Langley, a baronet of old and
honourable family. With him were joined a knight and ten esquires,
several of whom are known to have been men of large possessions. There
were some Nonconformists in the number; for the Bishops had wisely
resolved not to show any distrust of the Protestant Dissenters. One name
excited considerable alarm, that of Michael Arnold. He was brewer to the
palace; and it was apprehended that the government counted on his voice.
The story goes that he complained bitterly of the position in which he
found himself. "Whatever I do," he said, "I am sure to be half ruined.
If I say Not Guilty, I shall brew no more for the King; and if I say
Guilty, I shall brew no more for anybody else." [398]

The trial then commenced, a trial which, even when coolly perused after
the lapse of more than a century and a half, has all the interest of
a drama. The advocates contended on both sides with far more than
professional keenness and vehemence: the audience listened with as much
anxiety as if the fate of every one of them was to be decided by the
verdict; and the turns of fortune were so sudden and amazing that
the multitude repeatedly passed in a single minute from anxiety to
exultation and back again from exultation to still deeper anxiety.

The information charged the Bishops with having written or published,
in the county of Middlesex, a false, malicious, and seditious libel.
The Attorney and Solicitor first tried to prove the writing. For
this purpose several persons were called to speak to the hands of the
Bishops. But the witnesses were so unwilling that hardly a single plain
answer could be extracted from any of them. Pemberton, Pollexfen, and
Levinz contended that there was no evidence to go to the jury. Two
of the judges, Holloway and Powell, declared themselves of the same
opinion; and the hopes of the spectators rose high. All at once the
crown lawyers announced their intention to take another line. Powis,
with shame and reluctance which he could not dissemble, put into the
witness box Blathwayt, a Clerk of the Privy Council, who had been
present when the King interrogated the Bishops. Blathwayt swore that he
had heard them own their signatures. His testimony was decisive. "Why,"
said judge Holloway to the Attorney, "when you had such evidence, did
you not produce it at first, without all this waste of time?" It soon
appeared why the counsel for the crown had been unwilling, without
absolute necessity,