one of the Conspiratours attempted to run him through but was prevented and several of his Companions taken the rest escaped And now King Henry the Great of France having amassed a very considerable Treasure prepared for some great Design which the Romanists grew so jealous of that they secretly caused several to subscribe their Obedience to the Pope in a Book which was kept on purpose it was half written through and some names subscribed in bloud several Designs were formed against his Life four Piedmontiers a Lorrainer and three others conspired his Death advice was given of several other Plots from many other places and Reports were spread in foreign parts that he was killed Father Hardy in his Sermon at St. Severius in Paris reflecting upon the King's Treasure said That Kings heaped up Treasures to make themselves feared but there needed but a blow to kill a King All these were but Fore-runners of that horrid Murther which was committed in a few Weeks after by Ravilliac once a Monk who stabbed him to the Heart with a poisoned Knife as he was going to the Arsenal in his Coach so that he expired in an instant upon his Examination he confessed that he resolved to murther the King who he supposed had a Design to make War upon the Pope because making War against his Holiness is the same as to make War against God seeing the Pope was God and God was the Pope and that he had revealed his Design to the Jesuite d' Aubigny in Confession and shewed him the Knife and that he had heard several of that Order maintain the Lawfulness of it in their Sermons No sooner was the King dead Anno 1611 but the Jesuites desired leave to teach Schools in their Colleges which acquest the Parliament took into consideration and required that they should first declare That it is unlawfull for any Person to conspire the death of the King that no Ecclesiastick hath any Power over the Temporal Rights of Princes and that all are to render the same Obedience to their Governours which Christ gave to Caesar. These Positions were proposed to them to subscribe but they refused to doe it without 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 Anno 1613 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 Anno 1614 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 Anno 1615 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 Anno 1616 and to deliver up the Prince his Son Anno 1617 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 Anno 1618 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 Anno 1619 and Silesia for their seditious Practices and another Rebellion broke out in France Anno 1620 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 Anno 1622 at least with a seeming willingness on both sides and being to have some Romish Priests of her Houshold the Pope urged very earnestly
as putting it to the Question They offered indeed several Forms instead of the Remonstrance but in none of them renounced the Deposing Power in that the Assembly signed at their breaking up they disowned the Doctrine but would not declare that Doctrine which abetts it unsound and sinfull wherein they have been imitated by some late Writers who though called upon to affirm it such never did it Once indeed they seemed to come something near what was expected when their Chairman told Father Walsh That it was not out of any prejudice against the Remonstrance they would not sign it but because they thought it more becoming their Dignity and Liberty to word their own sense for the rest they were far from condemning that Remonstrance or the Subscribers thereof Yet would they not own this when desired under their Hands but refused so that no good being expected they were dissolved leaving an undeniable Evidence of their aversion to Loyalty and approbation of the treasonable Doctrine of the Ch. of Rome Soon after the Dissolution of this Synod the E. of Sandwich Ambassadour in Spain informed His Majesty that Primate Reilly was emplyed to stir up his Countrey-men to rebell upon which a Gurd was set upon him and in a little time was sent into France The Bp. Anno 1674 of Ferns still justified the Rebellion defending the Actions of the Clergy for laudable vertuous meritorious Deeds and becoming good Men Anno 1679 and therefore needing no Repentance And this is the last Account I find of him for he soon after dyed And now the Controversie about the Regale growing hot between the King of France and the present Pope His Holiness had so much of the Spirit of his Predecessours who were for asserting their Power over all the Kingdoms of the World as to threaten the King with Excommunication and that speedily if he would not renounce his Claim Anno 1682 and he was as good as his word for the King not being affraid of his Thunders and refusing to lose his Right and the Assembly of the Clergy joining with his Majesty the Pope sent a Bull of Excommunication to his Nuncio requiring him to publish it in the Assembly but by the diligence of the Cardinal d'Estree the Assembly was adjourned before the Arrival of the Bull. At the same time Szlepeche my Primate of Hungary with his Clergy maintained the Deposing Power by a Censure of the Contrary Opinion and the next year the Spanish Inquisition at Toledo did the same Anno 1687 which was followed three years after by four Theses Anno 1686 publickly maintained by the Jesuites at their College of Clermont in Auvergne wherein it was defended and even among our selves the Authour of Popery Anatomised defends the Decree of the Council of Laterane in that the Kings and Princes of Europe by their Ambassadours consented to it affirming that the Christian World apprehended no injury but rather security in that Decree FINIS Advertisement of two other Books writ by the Authour of this Book 1. THE Missionaries Arts discovered or an Account of their Ways of Insinuation their Artifices and several Methods of which they serve themselves in making Converts to the Church of Rome With a Letter to A Pulton 2. A Plain Defence of the Protestant Religion fitted to the meanest Capacity being a full Answer to the Popish Net for the Fishers of Men that was writ by two Converts wherein is evidently made appear that their Departure from the Protestant Religion was without Cause or Reason Fit to be read by all Protestants a Fowl p. 287. b Fowl p. 301. 302. c Fowl p. 315. See the Bull at the end of Brutuâ—… Fulmen Lond. 16. 4to * Hunting of the Romish Fox p. 3 4 5. * Fowlis Hist. of Romish Treas p. 316. †Foxes Firebrands part 2. p. 34. Dublin 1682. Mr. Mason Minister of Finglas in the year 1566. copied the substance of the Bull out of the Records at Paris ‖ Fowlis's Hist. p. 316. Surii Commentar p. 314. Speed's Chron. p. 1033. * Surii Comment brevis p. 314. Fowlis's Hist. p. 316. Speed's Chron. p. 1034. †Speed's Chr. p. 1041 1042. ‖ Speed's Chr. p. 1044. * Bulla Quarta Pauli Tertii Jesuitis concessa apud Hospin Histor. Jesuit p. 104 105 106. this Bull is called by the Jesuits Mare magnum * Speed's Chronicle p. 1110 to 1114. †Speed's Chronicle p. 1114 1115 1116. a Speed's Chron. p. 1116 1117. Fifth part of Church Government p. 139. Oxford 1637. b Hist. of the Council of Trent p. 262 263. London 1684. 8vo c Fowl Hist. of Romish Treasons p. 287. d Idem p. 329. * â—xes and Firebrands part 2. p. 20. * Fowlis's Hist. p. 302. †Idem p. 329. ‖ Idem p. 330. * Gabut Vit. Pii Quinti l. 3. c. 9. apud Fowl ubi supra Thuanus lib. 44. ibid. †Fowl Hist. p. 367. ‖ Concil Trid. Sess. 25. c. 20. Decemb. 4. 1563. * Fowlis's Hist. p. 366. Edward Dennum See his Letter to the Lord Cecil of April 13. 1564. in Foxes and Firebrands p. 51 to 56. out of the Memorials of the Lord Cecil †Speed's Chr. p. 1162. Fowlis Hist. p. 302. ‖ Fowlis's Hist. p. 130 131. Import Câ—â—sâ—d p. 57. * Id. p. 368. †Sir Ed. Coke at the Tryall of the Gunp. Trait Hist. of the Gunp. Tr. p. 109. ‖ See the Bull in Fowlis Hist. p. 331. and Speed's Chron. p. 1171. * Surii Comment p. 770. ‖ Il. * Speed's Chr. p. 1169 1170. Fowl Hist. p. 335. †Execut. of Justice for Treason Pr. Lond. 1583. 4to ‖ Surii Comment p. 770. Non illos habuere successus conatus illorum nobilium quos peraverant â—â—rtassis quod Catholicis omnibus ea denuntiatio necdum innotuisset * Idem p. 771. Noluerunt Elizabetham legitimam Reginam confiteri †Fowl Hist. p. 302 303. * Speed's Chr. p. 1170. Fowlis's Hist. p. 335. Speed's Chron. p. 1174. †Surii Com. p. 786 787 788. * Resp. ad Edict Regin Angl. †Ad An. 15â—0 Sect. 4. ‖ See Fâ—wlis ubi supra Surii Comment P. 794 795 796. â—owlis's Hist. p. 368. Fowl Hist. p. 371. * See the Instrument of that Confederacy in Maimbourg's Hist of the League p. 42. Lond. 1684. 8vo †See the Instrument in Fowlis p. 372 373 374. See the Account of this Transaction in the Appendix to the Vindication of the sincerity of the Prot. Relig. Speed's Chr. p. 1176. * Nelson Hance Lacies Briant c. †See his Letter in Speed ib. ‖ Hist. Jesuit p. 244 245. Anat of Popish Tyr. in the Ep. Dedic Lond. 1603 4to Fowlis's Hist. p. 303 304. †Fowlis ubi suâ—pra Fowl p. 305. See the Bull at large in Fowlis p. 306. ‖ Eandem plenariam Peccatorum vestrorum indulgentiam Remissionem quam adversus Turcas pro recuperanda terra Sancta bellantes consequuntur tribuimus
A Brief HISTORY Of the several PLOTS Contrived AND REBELLIONS Raised by the Papists Against the Lives and Dignities of Sovereign Princes since the REFORMATION Taken from Faithfull Historians LONDON Printed for Richard Wilde at the Map of the World inâ— St. Paul's Church-yard 1692. TO THE READER IT is strange that of all men Papists should calumniate Protestants with Treason and Rebellions were Modesty an Essential in the Complexion of a Jesuite surely they would forbear or Charity they so much talk of and so little practise to be found among them Are horrid Massacres villanous Assassinations or Poisonings the Effect of Charity Or Is Malice inveterate Traducing or Lying the Fruit thereof Yet nothing is more obvious in the whole course of History than those diabolical Machinations and hellish Conspiracies of Priests and Jesuites especially within this last hundred and fifty years and generally speaking Princes and crowned Heads have been most the objects of their Fury and lest the palliation of Villany should pass on the weaker sort and this Objection any way obtain That forsooth most of these Contrivances were against Heretical Princes excommunicated by the Pope and Church and by consequence delivered over to Satan and that the killing of them really was no Murther no more than of Wolves or Bears To this I answer That Princes of the same Communion as Henry the Third of France could not escape their fatal Stab who never made profession of any other and though Henry the Fourth was first a Protestant and by them constrained to change nay and highly indulging them in his latter years and as Mathieus says in his Life to all appearance was devout I mean in their way yet from Ravilliac's Hand all this could not defend him We need not long here six but look on former times where for five or six hundred years nothing 〈◊〉 been more common or more lamentable than the story of several Princes struck with the Lightening of the Court of Rome and others wholly ruined by the Vatican Thunder the consequences being either their own Tragical Ends or at the most favourable strong and lasting Rebellions which all conversant in History may plainly see and so dextrous were they in translating to the other World that in the very Host it self was Poison given to one of the German Emperours so that Silence to none is a more necessary Virtue especially in this Case than to regular Monks and Friars who for several Ages have been the very Pest and Bane of Secular Princes acting not only their Villanies in the Time of the Holy War but in the time of their Antipopes also But to return to our own Nation What Barbarities have they not committed What Impieties have they not been guilty of What Cruelties have they left unattempted and yet with a brazen Front daily bespatter Protestants accusing them of what themselves were Authours of imitating herein the very Skum of Mankind for none shall sooner call another Rogue than he that really is one In whose mouth is Whore and Bitch more frequent than hers that is a common Prostitute And to proceed What Disorder did they not cause to plague and pester Harry the Eighth What Commotions did they not raise all the Reign of Queen Elizabeth besides the Attempts upon her Person What Divisions did they not nourish all the time of Edward the Sixth and in his death had no small share How horridly desperate they were in King James's time appears by their inhumane Powder-Treason how intriguing they were in his Cabinet Councils is but too sad a Truth to relate fomenting his humour in the Spanish Match a blemish inglorious to his Memory leaving the Pallsgrave though his Son in Law a Victim to the House of Austria and after by the Match with France how did he embroil his Son they managing underhand the Queen and she by her powerfull Influence did the King so that all the mischievous Evils of Charles the First they like a Mole wrought under ground spotting his Life with that business of Rochell and the Attempt of the Isle of Rhee from whence the Protestants generally date the ruine of their Church in France and by the rising of the French Monarchs since that time has endangered the ruine of the whole Protestant Interest all over Europe as of late years has been manifestly evident and lastly they drew a Civil War upon him though the Effects proved fatal as well to themselves as others Priests generally being no reaching Politicians the consequence of which all men here do know But that which most surprizes is their Villany in conclusion for when his farther Life could yield them no advantage they then conspired his Death and to that end was a Correspondence kept with Ireton and some others not doubting he being gone to have the bringing up of the Children the Queen being wholly theirs and managed to their Devotion and how fatal this has been I need not farther speak and if any are desirous of farther satisfaction let them read Dr. Moulin's Answer to Philanax Anglicus written by an Apostate Protestant who found not his Account by turning Papist as indeed few of them have done a man I must needs say of very good natural parts though in several things but ill applied them and his Conversâ—tion spoke him a Gentleman but withall of a violent and impetuous Temper to whatever he took and unfortunate in most things he projected I am the longer on this Character because most of our whiffling Priests and noisie Jesuites have raked for their Clamours against Protestants about the business of Rebellion for many years last past out of the Dunghill of that Book written not long after the King 's coming in so that 't is plain that by their legerdemain Tricks in the Parliament Army they made them mutinous against their Lords and Masters and in the time of the Agitatour's being rampant meeting as they say in Putney Church they were very brisk in Masquerade among them several Priests some as Troupers others private Soldiers then listed and though these Agitatours were first set up by Ireton yet in process of time they became so unruly and so beyond measure insolent that they were by force necessitated to suppress them and they were the occasion of breaking up that separate Party of Cromwell and Ireton in the name of the Army which they had entred into with the King and by reason of them the King was frighted from Hampton-Court making his Escape to the Isle of Wight which did not long precede his death Now after a lapse of some years his Son Charles the Second with the rest of the Royal Family were restored and let us take a short view of their Transactions under him where no sooner he was settled but there came in whole 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
was to be cut off by the Spaniards but these Designs being discovered as also another Plot to seize the King in the Abby of St. Germains their hopes were disappointed in which Conspiracies Cardinal Pellevee a French man then at Rome was so deeply concerned that the King ordered his Revenues to be seized and distributed to the Poor But His Majesty going from Paris Anno 1578 they proposed the seizing of the City in his absence the Duke of Guise designing to secure the King in the Countrey and for the exciting those rebellious Spirits to some Action the Preachers at Paris generally vented nothing but Sedition affirming that the King was a Tyrant and an enemy to the Church and People and when the King sent to apprehend one of these furious Leaguers he retired into the house of one Hatte a Notary where Bussy and his men fought in his defence against the King's Officers headed by the Lieutenant Civil And the Sorbonne Doctours made a Decree That Princes might be deposed from their Government if they did not what became them as the charge taken away from a negligent Guardian And that there might want no Encouragement the Pope presented the Duke of Guise the Head of the Rebels with a rich Sword thereby declaring his approbation of his Proceedings The same year Sir William Stanley being made Governour of Deventer Anno 1587 and Rowland York of Zutphen for the Queen they betrayed both these places to the Spaniard upon which the former beginning to sink in his Reputation lest the sense of his Treasons should put him upon thoughts of returning to his Loyalty Dr. Allan afterwards Cardinal wrote to him and his traiterous Accomplices telling them that the Queen being deposed by the Pope could make no just War and all her Subjects were bound not to serve or obey her in any thing And in another of his Books he affirms That God had not sufficiently provided for our Salvation or the Preservation of his Church if there were no way to restrain or deprive Apostate Kings Therefore saith he let no man marvel that in case of Heresie the Sovereign loseth his Superiority and Right over his People and Kingdom And now we are come to the Year Eighty eight Anno 1588 wherein as the Conspirators acted more publickly having prepared all things ready for their designed Subversion of the Government and being aided by that Armado of the Spaniards which they vainly thought invincible so the Divine Providence as openly declared against them notwithstanding their Navy was blessed by the famous Nun of Lisbon and the Assistance given by the fiery Pope who published his Crusado as against the Turks and promised to contribute a Million of Gold to which he added the Apostolical Benediction covenanting that the Crown of England should be held as feudatary to the See of Rome and for encouragement to those who should assist his Cause he gave plenary Indulgences to them all neither did he stop here but having provided for the Invaders by securing them of Money and Heaven he thundred out his Bull against the Queen whereby he deprived her again of her Dominions confirming the Censures of Pope Pius and Gregory his Predecessours commanding all under penalty of God's Wrath to render her no obedience or assistance and enjoining them to aid the Spaniards against her concluding all with declaring it both lawful and commendable to lay hands on her and granting a full Pardon to all Undertakers To second which Bull Cardinal Allen advanced to that Dignity the year before published a Book at Antwerp wherein he enlarges upon the Bull and tells the World that it was at the vehement desire of some English men that the Pope engaged the Spaniard and appeared in the Cause himself This Book is said to be written by one Parsons though it was owned by the Cardinal and therein it is affirmed That the Roman Catholicks in England were destitute of Courage and erroneous in Conscience or else they had never suffered Her Majesty to reign so long over them The way thus prepared the Spanish Armado put to Sea while the Prince of Parma was preparing a great Army in Flanders where the Earl of Westmorland and the Lord Pagit and Sir William Stanley lay with seven hundred English ready to be transported and the hopes of the Romanists came nothing short of what was to be expected in men elevated by such great Preparations insomuch that the Jesuites at Rome had appropriated several Palaces in London to themselves and were so sure of Success that they would have had Te Deum sung in the College Church for joy upon the news of the Spaniards being arrived in the narrow Seas and the secular Priests acknowledge the like Disposition in the Party here We had some of us greatly approved the said Rebellion many of our Affections were knit to the Spaniard In all these Plots none were more forward than many of us that were Priests With the same zeal towards the Action were the foreign Clergy actuated among whom Johannes Osorius the Jesuite preached two Sermons in Defence of the Attempt and in Commendation of the Spaniards for thus fighting against Hereticks in one of which his Confidence of the Success transported him so far as to give Thanks for the Victory but he and his Party trusted too much in the Arme of Flesh they thought themselves so powerfull that they forgot one that was above them who made that terrible Fleet the scorn of the world and so protected the just Cause of the Queen and assisted her Navy that most of that Armado perished in the Sea or were taken or burnt so vain a thing it is to forget and fight against the Almighty who blessed where the Pope cursed and turned the Harangues of the Thanksgiving-Jesuite into three Sermons of Humilâ—ation for so great a Disappointment of the Papal Designs and the entire Destruction of its strongest Forces In the beginning of the year several Missionaries were sent into Scotland to get the Assistance of the Papists there The Lord Maxwell actually took the Field with a small Party who were defeated The Lord Bothwell secretly listed Soldiers and Collone Sempill arriving at Leith in order to the Design was seized but soon rescued by the Earl of Huntley Yet could not these wonderfull Disappointments work any remorse in the Papists who still laboured by means of the Jesuite Holt and others to persuade the King of Spain to another Invasion which Parma comforted the Romanists in Scotland with promises of effecting and sent them ten thousand Crowns to prepare matters against the next Spring As busie were the Leaguers in France prosecuting their intended Rebellion with all diligence the Duke of Guise and his Council resolved to put the King in a Monastery in order to which when he went his usual Processions in the time of Lent they designed to seize him
but being prevented by a Discovery another Resolution was agreed on to secure his Person at his return from Bois de Vincennes slenderly accompanied but failing in this also the Duke of Guise came to Paris contrary to the King 's express Order where he was received with great joy and soon after his Party being numbred and found considerable he openly rebelled barricadoing the Streets and forcing the King to flie who made his Escape with very few Attendants Soon after the King of Spain sent six hundred thousand Crowns to the Rebels and the Pope by solemn Letters applauded the Duke's Zeal compared him to the Maccabean Heroes and exhorted him to go on as he had begun but here the insignificancy of the Pope's Blessing again appeared the Duke of Guise being soon after slain at Blois and so receiving the just Reward of his continued Rebellions Thus were the Designs of wicked men who prostituted the holy Name of Religion to serve their Lusts baffled and defeated both in their Attempts against the incomparable Queen Elizabeth and the French King as also in a Plot against the K. of Navarre which by the same Divine Providence was this year discovered But the Scotch Papists were so possessed with Spanish Promises Anno 1589 and influenced by their Gold and the persuasions of Holt Creighton and other Jesuites that several Noblemen conspired to seize the King afterwards King James the First of England at his Palace in Edinburg where Huntley coming before the others was upon Suspicion apprehended which terrified the rest but being set at liberty joined himself to the Earl of Crawford and others in open Rebellion entred Aberdeen but were so terrified by the approach of the Royal Army that they retreated were taken and after Tryall imprisoned And here I find such an Account of the Conversions made by the Jesuites in Scotland as fully confirms the Observation made before of their Design in their diligent Endeavours to make Proselytes For Mr. Bruce the chief Agent for the Spaniards in his Letter to the D. of Parma commending the Zeal of the Missionaries in Scotland tells him that they had converted the Earls of Arroll and Crawford who were very desirous to advance the Catholick Faith and Spanish Interest in this Island and resolved to follow entirely the Directions of the Fathers Jesuites whence it appears their main design is to enlarge their Empire for as the same Gentleman affirms no sooner any person of Quality is converted by them but they forthwith encline and dispose their affections to the Service of the King of Spain as a thing inseparably conjoined with the advancement of true Religion in this Countrey so that by the Confession of this great Man Popery and Treason were inseparable at that time the Romanists being so in love with it that they made their Address to the broken Fleet of the Spaniards the last year to land what Forces they had several great Persons being ready to receive them And the two new Noble Converts wrote to the Duke of Parma testifying their entire devotednes to the Spanish Interest Nor was Scotland alone thus infected for in England the Earl of Arundell was this year tried and dyed in the Tower who rejoiced at the Spaniards coming prayed for their Success and exceedingly grieved at their Overthrow And the Jesuite Parsons prevailed to have a Seminary wherein to instruct Youth in such treasonable Principles as his own founded at Valedolyd But though this Island was sufficiently pestered this year by the Papal Agents and Factours for Rebellion yet were we favourably dealt with in comparison of the Treasons and Insurrections in France against Henry the Third a Prince of their own Communion who after the Death of the Duke of Guise was opposed by an almost universal Rebellion the Priests calling on their Auditours to swear to revenge the Duke's Death and railing with all manner of virulency against the King insomuch that Father Lincestre affirmed that if he were at the Altar and the Eucharist in his hand he would not scruple in that very place to kill him The Rebels styl'd him Tyrant Heretick and to have his Picture or to call him King was crime enough to deserve death they threw down his Arms and Statues and practised all sort of Magick Incantations and Charms to hasten his death The Parisians wrote to the Pope desiring to be absolved from their Allegiance with several other requests of the same nature and in their Letters to the Cardinals styled their Sovereign The late King of France and sent Agents to Rome giving them among other Instructions Orders to desire the Pope not to entertain or hear the King's Ambassadours and Messages and to excommunicate all that join with him and having chosen the Duke of Mayenne for their General would have had him take the Title of King but he refused it yet they broke the King 's great Seal and made a new one To these the City of Lyons joined affirming that Kings ought to be resisted and they will resist the King in conjunction with the Holy Union to whom the Parisians sent a Letter exhorting them to defend their Religion c. against that prodigal perjured cruel and murthering Prince the Duke of Mayenne refusing to have any Peace or admit so much as of a Truce and prosecuting the War with the utmost vigour To these Attempts and Perseverance in them they were encouraged by the Sorbon Doctours who in a Decree made Jan. 7. 1589. resolved That the People were freed from their Oaths of Allegiance and Fidelity and that they may legally and with a safe Conscience take Arms for the Defence of the Roman Religion against the wicked Counsels and Practices of the King Which Decree they ordered to be sent to the Pope for his Confirmation and this they affirm was concluded on and resolved by an entire consent of the whole Faculty not one dissenting And with the same Zeal and no more Loyalty they licensed a Book which asserted that the King ought to be assassined affirming that there was nothing in it contrary to the Roman Church To promote which they concluded that the King ought to be no longer prayed for declaring all such of the Body as should not agree to this to be guilty of Excommunication and deprived of the Prayers and Privileges of the Faculty And that there might remain no badg of Royalty to put them in mind of their Duty the Cordeliers struck off the Head of the King's Picture which was in their Church and the Jacobins defaced those in their Cloisters But this was done after the Pope had once more publickly owned the Rebels and their Cause who by his Bull asserted his Power of Rule over all Kingdoms and Princes of the Earth proceeded to admonish the King to release the Cardinal of Bourbon and Archbishop of Lyons in thirty days and within sixty days to make
forth a Declaration affirming That Henry of Bourbon could not be lawfull King because he was an Heretick and therefore they cannot be blamed for opposing him in obedience to the Pope's Bulls and Admonitions to which his Holiness's Legate added another assuring the Romanists that the Pope would never consent to the admission of an Heretick that such who assisted the King were in a desperate Condition and exhorting all to be obedient to the Pope and when the Estates were met he proposed that all should take an Oath never to acknowledge the King though he should be converted to their Church nay so great was his Fury that when the Romanists with the King sent to the States some Propositions for a Treaty he declared the very Proposals to be Heretical and by his influence the Doctours of Sorbon asserted the same as intimating a declared Heretick might be King but the Proposition was accepted and a Conference agreed on but with this Clause in the Answer to the Proposal That to fight against an Heretical King is not Treason yet the Legate entred his Protestation against the meeting and the Parisians attempted to make the young Duke of Guise King Nor were things better in the Royal Army where the Romanists whom the King most trusted were falling from him upon which resolving to change his Religion his Intensions were no sooner published than the Legate forbad all Bishops to absolve him pronouncing all that should be assisting to his reception into the Roman Church excommunicated and deprived and all their Actions in that Affair null and void But hower the King was reconciled and sent his Ambassadours to Rome but the Pope who had formerly refused to admit any Message from him prohibited their Entrance neither would he receive the Prelates that absolved him In the mean while the Leaguers stormed at the King's reconciliation and set themselves to destroy him by private Treason now Force could doe no good for which purpose one Barriere or Le Barr was employed who confessed that the Curate of St. Andrews of Arts in Paris commended the Design telling him he would merit Heaven and Glory by the Act and recommended him to Varade Rectour of the Jesuites College who affirmed that the Enterprise was most holy exhorting him with good constancy and courage to confess himself and receive the B. Sacrament and then leading him to his Chamber gave him his Blessing He mentioned also another Preacher of Paris who counted it meritorious Thus encouraged he bought a knife seven Inches long and went to St. Denis where the King then was but being discovered was executed affirming at his death that there were two black Friars that went from Lyons upon the same Account It is probable the Preacher at Paris mentioned in his Confessions was Father Commolet the Jesuite who two days before this Barriere's Execution at St. Denis in a Sermon at Paris which yet continued obstinate against the King exhorted his Auditours to have Patience for they should see in a few days a wonderfull Miracle of God But the next Year Paris was reduced to its obedience Anno 1594 soon after which the University endeavoured the Expulsion of the Jesuites accusing them of all manner of Injustice of the ruine of Families and many other Crimes but insisting particularly on their Treasons charging them with being abettors to the Spaniard Fomenters of Civil Wars and always ready to assassinate the French King whom they omitted to pray for while they extolled the Spaniard that they taught and asserted the Pope's deposing Power that they refused to give Absolution to several Persons of Quality because they would not renounce the King that they had been the cause of the Death of Twenty-eight Barons Fifty Noble-men of France and above Five hundred Monks and Friars in the Tercera Islands and had refused to renounce the League Which Spirit of Rebellion was so strong amongst the Leaguers that a little before the Seduction of Paris the Pope's Legate published a Declaration exhorting all Catholicks to oppose the King assuring them that the Pope would never grant him Absolution and upon the Rendition of Aix to his Majesty the famous Genebrard was so vext at the Loyalty of the Place that he left it resolving not to live among the Royalists nay when the King entered Paris the Cardinal Pellivee lying upon his Death-bed very angrily told those about him That he hoped the Arms of the Spaniards and good Catholicks would yet drive the Huguonots out of Paris And Hay a Scotch Jesuite affirmed That if the King passed by their College he would leap from the top of it upon him and did not doubt to go directly to Heaven But to return to the Jesuites who finding their Banishment out of the Kingdom thus zealously endeavoured and fearing lest the King to whom they had been such bitter Enemies should consent to it resolved to dispatch him * Francis Jacob one of their Scholars at Bourges had boasted that he would doe it but John Chastel who was bred under them at Paris went farther and with a knife struck the King in the Mouth and beat out one of his Teeth he was immediately apprehended and on Examination confessed That he esteemed it an Act highly conducing to promote Religion and that Father Gueret his Master in the Jesuites School had taught him those Doctrines upon which Sentence of Death was pass'd upon him by which also the Jesuites were banished as Corrupters of Youth Disturbers of the publick Peace Enemies to the King and Kingdom and enjoined to depart the Realm within fifteen days and all their Goods confiscated to be disposed of as the Court should see fit This Sentence was published after the search made in the Jesuites College wherein was found a Book of T. Guignard's which he confessed to be his own writing lamenting that the King was spared in the Parisian Massacre applauding the Murther of King Henry the Third affirming that if the King were shut up in a Monastery he would be treated more gently than he deserved and concluding that if he could not be deposed without force of Arms they ought to be taken up against him for which and his other Treasons he was executed but Gueret Chastell's Master of the same Order was only banished with the rest in memory of which Fact and to the perpetual Ignominy of that Order Chastell's House was demolished and a Pillar erected in the place on one side of which was engraven the Decree of the Court on another a Copy of Verses expressing the Crime and discovering to the World that it was attempted by the Persuasions of the Jesuites on the third another Inscription to the same purpose and on the fourth a summary Account of their banishment and the reasons of it wherein the Jesuites are termed A mischievous and novell sort of superstitious Men and Disturbers of the Nation by whom that young man
where by a Congregation it was decreed unlawfull And now in prosecution of the Pope and Sorbon's Sentence the last year that excellent Prince King Charles the Martyr was by their contrivances brought to the Block which though they were willing to disown now yet at that time they were very sollicitous to let the World know that they were the promoters of it the Friars of Dunkirk expressed great resentment that the Jesuites would engross to themselves the Glory of that Work whereas they had laboured as diligently and succesfully as any and in several other places the Friars were very jealous lest that Order should rob them of their part of the Honour And the Benedictines were not a little carefull to secure their Land in England from the Jesuites for they thought their return sure upon the King's Death so that the Nuns contended vigorously among themselves who should be Abbesses in their own Countrey At the time of His Majesty's Execution Mr. Henry Spotswood riding casually that way saw a Priest on Horseback in the Habit of a Trouper with whom he was well acquainted flourishing his Sword over his Head in triumph as others did he told Mr. Spotswood that there were at least forty Priests and Jesuites present in the same equipage among whom was Preston who afterwards commanded a Troup of Horse under Cromwell Father Sibthorp in a Letter to Father Metcalfe owns that the Jesuites were contrivers of this murther and that Sarabras was present rejoycing at it one of the Priests flourishing his Sword cryed Now our greatest Enemy is cut off When the News of this Tragedy came to Roan they affirmed that they had often warned his Majesty that if he did not establish the Romish Religion in England they should be forced to take such courses as would tend to his Destruction and now they had kept their words with him And in Paris a Lady having been perverted from the Reformed Church by a Jesuite upon hearing her Ghostly Father affirm that now the Catholicks were rid of their greatest Enemy by whose Death their Cause was much advanced and therefore she had no reason to lament left that bloudy and rebellious Church and continues a Protestant ever since But though as Secretary Morris affirms there are almost convincing evidences that the Papists Irreligion was chiefly guilty of the murther of that excellent Prince yet we are beholden to the 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 Anno 1649 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 Marsilliack 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 Parsians 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 Anno 1650 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