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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66435	A vindication of the history of the gunpowder-treason and of the proceedings and matters relating thereunto, from the exceptions which have been made against it, and more especially of late years by the author of the Catholick apologie, and others : to which is added, A parallel betwixt that and the present popish plot.	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.	1681 (1681)	Wing W2741; ESTC R214885	71,695	100

Person did with caution add to the Kings Hand and Seal that it was obtained by the fraud as they said of the Scotish Secretary of State For indeed thereby hangs a tale and tho the Intrigue of this matter hath been sufficiently discovered and made evident to the World by several learned Persons yet because this Story hath bin revived not only by this Author but also by a spightful Pen amongst our selves whom I shall not be so severe upon because he lately upon his Death-bed recanted that mischievous Book I shall insert a brief account of it In the year 1598 the Lord Balmerinoch Secretary of State in Scotland at the instance of his Cousin Sir Edward Drummond a professed Papist did solicit the King to write a Letter to Clement the VIII in the behalf of the Bishop of Vaison their kinsman for a Cardinalship suggesting withal that it would be a means to secure the succession of the Crown to his Majesty But the King obstinatly refusing they did contrive to shuffle in a Letter to that purpose amongst others omitting the Titles given to the Pope and leaving room for their insertion afterwards and to wait when the King was ready to go on hunting to procure his hand to that with the rest This Letter so obtained Drummond carried to Rome but within a while this being discovered to Queen Elizabeth she in the year 1599 sent to the King about it He thereupon questions Balmerinoch who absolutely denied it and to give the King satisfaction sent for Drummond who abjured it Thus it continued till in the year 1608 when Cardinal Bellarmine undertaking to reply to the King's Apology for the Oath of Allegiance charged him with inconstancy upon the account of this Letter Balmerinoch happen'd then to come into England about other matters the first thing put to him at Royston where the King at that time was was the business of this Letter which he then confessed upon this he was remitted to Scotland and there Arraign'd and Condemn'd all the while acknowledging as he wished God to have mercy upon his Soul that his Majesty was wrongfully charged with the writing that Letter And that he was so and so it could not be an argument for the Popes kindness to the King in those Breves will be evident if it be considered 1. That in the year 1599 as above said the thing was known and the whole denied and abjured by the persons concerned which the Pope could not be ignorant of For Drummond was not only sent for over by Balmerinoch to forswear it but was notwithstanding upon suspicion imprisoned and after he had obtained his Liberty going to Rome did upon the importunity of Balmerinoch by some art procure that Letter and sent it back to the Secretary as he confessed 2. While the Pope had this Letter he did shew it to all Scotsmen that came to him enquiring if they knew the hand and suffering some to take transcripts of it which if he had not suspected he would certainly have kept to himself or communicated only to such as he could trust such a necessary secret as that was with 3. The Pope never did return an answer to his Majesty nor did at all concern himself to do what he did desire of him whereas if he had believed the Letter to be the Act of that King he would not have so far neglected the interest of the Church as to have slighted it 4. When not many years afterwards he did upon his own accord write an obliging Letter to the King he did not only omit the Title of Son c. which he doth give to all Princes of their Communion but also did not take any notice of that Letter pretended to be written which would have been a very good ground to have fastened a desired correspondence upon 5. This was the sense of the Priests upon the point for after this Parsons the Jesuit did declare that the King was an obstinate Heretick and that there was no possibility of his Conversion And Garnet when in the last days of Queen Elizabeth he was solicited by a Gentleman of his own Religion to favour the King's Title answered he would have nothing to do in it for the King was so obdurate in his Religion that there was no hopes of his Conversion Now as the Earl of Northampton then said in his Speech every one may guess that it was no sleight or ordinary degree of despair that made them renounce their portion in the Son and Heir of the renowned Mary Q. of Scots a member of the Roman Church From which it appears that this Letter was the Letter of Balmerinoch and not of King James and that the Pope had no more a respect to it in those Breves then there was in them intended a kindness to that King And from all that hath been said will also appear how little reason there is to make any other a Contriver of this Treason than the Conspirators and their own Party SECT II. More were concerned in this Conspiracy than were at that time publickly known and accused THe Author of the Catholick Apology saith that the Traitors were but thirteen Laymen viz Catesby Piercy the two Wrights Tresham Faux Keys Bates Grant Rookwood the two Winters and Digby as all Writers have it nor can any thing be more clear than that there were no more Conspirators and he is so confident as to say that no body was privy to it except Owen but these few there mentioned Where as he would clear the Jesuits of it so he is forgetful of the five Laymen besides Hall the Jesuit which suffered upon the same account at Worcester and of those that fled mentioned by Thuanus However that few were taken and convicted upon it is what with our Historians I freely acknowledg I shall further yield to this Noble Author that the Commons Lords and Privy Council were so vigilant that they left no stone unturned to find out the depth of the Plot but that no more were concerned than were discovered or that no more were discovered was because no more were really concerned is what none but such as are blinded by prejudice or biassed by being of a party can imagine This will appear if we consider the Design it it self which was not only to blow up the Parliment-House the place as Catesby said where they had done us the mischief or the persons that did there contrive it but also to strike at the root and breed a confusion fit to beget new alterations as Winter did then observe to him it was to blow up the established Religion to make thereby room for their own and to disturb the Government in order to it and this was not to be done by fourteen Lay-men tho we cast in the four Jesuits also to their assistance Whilst the Plot lay under ground and was to be carried on by Mining there needed only a few heads to

to refuse their requests It 's likely that it was given out amongst and by themselves that there was such a Petition preparing and if they could but possess their own Party by that means so as to be in expectation of it it might serve to satisfie them about any report of an Insurrection and keep them from enquiring into that which they endeavoured to keep within the breasts of a few And this will serve to give light to what I have before said at the beginning of this Section viz. That more were concerned in this Conspiracy than were at that time publickly known that is more than we read of did know of the very manner of a Plot for the destruction of the King c. as those that were to surprize the next Heir and many more of a Plot to bring in and set up their Religion by force of Arms. To this purpose it was that care was taken at the first for assistance from abroad and that a continual Negotiation was maintained with Spain by the Jesuits as Watson and Clark did depose which they said they were sure tended to nothing but a preparation for a Forraign Commotion It 's true that King James speaks favourably in this case of Forraign Princes and their Ministers but if we may believe Osborn he saith that the King of Spain had an Army then in Flanders to land in the huge mist so black a Cloud must needs have caused over the Nation and that when the people heard that his Catholick Majesty sent an Agent on purpose to Congratulate King James ' s preservation he could not tell it the Cardinal d'Ossat without laughing in his face at so palpable a piece of flattery as he conceived it to be To this purpose was it that Prayers were appointed to be used by those that were Romishly affected throughout the whole Nation as not only Osburn relates but also as it hath been this last year confirmed from Sancta Clara's c. own mouth by Mr. S. in his Depositions before the Council and is yet to be seen in a Book of theirs wrote in the beginning of King James's Reign where are many passages relating hereunto in a consolatory Psalm as it 's there called its said Confirm your hearts in hope for your Redemption draweth nigh The year of Visitation draweth to an end and Jubilation is at hand England shall be called a happy Realm a blessed Country a Religious People Those which knew the former glory of Religion shall lift up their hands for joy to see it returned again Righteousness shall prosper and Infidelity shall be plucked up by the roots Again false Error shall vanish like smoke and they which saw it shall say where is it become The Daughters of Babylon shall be cast down and in the dust lament their ruin Proud Heresie shall strike her Sail and groan as a Beast crushed under a Cart Wheel The memory of Novelties shall perish with a crack as a ruinous House falling to the ground Repent ye Seducers with speed and prevent the dreadfull Wrath of the most Powerable He will come as a flame that burneth out beyond the Furnace his fury shall fly forth as Thunder and pitch upon their tops which maligne him So in the fifth Psalm of his composure They Enemies shall perish in thy Fury and melt like wax before the fire I have repeated the more from this Book because it was made about that season and also because it 's very hard to be got From which we may observe 1. That the Jubilee they expected was very near 2. That this was to be by the destruction of their Enemies 3. That it should be such a destruction as would render the Enemies uncapable of resistance or recovery 4. The manner is as much pointed out as a thing of that nature that was a Secret and charily to be kept as such could be Heresie shall vanish like smoak the memory of Novelties shall perish with a crack he will come as a flame that burneth out beyond a Furnace c. As the time drew on so they were more secure of success and more confident and open in their expectations of it Thus it was abroad for Henry Flood a Jesuit caused the Jesuits at Lisbon to spend a great deal of Money on Powder upon a Festival day a little before the Gunpowder-Treason in England to make experiment of the force of it and perswaded one John How a Merchant whom he had perverted and diverse other Catholicks to go over into England and to expect their Redemption there as he called it a while as we have the relation of it Thus it was also at home for a few days before the appointed time Garnet meets the other Traitors at Coughton in Warwick-shire which was the place of Rendezvouz whither they resorted out of all Countreys And upon the first of November Garnet openly prayeth for the good success of the great Action concerning the Catholick Cause in the beginning of the Parliament adding these Verses of an Hymn in the end of his Prayer Gentem auferte perfidam Credentium de finibus Vt Christo laudes debitas Persolvamus alacriter This Garnet never denied but pleaded that he went thither with a purpose to disswade Mr. Catesby when he should have come down An Answer most absurd as the Earl of Salisbury replied to him seeing he knew Catesby would not come down till the 6 th of November which was the day after the Blow should have been given and Garnet went into the Country ten days before If this had been his Errand it would rather have kept him in London where Catesby was than carried him from it As to the Prayer he used he had prepared this Answer as he told Hall in their secret Conference together It is true saith he that I prayed for the good Success of that great Action but I will tell them that I meant it in respect of some sharper Laws which I feared they would then make against the Catholicks And that answer shall serve well enough In which 1. he plainly grants that he had another end in reciting that verse than he would own to them that should examine him upon it 2. It appears that the end which he did it for was what he was very much afraid to have discovered As is evident from his own Letters in one of which he saith I know not how I shall satisfie them about my Journey to Coughton and in another there is a rumour of a Sermon preached by me at Hall I am afraid it 's that which I made at Coughton And he further said to Hall If I can clear my self of this which I hope to do I care not what otherwise they have to object against me c. And can we then think that it was by chance that he recited those Verses being used in the Octaves of All-Saints day as his Apologist saith

Jacobus non est Christianus that James not vouchsafing to call him King was no Christian. Whence it appears they are not over thrifty of reproaches where there is occasion and the greatness of the person shall not protect him from them where they have a mind to bestow them But what can we expect from such as will tell us in the face of the World that Tresham was a Decoy that there were but four Gentlemen in the powder-Treason that these four were necessitous or loose persons and that if any of these were Papists or so died they were not so long before Things altogether as true as that Percy and Catesby had no weapons but their Swords and that there was little intimacy betwixt the Lord Monteagle and Percy And yet all these falshoods are to be met with in a few pages of an Advocate of theirs Such as will dare thus to contradict not only our but their own Books in such evident particulars as those above mentioned and which any one may be satisfied about in the Books referred to in the Margent when it may serve their turn Such as will not spare their own party in such a case may be presumed to sacrifice the Reputation of others without difficulty for the same end and if they can perswade us to believe these we may be brought to believe in time there was no such Plot at all and to make use of the words of a learned person if they go on in this way without the least shadow of proof to lay the contrivance of this Plot on a professed Protestant for all that I know by the next age they may hope to perswade men that it was a Plot of the Protestants to blow up a Popish King and Parliament So that for all that hath been said to the contrary we have reason to believe King James who hath published to the World that the Gunpowder-Treason was only plotted by Papists Now if we reflect upon all that hath bin said and what pains hath bin taken to make Cecil the deviser of all this mischief one would think that there was nothing else could be charged upon them and that they had never bin before concerned in any Design of this nature Who would have thought that either the Pope had issued out Breves to keep any Protestant Prince such as K. James was out of the Throne or that ever any means had bin used by this sort of men to prevent it And yet Pope Clement 8. sent two Breves one to the Laity and another to the Clergy to this purpose in which it was required that quandocunque contingeret miseram illam faeminam ex hac vita excedere whensoever it shall happen that that miserable Woman Q. Elizabeth should depart this life whosoever should lay claim or title to the Crown of England quantumcunque propinquitate sanguinis niterentur c. tho never so directly interessed therein unless they were such as would not only tolerate the Catholick Romish Religion but swear with all their endeavours to promote it they should not admit them to be King of England But these Breves saith an Author of theirs were so far from being a prejudice to King James that it was intended for his advantage for there was a Letter sent to the said Clement some two or three years before our Queens death under the King 's own Hand and Seal by the hand as they said of the Scots Secretary of State and therein his Majesty gave his Holiness assurance of his being a Catholick or to that purpose therefore the Breves could not be intended to put him by whom the Pope had already such confidence in but their drift it seems was against several English pretenders as my Lord of Hertford c. Thus far that Honourable Person But if the Pope was so much a Friend to King James as to assert his title against all his opposers whence was it that such care was otherwise taken to set up another and that such Books were written as Doleman for that purpose And whence was it that money was sent over to maintain it as Garnet himself did confess Whence came all these Prophecies of the confusion and misery that this Nation should be involved in upon the death of Queen Elizabeth And why then did the Jesuits tamper with Catholicks as well to diswade them from the acceptance of King James at his first coming saying that they ought rather to die than to admit of any Heretick to the Crown and that they might not under pain of Excommunication accept of any but a Catholick for their Sovereign as also to diswade Catholicks from their Loyalty after the State was setteled as Watson and Clark two Seminary Priests did confess upon their apprehension What ever is pleaded now I am sure King James thought otherwise who saith it may be the like excuse viz. the rashness of the Pope upon wrong Information shall hereafter he made for the two Breves which Clement 8th sent to England immediately before her death Queen Elizabeth for debarring me of the Crown or any other that either would profess or any ways tolerate the Professors of our Religion c. Catesby also was of another opinion for when Garnet seem'd to desire that the Pope's consent might be obtained to the Powder-Treason Catesby answered that he took that as granted by the Pope in the two Bulls or Breves before For if it were lawful not to receive or repel him K. James as the said Bulls do import then it is lawful also to expel and cast him out Garnet also himself had no such thoughts for instead of alledging that the King was not concerned in them he only pleads that altho he received them from the Pope yet he shewed them to very few Catholicks in the Queens time and when he had understood the Pope had changed his mind then he burnt the Bulls By which he owns that they were directed against the King or else it were no Plea for him to make that the Pope had changed his mind and no excuse for himself that he had burnt them So King James himself argues against one that made use of the same shift with our Author If the Breves did not exclude me from the Kingdom but rather did include me why did Garnet burn them why would he not receive them that I might have seen them that so he might have obtained more favour for him and his Catholicks So little was it then thought either by Friends or Foes that these Bulls were sent over on that Prince's behalf But it seems the Pope had some broad intimation given him of King James's affection both to his Holiness and his Religion our Author calls it an assurance of his being a Catholick under his own Hand and Seal And truly if it had been so I know no better Certificate could be given at that distance but this Honourable