LETTERS FROM THE RESUSCITATIO. 135 



a thing they use) ; but I conceive there will be no manner 

 of question made of it. My Lord Chief Justice to shew 

 forwardness (as I interpret it) showed us passages of Suarez 

 and others, thereby to prove, that though your majesty stood 

 not excommunicate by particular sentence, yet by the 

 general bulls of Caena Domini, and others, you were 

 upon the matter excommunicate ; and therefore that the 

 treason was, as De praesenti. But I that foresee, that if 

 that course should be held, when it cometh to a public day, 

 to disseminate to the vulgar an opinion that your majesty s 

 case is all one as if you were de facto particularly and ex 

 pressly excommunicate, it would but increase the danger of 

 your person with those that are desperate papists ; and that 

 it is needless ; I commended my lord s diligence, but withal put 

 it by ; and fell upon the other course (which is the true 

 way) ; that is, that whosoever shall affirm, in diem, or sub- 

 conditione, that your majesty may be destroyed, is a traitor, 

 de praesenti ; for that he maketh you but tenant for life at 

 the will of another. And I put the Duke of Buckingham s 

 case, who said, that if the king caused him to be arrested 

 of treason, he would stab him ; and the case of the im- 

 postress Elizabeth Barton, that said, that if King Henry the 

 Eighth took not his wife again, Katharine Dowager, he 

 should be no longer king ; and the like. 



It may be these particulars are not worth the relating. 

 But because I find nothing in the world, so important to 

 your service as to have you throughly informed (the ability 

 of your direction considered) it maketh me thus to do ; most 

 humbly praying your majesty to admonish me, if I be over 

 troublesome. 



For Peacham, the rest of my fellows are ready to make 

 their report to your majesty, at such time, and in such 

 manner, as your majesty shall require it. Myself yesterday, 

 took my Lord Cooke aside, after the rest were gone, and 

 told him all the rest were ready, and I was now to require 



