318 LETTERS RELATING TO 



and then your majesty will be pleased to consider, 

 before whom he shall be charged ; whether before 

 the body of your council, as formerly he was, or 

 some selected commissioners ; for we conceive your 

 majesty will not think it convenient it should be 

 before us two only. Also the manner of his charge 

 is considerable, whether it shall be verbal by your 

 learned council, as it was last ; or whether, in respect 

 of the multiplicity of matters, he shall not have the 

 collections we have made in writing, delivered to 

 him. Also the matter of his charge is likewise con 

 siderable, whether any of those points of novelty, 

 which by your majesty s commandment we collected, 

 shall be made part of his charge ; or only the faults 

 of his books, and the prohibitions and &quot; habeas 

 corpus,&quot; collected by my lord of Canterbury. In all 

 which course we foresee length of time, not so much 

 for your learned council to be prepared, for that is 

 almost done already, but because himself, no doubt, 

 will crave time of advice to peruse his own books, 

 and to see, whether the collections be true, and that 

 he be justly charged ; and then to produce his proofs, 

 that those things, which he shall be charged with, 

 were not conceits or singularities of his own, but the 

 acts of court, and other like things, tending to excu- 

 sation or extenuation ; wherein we do not see, how 

 the time of divers days, if not of weeks, can be 

 denied him. 



Now for time, if this last course of charging him 

 be taken, we may only inform your majesty thus 

 much, that the absence of a chief justice, though it 



