Trial
Payne was indicted at Chelmsford on 22 March on a charge of treason for conspiring to murder the Queen and her leading officers and install Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne. Payne denied the charges, and affirmed his loyalty to the Queen in all that was lawful (i.e. not contrary to his Catholicism or allegiance to the Pope), contesting the reliability of the murderer Eliot. No attempt was made to corroborate Eliot's story, which had already been rehearsed in large part at the trial of Edmund Campion on 20 November 1581. The guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion.
Read more about this topic: John Payne (martyr)
Famous quotes containing the word trial:
“For he is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. There is no umpire between us, who might lay his hand on us both.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 9:32-33.
Job, about God.
“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident—the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
—Edward C. Banfield (b. 1916)
“In government offices which are sensitive to the vehemence and passion of mass sentiment public men have no sure tenure. They are in effect perpetual office seekers, always on trial for their political lives, always required to court their restless constituents.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)