Civil liberty, in this kingdom, has two direct guarantees; the open administration of justice according to known laws truly interpreted, and fair constructions of evidence; and the right of parliament, without let or interruption, to enquire into, and obtain the redress of, public grievances. Of these, the first is by far the most indispensable; nor can the subjects of any state be reckoned to enjoy a real freedom, where this condition is not found both in its judicial institutions and in their constant exercise. In this, much more than in positive law, our ancient constitution, both under the Plantagenet and Tudor line, had ever been failing; and it is because one set of writers have looked merely to the letter of our statutes or other authorities, while another have been almost exclusively struck by the instances of arbitrary government they found on record, that such incompatible systems have been laid down with equal positiveness on the character of that constitution. _Trials for treason and other political offences unjustly conducted._--I have found it impossible not to anticipate, in more places than one, some of those glaring transgressions of natural as well as positive law, that rendered our courts of justice in cases of treason little better than the caverns of murderers. Whoever was arraigned at their bar was almost certain to meet a virulent prosecutor, a judge hardly distinguishable from the prosecutor except by his ermine, and a passive pusillanimous jury. Those who are acquainted only with our modern decent and dignified procedure, can form little conception of the irregularity of ancient trials; the perpetual interrogation of the prisoner, which gives most of us so much offence at this day in the tribunals of a neighbouring kingdom; and the want of all evidence except written, and perhaps unattested, examinations or confessions. Habington, one of the conspirators against Elizabeth's life in 1586, complained that two witnesses had not been brought against him, conformably to the statute of Edward VI. But Anderson, the chief justice, told him, that as he was indicted on the act of Edward III., that provision was not in force.[369] In the case of Captain Lee, a partisan of Essex and Southampton, the court appear to have denied the right of peremptory challenge.[370] Nor was more equal measure dealt to the noblest prisoners by their equals. The Earl of Arundel was convicted of imagining the queen's death, on evidence which at the utmost would only have supported an indictment for reconciliation to the church of Rome.[371]