James I and in the earliest three parliaments called by Charles I, Strode represented Beeralston. On 2 March 1629, when the speaker tried to adjourn the house and refused to put Eliot's resolutions to the vote, Strode played a great part in the disorderly scene which followed. He did not content himself with pointedly reminding the speaker that he was only the servant of the house, but called on all those who desired Eliot's declaration to be read to signify their assent by standing up. ‘I desire the same,’ he explained, ‘that we may not be turned off like scattered sheep, as we were at the end of the last session, and have a scorn put on us in print; but that we may leave something behind us’ (Gardiner, History of England, vii. 69). The next day Strode was summoned before the council. As he declined to come, he was arrested in the country, and committed first to the king's bench prison, then to the Tower, and thence to the Marshalsea. When he was proceeded against in the Star-chamber he repudiated the jurisdiction of that court, and refused to answer outside parliament for words spoken within it. As he also refused to be bound over to good behaviour, he remained a prisoner until January 1640 (ib. vii. 90, 115; Forster, Life of Eliot, ii. 460, 521, 544, 563; Green, William Strode, p. 11). The Long parliament voted the proceedings against him a breach of privilege, and ordered him 500l. compensation for his sufferings (Verney, Notes of the Long Parliament, p. 102; Commons' Journals, ii. 203, iv. 189).
Strode was returned for Beeralston to the two parliaments elected in 1640. His sufferings gave him a position in the popular party which his abilities would not have entitled him to claim, and his boldness and freedom of speech soon made him notorious. Clarendon terms him ‘one of the fiercest men of the party,’ and ‘one of those Ephori who most avowed the curbing and suppressing of majesty’ (Rebellion, ii. 86, iv. 32). D'Ewes describes him as a ‘firebrand,’ a ‘notable profaner of the scriptures,’ and one with ‘too hot a tongue’ (Forster, Arrest of the Five Members, p. 220). Strode was one of the managers of Strafford's impeachment, and was so bitter that he proposed that the earl should not be allowed counsel to speak for him (
Baillie
, Letters, i. 309, 330, 339). He spoke against Lord-keeper Finch, and was zealous for the protestation, but his most important act was the introduction of the bill for annual parliaments (Notebook of Sir John Northcote, ed. H. A. Hamilton, 1877, pp. 95, 112; Verney, Notes, p. 67). In the second session of the Long parliament he was still bolder. On 28 Oct. 1641 he demanded that parliament should have a negative voice in all ministerial appointments, and a month later moved that the kingdom should be put in a posture of defence, thus foreshadowing the militia bill (Gardiner, ix. 253, x. 41, 86; cf. Sanford, Studies of the Great Rebellion, pp. 446, 453). To his activity rather than his influence with the popular party Strode's inclusion among the five members impeached by Charles I was due: Clarendon describes both him and Hesilrige as ‘persons of too low an account and esteem’ to be joined with Pym and Hampden (Rebellion, iv. 192). The articles of impeachment were presented on 3 June 1642, and on the following day the king came to the house in person to arrest the members. A pamphlet printed at the time gives a speech which Strode is said to have delivered in his vindication on 3 Jan., but there can be little doubt that it is a forgery (Old Parliamentary History, x. 157, 163, 182; Gardiner, x. 135). According to D'Ewes, it was difficult to persuade him to leave the house even when the king's approach was announced. ‘Mr. William Strode, the last of the five, being a young man and unmarried, could not be persuaded by his friends for a pretty while to go out; but said that, knowing himself to be innocent, he would stay in the house, though he sealed his innocency with his blood at the door … nay when no persuasions could prevail with the said Mr. Strode, Sir Walter Erle, his entire friend, was fain to take him by the cloak and pull him out of his place and so get him out of the House’ (Sanford, p. 464).
After his impeachment Strode was naturally the more embittered against the king, and when the civil war began became one of the chief opponents of attempts at accommodation with Charles (ib. pp. 497, 529, 540, 544, 562, 567). He was present at the battle of Edgehill, and was sent up by Essex to give a narrative of it to parliament. In the speech which he made to the corporation of the city on 27 Oct. 1642, Strode gave a short account of the fight, specially praising the regiments ‘that were ignominously reproached by the name of Roundheads,’ whose courage had restored the fortune of the day (Old Parliamentary History, xi. 479; Clarendon, vi. 101). In 1643 his house in Devonshire was plundered by Sir Ralph Hopton's troops, and the commons introduced an ordinance for indemnifying him out of Hopton's estate (Commons' Journals, ii. 977). When Pym was buried in Westminster Abbey, Strode was one of his bearers
