The Court of Star Chamber. sign it. I had no power to compel them, and desired the court to order them to sign it, but the court replied they had no power to force them. How then could I, a close prisoner, compel them, if the court could not? By this means the most inno cent person in the world may be made guilty of what crimes you please. I appeal to Mr. Holt if I have not used all my en deavors to get him to sign my answer." Holt said that he found the answer " so long and of such a nature that I durst not set my hand to it for fear of giving your Honors distaste." "My Lords," said Prynn, " I did nothing but according to the directions of my coun sel; but I spake my own words. My answer was drawn up by his consent. It was his own act, and he did approve of it. And if he will be so base a coward to do that in private which he dares not acknowl edge in public, I will not have such a sin lie on my conscience, — let it rest with him. Here is my answer, which though it be not signed with their hands, yet here I tender it upon my oath, which you cannot in justice deny." "Your case is good law," said Finch, "but ill applied. The court desires no such long answer, but whether you are guilty or not guilty." Prynn referred to the statutes of Philip and Mary, and of Elizabeth, which required in cases of libels upon the sovereign, the confession of the defendant or the testimony of two witnesses, in order to warrant a con viction, " and here is neither, nor is there in all the information one clause that doth particularly fall on me, but only in general. . . . This were both unjust and wicked. . . . You do impose impossibilities upon me. I could do no more than I did." Coventry had heard enough, " Well hold your peace; your answer comes too late. What say you, Dr. Bastwick?" Bastwick expressed himself in language plain but strong and in a strain of defiant
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irony. It was the pointed, unaffected de liverance of a persecuted man. " My honor able Lords," he began, "methinks you look like an assembly of gods, and sit in the place of God. Ye are called the sons of God. And since I have compared you to God, give me leave a little to parallel the one with the other, to see whether the com parison between God and you doth hold in this noble and righteous cause. This was the carriage of Almighty God in the cause of Sodom : before he would pronounce sen tence or execute judgment he would first come down and see whether the crime was altogether according to the cry that was come up. And with whom doth the Lord consult when he came down? With his servant Abraham, and he gives the reason : ' For I know (saith he) that Abraham will command his children and household after him, that they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment.' My good Lords, thus stands the case between your Honors and us thi day. There is a great cry come up into your ears against us from the King's attorney. Why now be you pleased to descend and see if the crime be according to the cry, and consult (with God), not the prelates, being the adversary part, who as it appears to all the world do proudly set themselves against the ways of God, and from whom none can expect jus tice or judgment, but with righteous men who will be impartial on either side, before you proceed to censure, which censure you cannot pass on us without great injustice before you hear our answers read. Here is my answer, which I here tender upon my oath. My good Lords, give us leave to speak in our own defense. We are not con scious to ourselves of anything we have done that deserves a censure . . . but that we have ever labored to maintain the honor, dignity and prerogative royal of our Sove reign Lord the King. Let my Lord the King live forever. Had I a thousand lives I should think them all too little to spend for
