On September 1, 1670, the indictment was read against William Penn and William Mead. It charged them with having assembled with three hundred others, on August 14, in Gracechurch Street, of having breached the peace, and, in Penn’s case, of having preached with the abetment of Mead. Both pleaded not guilty. The proceeding was adjourned; they did not appear before the court again until September 3.
Upon their entrance, someone had removed their hats. The bench ordered them put back on, and so they remained covered. The Recorder then asked them if they were aware they stood in the King’s court, and why they failed to show the expected deference. Penn replied that he acknowledged a court, yet did not hold the taking off of a hat to be a requisite token of respect. The judges fined them forty marks apiece for contempt. Penn observed at once that they had entered bareheaded and that the court itself had commanded their hats be replaced. Thus the trial began with a fine for an act brought about by the court’s own order.
The first witness called was Lieutenant James Cook. He stated that he had been sent to disperse a gathering in Gracechurch Street. There he had seen Penn speaking, but had been unable to hear what he said, as the crowd hindered his approach. Cook estimated that there might have been three or four hundred persons present. He added that Mead had requested him to let Penn finish speaking, promising to bring him to him thereafter.
Richard Read, the constable, described a more tumultuous scene. On August 14, he had come upon a great throng and heard Penn preaching, without being able to make out his words. He had endeavoured, alongside his men, to pull him down, but the crowd had kicked them. Read reckoned the company at four or five hundred persons. He had seen Mead conversing with Lieutenant Cook, though he did not know what passed between them.
The final witness is not named in Borrow’s account. He had seen a great concourse and believed Penn was addressing them, yet heard nothing. He did not see Mead. The bench directly asked the latter whether he had been present. Mead invoked the principle that no man is bound to accuse himself, reproaching the judge with attempting to ensnare him. Penn answered that they held it a duty to assemble for the worship of God. The bench countered that he was not on trial for his worship, but for having transgressed the law.
Penn maintained that he had broken no law, and demanded upon which statute the indictment rested. The Recorder answered: the common law. Penn asked where this law might be found, remarking that if it were truly common, it ought not to be difficult to produce. The Recorder asked whether he must needs ransack all the precedents merely to gratify his curiosity. The Lord Mayor observed that the phrase distinguished the common law from statutory enactments, and that unlicenced assemblies were deemed unlawful because they placed the public peace in peril. Penn answered that his liberty, ‘next to life itself’, was at stake, maintaining that the issue lay not merely in his guilt, but in the legality of the charge itself. The Recorder retorted that he might indulge him with questions until the morrow without his being any the wiser. Penn replied that all turned upon the answers given; he had no wish to affront the court, yet rebuked the judges for refusing to show him the law they invoked. The Lord Mayor ordered him taken to the ‘bail-dock’. Penn protested once more, committing into the jury’s hands the preservation of the ancient laws of liberty and property. He was thereupon conducted to the holding dock where prisoners were kept.
Mead then addressed the jury. He denounced the indictment as a bundle of falsehoods and invoked Coke’s definition of a riot: three persons assembled to beat another, forcibly enter his lands, or commit any other unlawful act. The Recorder completed the passage with those final words, and then ironically thanked Mead for having instructed him in the law. Mead replied that he had no cause to fear him. He had opened his defense by explaining that he had once borne arms, yet the fear of God now forbade him from injuring any man. The Lord Mayor threatened to have his tongue cut out for his insolence toward the court. Mead answered that he had been promised a fair hearing, and demanded the rights of an Englishman.
Mead was in turn sent down into the dock. The two prisoners remained there while the Recorder delivered his charge to the jury. They cried out against instructions being given behind their backs, saying they had been denied the right to present their full defense. The judge asked whether they were not present and could not hear. They pleaded yet again for leave to speak; the court at last commanded the jury to retire and deliberate.
After half an hour, eight jurors returned; the court sent for the remaining four. Their first word was that Penn was guilty of speaking in Gracechurch Street. The Recorder sent them back to reconsider. When they reappeared, the foreman handed in a paper signed by them all: Penn was guilty of speaking or preaching to an assembly gathered in the street, but Mead was not guilty of the indictment. The bench rejected the verdict. The Lord Mayor maintained that the depositions established a tumultuous gathering and that Mead had assisted Penn. Penn answered that, in his view, it was those who had interrupted them that had caused the tumult. He explained that the soldiers had barred them from entering their meeting house, and that they had gathered as near to it as they were permitted. Such was the explanation he gave at the bar; the text offers no independent verification of it.
On September 3, the jurors were kept without meat, drink, fire, or candle until the following session. Come morning, the foreman again stated that Penn was guilty of speaking in the street. The Lord Mayor pressed him: was it before an unlawful assembly? Juror Bushel answered that they would deliver no other verdict than the one already given. The Lord Mayor branded him an insolent, factious fellow. The Recorder then threatened the jurors with starvation should they fail to bring in the ‘positive’ answer he demanded. Penn reminded the court that the jury had already acquitted Mead, arguing that he could not have conspired alone. The bench once more adjourned the proceedings, remanding the jurors under the same harsh conditions.
At the session of September 5, they at last declared both Penn and Mead not guilty. The bench imposed upon each juror a fine of forty marks for having proceeded, in its view, contrary to the plain evidence; they were detained until the fines should be paid. Penn demanded his liberty, having just been acquitted. The Lord Mayor replied that he remained in custody for his fines and for contempt of court. Both the jurors and the two prisoners were conducted to Newgate.
The witnesses had placed Penn at the centre of a crowd, yet none could recount his sermon. Read described the blows sustained by the officers; the unnamed witness did not see Mead; Cook and Read offered differing estimates of the gathering. The jury refused to deduce from this the guilt charged in the indictment. Their determination brought an end to the trial, yet without procuring immediate freedom for the men who pronounced it. In Borrow’s narrative, the closing scene unfolds not during the sermon, but after the acquittal: the court sends both the jurors and the prisoners to the very same jail.