rtiers about him were rallying from their
first panic. His French Queen, furious at what she looked on as insults
to royalty, and yet more furious at the persecution of the Catholics,
was spurring him to violent courses. And for violence there seemed at
the moment an opportunity. In Ireland Strafford's army refused to
disband itself. In Scotland the union of the nobles was already broken
by the old spirit of faction; and in his jealousy of the power gained by
his hereditary enemy, the Earl of Argyle, Lord Montrose had formed a
party with other great nobles, and was pressing Charles to come and
carry out a counter-revolution in the North. Above all the English army,
which still lay at York, was discontented by its want of pay and by the
favour shown to the Scottish soldiers in its front. The discontent was
busily fanned by its officers; and a design was laid before Charles by
which advantage might be taken of the humour of the army to march it
upon London, to seize the Tower and free Strafford. With the Earl at
their head, the soldiers could then overawe the Houses and free the king
from his thraldom. Charles listened to the project; he refused any
expression of assent; but he kept the secret, and suffered the plot to
go on, while he continued the negotiations with the Parliamentary
leaders.

[Sidenote: Death of Strafford.]

But he was now in the hands of men who were his match in intrigue as
they were more than his match in quickness of action. In the beginning
of May, it is said through a squabble among the conspirators, the army
plot became known to Pym. The moment was a critical one. Much of the
energy and union of the Parliament was already spent. The Lords were
beginning to fall back into their old position of allies of the Court.
They were holding at bay the bill for the expulsion of the bishops from
their seats in Parliament which had been sent up by the Lower House,
though the measure aimed at freeing the Peers as a legislative body by
removing from among them a body of men whose servility made them mere
tools of the Crown, while it averted--if but for the moment--the growing
pressure for the abolition of episcopacy. Things were fast coming to a
standstill, when the discovery of the army plot changed the whole
situation. Waver as the Peers might, they had no mind to be tricked by
the king and overawed by his soldiery. The Commons were stirred to their
old energy, London itself was driven to panic at the thought