398 LETTERS RELATING TO 



nature of it was old. It is not of the treasons, 

 whereof it may be said &quot; from the beginning it was 

 not so.&quot; You are indicted, Owen, not upon any 

 statute made against the Pope s supremacy, or other 

 matters, that have reference to religion ; but merely 

 upon that law, which was born with the kingdom, 

 and was law even in superstitious times, when the 

 pope was received. The compassing and imagining 

 of the king s death was treason. The statute of the 

 25th of Edward III. which was but declaratory, 

 begins with this article, as the capital of capitals in 

 treason, and of all others the most odious and the 

 most perilous.] And so the civil law, etc. 



At the conclusion of his speech after the words 

 [&quot; the duke of Anjou and the papists&quot;] add 



[As for subjects, I see not, or ever could discern, 

 but that by infallible consequence, it is the case of all 

 subjects and people, as well as of kings ; for it is all 

 one reason, that a bishop, upon an excommunication 

 of a private man, may give his lands and goods in 

 spoil, or cause him to be slaughtered, as for the pope 

 to do it towards a king ; and for a bishop to absolve 

 the son from duty to the father, as for the pope to 

 absolve the subject from his allegiance to his king. 



own hand; as, among others, that it was as lawful for any man 

 to kill a king excommunicated, as for the hangman to execute a 

 condemned person. He could say little for himself, or in main 

 tenance of his desperate positions, but only that he meant it not 

 by the king, and he holds him not excommunicate.&quot; MS. letter 

 of Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton from London, May 

 20, 1615. 



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