King named a Lord High Steward. The Lord High Steward named, at
his discretion, certain peers to sit on their accused brother.
The number to be summoned was indefinite. No challenge was
allowed. A simple majority, provided that it consisted of twelve,
was sufficient to convict. The High Steward was sole judge of the
law; and the Lords Triers formed merely a jury to pronounce on
the question of fact. Jeffreys was appointed High Steward. He
selected thirty Triers; and the selection was characteristic of
the man and of the times. All the thirty were in politics
vehemently opposed to the prisoner. Fifteen of them were colonels
of regiments, and might be removed from their lucrative commands
at the pleasure of the King. Among the remaining fifteen were the
Lord Treasurer, the principal Secretary of State, the Steward of
the Household, the Comptroller of the Household, the Captain of
the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, the Queen's Chamberlain, and
other persons who were bound by strong ties of interest to the
court. Nevertheless, Delamere had some great advantages over the
humbler culprits who had been arraigned at the Old Bailey. There
the jurymen, violent partisans, taken for a single day by courtly
Sheriffs from the mass of society and speedily sent back to
mingle with that mass, were under no restraint of shame, and
being little accustomed to weigh evidence, followed without
scruple the directions of the bench. But in the High Steward's
Court every Trier was a man of some experience in grave affairs.
Every Trier filled a considerable space in the public eye. Every
Trier, beginning from the lowest, had to rise separately and to
give in his verdict, on his honour, before a great concourse.
That verdict, accompanied with his name, would go to every part
of the world, and would live in history. Moreover, though the
selected nobles were all Tories, and almost all placemen, many of