THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF STRAFFORD. (With a Portrait.)

THERE are men whose history, to a great extent, is the history of the times in which they lived; and the judgment that is formed of their personal character will be, for the most part, governed by the principles or prejudices according to which an opinion is formed of those events which that history may record. The Earl of Strafford was one of these men. He lived in the stormy days of the first Charles, and with most of their leading occurrences he was identified. The disputes of that period have passed away. Ship-money may no longer be imposed at the will of the Sovereign. The Star Chamber does not exist. But the unhappy contests which then distracted the nation, embodied principles which, as by a sort of political transmigration, passing into other forms, have survived even to our own day, and, by placing men on different grounds, cause them to view the same events under different aspects, and to pronounce very varying decisions respecting them. By some, the civil contests of that age are still characterized as "the Great Rebellion;" by others, as the efforts of patriotism to prevent the establishment of arbitrary power. There are persons who will differ from both, and who, while they think that something may be said for each, and something against each, will principally direct their VOL. IX. Second Series.

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attention to that wonder-working Providence which ordereth all things, both in heaven and earth, and which directs the course of events, whatever may be the design of the immediate actors, to the advancement of the glory of God in the promotion of his own holy and benevolent purposes,

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Widely different as are the opinions entertained respecting the events which marked the reign of Charles the First, it is to be expected that like differences should exist concerning the parties by whom they were originated. One of the most active of these agents was the Earl of Strafford, who will be regarded by some as a loyal subject, courageously resisting rebellion, and falling a sacrifice to his zeal in the service of his Sovereign; and, by others, as a willing supporter of arbitrary power, rightly punished for advising and promoting the encroachments of the Crown on the liberties of the people. No names appear more frequently in the chronicles of that period than those of Hyde and Wentworth. Some account of the first we have already given the latter is now before us. It will not be difficult to furnish the student of history with a brief account of his life: rightly to remark on his character is a less easy task. Our observations, however, are intended to be impartial. We belong to no merely political school. It is to divine revelation that we look, as furnishing, in such matters, the only safe guide. The Scriptures, indeed, do not teach politics, as the word is commonly understood; but in bringing before us the kingdom of God,—his universal dominion,-in its principles and laws, it places full in view the true characters of a wise jurisprudence, adapted to the condition of man, considered as a social being, and to all those national societies into which men, in the course of the movements of ages, have been providentially distributed. As men are the creatures of God, no one man has the absolute right to dispose of another as he pleases, and to claim a dominion such as God has given over the beasts of the field, and which itself can only be exercised according to the intentions of the Giver, and original, and constant, and changeless Proprietor and Lord. And as men are the subjects of God, no one can claim an independent right of living as he pleases, subject to no rules but such as may be suggested by his own

will. That man is born the creature and subject of God; that he is not even his own, but God's; is a fact which must lie at the bottom of all social arrangements. He is bound, by the unalterable law of his being, to fulfil the intentions of his Maker, and do the will of his Sovereign; and the due recollection of this would be the practical destruction of all tyrannical despotism, and of all self-willed and lawless anarchy.

Thomas Wentworth was the oldest of the twelve children of Sir William Wentworth, of Wentworth Woodhouse, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and was born in London, April 13th, 1593. The family was a very ancient one, and was supposed to have possessed the estate from the time of the Conquest. The property was large, and Sir William was one of the most opulent of the gentry of his day. Scarcely any particulars of the early life of the successor to his title and estates have been recorded; but it seems evident that he was educated in the direct view of the position which it was probable he would have to occupy. At the usual time he was sent to Cambridge, and through life retained a strong attachment to its University. His application to study was close, and his improvement considerable. From his youthful days he seems to have exercised the decision, and sometimes to have manifested the haughtiness, by which throughout life he was characterized. Such grosser vices as gaming and intemperance he avoided; and whether he did or did not understand the true business of man, to whom it is appointed once to die, and for whom, after death, there is the just and final judgment of his Creator and Sovereign, yet he acted as one who was convinced that life was designed not for indolence, but action, and that there were important duties, the performance of which his country had a right to expect from him.

From the University he proceeded to that continental tour which was then regarded as the proper close of an academical education, and spent more than a year in France. On his return, in 1613, he was knighted by King James, and married the eldest daughter of the Earl of Cumberland. The next year, on the death of his father, he succeeded to the baronetcy of his family, and to what at that time was the splendid income of £6000 per annum. For several years the young Baronet

appears to have devoted himself to the duties and pleasures of an English country gentleman, residing chiefly on his estate, and cherishing that attachment to philosophical and elegant literature which, if not first formed, had at least been fully fixed, in his mind by his Cambridge studies. He soon found, however, that he would not be allowed to confine himself to private life. In 1615 he was appointed the Custos Rotulorum, or keeper of the archives, for the West Riding of Yorkshire; but he sought no higher honours. He possessed the respect of his neighbours, and was well known as a man of resolution, activity, and firmness,

In 1621 he commenced that course of public life which terminated so fatally for himself. The necessities of the King obliged him to summon a Parliament, and the House of Commons was no longer the usually servile instrument of the Crown. That it was the constitutional keeper and guardian of the public purse was now acknowledged; and from this principle its power proceeded. The confiscation of the property of the Church, by supplying the wants of Henry VIII., and of Elizabeth, had rendered them comparatively independent; but the latter, despotic as was her temper, and careful as she was to maintain her own sovereignty, was too prudent to call forth a resistance in which, though she might be victor, she might also be defeated, and in defeat, lose all she claimed to possess. James had neither the pecuniary resources nor wisdom of his predecessor, and his extreme notions on the subject of the regal prerogative were as daringly as they were imprudently avowed, Instead of husbanding his resources, he wastefully expended them, and gave to the Parliament the power which he sought to withhold, by making himself dependent on it, Besides, (and this he seems to have entirely forgotten,) light was now spreading through the nation. Protestantism had generated a feeling of manly independence, of which the vassals of a supreme foreign ecclesiastical Pontiff were incapable, Englishmen had ceased to be the serfs of Rome. They were no longer slaves in soul. They were attached to law, for the light in which they considered their own position was the light of truth, which unfolded to their view the throne of the Sovereign