has refused to entertain. Such blind devotion to an ideal founded on so insecure a base could have only ruin for its end. Str afford leads the army to the north, is ignominiously defeated, finds that Charles has treacherously listened to proposals of reconciliation with the Scotch, and that the patriots are in league with them; returns to London, and determines to impeach the patriots, but finds his move anticipated. He is himself impeached, a bill of attainder against him is pa ed, and he is arrested and imprisoned in the Tower. Charles, who had promised that Str afford should not suffer in life, liberty, or estate for his devotion to his cause, makes no effort to save him, though nothing could have been easier than to have done so; and actually, after a little show of hesitation, signs his death warrant at the request of Pym. Pa ionately and entirely devoted to Str afford, Lady Car lisle has conceived a plan by which, with the King’s connivance, he may escape from the Tower. A boat has been brought to the river entrance of the fortre , and arrangements made for his escape to France; but Str afford refuses to run away from the country which demands his life, and will not let it be said to his children in after years that their father broke prison to save his head; and so, while he delays the acceptance of Lady Car lisle’s a istance, he is led to execution. He sees that not he alone, but the master who has betrayed him, must incur the vengeance of the outraged people of England; and his last words addre ed to Pym are to implore him (on his knees) to spare the King’s life. He feels that nothing will move the stern patriot from his sense of duty, and thanks God that it is himself who dies first. He expre es no word of ill-feeling against Pym, and goes bravely to death, the victim of a misplaced affection almost without parallel in our history. Str afford is a presentation of “naked souls,” as Dr. J. Tod hunter called it. “They are almost like Hugo’s personages, monomaniacs of ideas—Str afford of loyalty to Charles; Lady Car lisle of loyalty to Str afford’s infatuation; Pym of loyalty to an ideal England.... Browning has not left the King even a rag of conventional royalty to cover his nakedne . He has stript him with a vengeance.” How far Browning’s representation of the circumstances attendant on the impeachment and condemnation of Str afford is true to the actual facts must be left to the decision of the greatest authority on the history of the period—Profe or Gardiner. In his introduction to Mi E. H. Hickey’s Str afford , he says: “We may be sure that it was not by accident that Mr. Browning, in writing this play, decisively abandoned all attempt to be historically accurate. Only here and there does anything in the course of the drama take place as it could have taken place at the actual court of Charles I. Not merely are there frequent minor inaccuracies, but the very roots of the situation are untrue to fact. The real Str afford was far from opposing the war with the Scots at the time when the Short Parliament was summoned. Pym never had such a friendship for Str afford as he is represented as having; and, to any one who knows anything of the habits of Charles, the idea of Pym or his friends entering into colloquies with Str afford, and even bursting unannounced into Charles’s presence, is, from the historical point of view, simply ridiculous. So completely does the drama proceed irrespectively of historical truth, that the critic may dispense with the thankle task of pointing out discrepancies. He will be better employed in asking what ends those discrepancies were intended to serve, and whether the neglect of truth of fact has resulted in the highest truth of character.—For myself I can only say that, every time I read the play, I feel more certain that Mr. Browning has seized the real Str afford, the man of critical brain, of rapid decision, and tender heart, who strove for the good of his nation without sympathy for the generation in which he lived. Charles I., too, with his faults perhaps exaggerated, is the real Charles. Of Lady Car lisle we know too little to speak with anything like certainty; but, in spite of Mr. Browning’s statement that his character of her is purely imaginary, there is a wonderful parallelism between the Lady Car lisle which history conjectures rather than describes. There is the same tendency to fix the heart upon the truly great man, and to labour for him without the requital of human affection; though in the play no part is played by that vanity which seems to have been the main motive with the real personage.” It has frequently been said that Browning, in this play, has closely followed the story as given in the Life of Str afford by the late John Forster. The reason for this undoubted fact has recently been given to the world. In the Pall Mall Gazette , in the month of April 1890, Dr. F. J. Furnivall published the following letter, which a erts the late poet’s right to almost the whole of the Life of Str afford that has hitherto gone under the name of the late John Forster, in the second volume of the Lives of Eminent British Statesmen in Lardner’s “Cabinet Cyclopædia,” pp. 178-411, with the Str afford Appendix, pp. 412-21: “This volume was published in 1836. John Forster wrote the life of Eliot, the first in the volume, and began that of Str afford. He then fell ill; and as he was anxious to produce the book in the time agreed on, Browning offered to finish Str afford for him, on his handing over all the material he had accumulated for it. Forster was greatly relieved by Browning’s kindne . The poet set to work, completed Str afford’s life on his own lines, in accordance with his own conception of Str afford’s character, but generously said nothing about it till after Forster’s death. Then he told a few of his friends—me among them—of how he had helped Forster. On my telling Prof. Gardiner of this, I found that he knew it; and had been long convinced that the conception of Str afford in this Lardner Life was not John Forster’s, but was Robert Browning’s. The other day Prof. Gardiner urged me to make the fact of Browning’s authorship public; and I do so now, though I have frequently mentioned it to friends in private; and at the Browning Society, when a member has said, ‘It is curious how closely Browning has followed his authority, Forster’s Life of Str afford ,’ I have answered, ‘Yes, because he wrote it himself.’ We thus understand why, when Mac ready asked Browning, on May 26th, 1836, to write him a play, the poet suggested Str afford as its subject; and why, the Life being finished in 1836, the play was printed and played in 1837. The internal evidence will satisfy any intelligent reader that almost all the prose Life is the poet’s. It is not only little touches like these on pp. 182-3, describing James I., which reveal Browning,—‘He was not an absolute fool, and little more can be said of him... whenever an obvious or judicious truth seemed likely to fall in his way, his pen infallibly waddled off from it ’; on p. 227, ‘divers ill-spelt and solemn silline es from the King,’ the reference to the ‘Sordello’ Ezzelin [8] on p. 229, etc.,—but it is the conception and working-out of the character of Str afford, ‘ that he was consistent to himself throughout ,’ p. 228, etc., and that his one object was to make Charles ‘the most absolute lord in Christen dom,’ and that this explains all apparent inconsistencies and vanities in his conduct. Let any one read the following last paragraph of the Life , and ask himself if it is not the poet’s hand. Page 411: ‘A great le on is written in the life of this truly extraordinary person. In the career of Str afford is to be sought the justification of the world’s “appeal from tyranny to God.” In him Despotism had at length obtained an instrument with mind to comprehend, and resolution to act upon, her principles in their length and breadth; and enough of her purposes were effected by him to enable mankind to see “as from a tower the end of all.” I cannot discern one false step in Str afford’s public conduct, one glimpse of a recognition of an alien principle, one instance of a dereliction of the law of his being, which can come in to dispute the decisive result of the experiment, or explain away its failure. The least vivid fancy will have no difficulty in taking up the interrupted design, and by wholly enfeebling, or materially emboldening, the insignificant nature of Charles, and by according some half-dozen years of immunity to the “fretted tenement” of Str afford’s “fiery soul,”—contemplate then, for itself, the perfect realisation of the scheme of “making the prince the most absolute lord in Christen dom.” That done,—let it pursue the same course with respect to Eliot’s noble imaginings, or to young Vane’s dreamy asp i rings, and apply in like manner a fit machinery to the working out the project which made the dungeon of the one a holy place, and sustained the other in his self-imposed exile. The result is great and decisive! It establishes, in renewed force, those principles of political conduct which have endured, and must continue to endure, “like truth from age to age.”’ Take again a couple of pa ages of two and a half lines each on Str afford’s illne es, on page 369, and recollect that Browning owed much to Donne:—‘The soul of the Earl of Str afford was indeed lodged, to use the expre ion of his favourite Donne, within a “low and fatal room”... But even by the side of the body’s weakne we find a witne of the spirit’s triumph,—a vindication of the mightine of will!’ And on page 370—‘Then, when every energy was to be taxed to the uttermost, the question of his fiery spirit’s supremacy was indeed put to the i ue, by a complication of ghastly diseases.’ Are these and like pa ages by John Forster? No! They are Robert Browning’s Plenty of others have his mark, especially those pa ages analysing and philosophising on character. I have appealed to Me rs. Smith & Elder to reprint this Life of Str afford , with an Introduction by Prof. Gardiner; but I suppose that there is no copyright in it, as it has always gone under John Forster’s name. A uredly all students of Browning should have this Life on their shelves. I should say that Forster did not write more than the first four pages of it, and that Browning began with ‘James I. ... came to this country in an ecstasy of infinite relief,’ on page 182.” In this Life of Str afford there is a striking pa age on the question of that statesman’s “apostacy.” “In one word, what it is desired to impre upon the reader, before the delineation of Went worth in his after years, is this— that he was consistent to himself throughout . I have always considered that much good wrath is thrown away upon what is usually called ‘apostacy.’ In the majority of cases, if the circumstances are thoroughly examined, it will be found that there has been ‘no such thing.’ The position on which the acute Roman thought fit to base his whole theory of æsthetics— “Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plum as, Undique coll at is membris, ut turpiter atram Desinat in piscem mulier formosa supernè, Spectatum admi i risum tene at is, amici?” etc. is of far wider application than to the exigencies of an art of poetry; and those who carry their researches into the moral nature of mankind cannot do better than impre upon their minds, at the outset, that in the regions they explore they are to expect no monsters—no e entially discordant termination to any ‘Mulier formosa supernè.’ Infinitely and distinctly various as appear the shifting hues of our common nature when subjected to the prism of CIRCUMSTANCE , each ray into which it is broken is no le in itself a primitive colour, susceptible, indeed, of vast modification, but incapable of further division. [9] Indolence, however, in its delight for broad cla ifications, finds its account in overlooking this; and among the results none is more conspicuous than the long list of apostates with which history furnishes us. It is very true, it may be admitted, that when we are informed by an old chronicler that ‘at this time Ezzelin changed totally his disposition,’—or by a modern biographer that ‘at such a period Tiberius first became a wicked prince,’—we examine too curiously if we consider such information as in reality regarding other than the act done and the popular inference recorded; beyond which it was no part of the writer to inquire.—Against all such conclusions I earnestly protest in the case of the remarkable personage whose ill-fated career we are now retracing. Let him be judged sternly, but in no unphilosophic spirit. In turning from the bright band of patriot brothers to the solitary Str afford—‘a star which dwelt apart’—we have to contemplate no extinguished splendour, razed and blotted from the book of life. Lustrous, indeed, as was the gathering of the lights in the political heaven of this great time, even that radiant cluster might have exulted in the acce ion of the ‘comet beautiful and fierce,’ which tarried a while within its limits ere it ‘darted athwart with train of flame.’ But it was governed by other laws than were owned by its golden a ociates, and impelled by a contrary, yet no le irresistible force, than that which restrained them within their eternal orbits,—it left them, never to ‘float into that azure heaven again.’”—John Forster’s Life of Str afford , in the “Cabinet Cyclopædia” (conducted by Dr. Lardner), pp. 228-9. Notes. —Act I., Scene i. Pym , the great and learned champion of English liberty, was an intimate friend of Went worth, and deeply felt his desertion of the popular cause. Sir Benjamin Rudyard was a prominent member of the Long Parliament. When the quarrel broke out between Charles and the Parliament, Rudyard quitted his parliamentary pursuits and joined Hampden and Pym’s party. He opposed the attainder of Str afford. He ultimately became anxious for a compromise between the King and the Commons; he acted, however, to the last with the patriots. Henry Vane , Sir, the younger, was a disciple of Pym, and was of considerable talents and equal fanaticism. He purloined from his father’s cabinet a very important document, which was used against Str afford on his trial. After the Restoration he was brought to trial and executed. Hampden, John , a gentleman of Bucking hams hire, quiet, courteous, and submi ive; but with a correct judgment, an invincible spirit, and the most consummate addre . In 1626 he was imprisoned for refusing to contribute towards the forced loan; he resisted the payment of ship-money. He threw himself heartily into the work of the Long Parliament, and commanded a troop in the parliamentary army. He was a great patriot and defender of the rights of the people. Denzil Hollis, Lord : “In 1629, when the Speaker refused to put to the vote Sir John Eliot’s remonstrance against the illegal levying of tonnage and poundage, and against Catholic and Arm in i an innovations, Hollis read the resolutions, and was one of two members who forcibly held the Speaker in the chair till they were pa ed. He was in consequence committed to the Tower. He was one of the ‘five members,’ as they were called, whom Charles accused of high treason in January 1642. He took no part in the proceedings against Str afford, who was his brother-in-law” ( Imp. Dict. Biog. ). The Bill of Rights : the third great charter of English liberties must not be confounded with “the Petition of Right.” “The Bill of Rights” was pa ed in the reign of William and Mary, in 1689. “ much worn Cotting ton ”: he was amba ador to Madrid. “ maniac Laud ”: Archbishop Laud was detested by the Puritans because he endeavoured to a imilate the doctrines and ritual of the Church of England to those of Rome. He was charged by Holles with high treason, and executed. Runnymead : the place where Magna Charta was signed. renegade : one faithle to principle or party; a deserter of a cause. Haman : see the Book of Esther. Haman resolved to extirpate the Jews out of the Persian empire, but Haman fell and Mordecai was advanced to his place. Ahitophel was a conspirator with Absalom against David, who prayed the Lord to turn the counsel of Ahitophel into foolishne (2 Sam. xv. 31); whence the term “Ahitophel’s counsel.” League and Covenant : the “Solemn League and Covenant” was designed by the Scotch to carry out in their integrity the principles of the Reformation and to establish the Presbyterian in lieu of the Episcopal Church. Eliot : Sir John Eliot compared Bucking ham to Sejanus in lust, rapacity and ambition, in the House of Commons, and seconded the motion for his impeachment. Eliot was sent to the Tower. “ The Philistine ”: the giant slain by David. “ Exalting Dagon where the ark should be ” (1 Sam. v.). Dagon was an idol, half man and half fish. He was worshipped by the Philistines. When they captured the “ark” from the Jews, it was placed in his temple, the idol fell, and the palms of his hands were broken off. scourge and gag : instruments of torture well understood in those days. “ The Midianite drove Israel into dens ” (Judges vi. 2): the Israeli tes for their sins were oppre ed by Midian, and were compelled to hide from them in dens and caves of the mountains. Gideon : the Israeli tes prayed to God for deliverance from their enemies, and an angel sent Gideon, who destroyed Baal’s altar and delivered Israel (Judges vi.). Loudon : Scottish lord and covenanter; committed to the Tower for soliciting the aid of the king of France: he was sent to Scotland by Charles. Hamilton , Marque of: sent by Charles to Scotland as commi ioner to suppre the Covenant, he dared not land; was suspected of treason, and fled; was restored to the King’s favour, and became a leader of the royalists; was defeated by the parliamentary troops; fined £100,000, and executed. Joab : David, when dying, gave charge to Solomon to put his enemy Joab to death, which was done (1 Kings ii. 28-34). “ No Feltons ”: J. Felton a a inated Villiers, Duke of Bucking ham, and was executed. Gracchus : Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, the celebrated Roman tribunes, were after their death worshipped as gods, and their mother esteemed herself the happiest of Roman matrons in having given birth to such illustrious sons. The Petition of Right , the second great charter of English liberties, was directed against those grievances which Went worth thus described in his speech in the third parliament: “the raising of money by loans, strengthened by commi ion, with unheard-of instruction; the billeting of soldiers by the lieutenants.... Our persons have been injured both by imprisonment without law (the King exercised an absolute right to imprison any one without legal proceedings), and by being designed to some office, charge, and employment, foreign or domestic, as a brand of infamy and mark of disgrace” (Prof. Gardiner). Aceldama : “a field said to have lain south of Jerusalem, purchased with the bribe which Judas took for betraying his Master, and therefore called the field of blood ;—sometimes used in figurative sense” ( Webster’s Dict. ). Nathaniel Fiennes was the second son of William Fiennes; he was a lawyer, and in 1640 sat in the House of Commons for Banbury. He was a rigid Presbyterian, and a member of nearly all Cromwell’s parliaments. Ship money : “An imposition formerly charged on the ports, towns, cities, boroughs and counties of England, for providing and furnishing certain ships for the king’s service. The attempt made by Charles I. to revive and enforce this imposition was resisted by John Hampden, and was one of the causes which led to the death of Charles. It was finally abolished” ( Webster’s Dict. ). “ Went worth’s influence in the North ”: Went worth represented Yorkshire in parliament, and had great influence in the north of England.—Scene ii. “ Old Vane ” was secretary of state and comptroller of the household under Charles I. Savill : George Savill, Marquis of Halifax (?). Holland, Earl of : raised forces against the parliament after espousing its cause against Charles; he was tried after the King’s death and executed. “ Lady Car lisle was the daughter of the ninth Earl of North umber land. In 1639 she had been for three years a widow. Her husband was James, Lord Hay, created succe ively Viscount Don caster and Earl of Car lisle” (from Mi Hickey’s Str afford ). Weston, Sir Richard , Chancellor of the Exchequer, made Earl of Portland; denounced by Sir J. Eliot as an enemy of the Commonwealth. “ This frightful Scots affair ”: Profe or Gardiner shows that Str afford opposed peace with the Scots, supported the harshest measures, and urged the King to invade Scotland ( Encyc. Brit. , vol xxii., p. 586). “ In this Ezekiel chamber ”: in the eighth chapter of Ezekiel the prophet has a vision of the chambers of imagery where he saw “wicked abominations.” “ The Faction ,” a party acting in opposition to the constituted authority.—Act II., Scene i. “ Subsidies ,” says Black stone, were taxes, not immediately on property, but on persons in respect of their reputed estates, after the nominal rate of 4 s. in the pound for lands and 2 s. 8 d. for goods. cockatrice : “The basilisk; a fabulous serpent, said to be produced from a cock’s egg brooded by a serpent. Its breath, and even its look, is fabled to be fatal” ( Webster’s Dict. ). Star Chamber : “The origin of this court is derived from the most remote antiquity. Its title was derived from the Camera Stell at a or Star Chamber, an apartment in the king’s palace at Westminster, in which it held its sittings; it exercised an illegal control over the ordinary courts of justice, and in the reign of Charles I. became very tyrannical and offensive as a means of a erting the royal prerogative. It was abolished by the Long Parliament” ( Student’s Hume , p. 358).—Scene ii. The George : a figure of St. George on horseback, worn by knights of the Garter. A masque , a species of dramatic entertainment. Fletcher and Ben Jonson wrote many masques which were acted at Court. The most beautiful work of this kind is the Comus of Milton. Act III., Scene i.— The new Parliament : “The Long Parliament,” which met Nov. 3rd, 1640; it voted the House of Lords as usele . The Great Duke : Bucking ham.—Scene ii. Windebank , one of the secretaries of state, was impeached by the Commons for treason, and escaped to France. “ sly, pitiful intriguing with the Scots ”: “Charles, in his eagerne to conclude the negotiation, was induced to concede many points which he would otherwise have refused” (Lingard, Hist. Eng. , vol. vii., p. 232). “ The Crew and the Cabal ”: the “crew” was a number of people a ociated together; the “cabal” a number of persons united to promote their private views in church or state by intrigue. What is usually understood by the “cabal” was a name given to a ministry under Charles II., the initial letters of the names of its members forming the word cabal. Main waring, Dr. , a clergyman who preached in favour of the general loan. He was impeached by the Commons. Goring, Colonel : he was Governor of Portsmouth, was an officer of distinguished merit, and devoted to the King.—Scene iii., rufflers , bullies, swaggerers. “ Are we in Geneva? ”: Calvin’s city, where all sorts of puritanical restrictions were enforced against harmle amusements as well as breaches of morality. St. John, Oliver : St. John was Solicitor-General; he was one of the leaders of the Independents. stockishne , hardne , stupidity, blockishne (rare). Maxwell, Usher of the Black Rod. He received Str afford as his prisoner, after his impeachment, and required him to deliver his sword.—Act IV., Scene i. Hollis : Str afford was his brother-in-law, and so he took no part in the proceedings against him. “ A blind moth-eaten law ”: Str afford said on his trial that “it was two hundred and forty years since any man was touched for this crime.”—Scene ii. “ Prophet’s rod ”: “Moses took the rod of God in his hand” (Exod. iv. 20). Haselrig, Sir Arthur : was one of the five members of the House of Commons whom Charles tried to impeach. Laud, Archbishop : had been impeached by Sir Harry Vane, and was a prisoner in the Tower. Bill of attainder : The Student’s Hume says (p. 399): “The student should bear in mind the difference between an Impeachment and a Bill of Attainder . In an impeachment the Commons are the accusers, and the Lords alone the judges. In a bill of attainder the Commons are the judges as well as the Lords; it may be introduced in either House; it pa es through the same stages as any other bill; and when agreed to by both Houses it receives the a ent of the Crown.”—Act V., Scene ii. “ O bell’ and are ”: “The Italian boat-song is from Redi’s Bacco , long since naturalised in the joyous and delicate version of Leigh Hunt” (R. B.) Term , or Terminus : the Roman god of bounds, under whose protection were the stones which marked boundaries. Genius : the Italian peoples regarded the Genius as a higher power which creates and maintains life, a ists at the begetting and birth of every individual man, determines his character, tries to influence his destiny for good, accompanies him through life as his tutelary spirit, and lives on in the Lares after his death. (Seyffert’s Dict. Cla . Ant. ) “ Garrard—my newsman ”: was a clergyman who, when Went worth went to Ireland as Lord Deputy, in 1633, was instructed to furnish him with news and go ip. (Mi Hickey.) Tribune : in ancient Rome, a magistrate chosen by the people to protect them from the oppre ion of the patricians or nobles. Sejanus, Ælius : distinguished himself at the court of Tiberius, who made a confidant of this fawning favourite, who made himself the darling of the senate, and the army. He was commander of the prætori an guards, and used every artifice to make himself important. He became practically head of the empire. He ridiculed the Emperor by introducing him on the stage; Tiberius then ordered him to be accused before the senate; he was subsequently imprisoned and strangled, A.D. 31. Richelieu, Cardinal : fomented the first commotions in Scotland, and secretly supplied the Covenanters with money and arms. He was prime minister to Louis XIII. of France. “ A mask at Theobald’s ”: Theobald’s, in Hertfordshire, was a beautiful house, inherited by Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, from his father, William Cecil, Lord Burleigh. King James liked this house so much that, in 1607, he offered Robert Cecil the Queen’s dower-house at Hat field in exchange for it. Several of Ben Jonson’s masques were written for performance at Theobald’s. (Prof. Morley.) Prynne : William Prynne was a barrister of Lincoln’s Inn, of a morose and gloomy disposition, and a thorough-going Puritan; he particularly hated theatres, dancing, hunting, card playing, and Christmas festivities. He wrote a great book against all these things, which he called Histrio-Mastix . He was indicted as a libeller of the Queen, condemned to stand in the pillory, to lose both his ears, to pay £5000 fine to the King, and to be imprisoned for life. “ Str afford shall take no hurt ”: Charles had said to Str afford, “Upon the word of a king you shall not suffer in life, honour, or fortune.” “ Put not your trust in princes ”: Psalm cxlvi. 3. Wandesford : Sir Christopher Wandesford was Master of the Rolls, and Privy Councillor in Ireland, and had been deputy there during Str afford’s absence. He was an intimate friend of Str afford’s, and is said to have died of grief at hearing of Str afford’s arrest. (Mi Hickey’s Str afford .) Radcliffe, Sir George : was appointed by Str afford guardian of his children; he was charged by Pym with treason. Balfour : Lieutenant of the Tower. “ Too late for sermon at St. Antholin’s ”: the Government had appropriated the Church of St. Antholin to the use of the Scotch commi ion. (Mi Hickey.) Billing sley : Balfour was desired by the King to admit Captain Billing sley and one hundred men to the Tower to effect Str afford’s escape. (Mi Hickey’s notes.) “ I fought her to the utterance ”: the last or utmost extremity—the same as Fr. à outrance . “ David not more Jonathan ”: were inseparable friends. The allusion is to David the psalmist and Jonathan the son of Saul. David’s lamentation at the death of Jonathan was never surpa ed in pathos and beauty. (2 Sam. i. 19-27.) “ His dream—of a perfect church .” Laud wished to make the Church of England “Catholic”; he endeavoured to a imilate its doctrines and ceremonies to those of the Catholic Church, ignoring the fact that “the Tudor settlement” was Protestant. Laud desired to appropriate all that to him appeared valuable in the Roman Catholic system, and to reject all that to him seemed objectionable. His “perfect church” was, as Browning puts it, “a dream.”