¹ In the editing of this text I have modernized capitalization and punctuation (but not spelling except for the regularization of the use of i and j, and u and v) and I have silently expanded most contractions. I have printed marginal annotations in the body of the text, though only where the material in them adds to rather than merely repeats the text. Words that are struck out are indicated thus and interpolated words appear <thus>.

² Clement VIII, elected 30 January 1592, died 3 March 1605.

³ ‘An Act against Jesuites Semynarie Priestes and such other like disobedient Persons’, SR, IV, 706–707. For the drafting and passing of the bill, see Ward, ‘Law of treason’, 62–5.

⁴ See Sheppard, W., A Grand Abridgment of the Common and Statute Law of England, 3 vols (London, 1675)Google Scholar, II, 438. The ‘mittimus’ warrant was, inter alia, the authority by which the accused would be brought before the grand jury at the assizes. Its wording would be used for drawing up the bill of indictment presented to that jury (ex inf. Michael Bowman).

⁵ Ward, ‘Law of treason’, 162: for treason cases which originated in the provinces and were tried there, the clerks of the assizes were reponsible for preparing the indictment (whereas, for treason trials in the central courts, the indictments were generally drawn by the crown's law officers, often assisted by the privy council and sometimes by senior judges).

⁶ Most indictments were drafted in Latin; this was done for the sake of precision; ‘certain essential legal phrases’ were required for a valid indictment, without which it was liable to be voided, Cockburn, J.S., Calendar of Assize Records: Home Circuit Indictments: Elizabeth I and James I: Introduction (London, 1985), 76–77Google Scholar; cf. Viner, C., A General Abridgment of Law and Equity, 2nd edn, 24 vols (London, 1791–1794)Google Scholar, XVIII, 259. It is possible that the practice of, occasionally, voiding for misspelling was rather to allow the judges to stop the progress of an indictment where substantial injustice might result after an arraignment. See also Ward, ‘Law of treason’, 169.

⁷ The court of King's Bench in 1604 ruled that the clerk's spelling of ‘burglariter’ as ‘burgariter’ in a felony indictment was sufficient to void it, Cockburn, Calendar of Assize Records: Home Circuit Indictments: Elizabeth I and James I: Introduction, 76. The case of Hambleton has not been located; see also Ward, ‘Law of treason’, 169–170.

⁸ ‘An Acte concerninge Errors in Recordes of Attayndors of Highe Treason’, SR, IV, 767.

⁹ Revenue paid into the receipt of the exchequer was registered in the teller's office by notches on tally sticks equivalent to the sum entered on the teller's bill, and split down the middle, M.S. Giuseppi (ed.), Guide to the Contents of the Public Record Office, 2 vols (London, 1963), I, 98.

¹⁰ For the drafting and passing of the bill, see Ward, ‘Law of treason’, 62–65.

¹¹ ‘An Acte for the Uniformitie of Common Prayoure and Dyvyne Service in the Churche, and the Administration of the Sacramentes’, SR, IV, 356.

¹² Antonio de Lebrixa (Antonio de Nebrija 1441–1552), Dictionarium Latinohispanicum et Vice Versa Hispanicolatinum, Aeolio Antonio Nebrissensi Interprete . . . (Antwerp 1570), sig. Bvi^v.

¹³ Barret, John, An Alvearie or Quadruple Dictionarie, containing foure sundrie tongues (London, 1580), 507Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Thomas, Thomas, Dictionarium Linguae Latinae et Anglicanae . . . Cantabrigiae: Ex Officina Iohannis Legatt . . .(London, 1589)Google Scholar, sig. E^v–2^r. John Legate (d. 1620 ?) possessed an exclusive right to publish the Latin dictionary compiled by Thomas Thomas, who was his predecessor as printer to the University of Cambridge.

¹⁵ Titus 1:5.

¹⁶ MacDougall, H.A., Racial Myth in English History (Montreal, 1982)Google Scholar, 9, 32.

¹⁷ MacDougall, Racial Myth, 14.

¹⁸ First Council of Nicea, AD 325.

¹⁹ ‘An Acte for the Exoneracion frome Exaccions payde to the See of Rome’, SR, III, 464–471.

²⁰ ‘An Acte that the Appeles in suche Cases as have ben used to be pursued to the See of Rome shall not from hensforth had ne used but wythin this Realme’, SR, III, 427–429.

²¹ ‘An Acte repealing all Statutes Articles and Provisions made against the See Apostolick of Rome since the xx^th yere of King Henry theight, and also for thestablishment of all spyrytuall and ecclesiasticall Possessions and Hereditamentes conveyed to the Layetye’ (1 & 2 Philip and Mary, c. 8), SR, IV, 246–254.

²² Acts 20:28; Titus 1:5.

²³ Francesco Guiccardini's history of Italy (Storia d’Italia).

²⁴ Stow, John, The Summarie of Englishe Chronicles: (Latelye collected and published) abridged and continued til this present moneth of November in the yeare of our Lord God 1567(London, 1567)Google Scholar, fo. 148^v: ‘in November [26 Henry VIII] by a parliamente the byshop of Rome with al his authoritie was cleane banished this realme, and commaundement geven that he should no more be called Pope but bishop of Rome, and that the king should be reputed as supreme head of the Church of England’.

²⁵ The bishop of Ely was also custodian of the liberty of Ely and so exercised secular as well as spiritual power over those parishes, though not the rest of his diocese in Cambridgeshire, Ingram, M.J., Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1570–1640 (Cambridge, 1987), 352Google Scholar.

²⁶ Veron, John, A Dictionarie in Latine and English, heretofore set forth by Master Iohn Veron, and now newlie corrected and enlarged (London, 1584)Google Scholar, sig. Pvi^r.

²⁷ Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley (d. 4 August 1598).

²⁸ Barret, Alvearie, sig. Gvi^r.

²⁹ Lebrixa, Dictionarium, sig. I.ii^v.

³⁰ Lebrixa, Dictionarium, sig.Tv^r.

³¹ Thomas, Dictionarium, sig. Pp8^r.

³² Veron, Dictionarie, sig. Ii.iiii^r. Veron was a Huguenot Protestant, and it is probably significant that the author here selects instances from a Reformed work to support his case against hostile Protestant scrutiny.

³³ Barret, Alvearie, sig. Gvi^r.

³⁴ Thomas, Dictionarium, sig. Tt3^v.

³⁵ Leviticus 21:10.

³⁶ By the act 13 Eliz. c. 1, it was treason directly to ‘publish, declare . . . or saye’ that Elizabeth was not or should not be queen of England, France and Ireland, Ward, ‘Law of treason’, 20–21; SR, IV, 526. In mid 1585 Mark Wiersdale was indicted for saying that Elizabeth was not queen of France or Ireland, Ward, ‘Law of treason’, 182–183.

³⁷ ‘An Acte against Popishe Recusantes’, SR, IV, 843–846.

³⁸ Henry (1512–1580), king of Portugal and the Algarves (1578–1580), and cardinal of the Church of Rome (1545).

³⁹ Lebrixa, Dictionarium, sigs Nvii^r, Oiii^r.

⁴⁰ In his text Barret, Alvearie, sig. Nniiii^v inserts ‘Loy, droit’.

⁴¹ Barret, Alvearie, sig.Nniiii^v.

⁴² i.e. ‘An Act againste Jesuites Semynarie Priestes and such other like disobedient Persons’, SR, IV, 706–707.

⁴³ For the function of juries in exonerating the indicted person by identifying fictitious individuals as the guilty party, see Hanson, E., ‘Torture and truth in Renaissance England’, Representations 34 (1991), 53–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 81 n. 38, citing Knafla, L. A., ‘John at Love killed her: The assizes and criminal law in early modern England’, University of Toronto Law Journal 35 (1985), 314–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Cockburn, Calendar of Assize Records: Home Circuit Indictments: Elizabeth I and James I: Introduction, 113.

⁴⁴ ‘An Acte to reteine the Queenes Ma^tes Subjectes in their due Obedience’ (23 Eliz. c. 1), SR, IV, 657–658.

⁴⁵ SR, III, 428.

⁴⁶ ‘An Acte restraining the Payment of Annates, &c’, SR, III, 462–464.

⁴⁷ SR, III, 464–471.

⁴⁸ ‘An Acte for the Establishement of the Kynges Succession’, SR, III, 471–474.

⁴⁹ ‘An Acte for the Release of suche as have obtained pretended Lycenses and Dispensacions from the See of Rome’, SR, III, 672–3.

⁵⁰ ‘An Acte for Punysshement of Heresye’, SR, III, 454–455.

⁵¹ ‘An Acte for the Repeale of certaine Statutes concerninge Treasons, Felonyes, &c’, SR, IV, 18–22.

⁵² Michael Bowman points out that this is a sound line of legal argument. If a statute distinguishes between several different categories of authority and specifies that only one is unlawful, then the silence concerning the others means that they are presumed to be lawful and valid.

⁵³ SR, IV, 657.

⁵⁴ ‘An Acte agaynste the bringing in and putting in execution of Bulls and other Instruments from the Sea of Rome’, SR, IV, 528–531.

⁵⁵ Ward, ‘Law of treason’, 50–53: 13 Eliz. c. 2 was derived from the act of supremacy of 1559 and from 5 Eliz. c. 1 of 1563.

⁵⁶ Ward, ‘Law of treason’, 44–45; no one was prosecuted for treason under the Elizabethan act of supremacy.

⁵⁷ ‘An Acte for thassurance of the Quenes Ma^tes royal Power over all Estates and Subjectes within her Highnes Dominions’, SR, IV, 402–405.

⁵⁸ SR, IV, 528–529.

⁵⁹ This somewhat unclear paragraph apparently compares the penalties of the 1563 statute (directed against those who maintained the jurisdiction of the pope) with those of the 1559 supremacy act, 1 Eliz. c. 1 (SR, IV, 350), which restored the rights of the imperial crown against the claims to jurisdiction of the papacy and made it high treason on the third offence to defend ‘by any means the authority or religious jurisdiction of any forreine prince . . . or potentate’. The 1563 treason act stipulated the penalties of praemunire for the first and of treason for the second refusal to take the oath of supremacy (though only certain persons were to be subject to demands to take it a second time, and Elizabeth prevented its tender a second time in any case), Ward, ‘Law of treason’, 44–49.

⁶⁰ SR, IV, 528–529; see Ward, ‘Law of treason’, 50–53.

⁶¹ The writer is actually referring to 13 Eliz. c. 2 (SR, IV, 528–531); the general treason act of 1571, 13 Eliz. c. 1 (SR, IV, 526), provoked by the rising in 1569 and associated plots defined a number of new offences, in form very similar to the Henrician treason statute of 1534, Ward, ‘Law of treason’, 16–23.

⁶² Cf. Richard Burn, Ecclesiastical Law, 6th edn, 4 vols (London, 1797), III, 145, citing the decision of the judges, after Campion's indictment, that ‘if any person shall have power to absolve, though he move none with an intent to draw them from their obedience; or shall move any with an intent to draw them from their obedience, though he pretend not to have power to absolve’, both these acts are treason under the statute.

⁶³ Pope Joan: A Dialogue between a Protestant and a Papist; manifestly proving, That a Woman, called Joan, was Pope of Rome; against the Surmises and Objections made to the Contrary, by Robert Bellarmine and Caesar Baronius, Cardinals; Florimondus Raemondus, N.D. and other Popish Writers, impudently denying the same: By Alexander Cooke, repr. in Harleian Miscellany, 10 vols (London, 1808–1813), IV, 121–123.

⁶⁴ Flavius Heraclius Augustus, eastern Roman emperor 610–641.

⁶⁵ i.e. Henry IV of France who converted to the Church of Rome in 1593.

⁶⁶ Michael Bowman suggests that here the writer is referring to the principle that parliament must be taken to have intended the words of a statute to bear their ordinary meaning and that such words should not be interpreted simply to fit the facts of a specific case, particularly if the drawing of such an interpretation results in an absurdity. See p. 538 of this manuscript (below) where the author refers again to parliament's presumed intention.

⁶⁷ ‘An Acte againste unlawfull and rebellyous Assembles’, SR, IV, 211–14 (in fact, cap. 16).

⁶⁸ ‘An Acte to continue Thacte made against Rebellyous Assemblyes’, SR, IV, 377.

⁶⁹ ‘An Acte to retayne the Queenes Subje[c]tes in Obedyence’, SR, IV, 841–843.

⁷⁰ Cecil, The Execution of Justice.

⁷¹ Precisians, i.e. puritans.