The title of Earl of Strafford has been created several times in British history. The first creation was in the Peerage of England in 1640 for Lord Wentworth, the close advisor of King Charles I. In 1641, the 1st Earl was attainted. His son successfully had the attainder reversed in 1662, but died without heirs in 1695. The title was recreated in the Peerage of Great Britain in 1711 for a cousin, but became extinct in 1799. The final creation was in 1847 in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
Lord Strafford holds the subsidiary titles of Viscount Enfield, of Enfield in the County of Middlesex (1847), and Baron Strafford, of Harmondsworth in the County of Middlesex (1835), both in the Peerage of the UK.
Strafford ignored Charles's promise that no colonists should be forced into Connaught, and in 1635 he raked up an obsolete title—the grant in the 14th century of Connaught to Lionel of Antwerp, whose heir Charles was—and insisted upon the grand juries finding verdicts for the king.
However tyrannical Strafford's earlier conduct may have been, his offence was outside the definition of high treason; the copy of rough notes of Strafford's speech in the committee of the council, its authenticity not supported by councillors who had been present on the occasion, was not evidence which would convict in a court of law.
Strafford had been given the chance to carry out his ideals, and the final failure of his Irish administration, and especially its inability to endure in spite of its undoubted successes, was an object lesson in one-man government for all time.
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