Christendom with their noise and clamours of the dreadful Persecutions in England that Great man thought it not below him to write this Apology for the Execution of Justice here and to shew how reasonable just and moderate the Proceedings of the State were considering the height and insolence of the provocations and this was published in several Languages and dispersed in the Courts of Princes to undeceive them as to all the false reports of the Romish Emissaries who have taken upon them that publick Character of the Popes Ambassadors to lye abroad for his and their own advantage 2. But after that by the means of Cardinal Allen and others they had endeavoured to blast the reputation of that Apology and after the death of that great Minister of State the Secular Priests did publish their Important Considerations wherein they assert the Truth of what was said in the Apologie and vindicate the Honour and Justice of the Penal Laws which is the second Treatise here published and printed according to their own Copy and which hath been so much concealed or bought up by those of that Religion that it hath been heard of by sew and seen by fewer Protestants 3. And lest any should say that all those dangerous Principles to Government are since his Majesties happy Restauration utterly disowned by them I have added a third Treatise printed by one of their own Religion 1662. which charges the Jesuitical Party so deep with those Principles and Practices as to make them uncapable of any Favour If other persons will pursue the same method in retrieving such considerable Treatises as these are they may do more service to our Church and Nation than by writing Histories themselves and I shall desire the late Apologist to set these Authors of his own Church against the petty Historians he so punctually quotes on all occasions And we have so much the more reason to consider these things since in a very late Treatise called the Bleeding Iphigenia the Irish Rebellion is defended by one of the Titular Bishops to be a just and holy War and seeing they still think it lawful what can we imagine then that they want but another occasion to do the same things THE EXECVTION OF JUSTICE IN ENGLAND For maintenance of Publick and Christian Peace c. IT hath been in all Ages and in all Countries a common usage of all offenders for the most part both great and small to make defence of their lewd and unlawful facts by untruths and by colouring and covering their deeds were they never so vile with pretences of some other causes of contrary operations or effects to the intent not only to avoid punishment or shame but to continue uphold and prosecute their wicked attempts to the full satisfaction of their disordered and malicious appetites And though such hath been the use of all Offenders yet of none with more danger than of Rebels and Traytors to their lawful Princes Kings and Countries Of which sort of late years are specially to be noted certain persons naturally born Subjects in the Realm of England and Ireland who having for some good time professed outwardly their obedience to their Soveraign Lady Queen Elizabeth have nevertheless afterward been stirred up and seduced by wicked Spirits first in England sundry years past and secondly and of latter time in Ireland to enter into open Rebellion taking Arms and coming into the Field against her Majesty and her Lieutenants with their Forces under Banners displayed inducing by notable untruths many simple people to follow and assist them in their Traitorous actions And though it is very well known that both their intentions and manifest actions were bent to have deposed the Queens Majesty from her Crown and to have traiterously set in her place some other whom they liked whereby if they had not been speedily resisted they would have committed great bloodsheds and slaughters of her Majesties faithful Subjects and ruined their native Country Yet by Gods power given unto her Majesty they were so speedily vanquished as some few of them suffered by order of Law according to their deserts many and the greatest part upon Confession of their faults were pardoned the rest but they not many of the principal escaped into Foreign Countries and there because in none or few places Rebels and Traitors to their natural Princes and Countries dare for their Treasons challenge at their first muster open comfort or succour these notable Traitors and Rebels have falsly informed many Kings Princes and States and specially the Bishop of Rome commonly called the Pope from whom they all had secretly their first comfort to Rebell that the cause of their flying from their Countries was for the Religion of Rome and for maintenance of the said Popes Authority Whereas divers of them before their Rebellion lived so notoriously the most part of their lives out of all good rule either for honest manners or for any sense in Religion as they might have been rather familiar with Catalin or Favourers to Sardanapalus than accounted good Subjects under any Christian Princes As for some examples of the heads of these Rebellions out of England fled Charles Nevill Earl of Westmerland a person utterly wasted by looseness of life and by Gods punishment even in the time of his Rebellion bereaved of his Children that should have succeeded him in the Earldom and how his Body is now eaten with Ulcers of lewd causes all his Companions do see that no Enemy he had can wish him a viler punishment And out of Ireland ran away one Thomas Stukeley a defamed person almost through all Christendom and a faithless Beast rather than a Man fleeing first out of England for notable Piracies and out of Ireland for treacheries not pardonable which two were the first Ringleaders of the rest of the Rebels the one for England the other for Ireland But notwithstanding the notorious evil and wicked lives of these and others their Confederates void of all Christian Religion it liked the Bishop of Rome as in favour of their Treasons not to colour their offences as themselves openly pretend to do for avoiding of common shame of the World but flatly to animate them to continue their former wicked purposes that is to take Arms against their lawful Queen to invade her Realm with Foreign Forces to pursue all her good Subjects and their Native Countries with Fire and Sword for maintenance whereof there had some years before at sundry times proceeded in a thundring sort Bulls Excommunications and other publick Writings denouncing her Majesty being the lawful Queen and Gods anointed Servant not to be the Queen of the Realm charging and upon pains of Excommunication commanding all her Subjects to depart from their natural Allegiances whereto by birth and by Oath they were bound Provoking also and authorising all persons of all degrees within both the Realms to Rebell and upon this Antichristian Warrant being contrary to all
Ecclesiastical which opinions are nevertheless in some part by the Laws of the Realm punishable in some degrees and yet for none of these points have any persons been prosecuted with the charge of Treason or in danger of life And if then it be inquired for what cause these others have of late suffered Death it is truly to be answered as afore is often remembred that none at all are impeached for Treason to the danger of their Life but such as do obstinately maintain the contents of the Popes Bull afore-mentioned which do import that her Majesty is not the lawful Queen of England the first and highest point of Treason and that all her Subjects are discharged of their Oaths and Obedience another high point of Treason and all warranted to disobey her and her Laws a third and a very large point of Treason And thereto is to be added a fourth point most manifest in that they would not disallow the Popes hostile proceedings in open Wars against her Majesty in her Realm of Ireland where one of their Company Dr. Sanders a lewd Scholar and Subject of England a Fugitive and a principal Companion and Conspirator with the Traitors and Rebels at Rome was by the Popes special Commission a Commander as in form of a Legate and sometime a Treasurer or Pay-Master for those Wars which Dr. Sanders in his Book of his Church Monarchy did afore his passing into Ireland openly by Writing gloriously avow the foresaid Bull of Pius Quintus against her Majesty to be lawful and affirmeth that by vertue thereof one Dr. Mooreton an old English Fugitive and Conspirator was sent from Rome into the North parts of England to stir up the first Rebellion there whereof Charles Nevill the late Earl of Westmerland was a Head Captain And thereby it may manifestly appear to all men how this Bull was the ground of the Rebellions both in England and Ireland and how for maintenance thereof and for sowing of Sedition by Warrant and allowance of the same these persons were justly condemned of Treason and lawfully Executed by the ancient Laws temporal of the Realm without any other matter than for their practices and Conspiracies both abroad and at home against the Queen and the Realm and for maintaining of the Popes foresaid Authority and Bull published to deprive her Majesty of her Crown and for withdrawing and reconciling of her Subjects from their natural allegiance due to her Majesty and to their Country and for moving them to Sedition and for no other causes or questions of Religion were these persons condemned although true it is that when they were charged and convinced of these points of Conspiracies and Treasons they would still in their answers colourably pretend their actions to have been for Religion but in deed and truth they were manifest for the procurement and maintenance of the Rebellions and Wars against her Majesty and her Realm And herein is now the manifest diversity to be seen and well considered betwixt the truth of her Majesties actions and the falshood of the blasphemous Adversaries that where the factious party of the Pope the principal Author of the Invasions of her Majesties Dominions do falsly alledge that a number of persons whom they term as Martyrs have died for defence of the Catholick Religion the same in very truth may manifestly appear to have died if they so will have it as Martyrs for the Pope and Traitors against their Soveraign and Queen in adhering to him being the notable and only open hostile Enemy in all actions of War against her Majesty her Kingdoms and People and that this is the meaning of all these that have so obstinately maintained the Authority and contents of this Bull the very words of the Bull do declare in this sort as Dr. Sanders reporteth them PIus Quintus Pontifex Maximus de Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine declaravit Elizabetham praetenso Regni jure necnon omni quocunque dominio dignitate privilegioque privatam Itemque Proceres subditos populos dicti regni ac caeteros omnes qui illi quomodocunque juraverunt à juramento hujusmodi ac omni fidelitatis debito perpetuo absolutos That is to say Pius Quintus the greatest Bishop of the fulness of the Apostolick Power declared Elizabeth to be bereaved or deprived of her pretended right of her Kingdom and also of all and whatsoever Dominion Dignity and Priviledge and also the Nobles Subjects and People of the said Kingdom and all others which had sworn to her any manner of ways to be absolved for ever from such Oath and from all debt or duty of fealty and so forth with many threatning Cursings to all that durst obey her or her Laws And for Execution hereof to prove that the effect of the Popes Bull and Message was a flat Rebellion it is not amiss to hear what Dr. Sanders the Popes firebrand in Ireland also writeth in his visible Church Monarchy which is thus Pius Quintus Pontifex Maximus Anno Domini 1569. reverendum presbyterum Nicolaum Mortonum Anglum in Angliam misit ut certis illustribus viris authoritate Apostolica denunciaret Elizabetham quae tunc rerum potiebatur haereticam esse ob eamque causam omni Dominio potestate excidisse impuneque ab illis velut ethnicam haberi posse ne◠eos illius legibus aut mandatis deinceps obedire cogi That is to say Pius Quintus the greatest Bishop in the year of our Lord 1569. sent the reverend Priest Nicholas Morton an Englishman into England that he should denounce or declare by the Apostolick Authority to certain Noblemen Elizabeth who then was in possession to be an Heretick and for that cause to have fallen from all Dominion and Power and that she may be had or reputed of them as an Ethnick and that they are not to be compelled to obey her Laws or Commandments c. Thus you see an Ambassage of Rebellion from the Popes Holiness the Ambassadour an old doting English Priest a Fugitive and Conspirator sent as he saith to some Noblemen and those were the two Earls of Northumberland and Westmerland Heads of the Rebellion And after this he followeth to declare the success thereof which I dare say he was sorry it was so evil with these words Qua denuntiatione multi nobiles viri adducti sunt ut de fratribus liberandis cogitare auderent ac sperabant illi quidem Catholicos omnes summis viribus affuturos esse verùm etsi aliter quà m illi expectabant res evenit quià Catholici omnes nondum probè cognoverant Elizabetham haereticam esse declaratam tamen laudanda illorum Nobilium consilia erant That is By which denuntiation many Noblemen were induced or led that they were boldned to think of the freeing of their Brethren and they hoped certainly that all the Catholicks would have assisted them with all their strength but although the matter happened
Christendom would like or tolerate any such Subjects within their Dominions if possibly they could be rid of them The duty we owe to our Soveraigns doth not consist in taciturnity or keeping close within our selves such Allegiance as we think sufficient to afford them but we are especially when we are required thereunto to make open profession of it that we may appear unto them to be such Subjects as we ought to be and as they may rely upon if either their Kingdoms or safeties be in hazard or danger And we greatly marvel that any Jesuits should be so hard laced concerning the performance of their duties towards the Fathers and Kings of those Countries where they were born and whose Vassals they are considering unto what obedience they tye themselves toward their own general provincial and other Governors unto whom they were no way tied but by their own consents and for that it hath pleased them voluntarily to submit themselves unto them If a quarrel should fall out for example betwixt the Jesuits and the Dominicans it would seem a very strange matter to the Provincial or General of that Society to be driven to be demanded of a Jesuit which part he would take But therewith we have not to intermeddle only we wish that whilst they look for so great subjection at those mens hands that be under them they do not forget their own Allegiance towards their Soveraigns or at the least so demean themselves as we poor men every way their equals and as sound Catholicks as themselves that we go no further may not be brought into hatred with her Majesty unto whom we profess all duty and true allegiance let other men qualifie the same as they list About the time of the overthrow of the Popes Forces in Ireland his Holiness by the false instigations of the Jesuits plotted with the King of Spain for the assistance of the Duke of Guise to enterprise upon the sudden a very desperate designment against her Majesty and for the delivery and advancement to the Crown of the Queen of Scotland For the better effecting whereof Mendoza the Jesuit and Ledger for the King of Spain in England set on work a worthy Gentleman otherwise one Mr. Francis Throckmorton and divers others And whilst the same was in contriving as afterwards Mr. Throckmorton himself confessed 1584. the said Jesuitical humor had so possessed the hearts of sundry Catholicks as we do unfeignedly rue in our hearts the remembrance of it and are greatly ashamed that any person so intituled should ever have been so extremely bewitched Two Gentlemen about that time also viz. Anno 1583. Mr. Arden and Mr. Somervile were convicted by the Laws of the Realm to have purposed and contrived how they might have laid violent hands upon her Majesties sacred person Mr. Somerviles confession therein was so notorious as it may not be either qualified or denied And Doctor Parry the very same year was plotting with Jesuits beyond the Seas how he might have effected the like villany How the worthy Earl of Northumberland was about this time brought into the said Plot of the Duke of Guise then still in hand we will pretermit Mr. Parsons that was an Actor in it could tell the story very roundly at Rome It wrought the noble Earls overthrow 1585. which may justly be ascribed to the Jesuitical practices of the Jesuit Mendoza and others of that crew Hereunto we might add the notable Treasons of Mr. Anthony Babington and his Complices in the year 1586. which were so apparent as we were greatly abashed at the shameless boldness of a young Jesuit who to excuse the said Traiters and qualifie their offences presumed in a kind of supplication to her Majesty to ascribe the plotting of all that mischief to Mr. Secretary Walsingham The treachery also of Sir William Standley the year following 1587. in falsifying his faith to her Majesty and in betraying the trust committed unto him by the Earl of Leicester who had given him the honourable Title of Knighthood as it was greatly prejudicial to us that were Catholicks at home so was the defence of that disloyalty made by a worthy man but by the perswasions as they think of Parsons greatly disliked of many both wise and learned And especially it was wondred at a while until the drift thereof appeared more manifestly in the year 1588. that the said worthy person by the said lewd Jesuits laid down this for a ground in justifying of the said Standley viz. That in all Wars which may happen for Religion every Catholick man is bound in conscience to imploy his person and forces by the Popes direction viz. How far when and where either at home or abroad he may and must break with his temporal Soveraign These things we would not have touched had they not been known in effect to this part of the World and that we thought it our duties to shew our own dislike of them and to clear her Majesty so far as we may from such imputations of more than barbarous cruelty towards us as the Jesuits in their writings have cast by heaps upon her they themselves as we still think in our consciences and before God having been from time to time the very causes of all the calamities which any of us have endured in England since her Majesties reign Which we do not write simply to excuse her Highness although we must confess we can be contented to endure much rather than to seek her dishonour but for that we think few Princes living being perswaded in Religion as her Majesty is and so provoked as she hath been would have dealt more mildly with such their Subjects all circumstances considered than she hath done with us But now we are come to the year 1588. and to that most bloody attempt not only against her Majesty and our common Enemies but against our selves all Catholicks nay against this flourishing Kingdom and our own native Country The memory of which attempt will be as we trust an everlasting Monument of Jesuitical Treason and Cruelty For it is apparent in a Treatise penned by the advice of Father Parsons altogether as we do verily think that the King of Spain was especially moved and drawn to that intended mischief against us by the long and daily solicitations of the Jesuits and other English Catholicks beyond the Seas affected and altogether given to Jesuitism And whereas it is well known that the Duke of Medina Sidonia had given it out directly that if once he might land in England both Catholicks and Hereticks that came in his way should be all one to him his Sword could not discern them so he might make way for his Master all was one to him yet the said Father Parsons for so we will ever charge him though another man by his crafty perswasion took upon him to be the Author of that Book did labour with all the Rhetorick he had to have perswaded us upon the supposed arrival of the
up Priests out of our own Universities and from among the Ministers themselves remain they as yet never so stiff or hard against us And thus commending both you and our cause to God and our selves to your good favours and charitable prayers we take our leaves and end this tedious discourse more profitable and pleasing to God we trust than acceptable or grateful to many which we can be but sorry for Your true Friends the secular Priests Whatsoever is written or contained in these Books we submit all to the censure and judgment of our holy Mother the Catholick Church FINIS THE JESUITS REASONS Unreasonable OR DOUBTS Proposed to the JESUITS Upon their Paper presented to divers Persons of Honour for Non-Exception from the Common Favour Voted to CATHOLICKS JON. 1. 12. Tollite me mittiâ—e in mare cessabit mare à vobis scio enim ego quoniam propter me tempestas haec grandis venit super vos LONDON Printed Anno Dom. M DC LXII REASONS why the Jesuits hope that they should partake of the favor shewed to other Priests in taking away the Sanguinary Laws THE same Reasons which moved the Peers to take away the Sanguinary Laws from other Priests may move them also to take them away in respect of the Jesuits for the Jesuits are free born Subjects as well as others they have been as faithful to His Majesty as others they are of tender Consciences as well as others The Jesuits all along have been furtherers of the King and Actors also as far as their Function beareth that is they were in the Camp where some of them were killed others imprisoned most of them lost their nearest Relations in the War and in a manner all had their Friends undone for the King All those that depended on the Jesuits stood constant for the King even to death amongst these were some signal persons as Sir Henry Gage Sir John Smith Sir John Digby and others who having been formerly Scholars of the Jesuits were actually when they dyed Penitents of the Jesuits and Mr. Peter Wright who was executed at Tyburn for a Jesuit was particularly maligned because he was Sir Henry Gage his Priest As for Noble persons who lost great Estates and endured much hardship for his Majesty the late Duchess of Buckingham the late Marquess of Worcester the late Earl of Shrewsbury were Penitents of the Society as other prime Nobility yet in being Now whereas two things are objected against the Jesuits they are both easily answered First it is objected that the Jesuits teach the Doctrine of the Pope deposing Kings It is answered That no Community can be less accused of that Doctrine than the Jesuits It 's true four or five Jesuits did many years ago teach that Doctrine as they had found it taught by others ancienter than their Order But since the first of January 1616. the General of the Jesuits forbade any of his to teach preach or dispute for that Doctrine or print any thing for it to take away the aspersion which the Writings of some few have brought upon the Society And now actually all Jesuits are obliged under pain of damnation not to teach that Doctrine either in word writing or print which none in the Church but they only are Secondly 'T is objected that the Jesuits do particularly depend on the Pope It is answered That they are obliged by a particular Vow to be ready to go even to the utmost bounds of the Earth to preach the Gospel to Infidels when the Pope shall think it fit to send them and they have no other Vow which doth particularly oblige them but this which can prejudice no Kingdom On the other side speaking of their dependence which may byass their affections they have the least dependence of the Pope of any Church-men for they are by special Vow excluded from all Benefices and Dignities by which the Pope may win the affection of other Church-men As for what is said of the Venetians and French banishing the Jesuits it is answered that both those Estates have repealed their Acts. Lastly That the Jesuits being willing to submit to whatsoever all other Catholick Priests shall agree to and offering all the security which others offer they hope they may be partakers of the same favours which shall be granted to others that so that mercy may extend to all and the World may see that the Sanguinary Laws are truly taken away PREFACE I Expect Censures and Clamours as loud as can be against me of uncharitable uncatholick unchristian c. for seeming to lay load upon the already oppressed and contribute to and even provoke a persecution against our Fellow Catholicks I think I have said my worst against my self let me see how I can justifie my action Premising therefore that the case of you Jesuits is apprehended by your selves and your Abettors already desperate and your Exclusion remediless and so cannot be said to spring from this paper of mine I address to my Defence and offer my Motives why I publish this little Treatise against you My first is To wipe off the aspersion laid upon Gods Church by some Tenets of yours and strongly fastened on it by your haughty calling only your selves the Catholick Church and all dissenters from your Tenets Hereticks My second Because I understand you are about to make the Common good stoop to the Particular one of your Order as is your constant practice contrary to the Law of Nature and Principles of Christianity For I have been informed that you in a boasting manner affirm the Parliament will proceed no farther about taking away the Sanguinary Laws and that some friends of yours endeavour to make it believed that it is not for his Majesties interest to make good his solemn promise from Breda of having regard to tender Consciences My third is Your stomachful frustrating my expectation For I was really glad when I heard you had published Apologetical Reasons why you should not be excepted hoping you would sincerely renounce the criminal Doctrines and Actions of your Predecessors and free Religion from scandal But finding no such thing per verba de praesenti but on the contrary a comparing and preferring your selves before others I thought my self obliged to do right to the Common Cause My fourth To oblige you to repentance and a hearty retractation of your unlawful Tenets and Practices that so you may deserve and have as much favour as others which is the worst I wish you and not to wrong your own Credits and Consciences and fool others with dissembling shews of loyalty which every one may see to be mere hypocrisie My fifth Because I owe that duty to the Civil Magistrate whose hearty Subject I am to resent a mockery put upon him as this your paper will appear to be under colour of offering satisfaction Every true hearted Subject owing his best endeavour to his King and Country that none lurk among them unless their faltring Principles of Aequivocation and
the World at the length may bear us witness how much we detest them from our hearts and abhor them Whilst we had any hope that these Political Fathers as they joy to be termed would at the last have reclaimed themselves and grown more tractable and moderate in their designments against our Soveraign and Native Country we were silent in respect of the common Cause and very well content to undergo many inconveniences and miseries which we might have avoided as we are perswaded if we had sooner opened our selves and professed our said detestation of such their no way Priestly but very irreligious courses whereby the State hath been most justly irritated and provoked against us For when we consider on the one side what we know our selves concerning the Laws made of later years with the occasions of them and likewise as touching the proceedings of the State here since the beginning of her Majesties Reign as well against us that are Priests as also against other Catholicks of the Laity and do find on the other side what practices under the pretence of Religion have been set on foot for the utter subversion both of the Queen and of her Kingdom and therewith further call to mind what sundry Jesuits and men wholly for the time or altogether addicted to Jesuitism have written and published to the World in sundry Treatises not only against the said Laws and course of Justice but in like sort against her chief Counsellors and which exceedeth all the rest against the Royal person of her Majesty her Honour Crown and most Princely Scepter it may in our opinions be rather wondred that so many Catholicks of both sorts are left alive in the Realm to speak of the Catholick Faith than that the State hath proceeded with us from time to time as it hath done It may seem strange to some that these things should proceed from us that are Priests but divers of you can bear us witness that they are no new conceits bred in us by reason of the opposition we have with the Jesuits and besides no small number of Catholicks as we are perswaded have long expected this duty at your hands that thereby our Allegiance and Fidelity to our Queen and Country might be the better testified the hard opinion of us mitigated our actions and profession of duty better credited the cause we stand for more regarded and we our selves for our plain dealing and for the good of the Church might be the better reputed of and esteemed or at the least in some sort born with and tolerated as men that do distinguish between Religion and Treason We wish with all our hearts and groan every day at the contrary that her Majesty had continued in her obedience to the See Apostolick as Queen Mary her Sister of famous memory had left her a worthy Example but seeing that God for our sins would have it otherwise we ought to have carried our selves in another manner of course towards her our true and lawful Queen and towards our Country than hath been taken and pursued by many Catholicks but especially by the Jesuits And therefore as well to discharge our own consciences as to satisfie many of you of the moderater sort of Catholicks according to the old saying Better late than never we have thought it our parts being her Highness natural born Subjects to acknowledge the truth of the carriage of matters against us and the apparent causes of it that the blame may indeed from point to point light and lie where it ought to do and both sides bear no other than their own burthens as the Laws both of God and man do require If hereby her Majesty may in any sort be appeased and the State satisfied our own former courses bettered and the Realm secured that the like shall never hereafter be attempted or favoured by any of us but be revealed if we know them and withstood if they be enterprised with all our goods and our lives even to our uttermost ability be their pretences never so fair for Religion or what else can be devised we shall think our selves happy and will not regard what all the malice and spite of the Jesuits can work or effect against us It cannot be denied but that for the first ten years of her Majesties Reign the state of Catholicks in England was tolerable and after a sort in some good quietness Such as for their consciences were imprisoned in the beginning of her coming to the Crown were very kindly and mercifully used the state of things then considered Some of them were appointed to remain with such their friends as they themselves made choice of Others were placed some with Bishops some with Deans and had their diet at their Tables with such convenient Lodgings and Walks for their recreation as did well content them They that were in the ordinary Prisons had such liberty and other commodities as the places would afford not inconvenient for men that were in their cases But that our Brethren of the more fiery and Jesuitical humour may not snuff hereat we have thought it meet to cool their heat with some of Master Parsons and his Fellow Master Creswels more gentle delays than are usual with them who in one of their Books do confess as much in effect as here we have set down if not more thus these great Emperour-like Jesuits do speak to her Majesty In the beginning of thy Kingdom thou didst deal somthing more gently with Catholicks none were then urged by thee or pressed either to thy Sect or to the denial of their Faith All things indeed did seem to proceed in a far milder course no great complaints were heard of there were seen no extraordinary contentions or repugnancies Some there were that to please and gratifie you went to your Churches But when afterwards thou didst begin to wrong them c. And when was that our great Monseigneurs Surely whensoever it was to answer for you we our selves certain Catholicks of all sorts were the true causes of it For whilst her Majesty and the State dealt with the Catholicks as you have heard which was full eleven years no one Catholick being called in question of his life for his conscience all that time consider with us how some of our profession proceeded with them Her Highness had scarcely felt the Crown warm upon her head but it was challenged from her by some of her Neighbours as Master Saunders noteth The French were sent into Scotland to do somewhat you may be sure which concerned her Majesty the circumstances consisidered to look unto Afterwards certain matters were undertaken by her Majesty in France and the Affairs in Scotland did so proceed as that the Queen there was compelled 1567. to flie into England where for a great time she was very honourably entertained her liberty only excepted But with these matters what had we to do that were either Priests or private men If either France or Scotland had cause to
repine or complain some of those Nations might have done written and spoken as it had pleased them It little became either Master Saunders otherwise an excellent man or Master Parsons or any other of our own Nation to have intermedled with those matters or to write as they have very offensively done in divers of their Books and Treatises to what purpose we know not except it were to shew their malice to dishonour their own Country as much as lay in them and to move a greater dislike in the State of all that be Catholicks than before they had Kings ever have had and will have their plots and practices for their own safeties it being as inconvenient to their Policy for one Prince by his Might to over-top another as it is amongst the principal members of our natural bodies for one member to swell or grow too great above his due proportion Happy had we Catholicks been at this day if these men being Priests had never troubled themselves with State-matters which they have managed as Phaeton did his Fathers Chariot very greatly to our prejudice Let them pretend never so great skill in their disposing of Kingdoms ordine ad Deum they have certainly dealt with ours ordine ad Gehennam But this is not all which the State may justly challenge us for In the time of our said Peace and upon the coming into England of the Queen of Scots whilst her Majesty of England and the State were busied as partly you have heard before it pitieth our hearts to see and read what hath been printed and published out of Italy in the life of Pius Quintus concerning his Holiness endeavors stirred up by false suggestions to joyn with the King of Spain for the utter ruine and overthrow both of our Prince and Country Would to God such things had never been enterprised and most of all that they had never been printed We that have some skill with our Pens presume too much a great deal upon our own Wits What good the mentioning of these points can bring to the Church we see not but sure we are it hath done much hurt and given our common Enemies very great advantage against us For now it is usually objected unto us by every one of any reach when we complain of some hard dealings towards us Yea say they very well good Masters were you not in quiet Who then gave the cause that you were troubled When her Majesty used you kindly how treacherously was she dealt with by you Did not Pius Quintus practise her Majesties subversion she good Lady never dreaming of any such mischief Was not one Robert Ridolphi a Gentleman of Florence sent hither by the Pope under colour of Merchandize to sollicite a Rebellion Did not Pius Quintus move the King of Spain to joyn in this Exploit for the better securing of his own Dominions in the Low Countries Was not the Bull denounced against her Majesty that carrieth so fair a Preface of zeal and pastoral duty devised purposely to further the intended Rebellion for the depriving of her Majesty from her Kingdom Had not the Pope and King of Spain assigned the Duke of Norfolk to be the Head of this Rebellion Did not the Pope give order to Ridolphi to take 150000 Crowns to set forward this attempt Was not some of that Money sent for Scotland and some delivered to the said Duke Did not King Philip at the Popes instance determine to send the Duke of Alva into England with all his Forces in the Low Countries to assist the Duke of Norfolk Are all these things true and were they not then in hand whilst her Majesty dealt so mercifully with you How can you excuse these designments so unchristian so unpriestly so treacherous and therefore so un-prince-like When we first heard these particulars we did not believe them but would have laid our lives they had been false but when we saw the Book and found them there God is our witness we were much amazed and can say no more but that his Holiness was misinformed and indirectly drawn to these courses But to proceed it being unknown to the State what secret matters were in hand against them both at home and beyond the Seas the Catholicks here continued in sort as before you have heard till the said Rebellion brake forth in the North 1569. a little before Christmas and that it was known that the Pope had excommunicated the Queen and thereby freed her Subjects as the Bull importeth from their subjection And then there followed a great restraint of the said Prisoners but none of them were put to death upon that occasion the Sword being then only drawn against such Catholicks as had risen up actually into open Rebellion Wherein we cannot see what her Majesty did that any Prince in Christendom in such a case would not have done And as touching the said Bull many both Priests and Lay Catholicks have greatly wished that it had never been decreed denounced published or heard of For we are perswaded that the Pope was drawn thereunto by false suggestions of certain undiscreet turbulent persons who pretending to him one thing had another drift in their heads for their own advancement And therefore we have ever accounted of it as a sentence procured by surreption knowing it to be no unusual thing with the Pope through indirect means and factious heads to be often deceived in matters of Fact as we now find it in the setting up of our new Arch-Priest Now upon all these occasions her Majesty being moved with great displeasure called a Parliament in the thirteenth year of her Reign 1571. wherein a Law was made containing many branches against the bringing into this Land after that time of any Bulls from Rome any Agnus Dei Crosses or Pardons and against all manner of persons that should procure them to be so brought hither with many other particularities thereunto appertaining Which Law although we hold it to be too rigorous and that the pretended remedy exceeded the measure of the offence either undutifully given or in justice to have been taken yet we cannot but confess as reasonable men that the State had great cause to make some Laws against us except they should have shewed themselves careless for the continuance of it But be the Law as any would have it never so extreme yet surely it must be granted that the occasions of it were most outragious and likewise that the execution of it was not so tragical as many since have written and reported of it For whatsoever was done against us either upon the pretence of that Law or of any other would never we think have been attempted had not divers other preposterous occasions besides the causes of that Law daily fallen out amongst us which procured matters to be urged more severely against us In the year 1572. out cometh Master Saunders Book de visibili Monarchia wherein he taketh upon him to set down how the Pope had