[citation needed] It gave rise to what became known as the cruel trilemma[2] where the accused would find themselves trapped between a breach of religious oath (taken extremely seriously in that era, a mortal sin,[2] and perjury), contempt of court for silence, or self-incrimination.
[4] According to scholars of the common law the right against self-incrimination begins with opposition to punishments and penalties imposed for refusing to answer ecclesiastical judges under oath without formal charges being made.
Noting inconsistences in cases reported by Edward Coke and James Dyer, E.M. Morgan wrote:[4] All that can be safely asserted is that the common lawyers both in the second half of the 13th and all of the 14th century and under Henry VIII and Elizabeth resisted the inquisatiorial [sic] procedure of the spiritual courts, whether Romish or English, and under Elizabeth began to base their opposition chiefly upon the principle that a person could not be compelled to furnish under oath answers to charges which had not been formally made and disclosed to him, except in causes testamentary and matrimoinal.
[3] John Wigmore and Mary Hume Macguire[12] considered the jurisidictional conflict between common law and the ecclesiastical oath ex officio the starting point for the privilege against self-incrimination.
According to Mary Hume Maguire: We read a series of petitions from the Commons to the Crown referring to the distasteful practice of ecclesiastical courts of proving the case against the defendant by "fishing interrogatories viva voce"The right later takes on a different meaning: based on the text of the Fifth Amendment, an accused person facing formal charges is not required to be a witness against themselves in Court.
The United States Supreme Court summarized the events of the time as part of the historical background in the landmark case Miranda v. Arizona: Perhaps the critical historical event shedding light on its [i.e., the privilege against self-incrimination] origins and evolution was the trial of one John Lilburn, a vocal anti-Stuart Leveller, who was made to take the Star Chamber Oath in 1637.