that they might be exempt from His Majesty's jurisdiction so very diligent he was in catching at any shadow which might seem to favour the Exemption of the Clergy Three Years after this Sanctarellus his Book was printed at Rome Anno 1625 wherein the Deposing Power was asserted in its utmost latitude and though Father Coto and two other Jesuites were required to answer it yet no reply appeared the former affirming before the Parliament that though he disapproved the Doctrine in France yet he would assent to it if he were at Rome The Oath of Allegiance being vigorously press'd in England Anno 1626 the Pope sent a Bull to the Romanists exhorting them to continue firm and let their Tongue rather cleave to the Roof of their Mouth then permit the Authority of St. Peter to be diminished by that Oath and commanding them strictly to observe the Breves of Pope Paul the Fifth and Father Fisher justified Suarez and the Doctrine of his Book asking what could be found prejudicial in it to Princely Authority and affirming that if it contained any such thing it would not be permitted in Catholick Kindoms We have mention'd that the exemption of the Clergy was desired by the Pope in the Treaty for Anno 1627 the Spanish Match and now his Emissaries in this Nation affirmed that the King could have nothing to doe with her Majesties Chaplains because he was an Heretick and his Holiness threatned to declare those to be Apostates who should seek their Establishment in the Queens Family from the King But though these were plain Indications of what they desired Anno 1628 yet they kept their Designs so secret that they were not discovered till some time after but there was a Conspiracy detected at Genoa which if it had not been prevented would have ended in the Murther of the Nobility and Alteration of the Government And the next Year a Plot was detected in Mantua against the Life of the Prince Anno 1629 and some Officers apprehended who would have betray'd Viadana to the Governour of Millan In Ireland the Papists assaulted the Archbishop of Dublin wounded several of his Followers and forced him to fly for his Life following him in a tumultuous manner along the streets and that they had several seditious Designs in hand at the same time Anno 1620 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 Secresie 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 Anno 1632 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 Anno 1633 the Designs of the Papists ripened apace in Ireland they had erected Friaries in the Countrey instead of those which were dissolved in the 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. Anno 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 Discoverer 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 Anno 1641 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 secresie 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 Anno 1642 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
who was then in the English College at Rome who likewise assures us that one of their Readers in Divinity before above two hundred Scholars affirmed That it was lawfull for any man of Worship in England to give Authority to the vilest wretch that is to endeavour the Queen's death but that this Pope did excommunicate the Queen we find in our excellent Annalist and is acknowledged by the Romish Priests in their Important Considerations printed the last year of that Queen's Reign But though he pronounced that terrible Sentence against her yet as is observed by one who had been a great stickler for the Romish Church he dealt a great deal more subtilly and more dangerously than his Predecessour for finding the danger the Romanists were daily exposed to by their endeavouring the Destruction of the Queen whom they durst not obey or cease to hurt for fear of the Curses denounced in the Bull he qualified it in such a manner that the Jesuite Hart as the Lord Burleigh tells us acknowledg'd The Bull of Pius Quintus for so much as it is against the Queen is holden by the English Catholicks for a lawfull Sentence and a sufficient Discharge of her Subjects Fidelity and so remains in force but in some points touching the Subject it is altered by the present Pope For where in that Bull all her Subjects are commanded not to obey her and she being excommunicated and deposed all that do obey her are likewise accursed which point is perilous to the Catholicks for if they obey her they are in the Pope's Curse and if they disobey her they are in the Queen's Danger Therefore the present Pope to relieve them hath altered that part of the Bull and dispensed 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 Here we have a plain Confession of that learned Gentleman who is by them termed a Noble Champion of Christ and Holy Priest one that had taken deep root in the Foundations of the Faith and of sound Learning that the Loyalty of the Romanists depends upon the Will of man except they will affirm their Pope to be more than man which is a point they have been put in mind of from Rome itself since His Majesties Restauration as we shall observe anon This Qualification of the Bull was granted to Parsons and Campion two Jesuites upon their coming into England when among other things they desired of the Pope That the Bull should always oblige Elizabeth and the Hereticks but by no means the Romanists as Affairs now stand but hereafter when the publick Execution of the Bull may be had or made Furnished with this and other Faculties those two Gentlemen repaired into England setting themselves to contrive a way how to set Her Majesties Crown upon another head at first they came in the Habits of Soldiers afterward they went about in the Garb of Gentlemen and in the North they altered their Habits into the Vestments of our Ministers preaching there and being secretly entertained by the Popish Gentry and Nobility courageously executed their Commission in discharge of which Parsons exhorted the Roman Catholicks of those parts to deprive Her Majesty of the Crown and the way being thus broken many flocked after them for the same purpose At this time Mr. Sherwin being apprehended and asked whether the Queen were his lawfull Sovereign notwithstanding any Sentence of the Pope's he desired no such questions might be demanded of him and would give no other Answer But the Pope well knowing that this Generation of sturdy blades would in time be all gone for the breeding up of more to succeed them assisted Allen in setting up the Seminary at Doway for English Romanists allowing an annual Pension for their maintenance purposely for to plot and contrive ways to expulse the Queen and demolish the Church of England in obedience to the Pope's Bulls for which end every Scholar among them at his Education took this Oath I A. B. do acknowledg the Ecclesiastical and Political Power of His Holiness and the Mother Church of Rome as the chief Head and Matron above all pretended Churches throughout the whole Earth and that my Zeal shall be for Saint Peter and his Successors as the Founder of the True and Ancient Catholick Faith against all Heretical Kings Princes States or Powers repugnant unto the same And although I may pretend in case of Persecution or otherwise to be Heretically disposed yet in Soul and Conscience I shall help aid and succour the Mother Church of Rome as the True Ancient Apostolical Church I farther do declare not to act or contrive any manner of thing prejudicial unto her or her sacred Orders Doctrines Tenents or Commands without the leave of her supreme Power or the Authority under her appointed or to be appointed and when so permitted then to act or further her Interest more than my own earthly Gain and Pleasure as she and her Head His Holiness and his Successours have or ought to have the Supremacy over all Kings Princes Estates or Powers whatsoever either to deprive them of their Crowns Sceptres Powers Privileges Realms Countreys or Governments or to set up others in lieu thereof they dissenting from the Mother Church and her Commands c. Thus by all imaginable ways did this Pope provide for the Death or Deposition of that Virgin Queen Anno 1581 in order to which he had so possess'd the Missionaries with his power to dethrone Princes that it was offer'd to be prov'd to the World That the Priests which were apprehended and executed for Treason always restrained their confession of Allegiance only to the permissive form of the Pope's Toleration as for Example if they were asked whether they did acknowledge themselves to be the Queen's Subjects and would obey her they would say Yes for so they had leave for a time to doe but being asked if they would so acknowledg and obey her any longer than the Pope would so permit them or notwithstanding such Commandment as the Pope would or might give to the contrary then they either refused to obey or denied to answer or said they could not answer to those Questions without danger And at their very Arraignment when they laboured to leave in the minds of the People and standers by an opinion that they were to dye not for Treason but for matter of Faith and Doctrine they cried out that they were true Subjects and did and would obey Her Majesty Immediately to prove whether that speech extended to a perpetuity of their Obedience or so long time as the Pope so permitted they were openly in the place of Judgment asked by the Q's learned Counsel whether they would so obey and be true Subjects if the Pope commanded the contrary they plainly disclosed themselves in Answer saying by the mouth of Campion This place meaning
where by a Congregation it was decreed unlawfull And now in prosecution of the Pope and Sorbon's Sentence the last year that excellent Prince King Charles the Martyr was by their contrivances brought to the Block which though they were willing to disown now yet at that time they were very sollicitous to let the World know that they were the promoters of it the Friars of Dunkirk expressed great resentment that the Jesuites would engross to themselves the Glory of that Work whereas they had laboured as diligently and succesfully as any and in several other places the Friars were very jealous lest that Order should rob them of their part of the Honour And the Benedictines were not a little carefull to secure their Land in England from the Jesuites for they thought their return sure upon the King's Death so that the Nuns contended vigorously among themselves who should be Abbesses in their own Countrey At the time of His Majesty's Execution Mr. Henry Spotswood riding casually that way saw a Priest on Horseback in the Habit of a Trouper with whom he was well acquainted flourishing his Sword over his Head in triumph as others did he told Mr. Spotswood that there were at least forty Priests and Jesuites present in the same equipage among whom was Preston who afterwards commanded a Troup of Horse under Cromwell Father Sibthorp in a Letter to Father Metcalfe owns that the Jesuites were contrivers of this murther and that Sarabras was present rejoycing at it one of the Priests flourishing his Sword cryed Now our greatest Enemy is cut off When the News of this Tragedy came to Roan they affirmed that they had often warned his Majesty that if he did not establish the Romish Religion in England they should be forced to take such courses as would tend to his Destruction and now they had kept their words with him And in Paris a Lady having been perverted from the Reformed Church by a Jesuite upon hearing her Ghostly Father affirm that now the Catholicks were rid of their greatest Enemy by whose Death their Cause was much advanced and therefore she had no reason to lament left that bloudy and rebellious Church and continues a Protestant ever since But though as Secretary Morris affirms there are almost convincing evidences that the Papists Irreligion was chiefly guilty of the murther of that excellent Prince yet we are beholden to the guilty Consciences of those Gentlemen that the World hath not been long since more fully satisfied as to every particular for Dr. Du Moulin in the first Edition of his Book Ann. 1662. had challenged them to call him to an Account for affirming that the Rebellion was raised and promoted and the King murthered by the Arts of the Court of Rome the Book came to a fourth Edition in all which he renewed the Challenge and in the last in these words I have defied them now seventeen years to call me in question before our Judges and so I do still affirming that certain Evidence of what he asserted should be produced whenever Authority shall require it I remember once a Jesuite attempted to prove the truth of the Nag's-Head Ordination because that Charge had been laid to our Church some years before any offered to confute it or to produce the Lambeth Record which he affirmed was an evident sign that the thing was true or else having such means to confute it they would not have been so long silent what then may we think of those Gentlemen who had so heavy a crime charged on them and yet for near twenty years together never called the Accuser to account The Doctour always refused to produce his Evidences till required by Authority only he gives us this Account That the Papers of Resolution in favour of the Murther when it was found to be generally detested were by the Pope's Order gathered up and burnt but a Roman Catholick in Paris refused to deliver one in his possession but shewed it to a Protestant Friend and related to him the whole carriage of the Negotiation And I am sure if the Protestants had been under such an Imputation the Papists would make good use of their silence to prove their Guilt But farther to shew their aversion to the Royal party no sooner had the Rebels of Ireland in consideration of the straits they were in made a cessation for some time with the Lord Inchequin but the Nuncio excommunicated all who observed it and upon the conclusion of a second Peace with the Duke of Ormond His Majesty's Lieutenant the Assembly of the Bishops and Clergy at James-Town renounced it and as much as in them lay restored the former confederacy anew but of this we shall have a farther account in its due place In the mean while Reilly Anno 1649 Vicar General to the A. B. of Dublin betrayed the Royal Camp of Rathmines to Coll. Jones Governour of Dublin for the Parliament which service he afterwards pleaded for himself to the safety of his Life which was in danger for his cruel Actions in the Rebellion and he well deserved more than bare safety from those men that defeat being the total ruine of His Majesty's Affairs in Ireland At the same time the Rebels in France encreased both in Insolence and Power daily the Coadjutour of Paris going to St. Germains in obedience to the Queens Commands was tumultuously stopt by the People who hindered the Nobility from following the King and broke their Coaches the Parliament forbad all places to receive any Garisons from the King listed men and resolved upon a War the Duke D'Elbease Duke of Lonqueirlle Prince Marsilliack afterwards D. of Rochfecault the Prince of Conty and many other persons of the greatest Quality joining with them Soon after Normandy and Poictou declared for the Parsians who sent Deputies to call in the Spaniards to assist them but these Troubles being in a little time appeased new ones began in Provence and Guienne the Parliaments of those Provinces prosecuting the War with great fury declared they would have no pardon from the King and one Gage a Priest endeavoured to persuade them to take the Sovereign Power on themselves which they declined but to maintain the War they treated with the Spaniards for Assistance both of Men and Moneys This Year the Prince of Conde joined himself to the Troudeurs Anno 1650 which was the usual Nickname of the discontented Party but finding that they intended the advancement of Chasteau Neuf his mortal Enemy he left them in disgust however the Parisians made several Insurrections and upon the Imprisonment of that Prince an open Rebellion broke out in Berry whose Example was followed by Normandy and Burgundy to support which the Spaniards agreed to contribute 2000 Foot and 3000 Horse besides great Summes of Money and soon after the Parliament of Bourdeaux declared for the Rebells During these Transactions the Popish Bishops of Ireland met at James-Town
A Brief HISTORY Of the several PLOTS Contrived AND REBELLIONS Raised by the Papists Against the Lives and Dignities of Sovereign Princes since the REFORMATION Taken from Faithfull Historians LONDON Printed for Richard Wilde at the Map of the World inâ— St. Paul's Church-yard 1692. 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 six but look on former times where for five or six hundred years nothing 〈◊〉 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 German 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 Philanax 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 Conversâ—tion 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 Shoals of Priests from several parts beyond Seas and Ireland who for several years before had scarce any and those that were skulking and lying close was in a little time almost over-stocked and Father
the Court of Her Majesties Bench hath no Power to enquire or judge of the Holy Fathers Authority and other Answer they would not make The very same Account with some other particulars is given us by the Secular Priests themselves of the Behaviour of Mr. Campion and the rest some of whom being asked which part they would take if the Pope or any other by his appointment should invade the Realm or which part ought a good Subject to take answered when that case happened they would then consider what they had best doe others that they were not yet resolved what to doe and others positively that if such a Deprivation or Invasion should be made for any Matter of Faith they were then bound to take part with the Pope Nay so zealous was Mr. Campion in defence of that rebellious Doctrine that being visited in Prison by some Gentlemen of Oxford one of them asked him whether he thought the Queen lawfull Heir or no to this he made no Answer but when the question was put whether if the Pope invaded the Land he would take part with him or the Queen he openly replied he would join with the Pope and very earnestly demanded Pen Ink and Paper with which he signed his Resolution which Principle he was so rooted in that he affirmed in the Tower to several Persons of Quality who demanded whether he did acknowledge the Queen to be a lawfull Queen or did believe her deprived of her Right that this Question depends much on the Fact of Pope Pius the Fifth whereof he is no Judge and therefore refused to answer farther The same loyal Doctrines were vented by several other Priests the ensuing year Anno 1582 who affirmed under their Hands to the Commissioners who examined them That the Pope had power to depose Princes and that Her Majesty was not be obeyed against His Holiness's Bull who hath Authority to discharge Subjects of their Allegiance which all of them viz. Kerby Cottom Richardson Ford Shert Johnson Hart and 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 Elstow 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 Anno 1583 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 Anno 1584 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 This Method of satisfying their Consciences with their Confessour's Authority was so generally taken by the zealous Assassins of those times that the Leaguers in France kept several Priests in pay who daily preached and asserted That Princes ought to be deposed who do not sufficiently perform their Duty and a Bachelour in Divinity of the Sorbonne maintained in a publick Disputation That it was lawfull for any private man to depose or kill any Prince who is a wicked man or an Heretick which opinion had so entirely possest the Cardinal of Bourbon that because the King of Navarre was an Heretick he had the Confidence to tell King Henry the Third that if his Majesty should dye the Crown would belong to him and he was resolved not to lose his Right But because these Doctrines without force to practise them would prove but empty speculations the Duke of Guise had the latter end of this year a Conference with the King of Spain's Commissioners whereby he associated himself with the Spaniards against his Sovereign obliging his party to maintain War against the Kings as long as the King of Spain pleased To promote which Design Cardinal Pellevee sollicited the Pope for his approbation of it Anno 1585 and when the Duke of Nevers declared his Resolutions to have nothing to doe with them unless he had the Opinion both of Eminent Divines and the Pope too in favour of the Undertaking his Confessour and Monsieur Faber told him that he ought to take up Arms with the Leaguers by which he would be so far from sinning that he would merit highly and perform an Action very acceptable to God and the aforesaid Cardinal with other Divines assured him that the Pope approved of it declaring it lawfull to fight against Hereticks and such as favour or adhere to them though it were the King himself he indeed advised them not to attempt his Life but to seize his Person and force him to promote their Ends In obedience to which the Cardinal of Bourbon published a Declaration dated March 31. 1585. justifying his Arms but professing great Respect to the Royal Person This Pope dying his Successour Sixtus the Fifth was more open in avowing the Leaguers Cause and therefore published his Bull against the King of Navarre declaring him an Heretick depriving him and his Posterity of all their Rights absolving his Subjects from their Allegiance and excommunicating all such as should obey him While this Pope was making Tryall of his Thunderbolts in France he had his Agents privily endeavouring to execute the Commands of his Predecessour in this Nation for which Henry Piercy Earl of Northumberland being apprehended shot himself through the heart during his Imprisonment he had been pardoned for a former Rebellion and being found a prosecutour of Throgmorton's Design became this year his own Executioner But a more formidable Anno 1586 because more threacherous and secret Design was managed by some English Seminaries at Rhemes who thought it meritorious to destroy the Queen where one Savage was so wrought upon by the Persuasions of Dr. Gifford the Rectour and two other Priests that he vowed to murther her to whom Ballard another Priest joining treated with Mendoza the Spanish Embassadour in France about an Invasion after which he drew in Mr. Babington a rich and well accomplish'd Gentleman who desired that five more might be joined to Savage to make sure work Babington affirmed that several Counties in England were ready and being assured of Assistance from Spain they resolved that the Usurper so they termed the Queen should be sent to the other World assoon as the Invaders landed but Ballard being taken Babington resolved to effect her death immediately though Divine Providence prevented it by his apprehension who with the rest of his Companions freely confessed the Fact for which sixteen of them suffered death Yet did not this deter Mr. William Stafford at the Sollicitation of the French Ambassadour from engaging in an Enterprise of the same horrid nature which though he refused to act himself yet he directed them to one Moody who willingly embraced the motion upon Promise of Preferment from the Duke of Guise but while he was contriving a way to effect it Stafford discovered all and justified it to the Ambassadour's Face who at first denied any knowledge of it With the same diligence were the Romanists in France driving on their treasonable Designs for at a Council held by the chief Conspiratours at the Jesuites College near St. Pauls in Paris they resolved to surprise Boloign there to receive the Spaniards who should land to their Assistance A Plot was laid to secure the King as he returned from hunting and another to seize the Bastile assault the Louvre and put the King into a Convent during which Action their word was to be Let the Mass flourish and the King of Navarre
undertook the same Exploit to whom the Pope's Agent added Clement Odin another Son of St. Dominick but God defeated all their Designs and preserv'd that great King's Life some years longer In the mean while Tir Oen continued his Rebellion in Ireland Anno 1599 having received Assistance from the Spaniard and a Plume of Phoenix Feathers from the Pope and the new Earl of Desmond wrote two Letters to the King of Spain begging his Assistance to drive the English out of Ireland and to advance the Catholick Cause which he was resolved to maintain What effect these and other Addresses had we shall see presently But Tir Oen not resting wholly on the Spaniard Anno 1600 wrote a very earnest Letter to the Pope subscribed by himself Desmond and others Desiring his Holiness to issue out a Bull against the Queen as Pius the Fifth and Gregory the Thirteenth had done which they press him to doe because the Kingdom belonged to his Holiness and next under God depended solely on him In the mean while the Rebellion went on and daily conflicts happen'd but lest the tediousness or danger of the War should discourage them Pope Clement the Eighth sent a Letter directed to all the Prelates Noblemen and People of Ireland wherein he owns That they had taken up Arms by his advice for recovering their Liberty and opposing the Hereticks commends the Fitz-Geralds who headed former Insurrections highly extolls Tyrone and grants a full remission of all Sins to him and his Assistants Yet could not this Concurrence and Benediction of the Pope preserve their strength from being broken by the Lord Mountjoy who this year arrived Lord Deputy in Ireland insomuch that several of the chief Rebels submitted but at the same time sent to Rome to crave Pardon for their outward compliance but Tyrone continued obstinate which forced the Lord-Deputy to proclaim him Traitor setting a Reward of Two thousand Marks upon his Head however the Spaniard sent a Ship to his Relief laden with Arms and Monies as an earnest of more Supplies It is certain from the Confession of the Traitors themselves that the foundation of the Gun-power 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 Anno 1601 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 of Tuseany 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 Kings all 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 Anno 1602 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
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 Anno 1606 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 farther 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 Anno 1607 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 this 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 Anno 1608 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 Anno 1609 and the Valesian Magistrates refused to admit them because wherever they came they disturbed 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 Anno 1610 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