THE Hate of Treason, With a touch of the late Treason.  
By N. B.  
Printed at London 1616.   

To the most high and noble Lord the Duke of Lineux, health, honour, and eternal happiness.  
RIght honourable, and my gracious good Lord, your apparent true love to his Majesty, with your assured hate to all his enemies hath made me out of my humble hearts love and service, to his Majesty and your Grace, to write these few invective lines against the most hateful, and horrible nature of Treason, and Traitors: I name no person offendant, and wish there were no such offence. But hoping that God will weed out the wicked, and bless his Majesty with a world of loving Subjects & increase his love with many such good friends ' as yourself, in prayer for his Majesties, and your long life, with health, and all heart's happiness, I humbly rest  
Your Graces in all humble service, N. B.   

To all that love God, and the King.  
NObles, and Gentlemen, and all other his majesties loving subjects, of what condition soever, let me lay before your eyes a few invective lines, against the horrible nature of Treason, and especially against so gracious a King, Queen, and Prince, so honourable a Counsel, and so blessed a State. The consideration whereof, may make the hearts of all true Christians to tremble, to think that the Devil had so great a power in the world, as to sow so much wickedness in the hearts of unhappy men. But, God that ever is, and will be gracious unto his, hath revealed their villainy, and so preserved his people, as in the preservation of our King and Country, from the Devil and all his devices, hath given just cause, day and night to give glory to his holy Majesty, to whose Almighty tuition and merciful goodness I leave thee. From my lodging in London.  
Your friend as I find cause.   

An Invective against Treason.  

OH what a wretched wicked world is this,  
So little faith in souls, or love in hearts!  
So many minds, mind nothing but amiss.  
Thus on this earth, can Devils play their parts,  
To poison souls with such infernal darts,  
Can nothing flow but wealth and wickedness,  
To drown the world in all ungodliness.   

What mischief walks among the minds of men?  
Will nothing serve their discontented wills?  
Must they needs run into the devils den?  
Are these the scopes of Machiavellian skill,  
That all the world, with his infection fills?  
Oh God, what devil could in ill go further?  
Then pride in malice practice hellish murder.   

To kill at all, is an unkind desire,  
To kill a foe, is but a bloody fact,  
To kill a friend, a heat of hellish fire,  
To kill a neighbour, an ungracious act,  
To kill a brother, horrors fowl abstract,  
To kill a father, too unnatural,  
To kill a king, the wickedest deed of all.   

For, father, brother, neighbour, friend, or foe,  
In each of these, but few to ruin run:  
But in a King, or Prince's overthrow,  
How many thousand thousands are undone?  
woe worth the hand that such ill thread hath spun,  
As by the work of Satan's wickedness,  
A world of Christians should endure distress.   

But all together, King, Queen, Prince, and Peer,  
The Bishop, Lord, the judge, the Magistrate,  
When they should all in parliament appear,  
For the establishing of a blessed state,  
Even then to show the horror of their hate,  
And by a fire, devised for the nonce,  
To tear the house, and blow them up at once.   

What ear doth hear, whose spirit doth not tremble  
To think upon the horror of this act,  
If all the Devils did in hell assemble,  
Among themselves to make a foul compact:  
How could they finish a more heinous fact,  
Than so to seek the ruin of a State,  
And leave so fair a Land so desolate?   

But God in heaven, who from his seat beholdeth,  
Heaven, earth, sea, hell, & what each one containeth,  
And every thought of every heart unfoldeth,  
And for his service, all and some retaineth,  
Hating the pride his powerful hand disdaineth:  
Hath broke the force of all their wicked frame,  
And made their work unto the world a shame.   

But of the grief of griefs, in gracious thought,  
To see a villain on a virtuous King,  
By a secret malice to have murder sought,  
Murder on him, and on his after spring;  
What ear hath heard of a more hellish thing,  
Than for a little gain of pride's content,  
To practise murder on the Innocent?   

Our gracious King, on whom the King of Grace  
Hath rained a shower of his eternal Graces,  
And over us, hath given the Kingly place,  
Of high command, command the King of places  
Ordained for him, and for his royal Races:  
This godly King whom God himself hath sent  
What do we ail, that he cannot content.   

To whom is he a foe? but to our foes,  
A neighbour borne, and ever found a friend,  
In love, a brother, and his care who knows  
Might, as a son, a father's love commend:  
And, for a King, let it be wisely weende.  
And Reasons eyes will see that Royalty,  
That will conjure a Christians loyalty.   

Whose proved love hath he left unregarded,  
Whom, but the wicked, hath he ever hated?  
Whose virtuous acts hath he left unrewarded?  
Whose power, but Prides, hath ever he abated?  
Whose humble suits hath he left disalated?  
Whose true affect, but he in favour graces?  
Whose gracious life, but he in love embraces?   

Whose Virgins hath his wanton love deflowered,  
Whose worthy honour hath his scorn disgraced,  
Whose wealth hath he with avarice devoured,  
Whose love despised, or whose fame defaced,  
Or virtuous person from his place displaced:  
What proved grace, but in his grace approved,  
To make his Grace of gracious hearts beloved.   

Learning's advancer, and Religion's love,  
wisdoms affecter, Reason's student,  
Valour's maintainer, virtues Turtle dove,  
Of Majesty earth's royal Precedent:  
Grace's companion, Honour's continent,  
heavens gracious blessing, & world's worthy wonder,  
Live our king james, to bring earth's kingdoms under.   

Amen, good God, and Devil let them be,  
Who to this prayer will not say Amen,  
Blind be his eyes, and let him never see,  
Who ●ides himself in utter darkness den,  
And pings his thoughts up in impatience pen,  
Where by the trains of treasons foul illusion,  
He brings both soul and body to confusion.   

Oh, 'tis a woe, to think upon the thought,  
That entereth into a defiled heart:  
And with what speed the wit is overwrought,  
That once is led to learn the devils Art,  
Who will have all, if once he get a part:  
Where still one sin he heaps upon an other,  
Till he the soul in utter darkness smother.   

He makes a King esteemed below his state,  
Murder, a Plot, where Policy may plod,  
Pride, a brave humour, Wealth a Magistrate,  
Content a kingdom, and a King a God:  
But in these humours heaven and he are odd:  
For, good mistaken makes him prove so evil,  
As far from God doth make him prove a devil.   

Oh when a crew of idle headed wits,  
That think they have a world within their brains,  
To counsel fall in their fantastic fits,  
By lack of grace, to lay ungracious trains,  
See how they make their profit of their pains:  
Sorrow & shame, despair, death & damnation,  
The Story writes of judas constellation.   

What can be thought to be the fruit of Treason?  
Fear in the heart before it be effected,  
A lack of Grace, and an abuse of Reason,  
Where heedless wit is ill, by will directed,  
Till both by Wisdom ruined and rejected:  
While hope of honour runs on Fortune's wheels,  
Finds death, and hell to follow at their heels.   

Who can have pity on so vile a soul,  
As murder seeks on such a gracious King?  
Let him be put into the devils roll,  
Whose heart can yield to such a hellish thing:  
For but from hell do all such horror's spring:  
Where let us see how wicked wits do work,  
And how the devil in their wills doth lurk.   

When Craft hath gotten wealth, and Riches ease,  
And ease bred pride, and pride ambition,  
Ambition seeks but it own self to please,  
And lack of pleasure breeds sedition:  
Then if a wicked soul's condition  
Begin to build the Tower of Babylon,  
Who will not laugh at his confusion?   

Who hath enough, and yet will look for more,  
Let him remember Midas choking gold:  
And such a Steward for the devils store,  
Only in heaven, doth his chief office hold.  
Who hath for coin his soul and conscience sold:  
A Traitor proves in such a high degree,  
As merits hanging on the highest Tree.   

When God in mercy sends a gracious King,  
A gracious King gives tokens of his love,  
A loving King is such a heavenly thing,  
As only grace doth give from God above,  
To such a King who doth a Traitor prove,  
To God and man, doth fall out so ungrateful,  
As both to God & man must needs be hateful.   

Fie on the world that ever wickedness,  
Should root itself so in the heart of man,  
While graceless thoughts in all ungodliness,  
Do only tincke upon the golden pan,  
And make their bread of an unkindly bran:  
Which seeming wheat, is but a wicked weed,  
Sown by the devil, in a hellish seed.   

The busy brains that in their high conceits,  
Begin to build strange Castles in the air,  
Will find their humours fall out but deceits,  
When lack of wit doth prove but folly's heir,  
While patience passion sits in sorrows chair:  
To see Repentance prove the best event,  
That can fall out of Rashness discontent.   

Oh glorious God, since man was first created,  
Was ever heard so great a villainy!  
Did ever men deserve so to be hated,  
As this accursed hellish company,  
That in their souls do hide such treachery!  
Let all the world, through all the world go seek,  
What eye hath seen, or ear hath heard the like.   

But our good God, that with his gracious eye  
Beholds his children in his chary love,  
And in the greatness of his Majesty,  
The seely weakness of our souls doth prove,  
With his high glorious mercy's hand above,  
Even when we most his mercy have offended.  
Still from destruction, hath our state defended.   

O blessed Britain, more than greatly blessed,  
In God, thy King; his Council, and thy state,  
How can his glory be enough expressed?  
Which to the world they wonders may relate,  
When not by force of Fortune, nor of Fate,  
But by his grace, thy King and Counsels care,  
This thy deliverance justly may declare.   

Oh heathen, hateful, and most hellish souls,  
Void of all thought of God or of his grace,  
That so could make their throats such bloody bowls  
And such a poison in their spirits place,  
All root of honour, from the land to race!  
O that such beasts, as so much shame do bear,  
Could be forgot as though they never were.   

Surely in hell this plot had first a breeding,  
From thence, in low places talked upon,  
Low in a Seller, had it then proceeding:  
And there by low spirits wrought upon:  
To seek a kingdoms whole confusion:  
Thus, low in earth and hell, by wicked fiends,  
Wicked beginnings, make as wicked ends.   

But truly lowly had those spirits been,  
They had not set their haughty minds so high,  
Nor had their eyes with shame and sorrow seen,  
The hateful fruits of hellish treachery,  
But Pride, the plotter of all villainy,  
In cursed thoughts where all confusions dwell,  
Wrought low in earth to bring them down to hell.   

For Gallows minds, not gallant minds indeed,  
That make Rebellion but a rule of wit,  
Do seldom better with their Treason speed.  
Then justly is for such offences fit,  
For, God himself that ever hateth it,  
How ere the Devil blinds the damned eyes,  
Will plague it with a world of miseries.   

Fools more than mad, with strange imagination,  
A spiring higher than the hope of Grace,  
Do headlong run their souls unto damnation:  
Careless to note the nature of their race.  
While beggars seek both Lords and Kings to place,  
Working such wonders as were never known,  
Till all their wicked thoughts be overthrown.   

But, was there ever such a wicked dream,  
To overthrow a kingdom with a blast?  
Did ever wits so work against the stream,  
All care of conscience from the heart to cast,  
And with their souls to run to hell so fast:  
It cannot be, but that the men were mad,  
That in their brains such wicked humours had.   

For when King, Prince, and lord, and knight were gone  
Then beggars would begin a government:  
And lords and princes shall be every one  
Within the compass of the Continent  
Of this rebellious beastly rabblement:  
But of this dream see what a wake doth fall,  
Mercy or Death must make an end of all.   

Do we not see it every hour effected,  
Treason still hateful both to God and man?  
And traitorous hearts from heavenly truth rejected,  
And hell the place where first the Plot began,  
When Satan first did seek the spoil of man,  
When Eua●s pride, and judas avarice,  
Do show the compass of their deep device.   

O Pride, betrayer of untempred thought!  
And Avarice, the enemy to grace,  
Which brings the haps of all their hopes to nought,  
That in their souls do suffer them a place,  
Most filthy sins that do all fame deface.  
God bless all Britan's, and all Brittany,  
From all the venom of such villainy.   

And now, sweet Lord, that you do plainly see,  
How God doth plague this hellish sin of Pride,  
And what the end of all those Traitors be,  
That in their hearts do such a venom hide;  
O let it never near your heart abide,  
But think the note of Truth's nobility,  
All in the virtue of Humility.   

Proud Lucifer an Angel was of Light,  
Till he presumed to mount a step too high,  
But see what grew of his ungracious fight,  
From heaven to hell he got his fall thereby,  
A just reward of wicked treachery:  
Where loss of grace, & gain of endless grief,  
Pays home the proud, the traitor, & the thief.   

For, Pride first lays the wicked Plot of Treason,  
Treason steals into the ambitious breast,  
Ambition robs both wit and sense of Reason;  
The heart of Truth, the spirit of his Rest,  
And makes it cursed, that might else be blest:  
Of hellish pride, the only Traitor Thief,  
That is the ground of all eternal grief.   

Why Pride doth blind, the eye infects the mind,  
Venom's the heart, and gives the soul a sting:  
And in all vileness of so vile a kind:  
None can describe it, 'tis so vile a thing,  
It doth ill humours to such issue bring,  
That pity 'twere but such a plague approved,  
From christian hearts should ever be removed.   

O the sweet sense of Love's humility!  
Which fears displeasure in a dearest friend,  
The only note of Truth's nobility,  
Whose worthy Grace is graced without end:  
For, who wants faith, wants little of a fiend:  
While faithful love, in humble truth approved,  
Doth ever live, of God and man beloved.   

Alas, the little time of Nature's leave,  
To run the course of her allotted care,  
Where idle shadows, the eye deceive,  
That only hunteth after Fortune's share:  
And had, must leave it ere it be aware:  
Look, look at heaven, and let the world go by,  
Better to die to live, than live to die.   

Let pride be hateful unto every state,  
It is a vice with virtue not allowed;  
And such a vice as virtue hath in hate;  
For virtue never makes the spirit proud,  
But hath her love the humble heart avowde:  
And in advauncement of Nobility,  
Gives greatest grace to Truth's humility.   

Which grace is gracious in the sight of God,  
Makes men as Saints, and women Angels seem,  
Makes sin forgotten, mercy use no rod,  
And constant faith to prove in great esteem,  
While wisdoms care can never truth misdeem,  
But is in some, a blessing of the Highest,  
And to the nature of himself the nighest.   

It maketh Virtue so in Beauty shine,  
As if on earth there were a heavenly light,  
It maketh wit in wisdom so divine,  
As if the eye had a celestial sight,  
It is a Guide that leads the spirit right,  
Unto the place of that eternal rest,  
Where all the blessed live for ever blest.   

It makes a Court a kind of Paradise  
In subjects service, and the King his grace,  
Whose favour draws their hearts unto his eyes,  
While they live blessed to behold his face:  
O blessed Prince, that in his blessed place,  
In subjects love beholds his safeties being,  
While they live happy in their Princes seeing.   

God in his mercy send those humble minds  
To all the Subjects of our gracious King,  
That he whose wisdom in true judgement finds  
Of humble faith, what fruits do fairly spring,  
In his good grace may give us cause to sing:  
If on the earth a heaven be figured thus,  
The Lord of heaven grant it in him, and us.   

Confound, 〈…〉 orces of his 〈…〉  
Cut off the traitors that intent him 〈…〉  
And of his thoughts and actions so 〈◊〉,  
That we may see thy wisdom in his will:  
And so his spirit with thy blessing fill,  
That he may seek to glorify thy name,  
And we be humbly thankful for the same.   

O heavenly God, let never hellish brain,  
Have power to do his Majesty misdeed,  
But let themselves even by themselves be slain,  
That do their spirits with such poison feed,  
And let our hearts in tears of Comfort bleed,  
To think on thee, to bless thy people thus,  
To have so good a King to reign over us.   

Bless him, our Queen, & gracious Prince of ours,  
And all their offspring in their princely places,  
Rain on their souls in thy celestial showers,  
The heavenly comforts of thy holy graces,  
That when thou seest thy favours in their faces,  
They in their loves, and we in thankful hearts,  
May in thy prayers make true Music parts.   

 
 
〈…〉 wisdom, & his state with wealth,  
Nobleses hearts with Truth's nobility,  
〈…〉 biects all, with love's humility:  
〈…〉 is government with such a worthy fame,  
That he and we may glorify thy name.   

Unto which prayer, let that wretch not live,  
That doth not say Amen with sincere heart,  
And doth not thee due glory humbly give,  
That unto us in mercy dost impart  
Such good, too good for our too ill desert:  
And grace our music played on true hearts bright  
For our King james blest be the knight.   
FINIS.