The fifteenth article charged that Strafford did traitorously 'by force of arms and in a warlike manner' strive to subdue Ireland to his arbitrary will by quartering soldiers upon private persons without warrant of law. Hallam thought this came nearer treason than anything of which he was accused, but that the cases proved were too few to constitute levying war. There was much hearsay evidence, but enough was proved to make out a strong case. Edmond Byrne testified that soldiers were quartered on him by the Lord Deputy's order for not paying 'a pretended debt of a matter of ten pounds' to a Mr. Archibald, and that they had done him damage to the value of 500_l._ The sixteenth article was directed against Strafford's system of denying appeals to England except through himself, and of preventing anyone from leaving Ireland without his leave. In this, as in many other things, he had found the practice in existence, and had carried it further than his predecessors, so that it was thought worthy of special complaint in the Remonstrance of the Irish Parliament. The nineteenth article was concerned with the imposition of the Black Oath on the Ulster Scots, and the fact was undeniable; but Strafford pleaded danger from the Covenant which bound 100,000 people in the North to their near neighbours and fellow-countrymen across the channel. The seventh, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth articles were postponed, and in the end were not proceeded with at all, and it was a Bill of Attainder and not a verdict of the Lords on the Impeachment that brought Strafford to the scaffold. It may be granted that none of the charges taken separately amounted to treason, but the Lord Chief Justice 'delivered the opinion of all the judges present upon all that which their Lordships have voted to be proved that the Earl of Strafford doth deserve to undergo the pains and forfeitures of High Treason by law.' It is evident that the majority of the Commons were determined to have the Lord Lieutenant's head, for they did not feel safe as long as he lived. St. John brutally said that the laws of chase were not for him, and that he should be hunted down without mercy as a beast of prey. 'Stone dead hath no fellow,' was Essex's answer when Hyde suggested a milder penalty. Nor can it be said that the fears of the Puritan party were unfounded. The King, after hearing every word of the evidence, admitted that Strafford was unfit to hold even a chief constable's place; but Charles was not to be trusted, and his word gave no guarantee that the hated statesman would not again be a minister and at the head of an army.[265] [Sidenote: The Irish army fatal to Strafford.] [Sidenote: Charles consents to Strafford's death,] [Sidenote: and perpetuates the Parliament.] [Sidenote: Execution of Strafford and disbandment of his army, May 1641.]