Here is an example. In 1668 some London apprentices committed a riot by pulling down some houses of ill-fame in Moorfields, which had become a nuisance to the neighborhood; they shouted "Down with Bawdy Houses." Judge Kelyng had them indicted for High Treason. He said it was "an accroachment of royal authority." It was "levying war." He thus laid down the law. "The prisoners are indicted for levying war against the King. By levying war is not only meant when a body is gathered together as an army, but if a _company of people will go about any public reformation, this is high treason_. These people do pretend their design was against brothels; now let men to go about to pull down brothels, with a captain [an apprentice "walked about with a green apron on a pole"] and an ensign and weapons,--if this thing be endured, _who is safe_? It is high treason because it doth betray the peace of the nation, and _every subject is as much wronged as the King_; for if every man may reform what he will, no man is safe; therefore the thing is of desperate consequence, and we must make this for a public example. There is reason why we should be very cautious; we are but recently delivered from rebellion [Charles I. had been executed nineteen years before, and his son had been in peaceable possession of the throne for eight years], and we know that that rebellion first began under the pretence of religion and the law; for the Devil hath always this vizard upon it. We have great reason to be very wary that we fall not again into the same error. Apprentices for the future shall not go on in this manner. It proved that Beasly went as their captain with his sword, and flourished it over his head [this was the "weapons,"] and that Messenger walked about Moorfields with a green apron on the top of a pole [this was the "ensign"]. What was done by one, was done by all; in high treason all concerned are principals."[45] [Footnote 45: 1 Campbell's Justices, 404-5; Kelyng's Reports, 70.] Thereupon thirteen apprentices who had been concerned in a riot were found guilty of high treason, sentenced, and four hanged. All of the eleven Judges--Twysden was one of them--concurred in the sentence, except Sir Matthew Hale. He declared there was no treason committed; there was "but an unruly company of apprentices."[46] [Footnote 46: 6 St. Tr. 879, note 911.]