THE SALISBURY LINE 223
it in England. The accusation stung the Earl to the quick. ' The report is so false," he writes to Windebank, " as there can be no man either of honour or honesty that dare avow any such thing. ... I am infinitely sensible of this aspersion so falsely laid upon me, and did not my conscience tell me how clear I am, I should not have a quiet hour, especially if any such report should come to his Majesty, who I know is so just as he will not easily believe that I am guilty of so much want of duty, either to know or to publish any- thing to his disservice : my actions, past and to come, have and shall ever justify the contrary." The matter coming to the knowledge of the King, the accused lords were able, without diffi- culty, to clear themselves of the " scandalous charge," and the " false and seditious paper " was damned by proclamation and publicly burnt by the hangman. 1
The value of Salisbury's protestations of loyalty was soon to be proved. In September, 1640, he was one of the fifteen noblemen, " all popular men," chosen by the King as com- missioners to treat with the Scots at Ripon. 2 After this he sat on the fence, afraid to throw in his lot completely with either party. His sympathies seem always to have been with the Parliament, and that his abilities were not so negligible as Gardiner supposes is proved by the fact that the Lords, in December, 1641, resolved
1 Cal. S. P. Dom. ; Charles I., XIV. 294, 402, 432, etc. 1 Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, ed. 1826, I. 274, 279.
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