16 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. had declared, " That he heard Mr. Penry say, that Mr. Udal was the author of the Demonstration. This was all the evidence of the fact, upon which he was convicted, not a single living witness being produced in court. The poor man had, therefore, no opportunity to ask any questions, or refute the evidence. And what methods were used to extort these confessions, may be easily imagined from their non-appearance in court, and having testified their sorrow for what they had done. What man of common understanding, would hang his dog on such evidence as this ? To prove Mr. Udal guilty of sedition, and bring him within the statute, the counsel insisted, that his threatening the bishops, who were the queen's officers, was, by con- struction, threatening the queen herself. The prisoner desired liberty to explain the passage ; when he insisted, that offence against the bishops was not sedition against the queen. But all that could be said, was set aside, and the judge gave it for law, even without allowing the two i remaing points of the indictment to be examined, " That they who spake against the queen's government in causes ecclesiastical, or her ecclesiastical laws, proceedings, and officers, defamed the queen herself." Upon this the jury were directed to find him guilty of the fact, and the judges taking upon themselves the point of law, condemned him as a felon. Fuller even confesses, that the proof against himwas not pregnant ; for it was generally believed, that he wrote not the book, but only the preface.t His enemies might as well have condemned him without the formality of a trial. The statute was undoubtedly strained beyond its meaning, and evidently with a design to reach his life. The good man behaved himself with great modesty and discretion at the bar; and having said as much for himself as must have satisfied any equitable persons, he submitted to the judgment of the court. " The case of Mr. Udal seems singular," says Hume, " even in the arbitrary times in which he lived. He was thrown into prison on suspicion of having published a book against the bishops, and brought to his trial for this offence. It was pretended that the bishops were part of the queen's political body ; and to speak against them, was to attack her, andwas, therefore, felony by the statute. This was not a Strype's Annals, vol. iii. Appen. p. 265..-State Tryals, vol. i. p. J47.-155. t Fuller's Chard; RUC b. ix. p. 222.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=