THOMAS, Lord Strafford, was the eldest son of Sir William Wentworth, the representative of an ancient Yorkshire family. He was born in London in 1593, and in due time removed to Cambridge, where he entered St John's College. His university career was followed up by the usual tour on the continent; and on his return from his travels he was knighted. In 1614 he succeeded to the patrimonial estates, and in 1621 he entered parliament as member for the county of York. It was the eventful year in which the court and the country parties were first openly arrayed against each other. James had most injudiciously provoked the resentment of the country party by claiming, in the strongest language, rights which he had neither the resolution nor the power to vindicate; and Wentworth was among the most resolute in maintaining the memorable assertion that "the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament are the ancient and undoubted birthright and inheritance of the subjects of England." Another champion of the popular cause had entered parliament the same year, not superior in talent, though he adhered more resolutely to the cause which he had adopted. "Hampden," Macaulay thinks, "had more judgment and sagacity than Wentworth; but no orator of that time equalled Wentworth in force and brilliancy of expression." Macaulay's estimate is perhaps too favourable to Hampden; at least there can be no comparison of the inferior position which Hampden at that time occupied with the recognised merits of Wentworth as a great leader on the popular side.

The accession of Charles seemed to the leaders of the opposition to offer a favourable opportunity for carrying out their views; and they accordingly resolved to employ the power which the constitution conferred upon them of withholding supplies till the monarch made satisfactory concessions. The appearance of the political horizon foreboded a storm. Charles was determined to maintain in their integrity all the prerogatives which his predecessors had for one hundred and forty years enjoyed or usurped; and though he was far from being inflexible in his purposes, he yet possessed a sufficient amount of resolution to render a contest with him a very different affair from an undignified squabble with his infirm and vacillating father. The country party, on the other hand, was as resolutely bent upon vindicating for themselves and their descendants all the privileges which the laws secured them; and were resolved, moreover, to curb the royal power, which was ever threatening to overwhelm the rights of the people, so as to prevent any danger from its encroachments in future. Foremost among this party was Wentworth, and so well did the court party understand the value of his services to the opposition, that to prevent his sitting in parliament they nominated him sheriff of his county. An attempt was made at the same time by Buckingham to gain him over from his principles, but without success; he adhered resolutely to the cause of liberty, and in 1626 refused to pay his contribution to the forced general loan, and was in consequence for a short time committed to prison. In the third parliament of Charles, Wentworth was again one of the most conspicuous members, one of the loudest in condemning the arbitrary exactions of Charles, and his violent infringement of the liberties of the people. It was to his eloquent and energetic advocacy that the unanimity with which the Commons agreed in voting the "Petition of Right," the great modern charter of liberty, must be in part ascribed. Everything in fact marked him out as the man whose enmity the court had most reason to dread, and whose friendship it was most desirable to conciliate.

On the assassination of Buckingham, Charles, left without a minister, resolved to weaken his opponents by gaining over some of their number, and Wentworth was among those who yielded to his solicitations. What were the inducements that overcame his patriotism cannot of course be certainly known. He seems to have possessed a great admiration of titles, such as we should hardly have expected in one of his talents, and to have been "susceptible of strong impressions from private interest and ambition." Perhaps his patriotism may have been all along merely assumed, as the most convenient means of obtaining power. At all events titles were accumulated on him. He was created in succession a baron, a viscount, and finally Earl of Strafford; he was elevated to the office of President of the North; and he manifested the sincerity of his change by using all his ability in suppressing the party which had formerly acknowledged him as leader. His presence infused into the king's counsels a vigour which had formerly been wanting. He knew the character of the party whom he now had to oppose, and he seems to have believed that, by a display of vigour and energy, they might be swayed into submission. That any amount of vigour could for any length of time have suppressed the determination of the middle classes to have their influence in the state increased may well be doubted; so far, however, as anything could be done to check for the time the popular element, the measures of Strafford seem well adapted to accomplish that end. His grand object was to make the king independent of Parliament by furnishing him with a revenue sufficient for the ordinary expenditure of the country, without the necessity of receiving any subsidies from the Commons. To accomplish this, fines and other illegal exactions were levied with unsparing rigour, and all attempts at evasion or resistance were punished with the most arbitrary severity. In 1632 he was appointed deputy of Ireland. His new government was conducted with much ability. The Irish, a half-civilized people, required the guidance of a strong hand, and under the firm though arbitrary rule of Strafford, the country enjoyed an interval of unworried prosperity. Industry flourished; the linen manufacture was introduced; the shipping increased an hundred-fold; order and peace were established. Meantime, by his advice, England was exposed to all the rigour of arbitrary rule. Ship-money was levied not only from the maritime counties, which alone had hitherto been called upon to bear that impost, but from inland counties; and Hampden's resistance to the unconstitutional exaction, while it drew public attention to the violent proceedings of the government, showed by its unsuccessful termination the resolution of the king and his advisers to tolerate no evasion of their authority. Strafford and Hampden knew too well the nature of the struggle in which they were engaged; not power merely, but life depended on the issue, and on losing his case, Hampden, as is well known, prepared to leave the country.

So far Strafford's measures had been successful. To the complete development of his plans, however, it was essential that peace should be maintained both at home and abroad; and when in 1637 the disturbances arose in Scotland, it was evident that the crisis was come which was to test the wisdom of his procedure, and to exhibit the folly of attempting to support a government by force, in opposition to the wish of the people, and in violation of the law of the land. Hampden and his party hailed with delight the opportunity which thus presented itself of regaining their lost power; and indeed there can be little doubt that the rising in Scotland was fomented if not originated by their advice. Strafford advised the king to use the strongest measures in suppressing a rising which threatened to undo the labours of ten years, but it was too late. He hastened over from Ireland with troops and money, but his efforts were vain; the English looked on the Scots as deliverers, the king's troops would not fight, and after in vain trying to push off the evil day which had now arrived, Charles summoned the Long Parliament. Strafford well knew the danger which he had to apprehend, and wished to return to Ireland, but Charles assured him that "not a hair of his head should be touched by parliament." As he anticipated, the first step of the popular party was to impeach him of high treason. Pym carried up the impeachment to the Lords, and Strafford was immediately placed in custody. A committee was appointed to prepare a charge against him, and their proceedings were marked by an extreme rigour, which showed their sense of the necessity of proving his guilt, whatever means might have to be employed in doing so. Twenty-eight articles of impeachment were exhibited against him, but it was doubtful whether any or all of them, even if proved, amounted to high treason. Additional evidence was provided against him in a dishonourable manner by Sir Harry Vane, which, when interpreted in a particular way, seemed to amount to an advice to Charles to reduce England by force. This was construed to be an attempt to subvert the fundamental laws of the land, but the law did not clearly recognise this as treason. A bill of attainder was, however, passed by a very large majority, and Strafford was sentenced to death. Charles long refused to sign the warrant for his execution; at length influenced by a letter from Strafford himself, he consented, and the Earl fell by the hand of the executioner. The time has not yet come for arriving at an impartial estimate of Strafford's character. Writers still look with too lively a sympathy on the stirring events of Charles's reign, to allow of the formation of a dispassionate judgment on a personage who figures so prominently on that page of our national history from which more than from any other we hope to learn the lessons of political wisdom. (See Forster's Life of Strafford, and his Statesmen of the Commonwealth, 5 vols., 1840.)