Lehman, a historian who has specialized for many years in studying the history of juries, has created here an amazing fictionalization of what the trial of William Penn and William Mead was really like - from the perspective of the jurors. Penn and Mead, on trial for their lives, had been accused essentially of inciting a riot. Their crime was preaching the Quaker religion in the street, after they had been locked out of their meeting house by the authorities. The quaker religion, in 17th century England, was illegal.
The jury - always a controversial institution, especially with those in power - acquitted Penn and Mead after enduring great hardships. However, the legal texts and case books describe those hardships in an abstract, detached way, with no insight into the actual people who played this critical role in history.
Lehman investigated the actual conditions these jurors faced, and what is known about the individuals who served on the jury, and attempted to recreate the trial as it actually occurred. What wasn't known he filled in with his imagination and sense of humor - although even those items are rich in historical detail, through Mr. Lehman's deep sense of history.
I'd recommend it for reading. It would make a great play or movie as well, if any producers of such things are reading this...
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