174 CHARGE AGAINST MR. OWEN. 



this bar or any other. There hath not wanted 

 matter in that party of the subjects whence this 

 kind of offence floweth, to irritate the king : he hath 

 been irritated by the powder of treason, which might 

 have turned judgment into fury. He hath been 

 irritated by wicked and monstrous libels ; irritated 

 by a general insolency and presumption in the Papists 

 throughout the land; and yet I see his majesty 

 keepeth Caesar s rule : &quot; Nil raalo, quam eos esse 

 similes sui, et me mei.&quot; He leaveth them to be like 

 themselves ; and he remaineth like himself, and 

 striveth to overcome evil with goodness. A strange 

 thing, bloody opinions, bloody doctrines, bloody ex 

 amples, and yet the government still unstained with 

 blood. As for this Owen that is brought in question, 

 though his person be in his condition contemptible ; 

 yet we see by miserable examples, that these wretches 

 which are but the scum of the earth, have been able 

 to stir earthquakes by murdering princes ; and if it 

 were in case of contagion, as this is a contagion of 

 the heart and soul, a rascal may bring in a plague 

 into the city as well as a great man : so it is not the 

 person, but the matter that is to be considered. 



For the treason itself, which is the second point, 

 my desire is to open it in the depth thereof, if it 

 were possible ; but it is bottomless : I said in the 

 beginning, that this treason in the nature of it was 

 old. It is not of the treasons whereof it may be 

 said, from the beginning it was not so. You are 

 indicted, Owen, not upon any statute made against 

 the pope s supremacy, or other matters, that have 



