To the Editors:

Pat Rogers criticizes Jeffrey Meyers for his description of the Earl of Strafford as the “murdered Thomas Wentworth” (“Cheerfulness Breaks In” June 2009). According to Rogers, the Earl was not murdered but the subject of  “parliamentary impeachment.” But it is Rogers and not Meyers who is mistaken. In point of fact, the parliamentary impeachment failed when the House of Lords refused to convict and the Earl was executed under a Bill of Attainder without proof of any wrongdoing.  Meyers wasreasonably accurate when he characterized this as murder.

Aldan Markson
Union, NJ