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 the reward now 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 Amurath the 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 Anabaptist, it is true, cometh 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 then this is the difference, that that is a furious and fanatical folly, and this is a sad and solemn mischief: he imagineth mischief as a law; a lawlike mischief.

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 into 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 excellently, 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 catholics or papists likewise; (as the King hath excellently set forth.) Nay, it is not the case of princes only for anything that I can perceive, 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 benifices, intruding upon ecclesiastical possessions, violating of any ecclesiastical person or liberty. Nay, generally they maintain it, that it may be for any sin; and what King, Papist or Protestant, is there without sin? so that their difference wherein their doctors vary, that some hold that the Pope hath a temporal power immediately and precisely, and others but mediately and 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 consequence: specially 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, Non illos homicidas arbitramur, qui adversus excommunicatos zelo catholicæ matris ardentes eorum quoslibet trucidare contigerit, speaking generally of all excommunications.

Here the rough copy ends abruptly. Between it and the fair and full copy which follows, another must have intervened, containing all the corrections made in the rough copy, and many more.

THE CHARGE OF OWEN, INDICTED FOR HIGH TREASON IN THE KING'S BENCH BY SIR FRANCIS BACON, HIS MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY GENERAL.1

The treason wherewith this man stands charged is for the kind and nature of it ancient, as ancient as there is any law of England, but in the particular late and upstart, and in the manner and boldness of it new and almost unheard of till this man. Of what mind he is now I know not, but I take him as he was, and as he stands charged. For high treason (I tell you) is not written in ice, that when the body melteth and relenteth the impression goeth away; and yet repentance and remorse (if it be cordial and unfeigned) may make him fit for God's mercy or the King's.

The indictment hath been opened to the Jury, and the evidence itself will spend little time, for the proof is clear and in a manner confessed, and therefore time will be best spent in opening fully the nature and peril of his treason with the circumstances thereof, because the example is more than the man.

I will therefore by way of inducement or declaration open to the Court, Jury, and hearers five things.

The first is the clemency of the King; because it is news and a rare thing in his government to have a proceeding in this place upon treason: and it may be marvelled by some why upon so long an intermission it should light upon this fellow; being a person but contemptible, a hang-by of the seminaries, a kind of venomous fly that one would think should rather buz than sting.

The second is the nature and danger of this treason as concerning the fact; which of all other kinds of compassing the King's death I hold to be the most perilous and pernicious; as much differing from other conspiracies to slaughter the King, as the lifting up of thousands of hands against the King, like

1 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. no. 15, a very fair transcript, the first two (and I think the first three) leaves of which appear to have been looked over by Bacon himself, there being two or three words corrected by his pen. The fourth shows no traces of his hand. And the fifth has certainly not been corrected by him; for in one place there is a space left blank, for a word which the transcriber could not read. It is worth observing also that the last sheet contains several erasures and interlineations, and appears also to contain some errors which are not corrected. Also that it is not numbered like the others. It may be a question therefore whether it was not cancelled, and whether the rest of the manuscript may not be in existence somewhere.

Briareus the Giant that had so many hands, differeth from the lifting up of one hand or a few hands, as it is in particular conspiracies.

The third point that I will speak to is the doctrine or opinion which is the ground of this treason; wherein I will not argue nor speak like a divine or scholar (I am scholar enough to know the disadvantage), but as a man bred in a civil life; nay I will never to give to that opinion that honour as to confute it. For howsoever (as it is in itself a scarlet and purple and bloody opinion) it hath got the credit of some scarlet and purple and bloody defenders, Popes and Cardinals, yet I for my part will never speak of it but as of an impiety that deserveth detestation and not contestation.

The fourth point I will speak to is the degree and special circumstances of this man's offence, which is certainly more presumptuous and insolent than I have known any other to have fallen into even in this kind, and hath as it were a greater overflow of malice and treason.

And fifthly I will take away an objection that may seem somewhat to qualify and extenuate this man's offence, in that he hath not simply affirmed that it is lawful to kill the King, but conditionally that if the King be excommunicate (as he is not) it is lawful to kill him; which I will shew you plainly makes little difference either in law or in peril.

For the King's clemency, I must say it, and it is a thing notorious, that the part or party which have captivated themselves to the see of Rome, (which is the fountain of this evil,) I mean the Papists, do receive and enjoy an exceeding great proportion of the King's mercy: 'tis their tenure, I can tell them: they hold by King James his mercy. Certainly there hath not wanted matter to irritate him to a just execution of his laws, even in the points capital. What shall we think or say of the Powdertreason? whereby the King and kingdom (the representative body or heart of it) should have been at once, as by a particular dooms-day, destroyed by fire. This alone had been enough to have turned judgment into fury. Let's go from powder-treason to paper-treason: What shall we say of that wicked and monstrous libel of Balaam's ass? that threatens the King in express words, that in that he was delivered from the Powder-treason he was not preserved, but reserved for a greater judgment; that

VOL. V.

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hath declared him (but it is but by the braying of that ass) to be Antichrist. Alas, he is seated here at London in a valley: where be the seven hills I marvel. These blasphemies, if they had light upon some King, he would have expiated and washed his name, not with water but with blood. Let's go on to that which falls under every man's observation and discourse, which is the growth of the Papists. They grow in number, and they grow in boldness and presumption, massing in every corner; the prisons have been made as oratories and chantries; whole streets of Papists (as I hear), and whole tracts and territories of them in some counties of this kingdom. The consistory here of Priests cannot pass from London to Wisbeach, but they must send forth their cartels and challenges to the University. These things likewise might make a King conceive that the swellings and tumours of that party may at the last make a dangerous breach, if they be not stopped and beaten back.

Lastly, the very doctrines themselves of the Papists stand not at a stay, but they mount and swell up still more and more to suffocate and strangle the authority of Princes. The books of Joannes Mariana, of Zuares of Coimbra, of Dominicus Bannes, of Sinanca and the rest, they are of a new stamp, they are as a poison often distilled and sublimate. These books no doubt come to the King's hands; he reads them; in his great wisdom he seeth whereto they tend, namely to sour the lump of all Papists in their loyalty, and to make kingdoms the Pope's footstools, or perhaps to make duo luminaria magna, the Pope and the King of Spain. This also might irritate some King to think this evil incurable, and therefore that lenity is not the way. Nevertheless we see the King, out of his great magnanimity and clemency (to be admired), observes still Cæsar's rule, Nil malo quam eos similes esse sui et me mei, he remains still like himself, and leaves them to be like themselves; he rather bears the sword than draws it. What swarms of priests here be (which are so many pioners to undermine the State), how many receivers of them, no man doubts; and yet notwithstanding the edge of the law is not turned against them, but they have their portion in the King's mercy, and not in his justice; insomuch as I may say (as I have said of late upon just occasion) that I have served Attorney and Solicitor eight years, and yet this is 1 See 'Nichols's Progresses of James I.,' vol. iii. p. 83.