Stafford, like all those who were charged with treason until the passage of the Treason Act 1695, was denied defence counsel and forced to conduct his own defence, bringing forward witnesses to counter the evidence against him. One such witness would have been Richard Gerard of Hilderstone, who had come to London to testify on Stafford's behalf but was imprisoned on the word of Stephen Dugdale; Gerard died in jail before the trial. Although the Lord High Steward, Heneage Finch, conducted the trial with exemplary fairness, this was not enough to secure Stafford's acquittal: while Stafford maintained his innocence with vigour, John Evelyn, a spectator, thought his speeches "very confused and without method". He failed, where a good defence counsel might have succeeded, in exposing the inconsistencies in the evidence of Turberville, or to discredit the unsavoury Oates, whose public standing had declined notably over the preceding year. As Evelyn also noted Stafford was "not a man beloved by his own family", and seven out of eight peers of the Howard dynasty who sat on the Court voted him Guilty.