Murray's letter is introduced in this manner: (and the trial, it should be recollected, was printed by authority, and is evidently garbled to serve the purpose of those in power) :

"Here was alleged how a letter had been written to the Earl of Murray, requiring to be advertised by him of so much as he knew concerning the doings of the Duke of Norfolk, both for the matter of the commission and the practice of his marriage with the Scottish Queen; and the Earl Murray's answer to the same letter was read and produced as followeth :....

"Note: that the beginning and ending of this letter was not read; but so much only as pertained to the matter."

After a speech of the Duke's, the Serjeant said, "Your answer is only but a denial. Ledington and the rest write otherwise. . . . And besides Ledington's conference with you, both the Bishop of Ross and the Earl Murray affirm your practising with them to the same intent, which is sufficient proof against your own bare denial.”

Duke. "The Earl Murray sought my life; the others are not of credit: yet all these prove not I dealt not in the matter of the marriage with the Scottish Queen, in any respect of her claim to the Crown of England. If the Bishop of Ross, or any other, can say otherwise, let them be brought before me face to face. I have often so desired it, but I could not obtain it. The Bishop of Ross confesses this was his own hand."

A copy, under the Regent Murray's hand, of the Duke's letter to the Regent, was then put in. The Duke insisted that the objectionable passages had never been written by The counsel then quoted Elizabeth's own statement. Duke." I may not nor will not stand against her Majesty's testimony."

bim.

A letter of the Duke is then put in, stating much adverse to Mary; on which the Duke remarks, "This maketh fo me." This just observation is met by one of those remarks

so truly characteristic of the bloodhounds of the Crown. "There were others joined with you in the letter, so that you could not otherwise write, however you otherwise dealt . . . . Now you shall hear your own report against her to Bannister." Duke.-" Bannister was shrewdly cramped when he told that tale. I beseech you let me have him brought face to face." Serjt." No more tortured than you were (d).”

Then was read Bannister's confession in October, 12 Eliz. The Duke again repeated his desire to see the witnesses against him face to face. "I pray you let them be brought face to face to me; I have often required it, and the law I trust is so." To answer this, the counsel for the Crown have recourse to a deliberate falsehood. "The law was so for a time, in some cases for treason; but since, the law hath been found too hard, and dangerous for the Prince, and it hath been repealed." Again the Duke, on hearing the confession of the Bishop of Ross read against him, says, "It is of good ground that I have prayed to have the Bishop of Ross brought to me in private examination face to face (e), whereby I might have put him in remembrance of truth; but I have not had him

(d) N.B. This was a deliberate falsehood. The letter of Sir T. Smith to Lord Burleigh, giving an account of the torture, is extant;—“ of Bannister with the rack-of Barker with extreme fear of it, we have gotten all." Sir Thomas Smith, who had printed his opinion "that it is against the law of England to torture," was the very person to whom the warrant to torture Bannister was directed, and by whom it was executed. In spite of Mr. Jardine's remarks, Crim. Trials, vol. 1, p. 14, I cannot think Smith's expressions of disgust, in a letter to Lord Burleigh, any sort of palliation for his conduct. Ellis's Original Letters, vol. 2, p. 260.

(e) Such was the Roman law, though perverted by the ecclesiastics for their own purposes. "In causis criminalibus testibus non testimoniis creditur quoniam testes duтоnроσwлws interrogandi sunt." Cujacius, vol. 7, p. 882. So Shakespeare's Buckingham,

"The King's attorney on the contrary

Urged on the examinations, proofs, confessions,
Of many witnesses which the Duke desired

To have brought vivâ voce to his face."

face to face, nor have been suffered to bring forth witnesses, proofs, and arguments as might have made for my purgation." The Serjeant. "You shall have proof that the Bishop of Ross has said it." Then follows the charge of a totally distinct offence, to which the Duke most properly answers, "I excuse it not, herein I confess my error. I beseech you call not these my inferior faults, which I have confessed, among the greater wherewith I am charged."

A witness called Cavendish was then confronted with the prisoner, when Burleigh again interposed in a manner hostile to the prisoner. The Duke, in his defence, says, "It is said there are two or three witnesses against me; all this two or three are but one witness, for Rodolph said it to the Bishop of Ross, and of his mouth the Bishop told it to Barker, and so from mouth to mouth; they are all but one witness." • If," said the Duke, "by any way, by any overt fact, you can prove that I have directly touched the Prince's person, or done any of the said things that the statute extendeth to, I will yield myself guilty. If any thing be doubtful, the statute referreth it to the judgment of the Parliament."

66

Catlin.—"Usage is the best expounder of the law, that is the common use how the statute hath been taken and expounded; and the same statute is but the declaration of the common law."

Duke." The preamble of the statute is to bring the laws of treason to a certainty, that men may certainly know what is treason."

Attorney General.-" You complained of your close keeping, that you had no books to provide for your answer; it seemeth you have had books and counsel. You allege books, statutes, and Bracton; I am sure the study of such books is not your profession."

To shew how completely the judges and lawyers of this day eluded most express and positive laws for the protection of

innocence, I will quote a case in Dyer, the existence of which, but for the formal and ceremonious gravity with which those raised to power, secular or ecclesiastical, were in the habit of prefacing, the basest as well as the most cruel actions would appear incredible. This is Thomas's case, Dyer, p. 996. "One witness of his own knowledge, and another of hearsay from him, though at the third or fourth hand, are two sufficient witnesses in high treason." So that if the statute had required fifty or a hundred witnesses, nothing more would have been necessary than for the first witness to have repeated his story to fifty or a hundred people, who would then have been sufficient witnesses! What signified salutary laws with such interpreters?

The trial of Campion also deserves attention. He was a man of uncommon ability, and defended himself with temper, eloquence and courage. The Queen's counsel made several speeches full of matter that was irrelevant and inflammatory. Take as an example,-" Campion," says the reporter (e), "demanded of the counsel, whether he came as an orator to accuse or as a pleader to give evidence? It had been,” he said with great eloquence, "very unequally provided, that upon the descanting and flourishes of affected speeches a man's life should be brought into danger and extremity, or that upon the persuasion of any orator or vehement pleader, without witness viva voce testifying the same, a man's offence should be judged or reputed mortal. If so, I see not to what end Mr. Serjeant's oration tended, or if I see an end, I see it but frustrate; for be the crime but in trifles, the law hath his passage; be the theft but of an halfpenny, witnesses are produced, so that probabilities, aggravations, invectives, are not the balance wherein justice must be weighed, but witnesses, oaths, &c. Whereto then appertaineth these objections of

(e) The Report was revised and sanctioned by authority. St. Tri., vol. 1.

treason? He barely affirmeth, we flatly deny them. But let us examine them; how will they urge us? We fled our country,-what of that? The Pope gave us entertainment,— how then? We are Catholics,-what is that to the purpose? We persuaded the people,-what followeth? We are therefore traitors. We deny the sequel. This is no more necessary than if a sheep had been stolen, and to accuse me you should frame this reason, my parents are thieves, my companions suspected persons, myself an evil liver, and therefore I stole the sheep. Who seeth not but these be odious circumstances to bring a man in hatred with the jury, and no necessary matter to conclude him guilty?" Papers were produced against Campion, because they were found in houses which he had visited; no other proof to make them admissible was offered. Campion asks, "What necessity importeth that reason, that neither being set down by my handwriting, nor otherwise derived by any proof from myself, but only found in places where I resorted, therefore I should be he by whom they were ministered? This is but a naked presumption, (who seeth it not?) and nothing vehement nor of force against me." The Queen's counsel's vindication, the crushing answer of Campion (ƒ), and the brutality which the lawyer substitutes for a reply, are curious and characteristic:

Anderson." It could not otherwise be intended but that you ministered those oaths, and that being found behind you it was you that left them. For if a poor and a rich man come both to one house, and that after their departure a bag of gold be found hidden, forasmuch as the poor man had no such plenty, and therefore could leave no such bag behind him, by common presumption it is to be intended that the rich man only, and no other, did hide it. So you, a professed

(f) Campion's whole demeanour, his calm, collected resolution, his generosity in attacking the counsel in behalf of his fellow prisoner, who was utterly bewildered and confused, and the care he took to compromise no one who could be injured, are worthy of antiquity.