No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
On January 4, 1642, Charles I's ill-starred attempt to reassert his authority over Parliament led to the unsuccessful attempt to arrest five of the leading members of the parliamentary opposition on charges of high treason. Three of the men, John Pym, John Hampden, and Denzil Holles, were prominent members of the opposition party, well known to their contemporaries and posterity. The remaining two members, Sir Arthur Hesilrige and William Strode, were less well known to their contemporaries and by and large forgotten by later generations. The Earl of Clarendon quite easily dismissed them as minor figures when he came to write his great history.
Hesilrige along with Mr. Strode were persons of too low an account and esteem; and though their virulence and malice was as conspicuous, and transcendant as any man's yet their reputation, and interest to do any mischief, otherwise than concurring in it was so small, that they gained credit and authority by being joined with the rest, who had indeed a great influence.
Thus were Hesilrige and Strode consigned to the dustbin of history. In Hesilrige's case such treatment did not accord with all the facts as recorded by Clarendon, nor apparently did it coincide with the opinion Charles I held of Hesilrige. The Earl, by his own account of events, leaves little doubt that Hesilrige was capable of doing great mischief although he always preferred to see the knight as the instrument of other men's designs. As for the King, who was fighting to save his ancestral throne, Hesilrige must have appeared as the bitterest of enemies, and it was with good reason that Charles included Hesilrige among the five members.
1 Edward, Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion (Oxford, 1807), 1:351.Google Scholar
2 Echard, Laurence, The History of England (London, 1720), p. 520.Google Scholar
3 Engstrom, Hugh R. Jr., “Sir Arthur Hesilrige and the Saybrook Colony,” Albion, V (Fall, 1973): 157–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Journals of the House of Commons, (London, 1803), 11:18Google Scholar [hereafter cited as Commons Journal].
5 Edward, , Earl of Clarendon, The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon (Oxford, 1759), 1:80.Google Scholar
6 A more complete discussion of these parliamentary tactics is to be found in Glow, Lotte, “The Manipulation of Committees in the Long Parliament, 1641-1642,” The Journal of British Studies, V (November, 1965): 31–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 Commons Journal, II:21.Google Scholar
8 The Autobiography of Sir John Bramston, K.B. (Camden Society, 1845), p. 160–161.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., p. 161.
10 See Commons Journal, II:28, 44, 46, 50.Google Scholar
11 The Journal of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, ed. Notestein, Wallace (New Haven, 1923), p. 145.Google Scholar
12 Commons Journal, II:54.Google Scholar
13 Ibid., p. 91.
14 Ibid., pp. 99, 100, 105.
15 Burney 11A.(8.) SirHesilrige, Arthur, Sir A. Haselrige, His Speech in Parliament concerning the Bill Passed against Plurality of Livings (London, 1641).Google Scholar
16 Commons Journal, II:31.Google Scholar
17 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series of the Reign of Charles I, 1640-1641 (London, 1882), pp. 539–540.Google Scholar
18 Ibid.
19 Gardiner, Samuel R., History of England (London, 1883), X:330.Google Scholar
20 May, Thomas, The History of the Parliment of England, (London, 1647), pp. 87–88.Google Scholar
21 SirDering, Edward, A Collection of Speeches made by Sir Edward Dering Knight and Baronet in Matter of Religion (London, 1642), p. 3.Google Scholar
22 Ibid., p. 62.
23 Clarendon, , History, I:369–370.Google Scholar
24 Ibid., p. 42.
25 Commons Journal, II:230.Google Scholar
26 Ibid., p. 251.
27 Diurnali Occurrences, p. 384.
28 The Parliamentary or Constitutional History of England (London, 1763), X:92–93Google Scholar. [hereafter cited as Old Parliamentary History].
29 Clarendon, , History, I:430Google Scholar; Notestein, , D'Ewes, p. 244Google Scholar; SirVerney, Ralph kt., Notes of Proceedings in the Long Parliament, ed. Bruce, John (Camden Society, 1844), p. 132.Google Scholar
30 The Journal of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, ed. Coates, Willson Havelock, (New Haven, 1942), p. 248.Google Scholar
31 Clarendon, , History, I:431Google Scholar; Coates, , D'Ewes, p. 248.Google Scholar
32 Old Parliamentary History, X:139.Google Scholar
33 Diary of Thomas Burton, Esq., ed. Rutt, John Towill (London, 1828), III:97.Google Scholar
34 Clarendon, , History, I:351, 430.Google Scholar