On 2 July 1681 the earl of Shaftesbury was arrested and sent to the Tower, charged with high treason. As a peer he was entitled to be tried by his fellow peers, but before this could happen he would have to be indicted by a grand jury of commoners. Since an indictment could only be presented by a jury from the county in which the alleged offence had been committed, this meant that unless evidence from elsewhere were forthcoming the bill would have to be preferred in London. This created severe problems for the prosecution, because the London sheriffs were intransigent whigs who had flagrantly been packing the jury panels with like-minded supporters. Shaftesbury's fate would depend on whether the judges were entitled to remove such persons and replace them with others of a different persuasion.