“If he may
Find mercy in the law, ’tis his:  if none,
Let him not seek’t of us.”

Such was the language which the Commons might justly use.

Did then the articles against Strafford strictly amount to high treason?  Many people, who know neither what the articles were, nor what high treason is, will answer in the negative, simply because the accused person, speaking for his life, took that ground of defence.  The journals of the Lords show that the judges were consulted.  They answered, with one accord, that the articles on which the earl was convicted amounted to high treason.  This judicial opinion, even if we suppose it to have been erroneous, goes far to justify the Parliament.  The judgment pronounced in the Exchequer Chamber has always been urged by the apologists of Charles in defence of his conduct respecting ship-money.  Yet on that occasion there was but a bare majority in favour of the party at whose pleasure all the magistrates composing the tribunal were removable.  The decision in the case of Strafford was unanimous; as far as we can judge, it was unbiassed; and, though there may be room for hesitation, we think, on the whole, that it was reasonable.  “It may be remarked,” says Mr. Hallam, “that the fifteenth article of the impeachment, charging Strafford with raising money by his own authority, and quartering troops on the people of Ireland, in order to compel their obedience to his unlawful requisitions, upon which, and upon one other article, not upon the whole matter, the Peers voted him guilty, does, at least, approach very nearly, if we may not say more, to a substantive treason within the statute of Edward the Third, as a levying of war against the King.”  This most sound and just exposition has provoked a very ridiculous reply.  “It should seem to be an Irish construction this,” says, an assailant of Mr. Hallam, “which makes the raising money for the King’s service, with his knowledge, and by his approbation, to come under the head of levying war on the King, and therefore to be high treason.”  Now, people who undertake to write on points of constitutional law should know, what every attorney’s clerk and every forward schoolboy on an upper form knows, that, by a fundamental maxim of our polity, the King can do no wrong; that every court is bound to suppose his conduct and his sentiments to be, on every occasion, such as they ought to be; and that no evidence can be received for the purpose of setting aside this loyal and salutary presumption.  The Lords therefore, were bound to take it for granted that the King considered arms which were unlawfully directed against his people as directed against his own throne.