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Law, Politics, and Violence: The Treason Trials Act of 1696

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

James R. Phifer
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Extract

In January, 1696, Parliament passed an act to reform the procedure used in treason trials. The consequences of this act were immense. It immediately changed the complexion of treason trials from that of conciliar hearings aimed at eliminating the government's enemies to that of actual trials which sought to establish guilt or innocence. Moreover, Parliament subsequently extended some of the key provisions of this act to criminal law proceedings, thus giving the 1696 statute a claim to being one of the well-springs of legal reform in modern England. Most important of all, however, was the effect the act had on politics. It helped to bring to a close an age in which politicians frequently attacked their opponents with charges of treason, and it thus played a part in opening a new age, one where less violent practices were employed in the political struggle.

It is not the least of ironies in English history that an act as important as the Treason Trials Act of 1696 should have received so little scholarly attention. The only historian to give the act more than a few pages is Samuel Rezneck in an article written in 1930. Most historians who work on the period follow the practice of such scholars as G. M. Trevelyan, David Ogg, and Sir Keith Feiling, and either fail to mention the act or note its passage in a sentence or two. Many scholars, especially those of an earlier generation, seem to assume that the act was a natural, perhaps inevitable, reaction to Stuart tyranny—that it was part of the light brought in by William and Mary at the end of a dark century—and, hence, that there is little need to discuss it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , Fall 1980 , pp. 235 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1980

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References

1 Rezneck, Samuel, “The Statute of 1696: A Pioneer Measure in the Reform of Judician Procedure in England,” The Journal of Modern History, 2 (1930): 5–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Trevelyan, G.M., England Under the Stuarts (London, 1904), p. 386Google Scholar; Ogg, David, England in the Reigns of James II and William III (Oxford, 1955), p. 359Google Scholar; SirFeiling, Keith, A History of the Tory Party, 1604-1714 (Oxford, 1924), p. 317.Google Scholar Books dealing with the act briefly or not at all include, among others, SirClark, George, The Later Stuarts, 1660-1714 (2nd ed.; Oxford, 1951)Google Scholar; Baxter, Stephen, William III and the Defense of European Liberty, 1650-1702 (New York, 1966)Google Scholar; Kenyon, J. P., Robert Spencer: Earl of Sunderland, 1641-1702 (London, 1958)Google Scholar; Plumb, J. H., The Growth of Political Stability in England, 1675-1725 (London, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Holmes, G.S. and Speck, W.A., The Divided Society: Parties and Politics in England 1694-1716 (New York, 1968)Google Scholar; Jones, J. R., Country and Court: England, 1658-1714 (Cambridge, 1979)Google Scholar; Hill, B. W., The Growth of Parliamentary Parties, 1689-1742 (London, 1976).Google Scholar

3 This attitude is exemplified by Macaulay, who discusses some of the early debates on the 1696 act but barely notes its passage, History of England from the Accession of James the Second, ed. Firth, C.H., 6 vols. (London, 1914; reprinted ed., New York, 1968).Google Scholar See also Clark, The Later Stuarts, and Ogg, England in the Reigns of James II and William III.

4 Macaulay, , History of England, 5:2111–17Google Scholar; Clark, , The Later Stuarts, p. 184Google Scholar; Rubini, Denis, Court and Country, 1668-1702 (London, 1967), pp. 122–126Google Scholar; Horwitz, Henry, Parliament, Policy and Politics in the Reign of William III (Manchester, 1977), pp. 74, 85, 314.Google Scholar Several historians have argued that the act was a product of the House of Lords' attempt to reform the Lord High Steward's Court, which, when Parliament was not in session, tried Peers accused of treason. Tuberville, A. S., The House of Lords in the Reign of William III (Oxford, 1913), pp. 106–12Google Scholar; Holdsworth, W. W., History of English Law, 2nd ed., 16 vols. (London, 1922–1924), 6:232–33Google Scholar; Prall, Stuart, The Bloodless Revolution: England, 1688 (New York, 1972), pp. 285–86.Google Scholar

5 Rezneck, , “The Statute of 1696,” p. 7.Google Scholar

6 Keir, David Lindsay, The Constitutional History of Modern Britain Since 1485, 8th ed. (New York, 1966), pp. 109–10.Google Scholar Before Edward VI, the accused often was not confronted with his accusors, had no right to cross-examine witnesses, and could be convicted by the testimony of only one witness. See also Plucknett, T.F.T., A Concise History of the Common Law, 5th ed. (Boston, 1956), p. 434Google Scholar; and SirStephen, James, A History of the Criminal Law of England, 3 vols. (London, 1883), 1:350.Google Scholar

7 Ogg, David, England in the Reign of Charles II, 2 vols. (London, 1963), 1:178.Google Scholar

8 Rezneck, , “The Statute of 1696,” pp. 7, 9–13.Google Scholar

9 Ibid.

10 For an example of the private opinions of judges, see Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys' comments on the harshness of treason trial procedures. Howell, T. B., ed., A Complete Collection of State Trials, 21 vols. (London, 1816–1828), 10:267Google Scholar (hereafter cited as State Trials). Jeffreys' opinion is all the more striking in view of the fact that he was one of the most rigorous and vindictive judges ever to sit on the English bench. The very procedures about which he expressed doubts were used by him with unwonted zeal against the king's opponents.

11 Jones, J. R., The First Whigs: The Politics of the Exclusion Crisis, 1673-83 (London, 1961)Google Scholar; Kenyon, J. P., The Popish Plot (London 1972; reprint edition, London 1974)Google Scholar; Keeton, George W., Trial for Treason (London 1959)Google Scholar; idem, Lord Chancellor Jeffreys and the Stuart Cause (London 1965).

12 Besides volumes 6-10 of the State Trials, see the useful work by Keeton, Trial for Treason.

13 Kenyon, , The Popish Plot, pp. 230–32Google Scholar; Ogg, , England in the Reign of Charles II, 2:588.Google Scholar

14 Plumb, , The Growth of Political Stability, p. 133.Google Scholar See also Holmes and Speck, The Divided Society, and Holmes, G. S., ed., Britain after the Glorious Revolution 1689-1714 (London 1969), chapters 4, 5, and 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 That treason charges were still seen as a potential weapon is shown by the Marquis of Carmarthen's plans to make use of a Jacobite plot uncovered in 1690. Carmarthen, Lord President of the Council, hoped to inculpate as many of his political enemies as possible. He milked one of the captured plotters, Lord Preston, for the names of those involved. To his infinite joy the list included Tories, such as Seymour, and Whigs, such as Shrewsbury, Macclesfield, Brandon, Dorset, and Devonshire—all of them opponents of Carmarthen! The Lord President meant to use prosecution, or the threat of it, to break the teeth “of that whole party.” It is typical of the age that the king and the government did not pursue this approach, but the possibility of doing so clearly existed. Carmarthen to William, 3 February, 1690-91, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of William and Mary, 5 vols. (London, 1895–1966), 2:244Google Scholar (hereafter cited as CSPD). See also Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of the Late George Allan Finch, 4 vols. (London, 1922–1965), vol. 3, appendix 1, pp. 308–18Google Scholar (hereafter cited as HMC, Finch).

16 Macaulay, , History of England, 3:1212, 1347Google Scholar; 4:1583. See also Grey's, AnchitelDebates of the House of Commons from the Year 1617 to the Year 1694, 10 vols. (London, 1763), 9:246, 249, 313, 10:3Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Grey, Debates). The realm as a whole was aware of the crisis as tracts from the period reveal. British Library, Add. MSS. 32, 524, ff 2-12; SirScott, Walter, ed., Somers Tracts, 13 vols. (London, 1809–1815), 10:174–78Google Scholar; 9:315-67.

17 Kenyon, , Sunderland, pp. 231–32Google Scholar; Lady Sunderland to Sydney, Amsterdam, 8 March (N.S.) 1689, in the Diary of the Times of Charles II by Henry Sidney including his correspondence, ed. Blencowe, R. W., 2 vols. (London 1843), 2:308–11.Google Scholar See also North's, Roger, The Lives of the Norths, ed. Jessop, A., 3 vols. (London 1890), 3:183Google Scholar; Smith, Frederick, first Earl of Birkenhead, Fourteen English Judges (London 1926), p. 101Google Scholar, et seq; Macaulay, , History of England, 4:1772.Google Scholar It was Holt who stopped the practice of having prisoners tried in chains. See Birkenhead, p. 109; and Campbell, John, The Lives of the Chief Justices of England, 3 vols. (London 1858), 2:140.Google Scholar

18 Burnet, Gilbert, History of His Own Time, ed. Routh, M. J., 6 vols. (2nd ed.; Oxford 1833), 4:27.Google Scholar And see Baxter, , William III, pp. 249–50Google Scholar, for Halifax's view of William. Halifax was impressed with the new king's reluctance to pursue political enemies.

19 When Crone, who had been involved in a Jacobite plot, was tried, one of the jurors was not convinced of his guilt and kept the jury out all night and all the next day before agreeing with a guilty verdict. One commentator wrote of this, “I wish we had had some such in our late King James' time when the state bloodhounds were pursuing their prey.” Lapthorne, Richard, Portledge Papers, ed., Kerr, R. J. and Duncan, I. C. (London, 1928), pp. 74–75Google Scholar (3 June, 1690). And see “The Declaration of the Inhabitants of the Northern Country at Nottingham,” HMC, Report on the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Ormonde, n. 5, vol. 8 (London, 1920), p. 12 (25 December, 1688).Google Scholar This is a list of their reasons, which included perversion of the judiciary and the law, for turning against James.

20 Grey, , Debates, 9:210 (6 April, 1689).Google Scholar

21 The Harleian Miscellany, ed. Oldys, William, 8 vols. (London 1744–1746), 1:592.Google Scholar

22 Grey, , Debates, 9:187 (25 March, 1609).Google Scholar

23 A Collection of State Tracts, 3 vols. (London 1705–1707), 2:59–60.Google Scholar

24 Grey, , Debates, 9:356 (24 June, 1689).Google Scholar

25 Ibid., p. 294 (12 June, 1689).

26 This is most easily seen if one compares the number and thickness of the volumes (6-10) of State Trials for the 1680s, with those (11-12) for the 1690s. Too, none of the advisors or judges of James II were ever tried for treason. This is remarkable, even allowing for the fact that some of the likeliest candidates for revenge, such as Jeffreys, had died.

27 Ralph, James, The History of England During the Reigns of King William, Queen Anne and George 1, 2 vols. (London 1744–1746), 2:389.Google Scholar The proposed extensions of treason by Parliamentary bills in 1689 and 1692 all evoked similar comparisons in the Commons.

28 HMC, Finch, 3:128 (26 June).Google Scholar Compare Danby's motives for not jailing suspected plotters in 1691; SirDalrymple, John, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland (1681-92), 2 vols. (London and Edinburgh 1771–1773), 2:185–86.Google Scholar

29 Journal of the House of Commons, 1547-1900, 155 vols. (New York 1964–1966), 10:17, 21–22.Google Scholar

30 HMC, “The Manuscripts of the House of Lords, 1689-90,” Twelfth Report, appendix, part 6 (London, 1889), pp. 31–34Google Scholar (26 February-2 March) (hereafter cited as HMC, House of Lords, 1689-90).

31 Ibid., pp. 31-34.

32 HMC, “The Manuscripts of the House of Lords, 1690-91,” Thirteenth Report, appendix, part 6 (London 1893), pp. 319–23Google Scholar (18 and 26 November, 2 December). Impeachment was temporarily brought under the bill by an amendment made in the House of Lords during this session. The amendment was passed by the Commons but dropped in later sessions. See note 46 below. It was not carried forward, as other amendments generally were, and does not appear in subsequent drafts of the bill.

33 HMC, The Manuscripts of the House of Lords, 1693-95, new series, vol. 1 (London, 1900), pp. 444–45Google Scholar (19 December, 1694-20 April, 1695) (hereafter cited as HMC, House of Lords, 1693-95).

34 7 William III, c. 3.

35 Grey, , Debates, 10:285 (28 November, 1692).Google Scholar

36 Grey, , Debates, 10:207, 208 (11 December).Google Scholar

37 Grey, , Debates, 10:285 (28 November, 1692).Google Scholar These same points were used by pamphlet writers to counter Jacobite propaganda on the eve of the expected invasion of 1692. Of all James' sins, a reminder to the people of his abuse of the law was deemed amongst the most likely of arguments to inspire devotion to an unpopular Dutch king. See, for example, “The Pretences of the French Invasion Examined, for the Information of the People of England,” in the Harleian Miscellany, 8:407–14Google Scholar; and “A Decent from France,” ibid., 1:579-82.

38 Grey, , Debates, 9:174 (20 March, 1689).Google Scholar In a later political tract, Bartholomew Shower summarized better than did the M.P.s the danger of letting the practices of the 1680s go unchecked. He reminded the Whigs that they had failed to reform treason in their moment of power, 1679-81, and that it had shortly returned upon them. He warned them that no one could be certain he would never be deemed a malcontent; the time had come for reform before the tables were turned again: “Now is the season, if ever, for a fixation of our franchise from the peril, from the actual endurance whereof we are but just delivered.” “Reasons for a New Bill of Rights,” Somers Tracts, 10:571–72.Google Scholar

39 Grey, , Debates, 10:219 (31 December, 1691); 10:234 (13 January, 1692).Google Scholar

40 Ibid., 10:250, 290 (18 November, 1692). Finch went on to denounce the idea that there was no danger of misconstruction of treason while Parliament sat: “I have heard in this House misconstruction of treason, judged by the very present judges.”

41 Ibid., 10:173 (18 November, 1691).

42 The Works and Life of the Right Honourable Charles Late Earl of Halifax (London: 1715), pp. 19–28.Google Scholar See also Grey, , Debates, 10:229Google Scholar; CSPD, 1691-92, p. 212; Kennett, , Complete History of England (London, 1706), pp. 633–39.Google Scholar

43 The nature of the structure of politics in this period has attracted much attention in recent years. The old view offered by Trevelyan, Feiling, Plumb, and others, is that of a basic two party struggle. ProfessorWalcott, caused a great stir [English Politics in the Early 18th Century (Cambridge 1956)Google Scholar] by arguing that the structure was court vs. country, with the two being alternately composed of seven major “connections.” Recent research has challenged this interpretation: see, Burton, I. F., et al, “Political Parties in the Reign of William III and Anne: The Evidence of the Division Lists,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, special supplement no. 7 (November, 1968)Google Scholar; also, relevant chapters by Henry Horwitz and E. L. Ellis in Holmes, ed., Britain after the Glorious Revolution; and Holmes and Speck, The Divided Society. Cf. Denis Rubini, Court and Country 1688-1702; and “Party and the Augustan Constitution, 1694-1716: Politics and the Power of the Executive,” Albion, 10 (Fall, 1978).Google Scholar

44 Bonnet wrote on 23 February 1694, that the King had attended the debate in the Lords on the bill and planned to attend the next session on it as well. He wanted the bill defeated by one of the two Houses rather than by royal veto. See Bonnet's reports in Von Ranke, Leopold, A History of England, Principally in the 17th Century, 6 vols. (Oxford 1875), 6:220.Google Scholar

45 Montagu is an excellent example of a court supporter who opposed reform while claiming to be in favor of it. See Memoirs of the Life of Charles Montagu, Late Earl of Halifax (1716), p. 30Google Scholar: and Kennett, , Complete History, p. 633.Google Scholar

46 Grey, , Debates, 10:210 (11 December).Google Scholar See Also Somers' eloquent warning, in the same vein as Treby's, that “The House of Commons go from their dignity, and lessen themselves—The Power of impeachment ought to be, like Goliath's sword, kept in the Temple, and not used but on great occasions. The security of your constitution is lost, when you lose this power.”

47 Ibid., pp. 207, 208, 210, 212.

48 Grey, , Debates, 10:250 (18 November).Google Scholar See also ibid., pp. 286-91 (28 November); and The Parliamentary Diary of Narcissus Luttrell 1691-1693, ed. Horwitz, Henry (Oxford, 1971), pp. 255–66.Google Scholar

49 Turberville, , The House of Lords in the Reign of William III, pp. 106–12.Google Scholar

50 They tried for the first time in 1667, then in 1669, 1673, 1675, 1679 and 1680. See Rezneck, , “The Statute of 1696,” p. 15.Google Scholar

51 Grey, , Debates, 9:173, 175 (20 March, 1689).Google Scholar

52 Burnet, , History of His Own Time, 4:290Google Scholar; Nottingham to Viscount Hatton, 22 December, 1694, B. L. Add. MSS. 29,595 f. 68. Macaulay, , History of England, 5:2114Google Scholar, writing later also comments that some against the bill probably used the Stewards Court to block the passage of the proposal. Cf. Turberville, who sees the entire reform movement as an attempt by the Peers to alter the Lord Steward's Court: The House of Lords in the Reign of William III, p. 106.

53 Burnet, , History of His Own Time, 4:288Google Scholar; Kenyon, , Sunderland, p. 276Google Scholar; Feiling, , A History of the Tory Party, pp. 310–11Google Scholar; Rubini, , Court and Country, pp. 59–62Google Scholar (also for the role of the Lancashire Plot in the election results). To the King and Junto the Whig Party seemed to have made sizable gains in the new Parliament. But at first William and his ministers did not realize that many of the new Whigs were country, not court, supporters.

54 Kingston, Richard, True History of the Several Designs and Conspiracies against His Majestie's Sacred Person and Government; as they were carried on from 1688-1697 (London, 1698)Google Scholar; Abbadie, Jacques, The History of the Late Conspiracy against the King … with a Particular Account of the Lancashire Plot (London, 1696).Google Scholar The two narratives are laregly the same, though Kingston's is more detailed. More valuable is HMC, “Report on the Manuscripts of Lord Kenyon,” Fourteenth Report, appendix, part 4 (London, 1894)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as HMC, Kenyon). See also Beamont, William, ed., The Jacobite Trials at Manchester in 1694 (Manchester, 1853).Google Scholar In a useful introduction, Beamont summarizes the court version of the affair and then comments upon it critically. Though he worked without knowledge of the important Kenyon MSS., as well as documents later calendarized by the Public Record Office, many of his comments are quite helpful.

55 Every round of security arrests from 1689 on included many gentlemen from the North. See, for example, CSPD, 1689-90, pp. 241-42 (4-11 September, 1689); and Thomas Lee, Justice of the Peace for Cheshire, to Sir John Trenchard, 20 July, 1694, ibid., 1694-95, pp. 232-33. Lee describes the North as being almost entirely disaffected.

56 HMC, Kenyon, p. 319.

57 One example: in the midst of the government's action against the men Lunt accused, Lunt was suddenly arrested for bigamy, forcing the government to bail him out so that he would be available as a witness. In the spring of 1693 Lunt had taken a second wife without undergoing the inconvenience of divorcing his first. HMC, Kenyon, pp. 310–20.Google Scholar

58 Smith, a rabid Whig, had been imprisoned for his activities against Charles II. James II pardoned him in 1688, but a pardon could not erase the loathing Smith bore his enemies, the adherents of the Stuart cause. After the Revolution he found employment with the government in directing the spies and informers against the Jacobites. His title, bestowed in 1689, was Solicitor of the Treasury. In this role he never missed a chance to do to the Tories and Jacobites what he felt they had done to him and his friends in the 1680s. Dictionary of National Biography (reprint ed., 1921–1922), 18:409.Google Scholar Macaulay says of him that he was a man “in whom the fanatic and the pettifogger were strangely united.” Macaulay, , History of England, 5:2322.Google Scholar His role in actually helping to construct the story of the plot was described by one of the government's agents, Mr. Taffe, who ultimately betrayed his employers by testifying for the accused northern gentry, thus helping to destroy the crown's case against them. Beamont, , The Jacobite Trials, p. 94Google Scholar; HMC, Kenyon, pp. 329–30Google Scholar; HMC, House of Lords, 1693-95, pp. 444–45 (12 February, 1695).Google Scholar Taffe's allegation is supported by evidence that when Lunt told the government about the plot, Smith already knew Lunt and several companions acting in concert with him; moreover, Smith knew of previous schemes by the same men to have the courts take away the lands of northern Catholics on the grounds that the latter were supporting the Roman Church. Beamont, , The Jacobite Trials, pp. 10, 94Google Scholar; HMC, Kenyon, pp. 333, 334–35, 338–40Google Scholar; HMC, House of Lords, 1693-95, p. 448 (15 February, 1695).Google Scholar

59 The devoted Whig, Sir Thomas Norris, wrote to a party member in August, 1694: “If some of the men now apprehended be not brought to their trials it will turn to our prejudice; I am fully satisfied that if you fully convict a number, especially of the Protestants, it will be in our power to choose (even in this county) much better members of Parliament in case of a dissolution.” CSPD, 1694-95, p. 255 (6 August, 1694). This was the same Thomas Norris that the government made foreman of the Grand Jury in Manchester ten weeks later. That they would appoint someone with such well known prejudices reveals the government's intention to secure convictions at any cost; it also reveals the fact that the trial was politically motivated. See Heywood, Thomas, ed., The Norris Papers (Manchester, 1846), pp. xi–xiii.Google Scholar

60 See Beamont, The Jacobite Trials; and HMC, Kenyon, pp. 339–40, 342–43 (28 November, 1694).Google Scholar One of the accused plotters was an ancient gentleman named William Blundell. At the trial, he asked the Justices to take note of what was obvious to everyone in the court—that he was lame in both his hands and feet, and could not mount a horse. Thus, he urged, it was not a little strange that he was charged with holding a military commission from King James. To this Chief Justice Eyre coldly replied, “but were you on horseback you could ride.” Goss, Alexander., ed., An Account of the Tryals at Manchester, October 1694 …, with Observations (Manchester, 1864), p. 40.Google Scholar See also Beamont, , The Jacobite Trials, pp. 100–101.Google Scholar

61 See, for example, Robert Harley to Sir Edward Harley, 13 November, 1694, in the HMC, “The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland,” Fourteenth Report, appendix, part 2 (London, 1894), 3:559 (hereafter cited as HMC, Portland).Google Scholar See also Macaulay, , History of England, 5:2459-60, 2466Google Scholar; Mrs. E. Lyme to Roger Kenyon, 25 October, 1694, HMC, Kenyon, p. 310Google Scholar; and Wagstaffe, Thomas, A Letter out of Lancashire to a Friend in London (London, 1694).Google Scholar

62 Edward Harley, Robert's kinsman, once commented that ‘If any will look into the History of England, they will find it hath often been the design of the crown to trump up plots upon the subjects.” Cobbett, William, ed., The Parliamentary History of England, 36 vols. (London, 1806–1820), 5:1149.Google Scholar For examples of Robert Harley's anger over the Lancashire prosecutions, see Robert Harley to Sir Edward Harley, 3 November, 1694, HMC, Portland, 3:559Google Scholar; same to same, 13 November, 1694, ibid., p. 559; same to same, 24 November, 1694, ibid., p. 560.

63 See Burnet's discussions on how the Plot was used as an argument for reform of treason trials. Burnet, , History of His Own Time, 4:290.Google Scholar See also Robert Harley to Sir Edward Harley, 24 November, 1694, HMC, Portland, 3:560.Google Scholar

64 Thomas Bruce, Second Earl of Ailesbury, Memoirs, ed., Burkley, W. E., 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Roxburghe Club, 1890), 2:359.Google Scholar This group included Edward and Putnam Seymour, John Howe, Christopher Musgrave, Heneage finch, Simon Harcourt, John Grey of Stamford, Robert Harley, Paul Foley, and Francis Winnington. See Feiling, , A History of the Tory Party, pp. 315–17.Google Scholar

65 Journal of the House of Commons, 1547-1900, 11:340.

66 Somerville, Thomas, The History of Political Transactions and Parties from the Restoration of King Charles the Second, to the Death of King William (London, 1717), p. 417Google Scholar, speaks of a new attitude in Parliament and of the early introduction of the Treason Trial bill.

67 Journal of the House of Commons, 1547-1900, 11:396.Google Scholar After the bill came to the upper House on 16 December, the Peers added their amendment to the Lord High Steward's Court—something Bishop Burnet and others opposed on the grounds that it would likely kill the measure again. Burnet, , History of His Own Time, 4:290Google Scholar; Turberville, , The House of Lords in the Reign of William III, p. 111.Google Scholar But when the bill was returned to the Commons, after a late debate in a very full House, it carried 192 to 150. See also B.L., Add., MSS. 30,000 A f. 8.

68 Turberville, , The House of Lords in the Reign of William III, p. 111.Google Scholar

69 See, for example, the trial of the five Catholics in 1679; State Trials, 7:311Google Scholaret seq. Scroggs refused the defendants a copy of the indictment at the outset (ibid., p. 312). One of the accused, Gavan, had witnesses to prove his whereabouts for the time during which he thought the prosecution would charge that he had been plotting with Catholic assassins. But they proved useless as Oates and the prosecutors alleged another set of days. Without witnesses to defend him against the charges, he was convicted (ibid., pp. 382-83). See also Langhom's trial (ibid., pp. 447-48); and Hawles's comments on Sydney's trial (State Tracts, 2:45Google Scholar).

70 Stephen, , A History of Criminal Law in England, 1:399, 416–17.Google Scholar

71 Rezneck, , “The Statute of 1696,” pp. 22–26Google Scholar, has a useful discussion of the procedural effects of the Act.

72 See, for example, The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation of Amrose Rookwood (London, 1696)Google Scholar; and Vaughan's Trial (London, 1738).Google Scholar

73 This is he view taken by Rezneck, “The Statute of 1696.”