176 CHARGE AGAINST MR. OWEN. 



The manners of conspiring and compassing the 

 king s death are many : but it is most apparent, that 

 amongst all the rest this surmounteth. First, be 

 cause it is grounded upon pretenced religion ; which 

 is a trumpet that inflameth the heart and powers of 

 a man with daring and resolution more thnn any 

 thing else. Secondly, it is the hardest to be avoided ; 

 for when a particular conspiracy is plotted or at 

 tempted against a king by &amp;gt;some one or some few con 

 spirators, it meets vvith a number of impediments. 

 Commonly he that hath the head to devise it, hath 

 not the heart to undertake it : and the person that 

 is used, sometimes faileth in courage ; sometimes 

 faileth in opportunity ; sometimes is touched with 

 remorse. But to publish and maintain, that it may 

 be lawful for any man living to attempt the life of a 

 king, this doctrine is a veneiy.ous sop ; or, as a le 

 gion of malign spirits, or an universal temptation, 

 doth enter at once into the hearts of all that are any 

 way prepared, or of any predisposition to be trai 

 tors ; so that whatsoever faileth in any one, is sup 

 plied in many. If one man faint, another will dare : 

 if one man hath not the opportunity, another hath ; 

 if one man relent, another will be desperate. And 

 thirdly, particular conspiracies have their periods of 

 time, within which if they be not taken, they vanish ; 

 but this is endless, and importeth perpetuity of 

 springing conspiracies. And so much concerning 

 the nature of the fact. 



For the third point, which is the doctrine ; that 

 upon an excommunication of the pope, with sentence 



