The Commons therefore, feeling their victim slipping from their grasp, dropped the impeachment, and brought in and passed a bill of attainder on 13 April by a vote of 204 to 59. Owing to the opposition of the Lords, and Pym's own preference for the more judicial method, the procedure of an impeachment was adhered to. Few of the Lords felt much personal liking for Strafford, but there were a fair number of "moderates", notably Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, who thought that barring him from ever serving the King again was sufficient punishment. The families of his first two wives, the Cliffords and Holleses, used all their influence to gain a reprieve: even Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles, who was implacably hostile to the King, put aside political differences to plead for the life of his favourite sister's husband. Strafford might still have been saved but for Charles I's ill-advised conduct. A scheme to gain over the leaders of the parliament, and a scheme to seize the Tower of London and to liberate Strafford by force, were entertained concurrently and were mutually destructive. The revelation of the First Army Plot on 5 May 1641 caused the Lords to reject the submissions in defence of Strafford by Richard Lane and to pass the attainder. Strafford's enemies were implacable in their determination that he should die: in the Earl of Essex's phrase "stone dead hath no fellow", while the view of Oliver St. John was that Strafford should be regarded not a man, but as a dangerous animal who must be "knocked on the head". Nothing now remained but the King's signature.