Notes and Queries, Number 41, August 10, 1850 | Page 9

the babe in the cradle"
as the only means of bringing down the poor mother, whom he wished
to kill.
Are there any other traditions of him, and can he have any connection
with the name bestowed by children on the middle finger, in the
following elegant rhyme?--
"Tom Thumbkin, Will Wilkins, Long Lonkin," &c.?
This I had always supposed merely to refer to the length of the finger,
but the coincidence of names is curious.
SELEUCUS.
* * * * *
REPLIES.
TREATISE OF EQUIVOCATION.
I can now inform you that the MS. _Treatise of Equivocation_, about
which J.M. inquired (Vol. i., p. 263.), is preserved in the Bodleian
Library (Laud, _Miscellaneous MSS. 655_.). Dodd, in his Church
History (vol. ii. pp. 381. 428.), under the names Blackwell and Francis
Tresham, mentions the work by its second title, _A Treatise against
Lying and fraudulent Dissimulation_, and states that the MS. is in the
Bodleian. Through the kindness of Dr. Baudinel, I have seen the tract;
and as there is a certain historical interest attached to it, some

information on the subject may be acceptable to your readers. But it
may be as well first to give the account of its production at the trial of
Guy Fawkes and the conspirators, Jan. 27, 1606. (See _State Trials_,
vol. ii. col. 180.) After Coke had introduced under the seventh head of
his speech, as the fourth means for carrying on the plot, "their
perfidious and perjurious equivocating," there follows:--
"And here was showed a Book, written not long before the Queen's
death, at what time Thomas Winter was employed into Spain, entituled,
'A Treatise of Equivocation,' which book being seen and allowed by
Garnet, the superior of the Jesuits, and Blackwell, the Archpriest of
England, in the beginning thereof Garnet with his own hand put out
those words in the title of 'Equivocation,' and made it thus; 'A Treatise
against Lying and fraudulent Dissimulation.' ... And in the end thereof,
Blackwell besprinkles it with his blessing, saying, 'Tractatus iste valde
doctus, et vere pius et Catholicus est. Certe S. Scripturarum, patrum,
doctorum, scholasticorum, canonistarum, et optimarum rationum
præsidiis plenissime firmat æquitatem æquivocationis; ideoque
dignissimus est qui typis propagetur, ad consolationem afflictorum
Catholicorum, et omnium piorum instructionem.'"
Coke referred to it again at Garnet's trial, March 28, 1606 (_State
Trials_, vol. ii. p. 234.); and the importance attached to the discovery of
the work may be judged of by Morton's _Full Satisfaction_, 1606: a
very large part of which is occupied in discussing it.
The copy in the Bodleian is the one which was produced at the trial. It
is a small quarto in a vellum cover, on the outside of which is written,
on the front side, in a later hand, "Blackwell de Equivocatione, &c.;"
on the other side, in Sir E. Coke's hand, "Equivocations." It consists of
sixty-six pages in all; i.e. two leaves at the beginning originally left
blank, and not numbered; sixty-one pages numbered continuously, and
fifty-nine of them written on: p. 61., that is, the fly-leaf at the end,
contains Blackwell's imprimatur as described by Coke. On the first
fly-leaf, at the beginning, is the following memorandum:--
"This booke, contening 61 pages, I founde in a chamber in the Inner
Temple, wherein Sr Thomas Tresham used to lye, and whiche he

obteyned for his two younger sonnes. This 5 of December, 1605."
EDW. COKE.
"Os quod mentitur occidit animam."
It may be enough to remind the reader, that after Nov. 5, 1605, Coke,
being Attorney-General, was engaged in prosecuting the discovery of
the plot and seeking for evidence. Francis Tresham, to whom the
authorship is attributed by Dodd (vol. ii. p. 427, 428.), was a son of Sir
Thomas Tresham; his connection with Garnet and the plot is well
known. Sir T. Tresham died Sept. 11, 1605. (Dodd, vol. ii. p. 58.)
Francis had been committed {169} to prison, and died Nov. 20, 1605;
and Coke found this in searching his chambers a fortnight after. The
title originally stood thus:--
"A TREATISE OF EQUIVOCATION, _wherein is largely discussed
the question_, whether a Catholicke or any other person before a
Magistrate being demaunded uppon his oath whether a Prieste were in
such a place, may (notwithstanding his perfect knowledge to the
contrary), without Perjury, and securely in conscience answere, No:
with this secreat meaning reserved in his minde, That he was not there
so that any man is bound to detect it."
The words in small capitals and Italics occupying the first two lines are
crossed out, and "whe-," the first syllable of whether, re-written at the
beginning of line 3. At the end of this title, interlined by another hand,
follow the words "_newly, overseer ... ignorants_;" but these words are
also struck through and re-written on the preceding