The Lord President and the two Secretaries of State attended in order to prove that the papers produced in Court were the same which Billop had brought to Whitehall.

A considerable number of judges appeared on the bench; and Holt presided.
A full report of the proceedings has come down to us, and well deserves to be attentively studied, and to be compared with the reports of other trials which had not long before taken place under the same roof.

The whole spirit of the tribunal had undergone in a few months a change so complete that it might seem to have been the work of ages.

Twelve years earlier, unhappy Roman Catholics, accused of wickedness which had never entered into their thoughts, had stood in that dock.

The witnesses for the Crown had repeated their hideous fictions amidst the applauding hums of the audience.