AN ANSWER TO THE EARL OF strafford's ORATION.  
The 13. of April, 1641.  
Printed in the year, 1641.   

With your Lordship's favour,  
IF the subvertion of the fundamentals of Faith be Heresy, why not as well the subversion of the fundamental Laws, Treason? Shall it be Treason to destroy the King's Minister? and shall that be none that destroys his protector? For the Law protects the King, as well as the King the Laws: and if Laws did not subsiduate Princes, Kingdoms would totter as foundationlesse: nay they are indeed, the very subsistence of Kings.  
Let it be supposed, though not granted, that no one particular make it Treason, may not many and successive Acts amount it to that height? One grain of poison is not mortal, but many together are. Exportation of Sheep for once is but a Trespass, but acted a second time is Felony by Statute. Refusal of the Oath of Supremacy is at first not capital; but refused again, by statute is made Treason. And to my weak understanding, my Lords, this clearly shows the mind of the Law: one ill act of waving the Law, may be but out of rashness, out of Ignorance; but a perpetuated practice, shows a prepensed malice, and murder thus acted by the 10. H. 7. in Ireland, is Treason.  
Be it there be no statute or Common-Law in express to make it so, yet necessary inferences, if they be not certainetyes, are next them; and if the deputed judge or Governor hath power in the business of the Subject, to make the sway arbitrary, where Law is positive, I know not but he may do the same in the business of the Sovereign; so it may come to pull the Sovereignty from the Prince, and place it on his substitute, and whether this be Treason or no, I leave to your Lordship's consideration.  
'Tis true, de non apparentibus, & non existentibus, eadem est Ratio, But my Lords, to make this Treason, is not unapparant: a partial eye will not find it, but he that looks, Intuitu ferio, may see even the Triple Geryon of Treason in it, for it cannot be but there is Laesa Respub. Lex Maiestas, the Commonwealth is oppressed, the Laws are suppressed, the Prince is scandaled in act, and subjected by consequence to his Denious determinations: and therefore I shall without admiration tell you where this fire hath lain those hundred of years he speaketh of, even (my Lords) in the honester behaviour of other Ministers of State, who have not been injurious against the Laws, and there still had it been buried, if his own nefarious actions had not un-embred it, and fueled it anew.  
Nor can your Sentence be before promulgation, since even your renowned Progenitors have already declared it Treason; though not by a particular Statute in terms: yet by a demonstrative practice, which if his Lordship would not have been willingly blind, had been Buoy enough to keep him from that Anchor of us all, which now must either hurt itself, or else split him, the Parliament whose Courses left upon Record cannot be taken for under water works, so that a very easy honesty and common morality (without Revelation) might have served as the red Cross and the Bill, to have warned him from this plague of Legicide.  
I shall beg as hard as his Lordship, that you have regard to yourselves, for if upon him (by whose authority, Peers shall be sentenced to be shot, Nobles, curbed & cooped up, Laws subverted, Freehold disposed of out of the Courts, Grants under the Royal Seal extrajudicially disannulled, and what may be profit of, Monopolised) you set not some everlasting Character, to deter the like frontless attempts; I know not but the next comer, may subjugate your dearest freedoms, and as remediless you may then complain, as those who now do suffer, and have not yet found a redress.  
My Lords under favour, your providence may be short, if it reach but to burning of Books: a fire of dead leaves will be too weak a fuel for a warning Beacon: A living Author made exemplary will afford a Taller flame, and if there were no other Law, that of Retaliation could not but be just; an Arbitrary sentence, were but ploughing with his own Heifer; Who striving to seclude the Laws, would infer a kind of legal Tyranny, from a breast that is a Libertine. And therefore your Lordships I persuade myself, will think it mightily fit, to cast this jonas overboard, who hath occasioned all these storms, endangered all the sacred ship of Government, and by flying the plain speaking Law, has dared by his Imperious Vote, to outgo even all the bold attempts of Ancestry.  
It is some comfort to us, that in 240. years, we have had no use of these venerable (though by him reviled for musty) Records. The Commonwealth has had the fewer enemies. And if they work now but a merited operation, I hope it may be 500 years ere any of so bold a brow, shall desperately again adventure to awake them.  
And if his Lordship be not made a precedent for punishment: I know not but he may prove a Precedent for example, to animate others of a Vafrous and presuming brain, to take up the same way from a pleasurable bosom, to doom both Nobles, and the Commons, into a State of deep calamity. And so your Lordship's lenity to him, may by indulgence wound a future multitude. His many crimes which you have heard fully proved, will immortallize your Peerage for a noble justice. The learned Orator has anciently told us, that Non potest cuiquam male de Rupub. merenti, iusta esse causa. And though it be severe, it cannot be unrighteous, for Hoc spectant Leges, Hoc volunt; incolumem esse Civium Coniunctionem, quam qui dirimunt, eos morte, exilio, vinculis, damno, coercent.  
Thus every man will know what channel to steer in, what rocks to avoid, what he is not to do, what he is not to say for fear of meeting such pains.  
Thus men of honest wisdom, will be cautious of keeping in the plain road of the Law, and never hazard (by crossing through untrodden Thickets) either Honour, Issue, or fortune, to a loss. What his Majesty may graciously intent to the pledge of his Saint, will rest in his most Royal heart: Though I hope the want of a Midwife did not make her one,, nor his marriage within a month after her decease did ere make him account her so.  
And now (my Lords) we shall humbly expect your Honourable judgements, beseeching you will be nobly pleased to defend those Laws which have ever defended you, to have respect to your own future liberty, and the safety of these flourishing Kingdoms: Then what ever your sentence be, 
Te Deum laudamus Cantemus jehovae, clangamus  
te Deum confitemur. Rupibus, salutis nostrae.   
FJNIS.