REPORT OF LOPEZ S TREASON. 201 



and so mortal, yet were it not that it would be a 

 very reproach unto the age, that the matter should 

 be once disputed or called in question, it could never 

 be defended. And therefore I leave it to the cen 

 sure which Titus Livius giveth in the like case upon 

 Perseus, the last king of the Macedons, afterwards 

 overthrown, taken with his children, and led in 

 triumph by the Romans ; &quot; Quern non justum bellum 

 &quot; gerere regio animo, sed per omnia clandestine 

 &quot; grassari scelera, latrociniorum ac veneficiorum, cer** 

 &quot; nebant.&quot; 



But to proceed : certain it is, that even about 

 this present time there have been suborned and sent 

 into this realm divers persons, some English, some 

 Irish, corrupted by money and promises, and re 

 solved and conjured by priests in confession, to have 

 executed that most wretched and horrible fact ; of 

 which number certain have been taken, and some 

 have suffered, and some are spared because they 

 have with great sorrow confessed these attempts, 

 and detested their suborners. And if I should con 

 jecture what the reason is why this cursed enterprise 

 was at this time so hotly and with such diligence 

 pursued, I take it to be chiefly because the matters 

 of France were ripe, and the king of Spain made 

 himself ready to unmask himself, and to reap that in 

 France, which he had been long in sowing, in regard 

 that, there being like to be a divulsion in the league 

 by the reconciliation of some of the heads to the 

 king, the more passionate sort, being destituted by 

 their associates, were like to cast themselves wholly 



