Page:History of England (Macaulay) Vol 3.djvu/357

 there was no ground for remitting any part of it. The Commons, very properly, persisted, passed their bill, and sent it up to the Peers. Of this bill the only objectionable part was the preamble, which asserted, not only that the judgment was illegal, a proposition which appeared on the face of the record to be true, but also that the verdict was corrupt, a proposition which, whether true or false, was not proved by any evidence at all.

The Lords were in a great strait. They knew that they were in the wrong. Yet they were determined not to proclaim, in their legislative capacity, that they had, in their judicial capacity, been guilty of injustice. They again tried a middle course. The preamble was softened down: a clause was added which provided that Oates should still remain incapable of being a witness; and the bill thus altered was returned to the Commons.

The Commons were not satisfied. They rejected the amendments, and demanded a free conference. Two eminent Tories, Rochester and Nottingham, took their seats in the Painted Chamber as managers for the Lords. With them was joined Burnet, whose well known hatred of Popery was likely to give weight to what he might say on such an occasion. Somers was the chief orator on the other side; and to his pen we owe a singularly lucid and interesting abstract of the debate.

The Lords frankly owned that the judgment of the Court of King's Bench could not be defended. They knew it to be illegal, and had known it to be so even when they affirmed it. But they had acted for the best. They accused Oates of bringing an impudently false accusation against Queen Catherine: they mentioned other instances of his villany; and they asked whether such a man ought still to be capable of giving testimony in a court of justice. The only excuse which, in their opinion, could be made for him was, that he was insane; and in truth, the incredible insolence and absurdity of his behaviour when he was last before them seemed to warrant the belief that his brain had been turned, and that he was not to be trusted with the lives of other men. The Lords could not therefore degrade themselves by expressly rescinding what they had done; nor could they consent to