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[b] 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.
Pages:
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135