158 CHARGE AGAINST MR. LUMSDEN, &c. 



First, it pleased my lord Chief Justice to let me 

 know, that which I heard with great comfort, which 

 was the charge that his majesty gave to himself first, 

 and afterwards to the commissioners in this case, 

 worthy certainly to be written in letters of gold, 

 wherein his majesty did forerank and make it his 

 prime direction, that it should be carried, without 

 touch to any that was innocent ; nay more, not only 

 without impeachment, but without aspersion : which 

 was a most noble and princely caution from his ma 

 jesty ; for men s reputations are tender things, and 

 ought to be, like Christ s coat, without seam. And 

 it was the more to be respected in this case, because 

 it met with two great persons ; a nobleman that his 

 majesty had favoured and advanced, and his lady 

 being of a great and honourable house : though I 

 think it be true that the writers say, That there is 

 no pomegranate so fair or so sound, but may have 

 a perished kernel. Nay, I see plainly, that in those 

 excellent papers of his majesty s own hand-writing, 

 being as so many beams of justice issuing from that 

 virtue which doth shine in him ; I say, I see it was 

 so evenly carried without prejudice, whether it were 

 a true accusation of the one part, or a practice of a 

 false accusation on the other, as shewed plainly that 

 his majesty s judgment was &quot; tanquam tabula rasa,&quot; 

 as a clean pair of tables, and his ear &quot; tanquam janua 

 &quot; aperta,&quot; as a gate not side open, but wide open to 

 truth, as it should be by little and little discovered. 

 Nay, I see plainly, that at the first, till farther light 

 did break forth, his majesty was little moved with 



