Christ and Holy Priest one that had taken deep root in the Foundations of the Faith and of sound Learning that the Loyalty of the Romanists depends upon the Will of man except they will affirm their Pope to be more than man which is a point they have been put in mind of from Rome itself since His Majesties Restauration as we shall observe anon This Qualification of the Bull was granted to Parsons and Campion two Jesuites upon their coming into England when among other things they desired of the Pope That the Bull should always oblige Elizabeth and the Hereticks but by no means the Romanists as Affairs now stand but hereafter when the publick Execution of the Bull may be had or made Furnished with this and other Faculties those two Gentlemen repared into England setting themselves to contrive a way how to set Her Majesties Crown upon another head at first they came in the Habits of Soldiers afterwards they went about in the Garb of Gentlemen and in the North they altered their Habits into the Vestments of our Ministers preaching there and being secretly entertained by the Popish Gentry and Nobility courageously executed their Commission in discharge of which Parsons exhorted the Roman Catholicks of those parts to deprive Her Majesty of the Crown and the way being thus broken many flocked after them for the same purpose At this time Mr. Sherwin being apprehended and asked whether the Queen were his lawfull Sovereign notwithstanding any Sentence of the Pope's he desired no such questions might be demanded of him and would give no other Answer But the Pope well knowing that this Generation of sturdy blades would in time be all gone for the breeding up of more to succeed them assisted Allen in setting up the Seminary at Doway for English Romanists allowing an annual Pension for their maintenance purposely for to plot and contrive ways to expulse the Queen and demolish the Church of England in obedience to the Pope's Bulls for which end every Scholar among them at his Education took this Oath I A. B. do acknowledg the Ecclesiastical and Political Power of His Holiness and the Mother Church of Rome as the chief Head and Matron above all pretended Churches throughout the whole Earth and that my Zeal shall be for Saint Peter and his Successors as the Founder of the True and Ancient Catholick Faith against all Heretical Kings Princes States or Powers repugnant unto the same And although I may pretend in case of Persecution or otherwise to be Heretically disposed yet in Soul and Conscience I shall help aid and succour the Mother Church of Rome as the True Ancient Apostolical Church I farther do declare not to act or contrive any manner of thing prejudicial unto her or her sacred Orders Doctrines Tenents or Commands without the leave of her supreme Power or the Authority under her appointed or to be appointed and when so permitted then to act or further her Interest more than my own earthly Gain and Pleasure as she and her Head His Holiness and his Successours have or ought to have the Supremacy over all Kings Princes Estates or Powers whatsoever either to deprive them of their Crowns Sceptres Powers Privileges Realms Countreys or Governments or to set up others in lieu thereof they dissenting from the Mother Church and her Commands c. Thus by all imaginable ways did this Pope provide for the Death or Deposition of that Virgin Queen in order to which he had so possess'd the Missionaries with his power to dethrone Princes that it was offer'd to be prov'd to the World That the Priests which were apprehended and executed for Treason always restrained their confession of Allegiance only to the permissive form of the Pope's Toleration as for Example if they were asked whether they did acknowledge themselves to be the Queen's Subjects and would obey her they would say Yes for so they had leave for a time to doe but being asked if they would so acknowledg and obey her any longer than the Pope would so permit them or notwithstanding such Commandment as the Pope would or might give to the contrary then they either refused to obey or denied to answer or said they could not answer to those Questions without danger And at their very Arraignment when they laboured to leave in the minds of the People and standers by an opinion that they were to dye not for Treason but for matter of Faith and Doctrine they cried out that they were true Subjects and did and would obey Her Majesty Immediately to prove whether that speech extended to a perpetuity of their Obedience or so long time as the Pope so permitted they were openly in the place of Judgment asked by the Q's learned Counsel whether they would so obey and be true Subjects if the Pope commanded the contrary they plainly disclosed themselves in Answer saying by the mouth of Campion This place meaning the Court of Her Majesties Bench hath no Power to enquire or judge of the Holy Fathers Authority and other Answer they would not make The very same Account with some other particulars is given us by the Secular Priests themselves of the Behaviour of Mr. Campion and the rest some of whom being asked which part they would take if the Pope or any other by his appointment should invade the Realm or which part ought a good Subject to take answered when that case happened they would then consider what they had best doe others that they were not yet resolved what to doe and others positively that if such a Deprivation or Invasion should be made for any Matter of Faith they were then bound to take part with the Pope Nay so zealous was Mr. Campion in defence of that rebellious Doctrine that being visited in Prison by some Gentlemen of Oxford one of them asked him whether he thought the Queen lawfull Heir or no to this he made no Answer but when the question was put whether if the Pope invaded the Land he would take part with him or the Queen he openly replied he would join with the Pope and very earnestly demanded Pen Ink and Paper with which he signed his Resolution which Principle he was so rooted in that he affirmed in the Tower to several Persons of Quality who demanded whether he did acknowledge the Queen to be a lawfull Queen or did believe her deprived of her Right that this Question depends much on the Fact of Pope Pius the Fifth whereof he is no Judge and therefore refused to answer farther The same loyal Doctrines were vented by several other Priests the ensuing year who affirmed under their Hands to the Commissioners who examined them That the Pope had power to depose Princes and that Her Majesty was not be obeyed against His Holiness's Bull who hath Authority to discharge Subjects of their Allegiance which all of them viz. Kerby Cottom Richardson Ford Shert Johnson Hart and
seditious Designs in hand at the same time is evident from the Confession of Mac-Enerry a Dominican who for this very reason left the Church of Rome because of her rebellious Doctrines and the many Conspiracies he had taken an Oath of Secrefie to conceal which he observed inviolably and though he informed the Bishop of Limrick that there were many Plots then contriving against his Majesty's Government yet for his Oaths sake he would not name any Persons who were concerned in them The Duke of Orleance had retired in disgust from Court some years since and was received by the Duke of Lorrain but being forced this year to leave that retreat he went to Brussells from whence aided by the Spaniards he marched at the head of an Army into France but was defeated and several of his Adherents executed While France was thus almost continually pestered with Rebellions the Designs of the Papists ripened apace in Ireland they had erected Friaries in the Countrey instead of those which were dissolved in Dublin and even in that City they had a College of Students whereof Father Paul Harris was Dean and at a Synodical meeting of their Clergy they decreed that it was not lawfull to take the Oath of Allegiance If it were not that all the Designs of that Party from the Year 1630. to 1640. were summed up and perfected in the Rebellion in Ireland and the execrable Civil Wars of England I should wonder how they came to be so still and that no more Conspiracies were discovered besides that great one which Andreas ab Habernsfield was informed of in Holland and of which he sent the King an Account under the hand of the Discover who affirms that one Maxfield was sent into Scotland to stir up a Rebellion there and that the King was to be poisoned for which end they kept a strong Poison in an Indian Nut which he had often seen They had likewise another Design if they could prevail upon the Scots or discontented English to rebell that thereby the King should be straitened and forced to depend on the Papists for assistance and then they would make their own Terms and secure to themselves a publick Liberty which if he refused to consent to they would not only desert him but dispatch him with the Indian Nut which they reserved on purpose He gives also an Account of the Persons concerned in the Plot among whom were several Ladies of Quality for whose Encouragement the Pope sent a Breve to Sir Toby Mathews one of the principal Conspiratours wherein he exhorts him and the Women engaged with him to proceed with diligence in the Design assuring them That he did not despair to see the Authority of the Holy See which was subverted in England by a Woman again restored in a very little time by the Endeavours of those Heroick Ladies This Breve is an unanswerable Evidence that the succeeding Troubles derived their original from the insatiate Lust of Rule which possessed the Pope who herein approves of those very Methods which afterwards proved the Ruine of that excellent Prince and so miserably distracted these poor Nations But he appeared more publickly an Abbettor of the Irish Massacre and Rebellion wherein so many thousand Protestants were murthered in cold bloud sending his Nuncio to assist and affording them all the aid that he was able to give a Design laid with so much secrefie and executed with so much cruelty that nothing but the very Spirit of Popery could be barbarous enough to engage in it in prosecution of which they did all they could totally to beat the English out of the Kingdom The same year the Marquess de Villa Real the Duke de Camina and the Marquess d' Armamar who by the Instigation of the Archbishop of Braga had undertaken to kill the King of Portugal Father to Her Majesty the Queen Dowager of England and to fire the Ships and the City in several places that they might have the better opportunity to promote the Interest of the Spaniards were put to death Nor did France yet enjoy any more quiet where the Count de Soissons and the Duke of Guise and others raised a Rebellion and routed the King's Army but the Count being slain with his own Pistol the Confederacy was soon broken Yet the very next Year the Duke of Orleance combined with the Spaniards who were to assist him with Forces for a new Rebellion The Pope had involved Ireland in Bloud the former year and in this the Wars began in England where several Priests were found among the dead at â—dghill Battle but the Endeavours of his Holiness to encrease those miserable Confusions were managed with all imaginable Secrefie while the Irish were openly commended by him and assured of his Prayers for their success in his Breve to Owen O Neal dated Octob. 8. 1642. and so willing was he to lay hold on all occasions for the exercising his Deposing Power that because the Prince of Parma offended him he declared him to have incurred the greater Excommunication and deprived him of all his Dominions and Dignities But not content with sending the forementioned Breve to O Neal his Holiness granted a Bull of plenary Indulgence May 25. 1643. to all the Catholicks in Ireland who joined in the Rebellion which was prosecuted as fiercely as the Pope could desire and a defence of it set forth by an Irish Jesuite in Portugal though the Title-page mentions Franckfort who asserts That the English Kings have no Title or Right to Ireland that if they had yet it is the Duty of the Irish to deprive them of their Rights seeing they are declared Hereticks and Tyrants that this Power of deposing such Princes is inherent in every State but if the Authority of the Holy See be added to that Power none but a Fool or an Heretick will deny what the Doctours of Divinity and of the Civil and Canon Law do generally teach and which is confirmed by Reasons and Examples And so far did the Pope approve of the Contents of this Book that when soon after its publication the Irish had submitted to the King and promised to assist him in his Wars His Holiness by his Nuncio took upon him to be their General absolved them from their Oaths and imprisoned and threatened the Lives of those who had promoted the peace and desired to return to the King's Subjection which renewed the Rebellion again and brought infinite Miseries on that bigotted Nation At the same time above an hundred of the Romish Clergy were sent into England by Order from Rome who the better to promote the Divisions there were instructed in several Trades both handicraft and others these upon their arrival were ordered to disperse themselves and give Intelligence every month to their Superiours abroad accordingly they listed themselves in the
Shoals of Priests from several parts beyond Seas and Ireland who for several years before had scarce any and those that were skulking and lying close was in a little time almost over-stocked and Father Walsh who was a kind of a Trimmer among them and to speak truth an honester sort of a man than most of them were and willing to introduce the King's Authority as well as that of the Popes to that End went over with the Duke of Ormond and being countenanced by him summoned an Assembly in Dublin to be held of the most principal of them where what a stir he had and how strangely bigotted those Irish Understandings were to the See of Rome is by himself at large set forth in his loyal Formulary But one thing which himself notes is not unworthy the recital The General among them were so strongly possest with some strange Catastrophe that was to arrive eminently no doubt to their Advantage in the year approaching of Sixty six that they generally expressed themselves so averse from complying with the King in those matters a violent presumption that the firing of London had been for some years in contriving and the mention that is made of a Plot in the April Gazette 65. was put into the Heads by some Rascally Priests of those poor little Rogues that were hangued one of the main things charged upon them being the Firing of the City of London and what influence their Councils had in that Prince's Reign is obnoxious to all considering Men by the breaking the triple League by that close Alliance between France and England for the Extirpation of Protestancy out of Heretical Holland and no doubt had it succeeded out of England also and the reason why it was not effected was the Parliament's and People's Aukwardness to the War but notwithstanding they were so not discouraged but they resolved to go on with their Designs still in England keeping by the means of Coleman and Father le Chaise a constant Correspondence with the Court of France and so strong was their Ascendent with Charles the Second that he publishes a Declaration for Liberty of Conscience by which as Coleman in his Letters says he doubted not the bringing in of their Religion but this so allarmed the Parliament that they were strangely uneasie and restless with him resolving to give him no more Money untill he had recalled it which at last with regret he did This strangely nettled our Roguish Catholicks who by this thought their Game cock sure but being frustrated used him in their Discourses as if he had been a Cobler as pitifull irresolute nothing of Honour his Word no ways to be relied on and not worthy of a Crown and from that day forward plotted his removal to make way as they supposed for a Man of Honour and Resolution and who would not be balked with any thing of a Parliament which at the last as a great many suppose they effectually did And now James the Second ascended the Throne and how the Sceptre by him was swayed needs no long characterising for Father Petre with his Ghostly Associates managed most things under him who with that Priestly Violence so hurried on things that on him at last the Tower of Siloam fell and so weak and ridiculous were their Politicks that they are not worth blurring Paper Now to sum up all it is plain by what precedes That she several Popes and Court of Rome in places where they power had have been most Imperious and domineering and nothing so bloudy base or cruel but by their Priests has acted been not in other Countries only but in this our Nation too for since the twelfth year or thereabouts Queen Elizabeth's Reign Popery we may compare to an Imposthume breeding in the very Trunk of this Political Body and broke in the year forty two into a Civil War discharging only part not all the corrupt matter and since regathering head and filling up about four years ago broke the second time casting forth Filth and Corruption in quantity abounding the Stench thereof offending almost all Men in the Nation but I do not doubt but our State Physicians will use such detersive or cleansing Medicines as well as sanative as shall not effect a Palliative but a real and thorough Cure and that the Countrey may be restored to its sound habit of Body Now therefore as to the ensuing Treatise it was occasioned by that Hero of English Jesuitism Mr. Pulton who being strangely nettled at those stinging Truths contained in the Missionaries Arts challenges the Authour to make good his Assertion in page 76. viz. That the Romanists Treasons owned by their Popes and by their great Men approved of since the Reformation do far outnumber all the Plots and Insurrections that the Papists or Malice itself can lay to the charge of Protestants all which notwithstanding have been wholly condemned by the Body of our famous Divines To satisfie therefore this Savoy Champion and vindicate the Assertion aforesaid the Authour of this Account with no little pains has endeavoured to give entire satisfaction But such has the Misfortune been of Writers Protestant that in dealing in Controversies they have to doe with a sort of Men that when they have yet will seemiugly take no Answer and their last refuge is generally Banter and Whiffle if downright Railing will not doe the feat The Subject of this Treatise is most matter of Fact and the Citations though from their own selves no way unfairly used for if otherwise they appear let them openly be exposed that all that are impartial may see and judge whether any thing of Passion Envy or Malice has Prepossed the Authour I know 't is natural for Men when they have a bad Cause to manage to be froward and testy and where they are galled to kick and wince and instead of arguing closely to the purpose to seek Evasions that may seem plausible at least to the less refined Understanding which has been the great Masterpiece of Romish Priests and Jesuites for many years together for by their little Witticisms and Jokes upon Names they keep up among their Party a kind of Reputation not unlike Jack Pudding's on a Stage they please though at the same time delude the foolish and gazing People and if it happens that one slip falls from a Protestant Pen or a Citation carelesly passed that has not proved true what a Clutter have they not made about it though the main of the Subject still remains good This as a demonstration plainly proves the Weakness of their Cause and had Mr. Pulton but candidly read the History of the last Hundred Years he must have acknowledged that this his great Challenge was a vain and frivolous Motion and never needed to have given the Authour this Trouble which being done it 's hoped will be to his firm conviction and not only his but any other who have been imposed on by false Notions The truth is this Treatise has been
Kingdom declares all Leagues made with him by any Princes void exhorting them to endeavour his Ruine with their whole power bestowing all the Goods of his Adherents upon such as would seize them commanding all Bishops to declare the King and his Followers Excommunicate and denouncing the same Censures against whosoever should hinder the publication of this Bull. This piece of prodigious Impudence and Vanity would not satisfie the Pope but he immediately set his Instruments to work to prosecute the design of his thundering Bull so that the beginning of the next year this Letter was written from Paris to one Fryar Forrest Brother WE behold how the King is changed from a Christian to an Heretick and how he hath robb'd Christ's Vicar of his Rights and Privileges by placing himself in his Holiness's Seat there as Supreme over the Catholick Church within the Realm It was the late damn'd Assembly of Lords and Commons furthered his Pride otherwise he could not nor durst not assume it to himself We have thought of these passages and do agree That there is no way to break this Tyrant's Neck but one Puff him up in his Pride and let our Friends say unto him That it is beneath so mighty a Monarch as he to advise with Parliaments but to act all in Person and that it behooveth his Majesty to be chief Actor himself If he assumes this it will take off great Blemishes from the Nation which the Church holds them guilty of and doe our Business For then the People it being contrary to their Laws will fall from him also the Catholick Party of his Council will be too strong for the Hereticks and then the Common sort will be the abler to declare his Tyranny This is to be contriv'd with the Church's Members and cautiously because it is observed that the Parliaments of England have hindred the Church in most of the Kings Reigns otherwise She had held her Party better than She does now You have our Convent's hearty Prayers for your Guide From St. Francis at Paris Primo Id. Jan. 1536. Thomas Powell This Letter was found two years after among Father Forrest's Papers together with an account of vast Summes which he had expended for the Church of Rome and her Designs But this Design not being sufficient the Pope offered England to James the Fifth King of Scots and presented him with a Cap and consecrated Sword. When that Offer of what was none of his succeeded not according to his Desires the same Pope Paul the 3d. by his Bull of the year following absolv'd in general all Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance unto Heretical Kings Princes and States as they be Enemies unto the Holy See of St. Peter all Men from the tye of their Heretical Wives Wives from their Heretical Husbands c. which was accompanied with a Rebellion in Lincolnshire under the Conduct of one Mackarel a Monk to the number of Twenty thousand against whom the King prepar'd to march in Person but their first Fury being over they embraced the King's Pardon and returned home But this Commotion was succeeded by another more dangerous led by the Lord Lumley several Knights and Gentlemen with most of the Clergy this Army in the North consisted of 40000 Men well Armed who call'd themselves the Holy Pilgrimage and the Pilgrimage of Grace they had the Five Wounds of our Lord the Chalice and the Host painted in their Standard and the Name of Jesus upon their Sleeves their whole pretence was for Religion in their March they took Pontefract Castle but were at length appeas'd But soon after the same Persons raised another Insurrection in which several Monks came armed into the Field as Souldiers who were taken and with the Ring-leaders of the Rebellion Executed Two years after if not the next year to the last Rebellion for some place it in the year 1538. the Marquess of Exceter the Lord Montacute and his Brother Sir Edward Nevill and others enter'd into a Conspiracy to depose the King and advance Reynold Pool then Dean of Exceter and afterwards Cardinal to the Throne for which the Marquess Lord Montacute and Sir Edward Nevill were Beheaded upon Tower-Hill In the year 1546. Pope Paul the Third not content with his shewing his pretended Authority over Kings in the two Bulls mention'd before published another in favour of the Jesuits whereby he exempts them and their Goods from the Power of any but himself and commands all Princes to swear not to molest the Society or invade their Privileges and pronounces an Anathema against all who will not obey the Bull. Two years after this King Edward the Sixth being settled in the Throne one Body a Commissioner pulling down Images by the King's Order was stabbed by a Priest and a Rebellion was rais'd in Cornwall Humphrey Arundell Governour of the Mount with other Gentlemen gathering together Ten thousand Men besieged Exceter and reduc'd it to very great Extremity declaring they would have Popery and the Six Articles restor'd They fought four several Battels with the King's Forces but at last were entirely Routed and their Leaders Executed Yet the next year in Norfolk they Rebell'd again and when the King sent them his Pardon they refus'd it after which they took the City of Norwich and fir'd it beat the Marquess of Northampton and were very near Defeating the Earl of Warwick whose Cannon they took and refus'd the King's Pardon a second time but were at length Defeated and so were another Party who took Arms upon the same Account that year in Yorkshire There were other Insurrections in this King's time which I will not at present mention only observe what is confess'd by a late noted Authour of the Romish Church That these Risings of the Laity in such numbers for their former way of Religion would not have been had not their Clergy justified it unto them After this we find that Pope Paul the Fourth following the steps of his thundering Name-sake when the Dyet of the Germans at Ausburgh made an Edict for full Liberty of Conscience whereby the Protestants were maintain'd in the Possession of their Church Revenues fell into a furious rage publickly threatening the Emperour and King of the Romans That he would make them repent it protesting that if he did not recall the Edict he would proceed against them with as severe Censures as he intended to use against the Protestants telling all the Ambassadors in his Court That he was above all Princes that he expected not that they should treat with him as with their Equal that he could alter and take away Kingdoms as he thought good And one day at Dinner in the presence of many Persons of the highest Quality he affirmed That he would subject all Princes under his Foot. No wonder then that the same Spirit of Opposition to Princes actuate the Members of the Church
Censure and persuade the People to back it with an Insurrection upon which as Surius tells us out of Sanders many Persons of Quality resolved to execute it Accordingly the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland who were pardoned but the year before took Arms in the North trampled under feet the English Bible and Service-Book bearing in their Standard the Cross and five Wounds of our Saviour and being betwixt five and six thousand men they grew so insolent that they would give the Queen no better Title than the Pretended Queen but the Pope being too slow in sending the hundred thousand Crowns he promised them and they at length finding their numbers too small to cope with the Queens Army dispersed and every one shifted for himself The Earl of Westmorland escaped into Flanders where he dyed miserably but Northumberland being taken was beheaded at York who was nevertheless looked upon by the Romanists as a glorious Martyr and the drops of his bloud kept by them as holy Relicks That this Rebellion had no better success Sanders and from him Surius give this Reason Because the Catholicks had not timely notice of the Pope's Bull And the same Person informs us That those that were executed for this Treason refused to the very last to acknowledge the Queens Authority Among which Sanders mentions Plumtree and others as well as the two Earls who are termed glorious Martyrs of the Catholicks by Bristow in his Motives and several others To correspond with the Pope's Intentions in his Bull Ireland puts in for a share this year where Jame Fitz-Morice of the House of Desmond and two of the Botelers raised a Rebellion but the latter being drawn to a submission by the loyal Earl of Ormond Fitz-Morice after many shifts followed their Example and was pardoned But though the two Earls and their Accomplices had sped so ill yet Leonard Dacres renew'd the Rebellion in the North and fought a bloudy Battel against the Queens Forces with great obstinacy though in the end he was forced to fly into Scotland And now that the Catholicks might no longer remain in ignorance of the Queens being deprived of the Kingdoms by the Pope one Felton this year had the hardiness to fix the Bull at the Bishop of London's Gates for which being apprehended he confessed the Fact and gloried in it at his death affirming the Queen had no right to the Throne being deposed by the Sentence of the Pope Yet doth Surius affirm that he dyed a Martyr for the Catholick Faith justifying the Action as done out of Zeal for the Church and in Obedience to the lawfull Commands of the Pope The same is affirmed by Parsons Spondanus and Hilarion de Coste who styles him the valiant Soldier of Jesus Christ commends his invincible Courage and Zeal for the Faith and affirms that his Martyrdom is one of England's most glorious Trophies though the same Person can afford the Queen no better a Title than the Impious and wicked Queen the true Iezebel of our days And that all the World may see what they thought of him at Rome no sooner could Thuanus affirm that it was a very rash Action but the Index Expurgatorius commands that passage to be blotted out so jealous are they of the Honour of this grand Traitor With as great Encomiums do we find the Memory of Dr. Story celebrated by the Writers of that Church This man was one of the most violent Persecutours in Queen Mary's days for which cruelties being questioned in Parliament in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign he answered that he knew no Fault he was guilty of but only that he busied himself in cutting off the Branches while he neglected to pull up the Root it self which if he had done Heresie had not got up again For this being imprisoned he found means to escape into Flanders but being apprehended and brought into England this year he rejoiced that he should suffer Martyrdom Upon his Tryall he declined the Jurisdiction of the Court affirming that he was a Subject to the King of Spain and acknowledged no lawfull Judge in England for which he gave this Reason That seeing the Pope had declared the Queen deprived of her Right he durst not acknowledge her Authority lest he should fall under the Censures of that Bull And at the moment of his Execution being asked by an Earl whether the Queen was his Sovereign he replied She was not yet is he reckoned among the Martyrs for the Romish Faith. The next Year was that bloudy Massacre of Paris though contrived two years before wherein it being carried over all France above 100000 Protestants were butchered in cold bloud the Duke of Guise and his Party did all they could to have the King of Navarre and Prince of Conde slaughtered with the rest but they being preserved by the King the chief Design of the Papalins in that bloudy Action was prevented But four years after was that desperate Confederacy entred into by that Duke and his Adherents in France which they and the Pope afterwards termed the Holy League which had all the parts of a most desperate Rebellion and continued for so many years to the Destruction of one Prince and infinite vexation of another It was first begun at Peronne and afterwards formed into a more strict Union by which under a shew of maintaining the King they took from him all his Authority to confer it upon the Head of their Conspiracy Nay the zeal for this rebellious Association was so great that they subscribed it with their Bloud and in order to the prosecution of what they had there promised they sent Nicolas David an Advocate of the Parliament of Paris to Rome but he being slain by the way on his return Cardinal de Pellive afterwards managed their business with the Pope But among the Memoirs of that Advocate there was found an Account of the Transaction between the Pope and the Duke of Guise wherein the Design laid down is to pull down the House of Valois then reigning from the Throne and set up the Duke of Guise In this Transaction the Liberties of the Gallican Church are called a damnable Errour nothing else but the shift of the Waldenses Lutheranes and Calvinists and it is affirmed that France shall never prosper as long as the Crown continues in that line The whole Platform of the Design is there laid down and the Pope is to advance that Duke to the Crown of France as the Successour of Charlemagne in consideration whereof the Duke is bound to cause the See of Rome to be plainly acknowledged by the States of the Kingdom without Restriction or Modification abolishing the Privileges and Liberties of the Gallican Church Thus do we find the Pope promoting the most rebellious Designs to advance his own usurped Greatness And his Missionaries not desiring a better example than
leave from their General upon which they were prohibited by a Decree of Parliament to teach and threatened with a farther Deprivation if they would not obey The Romanists had tried all manner of ways to deprive King James of his Life or Crown but finding none successfull they had the Impudence to publish a Book this year affirming that His Majejesty was a counterfeit and not the Son of Queen Mary of Scotland The Year following Cardinal Perron who had been one of the young Cardinal of Bourbon's Party against King Henry the Fourth in the Assembly of Estates in France asserted not only that Subjects may be absolved from their Allegiance and Princes deposed in case of Heresie but that they who hold the contrary are Schismaticks and Hereticks This Speech was made to divert the Estates from imposing an Oath like our Oath of Allegiance which Design so disturbed the Pope that he affirmed the Voters of it were Enemies to the common Good and mortal Adversaries to the Chair of Rome And about the same time Suarez printed his Book at Colen wherein he teaches that Kings may be put to Death by their own Subjects which Treatise came into the World with the Approbation of the Bishop of Conimbria of Silvis and Lamego and the University of Alcalum with several others In Scotland one Father Ogelby a Jesuite was taken who being asked whether the Pope be Judge in Spirituals over His Majesty refused to answer except the question were put to him by the Pope's Authority but affirmed that the Pope might excommunicate the King at his Trial he protested against the Judges that he could not own them for the K. had no Authority but what was derivative from his Predecessours who acknowledged the Pope's jurisdiction adding If the King will be to me as they were to mine he shall be my King otherwise I value him not And as for that Question Whether the K. deposed by the Pope may be lawfully killed Doctours of the Church hold the affirmative not improbably and I will not say it is unlawfull to save my Life In France several of the Princes raised Commotions which were appeased with conferring places of Trust and Honour upon the chief among them who were headed by the Prince of Conde Fruits as the Historian observes accustomed to be reaped in France from that which in other places is punished by the Executioner Not satisfied with their Honours they took arms again under the same Leader and passed the Loire but the Prince of Conde falling sick Matters were composed by the Endeavours of the English Ambassadour and some others In Savoy Conspiracies were formed against that Duke's Life and to deliver up the Prince his Son to the Spaniards but timely discovery prevented them and preserved the Duke from another Design of some who undertook to poison him The next Year the Jesuites were banished Bohemia and Moravia for coining Money and sowing Dissentions between the Magistrates and People and a Plot was discovered at Venice against the Senatours whom the Conspiratours designed to murther by a sudden Insurrection assisted by the Marquess of Bedmar Ambassadour from Spain and the Duke of Ossuna Viceroy of Naples and make an utter subversion of the State this was carried on in conjunction with the Spaniards by those Citizens and others who were the Pope's Partisans and a number of Factious Persons discontented with the Actions of the Senate who longed for a change and would stick at nothing to effect it And in France the Queen Mother being imprisoned the Duke D'Espernon with a strong Party rebelled in her Defence but before the King's Army was come up against him he procured his Pardon and the Liberty of the Queen Soon after this the Jesuites were driven out of Hungary and Silesia for their seditious Practices and another Rebellion broke out in France which the King marched in Person to suppress In the Valteline the Revolt was universal the Governours of Provinces and the Heads of Families were all murthered and under pretence of defending the Roman Catholick Religion all manner of outrages were committed and a new form of Government erected these Broils continued some time and the bitterness of the Papists was such that they would make no accommodation if the Protestants were tolerated there so that if a Protestant Bailiff be sent among them he cannot publickly exercise his Religion At this time the Match between Prince Charles and the Infanta was prosecuted at least with a seeming willingness on both sides and being to have some Romish Priests of her Houshold the Pope urged very earnestly that they might be exempt from His Majesty's jurisdiction so very diligent he was in catching at any shadow which might seem to favour the Exemption of the Clergy Three Years after this Sanctarellus his Book was printed at Rome wherein the Deposing Power was asserted in its utmost latitude and though Father Coto and two other Jesuites were required to answer it yet no reply appeared the former affirming before the Parliament that though he disapproved the Doctrine in France yet he would assent to it if he were at Rome The Oath of Allegiance being vigorously press'd in England the Pope sent a Bull to the Romanists exhorting them to continue firm and let their Tongue rather cleave to the Roof of their Mouth then permit the Authority of St. Peter to be diminished by that Oath and commanding them strictly to observe the Breves of Pope Paul the Fifth and Father Fisher justified Suarez and the Doctrine of his Book asking what could be found prejudicial in it to Princely Authority and affirming that if it contained any such thing it would not be permitted in Catholick Kingdoms We have mention'd that the exemption of the Clergy was desired by the Pope in the Treaty for the Spanish Match and now his Emissaries in this Nation affirmed that the King could have nothing to doe with her Majesties Chaplains because he was an Heretick and his Holiness threatned to declare those to be Apostates who should seek their Establishment in the Queens Family from the King. But though these were plain Indications of what they desired yet they kept their Designs so secret that they were not discovered till some time after but there was a Conspiracy detected at Genoa which if it had not been prevented would have ended in the Murther of the Nobility and Alteration of the Government And the next Year a Plot was detected in Mantua against the Life of the Prince and some Officers apprehended who would have betray'd Viadana to the Governour of Millan In Ireland the Papists assaulted the Archbishop of Dublin wounded several of his Followers and forced him to fly for his Life following him in a tumultuous manner along the streets and that they had several
guilty Consciences of those Gentlemen that the World hath not been long since more fully satisfied as to every particular for Dr. Du Moulin in the first Edition of his Book Ann. 1662. had challenged them to call him to an Account for affirming that the Rebellion was raised and promoted and the King murthered by the Arts of the Court of Rome the Book came to a fourth Edition in all which he renewed the Challenge and in the last in these words I have defied them now seventeen years to call me in question before our Judges and so I do still affirming that certain Evidence of what he asserted should be produced whenever Authority shall require it I remember once a Jesuite attempted to prove the truth of the Nag's-Head Ordination because that Charge had been laid to our Church some years before any offered to confute it or to produce the Lambeth Record which he affirmed was an evident sign that the thing was true or else having such means to confute it they would not have been so long silent what then may we think of those Gentlemen who had so heavy a crime charged on them and yet for near twenty years together never called the Accuser to account The Doctour always refused to produce his Evidences till required by Authority only he gives us this Account That the Papers of Resolution in favour of the Murther when it was found to be generally detested were by the Pope's Order gathered up and burnt but a Roman Catholick in Paris refused to deliver one in his possession but shewed it to a Protestant Friend and related to him the whole carriage of the Negotiation And I am sure if the Protestants had been under such an Imputation the Papists would make good use of their silence to prove their Guilt But farther to shew their aversion to the Royal party no sooner had the Rebels of Ireland in consideration of the straits they were in made a cessation for some time with the Lord Inchequin but the Nuncio excommunicated all who observed it and upon the conclusion of a second Peace with the Duke of Ormond His Majesty's Lieutenant the Assembly of the Bishops and Clergy at James-Town renounced it and as much as in them lay restored the former confederacy anew but of this we shall have a farther account in its due place In the mean while Reilly Vicar General to the A. B. of Dublin betrayed the Royal Camp of Rathmines to Coll. Jones Governour of Dublin for the Parliament which service he afterwards pleaded for himself to the safety of his Life which was in danger for his cruel Actions in the Rebellion and he well deserved more than bare safety from those men that defeat being the total ruine of His Majesty's Affairs in Ireland At the same time the Rebels in France encreased both in Insolence and Power daily the Coadjutour of Paris going to St. Germains in obedience to the Queens Commands was tumultuously stopt by the People who hindered the Nobility from following the King and broke their Coaches the Parliament forbad all places to receive any Garisons from the King listed men and resolved upon a War the Duke D'Elbease Duke of Lonqueirlle Prince Marsil liack afterwards D. of Rochfecault the Prince of Conty and many other persons of the greatest Quality joining with them Soon after Normandy and Poictou declared for the Parisians who sent Deputies to call in the Spaniards to assist them but these Troubles being in a little time appeased new ones began in Provence and Guienne the Parliaments of those Provinces prosecuting the War with great fury declared they would have no pardon from the King and one Gage a Priest endeavoured to persuade them to take the Sovereign Power on themselves which they declined but to maintain the War they treated with the Spaniards for Assistance both of Men and Moneys This Year the Prince of Conde joined himself to the Troudeurs which was the usual Nickname of the discontented Party but finding that they intended the advancement of Chasteau Neuf his mortal Enemy he left them in disgust however the Parisians made several Insurrections and upon the Imprisonment of that Prince an open Rebellion broke out in Berry whose Example was followed by Normandy and Burgundy to support which the Spaniards agreed to contribute 2000 Foot and 3000 Horse besides great Summes of Money and soon after the Parliament of Bourdeaux declared for the Rebells During these Transactions the Popish Bishops of Ireland met at James-Town published a Declaration against all that should adhere to the D. of Ormond His Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant in that Kingdom upon which my Authour makes this remark that if the Archbishops c. in Ireland will take upon them to declare against the King's Authority where His Majesty hath placed it they assume an Authority to themselves that no other Clergy ever pretended to and declare sufficiently to the King how far they are from being Subjects or intend to pay him any Obedience longer than they are governed in such manner and by such Persons as they think fit to be pleased with But not satisfied with refusing Obedience to the King's Commissioner the Confederates agreed that if compounding with the Parliament should be best for the People they should doe it And presently after the Marquess of Clauricard had at their request taken the Government upon him in his Majesty's Name it was proposed in their Assembly that they might send to the Enemy to treat with them upon surrendring all that was left into their hands Thus did they chuse rather to submit to the Parliament than obey the King for they were not forced to that Submission the army of the Enemy having made no progress at that time neither had it been flusht with any new Success As forward was Father Bret to persuade the Gentlemen who had defended the Castle of Jersey for the King to renounce the Royal Family and Kingly Government by taking the Engagement affirming that they were not to acknowledge any Supreme but the prevailing Power All this while the Rebellion in France increased the Parisians took Arms designing to seize the King and the Prince of Conde fortified several places and confederated with the Spaniards whom under the Conduct of the Duke of Nemours he called into France to his Assistance with which he maintained the War all this Year to whom the Duke of Orleance joined himself and with all his Interest increased the Party The next year Mr. Tho. White published his Book of the Grounds of Obedience and Government wherein he asserts That if a Prince governs ill he becomes a Robber and the People may expell him in which case they are not bound by any Promise made to him and that they have no Obligation to endeavour the Restauration of a Prince so dispossessed of his Dominions but rather to hinder it nay though he were wrongfully