306 DECLARATION OF THE TREASONS 



with what importunity and instance he did labour, 

 and in the end prevailed to have that exception also 

 omitted, glossing then, that because he had heard 

 that by strict exposition of law, (a point in law that 

 he would needs forget at his arraignment, but 

 could take knowledge of it before, when it was 

 to serve his own ambition,) all treasons of rebellion 

 did tend to the destruction of the king s per 

 son, it might breed a buz in the rebels heads, and 

 so discourage them from coming in : whereas he 

 knew well that in all experience passed, there was 

 never rebel made any doubt or scruple upon that 

 point to accept of pardon from all former governors, 

 who had their commissions penned with that limita 

 tion, their commissions being things not kept secretly 

 in a box, but published and recorded : so as it ap 

 peared manifestly that it was a mere device of his 

 own out of the secret reaches of his heart then not 

 revealed ; but it may be shrewdly expounded since, 

 what his drift was, by those pardons which he 

 granted to Blunt the marshal, and Thomas Lee, and 

 others, that his care was no less to secure his own 

 instruments than the rebels of Ireland. 



Yet was there another point for whicli he did 

 contend and contest, which was, that he might not 

 be tied to any opinion of the council of Ireland, as 

 all others in certain points, as pardoning traitors, 

 concluding war and peace, and some other principal 

 articles, had been before him ; to the end he might 

 be absolute of himself, and be fully master of oppor- 



