he imposed the like penance upon England Also when our King Edward the First made Warre upon the Scots word came from Rome that he should surcease for that the Kingdome of Scotland belonged unto the Popes Chappell A great oversight it was of St. Peter that he did not accurse Nero and all heathen Princes whereby the Popes Chappell might have gotten all that the Devill offered and our Saviour refused Yet what need was there of such a banne Since Fryar Vincent of Valnarda could tell Atatalipa King of Peru That all the Kingdomes of the Earth were the Popes who had bestowed more then halfe thereof upon the King of Spaine If the Pope will have it so it must be so otherwise I should have interpreted that place in Genesis Increase and multiply and fill the Earth As spoken to Noah and his Children not as directed only to Tubal Homer and Phatto the supposed Fathers of the old Iberians Gothes and Moores of whom the Spanish blood is compounded But of such impudent presumption in disposing of countryes farre remote And whereto the sword must acquire a better title the mischiefe is not presently discerned It were well if his Holinesse had not loved to set the world in an uproare by nourishing of War among those that respected him as a Common Father His dispensing with oaths taken for agreement between one King and another or between Kings and Subjects doe speake no better of him For by what right was it That Fardinand of Arragon won the Kingdome of Navar why did not the Confederacie that was between Lewis the Twelfth of France and the Venetians hinder that King from warring upon Venice why did not the like between England and France hinder our King Henry the eighth for warring upon the same King Lewis Was it not the Pope who did set on the French to the end that himself might get Ravenna from the Venetians Why was it not the same Pope who afterwards upon desire to drive the French out of Italie excommunicated Lewis and his adherents By vertue of which Excommunication Fardinand of Arragon seized upon Navarr And served not the same Warrant to set our Henry upon the back of France But this was not our Kings fault more then all the peoples We might with shame confesse it if other Countries had not been as blindly superstitious as our Fathers That a Barque of Apples blessed by the Pope and sent hither for presents unto those that would be forward in the War upon France made all our English hasty to take Armes in such sort as the Italians wondred and laughed to see our men no lesse greedy of those Apples then Eve was of the forbidden fruit for which they were to hazard their lives in an unjust War Few ages have wanted such and more grievous examples of the Popes tumultuous disposition but these were amongst the last that fell out before his unholinesse was detected Now for his dispensing betweene Kings and their Subjects we need not seeke instances far from home He absolved our King Iohn of an oath given to his Barons and people The Barons and people he afterwards discharged of their alleageance to King Iohn King Henry the third had appeased this Land how wisely I say not by taking such an oath as his Father had done swearing as he was a Knight A Christian and a King But in a Sermon at Paules People were taught how little was to be reposed on such assurance the Popes dispensation being there openly read which pronounced that Oath voyde Good cause why For that King had the patience to live like neither Knight nor King But as the Popes Tenant and Rent-gatherer of England But when the same King adventured to murmure the Pope could threaten to teach him his duty with a vengeance And make him know what it was to winch and play the Fredericke Thus we see what hath been his Custome to oppresse Kings by their people And the people by their Kings yet this was for serving his owne turne Wherein had our King Henry the sixt offended him which King Pope Iulius would after for a little money have made a Saint Neverthelesse the Popes absolving of Rich Duke of Yorke from that honest oath which he had given by mediation of all the Land to that good King occasioned both the Dukes and the Kings ruine And therewithal those long and cruell Wars betweene the Houses of Lancaster and Yorke and brought all England into an horrible Combustion What he meant by this I know not unlesse to verifie the Proverbe Omnia Romae venalia I will not urge the dispensation whereby the Pope released King Philip the second of Spaine from the solemne Oath by which he was bound to maintaine the priviledges of the Netherlands though this Papall indulgence hath scarce as yet left working And been the cause of so many hundred thousands slaine for this last forty years in the Netherlands Neither will I urge the Pope encouraging of Henry the second and his sons to the last of them against the French Protestants the cause of the first three Civill Warres And lastly of the Leavyings of Byrons in which there hath perished no lesse number then in the Low-Countryes For our Country it affords an example of fresh memory since we should have had as furious Warre as ever both upon us and amongst us in the daies of our late famous Soveraigne Queene Elizabeth if Pope Pius his Bull Could have gored as well as it could Bellow Therefore it were not amisse to answer by a Herald the next Pontificall attempt of like nature rather sending defiance as to an enemy then publishing answers as to one that had here to doe though in deed he had never here to doe by any lawfull power either in Civill or Ecclesiasticall businesse after such time as Brittaine was won from the Romane Empire For howsoever it were ordered in some of the first holy generall Councills that the Bishop of Rome should be Patriarch over these quarters yea or it were supposed that the forged Canons by which he now challengeth more then precedency and primacie had also been made indeed yet could this little help his claime in Kingdomes that hold not of the Empire For those right holy Fathers as in matters of Faith they did not make truth But religiously expounded it so in matters of Ecclesiasticall Government they did not create provinces for themselves But ordered the Countries which they then had They were assemblies of all the Bishops in the Romane world and with the Romane dominion only they medled Requisite it is that the faith which they taught should be imbraced in all Countryes As it ought likewise to be entertained if the same had been in like sort illustrated not by them but by a generall Councill of all Bishops in the great Kingdome of the Abissines which is thought to have been Christian even in those daies But it was not requisite nor is that the Bishops of Abissines or of India
before we medle with the great He spake reason if we regard policy But attending one to Religion find we not that he held the Chastisement of one which molested the Sea of Rome a like pleasing to God as would have been the holy Warre against the Common Enemy of our Christian Faith So thought all the rest of those Bishops And so much more upon their severall occasions declared themselves to thinke it by how much they were commonly worse men then this Aeneas Silvius And good reason was there that they should be of such beliefe or Endeavour to make the Christian world believe none otherwise For the naturall Constitution of their estate I meane since the age of Pepin and Charlmaine or the times not long foregoing hath urged them all hereto though peradventure some few Popes may have been overlewd by their own private natures and thereby have swaâ—â—ved from the rule of policy To speake in generall whosoever hath dominion absolute over some and authority lesse absolute over many more will seeke to draw those that are not wholâ—y his owne into intire subjection It fares with politick bodies as with the physicall each would convert all into their owne proper substance and cast forth as Excrement what will not so be changed We need not Cite Philip the Father of Alexander nor Philip the Father of Perseus Kings of Macedon for examples Of which the former brought the Thessalians the latter would have brought the Acheans and many estates in Greece from the condition of followers and dependants unto meer vassallage Philip the second of Spaine is yet fresh in mind who attempted the self same upon the Netherlands Exceptions may be framed here against one of the honest quiet or timerous disposition of some Princes yet that all or the most are thus inclined both reason and experience teach yea even our Cities and Corporations here in England such as need the protection of great Men Complaine otherwhiles of their patrons overmuch diligence either in searching into their private estates or behaving themselves master-like in point of government But never hath authority better means to enlarge it self then when it is founded upon devotion And yet never doth authority of this kind worke to raise it self unto meere dominion untill it fall into the hands of those whose piety is more in seeming then indeed The Leviticall Priests in the old Law never arrogated unto themselves any Temporall or Coactive power Nor advanced their Miters against the Crowne of Israel They well understood what authority God had committed unto them and rested therewithall content Some wrangling hereabout hath been of late The Popes flatterers labouring to prove That the high Priests of old were not meerly Subject unto the Kings of Iuda and men of better spirit and learning having shewed the contrary But whatsoever befell in those dayes when there was no King in Israel that is before the Reigne of Saul or after the Captivity of Babel sure it is that the sons of Aaron were alwaies obedient unto the sons of David And acknowledged them their Lords As for the race of the Maccabees that held both the Kingdome and the Priesthood at once It falls not within this Consideration the first thereof of whom I read that used the advantage of honour given to him in matter of Religion towards the getting of Temporal possession was if nor Mahomet himselfe Abubachar the Successor unto Mahomet This man having obteined by help of his friends the miserable happinesse of being chosen heire unto that foole Impostor in his dignity of a Prophet made it one of his first works to dispoile poor Aliffe the Nephew of Mahomet and heire of his great riches taking al from him by this pretence That unto whom belonged the Succession in wisdome unto him also belonged the Succession in wealth And this grew presently to be a famous question among the Doctors of the Saracen Law But howsoever it were then decided we see now the Muphti of high Prelate who is the only Oracle among the Turkes in Spirituall matters lives and holds all that he hath at the discretion of the great Sultan Neverthelesse it should seeme that the doctrine of Abubachar hath not lost all force for the examples are many in all Saracen Lands of Prophets or deceivers which got that name that never rested untill they became Kings The Seriph in Barbarie was one of the last who having once acquired the opinion of an holy Man afterward found means to become a Captain and Lord of a small Territory And finally increased his followers and withall his bounds so fast and so far as having made himself King of Morocca he had the grace to tell the King of Fessy lately his Soveraigne that both Fesse and all Kingdomes in those parts were belonging to his own holinesse and this he made good by winning all sooner after Whether the claime which the Popes laid to a Supremacie over all Kingdomes and estates had not affinity with the principle of Abubachar Let other men Judge that their practises to mainetaine it have been sutable to those of Seriffo all Historians doe testifie For when Pope Gregory the second procured the Citie of Rome and some other places in Italie to Rebell against the Emperour Leo the third what other colour used he then that himself had Excommunicated Leo as an ungodly Prince for breaking downe Images that were worshipped in Churches when for this treason Paul the Exarch Leiutenant unto the Emperour besieged Rome with the assistance of Lueitpraud King of the Lumbards by what other art did the Pope remove the siege then by perswading the Lumbard with a Tale of Peter and Paul that had consecrated the Citie of Rome with their pretious blood Thus was devotion made the Cloake for treason And thus did the Popes first slip their necks out of the Emperours coller Within very few years after this by the like Religious pretext were those Princes of France Charls Martell Pepine and Charlemaine won to assist the Papacie against the Lumbards yea to give unto St. Peter the most of those Lands which the Pope now holds in Italie And not restore them to the Emperour from whom the Lumbards had gotten them And thereunto Pepine was perswaded for his Souls health Yet had Pope Zachary through the opinion that went of his holinesse done a notable good office for Pepine before when he Released the Frenchmen of their Oath to King Chilperick And was the cause that Pepine was chosen in his stead by saying That rather he should be King who did the Kings duty then he that did it not In like manner did Pope Leo recompense the benefits of Charlemaine by setting him up as Emperour in the West against those of Constantinople But in these mutuall offices the Popes did only help with gracefull words to adorne that might which Pepine and Charlemaine had before acquired Whereas these Kings used force of arms to erect the papacy in Principallity That was held yet
what it will let not them deceive themselves in believing that they can make themselves masters of the Sea For certainly the shipping of England with the great squadron of his Majesties Navy Royall are able in despight of any Prince or State in Europe to Command the great and large Field of the Ocean But as I shall never thinke him a Lover of this Land or of the King that shall perswade his Majesty from imbracing the amity of the States of the united Provinces For his Majesty is no lesse safe by them then they invincible by him So I would wish them Because after my duty to mine owne Soveraigne and the love of my Country I honour them most That they remember and consider it that seeing their passage and Repassage lyes through the Brittish Seas that there is no Port in France from Callice to Flushing that can receive their ships that many times outward by Westerly winds and ordinarily homewards not only from the East Indies but from the Straits and from Spaine all Southerly winds the Brises of our Clymate thrust them of necessity into the Kings ports how much his Majesties favour doth concerne them for if as themselves confesse in their last treaty of Truce with the Spaniards They subsist by their trades the disturbance of their trades which England can only disturbe will also disturbe their subsistance The rest I will omit because I can never doubt either their gratitudes or their wisdomes For our New-castle trade from which I have digressed I refer the Reader to the Author of the trades increase a Gentleman to me unknowne But so far as I can judge he hath many things very considerable in that short treaty of his yea both considerable and praise worthy and among the rest the advise which he hath given for the maintenance of our Hoyes and Carvills of Newcastle which may serve us besides the breeding of Marriners for good ships of Warre and of exceeding advantage and certainly I cannot but admire why the Impositions of five shillings should any way dishearten them seeing there is but one Company in England upon whose trade any new payment are layd But that they on whom it is laid raise profit by it The Silkemen if they pay his Majesty twelve pence upon a yard of Sattin they not only raise that twelve pence but they impose twelve pence or two shillings more upon the subject so doe they upon all they sell of what kind soever as all other Retaylers doe of what quality or profession soever And seeing all the Maritimate provinces of France and Flanders all Holland and Zealand Embden and Breame c. Cannot want our New-castle or our Welsh Coales The Imposition cannot impoverish the transporter but that the buyer must make payment accordingly And if the Impositions laid on these things whereof this Kingdome hath no necessary use as upon Silkes Velvets Gold and Silver Lace and cloaths of Gold and Silver Cut works Cambricks and a world of other trumperyes doth in nothing hinder their vent here But that they are more used then ever they were to the utter impoverishing of the Land in generall and of those Poppinjayes that value themselves by their out sides and by their Players coats Certainly the imposing upon Coales which other Nations cannot want can be no hinderance at all to the Newcastlemen but that they may raise it againe upon the French and other Nations as those Nations themselves doe which fetch them from us with their owne shipping For conclusion of this Chapter I say that it is exceeding lamentable that for any respect in the world seeing the preservation of the State and Monarchie doth surmount all other respects that strangers should be permitted to eat us out by exporting and importing both our owne Commodities and those of Forreigne Nations For it is no wonder we are overtopped in all the trades we have abroad and far off Seeing we have the grasse cut from under our feet in our fields and pastures FINIS A Discourse of the Originall and fundamentall cause of Naturall Customary Arbitrary Voluntary and necessary War with the misery of invasive Warre That Ecclesiasticall Prelates have alwayes been subject to Temporall Princes and that the Pope had never any lawfull power in England either in Civill or Ecclesiasticall businesse after such time as Brittaine was won from the Roman Empire THe ordinary Theme and Argument of History is War which may be defined the exercise of violence under Soveraigne Command against withstanders force Authority and resistance being the essentiall parts thereof violence limited by authority is sufficiently distinguisht from Robbery and the like outrages yet consisting in relation towards others It necessarily requires a supposition of resistance whereby the force of War becomes different from the violence inflicted upon Slaves or yeilding Malefactors as for Armes Discipline and whatsoever else belongeth to the making of War prosperous they are only considerable in degree of perfection since naked savages fighting disorderly with stones by appointment of their Commanders may truly and absolutely be said to War Neverthelesse it is true that as the Beasts are armed with fierce teeth pawes horns and other bodily instruments of much advantage against unweaponed men so hath reason taught man to strengthen his hand with such offensive Armes as no creature else can well avoid or possibly resist And it might seeme happy if the sword the Arrow the Gun with many terrible Engines of death could be wholly imployed in the exercise of that Lordly rule which the Lord of all hath given to mankind over the rest of living things But since in humane reason there hath no meanes been found of holding all mankind at peace within it self It is needfull that against the wit and subtilty of man we oppose not only the bruit force of our bodyes wherein many Beasts exceed us but helping our strength with art and wisdome strive to excell our enemies in those points wherein man is excellent over other Creatures The necessity of War which among humane Actions is the most lawlesse hath some kind of affinity and neere resemblances with the necessity of Law For there were no use at all either of War or of Law If every man had prudence to conceive how much of right were due both to and from himselfe and were withall so punctually just as to performe what he knew requisite and to rest contented with his owne But seeing that no conveyance of Land can be made so strong by any skill of Lawyers with multiplicity of clauses and provisoes That it may be secure from contentious Avarice and the malice of false seeming Justice It is not to bee wondered that the great Charter whereby God bestowed the whole earth upon Adam And confirmed it unto the Sons of Noah being as breife in word as large in effect hath bred much quarrell of interpretation Surely howsoever the Letter of that Donation may be unregarded by the most of men yet the sense
in vassallage unto themselves Now this could not satisfie the ambition of that See which gloried falsly to be the only See Apostolique For as the Reputation of the Romane Prelats grew up in those blind ages under the Westerne Emperours much faster then true piety could raise it in former times when better Learning had flourished So grew up in them withall a desire of amplifying their power that they might be as great in temporall forces as mens opinion have formed them in spirituall matters Immediately therefore upon the death of Charlemaine they began to neglect the Emperours consent in their Elections And finding in them that afterwards reigned of the house of France either too much patience or too much weakenesse they were bold within seaventy years to decree That in the Creation of Popes the Emperour should have nothing at all to doe Having obteined this It followed that they should make themselves Lord over the whole Clergie in all Kingdomes But the worke was great and could not be accomplished in hast for they were much disturbed at home by the People of Rome who seeing about Fifty Popes or rather as mainetainers of the Papacie would now have them called Monsters to succeed one another and attaine by the faction of Cut-throats and Strumpets St. Peters Chaire despised that hypocrisy which the world abroad did Reverence as holinesse Likewise the Empire falling from the line of Charles to the mighty house of Saxonie was so strongly upheld by the first Princes of that race as it greatly curbed the ambition of those aspiring Prelats Yet no impediment could alwaies be of force to withstand the violence of seeming sanctity The Polonians Hungarians and some other farre removed Nations had yeilded themselves in subjection more then meerely spirituall even to those Popes whom Italie knew to be detestable men As for the Romane Citizens they were chastised by the sword and taught to acknowledge the Pope their Lord though they knew not by what right Long it was indeed ere they could with much adoe be throughly tamed Because they knowing the Lewdnesse of their Prelate and his Court their devotion unto him the trade by which now they live was very small Because also they were the Popes domesticall forces against which no Prince doth happily contend But finally the Popes Armes prevailed or when his owne were too weake the Emperours and other friends were helping Contrariwise against Emperours and other Princes the sword of the people even of their owne Subjects hath been used by teaching all Christians in our Westerne world a false Lesson That it is lawfull and meritorious to rebell against Kings excommunicated and deposed by the Pope This curse was first laid upon the Emperour Henry the fourth by Pope Hildebrand or Gregory the seaventh It is true as I said before that Leo of Constantinople had felt the same though not in the same sort For Leo being excommunicated was not withall deposed only he suffered a revolt of some Italian Subjects And one may say That the Germane Empire deserved this plague Since the founder thereof had given countenance to the Popes Rebelling against their Soveraigns the Emperours of Constantinople Howsoever it were when Hildebrand had accursed and cast downe from his throne Henry the fourth there were none so hardy as to defend their Injured Lord against the Counterfeited name of St. Peter Wherefore he was faine to humble himselfe before Hildebrand upon whom he waited three daies beare footed in the Winter ere he could be admitted into his presence Neither yet could he otherwise get absolution then by submitting his estate unto the Popes good pleasure what was his fault He had refused to yeild up to the Pope the investiture of Bishops and Collation of Ecclesiasticall dignities within his dominions a right that had alwayes belonged to Princes untill that day It were superfluous to tell how grievously he was afflicted all his life after Notwithstanding this submission In breife the unappeasable rage of Hildebrand and his Successors never left persecuting him by raising one Rebellion after an other yea his owne Children against him till dispoyled of his Crowne he was faine to beg food of the Bishop of Spyers promising to earne it in a Church of his own building by doing there a Clarks duty for he could serve the Quire And not obteining this he pined away and dyed That Bishop of Spyers dealt herein perhaps rather fearfully then cruelly For he had to terrifie him the example of Vteilo Archhishop of Mentz chiefe Prelate among the Germans Who was condemned of heresie for having denyed that the Emperour might be deprived of his Crowne by the Popes authority If Princes therefore be carefull to exclude the doctrine of Hildebrand out of their dominions who can blame them of rigour This example of Henry though it would not be forgotten might have been omitted had it not been seconded with many of the same nature But this was neither one Popes fault nor one Princes destiny He must write a story of the Empire that means to tell of all their dealings in this kind As how they wrought upon Henry the fifth whom they had set up against his Father what horrible effusion of Blood they caused by their often thundering upon Fredericke And how they rested not untill they had made the Empire stand headlesse about seaventeene years These things moved Rodolph Earl of Habspurgh who was chosen Emperour after that long vacation to refuse the Ceremony of being Crowned at Rome though he were therero urged by the Electors For said he our Caesars have gone to Rome As the foolish Beasts in Aesops Fables went to the Lyons Den leaving very goodly footsteps of their journey thitherward but not the like of their returne The same opinion have most of the succeeding Emperours held all of them or almost all neglecting that Coronation Good cause why Since the Popes besides many Extortions which they practised about that Ceremony Arrogated thence unto themselves that the Empire was held of them in Homage And dealt they not after the same fashion with other Kingdomes What right had St. Peter to the Crowne of Sicily and of Naples The Romane Princes wonne those Lands from the Saracens who had formerly taken them from the Empire of Constantinople The same Romanes had also been mighty defenders of the Papacy in many dangers yet when time served the Pope tooke upon him as Lord Paramount of those Countryes to drive out one King and set up another with a Bloody confusion of all Italie retaining the Soveraignty to himself In France he had the daring to pronounce himselfe superiour unto the King in all matters both Spirituall and Temporall The Crowne of Poland he forced to hold of his Miter by imposing a subjection in way of penance For that the Polish King had caused one St. Stanislaus to be slaine For the death of St. Thomas Beckett and more strangely for a Refusall of an Archbishop of Canterbury whom his Holinesse had appointed