Poor old Archbishop Laud, who was still in prison, was in the turmoil of civil war almost totally forgotten. But the Puritans of England and the people of Scotland needed only a slight reminder to demand the punishment of the man who, with so high a hand, had trodden down their liberties and their religion. This was given them by the Lords, who, insisting on appointing ministers to livings in his gift, called on Laud to collate the vacant benefices to such persons as they should nominate. The king forbade him to obey. At length, in February, 1643, the rectory of Chartham, in Kent, became vacant by the death of the incumbent, the Lords nominated one person, the king another, and Laud, placed in a dilemma dangerous to his life under his circumstances, endeavoured to excuse himself by remaining passive. But the Lords, in the month of April, sent him a peremptory order, and on his still delaying, sent a request to the Commons to proceed with his trial. There were fourteen articles of impeachment already hanging over his head, and the Commons appointed Prynne, still smarting under the ear-lopping, branding, and cruelties of the archbishop, to collect evidence and co-operate with a Committee on the subject. What an apparition must that earless man, with those livid brand marks on his cheeks, have been as he entered the cell of Laud, and told him that the day of retribution was come! Prynne collected all his papers, even the diary which he had been so long employed in writing, as the defence of his past life, and sought everywhere for remaining victims and witnesses of the archbishop's persecutions and cruelties, to bring them up against him. In six months the Committee had obtained evidence enough to furnish ten new articles of impeachment against him, and on the 4th of March, 1644, more than three years after his commitment, Laud was called upon to take his trial. He demanded time to consult his papers, and to have them for that purpose restored, to have counsel, and money out of the proceeds of his estate to pay his fees and other expenses. He was not likely to find much more tenderness from his enemies than he had showed to them; the Scots demanded stern justice upon him, as the greatest enemy which their country had known for ages. Time was given him till the 12th of March, when he was brought to the bar of the House of Lords. There, after the once haughty but now humbled priest had been made to kneel a little, Mr. Serjeant Wild opened the case against him, and went over, at great length, the whole story of his endeavours to introduce absolutism in Church and State in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dreadful cruelties and oppressions which he had inflicted on the king's subjects in the Star Chamber and High Commission Courts.