LXIX. self a practising barrister, had been subjected to a Star CHAP. Chamber prosecution for a professional opinion he had given to a client upon the legality of a "benevolence" exacted by James I.; and when on the bench, he had differed from all his brethren in pronouncing against the power of the King and Council to commit to prison, without specifying in the warrant the cause of the commitment.* Yet he conducted himself with such propriety, that Charles I. was forced to characterise him as "a stout, wise, and learned man, and one who knew what belonged to uphold magistrates and magistracy in their dignity." While a student, he was fond of joining amusement with instruction by acting as marshal to the Judges of assize. He himself tells us that, "according to the leave he had from his father, and by his means from the several Judges, he rode all the circuits of England to acquaint himself with his native country, and the memorable things therein." bar. In 1628 he was called to the bar, and went the Oxford Called to circuit, of which he afterwards became the decided leader. † Circuit. He likewise rose into respectable practice in London. He sat, when very young, in the parliament which passed the "Petition of Right," and without taking any prominent part in the debates, he steadily voted for that great measure. During the long intermission of parliaments which followed, he did not mix in politics, and he seems to have associated a good deal with the courtiers. Being now Treasurer of the A. D. 1628. Middle Temple, he formed an acquaintance with Mr. Attorney General Noy, to whom, he tells us, he thus came to be introduced. "A student of the Inn having died in chambers, the Society disbursed money for his funeral, which his father refused to pay. A bill was thereupon preferred against that gentleman in the Court of Requests, in the name of the Treasurer, ingeniously and handsomely setting forth the customs of the Inns of Court, with the whole matter, and praying that he might be compelled to pay the money so distributed, with damages. * Darnel's case, 3 St. Tr. 1. As a proof of this he mentions that at the last assizes for the county of Oxford which he attended, thirty-five causes were tried, and he had forty-four retainers, his ascendency being as great in the other seven counties on the circuit. Introduc- Noy, the LXIX. CHAP. Upon my carrying the bill to Mr. Attorney General Noy for his signature, with that of the other Benchers, he was pleased to advise with me about a patent the King commanded him to draw, upon which he gave me a fee for it out of his little purse, saying, 'Here, take these single pence,' which amounted to eleven groats, and I give you more than an attorney's fee, because you will be a better man than an Attorney General. This you will find to be true.' After much other drollery, wherein he delighted and excelled, we parted, abundance of company attending to speak to him all this time." A. D. 1633. Whitelock was principal manager for the Middle Temple of Manager of the famous masque given to the Queen, by the Inns of Court, Masque to the Queen. in confutation of "Histriomastix" against interludes, and he has left us a most circumstantial and entertaining account of it. To him was committed "the whole care and charge of the music," which he assures us "excelled any music that ever before that time had been heard in England.' His head was quite turned by the Queen's compliment," that she never saw any masque more noble or better performed than this was, which she took as a particular respect to herself, as well as to the King her husband, and desired that her thanks might be returned to the gentlemen of the Inns of Court for it."† Chairman Sessions. He now passed his vacations in Oxfordshire, affecting while of Quarter there merely to be a country squire; yet, from his knowledge of the law, he was called upon to preside as Chairman of the Justices of peace. Speaking of one instance which occurred in 1635, he gives us a statement containing a lively representation of the opinions and manners of the times. "At the Quarter Sessions at Oxford, I was put into the chair in Court, though I was in coloured clothes, a sword by my side, and a falling band, which was unusual for lawyers in those days, and in this garb I gave the charge to the Grand Jury. I took occasion to enlarge on the point of jurisdiction in the temporal Courts in matters ecclesiastical, and the antiquity thereof, which I did the rather because the spiritual men began in those days to LXIX. swell higher than ordinary, and to take it as an injury to the CHAP. church that any thing savouring of the spirituality should be within the cognisance of ignorant laymen. The gentlemen and freeholders seemed well pleased with my charge, and the management of the business of the Sessions; and said they perceived one might speak as good sense in a falling band as in a ruff."* side. He now began gradually to associate himself with those Takes who were resisting the arbitrary measures of the Court. He popular exerted himself very much in resisting the encroachments of the Crown upon the rights of the landholders in Whichwood Forest, and he assisted his kinsman, Hampden, in the great case of ship money. Yet he was always moderate, and he His moderdid not wish even to take advantage of the discontents of the ation. Scots on account of episcopacy. "I persuaded my friends,' says he, "not to foment these growing public differences, nor to be any means for encouraging a foreign nation, proud, and against our natural Prince." He still continued intimate with Hyde, Falkland, and the more reasonable reformers. When the Long Parliament was summoned he stood for Returned to parliaGreat Marlow, and was beaten by unfair means; but upon a ment, petition it was pronounced by the House of Commons to be - Jan. 1641. a void election, and on a new writ being issued he was returned. He made his maiden speech in the debate which His maiden arose upon the motion that Selden, and the other members of speech. the House who were illegally imprisoned in 1629, should receive indemnification out of the estates of the Judges who had been parties to the judgment of the Court of King's Bench, his own father being alleged to be one of them; and he at once defended his father's memory and his own patrimony, by showing that his father had expressed a clear opinion for admitting the defendants to bail, and had himself undergone persecution in behalf of the liberty of the subject. One of the managers of im So favourable an impression did he make by the earnestness and modesty of his demeanour on this occasion, that he was elected chairman of the committee appointed to draw up the peachment impeachment against Lord Strafford, and employed by the Mem. p. 23. of Lord Strafford. СНАР. Whitelock doubts as to the side he ought to choose. House to manage the seven last articles of the impeachment. He objected to have any thing to do with one of them, which charged the Earl with a design of bringing over the army of Ireland for the purpose of reducing England to subjection, as not being supported by sufficient evidence, "thinking it not honourable for the House of Commons to proceed upon an article whereof they could not make a clear proof." On his motion this article would have been struck out, had it not been warmly supported by Sir Walter Earle. Whereupon it was retained and assigned to this gentleman to manage; but he made such a wretched hand of it, that the Queen, inquiring his name, said, "that water-dog did bark but not bite, but the rest did bite close." Strafford himself bore testimony to the candour and fairness, as well as talent, with which Whitelock discharged his part in the prosecution. Glynne and Maynard," he said, "used him like advocates ; but Palmer and Whitelock like gentlemen, and yet left out nothing that was material to be urged against him." Whitelock bears ample testimony to the admirable defence of the noble culprit. "Certainly," says he, in closing his touching narrative of Strafford's trial and execution, "never any man acted such a part on such a theatre, with more wisdom, constancy, and eloquence, with greater reason, judgment, and temper, and with better grace in all his words and gestures, than this great and excellent person did, and he moved the hearts of all his auditors, some few excepted, to remorse and pity." At this time it depended a good deal upon accident to which party Whitelock should be permanently attached, for some with whom he now co-operated became the chief advisers. of the King in carrying on the war against the parliament, and others afterwards assisted in bringing the King to the scaffold, and in abolishing monarchy in England. He himself still supported pacific measures; and in the debate on the bill for arming the militia, he joined with those who urged that the King should be again petitioned to place the sword in such hands as he and the parliament should jointly nominate, and * Mem. 44. CHAP. "who would be more careful to keep it sheathed than to "Jusque datum sceleri canimus, populumque potentem The die, however, was now cast; and instead of being, like Hyde, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Charles I. and Lord Chancellor to Charles II., Whitelock was destined to draw an ordinance for establishing a pure republic in England, and to hold the great seal under a Lord Protector. civil war. King. When he heard of the King erecting the royal standard at Takes arms Nottingham, instead of going to fight under it, he accepted against the the command of a company of horse in Hampden's regiment, composed of his tenants and neighbours in Oxfordshire; and, marching against the royalist commander, Sir John Biron, * Mem. 61. |