Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/414

394 The next day, the 25th, the bill was brought before the Lords. The witnesses repeated their evidence in person, and 'the judges declared the case to be manifest treason.' It was read a first time on the spot, and a second and third time on the two days following, without a dissenting voice; 'the Lord Protector only, for natural pity's sake, desiring license at the passing of the bill to be away.' Among the Commons Seymour had a party, and there the matter 'was much debated and argued.' 'His friends,' Latimer said, 'though he were not there himself, had liberty to answer for him; and there were in the Parliament a great many learned men, conscionable men, wise men.' On the 5th of March the House of Commons desired to hear the evidence again, and Southampton, Rutland, Dorset, and Russell appeared to make their depositions. 'The minds of the lawyers being axed and declared,' they stated, 'that the offences of the Lord Admiral came within the compass of high treason; and when no man was able to say the contrary, being divers times provoked thereunto by the Speaker, the nether house being marvellous full, almost to the number of four hundred, not more than ten or twelve giving their nays thereunto,' the bill passed, and five days after was sent to the Crown, with a request that 'justice might have place.'

'And forasmuch as the council did perceive that the case was so heavy and lamentable to the Lord Protector,