to the danger of the commonwealth, as they have done in this Parliament, 1640. In all the Parliaments of the late King Charles before the year 1640, my Lord of Strafford did appear in opposition to the King’s demands as much as any man; and was for that cause very much esteemed and cried up by the people as a good patriot, and one that courageously stood up in defence of their liberties; and for the same cause was so much the more hated, when afterwards he endeavoured to maintain the royal and just authority of his Majesty.
B. How came he to change his mind so much as it seems he did?
A. After the dissolution of the Parliament holden in the years 1627 and 1628, the King, finding no money to be gotten from Parliaments which he was not to buy with the blood of such servants and ministers as he loved best, abstained a long time from calling any more, and had abstained longer if the rebellion of the Scots had not forced him to it. During that Parliament the King made Sir Thomas Wentworth a baron, recommended to him for his great ability, which was generally taken notice of by the disservice he had done the King in former Parliaments, but which might be useful for him in the times that came on: and not long after he made him of the Council, and after that again Lieutenant of Ireland, which place he discharged with great satisfaction and benefit to his Majesty, and continued in that office, till, by the envy and violence of the Lords and Commons of that unlucky Parliament of 1640, he died. In which year he was made general of the King’s forces against the Scots that then entered into England, and the year before, Earl of Strafford. The pacification being made, and the forces on both sides disbanded, and the Parliament at Westminster now sitting, it was not long before the House of Commons accused him to the House of Lords of High-Treason.
B. There was no great probability of his being a traitor to the King, from whose favour he had received his great-
