commending the Zeal of the Missionaries in Scotland tells him that they had converted the Earls of Arroll and Crawford who were very desirous to advance the Catholick Faith and Spanish Interest in this Island and resolved to follow entirely the Directions of the Fathers Jesuites whence it appears their main design is to enlarge their Empire for as the same Gentleman affirms no sooner any person of Quality is converted by them but they forthwith encline and dispose their affections to the Service of the King of Spain as a thing inseparably conjoined with the advancement of true Religion in this Countrey so that by the Confession of this great Man Popery and Treason were inseparable at that time the Romanists being so in love with it that they made their Address to the broken Fleet of the Spaniards the last year to land what Forces they had several great Persons being ready to receive them And the two new Noble Converts wrote to the Duke of Parma testifying their entire devotedness to the Spanish Interest Nor was Scotland alone thus infected for in England the Earl of Arundell was this year tried and dyed in the Tower who rejoiced at the Spaniards coming prayed for their Success and exceedingly grieved at their Overthrow And the Jesuite Parsons prevailed to have a Seminary wherein to instruct Youth in such treasonable Principles as his own founded at Valedolyd But though this Island was sufficiently pestered this year by the Papal Agents and Factours for Rebellion yet were we favourably dealt with in comparison of the Treasons and Insurrections in France against Henry the Third a Prince of their own Communion who after the Death of the Duke of Guise was opposed by an almost universal Rebellion the Priests calling on their Auditours to swear to revenge the Duke's Death and railing with all manner of virulency against the King insomuch that Father Lincestre affirmed that if he were at the Altar and the Eucharist in his hand he would not scruple in that very place to kill him The Rebels styl'd him Tyrant Heretick and to have his Picture or to call him King was crime enough to deserve death they threw down his Arms and Statues and practised all sort of Magick Incantations and Charms to hasten his death The Parisians wrote to the Pope desiring to be absolved from their Allegiance with several other requests of the same nature and in their Letters to the Cardinals styled their Sovereign The late King of France and sent Agents to Rome giving them among other Instructions Orders to desire the Pope not to entertain or hear the King's Ambassadours and Messages and to excommunicate all that join with him and having chosen the Duke of Mayenne for their General would have had him take the Title of King but he refused it yet they broke the King 's great Seal and made a new one To these the City of Lyons joined affirming that Kings ought to be resisted and they will resist the King in conjunction with the Holy Union to whom the Parisians sent a Letter exhorting them to defend their Religion c. against that prodigal perjured cruel and murthering Prince the Duke of Mayenne refusing to have any Peace or admit so much as of a Truce and prosecuting the War with the utmost vigour To these Attempts and Perseverance in them they were encouraged by the Sorbon Doctours who in a Decree made Jan. 7. 1589. resolved That the People were freed from their Oaths of Allegiance and Fidelity and that they may legally and with a safe Conscience take Arms for the Defence of the Roman Religion against the wicked Counsels and Practices of the King. Which Decree they ordered to be sent to the Pope for his Confirmation and this they affirm was concluded on and resolved by an entire consent of the whole Faculty not one dissenting And with the same Zeal and no more Loyalty they licensed a Book which asserted that the King ought to be assassined affirming that there was nothing in it contrary to the Roman Church To promote which they concluded that the King ought to be no longer prayed for declaring all such of the Body as should not agree to this to be guilty of Excommunication and deprived of the Prayers and Privileges of the Faculty And that there might remain no badg of Royalty to put them in mind of their Duty the Cordeliers struck off the Head of the King's Picture which was in their Church and the Jacobins defaced those in their Cloisters But this was done after the Pope had once more publickly owned the Rebels and their Cause who by his Bull asserted his Power of Rule over all Kingdoms and Princes of the Earth proceeded to admonish the King to release the Cardinal of Bourbon and Archbishop of Lyons in thirty days and within sixty days to make his Submission to His Holiness for the death of the Cardinal of Guise or he would proceed to absolve his Subjects from their Allegiance which so pleased the Leaguers that they reported Stories of God's immediate Judgment against the opposers of this Thundering Bull. But the King's Army pressing the Parisians and having reduced them to the last Extremity they found an instrument for their purpose who was so wrought upon by the fiery Preachers that he resolved to kill the King He was a Jacobin Friar and confessing it to Father Bourgoin Prior of the Convent he encouraged him in it telling him he should be a Saint in Heaven and accounted an holy Martyr by the Church which so emboldened him that with a Knife given him by that Father he stabbed the King into the Belly and was himself slain upon the place This Jaques Clement was accordingly honoured by the Clergy of the League as they had promised his Picture was made and shewed publickly and they were about setting up his Statue in the Churches instead of the King 's and pared off the very ground where he was slain to preserve as Relicks and several Divines preached and wrote in his Praise compared him to Ehud and affirmed he had done a greater work than Judith The Cardinal de Montalto rejoiced at it and the Pope made a long Oration in its Praise and decreed that no Funerals should be celebrated for the King. Immediately upon this Murther the Leaguers at Paris would have made the Duke of Mayenne King but he declining it they proclaimed the Cardinal of Bourbon by the name of Charles the Tenth and the Parliament of Tholouse commanded all the Bishops within their Churches to give Thanks to God for this Deliverance and that the first day of August on which the King was slain should be kept for ever in remembrance of that Action and that their Rancour against the King of Novarre might the better appear they forbad any to accept him for their King. And not the Leaguers only who had been in open
seditious Designs in hand at the same time is evident from the Confession of Mac-Enerry a Dominican who for this very reason left the Church of Rome because of her rebellious Doctrines and the many Conspiracies he had taken an Oath of Secrefie to conceal which he observed inviolably and though he informed the Bishop of Limrick that there were many Plots then contriving against his Majesty's Government yet for his Oaths sake he would not name any Persons who were concerned in them The Duke of Orleance had retired in disgust from Court some years since and was received by the Duke of Lorrain but being forced this year to leave that retreat he went to Brussells from whence aided by the Spaniards he marched at the head of an Army into France but was defeated and several of his Adherents executed While France was thus almost continually pestered with Rebellions the Designs of the Papists ripened apace in Ireland they had erected Friaries in the Countrey instead of those which were dissolved in Dublin and even in that City they had a College of Students whereof Father Paul Harris was Dean and at a Synodical meeting of their Clergy they decreed that it was not lawfull to take the Oath of Allegiance If it were not that all the Designs of that Party from the Year 1630. to 1640. were summed up and perfected in the Rebellion in Ireland and the execrable Civil Wars of England I should wonder how they came to be so still and that no more Conspiracies were discovered besides that great one which Andreas ab Habernsfield was informed of in Holland and of which he sent the King an Account under the hand of the Discover who affirms that one Maxfield was sent into Scotland to stir up a Rebellion there and that the King was to be poisoned for which end they kept a strong Poison in an Indian Nut which he had often seen They had likewise another Design if they could prevail upon the Scots or discontented English to rebell that thereby the King should be straitened and forced to depend on the Papists for assistance and then they would make their own Terms and secure to themselves a publick Liberty which if he refused to consent to they would not only desert him but dispatch him with the Indian Nut which they reserved on purpose He gives also an Account of the Persons concerned in the Plot among whom were several Ladies of Quality for whose Encouragement the Pope sent a Breve to Sir Toby Mathews one of the principal Conspiratours wherein he exhorts him and the Women engaged with him to proceed with diligence in the Design assuring them That he did not despair to see the Authority of the Holy See which was subverted in England by a Woman again restored in a very little time by the Endeavours of those Heroick Ladies This Breve is an unanswerable Evidence that the succeeding Troubles derived their original from the insatiate Lust of Rule which possessed the Pope who herein approves of those very Methods which afterwards proved the Ruine of that excellent Prince and so miserably distracted these poor Nations But he appeared more publickly an Abbettor of the Irish Massacre and Rebellion wherein so many thousand Protestants were murthered in cold bloud sending his Nuncio to assist and affording them all the aid that he was able to give a Design laid with so much secrefie and executed with so much cruelty that nothing but the very Spirit of Popery could be barbarous enough to engage in it in prosecution of which they did all they could totally to beat the English out of the Kingdom The same year the Marquess de Villa Real the Duke de Camina and the Marquess d' Armamar who by the Instigation of the Archbishop of Braga had undertaken to kill the King of Portugal Father to Her Majesty the Queen Dowager of England and to fire the Ships and the City in several places that they might have the better opportunity to promote the Interest of the Spaniards were put to death Nor did France yet enjoy any more quiet where the Count de Soissons and the Duke of Guise and others raised a Rebellion and routed the King's Army but the Count being slain with his own Pistol the Confederacy was soon broken Yet the very next Year the Duke of Orleance combined with the Spaniards who were to assist him with Forces for a new Rebellion The Pope had involved Ireland in Bloud the former year and in this the Wars began in England where several Priests were found among the dead at â—dghill Battle but the Endeavours of his Holiness to encrease those miserable Confusions were managed with all imaginable Secrefie while the Irish were openly commended by him and assured of his Prayers for their success in his Breve to Owen O Neal dated Octob. 8. 1642. and so willing was he to lay hold on all occasions for the exercising his Deposing Power that because the Prince of Parma offended him he declared him to have incurred the greater Excommunication and deprived him of all his Dominions and Dignities But not content with sending the forementioned Breve to O Neal his Holiness granted a Bull of plenary Indulgence May 25. 1643. to all the Catholicks in Ireland who joined in the Rebellion which was prosecuted as fiercely as the Pope could desire and a defence of it set forth by an Irish Jesuite in Portugal though the Title-page mentions Franckfort who asserts That the English Kings have no Title or Right to Ireland that if they had yet it is the Duty of the Irish to deprive them of their Rights seeing they are declared Hereticks and Tyrants that this Power of deposing such Princes is inherent in every State but if the Authority of the Holy See be added to that Power none but a Fool or an Heretick will deny what the Doctours of Divinity and of the Civil and Canon Law do generally teach and which is confirmed by Reasons and Examples And so far did the Pope approve of the Contents of this Book that when soon after its publication the Irish had submitted to the King and promised to assist him in his Wars His Holiness by his Nuncio took upon him to be their General absolved them from their Oaths and imprisoned and threatened the Lives of those who had promoted the peace and desired to return to the King's Subjection which renewed the Rebellion again and brought infinite Miseries on that bigotted Nation At the same time above an hundred of the Romish Clergy were sent into England by Order from Rome who the better to promote the Divisions there were instructed in several Trades both handicraft and others these upon their arrival were ordered to disperse themselves and give Intelligence every month to their Superiours abroad accordingly they listed themselves in the
A DEFENCE OF THE Missionaries Arts WHEREIN The Charge of Disloyalty Rebellions Plots and Treasons asserted Page 76 of that Book are fully proved against the Members of the Church of Rome in a brief Account of the several Plots contrived and Rebellions raised by the Papists against the Lives and Dignities of Sovereign Princes since the Reformation By the Authour of the Missionaries Arts. LONDON Printed for Richard Wilde at the Map of the World in St. Paul's Church-yard 1689. TO THE READER IT is strange that of all men Papists should calumniate Protestants with Treason and Rebellions were Modesty an Essential in the Complexion of a Jesuite surely they would forbear or Charity they so much talk of and so little practise to be found among them Are horrid Massacres villanous Assassinations or Poisonings the Effect of Charity Or Is Malice inveterate Traducing or Lying the Fruit thereof Yet nothing is more obvious in the whole course of History than those diabolical Machinations and hellish Conspiracies of Priests and Jesuites especially within this last hundred and fifty years and generally speaking Princes and crowned Heads have been most the objects of their Fury and lest the palliation of Villany should pass on the weaker sort and this Objection any way obtain That forsooth most of these Contrivances were against Heretical Princes excommunicated by the Pope and Church and by consequence delivered over to Satan and that the killing of them really was no Murther no more than of Wolves or Bears To this I answer That Princes of the same Communion as Henry the Third of France could not escape their fatal Stab who never made profession of any other and though Henry the Fourth was first a Protestant and by them constrained to change nay and highly indulging them in his latter years and as Mathieus says in his Life to all appearance was devout I mean in their way yet from Ravilliac's Hand all this could not defend him We need not long here fix but look on former times where for five or six hundred years nothing hath been more common or more lamentable than the story of several Princes struck with the Lightening of the Court of Rome and others wholly ruined by the Vatican Thunder the consequences being either their own Tragical Ends or at the most favourable strong and lasting Rebellions which all conversant in History may plainly see and so dextrous were they in translating to the other World that in the very Host it self was Poison given to one of the â—erman Emperours so that Silence to none is a more necessary Virtue especially in this Case than to regular Monks and Friars who for several Ages have been the very Pest and Bane of Secular Princes acting not only their Villanies in the Time of the Holy War but in the time of their Antipopes also But to return to our own Nation What Barbarities have they not committed What Impieties have they not been guilty of What Cruelties have they left unattempted and yet with a brazen Front daily bespatter Protestants accusing them of what themselves were Authours of imitating herein the very Skum of Mankind for none shall sooner call another Rogue than he that really is one In whose mouth is Whore and Bitch more frequent than hers that is a common Prostitute And to proceed What Disorder did they not cause to plague and pester Harry the Eighth What Commotions did they not raise all the Reign of Queen Elizabeth besides the Attempts upon her Person What Divisions did they not nourish all the time of Edward the Sixth and in his death had no small share How horridly desperate they were in King James's time appears by their inhumane Powder-Treason how intriguing they were in his Cabinet Councils is but too sad a Truth to relate fomenting his humour in the Spanish Match a blemish inglorious to his Memory leaving the Pallsgrave though his Son in Law a Victim to the House of Austria and after by the Match with France how did he embroil his Son they managing underhand the Queen and she by her powerfull Influence did the King so that all the mischievous Evils of Charles the First they like a Mole wrought under ground spotting his Life with that business of Rochell and the Attempt of the Isle of Rhee from whence the Protestants generally date the ruine of their Church in France and by the rising of the French Monarchs since that time has endangered the ruine of the whole Protestant Interest all over Europe as of late years has been manifestly evident and lastly they drew a Civil War upon him though the Effects proved fatal as well to themselves as others Priests generally being no reaching Politicians the consequence of which all men here do know But that which most surprizes is their Villany in conclusion for when his farther Life could yield them no advantage they then conspired his Death and to that end was a Correspondence kept with Ireton and some others not doubting he being gone to have the bringing up of the Children the Queen being wholly theirs and managed to their Devotion and how fatal this has been I need not farther speak and if any are desirous of farther satisfaction let them read Dr. Moulin's Answer to Philaâ—aâ— Anglicus written by an Apostate Protestant who found not his Account by turning Papist as indeed few of them have done a man I must needs say of very good natural parts though in several things but ill applied them and his Conversation spoke him a Gentleman but withall of a violent and impetuous Temper to whatever he took and unfortunate in most things he projected I am the longer on this Character because most of our whiffling Priests and noisie Jesuites have raked for their Clamours against Protestants about the business of Rebellion for many years last past out of the Dunghill of that Book written not long after the King 's coming in so that 't is plain that by their legerdemain Tricks in the Parliament Army they made them mutinous against their Lords and Masters and in the time of the Agitatour's being rampant meeting as they say in Putney Church they were very brisk in Masquerade among them several Priests some as Troupers others private Soldiers then listed and though these Agitatours were first set up by Ireton yet in process of time they became so unruly and so beyond measure insolent that they were by force necessitated to suppress them and they were the occasion of breaking up that separate Party of Cromwell and Ireton in the name of the Army which they had entred into with the King and by reason of them the King was frighted from Hampton-Court making his Escape to the Isle of Wight which did not long precede his death Now after a lapse of some years his Son Charles the Second with the rest of the Royal Family were restored and let us take a short view of their Transactions under him where no sooner he was settled but there came in whole
Filbee agreed in two of them only sheltring themselves with this General Assertion That they held as the Catholick Church held Johnson particulary affirming That if the Pope invaded her Majesty upon a civil Account he would take part with Her but if upon a Matter of Faith it was his Duty to assist the Pope In which diligence to poison the Members of their Church these zealous Priests did but follow the Example of their Holy Father who this very year as Mr Gage Agent for the Spanish Match at Rome informs us out of the Records of the Dominican Convent there laid out one hundred fifty two thousand pounds and some odd money for maintaining his Designs here of which Sixty thousand was allotted to foment Disturbances in Scotland and Ireland so very desirous was the Pope to regain his usurped Power over these Nations And it was not long before the end of all that Labour and Charge was found to be the Murther of that excellent Princess which one Sommerville of Eâ—slow in Warwickshire undertook to effect at the instigation of Hall a Priest who finding this desperate young man to waver and that his Resolution was much shaken with the horridness and danger of the attempt advised him to proceed promising his prayers for good success but the design being discovered Sommerville strangled himself after condemnation But this was not the only Plot which the Enemies of England had laid for its destruction for Throgmorton one of Sommerville's accomplices was the same year discovered having been employed to sound the Havens and procure a list of such Gentlemen in the several Counties as were disposed to joyn the Spanish Forces who were to land under the conduct of the Duke of Guise all which was confessed by Throgmorton before his death Thus we find how vast summs were expended by the Pope which had the same influence in Ireland where Desmond continued so desperately in rebellion that he swore he would rather forsake God than forsake his Men but neither the Pope's blessing nor purse could protect him from that deserved death which after long wandring in a miserable condition he suffered the latter end of this year But though the Pope could not preserve his rebellious instruments from the just punishment of their Treasons yet he would for the encouragement of others doe honour to their memories thus the Rector of the English College of Jesuits at Rome in presence of all the Students sung a Collect of Martyrs in honour of Campion of whose Treasons we gave an account before and his relicks with Sherwin's and others executed for Treason were kept and worshipped by our English Papists And because those positions which were found so usefull for the propagating Sedition might if trusted only to the Missionaries to instill them into the People by their Sermons and Discourses be in time forgotten and neither believed nor obeyed the Romish Factors considering that Litera scripta manet to provide against the ill consequences which the fearfulness of the Priests or diligence of the State might produce by hindring the preaching of the former caused Gregory Martin's Treatise of Schism to be reprinted this year in which he exhorted the Ladies of the Court to deal with the Queen as Judith did with Holofernes for the Printing of which Carter the Romish Printer was executed and is reckoned among their Martyrs At the same time there was one Harper in Norwich a great Friend of Throgmorton's who was executed the year before who though pretending to be a zealous Puritan preaching with great diligence and fervour kept a constant correspondence with that Traitor among whose Papers was found a Letter in which he desired Throgmorton to let him know how their Friends in Spain and London did correspond and whether that King continued in his purpose that the Engagers might be satisfied and have notice upon this Discovery a Pursuvant was sent to apprehend him but he escaped just as the Officer arrived at Norwich And now was discovered a Design in which the Pope was particularly engag'd if we may believe Parrie's own Confession who in his Travels falling into acquaintance with Palmio a Jesuite told him that he had a great desire to doe something for the Romish Cause in England by whom he was encouraged his Zeal commended and the Lawfulness of Assassinating Her Majesty was maintained but being somewhat dissatisfied the Jesuite recommended him to Campeggio his Holiness's Nuncio at Venice by this means he wrote to Pope Gregory informing him of his Design and desiring a Passport that he might confer of it with his Holiness at Rome in the mean while he went to Paris where he was animated by Thomas Morgan who sollicited the Queen of Scots Affairs when receiving such a Passport as he desired he resolved to kill the Queen if it were warranted by some learned Divines and he could procure a full Pardon for it from the Pope That the first might not be wanting Cedretto a noted Jesuit and Provincial of Guyenne approv'd his Resolution and Ragazzani the Nuncio recommended him to the Pope promising that his Prayers should not be wanting for the success of the Attempt with which encouragement he came to London where he received a Letter from Cardinal Como wherein the Cardinal informs him That His Holiness did exhort him to persevere and bring that to effect which he had promised and that he might be the better assisted by that good Spirit which moved him thereto His Holiness granted him his Blessing a plenary Indulgence and Remission of all his sins assuring him that he should merit highly by the Action which he terms holy and honourable to which the Cardinal added his Prayers and Wishes for its success This he confessed confirmed his Resolution to kill his Sovereign and made it clear to his Conscience that it was lawfull and meritorious which redounding so highly to the Dishonour of that bloudy Church the whole Relation is by the Index Expurgatorius commanded to be left out of Thuanus's History And well they might for as it shewed the Pope's Inclination to Bloud and Treason so it was one of the greatest instances of Ingratitude imaginable Parry owing his life to the Mercy of this Princess who had four years before pardoned him when he was tried and condemned for Burglary But though the Divine Goodness was so conspicuous in the many wonderfull preservations of that great Queen yet it pleased the all-wise Providence to permit the devilish Designs of the Jesuites to be attended with success in Holland where the renowned Prince William of Nassaw was this year murthered by Balthasar Gerard a Burgundian who confessed that a Jesuite Regent of the College of Trers told him that he had conferred with three of his Brethren who took the Design to be from God assuring him that if he dyed in that quarrel he should be enrolled in the Kalendar of Martyrs
Rebellion against Henry the Third but the Roman Catholicks of his Army refused to obey him any longer unless he would become a Romanist nay there were many of that Party found who absolutely renounced him and joined with the Rebels some few only remaining loyal by which defection of the greatest part of his Army he was forced to raise the Siege for his own Security Things standing in this posture the Pope fearfull lest any Rebellion should be prosecuted without his assistance sent a Legate into France with great Summes of Money for the Leaguers who was accompanied with Bellarmine afterwards Cardinal and a famous Defender of the Deposing Power To encourage them farther the King of Spain by his Declaration exhorted all to join with him against the Hereticks of France protesting he designed nothing but the advancement of the Catholick Religion and Extirpation of Heresie And the Parisians were so poisoned in their Principles that the City being straitened by the King's Forces and Provisions failing they threw several into the River for murmuring at the hardships they endured About this time the Cardinal of Bourbon their pretended King dyed upon which the States were summoned to meet for the Election of another and for the encouragement of the People the Legate ordered a Procession of all the Religious Orders who to shew their Zeal marched in order armed like Soldiers the Bishop of Senlis leading them and their Relicks carried before them at which the Cardinal Legate was present in his Coach and the Parliament forbad any upon pain of Death to talk of any agreement with the King in which madness the Parliament of Roan had led the way who decreed That whoever joined with the King should be guilty of High Treason and put several Prisoners to death only because they were the King's Servants Nor could all the prodigious straits to which Paris was reduced incline that headstrong People to Obedience the Famine was so great as no Age can shew the like all eatable things were devoured and but one little Dog to be found in all the City which the Dutchess of Montpensier kept for her self and refused two thousand Crowns only for its Brains yet was the Rebels Obstinacy as great as ever accounting those who dyed of Famine Martyrs and continuing as intent upon the War as in their plenty but finding force not successfull they again employed Assassins of whom two Franciscan Friars and a Priest were seized by the King at St. Denis in a Secular Habit who confessed there were three and twenty more besides themselves who had sworn the King's Death at length the City was relieved by the Duke of Parma's Army and the King raising the Siege retired But as we have not hitherto found a Plot without a Priest in it so they contributed all they could to the vigorous resistance which the Leaguers made For the Doctours of the Sorbon finding some Propositions spread about the City importing that Henry of Bourbon ought to be King and that the Pope hath no Power of Dominion over Sovereign Princes presently condemned them which Decree was confirmed by the Legate and sworn to by the Bishops and Curates But not content with this the same Faculty on May 7. this year decreed by an unanimous Vote That all Catholicks by divine Law are forbid to admit any Prince that is an Heretick or a favourer of Hereticks That if he should procure an Absolution for his Heresie yet if there be evident danger of his Hypocrisie he is by divine Law to be rejected That whosoever endeavours that he should be King ought to be opposed And then they apply all to Henry of Bourbon affirming That there is evident danger of Hypocrisie and therefore though he should obtain Sentence of Absolution yet the French are obliged to keep him from the Crown and abhor the thoughts of making peace with him That those who favour him are deserters of Religion and remain in continual mortal Sin but such as oppose him every way they can invent do merit very much both of God and Man and they who are slain in the Cause are to be reputed Champions for the Faith and shall obtain an everlasting Crown of Martyrdom And soon after they renewed this and their former Decrees and when the City was so very much straitened they wrote a Letter to the Pope complaining that his Legate had not proceeded with severity enough against the King commending Bourgogn and other Rebels who were executed calling them Maintainers and Defenders of the Truth and earnestly supplicating for assistance from his Holiness who besides what Power he exerted by his Legate sent them fifty thousand Crowns for a Supply Thus they went on with an excessive Spleen against the King in France but the Jesuites attempting to doe the same things in Transilvania were expelled the Countrey yet in Scotland their Designs went on from whence William Creighton the Jesuite went into Spain into whose King he so insinuated himself that he resolved to be guided by his Advice both for the invading England and the alteration of Religion in Scotland which was the Account himself gave of his Negotiation by a Message to the Earl of Huntley desiring as many blanks and Procurations as could be had of the Scottish Noblemen for the greater Credit of his Agitations In the mean time the Duke of Mayenne solicited the Pope and Spaniard for aid and entred into an Obligation with the Duke of Lorrain and others not to admit any to the Crown except he were of their Family but if they failed in that to exclude all who were not of the Roman Catholick Religion But the Leaguers drew up a Letter and sent it to the King of Spain affirming that it was the desire of all the Catholicks to see his Catholick Majesty sway the Sceptre of that Kingdom and reign over them or that he would appoint some of his Posterity offering the Crown to the Infanta Isabella that King's Daughter in particular And to make all sure within themselves they contrived a new Oath whereby not onely the King but all the Bloud Royal were excluded from the Crown and set up a Court of Justice to proceed against the Royalists In which rebellious Actions they were encouraged by the Pope Greg. 14. who sent a Nuncio into France with two Bulls one interdicting the Clergy if within 15 days they forsook not the obedience and Part of the King and depriving them of all their Benefices if they left him not within thirty days the other threatening the Nobility and all others with the Papal Curse if they assisted that Heretick Persecutour Excommunicated Person who was justly deprived of his Dominions which were the mild Expressions with which this meek Servant of Servants treated that great Prince And farther to shew his Fatherly care of the Rebels he sent an Army to their relief under the Command of his Nephew and allowed
him he would merit Heaven and Glory by the Act and recommended him to Varade Rectour of the Jesuites College who affirmed that the Enterprise was most holy exhorting him with good constancy and courage to confess himself and receive the B. Sacrament and then leading him to his Chamber gave him his Blessing He mentioned also another Preacher of Paris who counted it meritorious Thus encouraged he bought a knife seven Inches long and went to St. Denis where the King then was but being discovered was executed affirming at his death that there were two black Friars that went from Lyons upon the same Account It is probable the Preacher at Paris mentioned in his Confessions was Father Commolet the Jesuite who two days before this Barriere's Execution at St. Denis in a Sermon at Paris which yet continued obstinate against the King exhorted his Auditours to have Patience for they should see in a few days a wonderfull Miracle of God. But the next Year Paris was reduced to its obedience soon after which the University endeavoured the Expulsion of the Jesuites accusing them of all manner of Injustice of the ruine of Families and many other Crimes but insisting particularly on their Treasons charging them with being abettors to the Spaniard Fomenters of Civil Wars and always ready to assassinate the French King whom they omitted to pray for while they extolled the Spaniard that they taught and asserted the Pope's deposing Power that they refused to give Absolution to several Persons of Quality because they would not renounce the King that they had been the cause of the Death of Twenty-eight Barons Fifty Noble-men of France and above Five hundred Monks and Friars in the Tercera Islands and had refused to renounce the League Which Spirit of Rebellion was so strong amongst the Leaguers that a little before the Seduction of Paris the Pope's Legate published a Declaration exhorting all Catholicks to oppose the King assuring them that the Pope would never grant him Absolution and upon the Rendition of Aix to his Majesty the famous Genebrard was so vext at the Loyalty of the Place that he left it resolving not to live among the Royalists nay when the King entered Paris the Cardinal Pellivee lying upon his Death-bed very angrily told those about him That he hoped the Arms of the Spaniards and good Catholicks would yet drive the Huguonots out of Paris And Hay a Scotch Jesuite affirmed That if the King passed by their College he would leap from the top of it upon him and did not doubt to go directly to Heaven But to return to the Jesuites who finding their Banishment out of the Kingdom thus zealously endeavoured and fearing lest the King to whom they had been such bitter Enemies should consent to it resolved to dispatch him * Francis Jacob one of their Scholars at Bourges had boasted that he would doe it but John Chastel who was bred under them at Paris went farther and with a knife struck the King in the Mouth and beat out one of his Teeth he was immediately apprehended and on Examination confessed That he esteemed it an Act highly conducing to promote Religion and that Father Gueret his Master in the Jesuites School had taught him those Doctrines upon which Sentence of Death was pass'd upon him by which also so the Jesuites were banished as Corrupters of Youth Disturbers of the publick Peace Enemies to the King and Kingdom and enjoined to depart the Realm within fifteen days and all their Goods confiscated to be disposed of as the Court should see sit This Sentence was published after the search made in the Jesuites College wherein was found a Book of T. Guignard's which he confessed to be his own writing lamenting that the King was spared in the Parisian Massacre applauding the Murther of King Henry the Third affirming that if the King were shut up in a Monastery he would be treated more gently than he deserved and concluding that if he could not be deposed without force of Arms they ought to be taken up against him for which and his other Treasons he was executed but Gueret Chastell's Master of the same Order was only banished with the rest in memory of which Fact and to the perpetual Ignominy of that Order Chastell's House was demolished and a Pillar erected in the place on one side of which was engraven the Decree of the Court on another a Copy of Verses expressing the Crime and discovering to the World that it was attempted by the Persuasions of the Jesuites on the third another Inscription to the same purpose and on the fourth a summary Account of their banishment and the reasons of it wherein the Jesuites are termed A mischievous and novell sort of superstitious Men and Disturbers of the Nation by whom that young man was encouraged and persuaded to that horrid Fact. This Pillar as appears by the date of the Inscriptions was not erected till the following year however having such a relation to their banishment which was decreed the 29th of December 1594. I thought it most proper to give an account of it in this place One would think that if any Fact would render men ashamed this murtherous Attempt was so horrid as to make those concerned in it blush but so far were they from that that Francis Veron a Jesuite wrote an Apology for the Murtherer calling the Enterprise a most holy most humane most laudable and worthy Act that it is acceptable to God and conformable to all Laws and Decrees of the Church and in the same Book he extolls Clement that stabbed the former King. Thus Fruitfull were the French Romanists in their Contrivances of Rebellion and Murther and as willing were their Brethren in these Nations to promote Enterprises of the same nature for Tir-Oen in Ireland continued in the Rebellion which he began the year before but distrusting his own power submitted himself to the Lord Deputy yet the very same Month he rebelled again several Provinces revolting to him by which accession of Forces he grew very powerfull And in Scotland the Noblemen who were imprisoned and condemned for their Insurrection the last year having been pardoned by the King took Arms again being assisted with Money from the Spaniards and defeated the King's Forces under the Earl of Argyle though much superiour in number to them but were at length reduced so low that they begged leave to depart the Land which was granted them so promising to enterprise no more against the King they left the Kingdom Bothwell the chief of them went to Naples where he lived miserably the rest about three years after got their Pardons and returned home Yet were not these all the Popish Enterprises upon the Estates and Persons of Princes which were discovered this year for I find that about this time they employed Le Four and others to murther Prince Maurice of
themselves that the foundation of the Gun-powder Treason was laid the following year but it is very probable that there was a rough draught of it made in this as appears by the Case resolv'd by Delrio the Jesuite whether if one discover in Confession that he hath laid Gun-powder under an House by which the House is to be blown up and the Prince destroyed the Priest ought to reveal it upon which he concludes that he ought not it was a Case that had never happened before and so not likely to have been thought of by a Person not cautious of such a Design and this Resolution Garnet after served himself of alledging That all the Knowledge he had of the Treason was communicated to him in Confession which he was bound not to disclose upon any Account whatsoever Soon after his last Letter in Tyrone's behalf the same Pope sent his Breves into England commanding all the Roman Catholicks not to admit after the Queen's death any Prince whatsoever unless he would bind himself by Oath to promote the Roman Catholick Religion to his utmost Power In prosecution of which knowing that King James the next Successour was a firm Protestant several Designs were formed against his Life Hay and Hamilton two Papists were sent into Scotland to stir up the Jesuites there who were received and cherished notwithstanding the King had by his Proclamation forbidden any to harbour them affirming that if any did he would look upon them as Designers against his Life But while these Jesuites and others of the same stamp were endeavouring to prepare matters for a Rebellion one Mowbray Son to a Scotch Nobleman undertook to destroy the King but was apprehended at London and sent Prisoner into Scotland by the Queen and about the same time the Duke oâ— Tuscany by some Letters he had intercepted discovered another Design against his Life which was to be effected by Poison an Account of which he sent immediately to the King by Sir Henry Wotton then in his Court with several Antidotes against the Poison if it should be given him notwithstanding all his diligence to prevent it During these Designs in Scotland the Pope sent a Letter to Tyrone calling his Rebellion an Holy League assuring him that he was exceedingly pleased at their Courage and Zeal extolling his Piety exhorting him to go on as he had begun and praying that God would fight for him promising to write to all Catholick Princes to assist him and to send a Nuncio to reside with him and giving his Blessing to him and all his Followers who should hazard themselves for the Catholick Cause Besides which he sent a Breve to the whole Body of the Irish Nation requiring them to join with Tyr-Oen against the Queen and if we may believe Don Juan de Aquila General of the War in Ireland for defence of the Faith he went farther than this and excommunicated and as far as in him lay deposed Her Majesty This Spanish Commander arrived at Kingsall with a great Fleet and began to fortifie the Town and published a Declaration affirming That the War made against Queen Elizabeth by his Master in Conjunction with Tyr-Oen was just She having been excommunicated and her Subjects absolved from their Fidelity by several Popes exhorting them that now Christ's Vicar commanded them they would in obedience to him take Arms protesting that if any continued in obedience to the English they should be prosecuted as Hereticks and hatefull Enemies of the Church Soon after Don Alonso del Campo landed with a Supply of Soldiers but suddenly after his arrival was taken Prisoner the Army of the Spaniards and Rebells in conjunction routed and the former glad to be permitted to return home Yet were the English Papists as diligent as ever to introduce the Spaniards and therefore dispatched away Thomas Winter to trie what could be done for their assistance who were ready to sacrifice their Lives for the Catholick Cause and to assure the King of Spain that if he would send over an Army they would have in a readiness Fifteen hundred or two thousand Horses for the Service being introduced by the means of the Jesuite Creswell the Duke of Lerma assured him of Assistance and the Count de Miranda told him that his Master would bestow two hundred thousand Crowns for that use and would have an Army in England by the next Spring With this gratefull Account of the posture of Affairs he returned and great preparations were made that they might be ready against the arrival of the Forces but all their measures were broken by the Queen's death yet was Mr. Wright sent into Spain and Guy Faux after him but the King refused to meddle having sent his Ambassadour to conclude a Peace with King James upon which disappointment they entertained new Designs which we shall have account of in a little time While these Matters were transacting in Spain and England Tyr-Oen and Osulevan continued their Insurrection in Ireland the latter keeping the Castle of Dunboy for the King of Spain to whom he sent to desire him to accept it which he did and sent Osulevan twelve thousand pounds with a supply of Arms and Ammunition and the rest of the Rebells received Encouragement from their Correspondents in Spain who assured them his Catholick Majesty would not omit the winning of Ireland if it cost him the most part of Spain and that an Army of fourteen thousand men with a Nuncio from the Pope were set Sail for their Relief which News rendered them so obstinate that they endured all Extremities but the taking of Dunboy by the Lord Deputy put a stop to those succours there being no place for to receive them at their landing yet did Mac Eggan the Apostolical Vicar revive the fury of the Rebells but he was slain the latter end of this year fighting at the head of his Men with a Sword drawn in one hand and his Breviary and Beads in the other We have seen the Pope approving this Rebellion so that the Divines of his Church could doe no less than follow the Dictates of their Supreme Head which the Jesuites of Salamanca did this year by a Declaration of theirs in which they resolve That we must hold for certain that the Pope hath power to bridle and suppress those who forsake the Faith And having farther stated the Question they proceed to affirm That it is lawfull for any Catholick to assist Tyr-Oen and that with great Merit and good Hope of eternal Reward because it is by the Pope's Authority that all such Romanists as take part with the English sin mortally and cannot be saved or receive Absolution till they forsake the English Army and those are in the same condition who give the English any Tribute except such as the Pope hath given them leave to pay so that they are to be Subjects no longer than the Pope
pleases And then they proceed to shew That the Bull in favour of the Rebells was not procured by surreption but proceeded from the Pope's own Inclination to them and that the permission given to the Roman Catholicks to obey her extended only to such Obedience as doth not oppugn the Catholick Religion which the assisting Her against Tyrone doth And this Declaration is dated the seventh of March. 1602. And it could be nothing less than such an extraordinary encouragement that could render the Irish so audacious as they were upon the Queen's Death in Limrick they seized the Churches and set up Mass in them the same they did at Waterford in the Cathedral and at the Sessions House they pulled down the Seats of Justice in Cork they refused to proclaim the King and by Force opposed the Commissioners they went in a solemn Procession took the Sacrament to spend their Lives in defence of the Roman Catholick Religion wrote to several Cities to assist them seized upon the King's stores and assaulted his Forces alledging that he could not be lawfull King because he was not appointed by the Pope And for their farther satisfaction the University of Salamanca subscribed the Declaration which the Jesuites made the year before and the Divines of Valedolid did the same About this time the Jesuites laboured to get the Sentence of their Banishment out of France reversed the Pope interposing his Mediation in their Favours upon which the Parliament of Paris attempted to dissuade the King from consenting to it by a long Oration alledging That it was their avowed Doctrine That the Pope hath a Power of Excommunicating Kings that a King so Excommunicated by his Holiness is no other than a Tyrant whom the People may oppose that Clergy-men are exempt from the Prince's Power are none of his Subjects and cannot be punish'd by him for any Crimes And having enumerated several of their Treasons they affirm That it is absolutely necessary for them to renounce these Doctrines or else France cannot with safety admit them to return But though they were very desirous of Admission they would not renounce those Positions for it however by importunity and the solicitation of the Pope and others they were at length received but upon Conditions Two of which were That they should build no Colleges without express Permission from the King and that one of their number should be always near the King to be accountable for the Actions of the Society Thus were they admitted but marks of Distrust set upon them though they have by their Address turn'd the latter of these Conditions which was at first design'd for their Disgrace into a mark of Honour the King's Confessour being ever since a Jesuite Though the Gun-powder Plot was not ripe for Execution till two years after yet they were consulting about it at this time when after a long complaint of their Grievances Mr. Percy told Mr. Catesby that there was no way but to kill the King and he was resolv'd to doe it But to that Gentleman desired him not to be so rash for he had laid a surer Design which would certainly effect it without any danger to themselves and then imparted to him the Contrivance of blowing up the King and Parliament Which Design in May the following year the Conspiratours obliged themselves by Oath upon the Holy Sacrament to keep secret Catesby justifying the Action by the Breves which the Pope had sent to exclude King James it being as lawfull to cast him out as to oppose his Entrance and Bates another of the Conspiratours was assured by the Jesuite Greenwell that the Cause and Action were good and therefore it was his Duty to conceal it Upon the approaching of the Parliament they began to work endeavouring to make a Mine under the Parliament-house but soon after Percy hired a Cellar in which they stowed the Gun-powder with Billets heap'd upon it to hide it in case of search The May before the Plot was to be executed there was an Insurrection of the Romanists in Wales but it was soon supprest yet all things went on in order to the fatal blow when about a week before the Parliament was to sit the Design was discovered and so prevented upon which the Conspiratours flew into Rebellion but were all either killed or taken by the Sheriff of Worcestershire The King in his Speech to the Parliament soon after told them that Faux confessed that they had no other cause moving them to the Design but merely and only Religion which was acknowledged by Sir Everard Digby at his Tryall to be the chief Motive which enduced him to make one among them and which he resolved to hazard his Life his Estate and all to introduce protesting that if he had thought there had been the least sin in the Plot he would not have been of it for all the World and the Reason why he kept it secret was because those who were best able to judge of the Lawfulness of it had been acquainted with it and given way unto it and therefore afterwards he calls it the best Cause The Persons upon whose Authority he so much relied were the Jesuites who asserted the holiness of the Action for Garnet their Superiour had affirmed that it was lawfull and Father Hammond absolved them all after the Discovery when they were in open Rebellion and Greenwell the Jesuite rode about the Countrey to excite as many as he could to joyn with them nay Garnet confessed that Catesby in his name did satisfie the rest of the Lawfulness of the Fact. Parsons had kept a Correspondency with that Jesuite to promote it and at the same time not willing to discover it to them and yet desirous of their Prayers ordered the Students of his College at Rome to pray for the Intention of their Father Rectour And after the Discovery Father Hall encouraged some of the Traitors who began to doubt that the Action was unlawfull seeing God had defeated it in so providential a manner telling them that we must not judge of the Cause by the Event that this was no more than what happened to the Eleven Tribes when they went up at first to fight against Benjamin and that the Christians were often defeated by the Turks nay so highly was it approv'd by that Order that not to mention here the Honours done to the Conspiratours since their Deaths several Jesuites gloried in and bragg'd of it for a little before the Discovery Father Flood caused the Jesuites at Lisbon to spend a great deal of Money in Powder on a Festival day to try the force of it and persuaded one John How a Merchant and other Catholicks to go over into England and expect their Redemption there And Father Thompson was wont afterwards to boast to his Scholars at Rome how oft his Shirt was wetted with digging under the
Parliament House And that the Pope himself was concerned in the Design is more than probable for it is confessed by a Jesuite that there were three Bulls granted by him which should have been published if the Conspiracy had succeeded and Sir Everard Digby hath left it under his hand that it was not the Pope's mind that any Stirs should be hindered which were undertaken for the Catholick Cause The Pope's carriage after the Discovery is another shrewd Argument that he was privy to the Plot for he not only made no Declaration either by Word or Writing in abhorrence of it but when Greenway one of the Conspirators escaped to Rome he advanced him to the Dignity of Penitentiary and Gerard another was a Confessour at St. Peters in the same City This execrable Conspiracy appeared so horrid and unworthy not only of religious Men but contrary to humane Nature that sixteen of the Students under the Jesuites at Rome forsook the College and some of them renounced the Roman Church and Mr. Copley who had been a Priest some years as appears by his Reasons one of sound Learning and judgment assures us that it was one of the Causes of his Conversion Yet were there many found among the Romanists who justified the Design hardly any condemning it Thus the same Gentleman professes that though some termed it an inconsiderate Act yet he could never meet with any one Jesuite who blamed it The Conspiratours justified themselves and even at their deaths would acknowledge no fault And when Faux and Winter were admitted to discourse together in the Tower they affirmed they were sorry that no body set forth a Defence or Apology for the Action but yet they would maintain the Cause at their Deaths nay there was one who had the hardiness to attempt to justifie the Design from the imputation of Cruelty because both Seeds and Root of an evil Herb must be destroyed And when some of the Plotters escaped to Callis the Governour assured them of the King's Favour and that though they lost their Country they should be received there they replyed That the loss of their Country was the least part of their Grief but their sorrow was that they could not bring so brave a Design to perfection And notwithstanding Garnet was so deep in the Conspiracy yet Mr. Wilson placed him among the Martyrs in his English Martyrology and it is affirmed by one who liv'd among them that he and Campion are beatified by the Pope which is the next degree to Canonization and that every one of them is painted in the Jesuites Churches with the Title of Blessed Father and we are assured that Garnet's Picture was set up in their Church at Rome among their Martyrs several years after and St. Amour a Doctour of Sorbon found his Pictures commonly sold at Rome in the year 1651. with this Inscription Father Henry Garnet hang'd and quarter'd at London for the Catholick Faith by which they shew themselves either Approvers of the Design to that degree as to count it a point of their Faith or else they must appear Deceivers of the People and Slanderers of the English Nation in affirming that he dyed for his Religion when he justly suffered for the most hellish Conspiracy that was ever laid yet Delrio and Gordon two Jesuites went farther the first in Prosecution of his Determination in the point which we mentioned before compares him to Dionysius the Areopagite the latter placing him in Heaven desires him to intercede there for the conversion of England and it was once publickly prayed in Louvain O holy Henry Intercede for us But they had designs elsewhere at the same time that this their holy Martyr was promoting their Cause in England King Henry of France his Life was so burthensome to the Jesuites that they were impatient so that Father Coton the King's Confessour or rather Hostage for his Society to be satisfied in the point wrote down several questions which he had propounded to a Maid said to be possessed one of which was how long the King should live which is a capital Crime in itself For as Tertullian long since argued who hath any business to make such an Enquiry except he hath designs against his Prince or hath some hopes of advancement by his death And as busie was the Pope Paul the Fifth for the advancement of the Roman Cause he fell out with the Duke of Savoy this Year for presenting an Abbey to Cardinal Pio and to shew his Authority over Princes and States which is a kind of deposing them and clear Evidence of Popish Principles when the Commonwealth of Luca made an Edict against the Protestants though he liked the thing yet he pretended they had no power in those matters and therefore commanded them to raze the Edict out of their Records and he would publish one for the same purpose by his own Authority and when the State of Genoa prohibited some seditious Meetings of Ecclesiasticks he threatened them with Excommunication and forced them to recall their Order But the Venetians would not be frighted by his Thunders though he threatened them with the same Censure if they did not speedily revoke their Decrees concerning the building of Churches and giving Lands to the Church which they had prohibited any to doe without the Senate's Order and required them to deliver two Clergymen whom they had imprisoned for many horrid Crimes concluding his Breve with an Assertion of his Power to deprive Kings and that he had Legions of Angels for this Assistance But when the Senate would not gratifie him in thus yielding their Rights to an Usurper the Pope told their Ambassadour that the Exemption of Clergy-men from the Jurisdiction of the Magistrate was Jure divino that his Cause was the Cause of God and he would be obeyed and therefore in a Consistory of one and forty Cardinals he published a Bull of Excommunication against that State wherein he declares That by the Authority of Almighty God and the Apostles Peter and Paul the Duke and Senate of Venice if within four and twenty days after the publication of the Bull they do not revoke their Decrees are excommunicated and if they continue obstinate three days more he lays an Interdict upon the whole State forbidding the Clergy to perform Divine Offices in any part of their Dominions and threatens farfarther Punishments according to the sacred Canons This Bull he expected would gain his point by causing the Ecclesiasticks to withdraw themselves and that the People seeing themselves deprived of Church-Offices would run into Sedition but the Event answered not his Expectation for the People joined unanimously with the Senate but the Jesuites and others refused to celebrate Mass upon which they were banished the Dominions of Venice after which they did all they could to stir up the Common People But not succeeding
in this the Pope published a Jubilee granting Indulgence to all but those of Interdicted places this he expected would make the People murmur but he was deceived in that point too so that he declared in a full Consistory that he would have War with the State of Venice and called the Spaniards to his aid but finding the Senate resolute in Defence of their Rights he was glad to recall his Bull and make a Peace with them and though he earnestly pressed for the Restauration of the Jesuites yet he could not obtain it About this time the Oath of Allegiance being established by Law the Romanists sent to Rome to know what they should doe in this Case where it was consulted by seven or eight of their learnedest Divines who all agreed that the Pope's Power of chastizing Princes is a Point of Faith and consequently cannot be denied without denying of the Faith and the Pope told Father Parsons and Fitzherbert he could not hold those for Catholicks who took the Oath which he soon after declared by his Breve addressed to the Romanists of England Septemb 22. 1606. wherein he affirms That they cannot without most evident and grievous wronging of God's Honour bind themselves by the Oath seeing it contains many things contrary to Faith and Salvation But when some Romanists who had taken it began to question the Breve willing to think it was obtained from his Holiness by surreption he sent †another to undeceive them wherein he blames them for entertaining such thoughts and assures them That it was written upon mature deliberation and therefore they are bound fully to observe it rejecting all interpretation to the contrary upon which several who were willing before refused it some of whom were imprisoned It is an hard thing for men accustomed to doe evil to learn to doe well which Truth Tyr-Oen is a great Example of for notwithstanding after his frequent Rebellions he was pardoned by King James and received into favour yet returning into Ireland he began new Contrivances and fearing he was discovered fled this year into Flanders which caused the King to publish a severe Proclamation against him from thence he went to Rome where he was maintained at the Pope's charge till his death This same Year Parsons published his Treatise tending to Mitigation wherein he labours to take off the imputation of rebellious Principles from the Romanists and yet he tells us in the same Book That this is Catholick Doctrine that in publick Perils of the Church and Common-Wealth Christ our Saviour hath not left us wholly remediless but besides the natural Right which each Kingdom hath to defend themselves in certain cases he left also supreme Power in his High Priest and immediate Substitute to direct and moderate that Power and to add also of his own when extraordinary Need requireth though with great deliberation Where we have a plain justification of the Pope and People's Power to depose and resist their Princes a most excellent Argument to clear the Papists of Disloyalty Though we find no Plots discovered this year in England yet in Transilvania the Jesuites were employed in poisoning Stephen Potscay the Prince And in France Father Cotton recommended a Spaniard to the King who had not been in the Court many hours when the King had Intelligence of his coming from Barcellona purposely to poison him upon this he sent for Father Coton who desired his Majesty not to give any Credit to the advice and when the King ordered him to produce the Spaniard he pretended to seek him but at his return told his Majesty that he was escaped and he could not find him This year the Pope sent another Breve into England directed to the Arch-Priest forbidding him to take the Oath and commanding him to deprive all Priests of their Faculties who took it except they immediately renounc'd it prohibiting likewise the resort of any to the Protestant Churches At the same time Divines of Italy Germany and France wrote against it all grounding their Exceptions upon this that it takes away the Pope's Power of Deposing Kings So rebellious had the Writings and Practices of the Jesuites been that the Bohemians petition'd the Emperour against them and the Valesian Magistrates refused to admit them because wherever they came they distrurbed the publick Peace and were under such a tie of blind Obedience that if their Superiour enjoin'd them a treasonable Attempt they must obey They had made it their Business for some time to endeavour to get footing in Transilvania but when all their Importunity could not prevail they engaged several of the Nobility in a Design against the Prince's Life which proceeded so far that one of the Conspiratours attempted to run him through but was prevented and several of his Companions taken the rest escaped And now King Henry the Great of France having amassed a very considerable Treasure prepared for some great Design which the Romanists grew so jealous of that they secretly caused several to subscribe their Obedience to the Pope in a Book which was kept on purpose it was half written through and some names subscribed in bloud several Designs were formed against his Life four Piedmontiers a Lorrainer and three others conspired his Death advice was given of several other Plots from many other places and Reports were spread in foreign parts that he was killed Father Hardy in his Sermon at St. Severius in Paris reflecting upon the King's Treasure said That Kings heaped up Treasures to make themselves feared but there needed but a blow to kill a King. All these were but Fore-runners of that horrid Murther which was committed in a few Weeks after by Ravilliac once a Monk who stabbed him to the Heart with a poisoned Knife as he was going to the Arsenal in his Coach so that he expired in an instant upon his Examination he confesâ—ed that he resolved to murther the King who he supposed had a Design to make War upon the Pope because making War against his Holiness is the same as to make War against God seeing the Pope was God and God was the Pope and that he had revealed his Design to the Jesuite d' Aubigny in Confession and shewed him the Knife and that he had heard several of that Order maintain the Lawfulness of it in their Sermons No sooner was the King dead but the Jesuites desired leave to teach Schools in their Colleges which acquest the Parliament took into consideration and required that they should first declare That it is unlawfull for any Person to conspire the death of the King that no Ecclesiastick hath any Power over the Temporal Rights of Princes and that all are to render the same Obedience to their Governours which Christ gave to Caesar. These Positions were proposed to them to subscribe but they refused to doe it without
driven out and such a Prince is absolutely obliged to renounce all Right and Claim to the Government and if he doth not he is worse than an Infidel Thus after their Designs had effected the death of that good King and expulsion of his late and present Majesty they contributed their Endeavours to hinder their return and debauch those who might attempt it yet had some the confidence to commend this Gentleman to his late Majesty though the King knew him too well to take any notice of him That they designed to hinder the Restauration of the King by an absolute compliance with the usurping Power is affirmed by one of their Communion who tells them that they were refractory to the Queen's Desires at Rome for His Majesty's Assistance and that Collonel Hutchinson could discover strange Secrets about their treating with Cromwell And it is certain that in Ireland there were several Precepts granted by the Archbishop of Armagh and others to pray for the success of that Usurper's Forces while Dominick Decupsy a Dominican esteemed a Person of great Holiness and Long the Jesuite asserted that the King being out of the Roman Church it was not lawfull to pray for him particularly or publickly on any other day except Good Fryday as comprehended among the Infidels and Hereticks and then only for the spiritual Welfare of his Soul not for his temporal prosperity The Civil Wars continuing still in France our present Sovereign then Duke of York went into the King's Army and the Princes being straitened called in the Duke of Lorrain who with his Army marched to their Succour so that they kept the Field all this and the ensuing Year Anno 1654. there was a Discourse written by Benoist de Treglies Collateral of the Council or Regent of the Chancery of Naples in which this Proposition was maintained That when a Pope intends to exercise any Jurisdiction in a Countrey he ought to let his Writs be examined by the temporal Prince that so it may be known whether the Causes and Persons contained therein be of his Jurisdiction Which Proposition having been examined by the Inquisition at Rome at the express command of the Pope that Congregation declared it to be Heretical and Schismatical prohibiting the Book and threatening the severest censures against the Authour The following year affords us a farther evidence of the hopes the Romanists had conceived of the restauration of their Religion here for Dr. Baily at the end of the Life of Fisher Bishop of Rochester speaking of the Lord Cromwell and the great influence he had upon the proceedings in the beginning of the Reformation expresses their hopes of his Party from the Usurper and his Counsels in these words Who knows but that the Church may be healed of her Wounds by the same Name sit hence the Almighty hath communicated so great a Secret unto Mortals as that there should be such a Salve made known to them whereby the same Weapon that made the Wound should work the Cure. Oliva vera is not so hard to be construed Oliverus as that it may not be believed that a Prophet rather than a Herald gave the common Father of Christendom the now Pope of Rome Innocent X. such Ensigns of his Nobility viz. a Dove holding an Olive Branch in her mouth since it falls short in nothing of being a Prophesie and fulfilled but only his Highness running into her Arms whose Embleme of Innocence bears him already in her mouth Three years after this Popish Loyal Flattery Father Ferrall a Capuchin presented a Treatise to the Cardinals of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide proposing some Methods to revive the Rebellion in Ireland and drive out not only the English but also all the Irish who were descended from the old English Conquerours as not fit to be trusted in so holy a League and about the same time Father Reiley the Popish Primate coming through Brussels refused to kiss the King's Hand though some offered to introduce him And to obtain favour with Richard Cromwell he alledged that the Irish Natives had no affection to the King and his Family and therefore were fit to be trusted by the Protectour and upon his Arrival in Ireland he made it his business to gain a party there to hinder the King's Restauration promising them great assistance upon which the King gave notice of those Contrivances to Don Stephano de Gamarro the Spanish Ambassadour in Holland so that he was recalled to Rome to avoid the danger of the Law. And which is a farther Evidence of the Enmity of that party to the Royal Family when General Monk was at London in prosecution of that great and good Design which he afterwards completed and had by his prudent Conduct gained the Affections of the People Monsieur de Bourdeaux the French Ambassadour told Mr. Clergis That Cardinal Mazarine would be glad to have the Honour of his Friendship and would assist him faithfully in all his Enterprises and that the General might be more confident of the Cardinal he assured him that Oliver Cromwell kept so strict a League with him that he did not assume the Government without his Privity and was directed step by step by him in the progress of that Action and therefore if he resolved on that course he should not only have the Cardinal's Friendship and Counsel in the Attempt but a safe Retreat and honourable Support in France if he failed in it Soon after His Majesty's Restauration which all the Contrivances of these men could not hinder the Jesuites presented a Paper to several persons of Honour pleading to be included within a favourable Vote which had been made with reference to all other Romanists in which they acknowledge that no party in their Church think the Deposing Doctrine sinfull but themselves who are by Order of their General forbidden to meddle with it But as their Answerer observes this makes them but the more guilty seeing their Loyalty depends upon the Will of their General which is all they pretend to be influenced by in this matter But this is not all for they impose upon the World in that Assertion there being no such Decree which respects any other Countrey but France and whereas if we should grant them that they pretend to be bound by it under pain of Damnation this likewise is false for none of their Constitutions oblige them under so much as a Venial Sin. Therefore the same person advised them to join in a Subscription of Abhorrence of those Deposing Doctrines which had been too often maintained by them but this was a piece of Loyalty to which they could never arrive The former year some of the Irish Clergy and Gentry to make some amends for their Rebellion had subscribed that Declaration which Mr. Cressy published in the year 1647. which hath since been called the Irish Remonstrance and made a great noise in the World for some