Forbidden to speak in public Anne Hutchinson continued to hold meetings in her own house. Roger Williams, who was shortly to feel the full displeasure of the Puritan leaders, said that in view of her usefulness as a nurse and a neighbor, she ought to be allowed to speak when she chose and to say what she wished, “because if it be a lie, it will die of itself; and if it be truth, we ought to know it.” The authorities in Massachusetts were in constant dread of losing their charter, which was especially endangered by reports of disorderly proceedings. And certainly nothing had provoked so much disorder and sedition as the course taken by Mistress Anne. Both politically and religiously they felt it a duty to suppress her party. So in October, 1637, she was brought to trial before the General Court of Massachusetts, sitting in the meeting-house in Cambridge. “Mrs. Hutchinson,” said Winthrop, presiding, “you are called here as one of those that have troubled the peace of the commonwealth and the churches here.... You have maintained a meeting and an assembly in your house that hath been condemned by the general assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for your sex, and notwithstanding that was cried down you have continued the same. Therefore we have thought good to send for you to understand how things are, that if you be in an erroneous way we may reduce you that so you may become a profitable member here among us, otherwise if you be obstinate in your course that then the court may take such course that you may trouble us no further.” This trial was at once a civil, judicial and ecclesiastical process, lasting through two long weary days. Extremely tiring and exhausting must have been the examination, for the deputy-governor complained that they would all be sick from fasting! The forty-three men who tried her were like an English court of High Commission, almost like the Inquisition. For Anne Hutchinson had no lawyer. They even kept her standing until she almost fell from fatigue, before they allowed her to answer seated. Governor and deputy, magistrates and judges were arrayed against her. They examined and cross-examined her. They badgered and insulted and sneered at her. They browbeat and silenced her witnesses, in absolute disregard of fair play. Only one man of them all defended her, saying with spirit, “There is no law of God that she has broken, nor any law of the country, and she deserves no censure.”