dead man. The assassin was John Felton, a young Puritan officer, who had conceived a deadly hatred against Buckingham on account of having been disappointed of his promotion when serving in the expedition against Rhé. "Our noble duke," writes Lord Dorchester," in the greatest joy and alacrity I ever saw him in my life, at news received about eight o'clock in the morning of Saturday last, of the relief of Rochelle, wherewith he was hastening to the king, who had that morning sent for him by me, at his going out of a lower parlor, in presence of many standers-by, was stabbed into the breast with a knife by one Felton, a reformed lieutenant, who hastening out of the door, and the duke having pulled out the knife and following him out of the parlor into the hall, with his hand put to his sword, there fell down dead with much effusion of blood. The Lady Anglesea, then looking down into the hall, went immediately with a cry into the duchess's chamber, who was in bed, and there fell down on the floor. The murderer in the midst of the noise and tumult slipped out into the kitchen, when a voice being current in the court, 'A Frenchman! a Frenchman!' his guilty conscience making him believe it was 'Felton! Felton!' he came out of the kitchen, said, ‘I am the man,' and rendered himself to the company."

So terrible a tragedy, its victim the foremost man in the kingdom, created a profound sensation, and not a detail respecting the history of the murderer, the sorrow of the king, the grief of the widow, the burial of the duke, and the sentiments of the nation upon the dread event is omitted in the State Papers before us. There we learn how Felton had come "from London expressly the Wednesday, arriving at Portsmouth the very morning, not above half an hour before he committed the deed;" how "he gloried in his act the first day, but when told that he was the first assassin of an Englishman, a gentleman, a soldier, and a Protestant, he shrank at it, and is now grown penitent; how it was wished to have him

racked, should the law sanction such punishment, to find out his accomplices;" how "he confessed his offense to be a fearful and crying sin,' and requested that he might do some public penance before his death, in sackcloth, with ashes on his head and ropes about his neck;" how verses were written in his honor, and how he was hanged at Tyburn, and the body then carried to Portsmouth to be suspended in chains. There we read how "the king took the duke's death very heavily, keeping his chamber all that day, as is well to be believed; but the base multitude in London drink health to Felton, and there are infinitely more cheerful than sad faces of bitter degree;" how "there never was greater demonstration of affection than his majesty showed to the deceased duke in all which concerns his honor, estate, friends, and enemies, whom he cannot well look upon if any come in his way;" how "the king omitted nothing which may in any way concern the doing honor to the body of the duke," and how the corpse was privately interred in the Abbey to escape the fury of the mob; and how passionate was the sorrow of the bereaved duchess. Still in the nation at large, though it regretted the act of the assassin, few beyond the king and the widow mourned the death of the duke. "The stone of offense being now removed by the hand of God," writes a courtier, "it is to be hoped that the king and his people will come to a perfect unity."

The vacancy left in the councils of the king by the murder of Buckingham was soon to be filled up by a far more dangerous favorite, Thomas Wentworth, later earl of Strafford. In the first three Parliaments summoned by Charles he had sided with the popular party, not because he was opposed to the policy of the Crown, but because he detested, with a malignity which knew no rest, the man who was then the adviser of the king and the sole minister of the nation. He is the first on the list of those English statesmen who have gone into factious opposition, not because they disapprove of

the measures of the government, but because they hate the minister who suggests them.

It is absurd to class Wentworth in the same category with the leaders of the popular party, with Eliot, with Pym, with Hampden. He was no friend to democracy; he had no wish to see the prerogative domineered over by the Parliament; if there was to be a battle between the sovereign and the subject, he did not desire to see the latter supreme. In his sympathies, in his prejudices, in his views of government, he was thoroughly the aristocrat. When he stood forward as the opponent of the Crown, he was always most careful to distinguish between the acts of the sovereign and the acts of the minister. After the passing of the Petition of Right, he severed himself entirely from his colleagues. He had no sympathy with the course the House of Commons was then pursuing. He made overtures to the Court, which were accepted; the death of Buckingham removed the great bar to his progress, and henceforth the chief author of the Petition of Right was to be the firm friend and confidential adviser of the king.

XXXVIII.

TRIAL OF STRAFFORD.-MOZLEY.

[After the dissolution of his third Parliament the king entered upon a course of absolute power. For eleven years he refused to summon the representatives of the nation. Ably seconded by Strafford and Laud, he attempted to establish an "enlightened despotism," and at one time it seemed as if he might succeed. But the petty ecclesiastical measures of Laud not only roused strong opposition in Engiand, but so exasperated the Scots that they rose in rebellion. Attempts to pacify them failed, and in the spring of 1640 Charles was forced to call a Parliament. He quarreled with it, however, and sent it home in disgrace. But the Scotch difficulty was increasing, the king was unable to meet it, and so he reluctantly summoned his fifth Parliament. This was the famous Long Parliament; and it proceeded at once to call the king's ministers to account. In its eyes Strafford was the arch criminal.]

STRAFFORD came up to town late on Monday, rested on Tuesday, came to Parliament on Wednesday, and that very night was in the Tower. The Lower House closed their doors, and the speaker kept the keys till the debate was over, when Pym, attended by a number of members, went up to the Upper House, and, in a short speech, accused, in the name of the Commons of England, Thomas, earl of Strafford and lordlieutenant of Ireland, of high treason. The sudden step astounded the Lords; word went to Strafford, who was just then closeted with the king; he returned instantly to the House, called loudly at the door for Maxwell (keeper of the black rod) to open, and, with firm step and proudly darkened countenance, marched straight up to his place at the board head. A host of voices immediately forced him to the door again. The consultation over, he was called back and stood before the House. "Kneel, kneel," he was told; he knelt, and on his knees was delivered into the custody of the black rod, to be a prisoner till cleared of the Common's charges. He offered to speak, but was commanded to be gone without a word.

The black rod bore off his great charge, and apparently felt his importance on the occasion. In the outer room,” says Baillie, "James Maxwell required him, as a prisoner, to give up his sword. When he had got it he cried with a loud voice for his man to carry my lord-lieutenant's sword. This done, he makes through a number of people toward his coach, all gazing, no man capping to him before whom that morning the greatest of England would have stood discovered; all crying, "What is the matter?” He said, "A small matter I warrant you." They replied, "Yes, indeed, high treason is a small matter." Coming to the place where he expected his coach, it was not there, so he behoved to return that same way, through a world of gazing people. When at last he found his coach, and was entering, James Maxwell told him, "Your lordship is my prisoner, and must go in my coach." This great step taken, the Commons were all activity. Pursuivants dispatched to Ireland and the north sounded the trumpet, and summoned all who had any complaint against the lord-deputy and president to appear at the approaching trial. Strafford was busily employed with his counsel in the Tower preparing his defense.

Four months passed, and the two sides met to encounter in the court of justice, before they tried their strength at Marston Moor and Worcester. On the 21st of March, Westminster Hall, railed and platformed, and benched, and scaffolded up to the roof, showed an ascending crowd of heads-judges, lawyers, peers of Parliament, Scotch commissioners, aggrieved gentlemen from the north, incensed Irish lords; the look of strife, of curiosity, and here and there of affection and pity, turned, in the excitement of the opening trial, on the illustrious prisoner. From a high scaffold at the north end an empty throne looked disconsolately over the scene, a chair for the prince on ore side of it, which he occupied during the proceedings. Before it "-the accurate and characteristic account of an eye-witness shall continue the description

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