BOOKS.
MR. TRAILL ON STRAFFORD.*
THE battle which raged around Strafford in his life has raged round his memory ever since, and on the whole, though the verdict tends to vary with the political views of the jury, the verdict of posterity has confirmed the verdict of his contem- poraries. Mr. Trail must have the credit of having brought new life and light into a somewhat worn-out controversy, and as he more or less openly proclaims his belief in the Royalist view rather than in that of the Parliamentarians, if the light which he sheds on his hero is not a favourable one, we have no reason for regarding it with suspicion. He tells his story in his usual agreeable fashion, and puts his points with force and freshness.
Our judgment of Strafford's character and career must be largely coloured by the judgment which we form of his conduct at that critical period of his life when he passed from the Parliamentary into the Royalist camp. At the age of thirty-five, after having served in several Parliaments, and in three of them at least having posed as a Puritan, having been put under arrest while Parliament was not sitting for refusing a forced loan, and in the Parliament of 1628 having taken a leading part in opposing the Crown, even outbidding Eliot and Pym as the leaders of the opposition, suddenly, at the end of the first Session of the Parliament of 1628, Sir Thomas Wentworth was gazetted Baron Wentworth, and in a few weeks made President of the Council of the North. What is the explanation of this voile-face? Why was Wentworth pro- moted to office and power, while Eliot and his friends were sent to prison, many of them to linger there for years, Eliot to die there? Mr. Traill sums up the possible hypotheses as four in number, three of which assume that Wentworth was sincere in his Parliamentarism ; but the fourth is founded on the assumption that the Parliamentarism was only a cloak to conceal his ambitious designs. The three first may be described as the conversion theory, the glamour theory, and the bribery theory. The last was the one which naturally presented itself to Wentworth's former colleagues. They saw him acting with them, in many cases going further than they did, and in no case being less loud in opposition than they ; and then suddenly, within a space of time which certainly cannot be put higher than three weeks, and was in all probability much less, blossoming out as a supporter of the Government, elevated to the peerage and to office. Finally, a- few weeks later, on taking his official seat at York as the head of one of those branches of arbitrary government—the Star Chamber of the North— against which they and he had been inveighing most loudly, they could have heard him making a speech which Mr. Train understands, and which certainly must have sounded to Eliot and Pym, as a public condemnation of the very rights of Parliament and of the subject which they and be had been up-
Lord Strafford. "English Men o Lette•,.." By H. D. Train. London : Macmillan an I Co.
holding, and as an approval of that very arbitrary power, not only in the State but in the Church, which they and he had been attacking. Seeing, too, the way in which, both in the North and afterwards in Ireland, Wentworth used his power when he had got it, no wonder they dubbed him the "Great Apostate," and when the day of reckoning came, would be satisfied with nothing but his head. It is clear that this is even Clarendon's view of him. But Professor Gardiner, in his History, has laboured the view that he was honestly converted, that he was always more opposed to Buckingham than to the King, and was opposing, not the Crown but the Minister ; and he certainly manages to weave a very satisfactory and consistent story to support his view. Mr. Trail rejects this theory, partly on the ground that there was not time—barely three weeks—for the conversion to be erected, partly because years before, and on repeated occasions„ Strafford had entered on negotiations with Buckingham, and had actually applied for the very place of the Presidency of the North which he eventually obtained. He maintains that Strafford never was at heart a patriot, but merely took up the patriot trade because he wished to advertise himself and force the Court to buy what they would not give. He might have also commented on the fact that no one else was converted with him. When Hyde went over, he went over with a party, and after a stiff Parliamentary struggle. When Wentworth deserted, he deserted alone, and without an effort to reconcile his former and his future friends.
Mr. Traill appears to think that his theory is better for Strafford's character than that either of Gardiner or of Clarendon ; and he defends it by the conduct of the modern M.P. who wins his way to the Treasury Bench by attacking the Treasury from below the gangway. This analogy, how- ever, does not hold. The man below the gangway does not. oppose the Treasury Bench on Opposition principles, but on Ministerial principles, and his complaint invariably is that the Treasury Bench does not go far enough in carrying out the principles he and they alike profess. But Strafford, ea hypothesi, professed principles the very opposite to those he held. And it is surely worse to be, as Mr. Train maintains that Strafford was, alike a hypocrite and a traitor, than to be either a feeble convert or a traitor merely. It is at least questionable, however, whether we are narrowed down to such cut-and-dried formulw as to be obliged to select one or other of these four alternatives in their entirety. It may well be that Strafford began public life as a Puritan and a patriot, because he was so bred; that he was ambitious, and. so sought Government employment ; that when it was denied him, and the office he had got—not by very creditable means seemingly—taken from him, he went, being a violent man, bon,i fide into Opposition, and equally bond fide went out of' opposition when the employment he had sought was offered him.
Whatever were the means by which Wentworth attained office, nothing can excuse his conduct in office. There cannot be the smallest doubt that he had a temper and character of ferocity and overbearingness to his inferiors, coupled with a. servility to those above him, which made him a fitting instru- ment of Charles. Even Laud, much as he approved the policy of "Thorough," writes to reprove his violent and ferocious, way of doing things, and tells him not to be so personal in his attacks. Wentworth himself is constantly saying that he knows that he will be accused of violence ; he has been so constantly traduced all his life. His correspondent Girard is continually repeating to him—by way of warning, clearly, though he of course professes that he does not agree with them—what people say of his arrogance and revengefulness. Wentworth even quarrels with his own brothers and sisters, and complains, like the single juryman of the obstinacy of his eleven colleagues, of the persistency with which people impute malice to him. The incidents of his pursuit of young Bellasis in Scotland for a supposed personal affront, and of his vindictive malice against Lord Mountnonis in Ireland, are enough to disprove all claim to the magnanimity sometimes attributed to him. Lord Mountnorris, Vice-Treasurer, and a relation of Strafford's second wife (he had three) was at first one of Strafford's favourites in Ireland ; but Strafford had clearly had some per- sonal quarrel with him, probably because he was not sufficiently subservient, as he complains to the King of his "overweening and impertinent behaviour" in venturing to differ and give reasons for his differences. However, matters being in this
state, at a review In Dublin Strafford publicly rebuked the Vice-Treasurer's brother, an officer, for what does not precisely appear. Probably, however, the young man took the cause to be, what it probably was, that he was the Vice-Treasurer's brother ; and on rejoining his brother-officers, he was seen, according to Wentworth, to laugh and jeer at him. Instead of turning his "blind eye" on, Wentworth though General com- manding in chief as well as Viceroy, rode back and put his riding-whip across his shoulders, saying if he did it again, he would break his head. A little while afterwards, another relation of Lord Mountnorris, at a Dublin Court, happened to knock a stool against Wentworth's gouty leg. At a private dinner at the Chancellor's—Lord Mountnorris's enemy, and who, it appears, was anxious that his son should supplant him in the Vice- Treasurership—this incident being talked of, Lord Mount- norris said that it might be thought that it was done for revenge, "but he (Lord M.) had a brother who would not take such a revenge." For these words, Lord Mountnorris, on secret authority obtained from the King in July for a " speedy " trial, was but not until December following, court-martialed as a Captain in the Army, and also pro- ceeded against, under a Special Commission, for corruption as Vice-Treasurer. At the court-martial Wentworth pre- sided, evidence was actually given by other members of the Council who formed part of the Court, and though Wentworth said he took no part in the deliberations of the Court on their finding, he probably took part in the trial itself, and certainly delivered the sentence of death. How Professor Gardiner can have come to the conclusion that this was technically a correct sentence, nothing but the desire to back up a novel theory can explain. Mr. Trail is not a D.C.L. for nothing, and riddles the suggestion as a lawyer with most convincing arguments. It was simply a travesty of justice ; and the legal chicanery employed only made the proceeding the more monstrous. This incident was followed by almost equally violent pro- ceedings against Wentworth's former favourite, Lord Loftus, the Irish Chancellor whom he committed to prison for contempt of the Court of Castle-Chamber, which proceedings were due, on Clarendon's evidence, to illicit intercourse with the Chan- cellor's daughter-in-law. Two such cases, and they were not the only ones of high-handed tyranny, were quite enough to rouse deadly hostility against Strafford, even if he had not been a deserter from the popular camp.
Nor can it be urged that Strafford was merely actuated by motives of pure loyalty in all he did. He was always asking for an earldom as a reward ; he packed Ireland with his relations and friends ; though he professed to detest "non-residence and pluralities lay or ecclesiastic." He held himself the Presi- dency of the North, in conmendam, with the Viceroyalty of Ireland ; and we find him, on at least one occasion, calmly writing to his agent in England, that if his rents have not come in sufficiently to enable him to pay a certain rent for farming the customs, the agent was to help himself out of the Receipt—i.e., Treasury—at York, and repay it when rents came in.
Altogether, Strafford is not an easy person to whitewash.
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