Christendom with their noise and clamours of the dreadful Persecutions in England that Great man thought it not below him to write this Apology for the Execution of Justice here and to shew how reasonable just and moderate the Proceedings of the State were considering the height and insolence of the provocations and this was published in several Languages and dispersed in the Courts of Princes to undeceive them as to all the false reports of the Romish Emissaries who have taken upon them that publick Character of the Popes Ambassadors to lye abroad for his and their own advantage 2. But after that by the means of Cardinal Allen and others they had endeavoured to blast the reputation of that Apology and after the death of that great Minister of State the Secular Priests did publish their Important Considerations wherein they assert the Truth of what was said in the Apologie and vindicate the Honour and Justice of the Penal Laws which is the second Treatise here published and printed according to their own Copy and which hath been so much concealed or bought up by those of that Religion that it hath been heard of by few and seen by fewer Protestants 3. And lest any should say that all those dangerous Principles to Government are since his Majesties happy Restauration utterly disowned by them I have added a third Treatise printed by one of their own Religion 1662. which charges the Jesuitical Party so deep with those Principles and Practices as to make them uncapable of any Favour If other persons will pursue the same method in retrieving such considerable Treatises as these are they may do more service to our Church and Nation than by writing Histories themselves and I shall desire the late Apologist to set these Authors of his own Church against the petty Historians he so punctually quotes on all occasions And we have so much the more reason to consider these things since in a very late Treatise called the Bleeding Iphigenia the Irish Rebellion is defended by one of the Titular Bishops to be a just and holy War and seeing they still think it lawful what can we imagine then that they want but another occasion to do the same things THE EXECVTION OF JUSTICE IN ENGLAND For maintenance of Publick and Christian Peace c. IT hath been in all Ages and in all Countries All Offenders cover their faults with contrary causes a common usage of all offenders for the most part both great and small to make defence of their lewd and unlawful facts by untruths and by colouring and covering their deeds were they never so vile with pretences of some other causes of contrary operations or effects to the intent not only to avoid punishment or shame but to continue uphold and prosecute their wicked attempts to the full satisfaction of their disordered and malicious appetites Rebels do most dangerously cover their faults And though such hath been the use of all Offenders yet of none with more danger than of Rebels and Traytors to their lawful Princes Kings and Countries Of which sort of late years are specially to be noted certain persons naturally born Subjects in the Realm of England and Ireland who having for some good time professed outwardly their obedience to their Soveraign Lady Queen Elizabeth have nevertheless afterward been stirred up and seduced by wicked Spirits Rebellion in England and Ireland first in England sundry years past and secondly and of latter time in Ireland to enter into open Rebellion taking Arms and coming into the Field against her Majesty and her Lieutenants with their Forces under Banners displayed inducing by notable untruths many simple people to follow and assist them in their Traitorous actions And though it is very well known that both their intentions and manifest actions were bent to have deposed the Queens Majesty from her Crown and to have traiterously set in her place some other whom they liked whereby if they had not been speedily resisted they would have committed great bloodsheds and slaughters of her Majesties faithful Subjects and ruined their native Country The Rebels vanquished by the Queens Power Yet by Gods power given unto her Majesty they were so speedily vanquished as some few of them suffered by order of Law according to their deserts many and the greatest part upon Confession of their faults were pardoned Some of the Rebels fled into other Countries the rest but they not many of the principal escaped into Foreign Countries and there because in none or few places Rebels and Traitors to their natural Princes and Countries dare for their Treasons challenge at their first muster open comfort or succour these notable Traitors and Rebels have falsly informed many Kings Princes and States and specially the Bishop of Rome commonly called the Pope from whom they all had secretly their first comfort to Rebell that the cause of their flying from their Countries was for the Religion of Rome Rebels pretend Religion for their defence and for maintenance of the said Popes Authority Whereas divers of them before their Rebellion lived so notoriously the most part of their lives out of all good rule either for honest manners or for any sense in Religion as they might have been rather familiar with Catalin or Favourers to Sardanapalus than accounted good Subjects under any Christian Princes As for some examples of the heads of these Rebellions out of England fled Charles Nevill Earl of Westmerland a person utterly wasted by looseness of life and by Gods punishment even in the time of his Rebellion bereaved of his Children that should have succeeded him in the Earldom and how his Body is now eaten with Ulcers of lewd causes all his Companions do see that no Enemy he had can wish him a viler punishment And out of Ireland ran away one Thomas Stukeley a defamed person almost through all Christendom and a faithless Beast rather than a Man fleeing first out of England for notable Piracies and out of Ireland for treacheries not pardonable Ringleaders of Rebels Charls Nevill Earl of Westmerland and Thomas Stukeley which two were the first Ringleaders of the rest of the Rebels the one for England the other for Ireland But notwithstanding the notorious evil and wicked lives of these and others their Confederates void of all Christian Religion it liked the Bishop of Rome as in favour of their Treasons not to colour their offences as themselves openly pretend to do for avoiding of common shame of the World but flatly to animate them to continue their former wicked purposes that is to take Arms against their lawful Queen to invade her Realm with Foreign Forces to pursue all her good Subjects and their Native Countries with Fire and Sword for maintenance whereof there had some years before at sundry times proceeded in a thundring sort The effect of the Popes Bull against the Queen of England Bulls Excommunications and other publick Writings denouncing her Majesty
Master of Truth said to Peter and his fellow-Apostles Reges gentium dominantur vos autem non sic That is The Kings of the Gentiles have rule over them but you not so may learn to forsake their arrogant and tyrannous Authorities in earthly and temporal causes over Kings and Princes and exercise their Pastoral Office as St. Peter was charged thrice at one time by his Lord and Master Pasce oves meas Feed my sheep and peremptorily forbidden to use a Sword in saying to him Converte gladium tuum in locum suum or mitte gladium tuum in vaginam That is Turn thy Sword into his place or Put thy Sword into the scabbard All which Precepts of Christ and his Apostles were duly followed and observed many hundred years after their death by the faithful and godly Bishops of Rome that duly followed the doctrine and humility of the Apostles and the doctrine of Christ and thereby dilated the limits of Christs Church and the Faith more in the compass of an hundred years than the latter Popes have done with their Swords and Curses these five hundred years Pope Hildebrand the first that made War against the Emperor An. Dom. 1074. and so continued untill the time of one Pope Hildebrand otherwise called Gregory the Seventh about the year of our Lord 1074. who first began to usurp that kind of Tyranny which of late the Pope called Pius Quintus and since that time Gregory now the Thirteenth hath followed for some example as it seemeth that is Where Gregory the Seventh in the year of our Lord 1074. or thereabout presumed to depose Henry the Fourth a noble Emperour then being Gregory the Thirteenth now at this time would attempt the like against King Henry the Eighth's Daughter and Heir Queen Elizabeth a Soveraign Queen holding her Crown immediately of God And to the end it may appear to Princes or to their good Counsellors in one example what was the fortunate success that God gave to this good Christian Emperour Henry against the proud Pope Hildebrand it is to be noted that when the Pope Gregory attempted to depose this noble Emperour Henry there was one Rodulph a Noble man by some named the Count of Reenfield that by the Popes procurement usurped the name of the Emperour The Judgement of God against the Popes false erected Emperour who was overcome by the said Henry the lawful Emperour and in fight having lost his right hand he the said Rodulph lamented his case to certain Bishops who in the Popes name had erected him up and to them he said that the self-same right hand which he had lost was the hand wherewith he had before sworn obedience to his Lord and Master the Emperour Henry and that in following their ungodly Counsels he had brought upon him Gods heavy and just Judgments And so Henry the Emperour prevailing by Gods power Pope Gregory the Seventh deposed by Henry IV. caused Gregory the Pope by a Synod in Italy to be deposed as in like times before him his Predecessor Otho the Emperour had deposed one Pope John for many hainous crimes and so were also within a short time three other Popes namely Sylvester Bennet and Gregory the Sixth used by the Emperour Henry the Third about the year of our Lord 1047. for their like presumptuous attempts in temporal actions against the said Emperours Many other examples might be shewed to the Emperours Majesty and the Princes of the holy Empire now being after the time of Henry the Fourth as of Henry the Fifth Henry 5. Frederick 1. Frederick 3. Lewis of Banar Emperours and after him of Frederick the First and Frederick the Second and then of Lewis of Bavar all Emperours cruelly and tyrannously persecuted by the Popes and by their Bulls Curses and by open Wars and likewise to many other the great Kings and Monarchs of Christendom of their noble Progenitors Kings of their several Dominions whereby they may see how this kind of tyrannous Authority in Popes to make Wars upon Emperours and Kings and to command them to be deprived took hold at the first by Pope Hildebrand though the same never had any lawful example or warrant from the Laws of God of the Old or New Testament but yet the successes of their tyrannies were by Gods goodness for the most part made frustrate as by Gods goodness there is no doubt but the like will follow to their confusions at all times to come And therefore as there is no doubt but the like violent tyrannous proceedings by any Pope in maintenance of Traiters and Rebels would be withstood by every Soveraign Prince in Christendom in defence of their Persons and Crowns and maintenance of their Subjects in Peace so is there at this present a like just cause that the Emperours Majesty with the Princes of the holy Empire Whatsoever is lawful for other Princes Soveraigns is lawful for the Queen and Crown of England and all other Soveraign Kings and Princes in Christendom should judge the same to be lawful for her Majesty being a Queen and holding the very place of a King and a Prince Soveraign over divers Kingdoms and Nations she being also most lawfull invested in her Crown and as for good governing of her People with such applause and general allowance loved and obeyed of them saving a few ragged Traiters or Rebels or persons discontented whereof no other Realm is free as continually for these twenty five years past hath been notably seen and so publickly marked even by strangers repairing into this Realm as it were no cause of disgrace to any Monarchy and King in Christendom to have her Majesties felicity compared with any of theirs whatsoever and it may be there are many Kings and Princes could be well contented with the fruition of some proportion of her felicity And though the Popes be now suffered by the Emperor in the Lands of his own peculiar Patrimony and by the two great Monarchs the French King and the King of Spain in their Dominions and Territories although by other Kings not so allowed to continue his Authority in sundry cases and his glorious Title to be the universal Bishop of the World The Title of universal Bishop is a Preamble of Antichrist which Title Gregory the Great above nine hundred years past called a profane Title full of Sacriledge and a Preamble of Antichrist yet in all their Dominions and Kingdoms as also in the Realm of England most notably by many ancient Laws it is well known how many ways the tyrannous Power of this his excessive Authority hath been and still is restrained checked and limited by Laws and Pragmatiques both ancient and new a very large field for the Lawyers of those Countries to walk in and discourse And howsoever the Popes Canonists being as his Bombarders do make his Excommunications and Curses appear fearful to the multitude and simple people yet all great Emperours and Kings aforetime in their own cases
reputed of and esteemed or at the least in some sort born with and tolerated as men that do distinguish between Religion and Treason We wish with all our hearts and groan every day at the contrary that her Majesty had continued in her obedience to the See Apostolick as Queen Mary her Sister of famous memory had left her a worthy Example but seeing that God for our sins would have it otherwise we ought to have carried our selves in another manner of course towards her our true and lawful Queen and towards our Country than hath been taken and pursued by many Catholicks but especially by the Jesuits And therefore as well to discharge our own consciences as to satisfie many of you of the moderater sort of Catholicks according to the old saying Better late than never we have thought it our parts being her Highness natural born Subjects to acknowledge the truth of the carriage of matters against us and the apparent causes of it that the blame may indeed from point to point light and lie where it ought to do and both sides bear no other than their own burthens as the Laws both of God and man do require If hereby her Majesty may in any sort be appeased and the State satisfied our own former courses bettered and the Realm secured that the like shall never hereafter be attempted or favoured by any of us but be revealed if we know them and withstood if they be enterprised with all our goods and our lives even to our uttermost ability be their pretences never so fair for Religion or what else can be devised we shall think our selves happy and will not regard what all the malice and spite of the Jesuits can work or effect against us It cannot be denied but that for the first ten years of her Majesties Reign the state of Catholicks in England was tolerable and after a sort in some good quietness Such as for their consciences were imprisoned in the beginning of her coming to the Crown were very kindly and mercifully used the state of things then considered Some of them were appointed to remain with such their friends as they themselves made choice of Others were placed some with Bishops some with Deans and had their diet at their Tables with such convenient Lodgings and Walks for their recreation as did well content them They that were in the ordinary Prisons had such liberty and other commodities as the places would afford not inconvenient for men that were in their cases But that our Brethren of the more fiery and Jesuitical humour may not snuff hereat we have thought it meet to cool their heat with some of Master Parsons and his Fellow Master Creswels more gentle delays than are usual with them who in one of their Books do confess as much in effect as here we have set down if not more thus these great Emperour-like Jesuits do speak to her Majesty In the beginning of thy Kingdom thou didst deal somthing more gently with Catholicks none were then urged by thee or pressed either to thy Sect or to the denial of their Faith All things indeed did seem to proceed in a far milder course no great complaints were heard of there were seen no extraordinary contentions or repugnancies Some there were that to please and gratifie you went to your Churches But when afterwards thou didst begin to wrong them c. And hen was that our great Monseigneurs Surely whensoever it was to answer for you we our selves certain Catholicks of all sorts were the true causes of it For whilst her Majesty and the State dealt with the Catholicks as you have heard which was full eleven years no one Catholick beging called in question of his life for his conscience all that time consider with us how some of our profession proceeded with them Her Highness had scarcely felt the Crown warm upon her head but it was challenged from her by some of her Neighbours as Master Saunders noteth The French were sent into Scotland to do somewhat you may be sure which concerned her Majesty the circumstances consisidered to look unto Afterwards certain matters were undertaken by her Majesty in France and the Affairs in Scotland did so proceed as that the Queen there was compelled 1567. to flie into England where for a great time she was very honourably entertained her liberty only excepted But with these matters what had we to do that were either Priests or private men If either France or Scotland had cause to repine or complain some of those Nations might have done written and spoken as it had pleased them If little became either Master Saunders otherwise an excellent man or Master Parsons or any other of our own Nation to have intermedled with those matters or to write as they have very offensively done in divers of their Books and Treatises to what purpose we know not except it were to shew their malice to dishonour their own Country as much as lay in them and to move a greater dislike in the State of all that be Catholicks than before they had Kings ever have had and will have their plots and practices for their own safeties it being as inconvenient to their Policy for one Prince by his Might to over-top another as it is amongst the principal members of our natural bodies for one member to swell or grow too great above his due proportion Happy had we Catholicks been at this day if these men being Priests had never troubled themselves with State-matters which they have managed as Phaeton did his Fathers Chariot very greatly to our prejudice Let them pretend never so great skill in their disposing of Kingdoms ordine ad Deum they have certainly dealt with ours ordine ad Gehennam But this is not all which the State may justly challenge us for In the time of our said Peace and upon the coming into England of the Queen of Scots whilst her Majesty of England and the State were busied as partly you have heard before it pitieth our hearts to see and read what hath been printed and published out of Italy in the life of Pius Quintus concerning his Holiness endeavors stirred up by false suggestions to joyn with the King of Spain for the utter ruine and overthrow both of our Prince and Country Would to God such things had never been enterprised and most of all that they had never been printed We that have some skill with our Pens presume too much a great deal upon our own Wits What good the mentioning of these points can bring to the Church we see not but sure we are it hath done much hurt and given our common Enemies very great advantage against us For now it is usually objected unto us by every one of any reach when we complain of some hard dealings towards us Yea say they very well good Masters were you not in quiet Who then gave the cause that you were troubled When her Majesty used you kindly how treacherously
1579. abused still by false pretences did set forward that course and sending thither certain Forces Mr. Saunders too much Jesuited did thrust himself in person into that action as a chief Ring-leader and to perswade the Catholicks when he should come into Ireland to joyn with the Popes said Forces for the better assisting of certain Rebels then in Arms against their Soveraign Now whilst these practices were in hand in Ireland Gregory the Thirteenth reneweth the said Bull of Pius Quintus and denounceth her Majesty to be excommunicated with intimation of all other particulars in the former Bull mentioned which was procured we doubt not by surreption the false Jesuits our Country-men daring to attempt any thing by untrue suggestions and any lewd surmises that may serve their turns This Stratagem accomplished and ground laid whereupon they imagined to work great matters these good Fathers as the Devil would have it come into England and intruded themselves into our harvest being the men in our consciences we mean both them and others of that Society with some of their adherents who have been the chief Instruments of all the mischiefs that have been intended against her Majesty since the beginning of her Reign and of the miseries which we or any other Catholicks have upon these occasions sustained Their first repair hither was Anno 1580. when the Realm of Ireland was in great combustion and then they entred viz. Mr. Campion the Subject and Mr. Parsons the Provincial like a tempest with sundry such great brags and challenges as divers of the gravest Clergy then living in England Doctor Watson Bishop of Lincoln and others did greatly dislike them and plainly foretold that as things then stood their proceedings after that fashion would certainly urge the State to make some sharper Laws which should not only touch them but likewise all others both Priests and Catholicks Upon their arrival and after the said brags Mr. Parsons presently fell to his Jesuitical courses and so belaboured both himself and others in matters of State how he might set her Majesties Crown upon another head as appeareth by a Letter of his own to a certain Earl that the Catholicks themselves threatned to deliver him into the hands of the Civil Magistrate except he desisted from such kind of practices In these tumultuous and rebellious proceedings by sundry Catholicks both in England and Ireland it could not be expected but that the Queen and the State would be greatly incensed with indignation against us We had some of us greatly approved the said Rebellion highly extolled the Rebels and pitifully bewailed their ruine and overthrow Many of our affections were knit to the Spaniard and for our obedience to the Pope we all do profess it The attempts both of the Pope and Spaniard failing in England his Holiness as a temporal Prince displayed his Banner in Ireland The Plot was to deprive her Highness first from that Kingdom if they could and then by degrees to depose her from this In all these Plots none were more forward than many of us that were Priests The Laity if we had opposed our selves to these designments would out of doubt have been overruled by us Saunders Morten Web c. How many men of our calling were addicted to these courses the State knew not In which case the premises discreetly considered there is no King or Prince in the World disgusting the See of Rome and having either force or metal in him that would have endured us if possibly he could have been revenged but rather as we think have utterly rooted us out of his Territories as Traiters and Rebels both to him and his Country And therefore we may rejoyce unfeignedly that God hath blessed this Kingdom with so gracious and merciful a Soveraign who hath not dealt in this sort with us Assuredly if she were a Catholick she might be accounted the Mirror of the World but as she is both we and all other Catholicks her natural Subjects deserve no longer to live than we hereafter shall honour her from our hearts obey her in all things so far as possibly we may pray for her prosperous Reign and long life and to our powers defend and protect both her and our Country against any whatsoever that shall by force of Arms attempt to damnifie either of them For in the said Garboils and very undutiful proceedings how hath her Highness dealt with us From the time of the said Rebellion and Parliament there were few above twelve that in ten years had been executed for their consciences as we hold although our Adversaries say for Treason and of those twelve some perhaps can hardly be drawn within our account having been tainted with matters of Rebellion The most of the said number were Seminary Priests who if they had come over into England with the like intents that some others have done might very worthily have been used as they were But in our consciences nay some of us do know it that they were far from those seditious humors being men that intended nothing else but simply the good of our Country and the conversion of Souls Marry to say the truth as we have confessed before how could either her Majesty or the State know so much They had great cause as Politick persons to suspect the worst Besides to the further honour of her Majesty we may not omit that the States of the whole Realm assembled in Parliament Anno 1576. were pleased to pass us over and made no Laws at that time against us The ancient Prisoners that had been restrained more narrowly in the year 1570. were notwithstanding the said enterprises in Ireland again restored to their former liberty to continue with their friends as they had done before Such as were not suspected to have been dealers or abettors in the said treasonable actions were used with that humanity which could well be expected But when the Jesuits were come and that the State had notice of the said Excommunication there was then within a while a great alteration For such were the Jesuits proceedings and with so great boldness as though all had been theirs and that the State should presently have been changed Her Majesty had seen what followed in her Kingdom upon the first Excommunication and was therefore in all worldly Policy to prevent the like by the second The jealousie also of the State was much incresed by Mr. Sherwins answers upon his examination above eight months before the apprehension of Mr. Campion For being asked whether the Queen was his lawful Soveraign notwithstanding any sentence of the Popes he prayed that no such question might be demanded of him and would not further thereunto answer Two or three other questions much to the same effect were likewise propounded unto him which he also refused to answer Matters now sorting on this fashion there was a greater restraint of Catholicks than at any time before Many both Priests and Gentlemen were sent into the Isle of Ely
greatly to the dishonour of Religion we detest and abhor And in all these Jesuitical and disloyal practices this is our comfort that albeit we doubt not but that the Pope as a temporal Prince did joyn and contribute towards this intended Invasion yet we sind Father Parsons declaration of Xistus Quintus sentence of deposition of her Majesty at that time and of his admonition thereunto adjoyned as in the Popes name to have no warrant at alâ— besides his own bare affirmation either of Breve or of any other publick Instrument as in such cases had been most necessary otherwise than that he told us it was the Popes pleasure that we should take notice thereof by his Book which was then printed and to have been scattered amongst us By warrant whereof as we are perswaded it was not lawful for us to have killed a Goose if her Majesty had forbidden us so to do Of these matters to return still to our former Apologies we would have said nothing were hey not objected unto us and shewed us out of the Books themselves as notes and arguments of our traiterous hearts our Adversaries pressing the same upon us as if they did belong unto us and we were as guilty of them as either they that plotted or published them Which conceit if it should take root in those that be in Authority how could we hope for any favour but were rather to expect the greatest extremity that might be So as still we may say that the proceedings held against her Majesty well weighed these foreign Jesuitical practices have been the cause of all our troubles When it had pleased God to deliver her Majesty and this Kindom from the said intended Invasion Mr. Parsons whether ashamed of the foil for the success whereof he was so peremptory or for that he thought matters would be better managed in Spain if he were there to give his advice departed from Rome as we take it and became a Courtier to attend King Philip where by Mendoza his fellow Jesuit's means he grew shortly into so great estimation not for any goodness in him towards this Realm you may be sure but rather in respect of his deadly hatred against it that he procured a Seminary to be erected at Valledolyd 1589. But we will leave his proceedings in Spain a while In these ten years last mentioned from 1580. till 1590. or but little before we find her Majesty to be excommunicated by Gregory the Thitteenth Mr. Sherwin and the rest of our Brethren too much Jesuited refuse to answer whether they will take the Queens part or the Popes if he should come by force of Arms to assail her in her own Kingdom Parsons and Heywood are found to be Practitioners but especially Parsons The intention of the Duke of Guise is entertained here and prosecuted Her Majesties life is sought by treachery Babington and his Companions shoot at the Crown Stanley is a Treacherer breaketh his faith and is defended for so doing Then followed the Invasion and lastly Parsons plottings in Spain and the erection of new Seminaries there Now let us consider how we our selves all this while have been dealt with Such of us as remained in Prison at Wisbich and were committed thither 1580. and others not long after committed also thither to the number of about thirty three or thirty four continued still in the several times of all the said most wicked designments as we were before and were never brought into any trouble for them but lived there Colledge-like without any want and in good reputation with our Neighbours that were Catholicks about us It is true that towards the number of fifty as our memory serveth us Priests and Catholicks of all sorts within the compass of the said ten years were put to death we say upon our knowledges concerning the most of them for their consciences but out Adversaries as they think do still affirm for Treason Such Priests as in their examination were found any thing moderate were not so hardly proceeded with insomuch as fifty five to our remembrance that by the Laws we acknowledge might likewise have been put to death were in one year viz. 1585. what time great mischiefs were in hand spared from that extremity and only banished Which fact howsoever some have written of it the parties themselves accounted it for a great benefit and so would they also have done we doubt not of it if they had been hen of that number Whereas therefore Mr. Parsons as we think exclaimeth in a Pamphlet set out shortly after saying Where are now the old Tyrants of the World Nero Decius Dioclesian Maxentius and the rest of the great Persecutors of the Christians Where is Genserick and Hunricus with their Arrian Hereticks alluding to the State here we think both him and divers others that have written to the same effect very greatly to blame Sure we are that the general causeof Religion for the which both we and they contend as oft we have said gerteth no good but hurt by it and contrary to the old saying be he never so bad yet let him have justice though some hard courses have been taken by the State against us yet hath it not by many degrees been so extreme as the Jesuits and that crew have falsely written and reported of it But to return to Father Parsons in Spain and to proceed in the course of things which have happened since 1590. The said Father Parons so managed the said Seminary erected in Valledolyd as within three years viz. 1591. twelve or thirteen Priests were sent hither from thence Also he procured some other Seminaries to be erected in Spain and furnished them with such Students as he thought sit which for our parts we greatly commend in him if he took this pains and imployed his favour with the King to a good end whereof we have some doubt knowing the Jesuits fetches but the State here did utterly condemn him for it finding that both he and some others were plotting and labouring by all the means they could for a new Invasion Whereupon a Proclamation was set out 1591. as well for an inquity or search for all such Seminary Priests as either were or should hereafter come from Spain as also from any other Seminaries beyond the Seas upon suspicion that they were sent hither for no other end but to prepare a way for the said Invasion Whereas we are verily perswaded in our consciences and do know it for many that the Priests themselves had no such intention whatsoever the Jesuits had that sent them Against the said Proclamation three or four have whet their Pens but still whilst they seek to disgrace and gall the State they have ever thereby wounded and beaten us being themselves in the mean time void of all danger One of them Mr. Parsons by name as we suppose writing in his said Pamphlet of the new intended Invasion mentioned in the said Proclamation telleth us That the King hath just cause to
attempt again that enterprise And again he saith That the King is so interessed together with the Pope to seck as he termeth it her Majesties reformation that he the said King is bound in Justice to do it and cannot without prejudice of his high estimation and greatness refuse at the sconest opportunity to attempt it Mary withal to comfort us he writeth That the King intendeth no rigorous dealing with our Nation in the prosecution of his Invasion when he cometh hither Which great favour of the King towards us we are to ascribe to good Father Parsons if we may believe his dutiful Subject Mr. Southwell the Jesuit For thus he telleth us If ever saith he the King should prevail in that designment of his new Invasion Father Parsons assisted with Cardinal Alanes Authority hath done that in our Countries behalf for which his most bitter enemies and generally all her Majesties Subjects shall have cause to thank him for his serviceable endeavours so far hath he inclined fury to clemency and rage to compassion Sure we are greatly beholding to this good Father that hath had so kind a remembrance of us But we wish that he had rather imployed himself as a religious man in the service of God and his private meditations than thus to have busied himself in setting forward and qualifying it when he hath done so outragious a designment and do pray with all our hearts that neither we nor this Kingdom do ever fall into the hands of the Spaniards whose unspeakable cruelties in other Countries a worthy Catholick the Bishop hath notably described to all posterity The same Mr. Parsons also together with his fellow Jesuit Mr. Creswell as men that pretend extraordinary love to their Country have written a large Volume against the said Proclamation wherein what malice and contempt can devise that might provoke her Majesty to indignation against us is there set out very skilfully they themselves well knowing that no other fruit or benefit could come unto us by that discourse except it were still to plague us Whilst the said Invasion was thus talked of and in preparation in Spain a shorter course was thought of if it might have had success Mr. Hesket was set on by the Jesuits 1592. or thereabouts with Father Parsons consent or knowledge to have stirred up the Earl of Derby to rebellion against her Highness Not long after good Father Holt and others with him perswaded an Irish man one Patrick Collen as he himself confessed to attempt the laying of his violent and villanous hands upon her Majesty Shortly after in the year 1593. that notable Stratagem was plotted the whole State knoweth by whom for Doctor Lopez the Queens Physician to have poysoned her for the which he was executed the year after This wicked designment being thus prevented by Gods providence the said traiterous Jesuit Holt and others did allure and animate one Yorke and Williams to have accomplished that with their bloody hands that the other purposed to have done with his poyson we mean her Majestie destruction Hereunto we might add the late villanous attempt 1599. of Edward Squire animated and drawn thereunto as he confessed by Walpole that pernicious Jesuit But we must turn again to Father Parsons whose turnings and doublings are such as would trouble a right good Hound to trace him For in the mean time that the said Traiters one after another were plotting and studying how best they might compass her Majesties death they cared not how nor by what means he the said Father Parsons so prevailed with the King as he attempted twice in two sundry years his new Invasion meaning to have proceeded therein not with such great preparation as he did at the first but only to have begun the same by taking some Port Westward toward which he came so far onward as Silley with his Fleet. At both which times God who still hath fought for her Majesty and this Realm did notably prevent him by such winds and tempests as the most of his Ships and men perished in the Sea as they were coming hitherward Furthermore the said good Father in the midst of all the said traiterous enterprises both at home and abroad devised and set forward by him and his Companions was plodding amongst his Papers and playing the Herald how if all his said wicked designments failed he might at the least intitle the King of Spain and consequently the Infanta his Daughter to the Crown and Kingdom of England To which purpose he framed and afterwards published 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 himsef as some of the Apostles did do come into this Land or if he do send hither some Fugatius and Damianus as Eleutherus did or some Augustine Laurence or Jestus as Saint Gregory did we will to do them service go unto them and lye down at their feet and defend with them the Catholick faith by the sacred Scriptures and authority of the Church though it cost us our lives But if he come or send hither an Army under pretence to establish the said Catholick Religion by force and with the Sword we will ever be most ready as native born and true Subjects to her Highness with the hazard of our lives and with all our might to withstand and oppose our selves against him and to spend the best blood in our bodies in defence of the Queen and our Country For we are throughly perswaded that Priests of what order soever ought not by force of Arms to plant or water the Catholick faith but in spiritu lenitatis mansuetudinis to propagate and defend it So it was planted in the Primitive Church over all the World crescit fruct ificat sicut in nobis est ex quo die recepimus The ancient godly Christians though they had sufficient forces did not oppose themselves in Arms against their Lords the Emperours though of another Religion But our purpose is not to dispute this point And now lastly we commend unto you all our very right dear and beloved Brethren this our most humble Suit First that you will interpret the whole premises no otherwise than we our selves have expounded our own meaning Secondly we intreat you to remember how dear we have been unto you and that we continue our unfeigned affection towards you still assuring you that howsoever you are changed we do affect you still with a true and jealous love in Christ Jesu Thirdly we desire you by the mercies of God to take heed of Novelties and Jesuitism for it is nothing but treacher dissimulation ambition and a very vizard of most deep hypocrisie When other Kingdoms begin to loath them why should you so far debase your selves as to admire them Give us not occasion to say with the blessed Apostle You foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you Fourthly never give ear to any private Whisperers or Jesuitical perswasions that shall tend to allure you from your duties and allegiance unto her Majesty or your native Country All arguments that can be brought to corrupt you in either assure your selves are false and unlearned sophistications The Catholick faith for her stability and continuance hath no need of any treachery or rebellion The promise made to S. Peter is her sure ground and is more dishonoured with treasons and wicked policies of carnal men than any way furthered or advanced The word of the spirit and not the sword of the flesh or any arm of man is that which giveth life and beauty to the Catholick Church We are fully perswaded in our consciences and as men besides our Learning who have some experience that if the Catholicks had never sought by indirect means to have vexed her Majesty with their designments against her Crown if the Pope and King of Spain had never plotted with the Duke of Norfolk if the Rebels in the North had never been heard of if the Bull of Pius Quintus had never been known if the said Rebellion had never been justified if neither Stukeley nor the Pope had attempted any thing against Ireland if Gregory the Thirteenth had not renewed the said Excommunication if the Jesuits had never come into England if the Pope and King of Spain had not practised with the Duke of Guise for his attempt against her Majesty if Parsons and the rest of the Jesuits with other our Country-men beyond the Seas had never been Agents in those traiterous and bloody designments of Throckmorton Parry Collen York Williams Squire and such like If they had not by their Treatises and Writings endeavoured to defame their Soveraign and their own Country labouring to have many of their Books to be translated into divers languages thereby to shew more their own disloyalty if Cardinal Alane and Parsons had not published the renovation of the said Bull by Xistus Quintus if thereunto they had not
against the Jesuits they are both easily answered First it is objected that the Jesuits teach the Doctrine of the Pope deposing Kings It is answered That no Community can be less accused of that Doctrine than the Jesuits It 's true four or five Jesuits did many years ago teach that Dectrine as they had found it taught by others ancienter than their Order But since the first of January 1616. the General of the Jesuits forbade any of his to teach preach or dispute for that Doctrine or print any thing for it to take away the aspersion which the Writings of some few have brought upon the Society And now actually all Jesuits are obliged under pain of damnation not to teach that Doctrine either in word writing or print which none in the Church but they only are Secondly 'T is objected that the Jesuits do particularly depend on the Pope It is answered That they are obliged by a particular Vow to be ready to go even to the utmost bounds of the Earth to preach the Gospel to Insidels when the Pope shall think it fit to send them and they have no other Vow which doth particularly oblige them but this which can prejudice no Kingdom On the other side speaking of their dependence which my byass their affections they have the least dependence of the Pope of any Church-men for they are by special Vow excluded from al Benefices and Dignities by which the Pope may win the affection of other Church-men As for which is said of the Venetians and French banishing the Jesuits it is answered that both those Estates have repealed their Acts. Lastly That the Jesuits being willing to submit to whatsoever all other Catholick Priests shall agree to and offering all the security which others offer they hope they may be partakers of the same favurs which shall be granted to others that so that mercy may extend to all and the World may see that the Sanguinary Laws are truly taken away PREFACE I Expect Censures and Clamours as loud as can be against me of uncharitable uncatholick unchristian c. for seeming to lay load upon the already oppressed and contribute to and even provoke a persecution against our Fellow Cathlicks I think I have said my worst against my self let me see how I can justifie my action Premising therefore that the case of you Jesuits is apprehended by your selves and your Abettors already desperate and your Exclusion remediless and so cannot be said to spring from this paper of mine I address to my Defence and offer my Motives why I publish this little Treatise against you My first is To wipe off the aspersion laid upon Gods Church by some Tenets of yours and strongly fastened on it by your haughty calling only your selves the Catholick Church and all dissenters from your Tenets Hereticks My second Because I understand you are about to make the Common good stoop to the Particular one of your Order as is your constant practice contrary to the Law of Nature and Principles of Christianity For I have been informed that you in a boasting manner affirm the Parliament will proceed no farther about taking away the Sanguinary Laws and that some friends of yours endeavour to make it believed that it is not for his Majesties interest to make good his solemn promise from Breda of having regard to tender Consciences My third is Your stomachful frustrating my expectation For I was really glad when I heard you had published Apologetical Reasons why you should not be excepted hoping you would sincerely renounce the criminal Doctrines and Actions of your Predecessors and free Religion from scandal But finding no such thing per verba de praesenti but on the contrary a comparing and preferring your selves before others I thought my self obliged to do right to the Common Cause My fourth To oblige you to repentance and a hearty retractation of your unlawful Tenets and Practices that so you may deserve and have as much favour as others which is the worst I wish you and not to wrong your own Credits and Consciences and fool others with dissembling shews of loyalty which every one may see to be mere hypocrisie My fifth Because I owe that duty to the Civil Magistrate whose hearty Subject I am to resent a mockery put upon him as this your paper will appear to be under colour of offering satisfaction Every true hearted Subject owing his best endeavour to his King and Country that none lurk among them unless their faltring Principles of Aequivocation and disloyalty be purged out My sixth To offer even your selves an advantage if your courage and cause will stretch to improve it For the following Doubts are many of them such as Protestants themselves urge against your Reasons and are communicated here to you partly on purpose that you may provide better satisfaction My last to satisfie even the passionate too is Because your unchristian spirit of Calumny is still as unquiet as ever having of late most unjustly aspersed Principal Persons of almost every Body but your own which comportment of yours makes it but fit if Truth and the Common Good favour you not neither should I. To think and declare thus much satisfies me if it do not others I cannot help it Only I wish your favourers to beware of doing any thing that may be interpreted an abetment of you till you approve your selves heartily loyal lest they discover themselves too deeply tainted with your Principles and temper DOVBTS TO begin then My first Doubt shall be Whether you Jesuits have ground to hope the same favour with others For if you by your unjust and wicked practices provoked the Magistrates to enact those Laws if the rest of Priests and Catholicks were by you plunged in such miseries upon discovery of your Negotiations which were imputed to the whole Body of them how can you be thought to deserve remission whose seditious Principles are too deeply guilty of the Blood of Priests and Catholicks shed in the Kingdom ever since you first came into it Those who know your practices in the Countries where you by the means ordinarily of deluded Wives govern the Great Ones know this to be your Maxime to manage Religion not by perswasion but by command and force This Principle did your chief Apostle of England Robert Parsons bring in with him His first endeavours were to make a List of Catholicks which under the conduct of the Duke of Guise should have changed the state of the Kingdom using for it the pretence of the Title of Queen Mary of Scotland But her Council at Paris which understood business better were so sensible of his boldness that they took from him the Queens Cypher which he had purloyned and commanded him never more to meddle in Her affairs Poor Edmund Campian who is generally accounted an innocent and learned man and others suffered for such practices of his Parson's endeavours being suppressed by this Queen he turned himself to the Spaniard and with all
deposed all that do obey her are likewise innodate and accursed which point is perillous to the Catholicks for if they obey her they be in the Popes Curse and if they disobey her they are in the Queens danger therefore the present Pope to relieve them hath altered that part of the Bull and dispenced with them to obey and serve her without peril of excommunication which dispensation is to endure but till it please the Pope otherwise to determine Wherefore to make some conclusion of the matters before-mentioned A Conclusion that all the infamous Books against the Queen and the Realm are false all persons both within the Realm and abroad may plainly perceive that all the infamous Libels lately published abroad in sundry languages and the slanderous reports made in other Princes Courts of a multitude of persons to have been of late put to torments and Death only for profession of the Catholick Religion and not for matters of state against the Queens Majesty are false and shameless and published to the maintenance of Traitors and Rebels And to make the matter seem more horrible or lamentable they recite the particular names of all the persons which by their own Catalogue exceed not for these twenty five years space Difference of the small numbers that have been executed in the space of five and twenty years from the great numbers in five years of Queen Maries Reign above the number of threescore forgetting or rather with their stony and sensless hearts not regarding in what cruel sort in the time of Queen Mary which little exceeded the space of five years the Queens Majesties Raign being five times as many there were by Imprisonment Torments Famine and Fire of Men Women Maidens and Children almost the number of four hundred and of that number above twenty that had been Archbishops Bishops and principal Prelates or Officers in the Church lamentably destroyed and of Women above threescore and of Children above forty and amongst the Women some great with Child out of whose bodies the Child by fire was expelled alive and yet also cruelly burned examples beyond all heathen Cruelty And most of the youth that then suffered cruel Death both Men. Women and Children which is to be noted were such as had never by the Sacrament of Baptism or by Confirmation professed nor were ever taught or instructed or ever had heard of any other kind of Religion but only 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 An Advertisement to all Princes of Countries abroad but especially all Christian Potentates as Emperours Kings Princes and such like having their Soveraign Estate 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 The Authority claimed by the Pope not warranted by Christ or by the two Apostles Peter and Paul 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