[Sidenote a: A.D. 1643. April 21.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1643. May 31.] [Sidenote c: A.D. 1643. Oct. 23.] [Sidenote d: A.D. 1644. March 4.] prelate, had been scrutinized; and his conduct both private and public, as a bishop and a counsellor, in the Star-chamber and the High Commission court, had been subjected to the most severe investigation. Under every disadvantage, he defended himself with spirit, and often with success. He showed that many of the witnesses were his personal enemies, or undeserving of credit; that his words and writings would bear a less offensive and more probable interpretation; and that most of the facts objected to him were either the acts of his officers, who alone ought to be responsible, or the common decision of those boards of which he was only a single member.[1] Thus far[a] he had conducted his defence without legal aid. To speak to matters of law, he was allowed the aid of counsel, who contended that not one of the offences alleged against him amounted to high treason; that their number could not change their quality; that an endeavour to subvert the law, or religion, or the rights of parliament, was not treason by any statute; and that the description of an offence, so vague and indeterminate ought never to be admitted;: otherwise the slightest transgression might, under that denomination, be converted into the highest crime known to the law.[2] But the Commons, whether they distrusted the patriotism of the Lords, or doubted the legal guilt of the prisoner, had already resolved to proceed by attainder. After the second reading[b] of the ordinance, they sent for the venerable prisoner to their bar, and ordered Brown, one of the managers, to recapitulate in his [Footnote 1: Compare his own daily account of his trial in History, 220-421, with that part published by Prynne, under the title of Canterburies Doome, 1646; and Rushworth, v. 772.] [Footnote 2: See it in Laud's History, 423.] [Sidenote a: A.D. 1644. March 11.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1644. Nov. 2.]