The trial lasted eighteen days, the excitement increasing consistently to the end. There was nothing proved which could with any propriety be considered as treason. He had managed the government, it is true, with one set of views in respect to the absolute prerogatives and powers of the king, while those who now were in possession of power held opposite views, and they considered it a matter of necessity that he should die. The charge of treason was a pretext to bring the case somewhat within the reach of the formalities of law. It is one of the necessary incidents of all governmental systems founded on force, and not on the consent of the governed, that when great and fundamental questions of policy arise, they often bring the country to a crisis in which there can be no real settlement of the dispute without the absolute destruction of one party or the other. It was so now, as the popular leaders supposed. They had determined that stern necessity required that Laud and Strafford must die; and the only object of going through the formality of a trial was to soften the violence of the proceeding a little, by doing all that could be done toward establishing a legal justification of the deed. The trial, as has been said, lasted eighteen days. During all this time, the leaders were not content with simply urging the proceedings forward energetically in Westminster Hall. They were maneuvering and managing in every possible way to secure the final vote. But, notwithstanding this, Strafford's defense was so able, and the failure to make out the charge of treason against him was so clear, that it was doubtful what the result would be. Accordingly, without waiting for the decision of the Peers on the impeachment, a bill of attainder against the earl was brought forward in the House of Commons. This bill of attainder was passed by a large majority--yeas 204, nays 59. It was then sent to the House of Lords. The Lords were very unwilling to pass it. While they were debating it, the king sent a message to them to say that in his opinion the earl had not been guilty of treason, or of any attempt to subvert the laws; and that several things which had been alleged in the trial, and on which the bill of attainder chiefly rested, were not true. He was willing, however, if it would satisfy the enemies of the earl, to have him convicted of a misdemeanor, and made incapable of holding any public office from that time; but he protested against his being punished by a bill of attainder on a charge of treason.