believe his testimony, he being so slight a person, so passionate, so ill-bred, and of such impudent behaviour; nor is it likely that such piercing politicians as the Jesuits should trust him with so high and so dangerous secrets. _7th December._ On Tuesday I was again at the trial, when judgment was demanded; and, after my Lord had spoken what he could in denying the fact, the managers answering the objections, the Peers adjourned to their House, and within two hours returned again. There was, in the meantime, this question put to the judges, "whether there being but one witness to any single crime, or act, it could amount to convict a man of treason." They gave an unanimous opinion that in case of treason they all were overt acts, for though no man should be condemned by one witness for any one act, yet for several acts to the same intent it was valid; which was my Lord's case. This being past, and the Peers in their seats again, the Lord Chancellor Finch (this day the Lord High-Steward) removing to the woolsack next his Majesty's state, after summoning the lieutenant of the tower to bring forth his prisoner, and proclamation made for silence, demanded of every peer (who were in all eighty-six) whether William, Lord Viscount Stafford, were guilty of the treason laid to his charge, or not guilty. Then the Peer spoken to, standing up, and laying his right hand upon his breast, said Guilty, or Not Guilty, upon my honour, and then sat down, the Lord Steward noting their suffrages as they answered upon a paper: when all had done, the number of Not guilty being but 31, the Guilty 55: and then, after proclamation for silence again, the Lord Steward directing his speech to the prisoner, against whom the axe was turned edgeways and not before, in aggravation of his crime, he being ennobled by the King's father, and since received many favours from his present Majesty: after enlarging on his offence, deploring first his own unhappiness that he who had never condemned any man before should now be necessitated to begin with him, he then pronounced sentence of death by hanging, drawing, and quartering, according to form, with great solemnity and dreadful gravity; and after a short pause, told the prisoner that he believed the Lords would intercede for the omission of some circumstances of his sentence, beheading only excepted; and then breaking his white staff, the Court was dissolved. My Lord Stafford during all this latter part spake but little, and only gave their Lordships thanks after the sentence was pronounced; and indeed behaved himself modestly, and as became him.