Carlisle of the play and the less noble Lady Carlisle which history conjectures rather than describes....  On the other hand, Pym is the most unsatisfactory, from an historical point of view, of the leading personages.”

Yet, if it is interesting, it is by no means of primary importance to know the historical basis and probable accuracy of Browning’s play.  The whole interest is centred in the character of Strafford; it is a personal interest, and attaches itself to the personal character or the hero.  The leading motive is Strafford’s devotion to his king, and the note of tragic discord arises from the ingratitude and faithlessness of Charles set over against the blind fidelity of his minister.  The antagonism of law and despotism, of Pym and Strafford, is, perhaps, less clearly and forcibly brought out:  though essential to the plot, it wears to our sight a somewhat secondary aspect.  Strafford himself appears not so much a superb and unbending figure, a political power, as a man whose service of Charles is due wholly to an intense personal affection, and not at all to his national sympathies, which seem, indeed, rather on the opposite side.  He loves the man, not the king, and his love is a freak of the affections.  That it is against his better reason he recognises, but the recognition fails to influence his heart or his conduct.  This is finely expressed in the following lines, spoken by Lady Carlisle:—­

      “Could you but know what ’tis to bear, my friend,
      One image stamped within you, turning blank
      The else imperial brilliance of your mind,—­
      A weakness, but most precious,—­like a flaw
      I’ the diamond, which should shape forth some sweet face
      Yet to create, and meanwhile treasured there
      Lest nature lose her gracious thought for ever’”

Browning has rarely drawn a more pathetic figure.  Every circumstance that could contribute to this effect is skilfully seized and emphasised:  Charles’s incredibly selfish weakness, the implacable sternness of Pym, the triste prattle of Strafford’s children and their interrupted joyous song in the final scene, all serve to heighten our feeling of affectionate pity and regret.  The imaginary former friendship between Pym and Strafford adds still more to the pathos of the delineation, and gives rise to some of the finest speeches, notably the last great colloquy between these two, which so effectively rounds and ends the play.  The fatal figure of Pym is impressive and admirable throughout, and the portrait of the Countess of Carlisle, Browning’s second portrait of a woman, is a noble and singularly original one.  Her unrecognised and undeterred devotion to Strafford is finely and tenderly pathetic; it has the sorrowful dignity of faithful service, rewarded only in serving.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 13:  See Robert Browning:  Personalia, by Edmund Gosse (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1890).]