opose counsels very remote from their own secret advice
and judgment.[*]

The evidence of Secretary Vane, though exposed to such unsurmountable
objections, was the real cause of Strafford' unhappy fate; and made the
bill of attainder pass the commons with no greater opposition than that
of fifty-nine dissenting votes. But there remained two other branches of
the legislature, the king and the lords, whose assent was requisite;
and these, if left to their free judgment, it was easily foreseen,
would reject the bill without scruple or deliberation. To overcome this
difficulty, the popular leaders employed expedients for which they were
beholden partly to their own industry, partly to the indiscretion of
their adversaries.

Next Sunday, after the bill passed the commons, the Puritanical pulpits
resounded with declamations concerning the necessity of executing
justice upon great delinquents.[**] The populace took the alarm. About
six thousand men, armed with swords and cudgels, flocked from the
city, and surrounded the houses of parliament.[***] The names of the
fifty-nine commoners who had voted against the bill of attainder, were
posted up under the title of "Straffordians, and betrayers of their
country." These were exposed to all the insults of the ungovernable
multitude. When any of the lords passed, the cry for justice against
Strafford resounded in their ears; and such as were suspected of
friendship to that obnoxious minister, were sure to meet with menaces,
not unaccompanied with symptoms of the most desperate resolutions in the
furious populace.[****]

Complaints in the house of commons being made against these violences,
as the most flagrant breach of privilege, the ruling members, by their
affected coolness and indifference, showed plainly, that the popular
tumults were not disagreeable to them.[v] But a new discovery, made
about this time, served to throw every thing into still greater flame
and combustion.

* Rush. vol. iv. p. 560.

** Whitlocke, p. 43.

*** Whitlocke, p. 43.

**** Clarendon, vol. i. p. 232, 256. Rush. vol. v. p. 248,
1279.

v Whitlocke, ut supra.

Some principal officers, Piercy, Jermyn, O'Neale, Goring, Wilmot,
Pollard, Ashburnham, partly attached to the court, partly disgusted with
the parliament, had formed a plan of engaging into the king's service
the English army, whom they observed to be displeased at some marks of
preference given by the co