CHARGE AGAINST WILLIAM TALBOT. 461 



struction, to proceed from a kind of submission to 

 answer, than from any malicious or insolent will ; it 

 was fit, according to the clemency of these times, to 

 proceed in this manner before your lordships : and yet 

 let the hearers take these things right ; for certainly, 

 if a man be required by the council to deliver his 

 opinion whether king James be king or no ? and he 

 deliver his opinion that he is not, this is high treason : 

 but I do not say that these words amount to that ; 

 and therefore let me open them truly to your lord 

 ships, and therein open also the understanding of 

 the offender himself, how far they reach. 



My lords, a man s allegiance must be indepen 

 dent and certain, and not dependent and conditional. 

 Elizabeth Barton, that was called the holy maid of 

 Kent, affirmed, that if king Henry VIII. did not take 

 Catharine of Spain again to his wife within a twelve 

 month, he should be no king : and this was treason. 

 For though this act be contingent and future, yet 

 the preparing of the treason is present. 



And in like manner, if a man should voluntarily 

 publish or maintain, that whensoever a bull of depri 

 vation shall come forth against the king, that from 

 thenceforth he is no longer king ; this is of like na 

 ture. But with this I do not charge you neither ; 

 but this is the true latitude of your words, That if 

 the doctrine touching the killing of kings be matter 

 of faith, then you submit yourself to the judgment 

 of the catholic Roman church : so as now, to do you 

 right, your allegiance doth not depend simply upon 

 a sentence of the pope s deprivation against the 



