—Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
For the rest, 'tis in the domain of history. Michael could have been tried by his peers had he so desired it. The few friends who rallied round him urged him to demand the right, but when we remember that in pledging his life to his cousin, his one wish was speedy condemnation and summary death, we cannot be astonished that he refused to be tried by those who might have been lenient toward one of themselves.
Among his peers, too, the fact would of a surety have come to light that he did not belong to the Catholic branch of the Kestyons, that he himself was a member of the Established Church, which—as all these trials, alas, really amounted to religious persecution—would almost certainly have obtained an acquittal.
Parliament—still suffering severely of its no-Popery fit—demanded that the traitor be tried as a common criminal before the King's Bench and required the king to issue a special commission that the day might be fixed as soon as may be.
The accused was of course allowed no counsel, and no defence save what he could say on his own behalf. Nor did he know the precise words of the indictment, or what special form the informant's lies had taken.
He did not know exactly what he was supposed to have said or done, he could only vaguely guess from what he knew of similar trials that had gone before.
The trial of Michael Kestyon, Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, did, we know, take place before the King's Bench on the twenty-first day of November, 1678. Lord Chief Justice Scroggs presided, and the Attorney-General, Sir William Jones, once the friend of Michael, addressed the jury for the Crown.
We also know that the court sat in Westminster Hall for the occasion, as it was expected that a very large concourse of ladies and gentlemen would desire to be present. As a matter of fact, the élite of London society did forego on that occasion the pleasures of The Mall, and of the playhouse in order to witness a spectacle which would rouse the jaded senses of these votaries of fashion and whip up their blasé emotions more than any comedy of Mr. Dryden or the late Master Shakespeare could do.
This would be a tragedy far more moving, far more emotional than that of Hamlet or of Romeo and Juliet, for the element of romance mingled agreeably with that of crime, and the personality of the accused was one that aroused the most eager interest.