The Golden Age of Law. agreed to subvert the government, to de stroy his majesty. What can you have more! Two of the witnesses are without exception, but I do not see any way but their testimony is good. For the parties, they in themselves are very inconsiderable: these are but the outboughs, and if such fellows are not met withal, these kind of people are the fittest instruments to set up a Jack Straw or a Wat Tyler. Therefore you must lop off these, or else they will encourage others. You see, one of their own company hath confessed the fact, out of remorse at his own conscience. But I leave the evidence to you. Go together." Such a speech needs no comment; but one would scarcely believe it represented the judicial directions in a case of high treason, if it were not a proved fact. Why the trial of Mary Moders, alias Mary Stedman, styled the German princess, at the Old Bailey, in 1663, for bigamy, should have been included in the state trials it is hard to say, but it is highly amusing, neverthe less. She pleaded not guilty, demanded in the usual form to be tried " By God and my country," and after the clerk had wished "God send thee a good deliverance," she was sent back to jail to await her trial on the morrow. And then, so says the report, "Her husband, the young lord, told her, he must now bid good bye of her for ever. To which she replied, ' Why, my Lord, 'tis not amiss, Before we part to have a kiss,'
and so saluted him and said, 'What a trouble and a noise is here of a cheat. You cheated me and I you. You told me you were a lord, and I told you I was a princess, and I think I fitted you,' and so saluting, they parted." The next day she came into court " in a black velvet waistcoat, dressed in her hair, trimmed also with scarlet ribbands," and laughed so much at " the young lord," that he left the court "by advice of his friends."
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The evidence was dead against her, although much of it was wrongly admitted — the al leged real husband's statement being given by a third party before the jury, and also evidence that the prisoner had been tried for bigamy before and acquitted. However, she was equal to all irregularity, and de livered an extraordinarily able speech in her defense, the line being that her husband's father "hunted after her life," because she was poor and his son had married her think ing she was rich. Now, whether it was due to her ability or the black velvet waistcoat, it is certain that the judge warmly espoused her cause, and amid some hissing and clapping of hands she was acquitted. The present-day procedure at the Old Bailey is, in many respects, very different from what it was in Charles II's reign. Now a judge, or a barrister, appointed for the purpose, presides at each trial, and the Lord Mayor and aldermen, although they grace the judicial benches with the dignity of their presence, take no part in the proceedings. This was certainly not the case in the celebrated trial of Penn and Mead on the first of September, 1670, by a court consist ing of the mayor, the recorder, five alder men, two sheriffs, and a certain Richard Browne, all of whom took a very active part in the trial. The prisoners were Quakers, and were charged with what nowadays would be un lawful assembly or street obstruction, but which in those days had a religious, and therefore a political significance. When the court opened, the prisoners, their hats hav ing been removed by an official, were brought to the bar, and the following in cident occurred : "Mayor: 'Who had you put off their hats? Put them on again.' "Recorder (to prisoners) : ' Do you know where you are? ' "Penn : ' Yes.'
