September he was among those peers who urged Charles to call a parliament, to make peace with the Scots, and to dismiss his obnoxious ministers; and was one of the English commissioners appointed to conclude the Treaty of Ripon. When the Long Parliament met in November 1640, Bedford was generally regarded as the leader of the parliamentarians. In February 1641 he was made a privy councillor, and during the course of some negotiations was promised the office of Lord High Treasurer. He was essentially a moderate man, and seemed anxious to settle the question of the royal revenue in a satisfactory manner. He did not wish to alter the government of the church, was on good terms with Archbishop Laud, and, although convinced of the guilt of Strafford, was anxious to save his life. In the midst of the parliamentary struggle, Bedford died of smallpox on 9 May 1641. Clarendon described him as "a wise man, and of too great and plentiful a fortune to wish the subversion of the government", and again referring to his death, said that "many who knew him well thought his death not unseasonable as well to his fame as his fortune, and that it rescued him as well from some possible guilt as from those visible misfortunes which men of all conditions have since undergone". Estate development In about 1631 with architect Inigo Jones, he built the square of Covent Garden, with the piazza and church of St. Paul's. He was threatened with a Star-chamber suit for contravening the proclamation against new buildings, but the matter seems to have been resolved by compromise. Bedford was the head of those who undertook to drain the great level of The Fens of Cambridgeshire, which were renamed the "Bedford Level" in his honour. He and the other undertakers were to receive ninety-five thousand acres of land, of which twelve thousand were to be set apart for the king, and the profits of forty thousand were to serve as a security for keeping up the drainage works. He spent a large sum of money on this work, and received 43,000 acres (174 km²) of land; but the project involved him in great difficulties. By 1637 he had spent £100,000 on the undertaking but after various jealousies and difficulties, the king took the work into his own hands in 1638, making a further grant of land to the Earl.