Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/164

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144
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 15.

enemy of the King and kingdom, without any right or title, arrogantly and obstinately challenged and claimed; and that one Reginald Pole, late of London, Esqr, otherwise Reginald Pole, late Dean of Exeter, with certain others of the King's subjects, had personally repaired to the said Pope of Rome, knowing him to be the King's enemy, and adhered to and became liege man of the said Pope, and falsely and unnaturally renounced the King, his natural liege lord; that Reginald Pole accepted the dignity of a cardinal of the Court of Rome without the King's license, in false and treasonable despite and contempt of the King, and had continued to live in parts beyond the seas, and was there vagrant, and denying the King to be upon earth supreme head of the Church of England.

Caring only to bring the prisoners within the letter of the Act, the prosecution made no allusion to Exeter's proceedings in Cornwall. It was enough to identify his guilt with the guilt of the great criminal. Against him, therefore, it was objected—

'That, as a false traitor, machinating the death of the King, and to excite his subjects to rebellion, and seeking to maintain the said Cardinal Pole in his intentions, the Marquis of Exeter did say to Geoffrey Pole the following words in English: 'I like well the proceedings of the Cardinal Pole; but I like not the proceedings of this realm; and I trust to see a change of this world.'

'Furthermore, that the Marquis of Exeter, machinating with Lord Montague the death and destruction of