The question first arose at the Old Bailey, before Sir John Holt, then recorder of London, and he decided against the crown, as might have been expected; for, while avoiding keen partisanship in politics, he had been always Whiggishly inclined. James thought he was quite secure by appealing to the ultra Tory, Lord Chief Justice Herbert. To the utter amazement of the king and the courtiers, this honorable, although shallow, magistrate declared that, without an act of Parliament, all laws were equally applicable to all his majesty’s subjects, whether wearing red coats or gray. Being taunted with inconsistency in respect of his judgment in favor of the dispensing power, he took this distinction, “that a statute altering the common law might be suspended by the king, who is really the lawgiver, notwithstanding the form that he enacts ‘with the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and Commons;’ but that the common law cannot be altered by the king’s sole authority, and that the king can do nothing contrary to the common law, as that must be considered coeval with the monarchy.”
James, with the infatuated obstinacy which was now driving him to destruction, set this opinion at defiance; and, encouraged by Jeffreys, caused a soldier to be capitally prosecuted, at the Reading assizes, for deserting his colors. The judges who presided there resorted to some obsolete, inapplicable act of Parliament, and were weak enough to lay down the law in the manner suggested to them by the chancellor, so that a conviction was obtained. To give greater solemnity and eclat to the execution, the attorney general moved the Court of King’s Bench for an order that it might take place at Plymouth, in sight of the garrison from which the prisoner had run away. But Herbert peremptorily declared that the court had no jurisdiction to make such an order, and prevailed on his brother Wythens to join with him in this opinion. Mr. Attorney took nothing by his motion, but the recreant chief justice and the recreant puisne were both next morning dismissed from their offices, to make way for the most sordid wretches to be picked up in Westminster Hall—Sir Robert Wright and Sir Richard Allibone, a professed Papist.
[153] The two clergymen who were most applauded on this occasion were the bold one, who, refusing to obey the royal mandate, took for his text “Be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up;” and the humorous one, who, having said, “My brethren, I am obliged to read this declaration, but you are not obliged to listen to it,” waited till they were all gone, clerk and all, before the reading of the declaration began.
[154] More than one American advocate for treating the fugitive slave act as a law, and submitting to it as such, till repealed, has preached precisely this doctrine.—Ed.
[155] 12 State Trials, 183-523.
[156] It was supposed that he was jealous of Williams, the solicitor general, who had been promised by James the highest offices of the law if he could convict the bishops. This may account for a sarcasm he levelled at his rival during the trial. Williams, having accounted for a particular vote of the House of Commons in the reign of James II., when he himself was a member and suspected of bribery, said “there was a lump of money in the case.” Wright, in referring to this, observed, “Mr. Solicitor tells you the reason, ‘there was a lump of money in the case;’ but I wonder, indeed, to hear it come from him.” Williams, understanding the insinuation, exclaimed, “My lord, I assure you I never gave my vote for money in my life.”
[157] A similar and alarming reaction towards despotism has exhibited itself in America since the passage of the fugitive slave act of 1850, in the combination of so many distinguished jurists and divines to denounce the doctrine of a “higher law,” and to advocate the “divine right” of Congress to make enactments according to its own pleasure and judgment, which enactments are to take precedence as rules of conduct of the individual conscience, which it is attempted to silence by stigmatizing it as a prejudice. Not only does there seem reason to dread that we may soon be under legislators and an executive who, believing in the divine right of those in authority, will not only applaud but act upon the principles of arbitrary government, we lately have been and still are, so far as the federal executive and the federal Senate are concerned, under precisely such ministers and legislators; and having lately had some such experience of the practical results of such principles in the administration of justice, what more natural than to compare our sufferings with those of our British forefathers, and to seek to learn from their experience the natural cure for such evils?—Ed.
[158] Jane Johnson’s suggestions, on the ground that she was a stranger to the proceeding, were allowed no weight towards the liberation of Williamson, and were refused admittance on the files of the court. At the same time, the suggestions of Mr. Cadwallader, another stranger, were eagerly clutched at and put upon the record, with a view to better the position of Judge Kane.
[159] The account of the final proceedings is from the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.