Note 184 — Chapter IX

See some judicious remarks on this by May (p. 64), who generally shows a good deal of impartiality at this period of history. The violence of individuals, especially when of considerable note, deserves to be remarked, as characteristic of the temper that influenced the house, and as accounting for the disgust of moderate men. "Why should he have law himself?" said St. John, in arguing the bill of attainder before the peers, "who would not that others should have any? We indeed give laws to hares and deer, because they are beasts of chase; but we give none to wolves and foxes, but knock them on the head wherever they are found, because they are beasts of prey." Nor was this a mere burst of passionate declamation, but urged as a serious argument for taking away Strafford's life without sufficient grounds of law or testimony. Rushworth Abr. iv. 61; Clarendon, i. 407. Strode told the house that, as they had charged Strafford with high treason, it concerned them to charge as conspirators in the same treason all who had before, or should hereafter, plead in that cause. Baillie, 252. This monstrous proposal seems to please the presbyterian bigot. "If this hold," he observes, "Strafford's council will be rare."