has been increased by the discovery that Pym and Hampden themselves were
against proceeding by Bill, and in favour of demanding judgment on the
impeachment. It seems certain, however, that Falkland pleaded against
extending the consequences of the Act of Attainder to Strafford's
children, and in this he showed himself a true gentleman.
Again, in the case of Laud, Mr. Arnold wishes to draw a strong line
between the conduct of his favourite and that of the savage "Puritans."
He says that Falkland "refused to concur in Laud's impeachment." If he
did, we must say he acted very inconsistently, for in his speech in
favour of the Bishops' Bill he violently denounced Laud as a
participator in Strafford's treason:--
"We shall find both of them to have kindled and blown the common fire of
both nations, to have both sent and maintained that book (of Canons) of
which the author, no doubt, hath long since wished with Nero, _Utinam
nescissem literas!_ and of which more than one kingdom hath cause to
wish that when he wrote that he had rather burned a library, though of
the value of Ptolemy's. We shall find them to have been the first and
principal cause of the breach, I will not say of, but since, the
pacification of Berwick. We shall find them to have been the almost sole
abettors of my Lord Strafford, whilst he was practising upon another
kingdom that manner of government which he intended to settle in this;
where he committed so many mighty and so manifest enormities and
oppressions as the like have not been committed by any governor in any
government since Verras left Sicily; and after they had called him over
from being Deputy of Ireland to be in a manner Deputy of England (all
things here being goverend by a junctillo and the junctillo goverend by
him) to have assisted him in the giving such counsels and the pursuing
such courses, as it is a hard and measuring cost whether they were more
unwise, more unjust, or more unfortunate, and which had infallibly been
our destruction if by the grace of God their share had not been a small
in the subtilty of serpents as in the innocency of doves."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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