have added that Clause that None in the Church but you were bound under pain of Damnation not to teach that Doctrine whereas all good Christians think it damnable to teach any wicked Doctrine such as this is declared to be by all France I wish to God you would instance in what Sermons or serious Discourses any of you have argued against this Doctrine out of which it might be gathered that in your hearts you dislike it I hear you and yours have much exclaimed against some even late Pamphlets that touch the Oath of Allegiance though none of those Books as far as I understand press the taking of the Oath it self in its present terms but only oppose this King-dethroning Doctrine Surely unless you declare your selves farther this must cause a main suspicion that you dislike the Oath not as Moderate Catholicks do for the ambiguity of the expression but because the Doctrine of Deposition pleases you And why should the Peace of Kingdoms and the quiet of all Christendom depend upon your Generals Order for that 's all the security I can find your Paper gives us who will assure us your Generals Order may not alter to morrow and that which you call now a mortal sin to do becomes then as mortal a sin not to do and has not then the World reason to fear that where and when the interest of your Body will either dispense with your obedience to your General or prevail so far with him as to revoke the Prohibition you speak of you will be ready again to maintain the same Deposing Power with as much fierceness as those few whom you now seem to disowne For who are those few Bellarmine of whom one of your Society though in Prison when he spake it said King James was no more to be compared to Bellarmine than Balaams Ass to Balaam Suarez whom you esteem the Master of the World Lessius under the name of Singleton Fitzherbert the chief in his time of your English Writers Patriarch Parsons Mariana Salmeron Becanus Vasquez Omnes Capita alta ferentes and of whom you will renounce none for less than being frightned to lose a Province as when in France you were threatned to be put out if you had not condemned Suarez and Santarellus With these deserves to be ranked for his Merits in the same kind F. Symonds of a far later date who procured to be condemned at Rome those three Propositions expressed in the Christian Moderator of which the first was expresly made to disclaim the Popes power in absolving Subjects from their Obedience to the Civil Government Are all these but four or five Nay I could reckon above four or five besides all these so that there is no farther security of your not preaching this Doctrine than until the Pope please to attempt again the Deposition of some King of England for then no doubt but your Generals Decree will be released and the Interest of your Order to preach this Doctrine again As to that perverse and unseasonable insinuation that Others too have defended the Popes deposing power as well as you I answer perhaps Flattery or Errours may have prevailed so far with some others besides Jesuits yet with this difference in the point we now treat some persons of other Communities have written for that exorbitant power in the Pope and very many and far more against it not only the faculties of Paris and Sorbonne but seven or eight whole Universities in France have unanimously and solemnly condemned it All this while what single Jesuit has spoken one unkind word against it though both particularly suspected and highly concerned to clear themselves Cry you mercy you there subscribed also their Condemnation of it But why find I not that alledged here if there be not some juggle in 't Sure you would not have waved urging it among your best Reasons did not your hearts disavow that forced compliance then and so hate the Medium for the Conclusions sake Your Generals Prohibition as your Reasons seem to express it is Not to teach c. that Doctrine and then you are free at least to teach c. the contrary which who of you ever did so much as in a private Conference Nor will it help you if your Generals Prohibition be to speak either for or against that Opinion which I believe is the truth though your Reasons craftily dissemble it since then you neither have hitherto given nor can hereafter give the least satisfaction to Princes without disobeying your General Let any one but cast his eye upon F. Lloyd or Fisher a famous man in his generation and consider what he writes in his Answer to the Nine Points That he omitted the discussion of the Ninth Point about the Pope's Authority to depose Kings for being bound by the command of his General given to the whole Order not to publish any thing of that Argument without sending the same first to Rome to be reviewed and approved his Answer to that Point could not have been performed without very long expectation and delay And so goes on referring His Majesty and the Reader in general to the Treatises lately written on that Subject to which said he ' T is not needful any thing should be added And I ask first is not this Jesuits proceeding with his King extremely both uncivil and disloyal too his Majesty commands an English Jesuit to write concerning the Opinion of deposing Kings and giving away their Kingdoms by Papal power whether directly or indirectly What says the Jesuit to this important question wherein all Princes and particularly his Majesty was so nearly concerned He could not answer it without sending it first to Rome to be approved c. and so excused himself and made no answer at all which now of these two will you guess was the Jesuits supreme Soveraign the King or his General Nor should I have stayed so long upon the example of one particular Jesuit though never so eminent among them but that by these their Reasons I see they all cleave to the same Principle of not meddling with this point whatever it costs them without leave of their General Secondly I ask concerning those late Treatises here mentioned by the Jesuit were they not those very Books which Paris and so many whole Universities of France publickly condemned I have this motive to think so F. Fisher wrote this Book 1626. these Treatises were that very year condemned and some of them as Santarellus printed but the year before But that F. Fisher adhered to the affirmative of the Popes deposing power is clearly evident by his other excuse that commonly Kings are not willing to hear the proofs of coercive Authority over them c. As also when his Adversary objected that Suarez's Book was burnt by the Hangman he answers far from disliking his Brother Jesuit in these peremptory words I likewise demand of you says Fisher if Jesuit Suarez his Book be prejudicial to Princely Authority why is the same
allowed in all other Catholick Kingdoms c Does this sound as if the Jesuits had changed their inclination to that Doctrine whilst one of their eminentest Writers strives thus to defend nay applaud even Suarez one of the most offensive and extragavant even Jesuits that ever medled with that Subject 7. My Seventh Doubt is about your dependence on the Pope which you gloriously explicate to consist in this that The Jesuits are obliged by a particular Vow to be ready to go even unto the utmost Bounds of the Earth to preach the Gospel to Infidels I desire to know by what virtue you explicate your Vow in these words the terms of your Vow are these In super promitto specialem Obedientiam summo Pontifici circa missiones which by the tenour of the words signifies to go whither he shall send you and do what he shall command you in your Missions First there 's never a word of preaching the Gospel nor of Infidels and your Missions may be as well to Catholicks as to Infidels as we see the Peres de la Mission in France for the most part are imployed among Catholicks and I would demand whether your Mission into England be not as well to Catholicks as to Protestants Wherefore by this Vow you are bound to do whatever the Pope commands you as for example if the Pope should excommunicate or depose the Prince and command you to move the Catholicks to take Arms you were bound by your Vow to do it And therefore 't is no wonder if you give the Pope a Catalogue of these men and their qualities for they are generally speaking those who are eminentest in your Order and brag to him how great an Army of Pens and Tongues you bring devoted to him to further any attempt or design he shall command Besides is it not well known that none of your Order go into Infidels Countries but such as desire it whereof no small part do it for discontentment they find in your Colledges and that the Pope may as well send one of the Pillars of St. Peter's Church in Rome to preach to Infidels as one of your professed Fathers if it be against your General 's and his own will Therefore this special obedience is but a flash of vanity above others by which the Pope has a Chimerical power over you such as your subtilty in Divinity will call potentiaremota which without your own wills shall never come into Act. Yet do I not think that His Majesty will quarrel with you for this Vow as you explicate it though to tell you my sence of it I do not know how it stands with His Prerogative that the Pope shall have power over his Subjects which may be useful to him to send them without his leave to Japan and China But this Authority you assume to your selves and further For you do not only oblige your Subjects to come in or go out of the Kingdom when you command them but play the Judges of life and death upon the Kings natural Subjects without his leave or any crime that according to Civil Laws deserves punishment You presume by your power to send them to Watten or some such place wherein either your selves have high Justice or the high Justice is at your Devotion there frame Process against them and execute them without making account to His Majesty of the life of his Subject for pretended crimes committed in England This taking the whole story together I conceive to be no less than making your selves Soveraigns over His Majesties Subjects that is to be an Act of high Treason Yet all parts of this Action are evidently in your hands in virtue of your obedience and your having such places of high Justice in your Command so that your Subjects have other Soveraigns than the King's Majesty whom by consequence they ought to fear more than him since their power is more immediate and pressing and pressed on their Consciences As for the practice 't is said to have been used upon one Thomas Barton an eminent Scholar among you who wrote a Book called The agreement of Faith and Reason How true it is I undertake not to justifie but if you 'l justifie your selves from High Treason it behoves you to produce the man And so you have my seventh Doubt 8. My Eighth Doubt is that you equivocate with us in this word Dependence for you turn it to be dependence by Vow whereas more likely it means dependence of Interest and signifies that 't is your interest to ingage the Pope to you by maintaining all height of Supreme Authority in him though it be never so irrational and against Gods Law For by so doing you also can use it all for your own Interest in procuring for your selves and friends whatever lies either in the Popes Authority or Grace as Exemptions Priviledges Benefices c. For men look not on your Body as on others whose Generals have no other power than according to their Rules to look to their Discipline But on you they look as on an Army managed by one man whose Weapons are Pens and Tongues and the Arts of Negotiation and all plausible means of commending your selves to the World Which you exercise in such a height as to have had the boldness to threaten the Pope with a Schism to tell the King of Spain your Tongues and Pens had gotten him more Dominions than his Armies to attempt breaking the Liberties of Venice to be able to raise Seditions in most Countries and to be dreadful to the very Kings and Princes And all this because as Christ proposed to his Disciples the love of one another for the Badge of Christianity so your Generals propose to you blind obedience for the Badge of a Jesuit that is by cooperating with them to make them powerful and great Lords and your selves invincible and terrible to all that oppose you For this end you exalt the Popes Infallibility that you may get your Opponents condemned in Rome and then cry them down for Hereticks For this reason you teach the Pope to have all Authority in the Church and other Bishops to be but his Deputies so joyning with your Brother-Presbyters in really destroying the Hierarchy that when you by Grace or surreption have purloyn'd a Command from that Court you may treat all that resist you as Schismaticks and Rebels to the Church Yet if we believe Mr. White acknowledged an able man they are both damnable Heresies and destructive of Faith and Church and many others also of our most learned dislike them though their courage c. reaches not to brand them so severely In this complication of Interests then and not in your glorious Vow consists the dependence you have so specially on the Pope in a matter not of Religion but of Temporal profit and greatness 9. My Ninth Doubt is about the comparison you make between your selves and others telling us how you are by special Vow excluded from all Benefices and
sent one Master Morton and Master Web two Priests before the said Rebellion to the Lords and Gentlemen in the North to excite them with their Followers to take up Arms. And the rather to perswade them thereunto they signified unto them by the Popes commandment that her Majesty was excommunicated her Subjects were released from their obedience and much more to that purpose Likewise the said Mr. Saunders doth justifie the said commotion and ascribeth the evil success it had to the over-late publishing of the said Bull it being not generally known of till the year after when Master Felton had set it upon the Bishop of Londons Gate affirming that if it had been published the year before or when they were in Arms the Catholicks would undoubtedly so have assisted them the said Rebels as that they must no question of it have prevailed against the Queen and had certainly executed the said sentence at that time for her deposition from the Crown Besides whereas the State in the said Parliament had confirmed the attainder of the chief persons by name that were as heads in the said Rebellion and had been in the field against her Highness Mr. Saunders building Castles in the Air amongst his Books doth too much magnifie the said Rebels to the great discredit of the Church of Rome and his Holiness actions in such matters they being men arraigned condemned and executed by the ancient Laws of our Country for high Treason This intolerable and very uncatholick course thus held by divers to the great offence of many good Catholicks of the graver and discreeter sort and to the great hinderance of our common Cause hath been since followed by Mr. Parsons and some of his sort with no good discretion or foresight God he knoweth brag these great States-men of their impregnable Wisdom and Policy never so proudly Furthermore about the coming out of the said Book of Mr. Saunders the whole Plot before mentioned of the Pope and the King of Spain with the Duke of Norfolk for the disinheriting of her Majesty and other intended mischiefs fell out to be fully disclosed Afterwards within some four or five years it was also commonly known to the Realm what attempts were in hand by Mr. Stukeley assisted with Mr. Saunders and other Catholicks both English Irish and Italian for an Enterprise by force in Ireland under pretence to advance the Catholick Religion which for that time through some defects succeeding not the Pope himself in the year 1579. abused still by false pretences did set forward that course and sending thither certain Forces Mr. Saunders too much Jesuited did thrust himself in person into that action as a chief Ring-leader and to perswade the Catholicks when he should come into Ireland to joyn with the Popes said Forces for the better assisting of certain Rebels then in Arms against their Soveraign Now whilst these practices were in hand in Ireland Gregory the Thirteenth reneweth the said Bull of Pius Quintus and denounceth her Majesty to be excommunicated with intimation of all other particulars in the former Bull mentioned which was procured we doubt not by surreption the false Jesuits our Country-men daring to attempt any thing by untrue suggestions and any lewd surmises that may serve their turns This Stratagem accomplished and ground laid whereupon they imagined to work great matters these good Fathers as the Devil would have it come into England and intruded themselves into our harvest being the men in our consciences we mean both them and others of that Society with some of their adherents who have been the chief Instruments of all the mischiefs that have been intended against her Majesty since the beginning of her Reign and of the miseries which we or any other Catholicks have upon these occasions sustained Their first repair hither was Anno 1580. when the Realm of Ireland was in great combustion and then they entred viz. Mr. Campion the Subject and Mr. Parsons the Provincial like a tempest with sundry such great brags and challenges as divers of the gravest Clergy then living in England Doctor Watson Bishop of Lincoln and others did greatly dislike them and plainly foretold that as things then stood their proceeding after that fashion would certainly urge the State to make some sharper Laws which should not only touch them but likewise all others both Priests and Catholicks Upon their arrival and after the said brags Mr. Parsons presently fell to his Jesuitical courses and so belaboured both himself and others in matters of State how he might set her Majesties Crown upon another head as appeareth by a Letter of his own to a certain Earl that the Catholicks themselves threatned to deliver him into the hands of the Civil Magistrate except he desisted from such kind of practices In these tumultuous and rebellious proceedings by sundry Catholicks both in England and Ireland it could not be expected but that the Queen and the State would be greatly incensed with indignation against us We had some of us greatly approved the said Rebellion highly extolled the Rebels and pitifully bewailed their ruine and overthrow Many of our affections were knit to the Spaniard and for our obedience to the Pope we all do profess it The attempts both of the Pope and Spaniard failing in England his Holiness as a temporal Prince displayed his Banner in Ireland The Plot was to deprive her Highness first from that Kingdom if they could and then by degrees to depose her from this In all these Plots none were more forward than many of us that were Priests The Laity if we had opposed our selves to these designments would out of doubt have been over-ruled by us How many men of our calling were addicted to these courses the State knew not In which case the premises discreetly considered there is no King or Prince in the World disgusting the See of Rome and having either force or metal in him that would have endured us if possibly he could have been revenged but rather as we think have utterly rooted us out of his Territories as Traiters and Rebels both to him and his Country And therefore we may rejoyce unfeignedly that God hath blessed this Kingdom with so gracious and merciful a Soveraign who hath not dealt in this sort with us Assuredly if she were a Catholick she might be accounted the Mirror of the World but as she is both we and all other Catholicks her natural Subjects deserve no longer to live than we hereafter shall honour her from our hearts obey her in all things so far as possibly we may pray for her prosperous Reign and long life and to our powers defend and protect both her and our Country against any whatsoever that shall by force of Arms attempt to damnifie either of them For in the said Garboils and very undutiful proceedings how hath her Highness dealt with us From the time of the said Rebellion and Parliament there were few above twelve that in ten years had been
Dominions and whoever entertains you in such quality is subject to the penalties ordained by the Ancient Laws Neither without some main Reason which might force the aforesaid Statute ought you to hope or attempt any further stay in England in way of a Body till first you have obtained particular grace from the Civil Magistrate 3. My Third Doubt is Whether you have been as faithful to His Majesty as others Which is your second Reason For which I must note a Maxim or Practice found among you Jesuits and acknowledged by all who look into your ways which is in quarrels of Princes and Great Men to have some of your Fathers on one part and others for the contrary Which as I no ways deny to be very politickly done and to shew that you are Wiser than the Children of light so on the other side I affirm 't is a manifest sign you are faithful to neither I speak not this as to single men if there be any among you who prefer your loyalty to your Prince before obedience to your Superiour but as to the Community or Superiours who give this direction or connivence to their single Subjects to act on both sides by which they are convinced of acknowledging duty to neither but to work for their own interests Nor can the like be imputed to other Communities whose obedience is more rational and free without obligation to follow their Superiours Judgments further than to the observation of Canons and Rules 4. My Fourth Doubt is Whether you are as you say of tender Consciences as well as others your third Reason for which I remit him who desires a further information to The Mystery of Jesuitism translated some years since out of French The Author whereof is both learned in your Divinity and an upright and scrupulous Roman Catholick as his Book manifests Where every indifferent Reader may see as clear as noon-day that your Conscience is so tender as to stretch to all kind of Villanies by the award of that Theological Bawd commonly called Probability by which whatever three Divines hold or perhaps one is accounted Probable and lawful to be practised and whoever understands any whit of the world knows your General can with a whistle raise whole Legions of Divines to speak what he has a mind should pass for probable nay every Provincial can raise above three to make it de fide The World has seen the experience about Deposing Princes Equivocations mental Reservations and divers other juggles Although this seems enough for this point yet it is not amiss to add a Maxime of obedience which you have among you viz. That the Subject ought blindly to obey his Superiour without examination whenever it is probable there 's no sin in the action Out of which perswasion if three Divines at the most say a thing may be done which the Superiour will have done 't is not in a Subjects power under pain of damnation to refuse to do it Whereby 't is plain the tenderness of your Consciences is only about doing or not doing what your Superiour orders you 5. My Fifth Doubt concerning your Fourth Reason is whether all you say proves any heartiness for his Majesty For I question not the truth of all this but the Quaere remains whether you Jesuits were the first movers or the Gentry which did the King service to whom you adhered for not losing your places and interest you had in the parties Had you pleaded that any of this Gentry which you name was unwilling of himself and his Jesuit had induced him or made him constant when he would have relented this reason had been somewhat strong now 't is one of the probable Arguments which are subject to be turned to what pleases the Orator But to speak somewhat to particulars 'T is known Col. Gage's relations were to others more than to you and I could name by whose solicitation he took arms for the King who was not of your Coat As for Sir John Digby there are alive who know by whom he was armed and sent to the Kings Party in whom you had not so great interest Concerning the Noble Persons you name though you had the industry to make your selves their Ordinaries yet were they not for the most part so addicted to you that they had not great Relations to other Ecclesiastical Bodies So that it may appear their own inclinations and not your perswasions as far as is clear were their motives to follow the Kings Party I could say more were it fitting to enter upon private mens particular actions And so much to your Reasons 6. My Sixth Doubt concerns the Answer to the first Objection Whether Jesuits teach the Doctrine of the Popes deposing Kings My Doubt is what your Answer is whether I or no for I can find neither First you compare your Body to others which is no Answer to the Question but a spiteful and envious diversion to examine others actions who are sufficiently cleared because not questioned Secondly you tell us that some Jesuits did teach it but that since the first of January 1616. your General has forbidden any of his to teach preach or dispute for that Doctrine which answers not the Question and is a thing I am prone to believe For I have been informed that 't is a known practice of your Society that your Generals should forbid some actions which they are not unwilling their Subjects should practise to the end that they may reject weak men by saying it cannot be true because they have a Rule against it and to more understanding Parties they may excuse the fault by laying the defect on Particulars who will not obey their commands But I must farther note a cunning in this Answer For true it is the Parliament of Paris ordered the principal Jesuits to get such an order from their General for France upon which I suppose you build your answer not explicating whether it reaches to other Countries as particularly to England which I never heard so much as pretended and therefore it answers nothing to the real Question unless you produce the extension to the whole World which you cannot do since 't is plain Santarellus's Book was printed in Rome about ten years after 1616. teaching the power of Deposing in all latitude Wherefore either Santarellus's fact was a manifest disobedience to the nose of his General or the answer given an open Imposture making a special Decree for France a general one and so your answer fallacious and none No more than your fair inference that all Jesuits are bound under pain of Damnation not to teach that Doctrine which is a pure slur you use to put upon men unaccustomed to your ways whereas 't is a known position of yours that none of your Rules bind under so much as a Venial sin much less under Damnation And it seems you think there 's no Mortal sin but Disobedience or you esteem the Doctrine good though forbidden you else you would not
bethink your selves well of this Dilemma If your solicitings stop the progress of the Act how will you be hated as guilty of the continuance of those Sanguinary Laws if your endeavours do not stop it how will you be both hated for attempting it and scorned for miscarrying in 't FINIS All Offenders cover their faults with contrary causes Rebels do most dangerously cover their faults Rebellion in England and Ireland The Rebels vanquished by the Queens Power Some of the Rebels fled into other Countries Rebels pretend Religion for their defence Ringleaders of Rebels Charls Nevill Earl of Westmer land and Thomas Stukeley The effect of the Popes Bull against the Queen of England The practises of the Traitors Rebels and Fugitives to execute the Bull. Seminaries erected to nurse seditious Fugitives The Seminary Fugitives come secretly into the Realm to induce the people to obey the Popes Bull. Sowers of sedition taken convented and executed for Treason The seditious Traitors Condemned by the antient Laws of the Realm made 200. years past Persons Condemned spared from Execution upon refusal of their treasonable opinions The Foreign Traitors continue sending of persons to move sedition in the Realm The Seditious Fugitives labour to bring the Realm into a War external and domestical The duty of the Queen and all her Governours to God and their Country is to repel practices of Rebellion None charged with capital Crimes being of a contrary Religion and professing to withstand Foreign Forces Names of divers Ecclesiastical persons professing contrary Religion never charged with capital Crimes The late Favourers of the Popes Authority were the chief Adversaries of the same by their Doctrines and Writings A great number of Lay persons of livelyhood being of a contrary Religion never charged with capital Crime No person charged with capital Crime for the only maintenance of the Popes Supremacy Such Condemned only for Treason as maintain the effects of the Popes Bull against her Majesty and the Realm Dr. Sanders maintenance of the Popes Bull. The persons that suffered Death were Condemned for Treason and not for Religion A full proof that the maintainers of the Bull are directly guilty of Treason Dr. Mortons secret Ambassage from Rome to stir the Rebellion in the North. Persons and Campion are offenders as Dr. Sanders is for allowance of the Bull. Faculties granted to Persons and Campion by Pope Gregory 13. Anno 1580. Harts Confession of the interpretation of the Bull of Pius Quintus A Conclusion that all the infamous Books against the Queen and the Realm are false Difference of the small numbers that have been executed in the space of five and twenty years from the great numbers in five years of Queen Maries Reign An Advertisement to all princes of Countries abroad The Authority claimed by the Pope not warranted by Christ or by the two Apostles Peter and Paul Pope Hildebrand the first that made War against the Emperor An. Dom. 1074. The Judgement of God against the Popes false erected Emperour Pope Gregory the Seventh deposed by Henry IV. Henry 5. Frederick 1. Frederick 2. Lewis of Banar Emperours Whatsoever is alwful for other Princes Soveraigns is lawful for the Queen and Crown of England The Title of universal Bishop is a Preamble of Antichrist Rome sacked and the Pope Clement taken Prisoner by the Emperors Army 1550. King Henry the Second of France his Edicts against the Pope and his Courts of Rome The besieging of Rome and the Pope by the Duke of Alva with King Philips Army Queen Mary and Cardinal Pool resisted the Pope D. Peyto a begging Fryer The Kings of Christendom never suffer the Popes to abridge their Titles or Rights though they suffer them to have rule over their People The Queen of England may not suffer the Pope by any means to make Rebellions in her Realm Additaments to the Popes Martyrologe The strange ends of James Earl of Desmond D. Saunders James Fitzmorice John of Desmond John Somervile The prosperity of England during the Popes curses Reasons to perswade by reason the Favourers of the Pope that none hath bin executed for Religion but for Treason The first reason The second reason The 〈◊〉 Pius Qâ—â—â—â—â—… set up at Pauls The first punishment for the Bull. The third reason Rebellion in the North. The fourth reason The Invasion of Ireland by the Pope The Popes Forces vanquished in Ireland The Politick Adversaries satisfied Objection of the Papists that the persons executed are but Scholars and unarmed Many are Traiters though they have no Armor nor Weapon The Application of the Scholastical Traiters to others that are Traiters without Armor Six Questions to try Traiters from Scholars The offenders executed for Treason not for Religion Unreasonable and obstinate persons are left to Gods Judgment Saunders Morton Web c.
Pamphlet set out shortly after saying Where are now the old Tyrants of the World Nero Decius Dioclesian Maxentius and the rest of the great persecutors of the Christians Where is Genserick and Hunricus with their Arrian Hereticks alluding to the State here we think both him and divers others that have written to the same effect very greatly to blame Sure we are that the general cause of Religion for the which both we and they contend as oft we have said getteth no good but hurt by it and contrary to the old saying be he never so bad yet let him have justice though some hard courses have been taken by the State against us yet hath it not by many degrees been so extreme as the Jesuits and that crew have falsely written and reported of it But to return to Father Parsons in Spain and to proceed in the course of things which have happened since 1590. The said Father Parsons so managed the said Seminary erected in Valledolyd as within three years viz. 1591. twelve or thirteen Priests were sent hither from thence Also he procured some other Seminaries to be erected in Spain and furnished them with such Students as he thought fit which for our parts we greatly commend in him if he took this pains and imployed his favour with the King to a good end whereof we have some doubt knowing the Jesuits fetches but the State here did utterly condemn him for it finding that both he and some others were plotting and labouring by all the means they could for a new Invasion Whereupon a Proclamation was set out 1591. as well for an inquiry or search for all such Seminary Priests as either were or should hereafter come from Spain as also from any other Seminaries beyond the Seas upon suspicion that they were sent hither for no other end but to prepare a way for the said Invasion Whereas we are verily perswaded in our consciences and do know it for many that the Priests themselves had no such intention whatsoever the Jesuits had that sent them Against the said Proclamation three or four have whet their Pens but still whilst they seek to disgrace and gall the State they have ever thereby wounded and beaten us being themselves in the mean time void of all danger One of them Mr. Parsons by name as we suppose writing in his said Pamphlet of the new intended Invasion mentioned in the said Proclamation telleth us That the King hath just cause to attempt again that enterprise And again he saith That the King is so interessed together with the Pope to seck as he termeth it her Majesties reformation that he the said King is bound in Justice to do it and cannot without prejudice of his high estimation and greatness refuse at the soonest opportunity to attempt it Marry withal to comfort us he writeth That the King intendeth no rigorous dealing with our Nation in the prosecution of his Invasion when he cometh hither Which great favour of the King towards us we are to ascribe to good Father Parsons if we may believe his dutiful Subject Mr. Southwell the Jesuit For thus he telleth us If ever saith he the King should prevail in that designment of his new Invasion Father Parsons assisted with Cardinal Alanes Authority hath done that in our Countries behalf for which his most bitter enemies and generally all her Majesties Subjects shall have cause to thank him for his serviceable endeavours so far hath he inclined fury to clemency and rage to compassion Sure we are greatly beholding to this good Father that hath had so kind a remembrance of us But we wish that he had rather imployed himself as a religious man in the service of God and his private meditations than thus to have busied himself in setting forward and qualifying it when he hath done so outragious a designment and do pray with all our hearts that neither we nor this Kingdom do ever fall into the hands of the Spaniards whose unspeakable cruelties in other Countries a worthy Catholick Bishop hath notably described to all posterity The same Mr. Parsons also together with his fellow Jesuit Mr. Creswell as men that pretend extraordinary love to their Country have written a large Volume against the said Proclamation wherein what malice and contempt can devise that might provoke her Majesty to indignation against us is there set out very skilfully they themselves well knowing that no other fruit or benefit could come unto us by that discourse except it were still to plague us Whilst the said Invasion was thus talked of and in preparation in Spain a shorter course was thought of if it might have had success Mr. Hesket was set on by the Jesuits 1592. or thereabouts with Father Parsons consent or knowledge to have stirred up the Earl of Derby to rebellion against her Highness Not long after good Father Holt and others with him perswaded an Irish man one Patrick Collen as he himself confessed to attempt the laying of his violent and villanous hands upon her Majesty Shortly after in the year 1593. that notable Stratagem was plotted the whole State knoweth by whom for Doctor Lopez the Queens Physician to have poysoned her for the which he was executed the year after This wicked designment being thus prevented by Gods providence the said traiterous Jesuit Holt and others did allure and animate one Yorke and Williams to have accomplished that with their bloody hands that the other purposed to have done with his poyson we mean her Majesties destruction Hereunto we might add the late villanous attempt 1599. of Edward Squire animated and drawn thereunto as he confessed by Walpole that pernicious Jesuit But we must turn again to Father Parsons whose turnings and doublings are such as would trouble a right good Hound to trace him For in the mean time that the said Traiters one after another were plotting and studying how best they might compass her Majesties death they cared not how nor by what means he the said Father Parsons so prevailed with the King as he attempted twice in two sundry years his new Invasion meaning to have proceeded therein not with such great preparation as he did at the first but only to have begun the same by taking some Port Westward toward which he came so far onward as Silley with his Fleet. At both which times God who still hath fought for her Majesty and this Realm did notably prevent him by such winds and tempests as the most of his Ships and men perished in the Sea as they were coming hitherward Furthermore the said good Father in the midst of all the said traiterous enterprises both at home and abroad devised and set forward by him and his Companions was plodding amongst his Papers and playing the Herald how if all his said wicked designments failed he might at the least intitle the King of Spain and consequently the Infanta his Daughter to the Crown and Kingdom of England To which purpose he framed and afterwards published
a Book wherewith he acquainted the Students in those Seminaries in Spain and laboured nothing more than to have their subscriptions to the said Infantaes title therein promising unto her their present Allegiance as unto their lawful Soveraign and that when they should be sent into their Country they should perswade the Catholicks there to do the like without any further expectation of the Queen of England's death as Mr. Charles Paget affirmeth in his Book against Parsons We spake of the Seminaries in Spain before somewhat suspiciously and now you see the reason that moved us so to do Besides we do not doubt but that in the perusing of this our discourse you will be assaulted with many strange cogitations concerning our full intent and meaning therein Which although it cannot chuse but that it doth already in part appear unto you yet now we come to a more clear and plain declaration of our purpose You see into what hatred the wicked attempts of the Jesuits against her Majesty and the State hath brought not only all Catholicks in general but more especially us that are secular Priests although we did ever dislike and blame them nay detest and hate them no men more For any of us to have been brought up in the Seminaries beyond the Seas hath been and still is as you know a matter here very odious and to us full of danger But by Father Parsons courses with the Seminaries in Spain and now that he is Rector of the English Seminary in Rome and so taketh upon him by his favour there to direct and command all the rest what will the State here think of the Priests that shall come from any of those Seminaries hereafter where they must be brought up according to the Jesuitical humor and sent hither with such directions as shall be thereunto agreeable The said Book of Titles compiled by Parsons is here very well known almost to the whole Realm and Mr. Charles Paget hath not been silent as touching the Infanta and the bringing up of Students to be sent hither as Priests to promote her title Sundry sharp courses have been taken already with us and many Laws are made against us But now what may we expect but all the cruelty that ever was devised against any man if the State should think both us and all other Catholicks to be either addicted or any way inclined to the advancement of any foreign Title against her Majesty or her lawful Successors And it cannot chuse but that we should thereof be the rather suspected because at this time it is well known that the infection of Jesuitism doth bear great sway in England amongst us whilst our Archpriest who taketh upon him to rule all is himself over-ruled by Garnet the Jesuit who as a most base Vassal is in every thing at the beck and command of Father Parsons For the avoiding therefore of all the further mischiefs that may ensue we first profess as before we have often done that we do utterly dislike and condemn in our consciences all the said slanderous Writings and Pamphlets which have been published to the slander of her Majesty and this Realm protesting that the Jesuitical designments beyond the Seas together with certain rebellious and traiterous attempts of some Catholicks at home have been the causes of such calamities and troubles as have happened unto us great we confess in themselves but far less we think than any Prince living in her Majesties case and so provoked would have inflicted upon us Some of us have said many a time when we have read and heard speeches of her Majesties supposed cruelty Why my Masters what would you have her to do being resolved as she is in matters of Religion except she should willingly cast off the care not only of her State and Kingdom but of her life also and Princely estimation Yea there have been amongst us of our own calling who have likewise said That they themselves knowing what they do know how under pretence of Religion the life of her Majesty and the subversion of the Kingdom is aimed at if they had been of her Highnesses Council they would have given their consent for the making of very strait and rigorous Laws to the better suppressing and preventing of all such Jesuitical and wicked designments Secondly we do all of us acknowledge that by our Learning secluding all Machiavilian Maxims Ecclesiastical persons by virtue of their calling are only to meddle with praying preaching and administring the Sacraments and such other like spiritual Functions and not to study how to murder Princes nor to licitate Kingdoms nor to intrude themselves into matters of State Successions and Invasions as Fryer George did in Pannonia to the utter ruine of that beautiful Realm Thirdly we profess our selves with all godly courage and boldness to be as sound and true Catholick Priests as any Jesuits or men living in the world and that we do not desire to draw breath any longer upon the earth than that we shall so continue but yet therewith we being born her Majesties Subjects do plainly affirm and resolutely acknowledge it without all Jesuitical equivocation that if the Pope himself as some of the Apostles did do come into this Land or if he do send hither some Fugatius and Damianus as Eleutherus did or some Augustine Laurence or Justus as Saint Gregory did we will to do them service go unto them and lye down at their feet and defend with them the Catholick faith by the sacred Scriptures and authority of the Church though it cost us our lives But if he come or send hither an Army under pretence to establish the said Catholick Religion by force and with the Sword we will ever be most ready as native born and true Subjects to her Highness with the hazard of our lives and with all our might to withstand and oppose our selves against him and to spend the best blood in our bodies in defence of the Queen and our Country For we are throughly perswaded that Priests of what order soever ought not by force of Arms to plant or water the Catholick faith but in spiritu lenitatis mansuetudinis to propagate and defend it So it was planted in the Primitive Church over all the World crescit fructificat sicut in nobis est ex quo die recepimus The ancient godly Christians though they had sufficient forces did not oppose themselves in Arms against their Lords the Emperours though of another Religion But our purpose is not to dispute this point And now lastly we commend unto you all our very right dear and beloved Brethren this our most humble Suit First that you will interpret the whole premises no otherwise than we our selves have expounded our own meaning Secondly we intreat you to remember how dear we have been unto you and that we continue our unfeigned affection towards you still assuring you that howsoever you are changed we do affect you still with a