Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/219

] Maynard and Glynne, two acute lawyers, were the managers who chiefly brought forward the accusations, and directed the evidence against him; but they appeared no match for Stratford's intellect and address. They endeavoured to establish a charge of constructive treason, that is, of treason not founded on one clear and palpable act, but on accumulated evidence, the aggregate of many offences; but the prisoner's answer to this was triumphant.



They had not his letters, which we have; and though they could point to a long course of arbitrary and unconstitutional conduct, amounting to high misdemeanours, they could not lay their fingers on the damning proofs of his avowed intentions under his own hand, as we now can in the Strafford Papers. But even had they possessed these, it would still have been technically impossible to establish a charge of high treason according to any definitions of law, or any ideas of treason then existing. All the statutes of high treason had heretofore been directed against designs or attempts to injure or remove the king, or any of his family; to subvert the government, or change the possession of the crown. That there might be such a thing as treason against the people and their rights; against the kingdom, as well as the king; so entirely had royal rights occupied attention; so little had the rights of subjects been regarded; that this, the highest of all possible treasons, had never come into governing heads. It was now the fate of these ministers, and of their master, to make that crime patent to the world and all its ages.

In vain would Pym or Selden then search Coke upon Littleton, or the statutes at large, for any definition of a treason that would serve them. The statute of 25 Edward III. c. 2 was the great landmark of English history in those matters, and amongst the seven distinct declarations of treasonable offences, they would look in vain for one to fit Wentworth. 1. "If a man doth compass the death of our lord the king, or of our lady his queen, or of their eldest son and heir." 2. "If a man do violate the king's companion, or the king's eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the king's eldest son and heir." 3. "If a man do levy war against the lord our king in his realm " 4. "If a man be adhered to the king's enemies, giving them aid or comfort in his realm or elsewhere." 5. "If a man counterfeit the king's great or privy seal." 6. "If a man counterfeit the king's money, or bring false money into the kingdom," &c. 7. "If a man slay the chancellor, treasurer, or the king's justices of the one bench or the other, justices in eyre, or justices of assize, and