Definition of "malengine"

But the chaſte damzell, that had neuer priefe / Of ſuch malengine and fine forgerye, / Did eaſely beleeue her ſtrong extremitye.

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, page 406

[…] for when the Protectors Brother, Lord Sudley, the Admirall through private malice and mal-engine was to lose his life, no man could bee found fitter than Bishop Latimer […] to divulge in his Sermon the forged Accusations laid to his charge […].

1641 May, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Cavvses that hitherto have Hindred it; republished as Will Taliaferro Hale, editor, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England (Yale Studies in English; LIV), New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1916, 1st book, page 11