Legitimate Daughter to Henry the Eighth and therefore it was thought necessarily to follow by many That if Mary was the true Child Elizabeth was the Natural which must then needs give way to the thrice Noble Queen of Scots Under Queen Elizabeth you wish your Party had more patience and we think they Needed none for in the first ten Years of her Reign they had no Business for it In all that space of time which was twice as long as Queen Maries Reign though it was fresh in memory what the Papists had done yet not one of them suffered Death till the Northern Rebellion which being raised against her only upon the account of her Religion it appears that She was the persecuted person She had the occasion for Patience and you would have wished Them more Loyalty if any such thing had been in your thoughts But perhaps you wish they had so much patience as not to have discovered their design before it was fully ripe for execution Not unlike For it appears you account Rebellion no fault by this that you say you excuse not their faults and yet you do excuse their Rebellion You excuse them by saying it was a very hard Question whether the Right of the Crown lay in her or in the Queen of Scots for that many thought Queen Elizabeth Illegitimate Pray Sir who Thought it or when arose that Question The Arch-Bishop of York though a Papist in his Speech at the publishing of Queen Maries Death said No man could doubt of the justness of the Lady Elizabeths Title to the Succession The whole Kingdom received her and owned her as Queen more generally and freely than eyer they did Queen Mary The Neighbour Kings of Spain and France and the Emperor offered Marriage to her in hopes to have got the Crown by her The Queen of Scots her self did acknowledge her and claimed nothing more than to be Heir to her and so did King James that was her Successor So that whosoever opposed Queen Elizabeths Right if they were English 'c is apparent they were Rebels and if they were Papists we may guess what led them to it For the first that Questioned her Title was Pope Paul IV. who would not acknowledge her for sundry causes the chief that he alledged were these First Because this Kingdom is a Fee of the Papacy and it was audaciously done of her to assume it without his leave The second was because she was Illegitimate for if her Fathers Marriage were good the Pope must let down his Mill. But after all this his Successor Pius IV did own her and would have done any thing for her so she would have owned him Which because she would not the next Pope Pius V. issued out his Bull against her and deposed her not for Bastardy but for Heresie that is for being a Protestant for which Heresie it was that the Northern men Rebelled against her and many more of her Subjects disowned her and some or other were every foot plotting how to take away her life True it is that some of these pretended to do it in favour of the Queen of Scots But how if that Queen had not been a Catholick or Queen Elizabeth had not Been thought Illegitimate would a legitimate Protestant have been so contended for or would a Popish Bastard have been rejected by them Pope Gregory XIII had occasion to consider this For his Holiness had a Bastard of his own to provide for and another of the Emperors no doubt good Catholicks both of them To one he gave the Kingdom of Ireland and set out Stukely with Forces to win it for him To the other he gave the Kingdom of England and gave him leave to win it for himself But what was all this to the thrice Noble Queen of Scots Possibly she might have been preferred to have married one of the rwo but then it must have been expresly with this condition That her Son King James who was a Heretick should have nothing to do with the Succession When their bubbles were broken and she was dead all her Right descended to King James who being as little to the Pope's mind as Q. Elizabeth was Sixtus V. only took no publick notice of Him but he proceeded with all his might against Her He curst her afresh and publisht a Croysade against her and gave the whole Right of Her Kingdoms to Philip the II. King of Spain But neither that Popes Bounty nor his three Successors Blessings nor the Spanish Arms nor the Italian Arts for no way was left untried could ever prevail against Gods Providence which till the end of her days kept that Queen always fast in her Possessions At last Pope Clement VIII seeing there was nothing to be done against her resolv'd to let her go like a Heretick as she was and to take the more care that another Heretick should not succeed her For which cause he sent over two Breves into England one to the Clergy and the other to the Laity commanding them not to admit any other but a Catholick though never so near in Blood to the Succession that is to say in plain words not to admit King James to Reign after Queen Elizabeths death So 't is clear that your Popes never stuck at that hard Question that you speak of Let us see what our Country-men did who as you say suffered for it in those days They did like obsequious Members at every turn as their Head directed them They acted for the Papal Interest as far as they were able They made the House of Scotland the Cloak for it as far as it would reach And it reacht pretty well as long as the Title was in Queen Mary But after the Title came to be in King James Pray Sir name us those Papists or but one single person of them that either died or suffered for Him and then you bless us with a discovery What then were they idle for so many years as past between the commencing of his Title and the Death of Queen Elizabeth Nothing less For they were as busie as Bees in contriving how to hasten her Death and how to put him by the Succession And if it were for his Service that they would have destroyed Her pray for whose service was it that they would have defeated Him but that will be known by the story Soon after his Mothers Death was the Spanish Invasion which would have defeated him with a Witness if it had sped and yet our Papists both Negotiated it and writ in Defence of it Afterwards in Scotland your Jesuites procured the Earl of Huntley and others to raise a powerful Rebellion against him In England they endeavoured to perswade the Earl of Derby to set up a Title to the Crown who honestly revealing it was poisoned soon after according to the prophetical threatning of Hesket whom they had made use of to perswade him When
an Article of Faith Next for the Bulls and Decrees of your Popes which according to Bellarmine are sufficient to make that to be sin which is not sin or not to be sin which is sin it would be tedious to instance in all that could be produc'd to this purpose From Gregory VII downward such a Trade was driven of deposing Kings that no weak Prince could wear his Crown but at the Pope's Courtesie And that it might never be otherwise Pope Boniface VIII declares it for Law in these words We say and Define and Pronounce that it is absolutely Necessary to salvation for every humane Creature to be subject to the Bishop of Rome Which Oracle is thus interpreted by Bertrand Every humane Creature i. e. Every Magistrate Must be subject c. i. e. Must submit himself to be deposed when the Pope thinks fit And that the Gloss doth not injure the Text it appears by the Tenor of the Decree especially by those words about the middle of it that the Spiritual Power is to order the Worldly Power and to Judge it if it be not as it ought according to that in Jeremy I have set thee over Nations and over Kingdoms c. In which suppletive c. these words are wound up To root out and to pull down and to destroy and to throw down to build and to plant All which powers this Law-giver of yours endeavoured himself to exercise He endeavour'd saith Platina to give and take away Kingdoms to expell men and to restore them at his pleasure Agreeably to this doctrine and practice your great Canonist Lancelottus teaches you That the Pope may depose Kings and Emperors and transfer their Kingdoms and Empires from one Line to another Which wholsome Doctrine no doubt as well as the rest of his Book Pope Pius IV. has made Authentick by his unerring Approbation Lastly for your Divines They have generally own'd it and many of them have written large Books in defence of it We do not tell you this as news for your Clergy-men know it already but that your Laity may not be ignorant of it we shall quote them some few of the greatest Doctors of your Church in this Age. And we shall leave it upon you to shew them when and where they were condemned what Justice has been executed on the Persons what Index Expurgatorius has censur'd the Writings of these Authors Nay if you deal honestly you cannot but confess that their Works are generally approved and that their Persons are had in admiration among you that are the guides of the Lay-mens Consciences We pass over the gross things of Mariana's Book because they which once licens'd it for love of the Doctrine have since condemned it for fear of their King 's heavy Displeasure But pray Sir who condemned your Cardinals Bellarmine and Baronius who teach you that the Pope may do with any King as Jehoiada did with Athalia that is he may deprive him first of his Kingdom and then of his Life Bellarmine indeed elsewhere expresses it more like a Jesuite and a man of distinctions in these words The Pope does not allow you not to obey your King but he makes him that was your King to be not your King as who should say when the Pope has done His part then you are free to do Yours Again who condemn'd your great School-Men Suarez and Valentia of whom the one writes against his Majesties Grand-Father that a King Canonically Excommunicated may be deposed or killed by any man whatsoever the other says that an Heretical Prince may by the Pope's sentence be depriv'd of his life much more of his Estate and of all Superiority over others Nay who has condemned our Country-man Parsons or Cresswel for the high-fliers of Popery have been those of our own Nation by whom this is laid down as a Conclusion of the whole School of Divines and Canonists and declar'd to be Certain and of Faith that any Christian Prince whatsoever that shall manifestly swerve from the Catholick Religion and endeavour to draw off others does immediately fall from all Power and Dignity c. and that even before any Sentence of the Pope is pronounced against him and that all his Subjects whatsoever are free from all obligation of any Oath of Obedience which they have made to him as their lawful Prince and that they may and ought if they be strong enough to eject such a one from the Government of Christians as an Apostate an Heretick a deserter of Christ and an enemy of his Common-wealth c. Cardinal Perron went not altogether so high but yet he held to the Roman Catholick Principle that Kings may be deposed by the Pope when he sees cause He seemed to be of another opinion while Henry IV. was alive but when He was dead and a Child was in the Throne then he ventur'd to declare this publickly in his Oration on behalf of the whole Clergy of France He maintained that this was the current Doctrine in France till the time of Calvin and for the contrary Doctrine viz That Kings are not deposable by the Pope Rossaeus calls it the Paradox of the Lutherans Perron calls it a Doctrine that breeds Schisms a gate that leads into all Heresie and to be held in so high a degree of detestation that rather then yield to it he and his fellow-Bishops would chuse to burn at a Stake But how has this Doctrine taken among the Papists in our Kings Dominions it has not taken with some of them either because you have not thought it seasonable for you to instruct them in it for Doctrines of this sort are then only proper to be Inculcated when they may do Execution or else because your Instruction has been over rul'd by some better Principle as we doubt not there have always been some of your Church in whose generous breasts the English man has been too strong for the Papist But yet this Doctrine has taken with others and many of them have practised according to it as we shall shew you hereafter and many more would have been practising if there had not been something to hinder them or deterr them For 't is allowed by your Divines as a very good Reason for Catholicks to omit the Duty of Rebellion if they are not strong â—nough to go through with it So Bannez excuses our English Catholicks and so Bellarmin does the Primitive Christians Nay your Casuists say If there be any notable danger of Death or Ruin without which you cannot perform it that then you are not bound to endeavour it Long may these Good Reasons continue for if these were remov'd we know not how far we may trust you For one of your Brethren another poisoner of the people has been so forward already since His Majesties Restauration as to declare in Print that in case your Pope should take upon him to Deprive our
fear of too much contradicting thee May it not be as well said in the next Catholick Kings Reign that the Duke of Guise and Cardinal Heads of the League were killed for their Religion also Now no body is ignorant but 't was their Factious Authority which made that jealous Prince design their Deaths though by unwarrantable means The Duke of Guise and his Brother were not killed for their Religion for they were killed by one of the same Religion and one that was bent against the Protestants as much as they Only because he spared the blood of the Protestants your Zealots hated him and so much the more because a Protestant being his Heir he would not declare him uncapable of the Succession For these causes by the Popes consent these Guises whom he called the Maccabes of the Church entred into an Holy League against their King and called in the Succors of Spain and Savoy which they paid for with the Rights of the Crown they maintained a sharp War against him and did all that was in their power to deprive him of his Kingdom and Life Whereupon that jealous Prince as you favourably call him for his own preservation was urged to deal with them as they had dealt with the Protestants from whose case this of the Guises is so vastly different that one would wonder why you should mention it But since you have led us thus far out of the way let us invite you a little farther The Pope Excommunicated the King for this Action and granted 9 Years of true Indulgence to any of his Subjects that would bear Arms against him and foretold as a Pope might do without Astrology that e're long he should come to a fearful Death The Subjects took Arms and earned the Indulgence A Friar took his Knife and fulfilled the Prediction by ripping up those Bowels that were always most tenderly affected with kindness to the Monkish Orders But what joy was there at Rome for this as if the news of another Massacre had come to Town one would think so by the Popes Oration to his Cardinals in which he sets forth this work of God the Kings Murther for its wonderfulness to be compared with Christs Incarnation and Resurrection And the Friars Vertue and Courage and fervent Love of God he prefers before that of Eleazar in the Maccabees or of Judith killing Holofernes and the murthered King who had profest himself to dye in the Faith of the Roman Catholick Apostolick Church he declared to have died in the Sin against the Holy Ghost Pray Sir may it not well be said that Papists cannot live without persecuting Protestants when we see a Popish King stabb'd and damned for not persecuting them enough or for doing the work of the Lord negligently If it were for Doctrine that Hugonots suffered in France this Haughty Monarch would soon destroy them now having neither Force nor Town to resist his Might and Puissance They yet live free enough being even Members of Parliament and may convert the Kings Brother too if he think fit to be so Thus you see how well Protestants may live in a Popish Country under a Popish King nor was Charlemain more Catholick than this for though he contends something with the Pope 't is not of Faith but about Gallicane Priviledges which perchance he may very lawfully do Iudge then worthy Tatriots who are the best used and consider our hardship here in England where it is not only a Fine for hearing Mass but death to the Master for having a Priest in his House and so far we are from preserment That by Law we cannot come within 10 miles of London all which we know your great mercy will never permit you to exact You say if this were true then this Hanghty Monarch would soon destroy his Hugonots now No such consequence Sir for he may persecute them and not destroy them he may destroy them but not so soon Princes use to go their own pace whilst they are upon their legs but if any misfortune throws them upon all four then the Pope gets up and rides them what pace he pleaseth Nor is this Monarch yet so Catholick as Charlemain was if he were he would do as Charlemain did He would be Patron of all the Bishopricks in his Empire even of Rome it self if it were there He would make the Pope himself know the distance between a Prelate and an Emperor He would maintain the Rights of his Crown and not chop Logick about Gallicane Priviledges which you say like a sly Jesuite that perchance he may lawfully do He would call a Council when he pleased to separate Errors from the Faith as Charlemain himself called a Council against Image-Worship which was then creeping into the Church This were a good way of destroying the Hugonots by taking away all causes of strife amongst Christians By any other way than this he cannot destroy them without the violation of his Laws which as they are the only Forces and Towers whereby Subjects ought to be secured against their King so since he is pleased to allow them no other these Laws backt with his puissance are forces enough to secure them against their fellow-Subjects We cannot pass this Paragraph without observing your Jesuitical ingenuity how you slight those favours that you have how you complain of those hardships that you have not and how you insult over the poor Hugonots by comparing with them who generally would mend their condition by changing with you Pray Sir do not Popish-Peers sit in our English Parliaments as well as Protestants in the French or have you not as free access to our Kings Brother as they have to theirs or would you have his Highness to Catechise as the Abbot had the Duke of Glocester perhaps that you would have Otherwise we know nothing but His Highness's Wisdom and care of his Conscience that guards him from you Of the Laws you complain hideously Worthy Patriots consider our hardship And yet those very Laws you complain of you never knew executed in your life and you tell us soon after that you know they never will be For what cause then were they enacted Plainly for this cause to guard the lives of our Princes against your traiterous practices It hath often been urged that our Misdemeanors in Queen Elizabeth's days and King James's time was the cause of our Panishment Your Misdemeanors We cry you mercy if they were no more but that comes next to be argued Whether they were Misdemeanors or Treasons We earnestly wish that the Party had more patience under that Princess But pray consider though we excuse not their faults whether it was not a question harder than that of York and Lancaster the cause of a War of such length and death of so many Princes who had most right Q Elizabeth or Mary Stuart for since the whole Kingdom had crowned and sworn Allegiance to Q. Mary they had owned her
will alwaies remain to be said for them that the then great Minister drew them in But why did you not say this for those Conspiracies in Queen Elizabeths daies You might have said it perhaps with less improbability But then had you a higher Game to fly at namely the Queens Title to her Crown and if you durst have made so bold with King James his you would not have stoopt at so low a Quarry as a Minister of State But by the way we cannot but acknowledge that you Jesuites are a sort of most obliging Gentlemen If men will believe what you Say nothing that you do can fall amiss In your attempts against the life of Queen Elizabeth you obliged his Majesty that now is as being Martyrs for the Royal House of Scotland And in your Plot to blow up that Royal House you were a kind of Fellow-sufferers with the Faithful Cavaliers for as they us'd to be trapp'd by Cromwel even so you were drawn in by Secretary Cecil It is worth observing in this Paragraph how you diminish that hellish Plot by calling them that were engag'd in it a few Desperadoes The Fewness of them will be considered in your next But in what sense do you call them Desperadoes Were they such in respect of their Fortunes That is so well known to be false that it needs no Answer Were they such in respect of their Discontents that seems to be your Meaning But there was little Reason for any For at the time of this Conspiracy there was none of your Priests in Prison there was no Mult taken of any Lay-man Nor was there a man of them as King James said that could alledge any pretended cause of grief And yet they were continually Restless as we have shewn you in their story Was it because they had not all the Liberty they would have had This is so far from excusing them that it rathet gives us occasion of suspecting You. 'T is no wonder that you who cannot afford to call this Conspiracy a Treason are not willing to allow the Discovery of it a Miracle Yet you might have forborn Scoffing at it in respect to king James who was pleas'd to Name it so Especially when his adversary Bellarmin acknowledges that it was not without a Miracle of Divine Providence And sure our King makes a better use of this word Miracle in the thankful acknowledgement of Gods great Mercy in his deliverance than your Pope Sixtus V. did in his insolent Oration upon the King of France's Murder by which we may guess what Some body would have called this Plot if it had Sped This will easily appear viz. how little the Catholick Party understood the Design seeing there was not a score of Guilty found though all imaginable industry was used by the Commons Lords and Privy Council too The design it self was understood but by Few because it was neither safe nor needful to impart it to many But the Papists generally knew that there was a Design in hand and though they did not know the horrid nature of it yet many of them pray'd for the success of it and if the Plot had taken effect and the Hunting-Match had gone on we should then have been better able to have judg'd how your Catholick Party stood affected toward it Sure enough though there were but a Score in the Treason yet there appear'd fourscore in the Rebellion and it cannot be imagin'd that so small a Number could Expect without any other Assistance to have made any great Advantage by surprizing the Lady Elizabeth But when the Treason had miscarried as hateful as it was for who does not hate Treason when it is unsuccessful yet many of you had a high Veneration for some of those Wretches that were deeply engaged in it What a Coil here was about the Miracle of Father Garnet's straw And perhaps you have seen his Picture and Gerard's too among the Martyrs of your Society Nay his Holiness himself shew'd his good Will to them when after all this he made Tesmund Penitentiary at S. Peters in Rome But suppose my Lords and Gentlemen which never can be granted that all the Papists of that Age were consenting will you be so severe then to still punish the Children for the Fathers Faults Nay such Children that so unanimously joyned with you in that glorious Quarrel when you and we underwent such sufferings that needs we must have all sunk had not our mutual love assisted You suppose that which is False to avoid that which is True For who ever said that All the Papists of that Age were Consenting to the Gun-Powder-Treason Or who can deny that some Papists in this Age retain the Principles of them that were consenting to it Who although they are not to be Punisht for what their Predecessors did yet they ought to be so restrained that they may not do like their Predecessors And though by that long word Unanimously you endeavour to shuffle in the men of these Principles amongst them that served his Majesty in that Glorious Quarrel Yet we think it no hard matter to distinguish them For those among you which did the King Service are not so many but that they may be Numbred And as for the rest of you which Only suffer'd with us we thank you for your Love but not for your Assistance For we could not well have sunk lower than we did But some of you floted the while like Cork and others of you swum upon the Bladders of Dispensations So that as we received no Help from you in your Swimming so we can apprehend no Assurance of you by your Sufferings What have we done that we should now deserve your Anger has the indiscretion of some few incensed you 't is true that is the thing objected Sir our Anger is only a Necessary Care that what you now call your Indiscretions may not grow to be such as you lately call'd your Misdemeanors Do not you know an Enemy may easily mistake a Mass-Bell for that which calls to Dinner We know he may upon a Fast-day For then you use to ring your Vesper Bell before Dinner And how can a simple Heretick tell whether it calls you to Pray or to eat Fish But we do not know that ever any of you was brought in trouble about this Question Or a Sequestrator be glad to be affronted being Constable when 't was the hatred to his Person and not present Office which perchance egg'd a a rash man to folly Possibly he May be glad of it For it was your Jesuitical distinction between Person and Office that first holp him to be a Sequestrator And now he sees that Distinction come in play he may hope within a while to have his Place again We dare with submission say Let a publick invitation be put up against any Party whatsoever nay against the Reverend Bishops themselves and some malicious Informer or other will alledge that which may be far
better to conceal Yet all mankinde by a Manifesto on the house door are incouraged to accuse us nor are they upon Oath though your Enemies and ours take all for granted and true What an Ambush you have laid here for the Bishops to have them thought Popish because you Reverence them and Obnoxious in such matters as you say it may be far better to conceal But as in the one your kindness to them is sufficiently understood So they are able to defie your Malice in the other 'T is for a Bishop of Donna Olympia's to need concealment Our Bishops in England are of another make than to hold their Credit at any one's Courtesie For the Manifesto that troubled you what could the Parliament do less when the Complaints of you were great in all parts of the Nation than to Invite men to bring their Grievances to the proper place of Redress But then say you men were not upon Oath for what they said against you What a Hardship was this that the House of Commons would not do that for your sakes which no House of Commons ever did upon any occasion It can not be imagined where there is so many men of heat and youth ever joyned with the happy restauration of their Prince and remembring the insolencies of their Grandees that they should all at all times prudently carry themselves for this would be to be more than men And truly we ecteem it as a particular blessing that God hath not suffered many through vanity or frailty to fall into greater faults than are yet as we understand laid to our charge The King will never be out of your debt if a Jesuite may but keep the reckoning Your old Treasons you put upon the account of his Family and Friends and your late Insolencies upon the score of his most Happy restauration But would you seriously perswade us that at six years distance so many men of heat and youth were still transported with the Joy of that Blessing That there were some fresher causes of this Jollity has been vehemently suspected by many who considered the great Unseasonableness of it in so Calamitous a time while the Fire was ranging in our Metropolis and a French Army lay hovering upon our Coasts Can we chuse but be dismay'd when all things fail that extravagant Crimes are fathered upon us It is we must be the Authors some say of firing the City even we that have lost so vastly by it yet in this our ingenuity is great since we think it no Plot though our Enemy an Hugonot Protestant acknowledged the Fact and was justly Executed for his vain Confession Again if a Merchant of the Church of England buy Knives for the business of his Trade This also is a Papist Contrivance to destroy the well affected There can be nothing charged on you more extravagant than those things were which your Predecessors committed and which here You have taken upon you to justifie or excuse The Particulars of your Charge whatsoever they are we leave to the Consideration of the Parliament where we heartily wish there may appear more Reason on your side than there is to be found in this Apology For as to the Firing of the City if according to your words which we have not hitherto found to be Gospel you have lost so vastly by it yet that will not Acquit you from the suspicion of the Fact in the judgment of any one that considers the Determination of your late Provincial viz. that it is lawful to destroy the Inrocent with the Guilty in order to a greater good And it seems this vast loss goes not near your Heart one would think so by your pleasantness in the very next passage For there you call Hubert your Enemy and a Hugonot Protestant which Hubert after Father Harvey had had him at Confession did indeed affirm himself to be a Protestant but then being askt whether he meant a Hugonot which it seems was beyond his Instruction to say he earnestly denied that as he very well might for he then also declar'd that he believed Confession to a Ptiest was necessary to his salvation and being admonish'd to call upon God he repeated an Ave-Mary which he said was his usual Prayer So that it evidently appears he was neither Hugonot nor Protestant nor Your Enemy upon any account of Religion And yet you being about to avouch this knot of Falshoods are pleased to usher them in with this Preface either in Praise of your Brother Harveys Pious Fraud or of your own Proper Vertue Truly in this our ingenuity is great We must a little complain finding it by experience that by reason you discountenance us the People rage and again because they rage we are the more forsaken by you Assured we are that our conversation is affable and our Houses so many Hospitable receipts to our Neighbours Our acquaintance therefore we fear at no time but it is the stranger we dread that taking all on hear-say zealously wounds and then examines the business when it is too late or is perchance confirmed by another that knows no more of us than he himself T is to you we must make our Applications beseeching you as Subjects tender of our King to intercede for us in the execution and weigh the Dilemma which doubtless he is in either to deny so good a Parliament their requests or else run counter to his Royal Inclinations when he punishes the weak and harmless He that complains without a cause must be heard without redress We only desire to be Safe from those dangers to which your Principles would expose us and against which neither Affableness nor Hospitality will secure us The Protestants of Ireland were never so treated and caressed by their Popish Neighbors as they were the very year before they cut their throats The best Means of our security is that which his Majesty has been pleased to require viz. The discreet Execution of his Laws By which if others shall please to distinguish themselves from the rest by renouncing their disloyal Principles only the disloyal and seditious will be kept weak that they may be harmless Why may we not noble Country-men hope for favour from you as well as French Protestants finde from theirs a greater duty then ours none could express we are sure or why should the United Provinces and other magistrates that are harsh both in mind and manners refrain from violence against our Religion and your tender breasts seem not to harbour the least compassion or pity These barbarous People Sequester none for their Faith but for Transgression against the State Nor is the whole Party involved in the Crime of a few but every man suffers for his own and proper fault Do you then the like and he that offends let him dye without Mercy And think alwayes I beseech you of Cromwels Injustice who for the Actions of some against his pretended Laws drew thousands into decimation even ignorant of the thing