Note 231 — Chapter XV · ON THE REIGN OF WILLIAM III.

In the whole series of authorities, however, on this subject, it will be found that the probable danger to the king's safety from rebellion was the ground-work upon which this constructive treason rested; nor did either Hale or Foster, Pemberton or Holt, ever dream that any other death was intended by the statute than that of nature. It was reserved for a modern Crown lawyer to resolve this language into a metaphysical personification, and to argue that the king's person being interwoven with the state, and its sole representative, any conspiracy against the constitution must of its own nature be a conspiracy against his life. State Trials, xxiv. 1183.