[83] The King found his counsel as refractory as his Judges.

The first barrister who learned that he was expected to defend the dispensing power was the Solicitor General, Heneage Finch.

He peremptorily refused, and was turned out of office on the following day.

[84] The Attorney General, Sawyer, was ordered to draw warrants authorising members of the Church of Rome to hold benefices belonging to the Church of England.
Sawyer had been deeply concerned in some of the harshest and most unjustifiable prosecutions of that age; and the Whigs abhorred him as a man stained with the blood of Russell and Sidney: but on this occasion he showed no want of honesty or of resolution.

"Sir," said he, "this is not merely to dispense with a statute; it is to annul the whole statute law from the accession of Elizabeth to this day.