_A._ It began November the 3d, 1640. My Lord of Strafford was impeached of treason before the Lords, November the 12th, sent to the Tower November the 22d, his trial began March the 22d, and ended April the 13th. After his trial he was voted guilty of high-treason in the House of Commons, and after that in the House of Lords, May the 6th, and on the 12th of May beheaded. _B._ Great expedition; but could not the King, for all that, have saved him by a pardon? _A._ The King had heard all that passed at his trial, and had declared he was unsatisfied concerning the justice of their sentence. And, I think, notwithstanding the danger of his own person from the fury of the people, and that he was counselled to give way to his execution, not only by such as he most relied on, but also by the Earl of Strafford himself, he would have pardoned him, if that could have preserved him against the tumult raised and countenanced by the Parliament itself, for the terrifying of those they thought might favour him. And yet the King himself did not stick to confess afterwards, that he had done amiss, in that he did not rescue him. _B._ It was an argument of good disposition in the King. But I never read that Augustus Cæsar acknowledged that he had done a fault, in abandoning Cicero to the fury of his enemy Antonius: perhaps because Cicero, having been of the contrary faction to his father, had done Augustus no service at all out of favour to him, but only out of enmity to Antonius, and out of love to the senate, that is indeed out of love to himself that swayed the senate; as it is very likely the Earl of Strafford came over to the King’s party for his own ends, having been so much against the King in former Parliaments. _A._ We cannot safely judge of men’s intentions. But, I have observed often, that such as seek preferment, by their stubbornness have missed of their aim; and on the other side, that those princes that with preferment are forced to buy the obedience of their subjects, are already, or must be soon after, in a very weak condition. For in a market where honour and power is to be bought with stubbornness, there will be a great many as able to buy as my Lord Strafford was. _B._ You have read, that when Hercules fighting with the Hydra, had cut off any one of his many heads, there still arose two other heads in its place; and yet at last he cut them off all. _A._ The story is told false. For Hercules at first did not cut off those heads, but bought them off; and afterwards, when he saw it did him no good, then he cut them off, and got the victory. _B._ What did they next?