Being thus intrusted with the sword of justice, he soon fleshed it in the unfortunate Walter Walker, indicted before him on the statute 25 Edward III., for compassing and imagining the death of the king. The prisoner kept an inn called the Crown, in Cheapside, in the city of London, and was obnoxious to the government because a club of young men met there who were suspected to be Lancastrians, and to be plotting the restoration of the imprisoned king. But there was no witness to speak to any such treasonable consult; and the only evidence to support the charge was, that the prisoner had once, in a merry mood, said to his son, then a boy, “Tom, if thou behavest thyself well, I will make thee heir to the Crown.”
Counsel were not allowed to plead in such cases then, or for more than three centuries after; but the poor publican himself urged that he never had formed any evil intention upon the king’s life,—that he had ever peaceably submitted to the ruling powers,—and that though he could not deny the words imputed to him, they were only spoken to amuse his little boy, meaning that he should succeed him as master of the Crown Tavern, in Cheapside, and, like him, employ himself in selling sack.
Mr. Justice Billing, however, ruled—
“That upon the just construction of the statute of treasons, which was only declaratory of the common law, there was no necessity, in supporting such a charge, to prove a design to take away the natural life of the king; that any thing showing a disposition to touch his royal state and dignity was sufficient; and that the words proved were inconsistent with that reverence for the hereditary descent of the crown which was due from every subject under the oath of allegiance; therefore, if the jury believed the witness, about which there could be no doubt, as the prisoner did not venture to deny the treasonable language which he had used, they were bound to find him guilty.”
A verdict of guilty was accordingly returned, and the poor publican was hanged, drawn, and quartered.[34]
Mr. Justice Billing is said to have made the criminal law thus bend to the wishes of the king and the ministers in other cases, the particulars of which have not been transmitted to us; and he became a special favorite at court, all his former extravagances about cashiering kings and electing others in their stead being forgotten, in consideration of the zeal he displayed since his conversion to the doctrine of “divine right.”
Therefore, when the chief justice had allowed Sir Thomas Cooke to escape the penalties of treason, after his forfeitures had been looked to with eagerness on account of the great wealth he had accumulated, there was a general cry in the palace at Westminster that he ought not to be permitted longer to mislead juries, and that Mr. Justice Billing, of such approved loyalty and firmness, should be appointed to succeed him, rather than the attorney or solicitor general, who, getting on the bench, might, like him, follow popular courses.
Accordingly, a supersedeas to Sir John Markham was made out immediately after the trial of Rex v. Cooke, and the same day a writ passed the great seal, whereby “the king’s trusty and well-beloved Sir Thomas Billing, Knight, was assigned as chief justice to hold pleas before the king himself.”
The very next term came on the trial of Sir Thomas Burdett. This descendant of one of the companions of William the Conqueror, and ancestor of the late Sir Francis Burdett, lived at Arrow, in Warwickshire, where he had large possessions. He had been a Yorkist, but somehow was out of favor at court; and the king, making a progress in those parts, had rather wantonly entered his park, and hunted and killed a white buck, of which he was peculiarly fond. When the fiery knight, who had been from home, heard of this affair, which he construed into a premeditated insult, he exclaimed, “I wish that the buck, horns and all, were in the belly of the man who advised the king to kill it;” or, as some reported, “were in the king’s own belly.” The opportunity was thought favorable for being revenged on an obnoxious person. Accordingly he was arrested, brought to London, and tried at the King’s Bench bar on a charge of treason, for having compassed and imagined the death and destruction of “our lord the king.”
The prisoner proved, by most respectable witnesses, that the wish he had rashly expressed was applied only to the man who advised the king to kill the deer, and contended that words did not amount to treason, and that—although, on provocation, he had uttered an irreverent expression, which he deeply regretted—instead of having any design upon the king’s life, he was ready to fight for his right to the crown, as he had done before; and that he would willingly die in his defence.