arraigned in batches. They were brought before the bench in groups to have the
substance of the charge against each of them read in turn and to plead whether
they were guilty or not guilty of the offence alleged. When a number had
been so arraigned, they were charged to a jury. The pattern of trial at the
Old Bailey was complicated by the fact that defendants from two jurisdictions—
the City ofLondon and the county of Middlesex—had to be tried before juries
of their own peers. Arraignments and trials thus alternated between London
and Middlesex defendants. We can see how that worked by examining the
detailed account we are fortunate to have of the December 1678 session.^8 On
the first morning, following the completion of essential formalities, two London
defendants were arraigned and tried to the City jury—only two, perhaps, in
order to get the session underway quickly. When their trials were completed, the
rest of the morning was taken up with the trials of eight of the accused from Mid-
dlesex who had been arraigned together and who were now tried before a jury
from the county. The afternoon session (beginning at 3 p.m. and clearly stretch-
ing well past dark, considering that this was December) was taken up with the
trial of three more London cases, one of which, involving the rape of a child,
produced a good deal of evidence on both sides and an extended conflict be-
tween the bench and the jury over their initial verdict.^9 When the court con-
vened at 9 a.m. on the second day, the Middlesex jury heard nine cases involving
eleven defendants, and the London jury followed by trying six accused felons
and a group of soldiers for rescuing one of their comrades from custody after he
had been arrested on a civil charge—all before the break. The session was com-
pleted in the afternoon when the convicted soldiers were sentenced by the
recorder, six remaining Middlesex felons were arraigned and tried, the juries
were discharged, and the defendants who had been convicted over the two days
were sentenced.
The rapidity of this procedure was made possible by the nature of the trial.
The facts at issue were normally presented orally by the victim of the offence,
supported by witnesses who, like the victim, gave their evidence briefly and gen-
erally under the questioning of the judge who acted as examiner and cross-
examiner. His principal interest was to present defendants with the evidence
that pointed to their guilt and to get them to respond to it. Defendants had the
right to call witnesses to the facts they themselves alleged, and witnesses to their
character. But they essentially came before the judges in the Old Bailey sessions
house unprepared for what was to come. And, apart from their ignorance of the
precise charge or the evidence they would soon be asked to answer, they suffered
two other disabilities: the circumstances under which they had been held for
trial in Newgate or the compters ensured that if they were not dirty and
262 The Old Bailey in the Late Seventeenth Century
(^8) An Exact Account of the Trials... Decemb. 1678 Langbein analysed aspects of this account in ‘Criminal
Trial Before the Lawyers’, 274 – 5, 279–86, 291–5, 301.
(^9) For the significance of that case, see Langbein, ‘Criminal Trial Before the Lawyers’, 291 – 5.