I shall not attempt to conduct the reader through, the mazes of this long and wearisome process, which occupied twenty-one days in the course of six months. The many articles presented by the Commons might be reduced to three,—that Laud had endeavoured to subvert the rights of parliament, the laws and the religion of the nation. In support of these, every instance that could be raked together by the industry and ingenuity of Prynne, was brought forward. The familiar discourse, and the secret writings of the
[Footnote 1: Laud's History written by himself in the Tower, 200-206.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1643. April 21.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1643. May 31.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1643. Oct. 23.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1644. March 4.]
prelate, had been scrutinized; and his conduct both private and public, as a bishop and a counsellor, in the Star-chamber and the High Commission court, had been subjected to the most severe investigation. Under every disadvantage, he defended himself with spirit, and often with success. He showed that many of the witnesses were his personal enemies, or undeserving of credit; that his words and writings would bear a less offensive and more probable interpretation; and that most of the facts objected to him were either the acts of his officers, who alone ought to be responsible, or the common decision of those boards of which he was only a single member.[1] Thus far[a] he had conducted his defence without legal aid. To speak to matters of law, he was allowed the aid of counsel, who contended that not one of the offences alleged against him amounted to high treason; that their number could not change their quality; that an endeavour to subvert the law, or religion, or the rights of parliament, was not treason by any statute; and that the description of an offence, so vague and indeterminate ought never to be admitted;: otherwise the slightest transgression might, under that denomination, be converted into the highest crime known to the law.[2]
But the Commons, whether they distrusted the patriotism of the Lords, or doubted the legal guilt of the prisoner, had already resolved to proceed by attainder. After the second reading of the ordinance, they sent for the venerable prisoner to their bar, and ordered Brown, one of the managers, to recapitulate in his
[Footnote 1: Compare his own daily account of his trial in History, 220-421, with that part published by Prynne, under the title of Canterburies Doome, 1646; and Rushworth, v. 772.]
[Footnote 2: See it in Laud's History, 423.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1644. March 11.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1644. Nov. 2.]
hearing the evidence against him, together with his answers. Some days later[a] he was recalled, and suffered to speak in his own defence. After his departure, Brown made a long reply; and the house, without further consideration, passed the bill of attainder, and adjudged him to suffer the penalties of treason.[1] The reader will not fail to observe this flagrant perversion of the forms of justice. It was not as in the case of the earl of Strafford. The commons had not been present at the trial of Laud; they had not heard the evidence, they had not even read the depositions of the witnesses; they pronounced judgment on the credit of the unsworn and partial statement made by their own advocate. Such a proceeding, so subversive of right and equity, would have been highly reprehensible in any court or class of men; it deserved the severest reprobation in that house, the members of which professed themselves the champions of freedom, and were actually in arms against the sovereign, to preserve, as they maintained, the laws, the rights, and the liberties of the nation.
To quicken the tardy proceedings of the Peers, the enemies of the archbishop had recourse to their usual expedients. Their emissaries lamented the delay in the punishment of delinquents, and the want of unanimity between the two houses. It was artfully suggested as a remedy, that both the Lords and Commons ought to sit and vote together in one assembly; and a petition, embodying these different subjects, was prepared and circulated for signatures through the city. Such manoeuvres aroused the spirit of the Peers. They threatened[c] to punish all disturbers