Tory

nobody thought it monstrous that he should not have time to study a copy of his indictment that his witness should be examined without being sworn that he should be left to defend himself without the help of counsel against the best abilities which the inns of court could furnish the whigs it seemed reserved all their compassion for those crimes which subvert government and dissolve the whole frame of human society guy faux was to be treated with an indulgence which was not to be extended to a shoplifter bradshaw was to have privileges which were refused to a boy who had robbed a hen-roost the revolution produced as was natural some change in the sentiments of both the great parties in the days when none but roundheads and nonconformists were accused of treason even the most humane and upright cavaliers were disposed to think that the laws which were the safeguard of the throne could hardly be too severe but as soon as loyal tory gentlemen and venerable fathers of the church were in danger of being called in question for corresponding with st germains a new light flashed on many understandings which had been unable to discover the smallest injustice in the proceedings against algernon sydney and alice lyle it was no longer thought utterly absurd to maintain that some advantages which were withheld from a man accused of felony might reasonably be allowed to a man accused of treason what probability was there that any sheriff would pack a jury that any barrister would employ all the arts of sophistry and rhetoric that any judge would strain law and misrepresent evidence in order to convict an innocent person of burglary or sheep-stealing but on a trial for high treason a verdict of acquittal must always be considered as a defeat of the government and there was but too much reason to fear that many sheriffs barristers and judges might be impelled by party spirit or by some baser motive to do anything which might save the government from the inconvenience and shame of a defeat the cry of the whole body of tories was that the lives of good englishmen who happened to be obnoxious to the ruling powers were not sufficiently protected and this cry was swelled by the voices of some lawyers who had distinguished themselves by the malignant zeal and dishonest ingenuity with which they had conducted state prosecutions in the days of charles and james End of section 3.

Recording by Jen Raymundo.

The feeling of the Whigs, though it had not, like the feeling of the Tories, undergone a complete change, was yet not quite what it had been.

some who had thought it most unjust that russell should have no counsel and that cornish should have no copy of his indictment now began to mutter that the times had changed that the dangers of the state were extreme that liberty property religion national independence were all at stake that many englishmen were engaged in schemes of which the object was to make england the slave of france and of rome and that it would be most unwise to relax at such a moment the laws against political offences it was true that the injustice with which in the late reigns state trials had been conducted had given great scandal but this injustice was to be ascribed to the bad kings and bad judges with whom the nation had been cursed william was now on the throne holt was seated for life on the bench and william would never exact nor would holt ever perform services so shameful and wicked as those for which the banished tyrant had rewarded jeffreys with riches and titles this language however was at first held but by few the whigs as a party seemed to have felt they could not honorably defend in this season of their prosperity what in the time of their adversity they had always designated as a crying grievance a bill for regulating trials in cases of high treason was brought into the house of commons and was received with general applause treby had the courage to make some objections but no division took place the chief enactments were that no person should be convicted of high treason committed more than three years before the indictment was found that every person indicted for high treason should be allowed to avail himself of the assistance of counsel and should be furnished ten days before the trial with a copy of the indictment and with a list of the freeholders from among whom the jury was to be taken that his witnesses should be sworn and that they should be cited by the same process by which the attendance of the witnesses against him was secured the bill went to the upper house and came back with an important amendment the lords had long complained of the anomalous and iniquitous constitution of that tribunal which had jurisdiction over them in cases of life and death when a grand jury has found a bill of indictment against a temporal peer for any offence higher than a misdemeanour the crown appoints a lord high steward and in the lord high steward's court the case is tried this court was anciently composed in two very different ways it consisted if parliament happened to be sitting of all the members of the upper house When Parliament was not sitting, the Lord High Steward summoned any twelve or more peers at his discretion to form a jury.

The consequence was that a peer accused of high treason during a recess was tried by a jury which his prosecutors had packed.

But there are no inevitabilities in politics.

Tories should hate the word inevitable.

You know, Powell always hated that word inevitable.

There's, it's very rare that you get inevitable things in terms of where the votes are going.