Now comes the story of the last days of one of Charles’s most noted counsellors—last days that, as in the case of many before him, were passed within the grim precincts of the Tower, and were the prelude to execution. On the 11th of November 1640, the Earl of Strafford was at Whitehall laying before Charles a scheme for accusing the heads of the parliamentary party of holding a treasonable correspondence with the Scotch army, then encamped in the North of England. Whilst he was with the King the news reached him that Pym at that very moment was impeaching him in the House of Commons on the charge of high treason. Strafford at once made his way to the House, but was not allowed to speak, and shortly afterwards heard his committal made out for the Tower. At the same time Archbishop Laud was arrested at Lambeth Palace, and carried off to the great State prison. “As I went to my barge,” Laud writes in his diary, “hundreds of my poor neighbours stood there and prayed for my safety and return to my home.” But neither he nor Strafford were ever to return to their homes. Perhaps Strafford’s life might have been saved had it not been for the King’s action, for when it became known that Charles had plotted with the hope of inducing the Scottish army to march on London, seize the Tower and liberate Strafford, the great Earl was practically doomed. The city rose as one man, a huge mob surging round the Houses of Parliament and the Palace of Whitehall, shouting “Justice.” For fifteen days Strafford faced his accusers and judges at Westminster Hall, his defence being a splendid piece of oratory. He proved that on the ground of high treason his judgment would not count, and his judges were compelled to introduce an Act of Attainder in order to convict him; but for the next six months he was kept in the Tower, uncertain as to his ultimate fate until the 12th of May 1641, when the Bill of Attainder was passed by the Lords.[3] Charles had sworn to Strafford that not a single hair of his head should be injured; but on the Earl writing to him and offering his life as the only means of healing the troubles of the country, the King yielded, and deserting his minister, gave his assent to the execution, and signed the warrant. On the following morning Strafford was led out to die. There is no more dramatic episode in the great struggle between Charles and his people than that when Strafford, amidst his guards, passed beneath the gateway of the Bloody Tower, where, from an upper window, his old friend, Archbishop Laud, gave him his blessing. The Archbishop, overcome, sank back fainting into the arms of his attendants. “I hope,” he is reported to have said, “by God’s assistance and through mine own innocency that when I come to my own execution, I shall shew the world how much more sensible I am to my Lord Strafford’s loss than I am to my own.”