Pressure was renewed upon Newdigate and Hutton; they were despatched back to York, to undertake the trial of the Marston Moor prisoners. Cromwell's law officer, however, found them at Doncaster, on their return to London, and in a very contrary state of mind. They again refused to act; and they based their refusal on an objection, which affected not those prisoners alone, but all Cromwell's prisoners. They asserted, evidently reckoning on Baron Thorpe's concurrence, that they could not, as judges, put in force the Ordinance, by which Cromwell had adapted the Statute Law of England to meet the crime of high treason against himself, because it was of no validity! They thus anticipated, in the most unpleasant way, Mr. Coney's refusal to pay taxes imposed, not by an Act of Parliament, but by an 'Ordinance.' Cromwell was forced to yield; the Yorkshiremen preserved their lives, but not their liberty or their estates; and almost immediately, 'Judges Thorpe and Newdigate were put out of their places, for not observing the Protector's pleasure in all his commands.'[44] Cromwell's 'pleasure' was, however, served by Mr. Serjeant Glyn and Mr. Recorder Steele, and by the jurymen, 'such as were right,' over whom they presided, in the trial of the Salisbury insurgents. Those poor dupes pleaded what may be termed, Baron Thorpe's plea. They argued that their indictment was not founded on an Act of Parliament, and that 'there can be no treason by an Ordinance.' They urged that a sentence pronounced by the Serjeant and the Recorder, who were mere 'pleaders, servants to the Lord Protector,' would be illegal; and they asserted their right to be tried by Baron Thorpe, 'a sworn judge.' The prisoners, who could not be convicted of high treason, were condemned to death as horse stealers. They vainly pleaded, that to requisition a horse for a warlike enterprise was not felony, and that 'the country knew we did not intend to steal,' but acted 'as the soldiers did now at London, and elsewhere, who came against us.'[45] About fourteen of those poor fellows were put to death, with Grove and Penruddock; and seventy were sold into West Indian slavery. Accordingly Cromwell was able, as Thurloe exulted, to prove 'that the Plot was real,' as 'the persons were real,' who, in consequence, lost their lives, or were condemned to lifelong misery.