was not so neerly concerned he could not but retain still kindness enough for Henry albeit the King of France as nearer him and of greater use could not but sometime cross that very kindness 8. But the former Cardinal-Legats come the first time from Rome to compose the difference 'twixt Henry and Thomas where they had a conference with him betwixt Gisortium and Trie amongst other things objected to him in the behalf of Henry and after they had been with Henry that he had perswaded the King of France to war upon him Adjecerunt etiam querelas sayes Hoveden ad an 1169. injurias quibus Rex Angliae se ab ipso lasum esse conquestus est imponens ei etiam inter caetera quod ei excitaverat guerram Regis Francorum But in these words you see Hoveden sayes that this was an imposture or that Henry imposed on Thomas in this particular And immediately after the same Author tells that Thomas refuted this and all other objections by true and probable reasons Cantuariensis autem sayes he in omni humilitate mansuetudine spiritus post gratiarum actionem Domino Papae illis debitam respondit ad singula rationibus veris probabilibus querelas Regis evacuans injurias Ecclesiae damna intollerabilia patenter exponens You will say that however this be of such actual treason or treason in fact against his Prince by setting on the King of France it cannot be denyed that he held treasonable Principles that is such Principles as were suitable to such practise or such treason in fact because such as lessen the Majesty of the King and Kingdome if not wholly subject it to others forasmuch as his opinion and judgment was that Kings receive their power from the Church as himself declared in his own words to the King at Chinun Is there any man would think so but would also think at the same time that the Church might take away again or transfer the power of Kings But I say that as he cannot in act or fact be accused of treason so neither in habitude or aptitude or inclination or true meaning or natural sequele of that word saying opinion or judgement of his at Chinun may he be charged with any as much as speculative treasonable Principles however otherwise abstracting wholly not only from fact but even from intention or even also from being rendred any kind of way or framed into practical dictates 1. Because it is one thing to say that Christian Kings receive their power from the Church and another to say that after they have once received their power so the Church may either revoke it again wholly or any way lessen it As it is one thing to say that from the people as a civil society of men and not from them as a Church Kings especially in elective Kingdomes receive their power and an other that the people having once conferr'd it and so transferr'd the Majesty from themselves may revoke it againe either at their pleasure or in any case whatsoever without the King 's own consent And because the first or the assertion of receiving such power either from Church or people is no way treasonable either by the nature of such reception or such assertion in it self considered or by any positive law in any Country for ought we have heard not even in England nor certainly was treasonable in the days of Thomas of Canterbury However perhaps it be an errour against the truth of things in themselves to say that Kings in hereditary Kingdomes receive their politick royal power either from the Church or from the people or even in elective Kingdomes otherwise from either then as from bare instrumental or conditional causes or such as Philosophers call conditiones sine quibus non c. not at all from either as from the true proper efficient cause of the power For this efficient is according to the sounder doctrine in Christian Religion and in reason too God alone As even according to the Doctrine of Bellarmine God alone is the onely true proper immediate efficient of the Papal power albeit he had not been Pope if he had not first been elected by the Church or by their Representative now the Colledg of Cardinals or formerly by the Emperours or before that by the Roman Clergy or before that also by the Clergy and people of Rome both joynd together 2. Because that although we find this entire passage Et quia certum est Reges potestatem suam ab Ecclesia accipere non ipsam ab illis sed a Christo salva pace vestra loquor non haberetis Episcopis praecipere absolvere aliquem vel excommunicare trahere Clericos ad secularia examina judicare de decimis de Ecclesiis interdicere Episcepis ne tractent de transgressione fidei vel juramenti multa alia quae in hunc modum scripta sunt inter consuetudines vestras quas dicitis avitas I say that although we find this entire passage amongst those which are called in Hoveden Verba Beati Thoma Cant. Archiep. ad Henricum Regem Angliae in Concilio suo apud Chinun nay although we did admit it as truly such and admit all the rest of that Speech in Hoveden as words spoke by St. Thomas himself whereof yet I have this ground to doubt that I find not in the whole series of the History of matter of Fact either in Hoveden himself or any other when or how or that at all St. Thomas ever met that King during his banishment but twice once in Paris and in presence of the King of France and another time in the fields abroad when they were at last reconciled by the mediation of the last Legates Where then was Chinun here or any such words However admitting those Words and that entire passage of or amongst those Words as really spoke by St. Thomas and at such a place and Councel I see nevertheless partly in some former passages of that very speech at Chinun and partly also and more fully perhaps in his long and second Letter which no man doubts to be his own true letter to Gilbert Bishop of London and see in both ground enough to answer and say that in this passage I have already given the Saint mean't not at all that from the Church Kings receive so their true civil or politick Royal power or their power of the material sword at least as to the essentials or even as to the necessary appendages of it in pure civil or temporal matters that without such reception as he mean't of it from the Church they had had none at all or that without such reception as he mean't neither their birth-right in hereditary Kingdomes nor election of the people in elective Kingdomes nor any other Title whatsoever in either could be sufficient to give them as man can give true civil and politick Royal Power or to give this I mean antecedently to their receiving what they use to
Kings Absolution by the Cardinals having this Title Charta Absolutionis Domini Regis and beginning thus Henrico Dei gratia illustri Regi Anglorum Albertus tituli sancti Laurentii in Lucinia Theodinus tituli sancti Vitalis Presbyteri Cardinales Apostolicae Sedis Legati salutem in eo qui dat salutem Regibus Ne in dubium veniant quae geruntur c. And so proceeds to signifie his said Purgation and their own Absolution given to him upon the fame conditions Now I demand Whether there be any kind of likelihood that so knowing and so great a King as Henry the Second was then for he had Conquered Ireland that very year and thence it was that he Sail'd immediately to Normandy of purpose to purge himself and be absolved so as soon as he heard those Legates were come thither from Rome And he had the whole Sea-side of France and far in to the Land all along to Navarre in Spain under his dominion and in actual possession and had Scotland also Tributary though it was Two years after before he took the King of Scots should have made so wonderful a submission and in such words and received Absolution on such terms if he could have alledg'd any thing or matter of Treason against Thomas of Canterbury And that he also performâ—d all and more than all this for appeasing God's wrath against himself for having only given without further design the unfortunate occasion of the Saint's death we have seen already and in part before in his extraordinary Pilgrimage to and Humiliation at the Saint's Monument And we may in part also gather hence That by actual instance he quitted the requiring of that Oath of the Clergy for the observation of the sixteen customs For so doth Matthew Parker himself confess in express terms and in his life of Richard a Monk of St. Benedicts Order Prior of the Monastery of Dover who was the next succeeded Thomas Becket in the Archbishoprick and Primacy of Canterbury and in a Legatine power Apostolick also being fix'd upon by this very King Henry the Second to succeed so and confirm'd and consecrated so by the same often mentioned Pope Alexander the Third at Anagnia in Italy Et paulo post sayes Parker Archiepiscopus Primas Romanae Sedis Legatus cum Pallio in Angliam rediit Hic electus Regi fidelitatem juravit salvo ordine suo nulla prorsus facta mentione de prioribus regni consuetudinibus observandis Behold eight several Arguments which if at least taken all together and especially if they be also taken together with all I have said before in this second Appendix to answer such Objections as my self framed against my self I must confess I cannot for my own part but judge them to be so many and so strong Arguments and Presumptions in Law and Reason to persuade us of the greatest unlikelihood may be of any such matter as Treason possible to have been truly charged at any time on St. Thomas of Canterbury that I see not how any rational indifferent person may or might have ever entertained any such thought of him And so I conclude this second Appendix against the unweigh'd Relation and very inconsiderate Censure of Parker and much more yet against the barbarous and impious judgment of those Judges who under Henry the VIII above Three hundred years after the death of the Martyr condemn'd him for a Traytor repeating here again what I said before against the grand Atheistical Counsellor of the said King Henry the VIII in this matter who ever he was That it was neither Treason nor even any other less or real and certain misdemeanor he saw or he read in the life or death of Thomas of Canterbury put him on so execrable an Enterprize Sed avaritia illa quae caâ—tivavit discipulum comitem Christi captivavit militem custodem Sepulchri as St. Austin said of Judas who betrayed Christ and of the Souldiery that kept the Sepulchre of Christ And so also I conclude whatever I intended to say principally or incidentally against the tacite Objection of the Divines of Louain of this glorious Martyrs Contests with Henry the Second and of his opinion or judgment in such Contests in relation to the Doctrine of Ecclesiastical Exemption from the supreme civil coercive power of temporal Princes or to my own Doctrine which I am sure is the Catholick Doctrine and whatever else I intended to say principally or occasionally of the sanctity of his life and glory of his martyrdom and of the consistency of both with some humane invincible errors of his side speaking according to the objective verity or being of things in themselves as we see that other great and undoubted Saints and even the very Princes of the Apostles have fallen into such humane errors without prejudice to the sanctity of their lives or glory of their martyrdoms that Peter erred so out of zeal to gain both Jewes and Gentiles in Judaizing among the Jews c. and who reprehended him in that did no less himself err so in another occasion in making himself a Nazarâ—te and in circumcising Timothy so much against his own Doctrine there Si circumcidamini Christus vobis nihil proderit and elsewhere And finally whatever I intended to say directly and of purpose to shew that indeed St. Thomas of Canterbury did not in any part of all his Contests with Henry the Second as much as err so that is not err at all as much as inculpably or invincibly or at all against the very objective Truth of Things or Laws in themselves And yet I must tell my Reader that if Augustinus the first Archbishop of Canterbury had contested so or Reginaldus Polus the last Catholick in that See or many others after Austin for some Ages and before Cardinal Pool in other Ages intervening 'twixt his and that wherein Thomas Becket was Archbishop of that same See I could not justifie any of them for contesting so but plainly condemn them Because in their Times the municipal Laws of the Land were quite contrary in many points as they are at this day and have been so as to the punishment of criminal Clergymen in cases of Treason Murther Felony c. a long time and perhaps several Ages in England as well in those immediately after Henry the Second's dayes and notwithstanding the conditions of his Purgation Absolution and Satisfaction and then almost uninterruptedly till the change and after the change by Henry the VIII until this present as in those before the dayes of that Christian King of the Saxons who ever he was that first gave Clergymen those priviledges of Exemption in Criminal Causes from Lay Judicatories which I quoted before and proved to have not been repealed at any time after until Henry the Second's Reign And because they were the municipal Laws of the Land which only could warrant the grand Contest of St. Thomas of Canterbury at least in relation to the exemption of Criminal Clerks
time overpowred by a declared Forraign Enemy And that amongst other such means and devices First the Commissary General alias Commissarius Generalis Familiae of the Franciscan Order in Spaine by name Pedro Mannero sent immediately into Ireland new Parents revoking and annulling the delegat Authority of Father Redmund Caron over all the Irish Franciscans of that Kingdom to take thereby all support of Church-Authority from the numerous party of them that were and would be still to the very last opposers of the Nuntio's Faction of those who design'd to alienat Ireland totally and utterly for ever from the Crown of England although it was then and now likewise clear enough that even according to the very General Statutes of that Order neither the said Manero nor any other in his Office had or could have by vertue only of such Office or without special Commission from Rome which yet he did not specifie or allude unto any kind of Authority over the above Redmund's Commissariat Power delegated unto him by the Belgian Commissary General of the North-west Nations Next and soon after that Danielâ—a Dungo an Italian being chosen Vicar General of the whole Franciscen Order throughout the World for the Minister General had been dead some moneths before during the vacancy of whose place the Belgick Commissary Reverendissimus Marchantius when he had no Superiour in the Order above him sent and delegated the foresaid Redmund with full Authority into Ireland commanded by the Supream Power at Rome sent a second Patent of his own whereby not only the Supream Power at Rome sent a second Patent of his own whereby not only the said Father Caron's delegation was totally extinct but a fierce Irish Nuntiotist by name Eugenius Fildeus or Owen O Fihilly put in the same power which Caron had over all his Order in that Kingdome And then also it was that wicked Cabals were every day a forming both in Camps and Cities amongst many both Ecclesiasticks and Laicks against the King's Lieutenant the Marquess of Ormond the Nuntiotist Clergy-men of Owen Oneills Party being indefatigable in making use of the Argument of ill success not considering they had themselves been the only chief and first causes of that very success nor scrupling once to mix truth and lies indifferently so they could as indeed they did corrupt thereby but too too many Then I say it was that Limmerick and Galway plaid their prizes and when so many Troops and Regiments so many even of Horse and Foot in every Province seduced into private Confederacies and correspondencies to undoe themselves expecting every day to see Emerus mac Mahon the Bishop of Clogher then General only of the Vlster Army to be declared by himself and others of his way in the other several Provinces and really to command as Generalissimo of all Ireland and to see presently Armes and Money arrived to him as such out of Spain by the Agency of Patrick O Duff a Franciscan now at the writing hereof in the year 1672. arrived in London as a Successor to the said Emerus in that Bishoprick of Clogher employed sometimes before out of Ireland into Spain for that purpose and consequently to see moreover a Forreign Protector of the Roman Catholick Religion c. But God otherwise provided the said Emerus's Vlster Army being defeated by the Parliament Forces in that Province and he himself taken and put to death by them An accident which I also my self bewailed though I had little reason if I had considered onely my self For no sooner had that Army come in upon capitulation on the death of Owen O Neill to the Duke of Ormond and march'd up to Kilkenny and with them the said Clogher and that he was made there one of the Twelve Commissioners of Peace in behalf of the former Confederates of Ireland and sate with the rest in that City before he was made General by the King's Lieutenant no sooner invited in by my self and sent by the rest of those Commissioners to the Franciscan Monastery where I my self was then Superior and a great company before him and Bishop also of Dromore reasoning together of some differences in order to compose them by the mediation of the foresaid Twelve Commissioners of Peace he upon my answering modestly enough some things alledged falling suddenly into a violent and extravagant passion and converting his face and speech to me by my own name then calling me Apostate and great Writer of Books though he mean't onely the little Book of Queries written against the Censures of the Nuncio and withal vehemently striking his hand on the Table at which he Dromore and many more of the company sate took a solemn bloody Oath That although it happen'd that all the rest of Ireland might peradventure be forgiven yet I never should But however these private matters were I return to what more to my present purpose happen'd then or immediately before and after that defeat and death of Clogher For a little before that as far as I can remember it was 1. That the rest of all or very near all the Archbishops and Bishops hoping all to be their own now that they had the Bishop of Clogher made General of the confident victorious Catholick Army of the North as they call'd it and amongst them even many of those Bishops too that so lately before appeared against the Nuncio's Censures met together at Jamestown in Connaught and together also with some other Clergymen Secular and Regular assumed to themselves the Supreme civil power by declaring and that by a publick Instrument dated at Jamestown in the Convent of the Franciscans there Aug. 12. an 1650. against the Kings Lieutenant General and General Governour of that Kingdom by restoring the former Confederacy and by excommunicating also all persons whatsoever that would any more obey him c. 2. That the five other Bishops and one Vicar Apostolick remaining at Galway did on August 23. of the said month and year confirm under their hands too and as to every particular what those of Jamestown had done 3. That the new Commissary Visitator of the Franciscan Order Eugenius Fildeus having before summon'd a Provincial Chapter to the Convent of Kilconel in Connaught and holding it the 17 of August that same year 1650. at such time as most of the other temporal Provinces of Ireland had been over-run by the Parliament Forces and yet encourag'd by the example of the Bishops and the Nuntiotists of that Order convening there in great numbers and such as were for His Maiesties Lieutenant and yet came thither for all came not being not only deprived of voices and otherwise too proceeded against contrary to all form of Justice even their Enemies also being made their Judges but moreover with Threats and actual violence used to the chief of them Father Valentine Brown Professor Jubilat of Divinity and a holy man and a man also who had been Provincial near Thirty years before being frighted to an unworthy
the Argument of extrinsick probability than by the intrinsick reasons whereof they were not so capable And this extrinsick probability must have been by so much the greater by how much they saw the Authors of the Book to be Sixteen besides Fifteen other Approvers thereof XXII None must wonder to see amongst these Approvers the whole Colledge almost or Professed House of the Jesuits then at Kilkenny For indeed there was no more of note in their said House but Sign'd under their approbation save onely Father John Mac Egan one of their Professors of Philosophy The truth is they were all every one for the peace of the Nation and return of the People to their due obedience to His late Majesty of ever blessed Memory and Crown of England if you except the said Egan whose approbation therefore the rest thought not fit to desire at all as themselves told me They were all beside him not only of ancient English extraction but of their affection who were most against the wayes or designs of Owen O Neal and the Nuncio They were of that very Colledge of Divines that was convened to resolve the Queries They voted therein as I did against the validity of the Censures and together with the rest prayed me to write They kept their Chappels open from the first day of the difference notwithstanding the Dominican and Franciscan Monasteries of Kilkenny had shut their own Churches in observance of the Interdict In fine they were all none excepted and had been for some years before my own very civil kind familiar Friends above any other Order that was then in that City XXIII And yet I cannot deny but they play'd least in sight when the Book came to be Sign'd by the Bishop and rest of the Answerers These as soon as they had done Signing went immediately with it to the Grand Extraordinary Council of the Four Provinces Which Council expected them and it impatiently as hoping it might clear the scruples of the multitude and consequently take away the chief encouragement which Owen O Neal had to pitch his Camp so near Kilkenny that his Tents could be seen from the Walls Nor were they frustrated of their expectation Perhaps the Fathers were startled at that so near approach * Even the 〈…〉 Counâ—â—â— themselveâ— together with thâ—se other 〈◊〉 then 〈◊〉 them to their assistance out of the Toâ—â— Provinces were so startled at this so near approach of Oweâ— O 〈◊〉 Army and the shutting of Churches in observance of the Nuncio's Interdict and the great division of the People at the same time on the point also of the verâ— Excommunication it self that after the Colledge of 〈…〉 at least such of them as were most industrious had first confer'd Notes and turn'd Books for ten daâ—â—â— together and then laid the whole burthen on me during the three dayes and three nights I had without â—â—â—â—ting once my eyes continued at one Table writing that Book I remember very well how besides â—â—hers Richard Belings Esq a leading Member of and chief Secretary to the said Council came several 〈◊〉 from them to my Chamber to hasten my dispatch and to tell me the great danger of delay being the 〈◊〉 was in sight and the People so divided And I remember also very well how for the same reasons 〈◊〉 â—oâ—c'd to watch moreover even the very two next dayes and nights immediately following the forâ—â—â— three for studying the first Sermon that was Preach'd in Ireland of purpose on the Subject of the 〈…〉 against them and the Nuncio Nor could I not even for this other reason otherwise choose 〈…〉 before it was publish'd in all the Churches of the Town which kept not the Interdict that I 〈◊〉 next Sunday following Preach in the Cathedral on the great and then present Controversie To perâ—â—â—â— which duty notwithstanding I had not shut my eyes for five dayes and nights before God gave me strength My Text was that of Susâ—nâ—aâ— in the Prophet Daniel Augustiae sâ—nt mihi undique Dan. 13.22 〈◊〉 answerable to the great perplexity I was in 'twixt fear of the Nuncio's indignation of one side if I 〈◊〉 my duty and my belief of God's vengeance threatning me on the other hand if I did not of the Enemy and therefore absented themselves as intending if they could to sleep in a whole skin by securing themselves on every side But I nevertheless found my self more concern'd in their absenting themselves than to pass it over without Expostulation seeing I was desired by them as well as by others to write that little Book to justifie their practice XXIV Wherefore as soon as the Sixteen Notaries appointed that day by the Council for Copying it fairly had done and that I was commanded to put it in Print and to oversee it in the Press and that others also had brought me their own Approbations thereof those Approbations I mean which you see before the Book next unto the Title-page I sent to the Fathers of the Society to desire at least their Approbation under their own hands to be Printed together with the rest minding them at the same time of the publick end of the Book and expostulating with them for their absence on the former day wherein they should have appeared and Sign'd amongst the principal Answerers Whereupon they came to me and pray'd to be excused pretending 1. There was no necessity of their appearing in Print either as Answerers or as Approvers seeing there were already so many others who gave authority enough to the Book 2. That others could not be such losers as they should be without any peradventure by appearing in Print or at all under their hands in that Book against the Nuncio They had not only bestowed a Coach and Six Horses on his Lordship but lent him Twelve hundred pounds sterling which they were sure to lose for ever in case they put their hands to that Book 3. That they could excuse and justifie even before his Lordship their practice in keeping open their Chappel notwithstanding the Interdict because they did therein but what the priviledges of Regulars and the very Papal Canons allowed them to do by conforming themselves to the Mother-Church or Cathedral but that of approving such a Book they could not excuse In giving these three several Reasons or Excuses the Fathers who nevertheless were my own very special good Friends drill'd on three whole dayes keeping me at a stand when the Approbations given by others were under the Press Which was the cause that seeing interest onely kept them off I desired them to consider seriously Whether since both their Conscience and Affection would lead them to give their approbation also under their own proper hands as others had already done before them the loss unto them of Three thousand pound from others were not greater than that of the Twelve hundred lent the Nuncio And whether the General Assembly had not some time before the late difference with the Nuncio promised them
liberty or that ease from the penal laws which they so vehemently desired might be so sollicited and obtained by him That my Lord Aubigny himself though expecting the Cardinal Dignity was so farre from disapproveing that Remonstrance or their concurrence to it when first it came forth in Print That he sayed plainly and often to the Procuratour when complaining to him of his said Confessour Father Peter Aylmer at that time with his Lordship at London If the King would be advised by him there should not be a Priest in any of the three Kingdoms but such as would freely sign it That although a while after when he hearkned to the Jesuits he relented somewhat on consideration of their furtherance of his pretensions at Rome or of removeing the obstacles they might perhaps otherwise put in his waye yet on better consideration again return'd to his former and fix'd principles and therefore advised the said Father Aylmer either to sign or withdraw himself out of England Which was the immediate cause of Mr. Aylmers comming then for Ireland though with design also to do all the mischief he could to cross that business as truly he did by manifest untruths although he protested so lately before and so publickly in the presence of 30. Catholicks Priests and Catholick Bishops too at London when the rest signed it that he singled not himself for point of conscience and that he would with his blood sign the lawfulness and Catholickness of it yet pretending after that he had not sufficiently studied nor understood the point as indeed he never seemed to have before or after That for the rest of the Queens Chaplains ordinary or extraordinary I mean the English Irish who were concern'd and to whom it was proper I must confess the grand mistake was in not offering it them by authority at first when it came forth as to my knowledge it was intended to be offered at Hampton-Court and at Council upon a certain Sunday but none of the copies being at hand that day and other things intervening after they were neglected Which gave so much encouragement to all other dissentors ever since albeit the case of those Chaplains and that of the rest of the Irish Clergie be very different and that none of the rest who have been so expresly particularly and positively desired their own concurrence should on that pretence denye or excuse it That finally for what concerns my Lord Abbot Montague what ever his own peculiar interest was or is in relation to that Remonstrance or to an approbation of it if demanded I am sure that being as well as my Lord Aubigny acquainted with the Divinity of France having his title and so great a benefice there and being so conversant in that Court and Church his judgement must have been for the Catholickness and lawfulness of it And a person of so great both reason and experiance in the affairs of these Nations could not but conceive it was both expedient and necessary for such of the Romish Clergie natives as would live at home in any of them to sign it and for such as were abroad or would be not to hinder those at home by disswasion from the good they might expect thereby And could not but conceive it was both expedient and necessary even for His Majesties greater assurance of them that they should do so That besides nothing more in particular being known of my Lord Abbot Mountague's affection or disaffection to that matter nay were even his positive perswasion to the contrary known of certain as it was never for any thing I could here and I have listened after it sufficiently carefully enough yet his Lordships even such demeanour could be no rational pretence for them his forraign dependency his special priviledge by serving the Queen Mother in so great a capacity as he is known to serve Her exempting him from a rule concerning others that had no such arguments to excuse them To say nothing here of his being an English man and Priest of that Clergie who were not so neerly concern'd not to be backward as the Irish Clergie were and who nevertheless did then for the generality of them most heartily desire as they do at this present His Majestie were pleased to favour them so much albeit not lying under those great suspicions the Irish Clergie do at least not having in our dayes given such cause as to demand their subscriptions to such an Instrument and be content therewith in lieu of those other demonstrations the laws they lye under expect from them IX However such as made it their interest to oppose any further subscription made use of these and many other such pittiful and too too weak pretences to excuse their nonconcurrence when they saw no further probability in those no less weak pretences of Theological arguments borrowed from Suarez Bellarmine and others of their way that writ on the Subject of the Popes ill-grounded pretences to and over the Scepters and Royal Diadems or temporal authority of Kings and in particular of the Kings of England But indeed the true causes of their backwardness and reluctancy and which even themselves almost all generally upon occasion acknowledg'd were 1. That most of their leading men and such as not onely were in office over others but very many also that bore no such offices at all as then were pretendents and candidats either abroad at Rome for titulary Archbishopricks Bishopricks Vicar-generalships Deanries Parishes Provincialships Commissaryships c. or at home amongst their own Brethren for votes to be chosen presented or preferred to such offices either amongst the secular or regu-Clergie as they aspired unto albeit as poor and inconsiderable amongst the Clergie as little Cures in Parishes without other advantage than the bare benevolence of the laye people and even as poor and inconsiderable as a Guardianship Priorship or some such other now very vain title in Ireland amongst the Regulars For because at Rome and for what depended of that Court immediately they perswaded themselves that to subscribe would be a perpetual obstruction to all their hopes as the case stands in Ireland the King being of a different communion and even at home also they could expect no more favour from their own Brethren or their own actual superiours Bishops Vicars-general Provincials c. that were adverse to the Remonstrance as most of them certainly were even such as both in their judgements for point of conscience and in their natural inclinations also to the English Crown and interests of it in Ireland were truly in their Soules for the Remonstrance would not by any means be induced to declare themselves publickly such either in word or writing 2. That such as in the late Warrs had engaged themselves against both Peaces or either of them and against the foregoing Cessation and consequently for the Censures of the Nuncio apprehended it for want of Christian humility or a true sense of piety as the worst of evils
Caesar we are tyed to clear if from imputation and professing it also a Rule that we will follow in our affections it seems altogether inexcusable if we startle at any engagement within the verge of Regality wherein our Allegiance is payable And therefore in the Circumstances you seemed to stand in to free the Holy Catholique Faith on one side from obloquies and redeem your selves from calumnies and on the other to relieve the Layety under your charge from heavy pressures and further to open a dore to your liberty of Religion we must needs judge you have performed the Office of good Pastours both in framing and subscribing your Allegiance to the Prince to hold forth to the whole whole world your Religion pure and spotless your Allegiance built on a basis immoveable and your selves well resolved Subjects For our parts we would be glad to runn into those occasions even with the hazard of our lives or the loss of our last drop of blood to worke out our freedom from the severity of our penal laws much more would we think it happy to gain it with the renounce of an Opinion which justly brings a jealousie upon us from our Prince and fellow Subjects and in the judgement of the chief Assertours of it of no greater note then to bring along with it the pains of Damnation to those of their party that speak preach or print it as appears by a written paper have published by themselves Wherefore that you may see how we stand affected were this Declaration of yours tendred us by Authority in lieù of what otherwise we lye under we should willingly embrace it considering it as well singles out the loyal Subject from those of the bad Principle as reduces the erroneous into the number of penitents My Lord The Apostolical advice to give none the least offence in our Ministry but to preserve our selves blameless to all sorts of people and the Church of God is the sole pardon I can plead for this entrench upon your patience well knowing your imployments speak you a follower of the Apostles by being a Servant to all persons in all things not seeking your own but the Countryes profit that they may be saved in which common concerne I shall be ever ready to runn your Lordships ways being subject to the laws of the same holy Church and Dread Soveraign whom God long preserve whose most loyal Subject I will ever remain and My Lord Your Lordships most humble servant in Christ Iesu Humphry Ellice Dean of the Chapter London October 18th 1662. XXII Much about this time also William Burgat Vicar General of Imly and Custos as they call him of the Diocess of Limerick came from the Province of Munster to Dublin of purpose to speak to the Procuratour about his own and the common affairs of all the Clergie both of that and the Province of Connaght For this Gentleman hearing in August before that the Procuratour was arrived from London writt him presently a very civil letter expressing much loyalty to the King and affection to the Lord Lieutenant And his letter was seconded with a good character given of him then to the Procuratour by persons of Interest and knowledg in that Province of Munster the Earl of Clancarty and Iohn Walsh Esq By that letter the said Father Burgat let the Procuratour know himself had been deputed some three or four years past in the Protectors tyranny and by the Clergie of that Province as entire Agent for themselves to Rome about their Ecclesiastical affairs and by those of the Province of Connaght also joyned in commission with an other one Doctor Cegan for themselves That money to bear his charges could not be had until about that time of His Majesties most fortunat Restauration That seeing the great and happy change he demurr'd on the matter until the Earl of Clancarty's first comming to Ireland That having communicated unto his Lordship what he intended he was advised by the said Earl not to stirr till he had seen and been advised by Father Walsh the Procuratour And that therefore he vehemently now desired to meet him about Kilkenny or where else he would appoint But the Procuratour having answer'd with desires of his comming to Dublin and meeting there Father Burgat came at last along to Dublin Where notwithstanding the Procuratour spent much time informing him for 6. dayes consequently of the causes and ends of the Remonstrance and that the said Father Burgat averred constantly that he neither found any thing in it could not be justly owned nor heard any in his own Province hitherto speaking otherwise or one word against it yet whether perverted by such obstinate persons of the Dublin Clergie as he conversed with daily then or whether byass'd by his own former intrigues and principles received at first and retayned still after from his Bishop when alive Terlagh O Brien a Prelate of too much violent zeal for the Nuncius's quarrel and further yet by his pretensions at Rome and his entended journey thither he would not sign at all then or there at Dublin pretending for excuse that being he came from the whole Province of Munster to be informed he would have the greater power to perswade them all generally if he returned back without preingagement and the less if otherwise Desiring nevertheless the Procuratour to write by him to the chief Vicar General or Apostolical as they call him Iohn Burk of Cashil to be communicated to the rest concerning that matter of the Remonstrance and their subscription Which the Procuratour did but never had answer from either For it seems Mr. Burgat who by all means declined nay expresly refused to be presented to my Lord Lieutenant though invited often to it by the Procuratour because my Lord so lately had seen his letter and heard that good character of him given by my Lord Clancarty and Mr. Iohn Walsh and was commission'd as above by two Provinces judg'd it better for his own private ends to have nothing to do in that business at least not to appear for it Which was the reason also he did not acquiesce to so many pregnant reasons given him by the Procuratour against his undertaking such a journey to Rome at least as an Agent or publick person representing both or either of those Provinces Albeit he was so farre convinced by such reasons as to promise the Procuratour he would only go as farre as Paris to leave there some youths at School and thence return immediately with purpose to alleadg new and probable difficulties met with and so excuse himself to the Clergie that had employed and given him money which otherwise he must have restored back and yet not so neither or by only restoring their money without going over Seas excused himself with any colour being they so long depended of him But in this promise also he failed For he went along to Rome and there sollicited ever since and lost both his money and time without
by the sole vertue of their Sacerdotal or spiritual power for I did not then as much as dream of any such foolish consequence but against the pretence of an inherent natural civil and supream power in the people themselves as a people or civil society whether Priests otherwise or no Priests or mixt of both A farre more takeing though at least now under the new testament a false and vain pretence also To that precedent of the Macchabees alleadg'd out of the old Testament to justifie this pretence of such an inherent natural not spiritual power in Christian Subjects to rebell against their lawful Prince on pretext of oppression either in their religious or civil rights or both I answered briefly thus Pag. 94. of The More Ample Account That neither the praised valour noble attempts victories and atchivemenâ—s of the Machabees can prejudice this doctrine Because that as in their dayes yet the wisdome of the celestial Father our Saviour Christ was not come to enlighten the world or to teach the Jewes in particular the perfect understanding of their own law or to give a more excellent one to all Nations of the Earth so they relied still on the first donation of Palestine made by God himself immediatly to Abraham for the children of Jacob and made againe unto them in the Law of Moâ—es and doubtless were perswaded that no violence or force or conquering armes of the Asian Kings could devest them of that title which God himself appearing visibly had invested them with Is there any word here of such uncivil and â—rreverent language as ignorance of their own 〈◊〉 charged by me on the Macchabees Or who knows not that such perfect understanding thereof as the holy Jesus caught the world after is quite an other thing then ignorance simply spoken or such ignorance of the litteral sense of their law which would have been at that time or in the dayes of the Macchabees or any time before or after from the first giving of their law till Jesus came accounted ignorance by the knowing doctors of the said law and consequently have rendred those Macchabees guilty of a sinful neglect and hainous transgression And who sees not I made out their plea of justification not at all from such ignorance nor even from an imperfect understanding but from the immediate donation of Palestine to them as to their Predecessors and Successors by God himself appearing so visibly and manifoldly and by the clear express letter also of his Law unto them And therefore that I had sufficiently ruined all the strength of the argument built on this example by rebellious Christian Subjects for their pretence of such inherent supream natural power being they can pretend no such visible appearance donation law of God to themselves or to their Predecessors or Successors but know all to be quite contrary But after all suppose I had not made so clear demonstrations against such pretence of a temporal civil or natural power in the people or that I had not given so clear and satisfactory solution to this argument for it what can be thence concluded for the supernatural and purely spiritual power of Christian Priests just a meer nothing So that those Gentlemen might have spared themselves and me some labour in this point and particularly both in this fling they had here at my doctrine in my More Ample Account and in all that follows to no purpose in their own paper of that other answer which they say some do give but I am sure I never gave nor found my self necessitated to give Yet I profess my thanks unto them in this one respect here That they have given the occasion to clear yet more abundantly and perhaps too more satisfactorily at least to some that of the Macchabees I mean as it is urged for the pretended inherent right of the people as a civil or temporal Society though not as a spiritual or not as a Christian Church but still as a people purely or naturally considered I did verily intend to add in that same little Book of mine and to that now mentioned passage for a second answer what I shall here But having had no time to review that passage then when the Printer came to it I am now heartily glad of this occasion that I may yet with-all evidence and clearness imaginable ruine this very strongest argument out of Scripture whereof some especially of our Opposers make so much use as of the most specious argument can be for that right of the people at least as of a people though not as a Christian Church You are therefore good Reader to understand that this Antiochus against whom Mattathias begin the warr and his Sons the Machabeans continued it nobly and fortunatly was not that Antiochus the Great King of Asia who in the year of the world 3742 and before Christ 222. and either by title of conquest or of a just war against Ptolomey Philopater and his Son called Ptolomey the Famous King of Egypt and Jewry and against Scopas General to this Ptolomey the Famous or by title of the free and voluntary submission of the Jews themselves to him or by both titles was their lawful King as also a good bountiful and very favourable King unto them as long as he lived after I say that that Antiochus against whom Mattathias took arms and encouraged the rest of his Countreymen to take arms was not this Great and so good Antiochus but another many years after who was surnamed Epiphanes though King likewise of Asia who only and by the reasonable practiâ—es or some few Iews surprized Ierusalem in the year of the world â—79â— and before Christ 168. years That the Jews since their first free and voluntary submission to Alexander the Great himself in person and in the year of the world 3630 and before Christ 334. and since the death soon after of the said Alexander the year before Christ 322. were upon the partition of the Macedonias conquest and Empire peaceably subject first to Ptolomaeus Lagus and then after to his Son Ptolomey Philadelphus who had the Bible translated by the 72. Interpreters and so forth in a continual series to the other Ptolomeys Kings of Egypt only the few years excepted wherein Antiochus the Great prevailed so as I have said against Ptolomey Philopater or his Son Ptolomey the Famous and until this Great Antiochus contracted aliance with this Ptolomey by the marriage of Cleopatra upon which they were on both sides at peace again and all things restored to to their former condition and the command of Ierusalem and the rest of Iewry as likewise of Celosyria Phaenicia and other bordering Countreys returned to the Ptolomeys and the tributes as in former time since Lagus gathered by and paid to their Officers who were the very Jews themselves so it is plain and manifest in History that matters continued so until the dayes of this Antiochus Epiphanes King of Asia or Syria of whom our present
controversie is in whose time Ptolomey likewise surnamed Epiphanes King of Egypt dyed and his young Son called Ptolomey Philometor was crowned after him King of Egypt and by consequence had the dominion of Ierusalem and Iewry That Antiochus Epiphanes that wicked ambitious and most cruell King of Asia and Syria taking advantage of the minority of this young Ptolomey Philometor without any just cause or provocation or any other but his own ambitious desires entred Egypt with a huge army and with intention to seize the young King and possess himself of all his Kingdom of Egypt and of his other dominions and wel-nigh effected his designs having after his taking of Memphis besieged Alexandria it self and the young King therein but was on a suddain forced to break up his siege and relinquish all again and retire immediatly out of all Egypt upon summons sent him by the Romans to do so or abide a sharp war from them That in his forced return to his own Kingdom some few wicked Jews having out of desire to be revenged of others even by the loss of their Countrey animated him to camp before Ierusalem and the riches of that City and treasures of the Temple there having set him all on fire with covetousness he marched directly towards it and the Gates being treacherously set open to him by those within of that wicked faction he surprized it in the hundred fourty and third year of the raign of Seleucus the year of the world 3796. and before Christ 168. years That as this was done without any consent of the people generally or of their Governours so he behaving himself immediatly after as the most cruel tyrant that even surprized any place and having broke all kind of conditions either concerning Religion Estate or life even with those very traytors of their own City and Countrey and having spoiled both the City and Temple and carried all the spoils with him to Antioch but two years after he surprized them so and having left most cruel Edicts after him for the future and those put in execution with unparelled cruelty it is evident enough that as he had no just title for that was nor any permission from the lawful hereditary King Ptolomey Philometor to seize Ierusalem or Iewry so he had none from the people of Ierusalem or Iewry either first or last to entitle him to the rights of a lawful King not even I say from them in case they could justly give any such their own hereditary King being still alive and still too in possession of the greatest part of his dominions nor could two years such forcible and cruel possession entitle him to any right at all That in fine as all this is manifest in History in that of Iosephus I mean and in his twelfth Book of the Antiquities of the Jews and in his eleventh for what concerns Alexander the Great himself and being further it is no less manifest in the same History of Iosephus and in the seventh and eight chapters of the said twelfth Book and in the marginal Chronology That Mattathias took arms against the said Antiochus Epiphanes immediatly after the said second year of his unlawful possession kept of Iewry 〈…〉 is immediatly â—ften the 〈◊〉 and general and cruel 〈…〉 it is no less evident 〈◊〉 foâ— that he did so that is 〈…〉 his 〈…〉 King but against 〈…〉 unjust Usurper and Tyâ—â—â— also no less 〈◊〉 And consequently that no warlike actions nor exhortations of Mattathias nor any other of that Machabâ—â—â— ar◠〈◊〉 of his Sons or of that whole Nation of the Jews against Antiochus that faithless impious inhumane King of Asia â—â—e to any purpose alledged to maintain the pretended inherent power of any Subjects whatsoever to rebell against their own true â—egal undoubted rightful hereditary King however oppressing them either in their religious or civil rights or both And this is the second answer I intended in my More Ample Account And which I give here not that it is any way necessary or directly at all to that which our present Adversaries the Authors of this second paper dispute of principally at this present or in this paper I now answer but because they have given me by their indirect reflections and by their impertinencius therein a just occasion for which I thank them to give it here for a further illustration of what I said formerly on this subject XXXV As for their Latin Postscript because I guess it was only added as an answer to an argument I press'd them with ad hominem as we speak as also with the conclusion of it in English two of their own general principles or doctrine of Probability to convince them of the lawfulness in point of conscience of subscribing the Remonstrance notwithstanding the pretence of some not only extrinsick authority 〈◊〉 even intrinsick probability appearing still in their very souls though I never did nor do believe there was any such against some position or supposition wherein that Remonstrance is grounded or which is therein contained I allow them till the advantage they can derive from these Câ—suists even as themselves quote them here For I am sure they will accordingly find the doctrine of the Remonstrance to be at least both extrinsecally and intrinsecally most probable and consequently the signing of it lawful in point of conscience But abstracting 〈◊〉 these rules and authority of Casuists which at least in 〈◊〉 matter of probability and as I have most clearly shown in my More Ample Account pag. 16. c. ought to be not only abstracted from but quite rejected as most unsafe and false and erroneous as likewise and by consequence the final English perclose as a corollary thence derived of this paper I now consider I am no less certain they will find themselves obliged in point of conscience to approve of all the doctrine positions and suppositions too of the said Remonstrance and reject and condemn the contrary as very false eroneous and scandalous too and consequently very sinful if not manifestly heretical in Christian Faith If I say they have studied or shall as they ought to do the arguments on both sides or but consulted with the Catholick Authors that have so lately handled them at large against the sophismes of Bellarmine and others of 〈◊〉 way For I fear they will not take the paâ—ts to sougth 〈…〉 â—â—â—ancie famous great and Classick Authors and 〈◊〉 in them their own ignorance and errour so long since reproach'd in the very Schools For as concerning the Scriptures and Fathers and universal Tradition of the Catholick Church and practice of Primitive Christians and that also of all ensuing ages till the Eleventh of Christianity under Gregory the Seventh they themselves cannot â—â—ny all to be against them Whereof and â—s with other both arguments and objections 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 I could heartily wish they would to satisfie yet more fully themselves take but so much pains as to read over the Barclays and Wriddringâ—â—n Father
his lawful Procurator to answer such crimes as were objected to him by the said Clergy and Academy and in the mean time to innovate nothing but to restore all things were innovated into their former state And therefore that they will find in Spondanus that this Emperour summon'd this Archbishop even as an Archbishop and consequently did not only summon and proceed against him as a Prince of the Empire but as a very Archiepiscopal Clerk and even too in a meer cause of Religion For this last particular also of the being of the cause for which the Emperour summon'd him a cause of Religion and Faith the same Spondanus hath expresly in the same place where he tells us that it was therefore the Pope Paul the III. who then sate in the See Apostolick thought fit by his own Letters of the 18. of Iuly immediatly following in the same year to summon to Rome the same Hermannus giving him sixty dayes for appearance before himself to wit least otherwise his Holiness might be thought to let go his own challenge of peculiar right in the See Apostolick only to proceed against so great a Clerk especially being the cause was properly Clerical and properly too a cause of Faith and reformation of the Church in religious tenets and rites and least consequently he might seem wholly to quit the quarrel of external coercion of either Clerks or Laicks where the crime was Heresie and by his own want or neglect of proceeding by his own proper Apostolical Authority against Herman whereas the Emperour had begun and proceeded already upon account or by virtue also of his own pure or sole imperial civil and lay power might be esteemed to acknowledge in lay Princes that supream external coercive right of even all sorts of very Clerks and even too of such in the very meerest and purest causes of Faith and Religion The testimony of Spondanus to this purpose is in these words Quod ut Pontifex audivit he means the summons sent by Charles from the Dyet of Worms for the Archbishop parum prohare visus quod Cesar in causa Fidei reformationis Ecclesiarum Iudicis authoritatem sibi sumeret die decima octava Iulii eundem Coloniensem ad sexagesimum diem citavit ut per seipsum vel per legittimum procuratorem coram ipso Romae se sisteret To that also which Bellarmine hath of crimina privilegiata and for as much as he sayes that in France those are call'd priviledg'd crimes whereof that Clerks may be accused before a lay Judge in the secular Court the Pope hath indulged I say it is farr otherwise And that Bellarmine could not shew nor any other can for him any Sanction or Law nay or any other authentick writing wherein it is recorded to posterity that such a priviledge was given by the Pope to Kings or Republicks Though I confess many Popes have been free enough of granting priviledges where they had no right to grant any and where only the ignorance or injustice of pretenders gave them some kind of bad excuse for attempting to give any and would willingly have all both Princes and people to desire of them priviledges for all they could themselves do before of themselves nay and were often bound to do without any priviledge Whence also it may be sufficiently evicted that it is no way probable this ordinary jurisdiction supream of Kings over Clerks was granted to them by the Pope but on the contrary certain that whereas anciently the very most Christian Kings and Emperours made use of all their both directive and coercive power to govern Clerks in all civil matters whatsoever nay and in spiritual matters too for what I mean concerns the external regiment of the Church by external direction of laws and by external coercion too of the material sword and to govern them also either immediatly by themselves or mediatly by their subordinat lay Judges and whereas the civil laws wherein and whereby afterwards the same Emperors and Kings exempted Clerks in many causes or most or if you please to say or think so in all whatsoever from the ordinary subordinate lay Judges have not a word of any exemption from the Prince himself the supream civil Judge of all both lay and Ecclesiastical Judge of his own Kingdom in the external coactive regiment therefore it must be concludent it was only from and by the free will of the Princes themselves that ordinary jurisdiction supream temporal or civil over Clerks was reserved still to themselves who remitted or bestowed away of their own right all whatever they pleased as they did that in the present case of deputing lay men for the ordinary subordinat Judges of those causes of Clerks which are not common but priviledged and retained also what they would Of all which the late and most learned Milletus may be read who in that choice and elegant Tract of his which he inscribed de delicto communi casis privilegiato shews very learnedly and clearly 1. That all such priviledges of Clergiemen had their whole and sole origen from Kings 2. And therefore that such crimes as Clerks are accused of and judged in foro civili in the ordinary civil or lay Courts are properly to be called delicta communia because to be tryed by the common law and before the common or lay Magistrate and those only which are remitted to the Bishop are by a contrary reason to be tearmed privilegiata to wit because it is by a priviledge granted by Kings or indulged by them to Bishops that bishops may take cognizance of and judge them As for Clarus and Ausrerius whom Bellarmine alledges for that his own sense of what is a priviledged crime of Clerks or for any other Canonists soever I regard not much what they say or not say in this matter Because they all commonly and without any ground not only bereave Princes of this supream right of either coeâ—cing or directing Clerks but also teach that all kind of meer temporal Principality flows and depends from the Papacy As that Legat did who in a Diet of the German Princes had the confidence to ask or querie thus A quo habet Imperator Imperium nisi habet a Domine Papa For so Radevicus hath related this Legats folly And so having throughly destroyed all the replies of Bellarmine to the grounds or any part of the grounds of my second grand argument and of the proof of it which second argument and proof of its Minor I derived partly from and built upon his own principles of Clergiemens being Cittizens and parts of the politick commonwealth I am now come to My third argument of pure natural reason which shall end this present Section Though I withal confess the grounds of this third argument are already given in my illustration of the former second But however for the clearer methods sake because too the medium is somewhat different from that in the form of my foregoing second I would give
spiritual sentence of deposition pronounced by the Nicene Council and a civil Imperial sentence of exile and corporal extermination issued from Constantine For you shall never find that any Council especially this of Nice forced or gave sentence of forceing corporally a Bishop from his See and City and haling him into banishment but onely a bare spiritual sentence or declaration of his being now deposed from such authority as the Church gave him formerly And on the other side you shall never see it was the Prince alone that by his own Royal power onely sent Bishops to exile nay and this too not seldome without any previous sentence of deposition by other Bishops as also that not seldome also the sole exile of a Bishop from his See by the onely sentence of the Secular Prince was by the Church held for a sufficient deposition of such Bishop and that the Clergie proceeded to election and consecration of an other when the Prince desired it as holding the See absolutely vacant And we know moreover that the very same Constantine expelled Athanasius himself from Alexandria and turned him to banishment Theod. Histor l. 1. c. 31. And yet we know that although as well Athanasius himself as others with him acknowledge this banishment to have been unjust because the exiled person was innocent of the crime charg'd upon him yet no man ever opened his mouth herein against Constantine upon account of having usurped jurisdiction over Athanasius nay in the whole procedure or as to the cause it self he is excused by very many Baronius himself saâ—es tom 3. an 336. that deceived by the Arrians he proceeded bona fide to this banishment And certainly Theodoretus alleadges a meer lay crime or temporal cause Accusatus enim fuerat Athanasius minatus esse sayes Theodoret se prohibiturum quo minns frumentum ut solet Alexandria Constantinopolim adveheretur For sayes he Athanasius was accused to have threatned that he would hinder corne to be transported to Constantinople as was accustomed And yet that the Emperour himself assumed to himself the judgement and sate as judge of this accusation offered by other Bishops against Athanasius as also of the accusation which on the other side the same Athanasius offered to the Emperour against them as having unjustly condemned him Theodoret is witness For thus he writes Postquam verò Athanasius ad eum venit de iniquo judicio conquesturus Episcopos quos ea de re accusabat ad se adveniare jubet Imperator And of the same Athanasius the Bishops of Egypt writt thus apud Athanas. apol 2. Cum nihil culpae in comministro nostro Athanasio reperirent Comesque summa vi imminens plura contra Athanasium moliretur Episcopus Comitis violentiam fugiens ad religiosissimum Imperatorem ascendit deprecans iniquitatem hominis adversariorum calumnias postulansque ut legittima Episcaporum Synodus indiceretur aut ipse audiret suam defensionem Imperator rei indignitate motus scriptis suis accusatores citat suamque ipsius audientiam promittens simulque Synodum indici jubet Here we see this very great and holy Athanasius submitting himself entirely to the judgement not of a Synod onely but also of an Emperour Besides we know that when this very same Emperour Constantine heard ubi supra apud Athanas. apol 2. Athanasius accused of Murder he sent letters to Dalmatius the Censor at Antioch warranting and commanding him to take cognizance of this cause of Murder charg'd on Athanasius And we know further that the Egyptian Catholick Bishops of the Synod of Tyrus writt and gave this protestation to Flavius the Count. Libellum hunc tibi porrigimus cum multis obsecrationibus ut Dei metu in animo servato qui Imperium Augustissimi pientissimi Imperatoris Constantini tuetur cognitionem causarum nostrarum ipsi Augustissimo Imperatori reserves Aequum enim est te ab Imperatore missum negotium hoc integrum Imperatori retinere Whereupon I cannot but observe that whereas I see not Constantine reprehended by any writer as if he had boldly usurped Ecclesiastical judgements who in the Council of Nice professed that the Ecclesiastical or spiritual causes of Bishops were to be left wholly to the judgement of God alone it plainly appears that these causes of the Catholick Egyptian Bishops and such others of other Bishops wherein Constantine did carry himself as judge were either of humane crimes I mean those we tearm lay crimes or if they were of heresy that the Emperour admitted of them to be judged by himself not that he thought or carried himself as the proper judge of heresy but that he saw heresies to be such as bred much dissention schysme and trouble amongst the people and might at last if not prevented disturb the peace and whole frame even of the civil Commonwealth and knew that himself was the best and most proper judge to sentence punish and coerce any Doctors or doctrine whatsoever happened to ayme at such disturbance as ayming at such according to that canon which after Constantine's dayes was made in the general Council of Chalcedon Act. 4. Si autem permanserit turbas faciens seditiones Ecclesiae per extraneam potestatem tanquam seditiosum debere corripi In judgeing the causes of Caecilian Bishop of Carthage and Primate of all Affrick and in those too of the Donatist Bishops the same Constantine the Great did not not onely once or twice but three several times interpose his own authority Augustinus epist 28. For it is plain that the Donatist Bishops accused Caecilian to Anulinus the Proconsul and by Anulinus to Constantine of having to witt in time of persecution betrayed and burâ—ied the Sacred books and that the said Donatist accusers did not at first so much desire Constantine himself to judge that cause as that he would be pleased to depute or delegate Ecclesiastical Judges to sift and determine it Who 's saying as this truly was Petitis a me in saeculo judicium cum ego ipse Christi judicium expectem Optat. l. 1. contra Carmenian so it is also true as Augustine and Optatus tell that Maternus Bishop of Agrippina Rhetitius Bishop of Augustodunum and Marinus Bishop of Orleans were commission'd by Constantine to judge that very cause Euseb l. X. c. 5. Whom he sent out of Gaule to Rome that together with Melchiades Bishop of that chief City they might discusse the whole matter and put a final end to it Whence it appears that although Constantine did not himself immediately or personally judge or determine it yet by his own proper authority he committed it to others delegated Judges and appointed the Pope himself Melchiades to be one of the Delegats Aug. epist 116. and that the same Melchiades should by his Imperial Commission together with the said three French Bishops proceed and judge finally this cause August de Captis cont Câ—til c. 16. As for the excuse of Baronius tom 3. an 313. â— â—â— that Constantine did so
absolutely or actually yet establish'd Or doth not the very nature of a Parliament and the necessary and plenary freedom of the members thereof evince this 3. T is likewise true that in the great Council or Parliament held at Norththampton and when he saw some of the very Bishops violently bent against him to ingratiat and endear themselves more and more to the King and the rest through fear yielding and saw them all generally conspiring with the lay Peers and joyntly with such Peers condemning and deposing him by their sentence from his Bishoprick he appealed to the Pope from such a sentence and such Judges and such a Judicatory and in such a cause But what then Or was it treason by the nature of the thing in it self or of such an Appeale of such a man and in such a case and from such Judges or was there any law then in England making such appeal to be treason certainly it was not by either Not by the nature of such an appeal as abstractedly considered in it self because neither appeals in a spiritual cause to the Pope nor decisions in a spiritual way of such Appeals by the Pope do of their own nature draw along with them any lessening of the Majesty or supream power of the Prince or of any part of it which is proper to him nor of the safety of the people though by accident that is by abuse only sometimes of the Appellants themselves or of such Appeals or of the decision of them by some Popes and by the neglect of either Prince or Parliament giving way to frivolous appeals or admitting of notoriously corrupt decisions they may prove hurtful Nor was there any law of England as yet then establish'd when the when the Saint appealed so which made it treason or which indeed at all prohibited him or any other Clerk to appeal to Rome in any pure ecclesiastical cause whatsoever or from the judgment of either spiritual or secular Judges or even of both together in any pure spiritual or Ecclesiastical cause such as that judgement was which was pronounced in that Council or Parliament of Northamton against this holy Archbishop even a sentence of his deposition from the See Nay the continual practice of England till then for so many hundred years before and for some time after too warranted by the very municipal laws or municipal Customs or both to appeal to the Pope in such causes which practice in many Instances of even great Bishops and Archbishops both of Canterbury and York and of the Kings also of England sending sometimes their own Embassadours to plead against such Bishops and Archbishops and sometimes to help or plead for them you may see at large everâ— in Matthew Parkers own Antiquitates Britannicae evicts manifestly it was neither treason by law or by reason or by the nature of such Appeals And the practice of other Kingdoms of Christendome till this day continued shews no less that it might have been and may be duly circumstantiated without any lessening of the Majesty of the Crown danger to the safety of the people or without prejudice to any Besides who sees not that it is against the very law of God as delivered to us from the beginnings of Christianity that Lay-men as such may fit in judgment on or give sentence for the taking away the Spirituals of a Bishop As such they can neither give nor take away any spiritual Power Jurisdiction or Authority purely such from the very meanest Clerk whatsoever Indeed if a King be made the Popes Legat in his own Kingdomes as Henry the first of England was you may read it in Houeden in whom also you may see that Henry the Second wrought all he could to get the same power from Rome for himself then such a lay person but not as a meer lay person may give sentence in such causes according to the extent of his commission And who sees not moreover that the Bishops of England who sate in the Council and as sitting there proceeded most uncanonically against their own Primat If they would proceed canonically against him with any colour as much as of the ancient canons of the Church it should have been in a canonical Convocation or Council of Bishops alone and of such other Clergymen as by the canons ought to vote and the Primat should have a fair tryal and be tryed by the canons only Those Bishops failed in all this And therefore Thomas had reason to appeal to the Pope from their sentence For ever since the general Council of Sardica there was at least in the Occidental Church an appeal allowed Bishops even from their equals and even too from their superiours to the supream Bishop or him of Rome as the Fathers of Sardica at the desire of Hâ—sius their President to honour the memory of St. Peter ordained by an an express Canon Though I confess that for what concern'd the temporals of his Archbishoprick which he held only from the King and municipal laws of the land he could not appeal to the Pope understand you otherwise then as to an honourable Arbiter by consent by vertue of any canon only or at all against the said municipal Laws or Customs of the Land if they had been against him in the case of his said Temporals as I have shewed they were not or at least I am sure were not so against him not even I mean in such an appeal concerning his meer Temporals as to render him guilty of treason for appealing so oâ— in such the meer temporal concerns of his Bishoprick And yet I add that Histories make no mention of any such kind of Appeal as this last made by him then when he appealed from the Council of Noâ—thampton though he had reason after to labour in all just meer and pure Ecclesiastical ways to recover the very temporals also of his Church to the same Church T is true moreover that immediatly after his appeal he departed the Council or Parliament the Court and Kingdom and departed the Kingdom incognito in a secular weed But neither was this any treason nor even disobedience or mis-demeanour in him There was no writ of ne exeat Regno against him There was no law of God or man prohibiting him to depart so nor any reason indeed as the case stood with him The King had stabled his own horses in his lodgings to affront him He challeng'd him for thirty thousand pounds which he had administred formerly during his Chancellorship and challeng'd him of so great a sum of purpose to pick a quarrel to him for the Saint had given him an account of all when he was Chancellor and was by the Barons of the Exchequer and Richardus de Luci Lord chief Justice and by the young King himself acquit of all these and whatsoever other accounts before he was consecrated He was notwithstanding his Appeal sentenc'd by the Barons at the Kings desire to be seized on and put in prison The Archbishops of
and by his blessed Disciples preach't and declared to the Gentiles of the whole Earth But why this Discourse of the way of the Cross of the way of Religion and Christian Faith to an Abbot of Mount Royal 'T is paint not substance with which you colour things You pretend Religion but intend it not and so with notorious Sophistry alledge a not cause for a cause In St. Gregory Nazianzen's Orations of Peace where he treats of the great differences which then were amongst the Clergy especially the Bishops I find the true cause of that vehement spirit of yours and your and his Eminence Cardinal Barberin's opposition Besides ignorance in many of your Informers and Whisperers there is impetuous anger my Lord and hatred and spite and envy and there is avarice my Lord and pride and ambition and a blind passion to domineer and the glory pomp and vanity of the World But this too is it not o' th freest I confess it but 't is a freedom which the thing requires and which becomes a Christian Priest and old Divine and faithful Subject of His King in a Controversie no less great than unhappy between some of the Clergy with the whole Laity with supreme Princes themselves and Kings and Emperours of the World concerning Right in Temporals Nevertheless to say and write as I have done to the Internuncio of his Holiness and of a Cardinal Is it not misbecoming This I deny For as for your Lordship if in dignity as a Commendatory Abbot and Internuncio of the Pope you go before me yet in Order and spiritual power and in the Hierarchy you come behind me Nor is there in that respect so much difference betwixt a Bishop and the meanest Priest as betwixt you and me Nevertheless I respect and reverence an Abbot and much more an Internuncio nay honour your person without those titles if you respect me as is fitting For what concerns his Eminence as I have a great veneration for the height of the Sacred Episcopal Office as instituted by Christ our Saviour and the Dignity of Cardinal as constituted by the Supreme Bishops so I have a far greater for both in the person of his Eminence Cardinal Fr. Barberin and so much the greater as by the rule of our seraphick Father I know my self obliged by a stricter tye to reverence not only the Governor Protector and Corrector but as I am informed a Friend and Patron and singular Benefactor too of our Order and a man besides if this unhappy Controversie had not lessned his esteem pious and good Notwithstanding I maintain I have used no greater freedom against either than becomes the Cause than becomes Walsh or any other Priest who is a Divine and pious in the same Cause The Cause I must confess is in one respect proper to Walsh and the rest of the Subscribers but in more and more important respects 't is the Cause of a Kingdom of the British Empire of England Scotland and more particularly Ireland nay of all Common-wealths Kingdoms and Kings of Christian Faith over and above and by consequence of the universal Church People and Clergy and all Priests 'T is a Cause besides which for the side you take is wonderful bad and most false which has long since been exploded condemned adjudged and adjudged as seditious scandalous erroneous contrary to the Word of God Heretical and moreover dangerous to Kings and People destructive of the peace of the World apt even to make the Pope and Church of Christ be abominated hated and abhorred And yet so I say or as such adjudged exploded and condemned in all ages all times from the dayes of Gregory the VII to this present and at present also and that most of all by renowned Prelates famous Doctors Universities Churches most Kingdoms and Commonwealths through all Europe preserving notwithstanding the Faith and Communion of Rome Besides 't is a Cause for which and for that part I mean which you have undertaken to maintain albeit that were but only for the Popes indirect power and that also only in some cases over the Temporals of Christian Princes its most learned and eminent Patron Cardinal Perron demanded no more but that as problematical or as uncertain and doubtful it might pass uncensured and demanded this in an Assembly general of the Three Estates in France Lastly 't is a Cause which for that very unwarrantable part the Internuncio and Cardinal do so persuade urge press and to their power constrain also to be embraced and this with all manner of art and craft with all manner of industry and fraud but yet onely in a corner of the World amongst a company of ignorant Islanders the miserable Irish I mean far from the great Continent and but there indeed where such arts are not so well known that not content with the late and entire destruction of a miserable Nation procured by such frauds and fictions for Faith forsooth they would again ensnare them and would rather have them lose for ever the present small such as it is and all future hope of being restored to their Countrey or Religion or as I gladly would to the publick and free exercise of their Religion under a most clement Prince or even to any either temporal or spiritual advantages then not to embrace not believe this most impious Assertion and believe it as an Article of Faith without which they cannot be saved And would have them serve over again their wretched slavery undergo Prisons Banishments and Death And as heretofore in the persecution of the Vandals would have the whole Clergy Bishops Priests Religious as Traytors Rebels and Outlaws either be hanged at home or banishâ—t again to Beggery abroad leaving none in that Island of Saints to baptize the new born or confirm the baptised or absolve those of years or anoint the dying or consecrate or administer the holy Host to any Now if Walsh have expostulated defended and reproved as above and this after two nay almost three years of patience and silence in such a Cause against such an assertion such enormous errours and impostures such more then abominable plots and attempts who that considers the thing as it deserves can object against him that he has spoken more freely than became him But the Cardinal is Protector Corrector and Governour of the Order of the Minors and by consequence has the power of a Prelate and lawful Superiour over Walsh and yet against him much here is said I have granted this before But is it therefore not lawful for Walsh in this or the like case to use the freedom which he here uses or what do you think of St. Peter what of St. Paul what of that reprehension of St. Peter by St. Paul St. Paul was the last of the Apostles was called not the ordinary way was the Thirteenth was one who said He was not worthy the name of an Apostle St. Peter was the first chief greatest Prince of the Apostolical Order and Prince
my self and the general Cause even before the most partial and prepossessed of my Forraign Judges Fray Pedro Manero a Spaniard and Minister General of the whole Franciscan Order throughout the World ventur'd in September 1654. from London to Madrid though neither summon'd nor otherwise sent for And I could alledge not only the injustice and inhumanity of my Imprisonment for Nine weeks and four days in the Convent of St. Francis there with all other even the most uncanonical circumstantials of it and whole procedure concerning it but also the malicious and cruel endeavours used by those Irish Fathers that acted then and there in behalf of their whole Party either at home in Ireland or abroad in Forraign parts against me to force me even out of that Conventural Prison to an other incomparably worse i.e. to that of the Inquisition having to this end drawn a Petition to the Supream Inquisitor of Spain and gone about Madrid to get hands to their said Petition as they did in particular goe to the Lord of Louth and to Lieutenant General Richard Ferral both Irishmen and to Don Diego de La Torres and his Lady both Spaniards who had been because Don Diego had been Agent for His Catholick Majesty at Kilkenny in Ireland and known me very well when I appeared there publickly against the Popes Nuncio Many other circumstances of Injustice besides the substance of the grand Charge against me I could alledge And yet my having overcome all without yielding in any one tittle to my Enemies or made any kind of submission or admitted of or received directly or indirectly as much as a conditional absolution ad cautelam from the Church-censures which they but falsly alledg'd I had incurred And yet also my Commitment the second time to Prison there viz. after I had been for some weeks set free and wholly cleared from the personal Charges against my self nay my Commitment this time to a formal and horrible Prison indeed onely for expostulating with the above General Manero in the case or behalf of Father Caron and the other six or seven Fathers against whom so far absent unsummon'd unexamin'd unacquainted with and wholly ignorant of the matter and lying information the very same Manero procured His Catholick Majesties Letters to proscribe or banish them as is before said and for telling him to his face That in the said case he had neither behaved himself as a Father nor as a Judge And how my own constancy and truth and justice of what I said so opened this Prison also for me even the very next day yea without any application made by my self for being so delivered or set at liberty from it And how after this also immediately and notwithstanding all opposers I address'd my self personally with a large Petition to His Catholick Majesty not only in behalf of the said proscribed Fathers but even of all others of their way both Ecclesiasticks and the Lay-Nobility and Gentry of Ireland then exiled in any parts of His Catholick Maâ—esties Dominions and prevail'd therein so far as to obtain even the abovementioned Letter to Leopoldo to be revoked by His Catholick Maâ—esty And how notwithstanding I was set free from restraint not only my Adversaries but Manero himself endeavoured to stay me in Spain though Manero had a quite different end therein from that which they had he intending because of Cromwell's warring on Spain at that time to employ me to our Gracious King then forced out of France but they intending onely new afflictions to me by a new intervention of the Court of Rome in my case And how fearing this latter and having on some other accounts I mean other reasons which he could not answer or contradict with any colour procured my Licence from the said General Manero to retire to Biscay and Bilbao I procured a second Licence by Letters Patent from the Spanish Provincial of that Countrey to depart for Ireland taking Flanders and England in my way And moreover how being come to Flanders the second time although I had Friends enough of the Dutch of my own Order there I was notwithstanding within a few weeks warn'd to depart because they were not able to protect me from new Thunders and Prosecutions from Rome then again newly contriving against me And finally how therefore and because the Commissioners of Parliament with whose Pass I twice before departed who govern'd Ireland to whom I then writ for their third permission to return home being I was not suffer'd to live abroad any where safely refused me in plain terms and this because I also had so obstinately refused them to serve the Parliament I was necessitated for so many years after almost till the Kings most happy Restauration to shift and lurk in England the best way I could having but once in that interim gone to Paris for a month not daring then to stay not even there any longer All these things I say and many more which are omitted I could alledge as proofs of my own sufferings in that general Cause onely against the Nuncio as well abroad from 1652. to 1660 after that Ireland had been totally and utterly subdued by the Parliament as before at home from the year 1646. to the year 1652. For that also I can truly say that as it fared in those latter years viz. from August 1659. to the 1652. at home with any either chief Governour of the Kingdom or General of an Army or Colonel Captain or private Gentleman or other person with whomsoever I livâ—d or sojourned or who protected favoured or harboured me in that time of Tryal i. e. as it fared much the worse the zealous Nuntiotists looking even therefore the much more malignly upon every such which indeed was one of the chief causes moved me at last in the said year 1652. to write to the Commissioners of Parliament to Dublin and desire their Pass for departing the Kingdom out of some of their Havens even so it did after abroad and even also with Strangers or Forreigners and would much more if I had been so indiscreet as by making any great experiment either of their justice love or compassion to expose them for my sake to the uttermost of malice Nor truly was it my indiscretion of that kind or any way so much my own desire or inclination as matters stood in the winter of year 1650. after the Marquess of Ormond went away to France and Clanrickard took the Government as it was the extraordinary kindness of the Earl of Castlehaven then General under Clanrickard of the Munster Army that made me at that time stay with his Lordship as his Chaplain and Confessor For I well foresaw what happen'd thereupon viz. Terlagh O Brien the great Nuntiotist Bishop of Imly's coming to his Lordship at Limmerick and in behalf also of other Prelates of his way in that Province telling him plainly They would rend the Army from him if his Lordship dismissed not me immediately The same was the
Ressort pour a la diligence de ses Substituts y estre pareillement leues publiees signifiees aux Professeurs de Theologie dudit Ressort a ce qu'aucun n'en pretende cause d'ignorance Faict en Parlement a Rennes le 21. Aoust 1663. We shall hereafter see those six above inserted Sorbon Declarations whether French or Latin as you have them here in both Languages out of the French Copy translated into English by the Fathers of our National Irish Assembly But for as much as it may peradventure be objected by some of the more unreasonably exceptious and contentious Irish That I ought rather to give here an exact Copy of the very and only Paris Impression it self in Latin of those Acts of that University than of any of them elsewhere in France Printed I thought fit to obstruct also herein such endless wranglers and give that which was transmitted in the said year 1663. immediatly from Paris to London Acta Parisiensia Declaratio Facultatis Theologicae Parisiensis per illius Deputatos Regi exhibita circa theses de Infallibilitate Papae OCtavo Maii die Ascensionis D. N. Jesu Christi convenerunt domini deputati de Mince Morel Betille de Breda Grandin Guyard Guischard Gabillon Coguelin Montgailard in domum Facultatis juxta decretum pridie in Congregatione Generali factum ut convenirent de iis quae Regi Christianissimo declaranda erant ex parte Facultatis per os Illustrissimi ac Reverendissimi D. Archiepiscopi Parisiensis designati cum Amplissimo Comitatu Magistrorum ejusdem Declarationes Facultatis Parisiensis factae apud Regem super quibusdam propositionibus quas non nulli voluerunt ascribere eidem Facultati I. NOn esse doctrinam Facultatis quod summus pontifex aliquam in temporalia Regis Christianissimi Authoritatem habet imo Facultatem semper obstitisse etiam iis qui indirectam tantummodo esse illam Authoritatem voluerunt II. Esse doctrinam Facultatis ejusdem quod Rex nullum omnino agnoscit nec habet in temporalibus superiorem praeter Deum eamque suam esse antiquam Doctrinam a qua nunquam recessura est III. Doctrinam Facultatis esse quod subditi fidem obedientiam Regi Christianissimo ita debent ut ab iis nullo pretextu dispensari possint IV. Doctrinam Facultatis esse non probare nec unquam probasse propositiones allas Regis Christianissimi Authoritati aut Germanis Ecclesiae Gallicanae libertatibus receptis in Regno Canonibus contrarias v. g. quod Summus Pontifex possit deponere Episcopos adversus eosdem Canones V. Doctrinam Facultatis non esse quod summus Pontifex sit supra Concilium Oecumenicum VI. Non esse doctrinam vel dogma Facultatis quod summus Pontifex nullo accedente Ecclesiae consensu sit infallibilis Ita de verbo ad verbum Acta Parisiis Impressa Regi exhibita Mense May 1663. For so word by word is the Printed Copy of the very Latin Paris Impression of these Acts and Six Declarations presented to His Most Christian Majesty in the month of May 1663. XIII THE Reader may now questionless expect an account from me of some either learned or at least prudential debate amongst the Fathers in so grave an Assembly upon so solemn a Message as you have before seen to them on such a Subject from the Duke of Ormond His Majesties Lord Lieutenant then of that Kingdom But I am sorry I can give none at all either of the one or other sort nay nor of any either learned or unlearned or prudential or imprudential because of no kind of debate on that Message For indeed they took no more notice of it than if none at all had been sent them the leading men the Prelats and their numerous and sure sticklers over-awing and silenceing presently any that seemed inclining to move for paying as much as any even due or civil respect in such matters to the Lord Lievtenant or as much as to dispute the equity of what their Cabal had privately before the Congregation sate resolved upon viz. not to comply with His Grace in any material point but to sign and present a new unsignificant Formulary of their own i. e. That prepared to their hands and utterly decline That which His Grace expected from them yea not to suffer any mention at all to be as much as once made in publick of the former Remonstrance So powerfully influential on them was their Prophetical opinion of wonders to be expected by and for themselves done in that wonderful year of 1666. Nor did they seem at all to consider they might be as well defeated of all such their vain worldly carnal hopes of Empire Glory Pomp which they drove at as the Apostles were when before receiving the Holy Ghost in fulness on the 5th day they put this vain question Domine si in tempore hoc restitues Regnum Israel But to leave animadvertions so it was indeed That the Fathers did not once debate not only not the heads of the Procurators Speech but not a word of the very Message from his Grace Albeit they considered how to gratifie the Procurator himself for what was past i. e. for the liberty they had now enjoyed for so many years since 1662. through his endeavours and oblige him also for the future to continue the like endeavours for them as their Procurator And indeed I had scarce been an hour abroad hard by them walking in a Garden to take the fresh air after my long speech which together with the heat of the room made me retire a little when Father Francis Fitz Gerrald a Franciscan one of the Members of that Congregation as Procurator for the Vicar General of the Diocess of Cluan a vacant See in the Province of Casâ—el came with pleasing news to flatter me as he thought telling me the Congregation had voted two thousand pounds sterling to be Levied of all the Clergy of the Kingdom by several gales to be payed me towards my expenses hereafter in carrying on as general Procurator the great affair of their liberty and freedom as till then I had the four last years Him at that time I only answered that was not the point to be either resolved or debated Soon after the Primat himself came forth to me where I continued alone walking And he also would with the same consideration have wrought me to a more plyant temper I answered him to this purpose My Lord you should have known me better then to think to amuse me with the news of any such prepostrous either motions or resolves There will be time enough to consider of such inferiour matters when you shall have first done your duty in order to the King to my Lord Lieutenant and Protestant State Council Parliament which are and ought to govern you under God in all temporal affairs nay your duty to your Native Country and Irish Nation your Church and Catholick Religion and when you shall consequently
first be but just to your selves In the mean time My Lord know that I cannot but very much resent your designs in making use of me to bring you home designs no less point blanck contrary to all your Letters to me and to the publick end of calling this Congregation than so inconsideratly discovered by your self not only in your private discourse with several within these four and Twenty hours since your Landing but also in the publick Assembly this very afternoon My Lord you know out of one of my Letters which you received at Paris five or six weeks before you came away thence and cannot know but full well out of that Letter particularly upon what terms you were to come if you expected as you did and begâ—d so long and earnestly of me in so many Letters these four years past to come with security or any Protection from the just penalties of the Laws to which you your self are so singularly obnoxious above any other Churchman of the whole Nation And you know nor can but remember these terms were That you should Sign that very individual Formulary which others have before you in the year 1662. And that you should by your own example and other just endeavours as far as you could perswade the rest of the Dissentors to the like duty But have you not already rather much even encouraged all the rest to the contrary To this expostulation the Primat answered shortly and confidently 1. That he came indeed of purpose to hinder the Congregation and consequently the whole Irish Nation from falling from their obedience to the See Apostolick by Signing that Formulary of the famed Remonstrance 2. That he received no such Letter from me containing such terms I was amazed to hear and see the confidence of this answer especially of the second part of it which made me reply in this manner My Lord you make the business worse and worse and afflict me more by your disingenuous denyal then by your designs or any other endeavours For I can never more have that confidence to interpose for you hereafter which I have had hitherto And how can I being out of what you alledged now conscious of your want of sincerity in a matter of such consequence and wherewith the Lord Lievtenant must be acquainted by me as he was with that Letter I sent you And pray my Lord how can you perswade your self that either his Grace or any other will believe you concerning that Letter You have euen now lately corresponded with me every Packet this whole Twelve-month from Paris And as I received all and every of your Letters so you have by your own confession all mine in answer that only excepted How should that miscarry being directed as all the rest were under an unknown name and to the place which your self appointed Nay you received at Paris before you stirred thence three more of mine written after that Nevertheless he persisted still in denying the reception of it Whereupon I added That I could heartily wish it had been so and that his Lordship could evidence it to have been so which though you cannot my Lord yet you will do well to think what you are to speak for your self even also on that Subject to my Lord Lieutenants Grace whom I must acquaint to night with your excuse together with your humble desire to wait upon his Grace Which I will the rather that not only you may know from himself I writ no other to you to Paris either in that Letter or any former or later than truth but also have an assurance from his Graces own mouth of your safety here while you stay or shall be suffered to stay however you carry your self in the Congregation publickly or elsewhere privatly as to the Remonstrance I mean For hitherto you relyed only on my bare Letters inviteing or encouraging you to come and promising you might with all security And though you now deny the terms or conditions added in those Letters yet I know my Lord Lieutenant will not give occasion to new lyes and flanders by restraining you from Liberty to return whence you came if you think fit not to do that which should merit or at least move him to further indulgence though otherwise but your bare duty to the King Such in effect was my Expostulation with the Primat such his answer and such finally my return According to which return I acquainted that very night his Grace with all that passed that day as I did every night his Grace with every days transactions while the Fathers continued that Assembly and amongst other things with what passed either in publick or private between the Primat and me And his Grace notwithstanding he had as many causes of prejudice against even the said Primat in particular as any could have yet overcoming all by that wonderful good nature of his own which so often before during so many years since 1641 had passed by but too too many failings of the Roman Catholick Prelats of Ireland in general was pleased to assign me the next night after to introduce privately to his Closet the said Primat XIV BUT the interposing day which was the fourth of the Congregation and fourteenth of the moneth gives me some further matter to be observed before I come to relate the Primats introduction at night For the Fathers being sate again this day both morning and evening as their manner was to sit twice every day till they were Dissolved only the two intervening Sundays excepted and because I was truly and fully informed of the obstinate nay desperate resolution of their leading men viz. 1. Not only not to Sign the Remonstrance of 1661 and 1662 but not to debate it nay nor suffer it as much as to be read in their House 2. To sign only another new but very insignificant Instrument of Recognition prepared for them which abstracted wholly from all the material parts of the former And 3. not to Petition for any Pardon at all and because withal I was resolved not to be wanting of my own part to prevent or at least to premonish them sufficiently and publickly of the fatal consequencies of such desperate Counsels I thought fit to assist and spend some time with them both in the fore and afternoon partly desiring a positive answer from the Speaker to these two Queries 1. What they had resolved on my Lord Lieutenants Message concerning their Signing the Remonstrance 2. What upon my own proposal to them concerning a Petition for Pardon and partly reasoning against the answers given For to the First Quere the answer was That the House resolved upon a new Remonstrance or new Formulary of their own which they presumed would satisfie the Lord Lieutenants Grace and assure him sufficiently for the future of their Allegiance Faith and Obedience to the King And to the Second That they thought any such Petition needless Whereupon I took the liberty to advise entreat conjure the Fathers not
seen and heard not being void even of some suspitious thoughts coming on me whether I would or no that the reason of his retiring first in private with the Girl was only to Cathechize her how to behave her self and answer to the questions he should put her in publick as soon as he callâ—d us in However I clearly saw he gave no proofs that day of any Miraculous gift for curing either the one or other sort of diseases I mean either those proceeding immediately from some extraordinary Diabolical operation or those which have other immediate ordinary causes visible or natural And yet I dared not judge that he had no such gift although he failed that time but rather would even then perswade my self he might have it in some occasions and in order to some persons according to the good pleasure and mercy of God being continued even then in so favourable an opinion of him by the returning Memory of what was lately written of him from London and what some others told me but especially of what Geoffry Brown related And yet withal I could not but judge out of what I had my self that day seen his great proffer could be no less than subject to a very great contingency Notwithstanding which judgment of mine and of many others too declared again and again by my self to him I saw his confidence always such in demanding Licence for the more publick tryal before mentioned that I would even shut my own eyes a little longer and see only with his Which was the reason that upon his coming to lye at one Mr. Raughter's his own Countrey-man in Kennedy Lane within two or three doors to my Lodging I not only visited him again early in a morning but finding him there on his knees all alone at his private Devotions desired him to sign with the sign of the Cross even my self from the crown of my Head to the very soales of my Feet in every part of my body and pray over me telling him I had a little spice of the Scurvy for many years encreasing still more and more by my sedentary Life and though not with pain yet often with weakness and numbness of my Arms and Legs besides other evident signs thereof especially spots of all colours of the Rainbow to day appearing and next day again disappearing And certainly during all the time he signed my limbs and prayed over me he standing and I kneeling no man I think could ever have less prejudice or more resignation than I had even in order I mean to his gift or effect thereof on my self being as before and after so at that very time resolved not to frame any judgment of him out of his want of success on me nay nor on any other one or more persons whatsoever practised on in private but to suspend my judgment till I had seen the success of the publick tryal himself desired So far was I all along unto the very last from either disaffection to or prejudice against Father Finachty Though as neither in or from this practice or effect thereof on my self so neither in or from that I had seen of his on others I could see any argument for him Therefore to come at last to his own great and publick Tryal because he himself would needs have it so even against all my advises and reasons given him at several times as soon as my Lord Lieutenant was returned from Kilkenny which happened to be some days if not weeks before Father Finachtys praying over my self I acquainted his Grace with that great and confident proposal made having withal given him at large the best and truest account I could of all was said for and against the said Father and what besides I had either learned from himself or seen my self otherwise by him adding also my reasons why it were fit to yield to his Petition For said I if he have any such true Miraculous gift from God it must be a sin against the Holy Ghost to oppose it wilfully or willingly such being that of resisting or impugning the grace of God appearing to the World in any man of what Religion soever And if he have no such gift indeed but only pretends it wittingly as an Impostor or imagines it unwittingly as a frantick man then without any peradventure such a publick Tryal as he desires will be the readiest and most certain way of any to discover at last unanswerably the Imposture or frenzy or both and that so fully and notoriously too that simple well-meaning people may be no longer abused Upon my first application His Grace did seem very unwilling to grant a request which if condescended to and accordingly complyed with by Finachty must end not only in laughter and scorn of him amongst all beholders but amongst all Protestants in reproach also of the credulous folly of Roman-Catholicks in general Yet my importunity joyn'd with that reason presently given prevailed so at last that His Grace resolved to let him have his will And therefore bid me go to him the said Finachty once more and as from himself i. e. from His Grace the Lord Lieutenant to put this question exactly viz. Whether he excepted against any kind of natural sickness for albeit I told my Lord he did not but undertook to cure all universally as before yet His Grace would have me go from himself and tell Finachty I was commanded to him so of purpose by His Grace upon this express Errand I did therefore obey and Finachty did again and again assure me that he excepted against no sort of sick persons whatever even the most natural inveterat and habitual Diseases they had and bid me answer so from him to the Lord Lieutenant as also that to evidence before the World That the Roman-Catholick Religion was the only true way of Salvation he would undertake to cure miraculously before all the beholders such a select number of whatever sick persons who had been so tryed as before by their own Physitians and so prayed over by their Priests and Bishops of the Protestant Church but not cured nor curable by them When I had delivered this positive answer My Lord presently concluded that without further delay he should have matter enough furnished to him for making his offer good they would find out the sick let him look to the rest And yet says my Lord because I am sure he will fail in performance of any Wonders I will take care there shall be but a few Protestants there and such only as shall be discreet men and I would advise that you suffer but a few also of the discreeter Catholicks to be present Yet if Finachty will have a Multitude of these who can help it though otherwise I desire not by any means of my own part to expose the weakness of Roman-Catholicks in giving credit to so much Knavery or at least to so much frenzy nor even to confound him but before the smallest number of both sides may
the Judge cannot proceed to the execution of his sentence and by the Canons and Glosses he is no Judge he hath no jurisdiction he cannot examine or call in question the causes of the Appeal neither is the Appellant bound to answer his summons Certainly if he could proceed to the execution of the sentence he might summon him and examine the causes of the Appeal both because that the examination of these causes might make him alter his sentence which was in it self perhaps wholly unjust and because it is therefore said he might proceed to this execution inasmuch as it is supposed he lost no part of his jurisdiction by the interposition of the Appeal since he gave only refutatories If therefore he have in this case a plenary jurisdiction over the Appellant why cannot he summon him concerning the causes of the Appeal or why is not the Appellant in this case bound to obey him It cannot be said That the Laws exempt the Appellant in this particular from him for the very prime Text which can be alledged for this to wit cap. Si a Judice de Appellat in 6. exempts him likewise in all other cases and declares the Judge to be no more Judge over the Appellant And if they say being reduced to extremities that the Judge a quo may call in question even the causes of the Appeal and judge them then they engage themselves against all the Canons Glosses and Doctors and against all their reasons whereof that is insoluble which we have before produced in the Glosse of cap. Sollicitudinem extr de Appellat verb. Episcopus posset where we have seen the question propounded why the Judge a quo might not be a competent Judge of the Appeal and answered it is therefore because that the Appellant is exempt from his jurisdiction by expression of a probable cause in his Appeal as from a Party suspected in regard the Law presumes that he would still give sentence in favour of his jurisdiction and of his former acts or sentences which all reason persuades us he would do For who is that upon unjust grounds would give sentence against any and upon his just Appeal give him only refutatory apostles would not also give sentence against him in the causes of the Appeal for maintenance of his own jurisdiction and righteousness or perhaps in prosecution of his former ignorance corruption malice or spleen if the Law did enable him with power to be Judge in this case Whence further would follow That the Subject would be often remedilesly exposed to the tyranny of every unjust and partial Judge This very same is a reason most sufficient and discovered unto us by the light of nature why we must hold that it lies not in the Judges breast to disannul just Appeals by giving refutatories whether it be granted or denied that he is Judge of the causes For otherwise an ignorant corrupt or malicious Judge notwithstanding his most illegal proceedings might overthrow at his pleasure the most reasonable and necessary Appeals in the World innocency might be oppressed without remedy and all injustice and tyranny maintained if we say the Judge for having given refutatories might proceed to execution during the said just Appeal for the execution may be an evil irrecoverable by any address might be made after as indeed it would be in our case were it allowed Which how repugnant it is to the very Law of Nature and to the intention and aim of Holy Canons who doth not see It was this convincing reason we may justly think made Glossa in cap. Licet de sentent Excom in 6. maintain our assertion in the like case where the Judge gave only apostles refutatories Which is the second argument we make use of to remove this Block whereat some seem to stumble For though the words of Glossa be not the very Text of the Law yet no man can deny but in such a business they are a sufficient president for us and no man can deny who is versed in Canons or Canonists but this very Glosse is next after the Text of esteem and of more authority than Forty Doctors who should maintain the contrary if they produced not the express Letter of the Law to the contrary or some Glosse as clearly for the opposite assertion as this for ours or at least some reason convincing a natural equity for the adverse opinion None of which as we are sure they could not as yet produce so we are confident they shall never be able hereafter to produce The words of the foresaid Glosse are Put the case I was convented before an Ecclesiastical Judge against whom I alledged some declinatory exception perhaps that he was the Kinsman of my adversary or I alledged some dilatory exception The Judge would not admit my exception but declared that notwithstanding any such he would proceed in the principal Whereupon I appealed in writing expressing a reasonable cause in my Appeal and desired with due instance that he would give me apostles He gave me refutatories prefixing withal a time to proceed before him in the principal But I appeared not the day appointed Wherefore he excommunicated me as contumacious 'T is certain that if the cause inserted in my Appeal be true I am not excommunicated (r) Glossa in cap. Licet de sent excom in 6. Pone casum quod fui conventus coram Judice Ecclesiastico coram quo proposui aliquam exceptionem declinatoriam forte quod erat consanguincus adversarii mei vel aliquam exceptionem dilatoriam posui Judex noluit admittere istam exceptionem sed pronunciavit quod ea non obstante procederet in principali unde appellavi in scriptis legitime expressa causa rationabili in mea appellatione petii cum debita instantia ut daret mihi apostolos qui dedit resutatorios assignando mihi terminum ad procedendum coram ipso in principali qua die non comparui Ideo tanquam contumaciem me excommunicavit Certum est quod si causa inserta in mea appellatione sit vera non sum excommunicatus Behold here our very case of an Appeal interposed and only apostles refutatorie granted which refutatories notwithstanding the Gloss affirms it is certain That the Appellant was not bound by the sentence of Excommunication issued against him if the causes expressed in his Appeal were true that is lawful and reasonable for appealing How may it therefore be denied but a just Appeal exempts the Appellant from the power and jurisdiction of the Judge from whom though this Judge do not admit his Appeal but only give refutatories and even the worst King of refutatories for such were the apostles mention'd in this Glosse otherwise this Excommunication of our Glosse would oblige the Appellant And how may it be that any will hereafter stumble at this block of the Lord Nuncio's apostles refutatories given as an Answer to the Councils Appeal or think That these apostles could hinder their just
Appeal from suspending the sentence of the Lord Nuncio its consequences and his jurisdiction in this matter The Objections made by the Adversaries are all of straw and are partly dissolved already and the rest do here follow One is That the Judge doth not give way to the suspensive effect of an Appeal when he gives refutatory apostles as appears out of the Glosse in cap. Cordi nobis de Appellat in 6. § exhiberi All which we confess and is too manifest for to make any matter of dispute by reason that the very act of giving refutatories is a denial of giving way to the suspensive effect of the Appeal And therefore the Glosse very well and truly sayes That the Judge denieth inasmuch as in him lies to give way to this suspensive effect when he gives refutatories But neither doth that Glosse nor any other nor likewise any Text of Law or Doctor say That the Judge by his illegal denying to give way to this suspensive effect of a just Appeal can hinder or take away in rei veritate before God or man from the Appeal justly interposed this effect annexed to it ex natura rei by the Canons though indeed he do but unconscionably sinfully invalidly and at his own peril as much as in him lieth to hinder it Wherefore though he give not this way yet the Law giveth it when the Appeal is from a just or probable grievance as appears evidently out of all the forementioned Glosses Doctors and Canons and even reason too Another objection is formed out of c. cum speciali de Appellationibus 2. § Porro c. Romana Ecclesia eod tit in 6. § si vero § sententia quoque Glossa in cap. ut super Appellatione eod § nota insuper c. non solum eod cum clara Glossa c. cum Appellationibus eod cum Glossa § nota insuper § nota primo c. licet de senten excom in 6. Glossa ibid. § nota ex hoc whence they deduce That what the Judge a quo doth in prosecution of the cause after apostles refutatory given by him as answer to an Appeal made from him is of such force and effect in Law That the Judge ad quem or to whom the Appeal is made cannot recall the sentence given by the Judge from whom until the validity of the Appeal be proved or disproved before him and if disproved that he cannot proceed in the principal matter but must remit the whole to the first Judge but if proved that then he may absolve the Appellant from all Censures renewed after such an Appeal and so proceed to examine the principal matter And hence is further deduced That when such refutatory apostles are given the Appellant is not exempted from the jurisdiction of the Judge from whom otherwise the Judge to whom likely would presently recall the proceedings and all acts done by the Judge a quo after the Appeal made from him But this difficulty is easily cleared for all the said Canons and Glosse speak only and are to be understood of proceedings attempted by the Judge from whom after an Appeal made a gravamine concerning some emergent or incident Article not of his proceedings against the Appellant after the Appeal made from a grievance in the principal cause Moreover we say That even in case of an Appeal from a grievance in only an emergent Article though the Judge ad quem will not presently recall such proceedings until it appear unto him that the Appeal was justly made yet the Law doth suspend them as appeareth plainly by the often mentioned c. Si a Judice de Appellat by the Glosse of cap. Licet de senten excom in 6. and so many other places before rehearsed However this be though nothing be said in either branch of this Answer but what 's very true the matter is more plain in our case for your Honours Appeal is not a gravamine interloquntorio super articulo incidemi vel emergenti but from an extrajudicial sentence in the very principal cause Nay your Appeal in effect is ante sententiam because it was interposed before the fulfilling of the condition or dayes prefixed for deliberation were expired and consequently though no other cause might be produced all the following proceedings are void cap. Ad prasentiam juncta Glossa de Appellat extra with many other Canons Zerula in â—rax Episc verb. Appel reâ—p 1â— qâ—â—s 19. As for that which Zerula in his Praxis Episcopalis seems to say for maintaining the Judges jurisdiction when he gives only Apostolos refutatorios We answer That his bare assertion of a practice contrary to so many Reasons Laws and Doctors cannot be of weight specially when he doth not alledge one Reason Text or Author for himself Secondly That the practice of one place though it were just as this if there had been any such could never be binds not another And indeed the best Practitioners with us say the contrary practice is used in Ireland Thirdly That Zerula must be understood where and when the Appeal is in it self frivolous not where it is manifestly or probably just otherwise that practice would be most unconscionable most corrupt yea and against the express Letter of the Law specially if you join the Glosses and consequently not to be in any wise used Fourthly That he speaks in case of an Appeal made from a judicial interloquntorie or from decrees upon emergent or incident Articles for in this case we confess That the Judge from whom may proceed to the principal as not yet suspended from his jurisdiction Glossa in c. licet de seuten excom in 6. but not when the Appeal is from an extrajudicial sentence or grievance in the very principal cause as ours was in which last case the Law ordains that the Judge a quo can proceed no further as being suspended from his jurisdiction cap. si a Judice de Appellat in 6. cap. super eo x. eod tit extra Glossa in cap. Licet verb. convalescat de senten excom in 6. To that doubt which some others move That the Lord Nuncio hath a power to proceed Omni appellatione remota and consequently that though the Appeal be just and the Arguments hitherto produced would conclude against apostles refutatorie given by ordinary Judges yet when the power is so extraordinary they do not convince We answer That in case the Lord Nuncio had in his Commission such a clause which is very ordinary in the Popes Letters and Bulls yet no power thereby is conferred on his Lordship to hinder just or probable Appeals but only such as are in themselves not by his Lordships word or sentence meerly frivolous groundless and against the Law as expresly may be seen in the Canons here placed in the margent especially being joined with their Glosses Cap. Pastoralis de Appel junc Gloss verb. emendari cap. ut debitus eod junc Gloss verb. ante sententiam in verb. absque rationabili
said Articles and before the said Publication shall not be accompted taken or construed or be Treason Felony or other offence to be excepted out of the said Act of Oblivion Provided likewise That the said Act of Oblivion shall not extend unto any person or persons that will not obey and submit unto the Peace concluded and agreed on by these Articles Provided further That the said Act of Oblivion or any in this Article contained shall not hinder or interrupt the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them to call to an account and proceed against the Council and Congregation and the respective Supreme Councils Commissioners General appointed hitherto from time to time by the Confederate Catholicks to manage their affairs or any other person or persons accomptable to an account for their respective Receipts and disbursments since the beginning of their respective employments under the said Confederate Catholicks or to acquit or release any arrears of Excises Customs or Publick Taxes to be accompted for since the Three and Twentieth of October 1641. and not disposed of hitherto to the Publick use but that the Parties therein concerned may be called to an account for the same as aforesaid by the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them the said Act or any thing therein contained to the contrary notwithstanding XIX Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is graciously pleased That an Act be passed in the next Parliament prohibiting That neither the Lord Deputy or other chief Governour or Governours Lord Chancellor Lord High Treasurer Vice-Treasurer Chancellor or any of the Barons of the Exchequer Privy Council or Judges of the Four Courts be Farmers of His Majesties Customs within this Kingdom XX. Item It is likewise concluded accorded and agreed and His Majesty is graciously pleased That an Act of Parliament pass in this Kingdom against Monopolies such as was Enacted in England 21 Jacobi Regis with a further Clause of Repealing of all Grants of Monopolies in this Kingdom and that Commissioners be agreed upon by the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them to set down the Rates for the custom and imposition to be laid on Aquavitae Wine Oyl Yearn and Tobacco XXI Item It is concluded accorded and agreed and His Majesty is graciously pleased That such persons as shall be agreed on by the said Lord Lieutenant and the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them shall be as soon as may be authorized by Commission under the Great Seal to regulate the Court of Castle-Chamber and such causes as shall be brought into and censured in the said Court XXII Item It is concluded accorded and agreed upon and His Majesty is graciously pleased That Two Acts lately passed in this Kingdom the one prohibiting the plowing with Horses by the Tail and the other prohibiting the burning of Oats in the straw be Repealed XXIII Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased For as much as upon application of Agents from this Kingdom unto His Majesty in the Fourth year of His Reign and lately upon humble suit made unto His Majesty by a Committee of both Houses of the Parliament of this Kingdom some order was given by His Majesty for redress of several Grievances and for so many of those as are not expressed in the Articles whereof both Houses in the next ensuing Parliament shall desire the benefit of His Majesties said former directions for redresses therein that the same be afforded them yet so as for prevention of inconveniencies to His Majesties service that the warning mentioned in the Four and twentieth Article of the Graces in the Fourth year of His Majesties Reign be so understood that the warning being left at the persons Dwelling-houses be held sufficient warning and that as to the Two and twentieth Article of the said Graces the Process hitherto used in the Court of Wards do still continue as hitherto it hath done in that and hath been used in our English Courts But the Court of Wards being compounded for so much of the aforesaid Answer as concern warning and process shall be omitted XXIV Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That Maritime Causes may be determined in this Kingdom without driving of Merchants or others to appeal and seek Justice elsewhere and if it shall fall out that there be cause of an Appeal the Party grieved is to appeal to His Majesty in the Chancery of Ireland and the Sentence thereupon to be given by the Delegates to be definitive and not to be questioned upon any further Appeal except it be in the Parliament of this Kingdom if the Parliament then shall be sitting otherwise not This to be by Act of Parliament And until the said Parliament the Admiralty and Maritime Causes shall be ordered and setled by the said Lord Lieutenant or other chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom for the time being by and with the advice and consent of the said Thomas Lord Viscount Dillon of Costelloe Lord President of Connaught Donnogh Lord Viscount Muskery Francis Lord Baron of Athunry Alexander mac Donnel Esq Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Nicholas Plunket Knight Sir Richard Barnewall Baronet Geoffery Browne Donnogh O Callaghane Tirlagh O Neil Miles Reilly and Gerald Fennel Esquires or any seven or more of them XXV Item It is further concluded accorded and agreed upon by and between the said Parties and His Majesty is further graciously pleased That His Majesties Subjects of this Kingdom be eased of all Rents and increase of Rents lately