father received the disobligation from the Lord Strafford, by his being created Baron of Raby, the house and land of Vane, which title he had promised himself, but it was unluckily cast upon the Earl, purely out of contempt of Vane, they sucked in all the thoughts of revenge imaginable; and from thence the son betook himself to the friendship of Mr. Pym, and all other discontented or seditious persons, and contributed all that intelligence, which will hereafter be mentioned, as he himself will often be, that designed the ruin of the Earl, and which grafted him in the entire confidence of those who promoted the same; so that nothing was concealed from him, though it is believed that he communicated his own thoughts to very few.

Denzill Hollis, the younger son and younger brother of the Earls of Clare, was as much valued and esteemed by the whole party as any man; as he deserved to be, being of more accomplished parts than any of them, and of great reputation by the part he acted against the Court and the Duke of Buckingham, in the parliament of the fourth year of the King, the last parliament that had been before the short one in April, and his long imprisonment and sharp prosecution afterwards upon that account; of which he retained the memory with acrimony enough. But he would in no degree intermeddle in the counsel or prosecution of the Earl of Strafford, which he could not prevent, who had married his sister, by whom he had all his children, which made him a stranger to all those consultations, though it did not otherwise interrupt the friendship he had with the most violent of those prosecutors. In all other contrivances he was in the most secret counsels with those who most governed, and was respected by them with very submiss applications as a man of authority. Sir Gilbert Gerrard, the Lord Digby, Strode, Haslerigg; and the northern gentlemen who were most angry with the Earl, or apprehensive of their own being in the mercy of the House, as Hotham, Cholmely, and Stapleton; with some popular lawyers of the House, who did not suspect any wickedness in design, and so became involved by degrees in the worst,

observed and pursued the dictates and directions of the other, according to the parts which were assigned to them upon emergent occasions: whilst the whole House looked on with wonder and amazement, without any man's interposing to allay the passion and the fury with which so many were transported.

BOOK VII.

But that which would have been looked upon as a considerable recompense for a defeat, could not but be thought a great addition to the victory, which was the death of Mr. Hambden; who, being shot into the shoulder with a brace of bullets, which brake the bone, within three weeks after died with extraordinary pain; to as great a consternation of all that party, as if their whole army had been defeated, or cut off.

He was a gentleman of a good family in Buckinghamshire, and born to a fair fortune, and of a most civil and affable deportment. In his entrance into the world, he indulged to himself all the licence in sports, and exercises, and company, which were used by men of the most jolly conversation. Afterwards, he retired to a more reserved and melancholy society, yet preserving his own natural cheerfulness and vivacity, and above all, a flowing courtesy to all men; though they who conversed nearly with him, found him growing into a dislike of the ecclesiastical government of the Church, yet most believed it rather a dislike of some churchmen, and of some introducements of theirs, which he apprehended might disquiet the public peace. He was rather of reputation in his own country, than of public discourse, or fame in the kingdom, before the business of ship-money: but then he grew the argument of all tongues, every man inquiring who and what he was, that durst, at his own charge, support the liberty and property of the kingdom, and rescue his country, as he thought, from being made a prey to the court. His carriage, throughout this agitation, was with that rare temper and modesty, that they who watched him narrowly to find some advantage against

his person, to make him less resolute in his cause, were compelled to give him a just testimony. And the judgment that was given against him infinitely more advanced him, than the service for which it was given. When this parliament begun, being returned Knight of the shire for the county where he lived, the eyes of all men were fixed upon him as their Patria Pater, and the pilot that must steer the vessel through the tempests and rocks which threatened it. And I am persuaded, his power and interest, at that time, was greater to do good or hurt, than any man's in the kingdom, or than any man of his rank hath had in any time for his reputation of honesty was universal, and his affections seemed so publicly guided, that no corrupt or private ends could bias them.

He was of that rare affability and temper in debate, and of that seeming humility and submission of judgment, as if he brought no opinion of his own with him, but a desire of information and instruction; yet he had so subtle a way of interrogating, and, under the notion of doubts, insinuating his objections, that he infused his own opinions into those from whom he pretended to learn and receive them. And even with them who were able to preserve themselves from his infusions, and discerned those opinions to be fixed in him, with which they could not comply, he always left the character of an ingenuous and conscientious person. He was indeed a very wise man, and of great parts, and possessed with the most absolute spirit of popularity, and the most absolute faculties to govern the people, of any man I ever knew. For the first year of the Parliament, he seemed rather to moderate and soften the violent and distempered humours than to inflame them. But wise and dispassioned men plainly discerned, that that moderation proceeded from prudence, and observation that the season was not ripe, rather than that he approved of the moderation; and that he begot many opinions and motions, the education whereof he committed to other men; so far disguising his own designs, that he seemed seldom to wish more than was concluded; and in many gross conclusions, which

would hereafter contribute to designs not yet set on foot, when he found them sufficiently backed by majority of voices, he would withdraw himself before the question, that he might seem not to consent to so much visible unreasonableness; which produced as great a doubt in some, as it did approbation in others, of his integrity. What combination soever had been originally with the Scots for the invasion of England, and what farther was entered into afterwards in favour of them, and to advance any alteration of the government in Parliament, no man doubts was at least with the privity of this gentleman.

After he was among those members accused by the King of high treason, he was much altered; his nature and carriage seeming much fiercer than it did before. And without question, when he first drew his sword, he threw away the scabbard; for he passionately opposed the overture made by the King for a treaty from Nottingham, and as eminently, all expedients that might have produced any accommodations in this that was at Oxford; and was principally relied on, to prevent any infusions which might be made into the Earl of Essex towards peace, or to render them ineffectual, if they were made; and was indeed much more relied on by that party than the General himself. In the first entrance into the troubles, he undertook the command of a regiment of foot, and performed the duty of a colonel, upon all occasions, most punctually. He was very temperate in diet, and a supreme governor over all his passions and affections, and had thereby a great power over other men's. He was of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out, or wearied by the most laborious; and of parts not to be imposed upon by the most subtle or sharp; and of a personal courage equal to his best parts; so that he was an enemy not to be wished wherever he might have been made a friend, and as much to be apprehended, where he was so, as any man could deserve to be; and therefore his death was no less pleasing to the one party, than it was condoled in the other. In a word, what was said of Cinna might well be applied to him; "he had a head

to contrive, and a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute any mischief." His death therefore seemed to be a great deliverance to the nation.

But I must here take leave a little longer to discontinue this narration: and if the celebrating the memory of eminent and extraordinary persons, and transmitting their great virtues for the imitation of posterity, be one of the principal ends and duties of history, it will not be thought impertinent, in this place, to remember a loss which no time will suffer to be forgotten, and no success or good fortune could repair. In this unhappy battle was slain the Lord Viscount Falkland; a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war, than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity.

Turpe mori, post te, solo non posse dolore.

Before this Parliament, his condition of life was so happy that it was hardly capable of improvement. Before he came to be twenty years of age, he was master of a noble fortune, which descended to him by the gift of a grandfather, without passing through his father or mother, who were then both alive, and not well enough contented to find themselves passed by in the descent. His education for some years had been in Ireland, where his father was Lord Deputy; so that, when he returned into England, to the possession of his fortune, he was unentangled with any acquaintance or friends, which usually grow up by the custom of conversation; and therefore was to make a pure election of his company; which he chose by other rules than were prescribed to the young nobility of that time. And it cannot be denied, though he admitted some few to his friendship for the agreeableness of their natures, and their undoubted affection to him, that his fami