748 R. G. Usher and indiscretion as such their dealings were now lamentable ". The oath they administered tended " to the damning of their souls that take it ". Men were imprisoned whenever the commissioners saw fit, and " they detained them in prison as longe as they list ". Hav- ing said this much and more on May 6 and finding himself still at liberty, he took heart and at the second hearing on June 13 launched forth upon a further set of diatribes which capped the climax of his " insolence ". He did not scruple to hint that the commissioners embezzled all the fines they collected and were in process of extend- ing their authority so as to embrace every branch of criminal and civil law. The judges of the King's Bench, before whom this remarkable argument had been delivered, debated among themselves, but made no decision in the matter, and instead reserved the case for further hearing before all the judges. But Fuller never argued the question further, for he was taken into custody by the High Commission. His indiscretion in making such virulent comments caused the main point which he had raised — the illegality of the High Commission — to drop out of sight, and with it disappeared Ladd and Mansel, whose fate we do not know. Dr. Gardiner states' that Fuller procured from the King's Bench for Ladd and Mansel a consultation, " a modified form of prohibi- tion ". There is however no statement in any of the authorities that the court took any action at all beyond ordering a new hearing be- fore the assembled judges, which, according to Fuller himself,' was certainly commanded, for which Fuller prepared the speech afterwards printed, but which hearing never was held, inasmuch as Fuller himself was a prisoner when the court met in September. Furthermore a consultation was not a modified form of prohibition, but the authoritative annulling of a prohibition by the court which had issued it. On " consultation " with the lawyers from the court prohibited, the judge perceived that he had issued the prohibition wrongly and authorized the court prohibited to proceed as if no such writ had been issued. A consultation could only follow a prohibition, and could in no case issue as an original writ, as Dr. Gardiner else- where infers. Moreover as Ladd was before the King's Bench on habeas corpus and not upon prohibition, the court either must remand him to prison or free him altogether; there could be no half-way procedure. Dr. Gardiner seems to have confused the consultation issued to Fuller himself in September on the prohibition he procured in July for himself, with the action taken by the King's Bench in Trinity Term on the habeas corpus granted in April to Ladd. ^History of England. II. 37- = Hatfield MSS., 124, f. 59-
