To hold that the words attributed to Staley by the witnesses at the trial were spoken “advisedly and maliciously” was undoubtedly to drive the act as far as it would go against the prisoner; but that they were spoken seems almost certain. He hardly denied that he had called the king a rogue and a heretic.[612] His only explanation of the words to which Carstairs swore was that instead of saying “I would kill him myself,” he had said “I would kill myself.” The difference between the words _Je le tuerais moi-même_ and _Je me tuerais moi-même_ is small enough to account for an easy mistake made by a hearer, but it was unfortunate for Staley that, as was pertinently remarked by the Attorney-General, the latter would not make sense in the context. Still more damning was the prisoner’s omission to call as a witness for his defence Fromante, who had taken part in the conversation, and could, if Staley had been innocent, have cleared the point in his favour; but although every facility was given him for doing so, he refused either to call his friend or to make use of the copy of his previous examination, which the Attorney-General offered to lend him.[613] The case was not terminated even by Staley’s sentence and death. In consideration of his exemplary conduct in prison, where he “behaved himself very penitently, from the time of his conviction until the time of his execution, which was attested by the several ministers which visited him during that time,” leave was given by the king that his body should be delivered to his friends after execution for private burial. With great want of tact, and “to the great indignity and affront of his Majesty’s mercy and favour, the friends of the said Staley caused several masses to be said over his quarters, ... and appointed a time for his interment, viz. Friday, the 29th of November 1678, in the evening, from his father’s house in Covent Garden, at which time there was made a pompous and great funeral, many people following the corpse to the church of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, where he was buried”: in consequence of which an order was given for the disinterment of the body, and to vindicate the majesty of justice his quarters were affixed to the city gates and his head set up to rot on London Bridge.[614]