judges, gave scarce a hope
that justice would not be wrested to serve the purposes of the crown; that
considerations of state policy would not prove stronger than any abstract
belief of the prisoner's innocence or guilt. That we have not
misrepresented the degraded condition of the English tribunals during the
period we have mentioned, a reference to the state trials _passim_, will
abundantly prove. Nor is it at all strange that such should have been the
case. During the dynasty of the Tudors, and the reign of the first of the
Stuarts, the duty alike of the courts, and of parliament was simply to
register the royal edicts. If the formalities of law were observed, it was
rather through the good-nature of the sovereign, than from any
consciousness of his inability to break through their restraints. But
after the rebellion, and especially after the revolution, when the limits
of prerogative became marked out with some degree of precision, and
monarchs could no longer effect their purposes by open violence, then more
subtle means were resorted to, but scarcely less dangerous, to destroy
those who were so unfortunate as to become the objects of royal or
ministerial enmity. The king, if he could not make the law, could still
appoint the judges of the law; and the right of interpretation was hardly
less powerful than the power of legislation. Even when, after a lapse of
time, the judges became in a great measure independent of the crown, still
it was not until many years later, when the voice of an outraged people
became more terrible to them than the frowns of kings or ministers, that
those accused of political offence could hope for justice at their hands.

The reign of Charles the Second, in every respect the most disgraceful in
English history, is that period to which we wish now particularly to ask
the reader's attention. During the latter part of it, the chief justice's
seat was filled first by Scroggs, and afterwards by Jeffries; the former
came to the bench a little before the disclosures that took place
respecting the Popish Plot, and presided at the trials that took place in
consequence of that event. It is to these trials that we shall now confine
ourselves; only premising certain facts necessary to the perfect
understanding of the extracts which we are about to make.

It is unnecessary to go minutely into the details of the Popish Plot. A
general outline will answer our present purpose. The first who pretended
any