The trial of the earl in Westminster Hall began on March 22, 1641, and
lasted eighteen days. Both Houses passed a bill of attainder. The king
resolved never to give his consent to this measure, but a rabble of many
thousands of people besieged Whitehall, crying out, "Justice, justice;
we will have justice!" The privy council being called together pressed
the king to pass the bill of attainder, saying there was no other way to
preserve himself and his posterity than by so doing; and therefore he
ought to be more tender of the safety of the kingdom than of any one
person how innocent soever. No one counsellor interposed his opinion, to
support his master's magnanimity and innocence.

The Archbishop of York, acting his part with prodigious boldness and
impiety, told the king that there was a private and a public conscience;
that his public conscience as a king might not only dispense with, but
oblige him to do that which was against his private conscience as a man;
and that the question was not whether he should save the earl, but
whether he should perish with him. Thus in the end was extorted from the
king a commission from some lords to sign the bill. This was as valid as
if he had signed it himself, though they comforted him even with that
circumstance, "that his own hand was not in it."

The earl was beheaded on May 12, on Tower Hill. Together with that of
the attainder of this nobleman, another bill was passed by the king, of
almost as fatal consequences to him and the kingdom as that was to the
earl, "the act for perpetual parliament," as it is since called. Thus
Parliament could not be adjourned, prorogued, or dissolved, without its
consent.

Great offence was given to the Commons by the action of the king in
appointing new bishops to certain vacant sees at the very time when they