Strafford came to London on November 10, and that evening had an audience at Whitehall: next morning he appeared in the Upper House to take his seat, and then repaired again to Whitehall. There he was informed that the Commons were busy with an impeachment against him: he replied that he would look his enemies in the face. On this morning, the 11th, the chamber in which the Commons assembled was closed and the key laid on the table, in order that no one might absent himself, and no stranger might come into the house. All other business was set aside, in order that the house might devote itself to the impeachment of Strafford. A committee of seven members, among whom were Pym and Hampden, was deputed to draw it up: after their draft had been approved, Pym himself was appointed to carry it to the Upper House. At the head of about three hundred members he [A.D. 1640] appeared before them: ‘My Lords,’ said he, ‘in the name of the Commons of Parliament and of the country I impeach Thomas Earl of Strafford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, of high treason. I am commissioned to request that he be removed from Parliament and committed to prison.’ The Lords had come to no conclusion when Strafford, with haughty and lowering demeanour, entered the house and went towards his seat. In the morning he had been received by every one with respect, now a hollow murmur greeted him. He might have intended to take part in the debate, and so have the opportunity of at once taking his own line, but he was obliged to retire into the antechamber until a resolution was taken respecting him. The Upper House could not well do otherwise than assent to the request of the Commons. The Viceroy, who in the morning was regarded by most men as lord and master of the executive power of England, was seen in the afternoon to kneel at the bar of the Upper House, and in obedience to the commands which he there received, follow the gentleman-usher to his house as a prisoner[216]. Prosecution was now of necessity directed also against the man whom the English and Scottish Puritans regarded as the source of those torrents of destruction which had overflowed the Church, Archbishop Laud. On December 18 an impeachment for high treason against him was laid before the Upper House, and his arrest ordered. Rising from prayer in his chapel, he entered the barge which was to carry him to the Tower: he was confident of so defending himself before Parliament as to make the justice of his cause obvious; but had this been more irreproachable than it was, he had as little chance of making it prevail, before a Parliament such as was then assembled, as the Puritans had had before his own spiritual tribunals.