Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/266

246 Six weeks elapsed before the Abbot's fate was decided, part or the whole of which time he was in London. At the beginning of November he was sent back into Somersetshire, already condemned at a tribunal where Cromwell sat as prosecutor, jury, and judge. His escape in a more regular court was not contemplated as a possibility; among loose papers of Cromwell still remaining there is a memorandum in his own hand for 'the trial and execution' of the Abbot of Glastonbury. But the appearance of unfair dealing was greater than the reality. Lord Russell, whose stainless character was worthy of his name, was one of the commissioners before whom the trial was conducted; and Russell has left on record his approval of, and acquiescence, in the conduct of the case, in plain and unmistakeable language. Whiting was arraigned at Wells on Thursday, the I4th of November, with his treasurers, 'before as worshipful a jury as was charged there for many years.' The crime of which he was formally accused was robbing the abbey church; and there was no doubt that he was guilty of having committed that crime, to whatever the guilt may have amounted. But if the Government had prosecuted in every instance of abbey-church robbery, a monk would have hung in chains at all the cross roads