It has always excited surprise that Wentworth Earl of Strafford appeared in Parliament at all. For even if he could have deceived himself so far as not to believe that impeachment and danger to his life awaited him, yet obviously he would have been much safer with the army, or in Ireland, or abroad. It has been said that he represented the whole case to the King[215], but that the latter, who still thought himself strong enough to protect his friends under all circumstances, reassured him, and requested his [A.D. 1640] presence on the ground that he could not dispense with his advice. We need not however believe that Strafford trusted to this assurance. He knew full well, and avowed the knowledge, that there was a necessity which overruled the King’s good-will, for owing to the presence of the Scottish army he was in a measure at the mercy of the Puritans. But his friends implored him to come, in order to prevent blunders and follies such as had already been committed. Very unwillingly he tore himself away from Wodehouse, his country seat: but he desired to obey the King’s wish, and not to be untrue to his party. Moreover he had some confidence in his cause: it is asserted that he had in his hands proofs of an alliance between his enemies and the Scots which could be construed as treason, and that he intended to found thereon an impeachment against them. Accusation against accusation: but the one depended on the notions of old English loyalty; the other had as its motive and aim the idea of parliamentary government: the former treated as high treason the alliance with the Scots, the latter the war against them. Their opposition corresponded to that between the chief combatants, and the principles embraced by each. Had the King obtained the upper hand in the field, perhaps the first might have prevailed: but after he had sustained a political defeat, the success of the second became more probable.