executed for their consciences as we hold although our Adversaries say for Treason and of those twelve some perhaps can hardly be drawn within our account having been tainted with matters of Rebellion The most of the said number were Seminary Priests who if they had come over into England with the like intents that some others have done might very worthily have been used as they were But in our consciences nay some of us do know it that they were far from those seditious humors being men that intended nothing else but simply the good of our Country and the conversion of Souls Marry to say the truth as we have confessed before how could either her Majesty or the State know so much They had great cause as Politick persons to suspect the worst Besides to the further honour of her Majesty we may not omit that the States of the whole Realm assembled in Parliament Anno 1576. were pleased to pass us over and made no Laws at that time against us The ancient Prisoners that had been restrained more narrowly in the year 1570. were notwithstanding the said enterprises in Ireland again restored to their former liberty to continue with their friends as they had done before Such as were not suspected to have been dealers or abettors in the said treasonable actions were used with that humanity which could well be expected But when the Jesuits were come and that the State had notice of the said Excommunication there was then within a while a great alteration For such were the Jesuits proceedings and with so great boldness as though all had been theirs and that the State should presently have been changed Her Majesty had seen what followed in her Kingdom upon the first Excommunication and was therefore in all worldly Policy to prevent the like by the second The jealousie also of the State was much increased by Mr. Sherwins answers upon his examination above eight months before the apprehension of Mr. Campion For being asked whether the Queen was his lawful Soveraign notwithstanding any sentence of the Popes he prayed that no such question might be demanded of him and would not further thereunto answer Two or three other questions much to the same effect were likewise propounded unto him which he also refused to answer Matters now sorting on this fashion there was a greater restraint of Catholicks than at any time before Many both Priests and Gentlemen were sent into the Isle of Ely and other places there to be more safely kept and looked unto In January following 1581. according to the general computation a Proclamation was made for the calling home of her Majesties Subjects beyond the Seas such especially as were trained up in the Seminaries pretending that they learned little there but disloyalty and that none after that time should harbor or relieve them with sundry other points of very hard intendment towards us The same month also a Parliament ensued wherein a Law was made agreeable in effect to the said Proclamation but with a more severe punishment annexed For it was a penalty of death for any Jesuit or Seminary Priest to repair into England and for any to receive and entertain them which fell out according to Bishop Watsons former speeches or prediction what inischief the Jesuits would bring upon us We could here as well as some others have done shew our dislike with some bitterness of the said Law and penalty But to what purpose should we do so It had been a good point of wisdom in two or three persons that have taken that course to have been silent and rather have sought by gentleness and sweet carriage of themselves to have prevented the more sharp execution of that Law than by exclaiming against it when it was too late to have provoked the State to a greater severity against us And to confess something to our own disadvantage and to excuse the said Parliament if all the Seminary Priests then in England or which should after that time have come hither had been of Mr. Mortons and Mr. Saunders mind before mentioned when the first Excommunication came out or of Mr. Saunders his second resolution being then in Arms against her Majesty in Ireland or of Mr. Parsons traiterous disposition both to our Queen and Country the said Law no doubt had carried with it a far greater shew of Justice But that was the error of the State and yet not altogether for ought they knew improbable those times being so full of many dangerous designments and Jesuitical practices In this year also divers other things fell out unhappily towards us poor Priests and other the graver sort of Catholicks who had all of us single hearts and disliked no men more of all such factious enterprises For notwithstanding the said Proclamation and Law Mr. Heywood a Jesuit came then into England and took so much upon him that Father Parsons fell out exceedingly with him and great troubles grew amongst Catholicks by their brablings and quarrels A Synod was held by him the said Mr. Heywood and sundry ancient Customs were therein abrogated to the offence of very many These courses being understood after a sort by the State the Catholicks and Priests in Norfolk felt the smart of it This Summer also in July Mr. Campion and other Priests were apprehended whose answers upon their examinations agreeing in effect with Mr. Sherwins before mentioned did greatly incense the State For amongst other questions that were propounded unto them this being one viz. If the Pope do by his Bull or Sentence pronounce her Majesty to be deprived and no lawful Queen and her Subjects to be discharged of their allegiance and obedience unto her and after the Pope or any other by his appointment and authority do invade this Realm which part would you take or which part ought a good Subject of England to take some answered that when the case should happen they would then take counsel what were best for them to do Another that when that case should happen he would answer and not before Another that for the present he was not resolved what to do in such a case Another that when the case happeneth then he will answer Another that if such deprivation and invasion should be made for any matter of his faith he thinketh he were then bound to take part with the Pope Now what King in the world being in doubt to be invaded by his enemies and fearing that some of his own Subjects were by indirect means drawn rather to adhere unto them than to himself would not make the best tryal of them he could for his better satisfaction whom he might trust to In which tryal if he found any that either should make doubtful answers or peremptorily affirm that as the case stood betwixt him and his enemies they would leave him their Prince and take part with them might he not justly repute them for Traitors and deal with them accordingly Sure we are that no King or Prince in
repine or complain some of those Nations might have done written and spoken as it had pleased them It little became either Master Saunders otherwise an excellent man or Master Parsons or any other of our own Nation to have intermedled with those matters or to write as they have very offensively done in divers of their Books and Treatises to what purpose we know not except it were to shew their malice to dishonour their own Country as much as lay in them and to move a greater dislike in the State of all that be Catholicks than before they had Kings ever have had and will have their plots and practices for their own safeties it being as inconvenient to their Policy for one Prince by his Might to over-top another as it is amongst the principal members of our natural bodies for one member to swell or grow too great above his due proportion Happy had we Catholicks been at this day if these men being Priests had never troubled themselves with State-matters which they have managed as Phaeton did his Fathers Chariot very greatly to our prejudice Let them pretend never so great skill in their disposing of Kingdoms ordine ad Deum they have certainly dealt with ours ordine ad Gehennam But this is not all which the State may justly challenge us for In the time of our said Peace and upon the coming into England of the Queen of Scots whilst her Majesty of England and the State were busied as partly you have heard before it pitieth our hearts to see and read what hath been printed and published out of Italy in the life of Pius Quintus concerning his Holiness endeavors stirred up by false suggestions to joyn with the King of Spain for the utter ruine and overthrow both of our Prince and Country Would to God such things had never been enterprised and most of all that they had never been printed We that have some skill with our Pens presume too much a great deal upon our own Wits What good the mentioning of these points can bring to the Church we see not but sure we are it hath done much hurt and given our common Enemies very great advantage against us For now it is usually objected unto us by every one of any reach when we complain of some hard dealings towards us Yea say they very well good Masters were you not in quiet Who then gave the cause that you were troubled When her Majesty used you kindly how treacherously was she dealt with by you Did not Pius Quintus practise her Majesties subversion she good Lady never dreaming of any such mischief Was not one Robert Ridolphi a Gentleman of Florence sent hither by the Pope under colour of Merchandize to sollicite a Rebellion Did not Pius Quintus move the King of Spain to joyn in this Exploit for the better securing of his own Dominions in the Low Countries Was not the Bull denounced against her Majesty that carrieth so fair a Preface of zeal and pastoral duty devised purposely to further the intended Rebellion for the depriving of her Majesty from her Kingdom Had not the Pope and King of Spain assigned the Duke of Norfolk to be the Head of this Rebellion Did not the Pope give order to Ridolphi to take 150000 Crowns to set forward this attempt Was not some of that Money sent for Scotland and some delivered to the said Duke Did not King Philip at the Popes instance determine to send the Duke of Alva into England with all his Forces in the Low Countries to assist the Duke of Norfolk Are all these things true and were they not then in hand whilst her Majesty dealt so mercifully with you How can you excuse these designments so unchristian so unpriestly so treacherous and therefore so un-prince-like When we first heard these particulars we did not believe them but would have laid our lives they had been false but when we saw the Book and found them there God is our witness we were much amazed and can say no more but that his Holiness was misinformed and indirectly drawn to these courses But to proceed it being unknown to the State what secret matters were in hand against them both at home and beyond the Seas the Catholicks here continued in sort as before you have heard till the said Rebellion brake forth in the North 1569. a little before Christmas and that it was known that the Pope had excommunicated the Queen and thereby freed her Subjects as the Bull importeth from their subjection And then there followed a great restraint of the said Prisoners but none of them were put to death upon that occasion the Sword being then only drawn against such Catholicks as had risen up actually into open Rebellion Wherein we cannot see what her Majesty did that any Prince in Christendom in such a case would not have done And as touching the said Bull many both Priests and Lay Catholicks have greatly wished that it had never been decreed denounced published or heard of For we are perswaded that the Pope was drawn thereunto by false suggestions of certain undiscreet turbulent persons who pretending to him one thing had another drift in their heads for their own advancement And therefore we have ever accounted of it as a sentence procured by surreption knowing it to be no unusual thing with the Pope through indirect means and factious heads to be often deceived in matters of Fact as we now find it in the setting up of our new Arch-Priest Now upon all these occasions her Majesty being moved with great displeasure called a Parliament in the thirteenth year of her Reign 1571. wherein a Law was made containing many branches against the bringing into this Land after that time of any Bulls from Rome any Agnus Dei Crosses or Pardons and against all manner of persons that should procure them to be so brought hither with many other particularities thereunto appertaining Which Law although we hold it to be too rigorous and that the pretended remedy exceeded the measure of the offence either undutifully given or in justice to have been taken yet we cannot but confess as reasonable men that the State had great cause to make some Laws against us except they should have shewed themselves careless for the continuance of it But be the Law as any would have it never so extreme yet surely it must be granted that the occasions of it were most outragious and likewise that the execution of it was not so tragical as many since have written and reported of it For whatsoever was done against us either upon the pretence of that Law or of any other would never we think have been attempted had not divers other preposterous occasions besides the causes of that Law daily fallen out amongst us which procured matters to be urged more severely against us In the year 1572. out cometh Master Saunders Book de visibili Monarchia wherein he taketh upon him to set down how the Pope had
sent one Master Morton and Master Web two Priests before the said Rebellion to the Lords and Gentlemen in the North to excite them with their Followers to take up Arms. And the rather to perswade them thereunto they signified unto them by the Popes commandment that her Majesty was excommunicated her Subjects were released from their obedience and much more to that purpose Likewise the said Mr. Saunders doth justifie the said commotion and ascribeth the evil success it had to the over-late publishing of the said Bull it being not generally known of till the year after when Master Felton had set it upon the Bishop of Londons Gate affirming that if it had been published the year before or when they were in Arms the Catholicks would undoubtedly so have assisted them the said Rebels as that they must no question of it have prevailed against the Queen and had certainly executed the said sentence at that time for her deposition from the Crown Besides whereas the State in the said Parliament had confirmed the attainder of the chief persons by name that were as heads in the said Rebellion and had been in the field against her Highness Mr. Saunders building Castles in the Air amongst his Books doth too much magnifie the said Rebels to the great discredit of the Church of Rome and his Holiness actions in such matters they being men arraigned condemned and executed by the ancient Laws of our Country for high Treason This intolerable and very uncatholick course thus held by divers to the great offence of many good Catholicks of the graver and discreeter sort and to the great hinderance of our common Cause hath been since followed by Mr. Parsons and some of his sort with no good discretion or foresight God he knoweth brag these great States-men of their impregnable Wisdom and Policy never so proudly Furthermore about the coming out of the said Book of Mr. Saunders the whole Plot before mentioned of the Pope and the King of Spain with the Duke of Norfolk for the disinheriting of her Majesty and other intended mischiefs fell out to be fully disclosed Afterwards within some four or five years it was also commonly known to the Realm what attempts were in hand by Mr. Stukeley assisted with Mr. Saunders and other Catholicks both English Irish and Italian for an Enterprise by force in Ireland under pretence to advance the Catholick Religion which for that time through some defects succeeding not the Pope himself in the year 1579. abused still by false pretences did set forward that course and sending thither certain Forces Mr. Saunders too much Jesuited did thrust himself in person into that action as a chief Ring-leader and to perswade the Catholicks when he should come into Ireland to joyn with the Popes said Forces for the better assisting of certain Rebels then in Arms against their Soveraign Now whilst these practices were in hand in Ireland Gregory the Thirteenth reneweth the said Bull of Pius Quintus and denounceth her Majesty to be excommunicated with intimation of all other particulars in the former Bull mentioned which was procured we doubt not by surreption the false Jesuits our Country-men daring to attempt any thing by untrue suggestions and any lewd surmises that may serve their turns This Stratagem accomplished and ground laid whereupon they imagined to work great matters these good Fathers as the Devil would have it come into England and intruded themselves into our harvest being the men in our consciences we mean both them and others of that Society with some of their adherents who have been the chief Instruments of all the mischiefs that have been intended against her Majesty since the beginning of her Reign and of the miseries which we or any other Catholicks have upon these occasions sustained Their first repair hither was Anno 1580. when the Realm of Ireland was in great combustion and then they entred viz. Mr. Campion the Subject and Mr. Parsons the Provincial like a tempest with sundry such great brags and challenges as divers of the gravest Clergy then living in England Doctor Watson Bishop of Lincoln and others did greatly dislike them and plainly foretold that as things then stood their proceeding after that fashion would certainly urge the State to make some sharper Laws which should not only touch them but likewise all others both Priests and Catholicks Upon their arrival and after the said brags Mr. Parsons presently fell to his Jesuitical courses and so belaboured both himself and others in matters of State how he might set her Majesties Crown upon another head as appeareth by a Letter of his own to a certain Earl that the Catholicks themselves threatned to deliver him into the hands of the Civil Magistrate except he desisted from such kind of practices In these tumultuous and rebellious proceedings by sundry Catholicks both in England and Ireland it could not be expected but that the Queen and the State would be greatly incensed with indignation against us We had some of us greatly approved the said Rebellion highly extolled the Rebels and pitifully bewailed their ruine and overthrow Many of our affections were knit to the Spaniard and for our obedience to the Pope we all do profess it The attempts both of the Pope and Spaniard failing in England his Holiness as a temporal Prince displayed his Banner in Ireland The Plot was to deprive her Highness first from that Kingdom if they could and then by degrees to depose her from this In all these Plots none were more forward than many of us that were Priests The Laity if we had opposed our selves to these designments would out of doubt have been over-ruled by us How many men of our calling were addicted to these courses the State knew not In which case the premises discreetly considered there is no King or Prince in the World disgusting the See of Rome and having either force or metal in him that would have endured us if possibly he could have been revenged but rather as we think have utterly rooted us out of his Territories as Traiters and Rebels both to him and his Country And therefore we may rejoyce unfeignedly that God hath blessed this Kingdom with so gracious and merciful a Soveraign who hath not dealt in this sort with us Assuredly if she were a Catholick she might be accounted the Mirror of the World but as she is both we and all other Catholicks her natural Subjects deserve no longer to live than we hereafter shall honour her from our hearts obey her in all things so far as possibly we may pray for her prosperous Reign and long life and to our powers defend and protect both her and our Country against any whatsoever that shall by force of Arms attempt to damnifie either of them For in the said Garboils and very undutiful proceedings how hath her Highness dealt with us From the time of the said Rebellion and Parliament there were few above twelve that in ten years had been
a Book wherewith he acquainted the Students in those Seminaries in Spain and laboured nothing more than to have their subscriptions to the said Infantaes title therein promising unto her their present Allegiance as unto their lawful Soveraign and that when they should be sent into their Country they should perswade the Catholicks there to do the like without any further expectation of the Queen of England's death as Mr. Charles Paget affirmeth in his Book against Parsons We spake of the Seminaries in Spain before somewhat suspiciously and now you see the reason that moved us so to do Besides we do not doubt but that in the perusing of this our discourse you will be assaulted with many strange cogitations concerning our full intent and meaning therein Which although it cannot chuse but that it doth already in part appear unto you yet now we come to a more clear and plain declaration of our purpose You see into what hatred the wicked attempts of the Jesuits against her Majesty and the State hath brought not only all Catholicks in general but more especially us that are secular Priests although we did ever dislike and blame them nay detest and hate them no men more For any of us to have been brought up in the Seminaries beyond the Seas hath been and still is as you know a matter here very odious and to us full of danger But by Father Parsons courses with the Seminaries in Spain and now that he is Rector of the English Seminary in Rome and so taketh upon him by his favour there to direct and command all the rest what will the State here think of the Priests that shall come from any of those Seminaries hereafter where they must be brought up according to the Jesuitical humor and sent hither with such directions as shall be thereunto agreeable The said Book of Titles compiled by Parsons is here very well known almost to the whole Realm and Mr. Charles Paget hath not been silent as touching the Infanta and the bringing up of Students to be sent hither as Priests to promote her title Sundry sharp courses have been taken already with us and many Laws are made against us But now what may we expect but all the cruelty that ever was devised against any man if the State should think both us and all other Catholicks to be either addicted or any way inclined to the advancement of any foreign Title against her Majesty or her lawful Successors And it cannot chuse but that we should thereof be the rather suspected because at this time it is well known that the infection of Jesuitism doth bear great sway in England amongst us whilst our Archpriest who taketh upon him to rule all is himself over-ruled by Garnet the Jesuit who as a most base Vassal is in every thing at the beck and command of Father Parsons For the avoiding therefore of all the further mischiefs that may ensue we first profess as before we have often done that we do utterly dislike and condemn in our consciences all the said slanderous Writings and Pamphlets which have been published to the slander of her Majesty and this Realm protesting that the Jesuitical designments beyond the Seas together with certain rebellious and traiterous attempts of some Catholicks at home have been the causes of such calamities and troubles as have happened unto us great we confess in themselves but far less we think than any Prince living in her Majesties case and so provoked would have inflicted upon us Some of us have said many a time when we have read and heard speeches of her Majesties supposed cruelty Why my Masters what would you have her to do being resolved as she is in matters of Religion except she should willingly cast off the care not only of her State and Kingdom but of her life also and Princely estimation Yea there have been amongst us of our own calling who have likewise said That they themselves knowing what they do know how under pretence of Religion the life of her Majesty and the subversion of the Kingdom is aimed at if they had been of her Highnesses Council they would have given their consent for the making of very strait and rigorous Laws to the better suppressing and preventing of all such Jesuitical and wicked designments Secondly we do all of us acknowledge that by our Learning secluding all Machiavilian Maxims Ecclesiastical persons by virtue of their calling are only to meddle with praying preaching and administring the Sacraments and such other like spiritual Functions and not to study how to murder Princes nor to licitate Kingdoms nor to intrude themselves into matters of State Successions and Invasions as Fryer George did in Pannonia to the utter ruine of that beautiful Realm Thirdly we profess our selves with all godly courage and boldness to be as sound and true Catholick Priests as any Jesuits or men living in the world and that we do not desire to draw breath any longer upon the earth than that we shall so continue but yet therewith we being born her Majesties Subjects do plainly affirm and resolutely acknowledge it without all Jesuitical equivocation that if the Pope himself as some of the Apostles did do come into this Land or if he do send hither some Fugatius and Damianus as Eleutherus did or some Augustine Laurence or Justus as Saint Gregory did we will to do them service go unto them and lye down at their feet and defend with them the Catholick faith by the sacred Scriptures and authority of the Church though it cost us our lives But if he come or send hither an Army under pretence to establish the said Catholick Religion by force and with the Sword we will ever be most ready as native born and true Subjects to her Highness with the hazard of our lives and with all our might to withstand and oppose our selves against him and to spend the best blood in our bodies in defence of the Queen and our Country For we are throughly perswaded that Priests of what order soever ought not by force of Arms to plant or water the Catholick faith but in spiritu lenitatis mansuetudinis to propagate and defend it So it was planted in the Primitive Church over all the World crescit fructificat sicut in nobis est ex quo die recepimus The ancient godly Christians though they had sufficient forces did not oppose themselves in Arms against their Lords the Emperours though of another Religion But our purpose is not to dispute this point And now lastly we commend unto you all our very right dear and beloved Brethren this our most humble Suit First that you will interpret the whole premises no otherwise than we our selves have expounded our own meaning Secondly we intreat you to remember how dear we have been unto you and that we continue our unfeigned affection towards you still assuring you that howsoever you are changed we do affect you still with a
of that which by their blood and death in the fire they did as true Martyrs testifie A matter of another sort to be lamented with simplicity of words and not with puffed Eloquence than the execution in this time of a very few Traytors who also in their time if they exceeded thirty years of Age had in their Baptism professed and in their youth had learned the same Religion which they now so bitterly oppugned And beside that in their opinions they differ much from the Martyrs of Queen Maries time for though they continued in the profession of the Religion wherein they were Christened yet they never at their death denied their lawful Queen nor maintained any of her open and Foreign Enemies nor procured any Rebellion or Civil War nor did sow any Sedition in secret Corners nor withdrew any Subjects from their Obedience as these sworn Servants of the Pope have continually done And therefore all these things well considered there is no doubt but all good Subjects within the Realm do manifestly see and all wavering persons not being led clean out of the way by the seditious will hereafter perceive how they have been abused to go astray And all strangers but especially all Christian Potentates as Emperours Kings Princes and such like having their Soveraign Estates either in succession hereditary or by consent of their people being acquainted with the very truth of these her Majesties late just and necessary actions only for defence of her Self her Crown and People against open Invaders and for eschewing of Civil Wars stirred up by Rebellion will allow in their own like Cases for a truth and rule as it is not to be doubted but they will that it belongeth not to a Bishop of Rome as Successor of Saint Peter and therein a Pastor spiritual or if he were the Bishop of all Christendom as by the name of Pope he claimeth first by his Bulls or Excommunications in this sort at his will in favour of Traytors and Rebels to depose any Soveraign Princes being lawfully invested in their Crowns by succession in blood or by lawful Election and then to Arm Subjects against their natural Lords to make Wars and to dispense with them for their Oaths in so doing or to excommunicate faithful Subjects for obeying of their natural Princes and lastly himself to make open War with his own Souldiers against Princes moving no Force against him For if these powers should be permitted to him to exercise then should no Empire no Kingdom no Country no City or Town be possessed by any lawful title longer than one such only an earthly man sitting as he saith in St. Peters Chair at Rome should for his will and appetite without Warrant from God or Man think meet and determine An Authority never challenged by the Lord of Lords the Son of God Jesus Christ our only Lord and Saviour and the only Head of his Church whilst he was in his Humanity upon the Earth nor yet delivered by any Writing or certain Tradition from Saint Peter from whom the Pope pretendeth to derive all his Authority nor yet from St. Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles but contrariwise by all Preachings Precepts and Writings contained in the Gospel and other Scriptures of the Apostles obedience is expresly commanded to all earthly Princes yea even to Kings by special name and that so generally as no person is exempted from such duty of obedience as by the sentence of St. Paul even to the Romans appeareth Omnis anima sublimioribus potestatibus sit subdita That is Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers within the compass of which Law or Precept St. Chrysostom being Bishop of Constantinople writeth that even Apostles Prophets Evangelists and Monks are comprehended And for proof of St. Peters mind herein from whom these Popes claim their Authority it cannot be plainlier expressed than when he writeth thus Proinde subjecti estote cuivis humanae ordinationi propter Dominum sive Regi ut qui superemineat sive Praesidibus ab eo missis That is Therefore be you subject to every humane ordinance or creature for the Lord whether it be to the King as to him that is supereminent or above the rest or to his Presidents sent by him By which two principal Apostles of Christ these Popes the pretended Successors but chiefly by that which Christ the Son of God the only Master of Truth said to Peter and his fellow-Apostles Reges gentium dominantur vos autem non sic That is The Kings of the Gentiles have rule over them but you not so may learn to forsake their arrogant and tyrannous Authorities in earthly and temporal causes over Kings and Princes and exercise their Pastoral Office as St. Peter was charged thrice at one time by his Lord and Master Pasce oves meas Feed my sheep and peremptorily forbidden to use a Sword in saying to him Converte gladium tuum in locum suum or mitte gladium tuum in vaginam That is Turn thy Sword into his place or Put thy Sword into the scabbard All which Precepts of Christ and his Apostles were duly followed and observed many hundred years after their death by the faithful and godly Bishops of Rome that duly followed the doctrine and humility of the Apostles and the doctrine of Christ and thereby dilated the limits of Christs Church and the Faith more in the compass of an hundred years than the latter Popes have done with their Swords and Curses these five hundred years and so continued untill the time of one Pope Hildebrand otherwise called Gregory the Seventh about the year of our Lord 1074. who first began to usurp that kind of Tyranny which of late the Pope called Pius Quintus and since that time Gregory now the Thirteenth hath followed for some example as it seemeth that is Where Gregory the Seventh in the year of our Lord 1074. or thereabout presumed to depose Henry the Fourth a noble Emperour then being Gregory the Thirteenth now at this time would attempt the like against King Henry the Eighth's Daughter and Heir Queen Elizabeth a Soveraign Queen holding her Crown immediately of God And to the end it may appear to Princes or to their good Counsellors in one example what was the fortunate success that God gave to this good Christian Emperour Henry against the proud Pope Hildebrand it is to be noted that when the Pope Gregory attempted to depose this noble Emperour Henry there was one Rodulph a Noble man by some named the Count of Reenfield that by the Popes procurement usurped the name of the Emperour who was overcome by the said Henry the lawful Emperour and in fight having lost his right hand he the said Rodulph lamented his case to certain Bishops who in the Popes name had erected him up and to them he said that the self-same right hand which he had lost was the hand wherewith he had before sworn obedience to his Lord and
the World at the length may bear us witness how much we detest them from our hearts and abhor them Whilst we had any hope that these Political Fathers as they joy to be termed would at the last have reclaimed themselves and grown more tractable and moderate in their designments against our Soveraign and Native Country we were silent in respect of the common Cause and very well content to undergo many inconveniences and miseries which we might have avoided as we are perswaded if we had sooner opened our selves and professed our said detestation of such their no way Priestly but very irreligious courses whereby the State hath been most justly irritated and provoked against us For when we consider on the one side what we know our selves concerning the Laws made of later years with the occasions of them and likewise as touching the proceedings of the State here since the beginning of her Majesties Reign as well against us that are Priests as also against other Catholicks of the Laity and do find on the other side what practices under the pretence of Religion have been set on foot for the utter subversion both of the Queen and of her Kingdom and therewith further call to mind what sundry Jesuits and men wholly for the time or altogether addicted to Jesuitism have written and published to the World in sundry Treatises not only against the said Laws and course of Justice but in like sort against her chief Counsellors and which exceedeth all the rest against the Royal person of her Majesty her Honour Crown and most Princely Scepter it may in our opinions be rather wondred that so many Catholicks of both sorts are left alive in the Realm to speak of the Catholick Faith than that the State hath proceeded with us from time to time as it hath done It may seem strange to some that these things should proceed from us that are Priests but divers of you can bear us witness that they are no new conceits bred in us by reason of the opposition we have with the Jesuits and besides no small number of Catholicks as we are perswaded have long expected this duty at your hands that thereby our Allegiance and Fidelity to our Queen and Country might be the better testified the hard opinion of us mitigated our actions and profession of duty better credited the cause we stand for more regarded and we our selves for our plain dealing and for the good of the Church might be the better reputed of and esteemed or at the least in some sort born with and tolerated as men that do distinguish between Religion and Treason We wish with all our hearts and groan every day at the contrary that her Majesty had continued in her obedience to the See Apostolick as Queen Mary her Sister of famous memory had left her a worthy Example but seeing that God for our sins would have it otherwise we ought to have carried our selves in another manner of course towards her our true and lawful Queen and towards our Country than hath been taken and pursued by many Catholicks but especially by the Jesuits And therefore as well to discharge our own consciences as to satisfie many of you of the moderater sort of Catholicks according to the old saying Better late than never we have thought it our parts being her Highness natural born Subjects to acknowledge the truth of the carriage of matters against us and the apparent causes of it that the blame may indeed from point to point light and lie where it ought to do and both sides bear no other than their own burthens as the Laws both of God and man do require If hereby her Majesty may in any sort be appeased and the State satisfied our own former courses bettered and the Realm secured that the like shall never hereafter be attempted or favoured by any of us but be revealed if we know them and withstood if they be enterprised with all our goods and our lives even to our uttermost ability be their pretences never so fair for Religion or what else can be devised we shall think our selves happy and will not regard what all the malice and spite of the Jesuits can work or effect against us It cannot be denied but that for the first ten years of her Majesties Reign the state of Catholicks in England was tolerable and after a sort in some good quietness Such as for their consciences were imprisoned in the beginning of her coming to the Crown were very kindly and mercifully used the state of things then considered Some of them were appointed to remain with such their friends as they themselves made choice of Others were placed some with Bishops some with Deans and had their diet at their Tables with such convenient Lodgings and Walks for their recreation as did well content them They that were in the ordinary Prisons had such liberty and other commodities as the places would afford not inconvenient for men that were in their cases But that our Brethren of the more fiery and Jesuitical humour may not snuff hereat we have thought it meet to cool their heat with some of Master Parsons and his Fellow Master Creswels more gentle delays than are usual with them who in one of their Books do confess as much in effect as here we have set down if not more thus these great Emperour-like Jesuits do speak to her Majesty In the beginning of thy Kingdom thou didst deal somthing more gently with Catholicks none were then urged by thee or pressed either to thy Sect or to the denial of their Faith All things indeed did seem to proceed in a far milder course no great complaints were heard of there were seen no extraordinary contentions or repugnancies Some there were that to please and gratifie you went to your Churches But when afterwards thou didst begin to wrong them c. And when was that our great Monseigneurs Surely whensoever it was to answer for you we our selves certain Catholicks of all sorts were the true causes of it For whilst her Majesty and the State dealt with the Catholicks as you have heard which was full eleven years no one Catholick being called in question of his life for his conscience all that time consider with us how some of our profession proceeded with them Her Highness had scarcely felt the Crown warm upon her head but it was challenged from her by some of her Neighbours as Master Saunders noteth The French were sent into Scotland to do somewhat you may be sure which concerned her Majesty the circumstances consisidered to look unto Afterwards certain matters were undertaken by her Majesty in France and the Affairs in Scotland did so proceed as that the Queen there was compelled 1567. to flie into England where for a great time she was very honourably entertained her liberty only excepted But with these matters what had we to do that were either Priests or private men If either France or Scotland had cause to