Stafford’s trial was conducted upon a scale befitting its consequence. Seven days were occupied in its process, a length which was at the time unprecedented. As many as sixty-one witnesses were called on the one side and on the other. For those who appeared for the prosecution the cost of summons and entertainment amounted to a hundred pounds.[733] The court of the Lord High Steward was held in Westminster Hall. Round the hall were arranged galleries, from which privileged persons watched the proceedings with the keenest interest. From her seat in a private box the Duchess of Portsmouth exerted her charms upon the members of the House of Commons stationed near her, distributing “sweetmeats and gracious looks.” Another box was reserved for the queen. In a third sat the king, a constant attendant during every day of the trial.[734] Opposite the bar was the seat of the Lord High Steward, and near by were placed the managers of the prosecution, Sir William Jones, Sergeant Maynard, Winnington, Treby, Trevor, Powle, the most distinguished lawyers of the House of Commons. On November 30, 1680, his sixty-ninth birthday, Thomas Howard, Lord Viscount Stafford, was brought to the bar. That nothing might be omitted against the prisoner, the managers called witnesses to prove the reality and general designs of the Popish Plot. The whole story was gone into at immense length. Oates, Dugdale, Jennison, a secular priest named John Smith, and Bernard Dennis, a Dominican friar, gave a volume of evidence to the point. The records of the conviction of nineteen persons for treason and other charges connected with the Plot, beginning with Coleman and ending with Giles, were proved and the record of Coleman’s attainder was read. Thus the whole of one day was occupied.[735] On the following morning the managers proceeded to call witnesses to the treason of Lord Stafford. The mass of evidence which they gave may be reduced to three points. Dugdale swore that at a certain meeting held at Tixhall, in Staffordshire, about the end of August or the beginning of September 1678, the accused had given his full assent to the plot for taking away the king’s life, and in September had offered him the sum of £500 to be the actual murderer.[736] Oates swore that he had seen letters to various Jesuits, signed Stafford, containing assurances of his zeal and fidelity to the design; that the prisoner had in his presence received from Fenwick a commission constituting him paymaster-general of the forces; and that, in conversation with Fenwick, Lord Stafford had said he did not doubt that “Grove should do the business,” adding with reference to the king, “he hath deceived us a great while, and we can bear no longer.”[737] Lastly Turbervile, a new witness, swore that after a fortnight’s acquaintance with the prisoner in Paris, in the year 1675, he had directly proposed to him to kill the king of England, who was a heretic and a rebel against Almighty God.[738] Round these charges