nation of princes hath been accounted villainous and execrable.arti da ebrius i The manners of conspiring and compassing the King's death are many: but it is most apparent, that amongst all the rest this surmounteth. First, because it is grounded upon pretenced religion; which is a trumpet that inflameth the heart and powers of a man with daring and resolution more than any thing else. Secondly, it is the hardest to be avoided; for when a particular conspiracy is plotted or attempted against a King by some one or some few conspirators, it meets with a number of impediments. Commonly he that hath the head to devise it, hath not the heart to undertake it and the person that is used, sometimes faileth in courage; sometimes faileth in opportunity; sometimes is touched with remorse. But to publish and maintain, that it may be lawful for any man living to attempt the life of a King, this doctrine is a venomous sop; or, as a legion of malign spirits, or an universal temptation, doth enter at once into the hearts of all that are any way prepared, or of any predisposition to be traitors; so that whatsoever faileth in any one, is supplied in many. If one man faint, another will dare: if one man hath not the opportunity, another hath; if one man relent, another will be desperate. And thirdly, particular conspiracies have their periods of time, within which if they be not taken, they vanish; but this is endless, and importeth perpetuity of springing conspiracies. And so much concerning the nature of the fact. For the third point, which is the doctrine; that upon an excommunication of the Pope, with sentence of deposing, a King by any son of Adam may be slaughtered; and that it is justice and no murder; and that their subjects are absolved of their allegiance, and the Kings themselves exposed to spoil and prey. I said before, that I would not argue the subtlety of the question: it is rather to be spoken to by way of accusation of the opinion as impious, than by way of dispute of it as doubtful. Nay, I say, it deserveth rather some holy war or league amongst all Christian princes of either religion for the extirpating and rasing of the opinion, and the authors thereof, from the face of the earth, than the stile of pen or speech. Therefore in this kind I will speak to it a few words, and not otherwise. Nay, I protest, if I were a Papist I should as much: nay, I should speak it perhaps with more indignation and feeling. For this horrible opinion is our advantage, and it is their reproach, and will be their ruin. say This monster of opinion is to be accused of three most evident and most miserable slanders. First, Of the slanderitbringeth to the Christian faith, being a plain plantation of irreligion and atheism. On Secondly, The subversion which it introduceth into all policy and government. Thirdly, The great calamity it bringeth upon Papists themselves; of which the more moderate sort, as men misled, are to be pitied. For the first, if a man doth visit the foul and polluted opinions, customs, or practices of heathenism, Mahometism, and heresy, he shall find they do not attain to this height. Take the examples of damnable memory amongst the Heathens. The proscriptions in Rome of Sylla, and afterwards of the Triumvirs, what were they? They were but of a finite number of persons, and those not many that were exposed unto any man's sword. But what is that to the proscribing of a King, and all that shall take his part? And what was the reward of a soldier that amongst them killed one of the proscribed? A small piece of money. But what is now the reward of one that shall kill a King? The kingdom of heaven. The custom among the Heathen that was most scandalised was, that sometimes the priest sacrificed men; but yet you shall not read of any priesthood that sacrificed Kings. The Mahometans make it a part of their religion to propagate their sect by the sword; but yet still by honourable wars, never by villanies and secret murders. Nay, I find that the Saracen prince, of whom the name of the assassins is derived, which had divers votaries at commandment, which he sent and employed to the killing of divers princes in the east, by one of whom Amuraththe first was slain, and Edward the first of England was wounded, was put down and rooted out by common consent of the Mahometan princes. The Anabaptists, it is true, come nearest. For they profess the pulling down of magistrates: and they can chaunt the psalm, To bind their Kings in chains, and their nobles in fetters of iron. This is the glory of the saints, much like the temporal authority that the Pope challengeth over princes. But this is the difference, that that is a furious and fanatical fury, and this is a sad and solemn mischief: he imagineth mischief as a law; a law-like mischief. For to As for the defence which they do make, it doth aggravate the sin, and turneth it from a cruelty towards man to a blasphemy towards God. For to say that all this is in ordine ad spirituale, and to a good end, and for the salvation of souls, it is directly to make God author of evil, and to draw him in the likeness of the prince of darkness; and to say with those that Saint Paul speaketh of, Let us do evil that good may come thereof; of whom the apostle saith definitively, that their damnation is just. For the destroying of government universally, it is most evident, that it is not the case of protestant princes only, but of catholic princes likewise; as the King hath excellently set forth. Nay, it is not the case of princes only, but of all subjects and private persons. For touching princes, let history be perused, what hath been the causes of excommunication; and namely, this tumour of it, the deposing of Kings; it hath not been for heresy and schism alone, but for collation and investitures of bishopricks and benefices, intruding upon ecclesiastical possessions, violating of any ecclesiastical person or liberty. Nay, generally they maintain it, that it may be for any sin: so that the difference wherein their doctors vary, that some hold that the Pope hath his temporal power immediately, and others but in ordine ad spirituale, is but a delusion and an abuse. For all cometh to one. What is there that may not be made spiritual by con sequence: especially when he that giveth the sentence may make the case? and accordingly hath the miserable experience followed. For this murdering of Kings hath been put in practice, as well against papist Kings as protestant: save that it hath pleased God so to guide it by his admirable providence, as the attempts upon papist princes have been executed, and the attempts upon protestant princes have failed, except that of the Prince of Orange: and not that neither, until such time as he had joined too fast with the Duke of Anjou and the papists. As for subjects, I see not, nor ever could discern, but that by infallible consequence it is the case of all subjects and people, as well as of Kings; for it is all one reason, that a bishop, upon an excommunication of a private man, may give his lands and goods in spoil, or cause him to be slaughtered, as for the Pope to do it towards a King; and for a bishop to absolve the son from duty to the father, as for the Pope to absolve the subject from his allegiance to his King. And this is not my inference, but the very affirmative of Pope Urban the second, who in a brief to Godfrey, bishop of Luca, hath these very words, which cardinal Baronius reciteth in his Annals, Tom. XI. Non illos homicidas arbitramur, qui adversus excommunicatos zelo catholicæ matris ardentes eorum quoslibet trucidare contigerit, speaking generally of all excommunications. P. 802. THE CHARGE OF SIR FRANCIS BACON, KNIGHT, THE KING'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL, AGAINST MR. LUMSDEN, SIR JOHN WENTWORTH, For Scandal and traducing of the King's Justice in the proceedings against WESTON in the Star-Chamber, 10 November, 1615. THE offence wherewith I shall charge the three of fenders at the bar, is a misdemeanor of a high nature, tending to the defacing and scandal of justice in a great cause capital. The particular charge is this: The King amongst many his princely virtues is known to excel in that proper virtue of the imperial throne, which is justice. It is a royal virtue, which doth employ the other three cardinal virtues in her service: wisdom to discover, and discern nocent or innocent; fortitude to prosecute and execute; temperance, so to carry justice as it be not passionate in the pursuit, nor confused in involving persons upon light suspicion, nor precipitate in time. For this his Majesty's virtue of justice God hath of late raised an occasion, and erected as it were a stage or theatre, much to his honour, for him to shew it, and act it in the pursuit of the untimely death of Sir Thomas Overbury, and therein cleansing the land from blood. For, my lords, if blood spilt pure doth cry to heaven in God's ears, much more blood defiled with poison. This great work of his Majesty's justice, the more excellent it is, your lordships will soon conclude the greater is the offence of any that have sought to affront it or traduce it. And therefore, before I descend unto the charge of these offenders, I will set before your |