Treatises and Writings endeavoured to defame their Sovereign and their own Countrey labouring to have many of their Books translated into divers Languages whereby to shew their own disloyalty If Cardinal Allen and Parsons had not published the Renovation of the said Bull by Sixtus Quintus If thereunto they had not added their scurrilous and unmanly Admonition or rather most prophane Libel against Her Maj sty If they had not sought by false perswasions and unghostly Arguments to have allured the hearts of all Catholicks from their allegiance If the Pope had never been urged by them to have thrust the King of Spain into that barbarous Actions against the Realm If they themselves with all the rest of that Generation had not laboured greatly with the said King for the Conquest and Invasion of this Land by the Spaniards who are known to be the cruelest Tyrants that live upon the Earth If the Pope had not ordered Ridolphi to distribute 150000. Crowns to advance the attempt whereof some was sent to Scotland some to the Duke of Norfolk alias And King Philip to send the Duke of Alua and his Forces into England to assist the Duke of Norfolk If in all their whole proceedings they had not from time to time depraved irritated and provoked both Her Majesty and State with those and many other such like their most ungodly and unchristian practises there had been no Speeches amongst us of Racks and Torments nor any cause to have used them for none were ever vexed that way simply for that he was either Priest or Catholick but because they were suspected to have had their hands in some of the said most traiterous designs And most assuredly the State would have loved us or at least born with us and we had been in much better condition than now we are Important Considerations c. fo 39 40 41. printed 1601. Furthermore another in answer to a Letter of a Jesuited Gent. by A. C. fo 89. complains of the Jesuits averring That Her Majesty is an Heretick an Excommunicated Princess and consequently to be deposed What Jesabelling of her have I heard them used What questioning whether no Jehu have subdued her why yet she prospereth why yet she Reigns why yet she lives what defaming her what throwing Soil at her Picture what avowing her Rohal Lyons and Flower-de-luze no better worth than to serve for Signs to Baudy-houses Thus do the Jesuits and Jesuited use Her Majesty to my express knowledg and worse which for good manners I omit fo 90. nay they sent one to me in the nature of an Engineer from beyond the Seas to perswade my assisting his firing the Queens Navy throughout England against the next years coming of another Spanish Armado f. 90. Was it not Fa. Parsons and Fa. Creighton F. 9. That with much vehemency and bitterness contended for the disposing of the Crown of England the one for the Lady Infanta the other to his King of Scotland Were they not Jesuits which plotted with the Duke of Parma for surpriseing or stealing awayof the Lady Arabella and sending her into Flanders who imployed the Messenger into England about that affair but Fa-Holt Jesuit who but the same Jesuit was consenting with Sir William Stanley to the sending in of Richard Hesket for soliciting Ferdinando Earl of Darby to rise against Her Majesty and claim the Crown was it not the same Jesuit that entertained York and Young in the Plot of firing Her Majesties Store-houses that set on work Mr. Francis Dickinson and others to perswade Watermen to fly with Ships and all into the service of the Spaniard f. 93. their Conspiracies were not confined to England only but they were extended also to Scotland whereupon were the Three Catholick Earls Angus Arrol and Huntley convicted of High Treason by Act of Parliament about 1593. if not upon certain plots laid by Fa. Creighton Fa. Gourdon and upon hopes given them of succour from Spain Why was the Lord of Fentry Executed but for the same designs imparted to him by Fa. Ro. Abereronii a Jesuit Was it not the principal cause of Fa James Gordons travel to Rome about the same time to solicite the Pope and other Princes to assist the King of Scots if he enterprise any thing either against England or in his own Countrey 93 94. And yet these matters will not be believed at this day by the Papists though it be their own voluntary confession in several of their printed Books yet extant Priests and Jesuits each deservedly accusing other of Treasons and Conspiracies against the Queen Her Person Crown and Dignity with this difference only that the Priests mostly the Jesuits seldom acknowledged the Queens great favours and lenity towards them the Queen had great reason to believe them both not barely because they peached one the other but because thereof she really found the sad effects And indeed because she and her Council did very wisely consider that Papists some Centuries of Years before ever Jesuits were thought of did universally incline unto and side with the Pope against their temporal Princes usurping many great and exorbitant authorities and priviledges over them whereof Histories are full and therefore it was but high time that the Queen should by wholsom Laws inflicting moderate pains and mulcts provide against both one and the other This is no small Bedrall of Treasons Conspiricies provocations Vide Important consider f. 16 17 18. c. and yet as many more they might have urged nay to do the Secular-priests right they have done it particularly sparsim both in this and divers others their Books and also made large very large acknowledgments of the Queens Bounty Moderation and Clemency towards those Papists that were quiet and faithful a gratefulness that I have not found in any of the Jesuits and in so doing they did the Queen but right for from the year 1. Eliz. unto 11. Papists came to our Church and Service without scruple so that for 10 years they made no Conscience nor Doubt to Communicate with us in prayer But when once the Bull of Pius Quintus often called by the Queen Impius Intus was published wherein the Queen was accursed and deposed and Her Subjects discharged of their obedience and Oaths of Fealty yea cursed if they did obey Her Then and not till then they refrained our Churches and Service so that recusancy in them the name of Recusant being never heard of until the 11. Year of Eliz. as if evident by the very Acts of Parliament is not for for Religion but in an acknowledgment of the Popes power which was little regarded here our famous Kings being never afraid of Popes Bulls no not in the very midnight of Popery as Edward the Confessor Henry I. Edward I. Rich. II. Henry IV. Henry V. c. And in the time of Henry VII and in all their times the Popes Legate never passed Callais but staid there and came not to England until he had taken a
Articles of Marriage between Arch-Duke Charles his Son and Queen Eliz. both Father and Son did require That a publick Church might be allowed wherein Divine Service might be celebrated to him and his after the Romish manner When this would not be granted then that in some private place in the Court he might peaceably use his Service of God as was permitted to Popish Princes Ambassadors in their Houses and that with these Conditions That no English Man should be admitted thereunto and neither he nor his Servants should speak against the Religion received in England or favour those that did speak against it That if any displeasure should arise in respect of Religion he should be present with the Queen at Divine Service to be celebrated after the manner of the Church of England Unto this the Queen answered That if she should grant this she should offend her Conscience and openly break the publick Laws of her Realm not without great peril both of her dignity and safety The same Princely Pious and immovable Resolution she held when in the like Treaty of Marriage between her and the Duke of Anjou where Tolleration of the Roman Religion being much pressed and insisted on both by the Queen his Mother and by Charles the 9th King of France his Brother Queen Eliz. though it were suggested that the Romish Religion was not deeply rooted in the Dukes mind being but young and for that he was Educated under Carnlette a person not averse from the Protestant Religion and that by degrees he might be brought to the Protestant profession and many other and great advantages would thereby accrew to the good of the Reformed Religion answered as well became Gods Vice-gerent in her Dominions That although the outward Exercise of Christian Religion might haply be tollerated with different Rites and Ceremonies amongst the Subjects of one and the same Kingdom yet a different yea a flat contrary Exercise between the Queen who is the Head of her people and her Husband might not only seem perilous but also altogether absurd she prayed them to consider with equal Ballance on the one side her own hazard and on the other side the Duke of Anjou's Honour By Tollerating his Religion she should break the Laws established give offence to her best Subjects and encouragement to her worst which things would certainly over-weigh the Duke of Anjou's Honour If the Duke would water more plentifully the Seeds of the purer Religion already sown and suffer more to be sown he should soon see that it would be unto him a most high Honour At length it came to this Issue That if so be the Duke would be present with the Queen at the Celebration of Divine Service and not refuse to hear and learn the Institutions of the Protestant Religion she would assent that neither the Duke nor his Family should be constraned to use the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England nor molested for other Divine Rites not openly and manifestly repugnant to Gods Word so as it were done in a certain private place and no occasion given to the English to break the Laws established Foix stuck at the Word the WOrd of God for whose satisfaction the Queen commanded instead of Gods Word to put in Gods Church which when it liked him worse and for it would have had to be put in the Catholick Church the Queen flatly and stoutly refused it and so by degrees it cooled Her religious care herein was also so great and steady that Walsing ham her Ambassador had secret Instructions That if the Duke of Anjou should be content to omit in that Treaty that point concerning Tolleration of Religion yet would the Queen bind him in such sure caution that he should not require it at any time after § Of the same opinion was King James Anno 1596. in the Case of Huntley Angus and Arrol Popish Lords who though they would have betrayed the Kingdom to the Spaniard yet the King being willing afterwards to have them return though Guilt had made them Fugitives and being returned the King writ thus to Huntley viz. My Lord I am sure you consider and do remember how often I have incurred Skaith and hazard for your cause therefore to be short resolve you either to satisfie the Church betwixt that day that is appointed without any more delay or else if your Conscience be so Kittle as it cannot permit you make for another Land betwixt this and that day where you may use freely your own Conscience your Wife and Barnes shall in that Case enjoy your Living but for your self look never to be a Scottish Man again deceive not your self to think by lingring of time your Wife and your Allys shall ever get you better Conditions And think not that I will suffer any professing a contrary Religion to dwell in this Land Afterwards when His Majesty came to the Crown of England which was May 14. 1602. he declared to his Parliament there 19. May 1603. Li. c. p. 1 That the popish point of Doctrin is that Arrogant and Ambitious Supremacy of their Head the Pope whereby he not only claims to be Spiritual Head of all Christians but also to have an Imperial civil power over all Kings and Emperors dethroning and decrowning Princes with his Foot as pleaseth him and dispensing and disposing of all Kingdoms and Empires at his appetite The other point which they observe in continual practise is the Assassinates and Murders of Kings thinking it no sin but rather a matter of Salvation to do all Actions of Rebellion and Hostility against their natural Sovereign Lord if he be once accursed his Subjects discharged of their fidelity and his Kingdom given a Prey by that Three Crowned Monarch or rather Monster their Head Which Positions of theirs the Gun-powder-traitors within Two Years after made good after which time be was not only willing whilst he lived that we should pray to God as was done in the days of Great Eliz. that he would keep us from all Papistry and that he would preserve us from the Pope as well as from the Turk in as much as the Pope laboured to dethrone Christ as well as the Turk did but he required further of us That we should pray God to strengthen his Hands and the Hands of his Nobles and Magistrates in the Land to cut off the Papists In the Prayer to be made 5. Novemb. for the Gun-powder-treason to root them out of the Confines and Limits of the Kingdom protesting in Parliament that he could not permit the increase and grown of Popery without betraying the liberty both of England and Scotland and of the Crown in his posterity and did declare in his Speech in Parliament 1605. That none of those that truly know and believe the whole Grounds and School-Conclusions of their Doctrins can ever prove good Christians or good Subjects Vide his Works 504. Nay farther in the Second Year of his Reign ter ' tr '
holden amongst the English Catholicks for a lawful Sentence and a sufficient discharge of her Subjects fidelity and so remaineth in force but in some points touching the Subjects it is altered by the present Pope Greg. XIII For where in that Bull all her Subjects are commanded not to obey her and she being Excommunicate and Deposed all that do obey her are likewise Innodate and Accursed which point is perilous to the Catholicks for if they obey her they be in the Popes Curse and if they disobey her they are in the Queens danger Therefore the present Pope to relieve them hath altered that part of the Bull and dispensed with them to obey and serve her without peril of Excomunication which dispensation is to endure but till it please the Pope otherwise to determine By the same reason that one Pope may receive and dispense with a former Popes Bull and ratifie one Paragraph thereof and make another void and make what Interpretation thereof he pleaseth pro re nata to serve a turn He may also by the same Reason declare the same Bull to be still in force and may at this very Nick of Time and Juncture of Affairs dispence with all our Catholicks by any ways or Arts to evade this last Act and where are we then and how the more secure § Edmund Campion that Arch-Traytor deeply designing and covertly as well as diligently preparing for the perpetrating of his Treasons against Queen Eliz. most cunningly before he came from Rome procured Tolleration for such other prepared Rebels to keep themselves Covert under pretence of temporary and permissive obedience to her Majesty the State standing then as it did but so soon as there should be sufficient force whereby the Bull of her Majesties deprivation might be publickly Executed they should then joyn altogether with that force upon pain of Damnation ex pede Herculem By this you may guess what kind of Obedience and Allegiance Papists swear to Protestant Princes viz temporary and permissive i. e. during their will and pleasures of their Lord God the Pope or until they shall be strong enough to cut our Throats whose Nails desire to pare § It is likewise observable that her Majesties Ministers in their Examinations of Papists suspected Traitors and those only which were first known and evidently probable by former Detections Confessions c. had a full purpose to follow the Example of the Queens most Gratious Disposition and never tormented any Innocent or extorted Confessions at adventure upon uncertainties nor ever demanded any question of their pretended or supposed Conscience as what they believed in any point of Faith or Doctrin as of the Mass Transubstantiation c. but only with what persons at home or abroad and touching what Plots Practises and Conferences they had dealt about attempts against her Majesties person or to alter the Laws of the Realm for matters of Religion and how they were perswaded themselves and did perswade others touching the Popes Bull and pretence of Authority to depose Kings and namely for deprivation of her Majesty and to discharge Subjects from their Allegiance civily without mentioning or meaning therein any right that the Queen as in right of the Crown had over persons Ecclesiastical being her Subjects In all which Cases Campion and the Briant Sherwin Kirby Cottam Richardson Fords Short Lewis Filhee Bosgrave others rest never answered plainly but sophistically deceitfully and traiterously restraining their confession of Allegiance only to the permissive tearm of the Popes Tolleration As for Example If they were asked whether they did adknowledg themselves the Queens Subjects and would obey her they would say Yea for so they have leave for a time to do but being more narrowly interrogated if they would so acknowledg and obey her any longer than the Pope would so permit them or notwithstanding such Commandement as the Pope would or might give to the contrary then they either refused so to obey or denyed to answer or said they would not answer to those Questions without danger which Interpretatively was a plain Acknowledgment that they would be no longer true Subjects nor perswade others to be so than the Pope gave them Licence so to be And yet such was their Impudence that at their very Arraignments they would ad captandum populum cry out that they were to dye not for Treason but for matter Faith and Conscience in Doctrin touching the Service of God without any attempt or purpose against her Majesty and that they were true Subjects and did and would obey and serve her Majesty whereas in truth there was not the least Syllable in their Indictment of Faith or Doctrin and consequently not possible to be Arraigned or be Executed for any such thing And to try whether such their Hypocritical and Sophistical Speeches and Answers did extend to a perpetuity of their obedience or to so long time only as the Pope so permitted or no they were immediately and publickly even in the very place of their Arraignment asked by her Majesties Council whether they would so obey and be true Subjects if the Pope commanded the contrary they plainly discovered themselves in their Answers saying by the mouth of Campion that this place thereby meaning the Court of Her Majesties Bench hath no power to inquire or judg of the Holy Fathers Authority and other Answer they would not make For the better satisfaction of all people and that they may the better and more plainly understand how in what manner and for what all the Papists dyed in Queen Eliz. days who most falsely have since been reported to have dyed for Religion when in truth they dyed for Treason and nothing else Hereof take one Example and Instance for all the Indictment and Arraignment of William Parry that wicked perfidious faithless ungrateful Traytor sworn Her Majesties servant Anno Domini 1570. And as was his Indictment so were all the other Indictments Mutatis Mutandis Superlatively wicked in that he became twice reconciled to Rome and in that he boasted That for 22 Years past he having been a Catholick had never received the Communion and yet before he travelled beyond the Sea at Three several times within those 22 Years he voluntarily take the Oath of Obedience to the Queen made 1. of her Reign Faithless and ungrateful in that after many obligations conferred on him by loan of several Sums of Money and otherwise by Hugh Hare of the Temple he contrived his death by breaking open his Chamber assaulting and wounding and leaving him for dead for which being Convicted of Burglary and Condemned to dye the Queen most gratiously pardoned for which he most gratefully requited her according to the old Proverb Save a Thief from the Gallows and he 'l cut your Throat He was Indicted of Treason 22. Feb. 1584. by Commission of Oyer and Terminer held at the Kings-Bench Westminster before Sir Christopher Wray Lord Chief Justice of England and others where Miles Sands Esq then Clerk
of the Crown read the Indictment viz. William Parry thou art here Indicted by Oaths of Twelve good and lawful Men of the County of Middlesex before Christopher Wray alias for that thou as a Traytor against the most Noble and Christian Princess Queen Eliz. the most Gralious Sovereign and Liege Lady not having the fear of God before thine Eyes nor regarding the due Allegiance but being seduced by the Instigation of the Devil and intending to withdraw and extinguish the hearty love and due obedience which true and faithful Subjects should bear unto the same our Sovereign Lady didst at Westminster in the County of Middlesex 1. Febr. in the 26. Year of Her Majesties Reign and at divers other times and places in the same County malitiously and traiterously conspire and compass not only to deprive and depose the same our Sovereign Lady of Her Royal Estate Title and Dignity but also to bring her Highness to death and final destruction and sedition in the Realm to make and the Government thereof to subvert and the sincere Religion of God established in her Highness Dominions to alter and subvert And that whereas thou William Parry by thy Letters sent unto Gregory Bishop of Rome didst signifie unto the same Bishop the purposes and intentions aforesaid and thereby didst pray and require the same Bishop to give thee Absolution that thou afterwards that is to say the last of March 26. Year aforesaid didst traiterously receive Letters from one called Cardinal de Como directed unto thee William Parry whereby the said Cardinal did signifie unto thee that the Bishop of Rome had perused the Letters and allowed of thine intent and that to that end he had absolved thee of all thy sins and by the same Letter did animate and stir thee to proceed with thine Enterprize and that thereupon thou the last day of August in the said 26. Year at St. Gyles in the Fields in the same County of Middlesex didst traiterously confer with one Edmund Nevil Esq uttering unto him all the wicked and traiterous devises and then and there didst traiterously move him to assist thee therein and to joyn with thee in those wicked Treasons aforesaid against the peace of our said Sovereign Lady the Queen her Crown and Dignity Which being Read and William Parry being asked whether guilty of these Treasons whereof thou standest here Indicted or not guilty He confessed that he was guilty of all that is therein contained both in matter and form as the same is set down and all the Circumstances thereof Which being Recorded and though confessed willingly by Parry yet because the Justice of the Realm had been of late very impudently slandered That such like Traytors were Executed for Religion and not for Treason the Justice of that Court deemed it necessary to satisfie the World more particularly that though his Confession in Court served sufficiently to have proceeded thereupon to Judgment yet Parry's Confession taken the 11 and 13. Feb. 1584. before the Lord Hunsdon Mr. Vice-Chamberlain and Mr. Secretary and Cardinal de Como's letter and Parry's Letter to the Lord Treasurer and Lord Steward should be openly read to which also Parry himself agreed so readily that he offered to read them himself for the better satisfying of the people All which Letters and his own voluntary confession written and subscribed with his own Hand he acknowledged to have Confessed freely without any constraint and that it was all true and more too And that there is no Treason that hath been sythence 1 Eliz. any way touching Religion saving receipt of Agnus Dei and perswading others wherein he hath not much dealt but he had offended in it And that he had demanded his opinion in writing who ought to be Successor to the Crown which he said to be Treason also All which Letters and Confession being first shewed to him Leaf by Leaf were openly and distinctly read by the Clark of the Crown Which done Parry having obtained favour of the Court to speak in discharge as he pretended of his Conscience assuring them that he would not go about to excuse himself and that he intended to utter more He said my Cause is rare singular and unnatural conceived at Venice presented in general Words to the Pope undertaken at Paris commended and allowed of by his Holiness and to have been Executed in England I have committed many Treasons for I have committed Treason in being reconciled and Treason in taking Absolution and yet never intended to kill Queen Eliz. Which said Mr. Vice-Chamberlain retorted upon him in that he both in Court and else where under his Hand voluntarily confessed That he did mislike Her Majesty for that she had done nothing for thee how by wicked Papists and Popish Books thou wert perswaded that it was lawful to kill Her Majesty how thou wert by reconciliation become one of that wicked sort that held Her Majesty for neither lawful Queen nor Christian and that it was Meritorious to kill her And didst thou not signifie that thy purpose to the Pope by Letters and receivedst Letters from the Cardinal how he allowed of thine intent and Excited thee to perform it and thereupon didst receive Absolution And didst thou not conceive it promise it vow it swear it and receive the Sacrament that thou wouldst do it And didst not thou there upon affirm that thy Vows were in Heaven thy Letters and Promises on Earth to bind thee to do it And that whatsoever Her Majesty would have done for thee could not have removed thee from the intention or purpose unless she would have desisted from dealing as she hath done with the Catholicks as thou calledst them And didst thou not confess besides that which thou didst set down under thine own Hand that thou hadst prepared Two Scottish Daggers fit for such a purpose Notwithstanding all these and more Demonstrations of his Bloody Intentions against the Queen by Sir Christopher Hatton Lord Hunsdon and others of the Lords Commissioners he thereupon in a furious manner cry'd I never meant to kill Her I will lay my Blood upon Her and you before God and the World and so fell into a great rage and rayling Which madness of his the Lord Hunsdon thus rebuked This is but thy Popish pride and ostentation which thou would have to be told to thy Fellows of thy Faction to make them believe that thou dyedst for Popery when thou diedst for most horrible and dangerous Treason against Her Majesty and the whole Countrey Thus you see what little Faith is to be given to such who flatter with their Lips and dissemble with their double Hearts These things rightly considered I do not doubt but that all good Subjects will clearly see and all deluded and wavering persons will perceive how they have been seduced to wander out of the right way and that all strangers especially Christian Princes having Sovereign Estates being hereby acquainted with the true just and necessary Grounds and Reasons of His Majesties late Act of Parliament for preventing dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants made purely for the defence of His Majesties Crown Religion and People and for prevention of Intestine Jars that otherwise might be occasioned through different Religions Religions as discrepant as light and darkness good and evil which naturally occasions disputes and sometimes btows that all the World perceiving upon how great Reasons of State and Grounds of Religion that Act was made may be satisfied that no prudent State could do less especially the concern of Religion being a considerable Ingredient therein which often sets variance between nearest Relations And I cannot doubt but that this His Majesties just Act will have the like happy entertainment and success as had King James of ever blessed memory his Monitory Preface unto his Apology upon the coming forth of which Book there were no States that disavowed the Doctrin of it in the point of the Kings power the Venetians justified it both by Pen and Practise the Sorbons maintained it and Bellarmine and Suarez their Books to the contrary were burnt in France with scorn and disdain Passus damna semel cautior esse solet Romam vade liber sed Nescis Heu nescis Dominae fastidia Romae Mujores nusquam Ronchi Juvenesque Senesque Et pueri Nasum Rhinocerotis habent I fuge sed poteras tutior esse domus ERRATA PAge 11. Line 16. r. potest l. 21. r. sentiamus p. 2. l. 19. r. that p. 18. l. 4. r. Domini p. 29. l. 2. r. against p. 37. l. 12. r. if it had taken p. 44. l. ult r. Houses p. 58. l. 15. r. stories l. 31. r. discretion p. 74. l. 3. r. thou shall not plough p. 112. l. 3. r. likes of one bread l. 28. r. and add 14 new p. 127. l. 5. for Confession r. profession FINIS