LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--Mistress, you have had your turn, you cannot
now be heard any more after the jury is charged.
MRS. LISLE--My lord, I did not know Nelthorp, I declare it,
before he was taken.
LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--You are not indicted for Nelthorp, but we
are not to enter into dialogues now, the jury must consider of
it.
JURY-MAN--Pray my lord, some of us desire to know of your
lordship in point of law, whether it be the same thing, and
equally treason, in receiving him before he was convicted of
treason, as if it had been after.
LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--It is all the same, of that certainly can be
no doubt; for if in case this Hicks had been wounded in the
rebels' army, and had come to her house and there been
entertained but had died there of his wounds, and so could never
have been convicted, she had been nevertheless a traitor.[62]
Then the jury withdrew, and staying out a while the Lord
Jeffreys expressed a great deal of impatience, and said that he
wondered in so plain a case they would go from the bar, and
would have sent for them with an intimation, that if they did
not come quickly, he would adjourn, and let them lie by it all
night; but about after half-an-hour's stay, the Jury returned,
and the foreman addressed himself to the Court thus:
FOREMAN--My lord, we have one thing to beg of your lordship some
directions in, before we can give our verdict in this case; We
have some doubt upon us whether there be sufficient proof that
she knew Hicks to have been in the army.
LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--There is as full proof as proof can be; but
you are judges of the proof, for my part I thought there was no
difficulty in it.
FOREMAN--My lord, we are in some doubt of it.
LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--I cannot help your doubts, was there not
proved a discourse of the battle and of the army at supper time?
FOREMAN--But my lord, we are not satisfied that she had notice
that Hicks was in the army.
LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--I cannot tell what would satisfy you; Did
she not enquire of Dunne, whether Hicks had been in the army?
and when he told her he did not know, she did not say she would
refuse him if he had been there, but ordered him to come by
night, by which it is evident she suspected it, and when he and
Nelthorp came, discoursed with them about the battle and the
army. Come, come, gentlemen, it is a plain proof.
FOREMAN--My lord, we do not remember it was proved that she did
ask any such question when they were there.
LORD CHIEF-JUSTICE--Sure you do not remember anything that has
passed! Did not Dunne tell you there was such discourse, and she
was by, and Nelthorp's name was named. But if there were no such
proof the circumstances and management of the thing is as full
of proof as can be; I wonder what it is you doubt of.