God's Fury, England's Fire_ A New History of the English Civil Wars - Michael J. Braddick [216]
Twas pity, that he, that in his life had been the author of so much bloodshed, and those many calamities, under which this Kingdom yet groans, and therefore deserved, not only to have his death with the transgressors, and wicked, but afterward to be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn, and cast forth beyond the gates of the city [Jer 22 19] should after his death, make his sepulchre amongst the honourable, and mingle his vulgar, lousy ashes with those of Kings, Princes, and Nobles.
Ryves’s view was vindicated in the long run, of course: after the Restoration Pym’s remains were dug up and flung into a ditch.7 Outside academic circles he is now a more or less completely forgotten figure.
This public exchange reflected in microcosm the larger problem – the meaning of events, and the increasing numbers of deaths, was important but elusive; and more-elaborate efforts now had to be made to establish the pertinent facts. The subtitle of An Answer to Mercurius Aulicus is revealing in this context: His Communicated Intelligence from The Court to the rest of the Kingdom Faithfully trased through, to undeceive those who love the Truth. The week before Pym’s death The Parliament Scout had commented that ‘If there was ever need of making news, it is this week, for it hath afforded so little, that some have taken allowance to print more than is true’. His advice was sensible, but not that helpful: ‘Caveat Emptor’. A Perfect Diurnall was candid about the problem facing even the well-intentioned:
notwithstanding the most special care I ever had, and shall have in these relations to avoid untruths: yet considering, that from all parts of the Kingdom (where any act of hostility hath been) the many several relations are sent, as well to the Parliament as City, it is impossible but in some weeks some of those many relations may in some particulars fail.
All he could do was promise to correct them as they came to light.8 Confused and contradictory reports made the political scene even more difficult to interpret – firm grounds for judgements about the truth of reports and the meaning of the conflict were hard to establish. In the week of Pym’s death three of Thomas Case’s sermons had been published as The Quarell of the Covenant – an indication that all in the parliamentary alliance was not as well as Pym’s obsequies might suggest.
Laud’s death provided a similar rallying point a year later, when the parliamentary cause was much more openly fractious. Laud’s trial had opened in March 1644 but had dragged on until 11 October, partly because hearings were so infrequent. Accusations of treason and the promotion of popery were manifestly untrue and the prosecution sustained its case by unfair means: interfering with witnesses, failing to detail in advance the evidence which would be used to sustain the charges and giving Laud only a limited time to prepare answers before each hearing. Prynne, given access to voluminous private papers and driven by vengeance, was unable to substantiate the charges. Laud was not always straightforward in his answers, though: he was innocent as charged but less than candid in answer.9
With unpromising prospects of conviction the Commons resolved to proceed by attainder in an echo of the treatment of Strafford. An ordinance of attainder was moved on 31 October, which the Lords were reluctant to approve. A number of speakers revived the memory of the crowds that had bayed for Strafford’s blood, hoping that the fear of disorder would bring waverers onside. It was the Earl of Essex who posed the embarrassing question: ‘Is this the liberty that we promised to maintain with our blood? Shall posterity say that to save them from the yoke of the King we have placed them under the yoke of the populace?’ The Lords fought a losing battle to stay the execution, which was finally agreed in the first week of January. On 10 January, Laud was executed, having initially