Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/466

 the bishops were required to plead. The trial came on, a fortnight later, at Westminster Hall. Williams, who was twice hissed by the audience (Verney Memoirs, iv. 429), strained every nerve to ‘make a good case of it for the king’ (, Essays, p. 364). But the main line of his argument was not wholly inconsistent with his former opinions; maintaining the supremacy of parliament, he urged that it was seditious to interfere with the government of the country out of parliament, and that the bishops ought therefore to have awaited its reassembling, when they could have moved the upper house to address the king. When the verdict of not guilty was given, the applause so exasperated him that he asked for the committal of one of the shouting bystanders. Jeffreys, on hearing the news, was seen to smile and hide his face in his nosegay, for it was said the king had promised that if Williams secured a conviction he should replace his old enemy as chancellor. This seems to be referred to in Williams's epitaph, where he is described as ‘tantum non-purpuratis adscriptus.’ Subsequently Williams, by means of corrections in a manuscript report of the trial, softened down some of his harsher expressions, and in his argument in Prynne's case in 1691 he disclaimed any intention of justifying the proceedings of the late government, saying ‘We have all done amiss, and must wink at one another’ (Five Modern Reports, 463).

On 6 July, less than a week after the trial, he was rewarded with a baronetcy, but for the time being he was, next to Jeffreys perhaps, the best hated man in England. Although ever enemies, they were now associated in the common ridicule of a popular ballad (, i. 533): Both our Britons are fooled Who the laws overruled, And next parliament each will be plaguily schooled. Early in October the windows of Williams's chamber at Gray's Inn were smashed and ‘reflecting inscriptions fixt over his door’ (, i. 468). He had probably only just returned from Glasgoed, where Sunderland had written to him on 8 Sept. bidding him secure his election for the forthcoming parliament either in Wales or at Wallingford, and to come up to London as the king wanted his services (Williams Wynn MSS.) On 22 Oct. he attended the extraordinary council to which proofs of the birth of the Prince of Wales were submitted. After this, finding that the king had no intention either of dismissing Jeffreys or of summoning parliament, he took care not to commit himself further by identifying himself with his policy. No sooner had the Prince of Orange reached Windsor than Williams proceeded to offer him a welcome (16 Dec.), but the prince at first refused him an audience. A month later (15 Jan.) Williams was returned to the convention as the representative of Beaumaris in his native county, and in the debate on the state of the nation he, along with other lawyers (including his kinsman, Gilbert Dolben), declared that ‘James II by withdrawing himself from England had deprived the kingdom of the exercise of kingly dignity,’ adding in almost republican language that it would be time enough to consider persons to fill the throne when the convention, which he regarded as parliament, had purged corporations and abrogated ‘the arbitrary powers given to the late king by the judges, for weak judges will do weak things.’

Later, Williams was placed on the committee appointed to draft the bill of rights. But, in spite of his return to his old whig principles, it was impossible for the new king to retain him as solicitor-general, and a successor was therefore appointed in May. Williams was, however, consoled by being made king's counsel and lord-lieutenant for Merionethshire (8 Oct. 1689). The latter honour he held only till the following March, while at the elections which also took place in that month he was not returned for any constituency. For the next five years he devoted himself almost exclusively to his practice at the bar. His appearance at appeals before the House of Lords is frequently recorded at this period (Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th, 13th and 14th Reps.); he was one of the counsel for the crown in the prosecution of John Ashton in January 1691, and along with Sir Thomas Powis he appeared for Sir John Germaine and the Duchess of Norfolk in the various proceedings instituted by the duke in respect of their adultery. On 12 May 1692 he was made the queen's solicitor-general (, ii. 449). At the trial of the Lancashire Jacobites held before a special commission at Manchester on 16 Oct. 1694 he conducted the prosecution, but when one of the chief witnesses for the crown admitted that the evidence was a mere fabrication of himself and accomplices, Williams promptly threw up the case, and ‘set out post for London to remonstrate against the iniquity of the whole proceeding,’ as more careful inquiry should have been made by the government before instituting the prosecu-