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'debitam,' against the faith and allegiance of a person noble, due to the king, and which the law greatly esteems. And that this denying is against her faith and allegiance appears by the ancient oath of allegiance, which is imprinted in the heart of every subject, scil. ero verus et fidelis, et veritatem præstabo domino regi de vitâ et membro, et 'de terreno honore, ad vivendum et moriendum contra omnes gentes, &c. Et si cognoscam aut audiam de aliquo damno aut malo quod • domino regi evenire poterit, quod non reve'lato,' &c. And this oath of allegiance is common to all subjects, as well those of the nobility as commonalty. But the law hath greater account of the faith and allegiance of a nobleman, toan of one of the commons, for this, that the breach of their allegiance is more dan gerous to the king and estate, for corruptio optimorum est pessima;' and for this reason, the countess by her allegiance was bound, without being demanded, to reveal to the king what she knows concerning the premises, upon which great mischief may happen to the king and the realm. But being commanded by the king to declare her knowledge, the denying of it doth greatly aggravate the offence. Qui contemuit præceptum, contemnit præcipientem.' Coinmand and obedience are the ligament of government, and ligeantia est legis essentia;' for without allegiance and obedience, the law cannot proceed.

precedent of the earl of Essex, against whom such proceedings were in this very place, anno 42 and 43 Eliz. reg.

And as to the last point it was resolved by all quasi una voce, that if a sentence should be given in the Star-Chamber judicially, she should be fined 20,000l. and imprisoned during the king's pleasure. Vide 12 Co. 69, &c.

'Hoc in terrorem, sed quære quid inde venit?' SPEECH of Sir FRANCIS BACON, from vol. iii. of his Works,* 4to edit. p. 265.

Your lordships do observe the nature of this Charge: my lady of Shrewsbury, a lady wise, and that ought to know what duty requireth, is charged to have refused, and to have pers'sted in refusal to answer, and to be examined in a high cause of state, being examined by the council-table, which is a representative body of the king. The nature of the cause, upon which she was examined, is an essential point, which doth aggravate and increase this contempt and presumption; and therefore of necessity with that we must begin. How graciously and parent-like his majesty used the lady Arabella before she gave him cause of indignation, the world knoweth. My lady notwithstanding, extremely ill-advised, transacted the most weighty and binding part and action of her life, which is her marriage, without ac quainting his majesty; which had been a neglect even to a mean parent; but being to our As to the second point, viz. concerning the sovereign, and she standing so near to his mamanner of this proceeding. 1. Privative, it is jesty as she doth, and then choosing such a connot to fine and imprison, or inflict corporal dition as it pleased her to choose, all parties punishment upon the countess; for fine and laid together, how dangerous it was, my lady imprisonment ought to be assessed in some might have read it in the fortune of that house court judicially * 2. Positive, the fine is ad wherewith she is matched ; for it was not unmonendum,' or at the most ad minandum;' like the case of Mr. Seymour's grandinother. it is ad instruendum non ad destruendum.' -The king nevertheless so remembered he was a king, as he forgot not he was a kinsman, and placed her only sub libera custodia.' But now did my lady accumulate and heap up this offence with a far greater than the former, by seeking to withdraw herself out of the king's power into foreign parts.

This selected council is to express what punishment this offence justly deserved, if it be judicially proceeded within the Star-Chamber; for which reason this manner of proceeding is out of the mercy and grace of the king against this honourable lady, that she seeing her oneace may submit herself to the king, without any punishinent in any court judicially.

If Sentence shall be given in the Star-Chamber according to justice, you the lords shall be agents in it but in this manner according to the mercy of the king, the king is only agent; the law hath put rules and limits to the justice of the king, but not unto his mercy, that is transcendant and without any limits of the law; 4 et ideo processus iste est regalis plane et rege dignus.'

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That this flight or escape into foreign parts might have been seed of trouble to this state, is a matter whereof the conceit of a vulgar person is not uncapable. For although my lady should have put on a mind to continue her loyalty, as nature and duty did bind her; yet when she was in another sphere, she must have moved in the motion of that orb, and not of the planet itself: and God forbid the king's felicity should be so little, as he should not have envy and enviers enough in foreign parts. Also inasmuch as the allegiance and obedi- It is true, if any foreigner had wrought upon ence of the subject, is the best lower in his this occasion, I do not doubt but the intent imperial garland, to the intent, that it may nei- | would have been, as the prophet saith, they ther be blasted, nor impaired by this dangerous | Irave conceived mischief, and brought forth a example, to the prejudice of his royal preroga- | vain thing.' tive and posterity, this proceeding hath been thought necessary: and this is forted by the

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But yet your lordships know

* In addition to the particulars collected by Mr. Barrington, see 3 Harl. Misc. 124, 130, 182, 537, and Birch's edition of Bacon's works, vol. 3, p. 259, 478.

that it is wisdom in princes, and it is a watch fact which is open, and the intent which is they owe to themselves and to their people, to secret. This fact of conspiring in the flight of stop the beginnings of evils, and not to despise this lady may bear a hard and gentler conthem. Seneca saith well, non jam amplius struction; if upon overmuch affection to your levia sunt pericula, si levia videantur;' dan-kinswoman, gentler; if upon practice or other gers cease to be light, because by despising they grow and gather strength.

end, harder. You must take heed how you enter into such actions; whereof if the hidden part be drawn unto that which is open, it may be your overthrow; which I speak not by way of charge, but by way of caution.

For that which you are properly charged with, you must know that all subjects, without distinction of degrees, owe to the king tribute and service, not only of their deed and hand, but of their knowledge and discovery. If there be any thing that imports the king's service, they ought themselves undemanded to impart it; much more if they be called and examined, whether it be of their own fact or of another's, they ought to make direct answer. Neither was there ever any subject brought in causes of estate to trial judicial, but first he passed exa

justice in criminal causes; it is one of the eyes of the king's politic body; there are but two, information and examination; it may not be endured that one of the lights be put out by your example.

And accordingly hath been the practice both of the wisest and stoutest princes to hold for matter pregnant of peril, to have any near them in blood to fly into foreign parts. Wherein I will not wander; but take the example of king Henry the seventh, a prince not unfit to be paralleled with his majesty. I mean not the particular of Perkin Warbeck, for he was but an idol or a disguise; but the example I mean, is that of the earl of Suffolk, whom the king extorted from Philip of Austria. The story is memorable, that Philip, after the death of Isabella, coming to take possession of his kingdom of Castile, which was but matrimonial to his father-in-law Ferdinando of Aragon, was cast by weather upon the coast of Weymouth,mination; for examination is the entrance of where the Italian story saith, king Henry used him in all things else as a prince, but in one thing as a prisoner; for he forced upon him a promise to restore the earl of Suffolk that was fled into Flanders. And yet this I note was in the 21st year of his reign, when the king had a goodly prince at man's estate, besides his daughters, nay, and the whole line of Clarence nearer in title; for that earl of Suffolk was descended of a sister of Edward the fourth. So far off did that king take his aim. To this action of so deep consequence, it appeareth, you, my lady of Shrewsbury, were privy, not upon foreign suspicions or strained inferences, but upon vehement presumptions, now clear and particular testimony, as hath been opened to you; so as the king had not only reason to examine you upon it, but to have proceeded with you upon it as for a great contempt; which if it be reserved for the present, your ladyship is to understand it aright, that it is not defect of proof, but abundance of grace that is the cause of this proceeding; and your ladyship shall do well to see into what danger you have brought yourself. All offences consist of the

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Your excuses are not worthy your own judg ment; rash vows of lawful things are to be kept, but unlawful vows not; your own divines will tell you so. For your examples, they are some erroneous traditions. My lord of Pembroke spake somewhat that he was unlettered, and it was but when he was examined by one private counsellor, to whom he took exception. That of my lord Lumley is a fiction; the preeminences of nobility I would hold with to the last grain; but every day's experience is to the contrary. Nay, you may learn duty of lady Arabella herself, a lady of the blood, of an higher rank than yourself, who declining, and yet that but by request neither, to declare of your fact, yieldeth ingenuously to be examined of her own. I do not doubt but by this time you see both your own error, and the king's grace in proceeding with you in this

manner.

95. Case of Mr. WILLIAM TALBOT, Hilary-Term, on an Information ore tenus, for maintaining a Power in the Pope to depose and kill Kings: 11 JAMES I. A. D. 1613.

["In lord Bacon's Works there is a Speech by him as Attorney-General and prosecutor in this Case. 2 Bac. last 4to ed. 577. According to the title of the Speech, the cause of the prosecution appears to have been this. Mr. Talbot, who was a counsellor at law of Ireland, being asked, whether the doctrine of Suarez in respect to the deposing and killing of kings excommunicated was true or not, answered, that he submitted his opinion to the judgment of the Roman Catholic church. This answer he subscribed, and we

presume, that it was given on being examined before the Privy-Council; though that circumstance is not expressly stated by lord Bacon. What the Judgment of the StarChamber was, we do not find noticed." Hargrave.]

SPEECH of Sir FRANCIS BACON, Attorney-General, the last day of Hilary-Term, 11 Jam. 1. MY Lords; I brought before you the first sitting of this term the cause of Duels. But now this last sitting I shall bring before you

a cause concerning the greatest Duel which is in the Christian world, the duel and conflict between the lawful authority of sovereign kings, which is God's ordinance for the comfort of human society, and the swelling pride and usurpation of the see of Rome in temporalibus, tending altogether to anarchy and confusion. Wherein if this pretence in the pope of Rome, by cartels to make sovereign princes as the banditti, and to proscribe their lives, and to expose their kingdoms to prey; if these pretences, I say, and all persons that subinit themselves to that part of the pope's power in the least degree, be not by all possible severity repressed and punished, the state of Christian kings will be no other than the ancient torment described by the poets in the hell of the heathen; a man sitting richly robed, solemnly attended, delicious fare, &c. with a sword hanging over his head, hanging by a small thread, ready every moment to be cut down by an accursing and accursed hand. Surely I had thought they had been the prerogatives of God alone, and of his secret judgments: solvam cingula regum, I will loosen the girdles of kings;' or again, he poureth contempt upon princes;' or, I will give a king in my wrath and take him away again in my displeasure:' and the like. But if these be the claims of a mortal man, certainly they are but the mysteries of that person, which 'exalts himself above all that is called God,' supra omne quod dicitur Deus.' Note it well, not above God, though that in a sense be true, but above all that is called God;' that is, lawful kings and magistrates.

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tinction, will also make the case. This peril,
though it be in itself notorious, yet because
there is a kind of dullness, and almost a lethargy
in this age, give me leave to set before you two
glasses, such as certainly the like never met in
one age; the glass of France and the glass of
England. In that of France the tragedies acted
and executed in two immediate kings; in the
glass of England, the same, or more horrible,
attempted likewise in a queen and king im-
mediate, but ending in a happy deliverance.
In France, Henry 3, in the face of his army,
before the walls of Paris, stabbed by a wretched
Jacobine frier. Henry 4, a prince that the
French do surname the Great, one that had
been a saviour and redeemer of his country
from infinite calamities, and a restorer of that
monarchy to the ancient state and splendor, and
a prince almost heroical, except it be in the
point of revolt from religion, at a time when he
was as it were to mount on horseback for the
commanding of the greatest forces that of long
time had been levied in France, this king like-
wise stillettoed by a rascal votary, which had
been enchanted and conjured for the purpose.

In England, queen Elizabeth, of blessed memory, a queen comparable and to be ranked with the greatest kings, oftentimes attempted by like votaries, Somerville, Parry, Savage, and others, but still protected by the Watchman that slumbereth not. Again, our excellent sovereign king James, the sweetness and clemency of whose nature were enough to quench and mortify all malignity, and a king shielded and supported by posterity; yet this king in the chair of majesty, has vine and olive branches about him, attended by his nobles and third estate in parliament; ready in the twinkling of an eye, as if it had been a particular doomsday, to have been brought to ashes, dispersed to the four winds. I noted the last day my lord chief justice, when he spoke of this Powder Treason, he laboured for words; though they came from him with great efficacy, yet he truly confessed, and so must all men, that that treason is above the charge and report of any words whatsoever.

But, my lords, in this duel I find this Talbot, that is now before you, but a coward; for he hath given ground, he hath gone backward and forward; but in such a fashion, and with such interchange of repenting and relapsing, as I cannot tell whether it doth extenuate or aggravate his offence. If he shall more publicly in the face of the court fall and settle upon a right mind, I shall be glad of it; and he that would be against the king's mercy, I would he might need the king's mercy: but nevertheless the court will proceed by rules of justice. The Now, my lords, I cannot let pass, but in these offence, therefore, wherewith I charge this glasses which I speak of, besides the facts themTalbot, prisoner at the bar, is this in brief and selves and danger, to shew you two things: the in effect: that he hath maintained and main-one, the ways of God Almighty, which turneth taineth under his hand a power in the pope for the deposing and murdering of kings. In what sort he doth this, when I come to the proper and particular charge, I will deliver it in his own words without pressing or straining.

But before I come to the particular charge of this man, I cannot proceed so coldly; but I must express unto your lordships the extreme and imminent danger wherein our dear and dread sovereign is, and in him we all, nay, all princes of both religions, for it is a common cause, do stand at this day, by the spreading and inforcing of this furious and pernicious opinion of the pope's temporal power; which though the modest sort would blanch with the distinction of in ordine ad spiritualia, yet that is but an illusion; for he that maketh the dis

the sword of Rome upon the kings that are the vassals of Rome, and over them gives it power; but protecteth those kings, which have not accepted the yoke of his tyranny, from the effects of his malice: the other, that, as I said at first, this is a common cause of princes: it involveth kings of both religions; and therefore his majesty did most worthily and prudently ring out the alarm-bell, to awake all other princes to think of it seriously and in time. But this is a miserable case the while, that these Roman soldiers do either thrust the spear into the sides of God's anointed, or at least they crown them with thorns; that is, piercing and pricking cares and fears, that they can never be quiet or secure of their lives or states. And as this peril is common to princes of both religions, so

princes of both religions have been likewise | temporal nature: forasmuch as a tyrannical goequally sensible of every injury that touched their temporals.

Thuanus reports in his story, that when the realm of France was interdicted by the violent proceedings of pope Julius the second, the king, otherwise noted for a moderate prince, caused coins of gold to be stamped with his own image, and this superscription, perdam nomen Baby'lonis è terra.' Of which Thuanus saith, himself had seen divers pieces thereof. So as this catholic king was so much incensed at that time in respect of the pope's usurpation, as he did apply Babylon to Rome. Charles the 5th, emperor, who was accounted one of the pope's best sons, yet proceeded in matter temporal towards pope Clement with strange rigour; never regarding the pontificality, but kept him prisoner thirteen months in a pestilent prison; and was hardly dissuaded by his council from having sent him captive into Spain; and made sport with the threats of Frosberg the German, who wore a silk robe under his cassock, which he would shew in all companies; telling them that be carried it to strangle the pope with his own hands. As for Philip the fair, it is the ordinary example, how he brought pope Boniface the 8th to an ignominious end, dying mad and enraged; and how he stiled his rescript to the pope's bull, whereby he challenged his temporals, sciat satuitas vestra, not your beatitude, but your stultitude; a stile worthy to be continued in the like cases; for certainly that claim is mere folly and fury. As for native examples here, it is too long a field to enter into them. Never kings of any nation kept the partition-wall between temporal and spiritual better in times of greatest superstition. I report me to king Edw. 1, that set up so many crosses, and yet crossed that part of the pope's jurisdiction, no man more strongly. But these things have passed better pens and speeches: here I end them.

vernment tendeth ever to the destruction of souls. So by this position, kings of either religion are alike comprehended, and nonè exempted. The second, that after a sentence given by the pope, this writer hath defined of a series, or succession, or substitution of hangmen, or bourreaux, to be sure, lest an executioner should fail. For he saith, that when a king is sentenced by the pope to deprivation or death, the executioner who is first in place is he to whom the pope shall commit the authority, which may be a foreign prince, it may be a particular subject, it may be general, to the first undertaker. But if there be no direction or assignation in the sentence special nor general, then, de jure, it appertains to the next successor, a natural and pious opinion; for commonly they are sons, or brothers, or near of kin, all is one, so as the successor be apparent; and also that he be a catholic. But if he be doubtful, or that he be no catholic, then it devolves to the commonalty of the kingdom; so as he will be sure to have it done by one minister or other. The third is, he distinguisheth of two kinds of tyrants, a tyrant in title, and a tyrant in regiment; the tyrant in regiment cannot be resisted or killed without a sentence precedent by the pope; but a tyrant in title may be killed by any private man whatsoever. By which doctrine he hath put the judgment of kings titles, which I will undertake are never so clean but that some vain quarrel or exception may be made unto them, upon the fancy of every private man; and also couples the judgment and execution together, that he may judge him by a blow, without any other sentence.— Your lordships see what monstrous opinions these are, and how both these beasts, the beast with seven heads, and the beast with many heads, pope and people, are at once let in, and set upon the sacred persons of kings.

There

Now to go on with the narrative. was an extract made of certain sentences and portions of this book, being of this nature that I have set forth, by a great prelate and counsellor, upon a just occasion; and there being some hollowness and hesitation in these matters, wherein it is a thing impious to doubt, discovered and perceived in Talbot, he was asked his opinion concerning these assertions, in the presence of the best: and afterwards they were delivered to him, that upon advice and sedato animo, he might declare himself. Whereupon, under his hand, he subscribes thus;

But now to come to the particular charge of this man, I must inform your lordships the occasion and nature of this offence. There hath been published lately to the world a work of Suarez a Portuguese, a professor in the university of Coimbra, a confident and daring writer, such an one as Tully describes in derision; ⚫ nihil tam verens, quam ne dubitare aliqua de 're videretur:' one that fears nothing but this, lest he should seem to doubt of any thing. A fellow that thinks with his magistrality and goose-quill to give laws and menages to crowns and sceptres. In this man's writing, this doc- May it please your honourable good lordtrine of deposing or murdering kings seems to ships: concerning this doctrine of Suarez, I do come to a higher elevation than heretofore; perceive, by what I have read in this book, and it is more arted and positived than in others. that the same doth concern matter of faith, For in the passages which your lordships shall the controversy growing upon exposition of hear read anon, I find three assertions which scriptures and councils, wherein, being ignorun not in the vulgar track, but are such as 'rant and not studied, I cannot take upon me wherewith mens ears, as I suppose, are not to judge; but I do submit my opinion therein much acquainted. Whereof the first is, that to the judgment of the catholic Roman church, the pope hath a superiority over kings, as sub-as in all other points concerning faith I do. jects, to depose them; not only for spiritual

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And for matter concerning my loyalty, I do crimes, as heresy and schism, but for faults of a ' acknowledge my sovereign liege lord king

James, to be lawful and undoubted king of all 'the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland; and I will bear true faith and allegiance to his highness during my life. WILLIAM TALBOT.'

My lords, upon these words I conceive Talbot hath committed a great offence, and such a one, as if he had entered into a voluntary and malicious publication of the like writing, it would have been too great an offence for the capacity of this court. But because it grew by a question asked by a council of estate, and so rather seemeth, in a favourable construction, 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 lordships, and therein open also the understanding of the offender himself, how far they reach.

this: there may be some difference to the guilt of the party, but there is little to the danger of the king. For the same pope of Rome may, with the same breath, declare both. So as still, upon the matter, the king is made but tenant at will of his life and kingdoms, and the allegiance of his subjects is pinned upon the pope's acts. And certainly it is time to stop the current of this opinion of acknowledgment of the pope's power in temporalibus; or else it will sap and supplant the seat of kings. And let it not be mistaken, that Mr. Talbot's offence should be no more than the refusing the oath of allegiance. For it is one thing to be silent, and another thing to affirm. As for the point of matter of faith, or not of faith, to tell your lordships plain, it would astonish a man to see the gulph of this implied belief. Is nothing excepted from it? If a man should ask Mr. Talbot whether he do condemn murder, or adultery, or rape, or the doctrine of Mahomet, or of Arius, instead of Suarez; must the answer be with this exception, that if the question concern matter of faith, as no question it doth, for the moral law is matter of faith, that therein he will submit himself to what the church shall determine? And, no doubt, the murder of My lords, a man's allegiance must be inde- princes is more than simple murder. But to pendent and certain, and not dependent and conclude, Talbot, I will do you this right, and I conditional. Elizabeth Barton, that was called will not be reserved in this, but to declare that the holy maid of Kent, affirmed, that if king | that is true; that you came afterwards to a betHenry 8, did not take Catharine of Spain again ter mind; wherein, if you had been constant, to his wife within a twelvemonth, he should be the king, out of his great goodness, was resolved no king; and this was treason. For though not to have proceeded with you in course of this act be contingent and future, yet the pre-justice: but then again you started aside like a paring of the treason is present.-And in like manner, if a man should voluntarily publish or maintain, that whensoever a bull of deprivation shall come forth against the king, that from thenceforth he is no longer king; this is of like nature. 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 king; but upon another point also, if these of doctrines be already, or shall be declared to be matter of faith. But, my lords, there is little won in

broken bow. So that by your variety and vacillation you lost the acceptable time of the first grace, which was not to have convented you.

Nay, I will go farther with you. Your last submission I conceive to be satisfactory and complete. But then it was too late; the king's honour was upon it; it was published and a day appointed for hearing. Yet what preparation that may be to the second grace of pardon, that I know not: but I know my lords, out of their accustomed favour, will admit you not only to your defence concerning that that hath been charged; but to extenuate your fault by any submission that now God shall put into your mind to make.

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