The chief counsel for the Crown was Sir William Williams, who, though now well stricken in years and possessed of a great estate, still continued to practise.

One fault had thrown a dark shade over the latter part of his life.

The recollection of that day on which he had stood up in Westminster Hall, amidst laughter and hooting, to defend the dispensing power and to attack the right of petition, had, ever since the Revolution, kept him back from honour.

He was an angry and disappointed man, and was by no means disposed to incur unpopularity in the cause of a government to which he owed nothing, and from which he hoped nothing.
Of the trial no detailed report has come down to us; but we have both a Whig narrative and a Jacobite narrative.

[543] It seems that the prisoners who were first arraigned did not sever in their challenges, and were consequently tried together.