If you’re interested, I gave a similar treatment to the Earl of Strafford’s execution here and here.
About George Digby
In 1641, George Digby was the 29 year old son of the Earl of Bristol. He was born in Madrid while his father served as ambassador to Spain, and his father had been a leader in the attempted Spanish Match between Prince Charles and the Spanish Infanta. When it fell apart, his father’s political career had been destroyed, and he’d spent three years in the Tower of London, a sentence exacerbated by his opposition to the Duke of Buckingham.
It was at this point that the 12 year old George had first gotten involved in politics, delivering an impressive speech at the House of Commons to ask that his father be freed. He was unsuccessful, but Buckingham’s murder in 1628 paved the way for his father’s reconciliation with the King. But, while his father was at heart a moderate with a temper (though he was a strong royalist in the English Civil War), Digby’s life was characterized by his passionate embrace of opinions, and his shifting between them in a way that confused most people. He also seemed to have more than his fair share of ambition. He was, however, by all accounts an exceptionally intelligent and talented person (intelligent enough he never needed to develop any wisdom, according to his detractors).
He debated against his cousin and Gunpowder Plotter’s son Kenelm Digby on the subject of Catholicism, but himself came to embrace Catholicism later in life. But, while a Catholic, he supported the Test Act, which pushed Catholics out of public office. He had strong ideals, and was influenced by his ideals more than practical outcomes. This, combined with inexperience and general imprudence, led him to make some decisions which hurt the royalist cause (which he was dedicated to), and as a consequence he wasn’t particularly liked by even his own fellow Cavaliers. He urged Charles’s disastrous impeachment of the Five Members, but he was likely the one who accidentally revealed the plan, allowing them to escape. He was injured at Edgehill, feuded (and nearly dueled) with Prince Rupert of the Rhine, and bungled an attempt to involve Ireland in helping the King.
This feuding and disarray was a common thing among Royalists during and after the war, but Digby, with his intense idealism at an ideologically complex time, certainly played his role in them.
Strafford’s trial
With that background, it’s perhaps not surprising that Digby would emerge as the most surprising figure in the trial of the Earl of Strafford. He worked earnestly with John Pym, who he then respected, and other prosecutors to show Strafford to be guilty of treason. He felt that Strafford was a danger to the country, and genuinely believed Strafford’s influence had made England more tyrannical.
When discussion turned to a Bill of Attainder, though, he led the opposition to Strafford’s execution with the speech printed below. In fact, the speech marked his sudden and dramatic shift from supporting Parliament to supporting the King.
Digby led attack his attack on the attainder on the basis of liberty, itself. The use of the Attainder, they said, was far more an attack on liberty than Strafford had ever posed. While Parliament defined itself as the protector of England’s liberties, Digby had taken a characteristically eloquent and uncompromising stance declaring them to be the very opposite.
Others did share his sentiments. Sir Robert Holborne had actually been John Hampden’s attorney in the Ship Money case, but voted against the attainder. Robert Scawen and John Selden were both Puritans who favored more Parliamentary influence in government, but who were turned permanently to the Royalist side after the Attainder.
Years later, fellow Straffordian Sir Philip Warwick wrote something similar to what Digby had advocated at Parliament that day:
And upon the bill of attainder which charged this earl with treason, a case was formed not from the proofs and witnesses of the first impeachment, but by the apprehensions and judgment of the fact made by the lords, and thus what is arbitrary and tyrannical in a prince must be accounted legal and formal proceedings in a great council.”
Parliament ordered the text of the speech to be burned by the public hangman, and Digby suffered threats so severe that someone anonymously and illegally printed copies of his speech and circulated them to the public to protect him. And, after he was physically attacked within the Commons, itself, the King elevated him to the House of Lords for his own safety.
The Speech
Master Speaker,
We are now upon the point of giving (as much as in us lies) the final sentence unto death or life, on a great minister of State, and peer of this Kingdom, Thomas Earl of Strafford.
A name of hatred in the present ages by his practices, and fit to be made a terror to future ages by his punishment. I have had the honor to be employed by the House in this great business. From the first hour that it was taken into consideration, it was a matter of great trust, and I will say with confidence, that I have served the House in it with industry (according to my ability) with most exact faithfulness and secrecy.
And as I have hitherto discharged my duty to this House, and to my Country, in the progress of this great cause, so I trust I shall now in the last period of it, to God and to a good conscience. I do with the peace of that unto myself, and the blessings of Almighty God to me and my posterity, according as my judgment on the life of this man, shall be consonant with my heart, and the best of my understanding in all integrity. I know well, Master Speaker, that by some things I have said of late, whilst this Bill was in agitation, I have raised some prejudices upon me in the cause.
Yea, some (I thank them for their plain dealing) have been so free as to tell me that I suffered much by the backwardness I have shown in this Bill of Attainder of the Earl of Strafford, against whom I had been formerly so keen, so active.
Master Speaker, I beg of you and the rest, but a suspension of judgments concerning me, till I have opened my heart unto you freely and clearly in this business.
Truly Sir, I am still the same in my opinions and affections unto the Earl of Strafford, as that I confidently believe him the most dangerous minister, the most insupportable to free subjects that can be charactered.
I believe his practices in themselves as high, as tyrannical, as any subject ever ventred on, and the malignity of them hugely aggravated by those rare abilities of his, whereof God hath given him the use, and the devil the application. In a word, I believe him still that grand apostate to the Commonwealth, who must not expect to be pardoned it in this world, till he be dispatched to the other, and yet, let me tell you Master Speaker, my hand must not be on that dispatch. I protest, as my conscience stands informed, I had rather it were off.
Let me unfold unto you the mystery, I will not dwell much upon justifying unto you my seeming variance at this time, from what I appeared formerly, by putting you in mind of the difference between Prosecutors and Judges, how misbecoming that fervor would be in a Judge, which perhaps was commendable as a Prosecutor. Judges we are now, and must put on another personage.
It is honest and noble to be earnest in order to the discovery of Truth, but when that hath been brought as far as it can to light, our judgment thereupon ought to be calm and cautious.
In prosecution, upon probable grounds, we are accountable only for our industry or remisness, but in judgment, we are deeply responsible to God Almighty, for its rectitude or obliquity, in cases of life, the judge is God’s steward of the parties’ blood, and must give a strict account for every drop.
But as I told you, Master Speaker, I will not insist long upon this ground of difference in me now, from what I was formerly. The truth on it is, sir, the same ground whereupon I, with the rest of the five, to whom you first commented the consideration of my Lord of Strafford, brought down our opinion, that it was fit he should be accused of treason. Upon the same ground, I was engaged with earnestness in his prosecution, and had the same ground remained in that force of belief with me (which till very lately it did), I should not have been tender in his condemnation, but truly sir, to deal plainly with you, that ground of our accusation, that spur to our prosecution, and that which should be the basis of my judgment of the Earl of Strafford, as unto treason, is to my understanding quite vanished away.
That it was Master Speaker, his advising the King to employ the Army of Ireland to reduce England. This I was assured would be proved before I gave my consent to his accusation. I was still confirmed in the same belief during the prosecution, and fortified in it most of all since Sir Henry Vane’s preparatory examinations by the assurances which that worthy member, Mr. Pym, gave me, that his testimony would be made convincing by some notes of what passed at the Junto concurrent with it, which I ever understanding to be of some other Councilor, you see now prove but a copy of the same secretary’s notes, discovered and produced in the manner you have heard, and those such disjointed fragments of the venomous part of the discourses, no results, no conclusions of Councils, which are the only things that Secretaries of State should register, there being no use at all of the other, but to accuse and to bring men into danger.
But, Sir, this is not that which overthrows the evidence with me, concerning the Army of Ireland, nor yet all the rest of the Junto upon their oaths remember anything of it.
But this, Sir, which I shall tell you, is that which works with me (under favor) to an utter overthrow of his Evidence, as unto that of the Army of Ireland, before while I was a prosecutor and under tie of secrecy, I might not discover any weakness of the cause, which now as a judge I must.
Master Secretary was examined thrice upon oath at the preparatory committee. The first time, he was questioned to all the interrogatories, and to that part of the seventh which concerns the Army of Ireland, he said positively in these words, I cannot charge him with that, but for the rest, he desires time to recollect himself, which was granted him.
Some days after (the precise time I cannot say) he was examined a second time, and then deposes these words concerning the Kings being absolved from rules of Government and so forth, very clearly, but being pressed to that part concerning the Irish Army again, can say nothing to that.
Here we thought we had done with him, till several weeks after, my Lord of Northumberland and all others of the Junto, denying to have heard anything concerning those words of reducing England by the Irish Army, it was thought fit to examine the Secretary once more, and then he deposed these words to have been said by the Earl of Strafford to his Majesty, “You have an Army in Ireland which you may employ here to reduce (or some words to that sense) this Kingdom.”
Master Speaker, these are the circumstances which (I confess with my conscience) thrust quite out of doors that grand Article of our charge, concerning his desperate advice to the King, of employing the Irish Army here.
Let not this, I beseech you, be driven to an aspersion upon Master Secretary, as if he should have sworn otherwise than he knew, or believed. He is too worthy to do that, only let this much be inferred from it, that he who twice upon oath, with time of recollection, could not remember anything of such a business, might well a third time misremember somewhat, and in this business, the difference of one letter, here for there, or that for this, quite alters the case, the latter also being more probable, since it is confessed of all hands, that the debate then was concerning a war with Scotland, and you may remember, that at the bar he once said, to employ there, and thus Master Speaker, I have faithfully given you an account, what it is that hath blunted the edge of the hatchet or bill with me towards my Lord of Strafford.
This was that whereupon I accused him with a free heart, prosecuted him with earnestness, and had it to my understanding been proved, should have condemned him with innocence, wherein now I profess I cannot satisfy my conscience to do it.
I profess that I can have no notion of my Lord’s intent to subvert the Laws treasonably by force, and this design of force not appearing, all his other wicked practices cannot amount so high with me.
I can find a more easy and more natural spring, from whence to derive all his other crimes, than from an intent to bring in tyranny (and to make his own posterity as well as us slaves) as from Revenge, from Pride, from Avarice, from Passion and insolence of Nature.
But had this of the Irish Army been proved, it would have diffused a complexion of treason over all, it would have been a weith, indeed, to bind those other scattered and lesser branches, as it were, into a faggot of treason.
I do not say but the rest may represent him a man as worthy to die, and worthier perhaps than many a traitor, I do not say, but they may justly direct us to enact that the like shall be treason for the future. But God keep me from giving judgment of death on any man, and of ruin to his innocent posterity upon a law made a posteriore.
Let the mark be set on the door where the plague is, and then let him that will enter die.
I know, Master Speaker, there is in Parliament a double power of life and death by bill, a judicial power, and a legislative, the measure of the one is what’s legally just, of the other what’s prudentially and politically fit for the good and preservation of the whole.
But these two (under favor) are not to be confounded in judgment. We must not proceed upon want of legality with matter of convenience, nor the desailance of prudential fitness, with a pretense of legal justice.
To condemn my Lord of Strafford judicially as for treason, my conscience is not assured that the matter will bear it. And to do it by the legislative power, my reason consultively cannot agree to that, since I am persuaded, neither the Lords nor the King will pass the Bill, and consequently that our passing it will be a cause of great divisions and combustions in the State.
And therefore my humble advice is, that laying aside this Bill of Attainder, we may think of another (saving only life) such as may secure the State from my Lord of Strafford, without endangering it as much by division concerning his punishment, as he hath endangered it by his practices.
If this may not be hearkened unto, let me conclude in saying that unto you all, which I have thoroughly inculcated to my own conscience upon this occasion: let every man lay his hand upon his heart, and sadly consider what we are going to do, with a breath, either justice or murder, justice on the one side, or murder heightened and aggravated to its supremest extent. For as the casuists say that he who lies with his sister commits incest, but he that marries his sister, sins higher by applying God’s ordinance to his crime, so doubtless he that commits murder with the sword of justice, heightens that crime to the utmost.
The danger being so great, the case so doubtful, that I see the best lawyers in diametrical opposition concerning it, let every man wipe his heart, as he does his eyes when he would judge of a nice and subtle object, the eye, if it be pretainted with any color, is vitiated in its discerning. Let us take heed of a blood-shotten Eye of judgment.
Let every man purge his heart clear of all passions. I know this great and wise body politic can have none, but I speak to Individuals, from the weakness which I find in myself: away with all personal animosities, away with all flatteries to the people in being the sharper against him, because he is odious to them, away with all fears, lest by the sparing his blood they may be incest, away with all such considerations, as that it is not fit for a Parliament, that one accused by it of Treason, should escape with life.
Let not the former vehemency of any against him, no fear from thence, that his cannot be safe, while that man lives to be an ingredient in the sentence of any one of us.
Of all these corruptives of judgment, Master Speaker, I do before God discharge myself to the utmost of my power, and with a clear conscience wash my hands of this man’s blood, by this solemn protestation, that my vote goes not to the taking of the Earl of Strafford’s life.