and this step exasperated Strafford's
enemies and added new zeal to the prosecution. On the 23rd of April,
after the passing of the attainder by the Commons, he repeated to
Strafford his former assurances of protection. On the 1st of May he
appealed to the Lords to spare his life and be satisfied with rendering
him incapable of holding office. On the 2nd he made an attempt to seize
the Tower by force. On the 10th, yielding to the queen's fears and to
the mob surging round his palace, he signed his death-warrant. "If my
own person only were in danger," he declared to the council, "I would
gladly venture it to save my Lord Strafford's life; but seeing my wife,
children, all my kingdom are concerned in it, I am forced to give way
unto it." On the 11th he sent to the peers a petition for Strafford's
life, the force of which was completely annulled by the strange
postscript: "If he must die, it were a charity to reprieve him until
Saturday." This tragic surrender of his great and devoted servant left
an indelible stain upon the king's character, and he lived to repent it
bitterly. One of his last admonitions to the prince of Wales was "never
to give way to the punishment of any for their faithful service to the
crown." It was regarded by Charles as the cause of his own subsequent
misfortunes, and on the scaffold the remembrance of it disturbed his own
last moments. The surrender of Strafford was followed by another
stupendous concession by Charles, the surrender of his right to
dissolve the parliament without its own consent, and the parliament
immediately proceeded, with Charles's consent, to sweep away the
star-chamber, high commission and other extra-legal courts, and all
extra-parliamentary taxation. Charles, however, did not remain long or
consistently in the yielding mood. In June 1641 he engaged in a second
army plot for bringing up the forces to London, and on the 10th of
August he set out for Scotland in order to obtain the Scottish army
against the parliament in England; this plan was obviously doomed to
failure and was interrupted by another appeal to force, the so-called
Incident, at which Charles was suspected (in all probability unjustly)
of having connived, consisting in an attempt to kidnap and murder
Argyll, Hamilton and Lanark, with whom he was negotiating. Charles had
also apparently been intriguing with Irish Roman Catholic lords for
military help in return for concessions, and he was suspected of
complic