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 hen 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 beging 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 If 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 Crows 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 Counries 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 Christimas 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 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 tem 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
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 himsef 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 Jestus 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 fruct ificat 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 true and jealous love in Christ Jesu Thirdly we desire you by the mercies of God to take heed of Novelties and Jesuitism for it is nothing but treacher dissimulation ambition and a very vizard of most deep hypocrisie When other Kingdoms begin to loath them why should you so far debase your selves as to admire them Give us not occasion to say with the blessed Apostle You foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you Fourthly never give ear to any private Whisperers or Jesuitical perswasions that shall tend to allure you from your duties and allegiance unto her Majesty or your native Country All arguments that can be brought to corrupt you in either assure your selves are false and unlearned sophistications The Catholick faith for her stability and continuance hath no need of any treachery or rebellion The promise made to S. Peter is her sure ground and is more dishonoured with treasons and wicked policies of carnal men than any way furthered or advanced The word of the spirit and not the sword of the flesh or any arm of man is that which giveth life and beauty to the Catholick Church We are fully perswaded in our consciences and as men besides our Learning who have some experience that if the Catholicks had never sought by indirect means to have vexed her Majesty with their designments against her Crown if the Pope and King of Spain had never plotted with the Duke of Norfolk if the Rebels in the North had never been heard of if the Bull of Pius Quintus had never been known if the said Rebellion had never been justified if neither Stukeley nor the Pope had attempted any thing against Ireland if Gregory the Thirteenth had not renewed the said Excommunication if the Jesuits had never come into England if the Pope and King of Spain had not practised with the Duke of Guise for his attempt against her Majesty if Parsons and the rest of the Jesuits with other our Country-men beyond the Seas had never been Agents in those traiterous and bloody designments of Throckmorton Parry Collen York Williams Squire and such like If they had not by their Treatises and Writings endeavoured to defame their Soveraign and their own Country labouring to have many of their Books to be translated into divers languages thereby to shew more their own disloyalty if Cardinal Alane and Parsons had not published the renovation of the said Bull by Xistus Quintus if thereunto they had not
the Queens Majesty doth now use a manifest lie and untruth And for proof that these foresaid Bishops and learned men had so long time disavowed the Popes Authority many of their Books and Sermons against the Popes Authority remain printed to be seen in these times to their great shame and reproof to change so often and specially in persecuting such as themselves have taught and established to hold the contrary There were also and yet be a great number of others A great number of Lay persons of livelyhood being of a contrary Religion never charged with capital Crime being Lay-men of good possessions and Lands men of good credit in their Countries manifestly of late times seduced to hold contrary opinions in Religion for the Popes Authority and yet none of them have been sought hitherto to be impeached in any point or quarrel of Treason or of loss of Life Member or Inheritance so as it may plainly appear that it is not nor hath been for contrarious opinions in Religion or for the Popes Authority as the Adversaries do boldly and falsly publish that any persons have suffered Death since her Majesties Reign and yet some of these sort are well known to hold opinion that the Pope ought by Authority of Gods word to be Supream and only Head of the Catholick Church and only to rule in all causes Ecclesiastical and that the Queens Majesty ought not to be the Governour over all her Subjects in her Realm being persons Ecclesiastical which opinions are nevertheless in some part by the Laws of the Realm punishable in some degrees No person charged with capital Crime for the only maintenance of the Popes Supremacy 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 Such Condemned only for Treason as maintain the effects of the Popes Bull against her Majesty and the Realm 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 hat 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 Dr. Sanders maintenance of the Popes Bull. 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 The persons that suffered Death were Condemned for Treason and not for Religion 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 mainenance 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 A full proof that the maintainers of the Bull are directly guilty of Treason 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 jue 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 Dr. Mortons secret Ambassage from Rome to stir the Rebellion in the
Master of Truth said to Peter and his fellow-Apostles Reges gentium dominantur vos autem non sic That is The Kings of the Gentiles have rule over them but you not so may learn to forsake their arrogant and tyrannous Authorities in earthly and temporal causes over Kings and Princes and exercise their Pastoral Office as St. Peter was charged thrice at one time by his Lord and Master Pasce oves meas Feed my sheep and peremptorily forbidden to use a Sword in saying to him Converte gladium tuum in locum suum or mitte gladium tuum in vaginam That is Turn thy Sword into his place or Put thy Sword into the scabbard All which Precepts of Christ and his Apostles were duly followed and observed many hundred years after their death by the faithful and godly Bishops of Rome that duly followed the doctrine and humility of the Apostles and the doctrine of Christ and thereby dilated the limits of Christs Church and the Faith more in the compass of an hundred years than the latter Popes have done with their Swords and Curses these five hundred years Pope Hildebrand the first that made War against the Emperor An. Dom. 1074. and so continued untill the time of one Pope Hildebrand otherwise called Gregory the Seventh about the year of our Lord 1074. who first began to usurp that kind of Tyranny which of late the Pope called Pius Quintus and since that time Gregory now the Thirteenth hath followed for some example as it seemeth that is Where Gregory the Seventh in the year of our Lord 1074. or thereabout presumed to depose Henry the Fourth a noble Emperour then being Gregory the Thirteenth now at this time would attempt the like against King Henry the Eighth's Daughter and Heir Queen Elizabeth a Soveraign Queen holding her Crown immediately of God And to the end it may appear to Princes or to their good Counsellors in one example what was the fortunate success that God gave to this good Christian Emperour Henry against the proud Pope Hildebrand it is to be noted that when the Pope Gregory attempted to depose this noble Emperour Henry there was one Rodulph a Noble man by some named the Count of Reenfield that by the Popes procurement usurped the name of the Emperour The Judgement of God against the Popes false erected Emperour who was overcome by the said Henry the lawful Emperour and in fight having lost his right hand he the said Rodulph lamented his case to certain Bishops who in the Popes name had erected him up and to them he said that the self-same right hand which he had lost was the hand wherewith he had before sworn obedience to his Lord and Master the Emperour Henry and that in following their ungodly Counsels he had brought upon him Gods heavy and just Judgments And so Henry the Emperour prevailing by Gods power Pope Gregory the Seventh deposed by Henry IV. caused Gregory the Pope by a Synod in Italy to be deposed as in like times before him his Predecessor Otho the Emperour had deposed one Pope John for many hainous crimes and so were also within a short time three other Popes namely Sylvester Bennet and Gregory the Sixth used by the Emperour Henry the Third about the year of our Lord 1047. for their like presumptuous attempts in temporal actions against the said Emperours Many other examples might be shewed to the Emperours Majesty and the Princes of the holy Empire now being after the time of Henry the Fourth as of Henry the Fifth Henry 5. Frederick 1. Frederick 3. Lewis of Banar Emperours and after him of Frederick the First and Frederick the Second and then of Lewis of Bavar all Emperours cruelly and tyrannously persecuted by the Popes and by their Bulls Curses and by open Wars and likewise to many other the great Kings and Monarchs of Christendom of their noble Progenitors Kings of their several Dominions whereby they may see how this kind of tyrannous Authority in Popes to make Wars upon Emperours and Kings and to command them to be deprived took hold at the first by Pope Hildebrand though the same never had any lawful example or warrant from the Laws of God of the Old or New Testament but yet the successes of their tyrannies were by Gods goodness for the most part made frustrate as by Gods goodness there is no doubt but the like will follow to their confusions at all times to come And therefore as there is no doubt but the like violent tyrannous proceedings by any Pope in maintenance of Traiters and Rebels would be withstood by every Soveraign Prince in Christendom in defence of their Persons and Crowns and maintenance of their Subjects in Peace so is there at this present a like just cause that the Emperours Majesty with the Princes of the holy Empire Whatsoever is lawful for other Princes Soveraigns is lawful for the Queen and Crown of England and all other Soveraign Kings and Princes in Christendom should judge the same to be lawful for her Majesty being a Queen and holding the very place of a King and a Prince Soveraign over divers Kingdoms and Nations she being also most lawfull invested in her Crown and as for good governing of her People with such applause and general allowance loved and obeyed of them saving a few ragged Traiters or Rebels or persons discontented whereof no other Realm is free as continually for these twenty five years past hath been notably seen and so publickly marked even by strangers repairing into this Realm as it were no cause of disgrace to any Monarchy and King in Christendom to have her Majesties felicity compared with any of theirs whatsoever and it may be there are many Kings and Princes could be well contented with the fruition of some proportion of her felicity And though the Popes be now suffered by the Emperor in the Lands of his own peculiar Patrimony and by the two great Monarchs the French King and the King of Spain in their Dominions and Territories although by other Kings not so allowed to continue his Authority in sundry cases and his glorious Title to be the universal Bishop of the World The Title of universal Bishop is a Preamble of Antichrist which Title Gregory the Great above nine hundred years past called a profane Title full of Sacriledge and a Preamble of Antichrist yet in all their Dominions and Kingdoms as also in the Realm of England most notably by many ancient Laws it is well known how many ways the tyrannous Power of this his excessive Authority hath been and still is restrained checked and limited by Laws and Pragmatiques both ancient and new a very large field for the Lawyers of those Countries to walk in and discourse And howsoever the Popes Canonists being as his Bombarders do make his Excommunications and Curses appear fearful to the multitude and simple people yet all great Emperours and Kings aforetime in their own cases
neither their titles nor their apparel doth make them Traiters but their traiterous secret motions and practices their persons make not the War but their directions and counsels have set up the Rebellions The very causes final of these Rebellions and Wars have been to depose her Majesty from her Crown the causes instrumental are these kind of Seminaries and Seed-men of Sedition the fruits and effects thereof are by Rebellion to shed the blood of all her faithful Subjects the rewards of the Invaders if they could prevail should be the disinheriting of all the Nobility the Clergy and the whole Commonalty that would as they are bound by the Laws of God by their Birth and Oaths defend their natural gracious Queen their native Country their Wives their Children their Family and their Houses And now examine these which you call your unarmed Scholars and Priests wherefore they lied and were conversant in company of the principal Rebels and Traiters at Rome and in other places where it is proved that they were partakers of their Conspiracies Let it be answered why they came thus by stealth into the Realm why they have wandered up and down in corners in disguised sort changing their titles names and manner of apparel Why they have enticed and sought to perswade by their secret false reasons the people to allow and believe all the actions and attempts whatsoever the Pope hath done or shall do to be lawful Why they have reconciled and withdrawn so many people in corners from the Laws of the Realm to the obedience of the Pope a Foreign Potentate and open Enemy whom they know to have already declared the Queen to be no lawful Queen to have maintained the known Rebels and Traiters to have invaded her Majesties Dominions with open War Examine further how these vagrant disguised unarmed Spies have answered when they were taken and demanded what they thought of the Bull of Pope Pius Quintus Six Questions to try Traiters from Scholars which was published to deprive the Queens Majesty and to warrant her Subjects to disobey her whether they thought that all Subjects ought to obey the same Bull and so to rebel Secondly whether they thought her Majesty to be the lawful Queen of the realm notwithstanding the said Bull or any other Bull of the Pope Thirdly whether the Pope might give such licence as he did to the Earls of Northumberland and Westmerland and other her Majesties Subjects to rebel as they did or give power to D. Sanders a natural born Subject but an unnatural worn Priest to take Arms and move Wars as he did in Ireland Fourthly whether the Pope may discharge the Subjects of her Majesty or of any other Princes Christened of their Oaths of obedience Fifthly whether the said traiterous Priest D. Sanders or one Bristow a rebellious Figitive did in their Books write truly or falsely in approving the said Bull of Pius Quintus and the Contents thereof Lastly what were to be done if the Pope or any other assigned by him would invade the Realm of England and what part they would take or what part any faithful Subject of her Majesties ought to take To these questions very apt to try the truth or falsehood of any such seditious persons being justly before condemned for their disloyalty these lewd unarmed Traiters I say would no wise answer directly hereto as all other faithful Subjects to any Prince Christian ought to do And as they upon refusal to answer directly to these questions only might have been justly convinced as guilty of Treason so yet were they not thereupon condemned The offenders executed for Treason not â—or Religion but upon all their other former actions committed both abroad and in her Realm which were no less traiterous than the actions of all other the Spies and Traiters and of Judas himself afore remembred which had no Armor nor Weapon and yet at all times ought to be adjudged Traiters For these disguised persons called Scholars or Priests having been first conversant of long time with the Traiters beyond the Sea in all their Conspiracies came hither by stealth in time of War and Rebellion by commandment of the Capital Enemy the Pope or his Legates to be secret Espials and Explorers in the Realm for the Pope to deliver by secret Romish tokens as it were an earnest or prest to them that should be in readiness to joyn with Rebels or open Enemies and in like sort with their hallowed baggages from Rome to poyson the senses of the Subjects pouring into their hearts malicious and pastilent opinions against her Majesty and the Laws of the Realm and also to kindle and set on fire the hearts of discontented Subjects with the flames of Rebellion and to search and sound the depths and secrets of all mens inward intentions either against her Majesty or for her and finally to bring into a Bead-roll or as it were into a Muster-roll the names and powers with the dwellings of all that should be ready to rebel and to aid the Foreign Invasion These kinds of seditious actions for the service of the Pope and the Traiters and Rebels abroad have made them Traiters not their Books nor their Beads no nor their Cakes of Wax which they call Agnus Dei nor other their Reliques nor yet their Opinions for the ceremonies or Rites of the Church of Rome and therefore it is to be certainly concluded that these did justly deserve their capital punishments as Traiters though they were not apprehended with open Armor or Weapon Now if this latter repetition as it were of all the former causes reasons afore-recited may not serve to stop the boisterous mouths and the pestiferous tongues and venemous breaths of these that are infected with so gross errors as to defend seditious Subjects stirrers of Rebellion against their natural Prince and Country Unreasonable and obstinate persons are left to Gods Judgment then are they to be left without any further argument to the Judgment of the Almighty God as persons that have covered their eyes against the Suns light stopped their ears against the sound of Justice and oppressed their hearts against the force of reason and as the Psalmist saith They speak lyes they are as venemous as the poyson of a Serpent even like the deaf Adder that stoppeth his ears Wherefore with charity to conclude if these Rebels and Traiters and their Fautors would yet take some remorse and compassion of their natural Country and would consider how vain their attempts have been so many years and how many of their Confederates are wasted by miseries and calamities and would desist from their unnatural practices abroad and if these Seminaries secret Wanderers and Explorators in the dark would imploy their travels in the works of Light and Doctrine according to the usage of their Schools and content themselves with their Profession and Devotion and that the remnant of the wicked flock of the Seed-men of Sedition would ease from
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 proceedings 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 overruled by us Saunders Morten Web c. 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 executed for their consciences as we hold although our Adversaries say for Treason and of those twelve some perhaps can hardly be drawn within our account having been tainted with matters of Rebellion The most of the said number were Seminary Priests who if they had come over into England with the like intents that some others have done might very worthily have been used as they were But in our consciences nay some of us do know it that they were far from those seditious humors being men that intended nothing else but simply the good of our Country and the conversion of Souls Marry to say the truth as we have confessed before how could either her Majesty or the State know so much They had great cause as Politick persons to suspect the worst Besides to the further honour of her Majesty we may not omit that the States of the whole Realm assembled in Parliament Anno 1576. were pleased to pass us over and made no Laws at that time against us The ancient Prisoners that had been restrained more narrowly in the year 1570. were notwithstanding the said enterprises in Ireland again restored to their former liberty to continue with their friends as they had done before Such as were not suspected to have been dealers or abettors in the said treasonable actions were used with that humanity which could well be expected But when the Jesuits were come and that the State had notice of the said Excommunication there was then within a while a great alteration For such were the Jesuits proceedings and with so great boldness as though all had been theirs and that the State should presently have been changed Her Majesty had seen what followed in her Kingdom upon the first Excommunication and was therefore in all worldly Policy to prevent the like by the second The jealousie also of the State was much incresed by Mr. Sherwins answers upon his examination above eight months before the apprehension of Mr. Campion For being asked whether the Queen was his lawful Soveraign notwithstanding any sentence of the Popes he prayed that no such question might be demanded of him and would not further thereunto answer Two or three other questions much to the same effect were likewise propounded unto him which he also refused to answer Matters now sorting on this fashion there was a greater restraint of Catholicks than at any time before Many both Priests and Gentlemen were sent into the Isle of Ely