tenth of October and following days, A. D. 1660, for high treason. The unfairness meted out to them sub sequently was foreshadowed by the con sultation between the prosecuting counsel and the judges commissioned to try the case, to resolve many points " preparatory to the trials of the murderers of the late king." One of the points determined at this ex traordinary meeting was, " that it was better to try these traitors " at the sessions at New gate — an admirable instance of prejudging a case. The charge of Lord Chief Baron Sir Orlando Bridgman to the grand jury contained such passages as, " I have done in this particular, to let you see that the supreme power being in the king, the king is immediately under God, owing his power to none but God," and was a high testimony to the truth of the doctrine of " Divine Right." The grand jury found Billa vera, and on the tenth of October, Sir Hardress Waller, Colonel Thomas Harrison, and Mr. William Heaveningham were brought to the bar, and charged that each of them with others, " not having the fear of God before his eyes, and being instigated by the devil, did maliciously, treasonably, and feloniously, contrary to his due allegiance and bounden duty, sit upon and condemn our late sover eign lord, King Charles the First, of everblessed memory, and also did upon the thirtieth of January, 1648, sign and seal a warrant for the execution of his late sacred and serene majesty, of blessed memory," etc. Sir Hardress Waller pleaded guilty, but the others put themselves on their country, and, having severed their challenges, were tried separately. Colonel Harrison, with whom it is proposed alone to deal, was tried f1rst. In opening the case, Sir Hencage Finch, the solicitor general, spoke in blas phemous terms of Charles I, and prefaced volleys of abuse and irreligious bombast by the announcement, " We bring before your lordships into judgment this day the mur derers of the late king."
Even the spectators seemed to think the proceedings extraordinary, for when one of the counsel for the crown stated that the prisoner's guilt was clearly proved, they hummed, and called forth a rebuke from the Lord Chief Baron. "Gentlemen, this humming is not becom ing the dignity of the court. It is more fitting for a stage play than for a court of justice." Subsequently the prisoner applied to be allowed to employ counsel to argue a diffi cult point of law involved; but the court refused it, the recorder saying, " This gen tleman hath forgot their barbarousness; they would not hear the king!" Harrison's defense seems to have been one of much merit, but it was impossible for him, a layman, to argue the very diffi cult points of law in his case, and, further more, even had he been allowed counsel, it is hardly likely that Sir Orlando and his brethren would have lent an impartial ear to his arguments. North says of the presiding judge, " He labored very earnestly to please every body "; but for "everybody" more justly should be written " the king." His co operation in the butcheries that followed the Restoration is of itself sufficient to stamp him with infamy. • Another scandalous trial occurred in 1662, when a man named Tonge and five others were indicted at the Old Bailey for high treason. The evidence was far from being conclusive against them; but, whether that is so or not, the summing up of the presid ing judge, Sir Robert Foster, is as fine a specimen of judicial subserviency as could well be obtained. "My masters of the jury : I cannot speak loud to you, you understand the nature of this business, such as I think you have not had the like precedent in your time. My speech will not give me leave to discourse of it, for the witnesses, they are none but such as honest men : it is clear they all
