“It is not meet for a prisoner to revile his judges,” said Russell; “as an Englishman you are bound by the Acts of Parliament.”
“Talk not to me of Parliament; you have on your side but the Parliament of this sinful generation, and against you are all the Parliaments who have sat from the Witan-agemot downwards, who have granted and confirmed to us of Glastonbury, those possessions which you would snatch from a house which has been the light of this country for a thousand years; to resist such oppression and sacrilege is not guilt, and I plead in that sense, ‘Not Guilty.’”
“Thou showest but little wisdom in pressing thine own opinion against the consent of the realm.”
“I would fain hold my peace; but that I may satisfy my conscience, I will tell thee that while thou hast on thy side but a minority in a single kingdom, the whole of the Christian world, save that kingdom, is dead against you, and even the majority here condemn your proceedings, although the fear of a barbarous death silences their tongues.”
“Of whom art thou speaking?”
“Of all the good men present.”
“Why hast thou persuaded so many people to disobey the King and Parliament?”
“Nay, I have sinned in dissembling my opinions, but now I will speak. I disallow these changes as impious and damnable (general sensation); I neither look for mercy nor desire it; my cause I commit to God, I am aweary of this wicked world, and long for peace.”
He sank upon the bench behind him, as did his fellow prisoners, and none of them took any further obvious interest in the proceedings.