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William Strode, (born c. 1599—died Sept. 9, 1645, London, Eng.), a leader of the Puritan opposition to England’s King Charles I and one of the five members of the House of Commons whom the king tried to impeach in January 1642. The incident enraged the Commons and caused it to begin preparing for war with the Royalists.
Strode, who first entered Parliament in 1624, played a leading role in securing passage, on March 2, 1629, of three strongly worded resolutions condemning the king’s religious and financial policies. As a consequence, he was arrested and imprisoned for 11 years. Upon his release in January 1640, he immediately became one of the king’s most bitter and fiery opponents. As a member of the Long Parliament (beginning November 1640), he advocated parliamentary control over ministerial appointments and the militia, and he proposed that Parliament meet annually. He supported the impeachment and trial of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, and the Grand Remonstrance of November 1641, and, when Charles tried to arrest him and four other Parliamentary leaders for treason (January 1642), he was with difficulty persuaded to flee from the House of Commons. Opposing all suggestions of a compromise with the king, he urged on the preparations for war and was present at the Battle of Edgehill (October 23). He was bitterly opposed to Archbishop William Laud, and on Nov. 28, 1644, he carried the Commons’ message to the Lords desiring that the ordinance for the archbishop’s execution might be hastened.
Strode died at Tottenham, London, in 1645 and by order of Parliament was buried in Westminster Abbey. His body was disinterred in 1661, following the restoration of Charles II.
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