College, and from him he received many kindnesses, which he never afterwards forgot. Having quitted the University (for what cause does not appear) without a degree, he was placed in chambers in the Middle Temple, and commenced the arduous course of study necessary to fit him for the bar. His father was his instructor, and, together with the sound maxims of the common law, early imbued his mind with the principles of constitutional freedom, then little regarded among lawyers. The old Judge when himself a practising barrister, had been subjected to a Star 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, young Whitelock 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."

Α

In 1628 he was called to the bar, and went the Oxford Circuit, of which he afterwards became the decided lead[A. D. 1628.] er.t 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 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 monies for his funeral, which his father refused to pay. A bill was therefore preferred against that gentlemen in the Court of Requests, in the mame 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 disbursed, with damages. 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

* Darnel's case, 3 St. Tr. 1.

† As a proof of this he mentions that at the last assizes for the couuty of Oxford which he attended, thirty-five causes were tried, and he had forty-four retainers,his ascendancy being as great in the other seven counties on the circuit.

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.

Whitelock was manager for the Middle Temple of the famous masque given to the Queen, by the Inns of Court, in confutation of "Histriomastix [A. D. 1633.] 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."+

He now passed his vacations in Oxfordshire, affecting while 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 repesentation of the opinion 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 swell higher than ordinary, and to take it as an injury to the church that any thing savouring of the spiritual 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."*

He now began gradually to associate himself with those who were opposing the arbitrary measures of the Court. He was active in resisting the encroachments of the Crown upon the rights of the landholders in Whichwood Forest, and he encouraged his kinsman, Hampden, in the great case of ship-money. Yet he was always moderate, and he did not wish even to take advantage of the discontents of the 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 inti:nate with Hyde, Falkland, and the more reasonable reformers.

* Mem.

p. 19.

† Ibid. p. 22.

‡ Ibid. p. 23.

When the Long Parliament was summoned, he stood for Great Marlow, and was beaten by unfair means; but upon a petition it was pronounced by the House of Commons to be a JAN. 1641.] void election, and on a new writ being issued he election,—and was returned. He made his maiden speech, in the debate which arose upon the motion that Selden, and the other members of 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 subject.

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 impeachment against Lord Strafford, and employed by the 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, 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, while the residue assisted in bringing the King to the scaffold, and in abolishing monarchy in England. He himself still supported pacific measures;

* Mem. 44.

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 "who would be more careful to keep it sheathed than to draw it." When the ordinance of the two Houses upon this subject passed without the concurrence of the King, whereby in reality his authority was renounced, though all in public employment continued to swear allegiance to him,-Whitelock had serious thoughts of joining the royalists, or of retreating into private life; but he was persuaded by the leaders of the popular party that they had no purpose of war with the King, and that they were only arming to defend themselves and the liberties of the nation. Accordingly he agreed to continue to keep his station in the House of Commons at Westminster, and he accepted a commission as a deputy-lieutenant in the military array about to be organised in Bucks and Oxfordshire, where his property and family connexions chiefly lay. Still he implored the parliament to make the experiment of further overtures of peace, and to name a committee to review the former prospositions which the King had rejected. In his Memoirs he draws a lively picture of the silent but rapid strides which lead to civil war. We scarce know how, but from paper combats by declarations, remonstrances, protestations, votes, messages, answers, and replies, we are now come to the question of raising forces, and naming the general and officers of an army. But what may be the progress hereof the poet tells you:

Jusque datum sceleri canimus, populumque potentem
In suâ victrici conversum viscera dextrâ."*

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.

When he heard of the King erecting the royal standard at Nottingham, instead of going to fight under it, he accepted 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, he took military possession of Oxford, "being welcomed by the townsmen," he tells us, more than by the scholars." In consequence, a regiment of horse of Prince Rupert's bri- [A. d. 1642.] gade quartered themselves in his house, Fawley Court, near Henley, and “induging in excess and rapine of every kind, destroyed his books, deeds, and manuscripts, cut open his bedding, carried away his coach and four horses and all his saddle-horses, killed his hounds, of which he had a very fine pack, and destroyed all his deer and winged game."

* Mem. 61.

He was so much horrified by the ravages of civil war, that his martial ardour very quickly subsided; and, leaving the field of arms to those who had a greater taste for it, he returned to his post in the parliament, and ever after, as a non-combatant, steadily supported the popular side.

We next find him on a very different scene-as a lay member of the famous Assembly of Divines at Westminster.* Here, in conjunction with Selden, he in vain combated the position that presbytery was jure divino, and that no human legislature had a right, in any degree, to interfere with or control the Presbyterian church, and he was branded with the opprobrious appellation of "Erastian." He was more successful when the resolution of the Assembly in favour of the " Covenant" came to be debated in the House of Commons, although, on one occasion, he could only prevent its being carried by making a very long and wearisome speech against time, till a sufficient number of "Independent" members could be got together, who, for the nonce, coalescing with a small body of Episcopalians, threw it out.

In January, 1643, he was named, along with Holles and other popular leaders, a Commissioner to carry propositions of peace to the King at Oxford. This appears to have been a very disagreeable service, although they had a safe conduct. At the inn where they were stationed during the negotiation, a great bustle being heard in the hall, it was found that some of the officers of the royal army had fallen foul of the Commissioners' servants, calling them, and their masters, and the parliament who had despatched them, “rogues, rebels, and traitors." The Commissioners having ascertained the cause of the disturbance, behaved with becoming spirit. "Holles went presently to one of the King's [A. D. 1643.] officers, a tall, big, black man, and taking him by the collar shook him, and told him it was base and unworthily done of them to abuse their servants in their own quarters, contrary to the King's safe conduct, and took away his sword from him.—I did the same," adds Whitelock, 'to another great mastiff fellow, an officer also of the King's army, and took his sword from him.”+ Nevertheless, they fell under a lively suspicion of having, during this mission, intrigued with the King, and betrayed the parliament. Having paid a visit of courtesy to the Earl of Lindsey, who lay at the royal quarters languishing from the mortal wounds he had received in the battle of Edge Hill, the King, attended by Prince Rupert, came, as if casually, into the chamber, and, after many professions of esteem for their persons and characters, requested their advice as to the answer he should give to the propositions of the parliament, and desired them to confer together and set down something in writing that might be fit for him to say, with a view to bring about a happy settlement of all differences. They, acting with perfect good faith to their party, retir

* Mem. 99.

† Mem. 67.