the Reformed Religion Rules I avow to you that I had nothing to reply to this Article for I had seen with my Eyes all that he said There was one day with me in a long-Boat or Schupe a Priest drest in black Cloaths who was not otherwise disguised than that his Coat was short who said his Breviary before a hundred persons with as much liberty as he could have done in France Par. And what said he of England Prov. He said that at London there are five and twenty Houses without counting those of the Ambassadours of Catholick Princes wherein Mass is publickly said without any search being ever made that the truth is the liberty is not so great in the Country but that all Gentlemen had their Almoners and Priests in their Houses and that all the Catholicks went thither to Mass But that this was not what he had principally to oppose me with But I 'll allow said he that Catholicks have less liberty in Holland and in England than the Reformed have in France But is there any Justice to compare in this regard France with England Why is not England compared with Spain Italy Hungary and all the Territories of Germany subject to the House of Austria They oppose us with the Severity of the English against the Catholicks and we oppose the cruelty of the Spaniards against our people Is there any Comparison The Catholicks have not the liberty of exercise in England but they live there they Traffick there they exercise Arts there they are known there without danger they even perform their Service there without other hurt if they be discovered than that they are forbid to return In Spain and Italy those they call Calvinists and Lutherans are chased away like Lyons and Bears They go in quest of them and if they be discovered they are burnt alive If they have the boldness of making any publick act of their Religion there are no punishments cruel enough to be inflicted upon them It is sufficient that they are suspected or only accused of Lutheranisme for to be cast into the Prisons of the Inquisition where they must perish without Remedy Par. That is not ill imagined For in fine it is certain that the Inquisitition has not yet been established against the Catholicks in the Countries where the Heresie of Luther and Calvin Govern But did he say nothing to you of more force Prov. You shall hear what he aded appeared considerable to me which was that Hugonot Princes cannot have the same toleration for Catholicks in their States that Catholick Princes can have for Hugonots because that Protestant Princes cannot be assured of the fidelity of their Catholick Subjects by reason they have taken Oaths of fidelity to another Prince whom they consider as greater than all Kings It is the Pope and this Prince is a sworn Enemy of the Protestants He obliges the People to believe that a Soveraign turned Heretick has forfeited all the Rights of Soveraignty that they owe him no Obedience that they may with impunity revolt against him that they may fall upon him as an Enemy of the Christian Name even to assassinate him See the Jesuits Morals cap. 3. Book the Third And thereupon he cited to me Mariana Carolus Scribanus Ribadnera Tolet Gretser Hercun Amicus Lescius Valentia Dicatillus and several others that are cited by the Jansenists in the Book of the Jesuits Morals and by the Ministers All these Authors said he to me teach conformably to the Divinity of Rome that a Heretick Prince and Excommunicated by the Pope is but a particular person against whom Armes may be taken that he may be likewise Assassinated or poysoned He added to this the examples of so many Parricides that have been committed or attempted according to these Maximes How many times said he would they have Assassinated Queen Elizabeth Prince Willam of Orange was twice Assassinated and lost his Life the Second time Henry the Third was not he killed by a Jacobin as Excommunicated by the Pope and stript of the Royal Dignity John Chastel did not he attempt the same thing upon Henry the Fourth And did not Ravilliac out of a false Zeal Assassinate him After which he gave me an account of the Gun powder Plot in England by which in the year 1606. the Catholick had undertaken to blow up the King and all the Grandees of the Kingdom by a Mine they had made under the Parliament House He told me of the Jesuits Garnet and Oldcorn Chief of that Conspiracy who were put into the number of the Martyrs whether they would or no for the Jesuit Garnet going to Execution some one of his Companions telling him softly in his Ear that he was going to be a Martyr he answered Nunquam audivi parricidam esse Martyrem I never heard that a Parricide was a Martyr He related to me a hundred scandalous Stories of that nature Amongst others he told me one that extreamly surprized me he read it to me with all its circumstances in a little Book that had been published by an English Minister who calls himself the King of Englands Chaplain Thus it is in short A Divine who had been the Chaplain of King Charles who was beheaded turn'd Catholick some time before his Masters Death and the English Jesuits put such confidence in him that they imparted to him a very terrible thing It was a Consultation allowed of by the Pope about the means of re-establishing the Catholick Religion in England The English Catholicks seeing that the King was a Prisoner in the hands of the Independants formed the Resolution of laying hold on that occasion to destroy the Protestant Religion and re-establish the Catholick Religion They concluded that the only means of re-establishing the Catholick Religion and of cashiering all the Laws that had been made against it in England was to dispatch the King and destroy Monarchy That they might be authorized and maintained in this great Undertaking they deputed eighteen Father-Jesuits to Rome to demand the Popes advice The matter was agitated in secret Assemblies and it was concluded that it was permitted and just to put the King to Death Those Deputies in their passage through Paris consulted the Sorbonne who without waiting for the Opinion of Rome had judged that that enterprise was just and legitimate and upon the return of the Jesuites who had taken the Journey to Rome they communicated to the Sorbonnists the Popes Answer of which several Copies were taken The Deputies who had been at Rome being returned to London confirmed the Catholicks in their Design To compass this point they thrust themselves in amongst the Independants by dissembling their Religion They persuaded those people that the King must be put to Death and it cost that poor Prince his Life some Months after But that Death of King Charles not having had all the Consequences that had been hoped and all Europe having cryed out with horrour against the Parricide committed in the Person of
that poor Prince they would have drawn in again all the Copies that had been made of the Consultation of the Pope and of that of Sorbonne but this English Chaplain who had turned Catholick would not restore his and he has communicated it since the return of the Family of the Stuarts to the Crown of England to several persons who are still alive and were Eye-witnesses of what I have now told you Par. I never heard this before But the English Calvinists not producing any authentick pieces to prove this accusation it may be looked upon as a Calumny Prov. My Hugonot Gentleman would not answer for it for he is very just However he added that what rendred it very probable is that this Conduct is a sequal of the Divinity of the zealous Catholicks of Spain Italy and even of France Moreover there are several Circumstances which render the thing apparent By example he that lately published this story had already once published it in the year 1662 to answer a little Book that insulted over the English Calvinists in that they had put to death their King The Divine who knew the story that I have related published it to prove that the Catholicks were guilty of the Crime which the Calvinists were accused of When this story came to light there was a great emotion in the House of the Queen-Mother of the King of England that House being full of Jesuits and even that great Lord who had lead the Jesuits to Rome and had made himself chief of that Conspiracy was one of the principal Officers of the House They immediately demanded Justice of the King by the means of the Queen-Mother for the outrage that he who had published this scandalous story had done them The Doctor offered to prove his Accusation and to produce his Witnesses who were still living The great Lord and Officer of the Queens House and the Jesuits seeing the resolution of this Man durst not push him on they only obtain'd from the King by the means of the Queen-Mother that he should be silenced You must avow that there are but few that are innocent who would have been so easie in so terrible an Accusation Besides it is certain that this Consultation of Rome has been seen by several persons If it is false it must have been forged by this Chaplain who was turned Catholick and who shewed it since now it must be confessed that this is not very likely However as all this is reduced to a single Witness my Gentleman acknowledged that the proof was not wholly in the forms but he stood much upon the late Conspiracy of England which was discovered two years ago by which half the Kingdom was to have had their Throats cut for the becoming Masters of the rest Par. You had a fine opportunity to stop him there for you know very well that our Catholicks maintain that it is a perfect Calumny invented by the Calvinists for the having an occasion to persecute the Catholicks The Jesuits of St. Omer have they not made appear that their Witnesses Oates and Bedlow are false Witnesses Prov. I did not fail to make him that reply but I avow to you that my Conscience did not permit me to rely much upon that Answer for to tell you the truth I am very much perswaded that it is false I know that the mistaken zeal and fury that the false Religion inspires are capable of a great many things I easily conceive that it might come into the head of forty of fifty false Zealots to lay a train for the ruine of the Party they would destroy but I shall never perswade my self that a whole Kingdom should enter into such a Conspiracy and that a Parliament composed of five or six hundred persons assembled from all the parts of a great State can enter unanimously into the Infernal Spirit of supposing such a Crime against Millions of Innocents for the having a pretext to persecute them And my old Hugonot who is full of fire and has a great deal of good sense took me up immediately with much vigour saying Is it possible that such a man as you can say such a thing Ah! leave such stories to the Jesuits of St. Omers they are accused it is not strange that they defend themselves and the action is so black and so detestable that they cannot do less than disavow it If it had had a happy success they would have been proud of it at present now they are discovered they deny it If there needs no more than denying to be justified never any one would be guilty They justifie themselves after a pretty manner they send about Certificates and Attestations to prove the Contradictions they impute to Oates which are things very hard to make and obtain In a severe Morality as is that of the Jesuits it is a great point for the persons who are instructed in their Schools to give false Certificates for the saving the Honour of all the Society of the Jesuits and even of all the Roman Church Though we had not the Tryals of Hill Green Berry Coleman Ireland Grove and Pickering which justifie the truth of that Conspiracy is it credible that there can be such wicked Judges as to condemn to death so many innocent persons If they had only had a design of dispatching those seven persons they had clandestine way to compass it But they must have renounced good Sense as well as Conscience to try openly and in the face of all Europe people whose innocence appearing to the eyes of all the Earth would have covered with shame and infamy those who should have condemned them If it be only a pretended quarrel against the Catholicks for the having a pretext to ruine them why are they not ruined All that has been spread abroad on this side the Sea are Fables It has not cost the life of one person besides these Wretches The Roman Catholicks have been for some time obliged to remove from London a very great punishment indeed for so detestable a Conspiracy I am certain that if such a Conspiracy of the Protestants has been discovered in France against the Catholicks which God forbid there would not be at this time one only Hugonot in the Kingdom and the People could not have been hindred from Massacring those who should have escaped from the rigours of the Justice The Murder committed in the person of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey the first Justice who took the Depositions and Particulars of the Conspiracy is so speaking and strong a proof that it alone is capable of confounding those who would charge the Protestants with the horrible Crime of having invented all that Tragedy for the aspersing the Roman Church What had that poor Justice done to merit the being assassinated Is it not clear that those Gentlemen who so well know how to make use of the Ponyard and the Knife had a mind to terrifie all the Judges and hinder them from pursuing an Inquest which should
as Bedlow I find he would be very Eloquent and that he would succeed admirably well in composing the Character of a Stage-Hero Let us speak seriously one must have renounced all Modesty to dare to maintain that all this great action is only a Comedy and a Fiction Par. But as concerning Father le Cheise whom your Hugonot spoke of in the affair of Coleman I have admired how the English have aspersed him by the publication of Colemans Tryal For this Father is every where therein in the middle beginning and the end and it is upon him that the most convincing proofs turn that are produced against Coleman It appears that this F. Jesuit was of the Party and that he was engaged very deep into the design of re-establishing the Roman Catholick Religion in England by fire and by the effusion of Blood Prov. My Gentleman made me that remark and told me thereupon Methinks that the King's Equity ought to move him not to hearken to such a Man in what regards the Interests of the Subjects of the Reformed Religion What may not the Protestants of France fear from a Man who has been so deeply engaged in the design of cutting the Throats of so many millions of Protestants What Counsels may not he give to the King against us who would have set whole Rivers of the Blood of our Brethren aslowing and make a St. Bartholomew beyond the Seas Though he was innocent of the Affair of England the advices he gives against us ought to be suspected For it is clear that he ought to have a great resentment of the fierce accusations that have been formed against him and that he would have the intention to revenge himself on the Protestants of France for the outrages that he might pretend to have receiv'd from the Protestants of England Wherefore it is certain that the King ought to consider him as our declared enemy and as a passionate enemy and not as a zealous Catholick However this Father Jesuit brags he is the Master of all the King's Resolutions in what concerns us It is he if he may be believed to whom the Catholick Church is indebted for all the severe Declarations that have been made against us And when the Declaration was obtained which forbids Catholicks to turn to the Reformed Religion he entred into the Assembly of the Clergy with that Declaration in his hand with a triumphing air and said Here is the piece that has been so long a solliciting it is I that have obtained it If this man be so powerful over the King's mind as he brags he is the Protestants of France could not be secure of their lives We know from good hands added he that the Members of the Council are not too well satisfied in that the affairs His Majesty was used to consult them about and believe them in are at present put into the hands of a Jesuit Par. For my part I avow to you I am not too well perswaded no more than you that this Conspiracy of the English Catholicks is a fiction But I endeavour to perswade it to others because that I wish it were so for the honour of the Catholick Religion which never ought to inspire such Designs Prov. Be it as it will my Hugonot Gentleman concluded from all this that a Protestant Prince can never be assured of the Fidelity of his Catholick Subjects On the contrary said he the Protestants are subject to their Prince out of Conscience and out of a Principle of their Religion They acknowledge no other Superiour than their King and do not believe that for the cause of Heresie it is permitted either to kill a legitimate Prince or to refuse him obedience Par. You might have asked him if what the English do at present against the Duke of York agrees well with that Divinity Because that he is said to be Catholick they would declare him uncapable of succeeding his Brother Prov. I had not time to propose to him that difficulty for he prevented it It is true said he to me that the troubles which are in England seem to tend towards the refusing Obedience to the Duke of York because he is a Catholick When a Soveraign is mounted upon the Throne by legitimate means it seems said I to him that he ought at least to have as much priviledge as his Subjects and enjoy as well as them the Liberty of Conscience That is true answered he me when he has not bound his hands by his own Laws But by the Laws of the Kingdom of England which are the Laws of the King as well as of the State the King is obliged not to suffer any other Religion in the State than the Protestant Religion These Laws cannot be repealed but by the Parliament jointly with the King because that in that Kingdom for the making or repealing Laws the King can do nothing without the Parliament nor the Parliament without the King Wherefore if the Parliament is against the Repealing of these Laws if they must subsist and while that they subsist the King has not power to establish in his Family a different Religion from that of the State You know said he to me that the people of England have great Priviledges and that the Kings have not the Right to do all that they please Particularly added he when there is a Prince to be established the States of the Kingdom who are obliged to be careful of the Preservation of the Religion are authorized to take all their Sureties that no change may be made therein Thus they must either remove from the Throne if they have the Right to do so he who would mount into it to ruin the Religion or at least they ought to bridle his Authority for the hindring him from making changes The Religion of Henry the 4th before he turned Catholick was an Obstacle to his establishment upon the Throne which he would never have surmounted though he was the legitimate Heir of the Crown Par. This man is very knowing He certainly came prepared upon the matter For extempore he could not have given to his reasons so great an air of likelihood Prov. He came without doubt prepared and I likewise perceived that he daily consulted people more knowing than himself For he cleared and argued strongly the next day upon such points as I had found him weak in the day before One of the points of which he spoke to me with the most zeal and passion was that of good Faith They oppose against us said he to me the English and Holland Catholicks But what has been promised to those people that has not been performed The United Provinces of the Low Countries are entred into the Union with this Condition of not suffering any other Religion in their States than the Protestant Though England was reformed under Edward the 6th afterwards under Elizabeth by several Acts of Parliament which are the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom it was ordered that no other Religion should
Oath of Fidelity He who spoke for them alledged all the examples of Emperours and of Kings who had been Deposed and Excommunicated by Popes upon account of refusing Obedience to the Holy See approved them he alledged the example of St. Vrban the Second who Excommunicated Philip the First and laid an Ecclesiastical Censure upon his Kingdom because he had repudiated his Wife Bertha Daughter of a Count of Holland to Marry Bertrade Wife of Foulques Count d' Anjou then still alive He made use of the testimony of Paul Emile who said that Pope Zacharias dispensed the French from the Oath of Fidelity that they had made to Chilperick These two Princes were not Hereticks yet the Clergy of France approved their having been stript of their States by the Popes which makes appear that the Clergy in the bottom judges that the Pope has Right to lay an Ecclesiastical Consure upon the Kingdom of France and to depose its Kings for any other cause as well as that or Heresâ—e Is it not to abuse the World to confess on one side that the Temporalty of Kings does not depend on the Pope and establish on the other that the Pope may in certain occasions Interdict these Kings Excommunicate them and Absolve their Subjects from the Oath of Fidelity In sine this is the result of that famous Opinion of the Clergy of France So that if Christians are constrained to defend their Religion and their lives against Heretick Princes or Apostates from their Fidelity to whom they have been Absolved the Politick Christian Laws does not permit them any thing more than what is permitted by Military Laws and by the Right of Nations to wit open War and not Assassination and Clandestine Conspiracies that is to say that when a Pope has declâ—â—ed a Prince deprived of his â—tates his Subjects may set up the Standard of Rebellion declare War against him refuse him Obedience and kill him if they can meet him provided it be with arms in their hand and by the ordinary course of War I cannot comprehend how one can be secured of the Fidelity of those who hold such like Maximes For in fine Kings are not insallible and if they happen to do any thing that the Court of Rome judges worthy of Excommunication and Interdiction they are Kings without Kingdoms and Subjects according to our Clergy of France as well as according to the Divines of Italy But perhaps that the Sorbonne which is the Depository of the French Divinity does not receive these Maximes so fatal to the safety of Kings Let us see what it has done In the Month of December 1587 because that Henry the Third for the security of his Person and of his State made a Treaty with the Resisters or the German Protestants the Sorbonne without staying for the Decisions of Rome made a secret Result which said That the Government might be taken from Princes who were not found such as they ought to be as the administration from a suspected Tutour This was known by the King he sent for the Sorbonne some days after and complained of it After the death of the Princes of Guise which happen'd at Blois the Sorbonne did much worse they declared and caused to be published in all parts of Paris That all the People of that Kingdom were Absolved from the Oaths of Fidelity that they had sworn to Henry of Valois heretofore their King they razed his name out of the publick Prayers and made known to the People that they might with safe Conscience unite arm and contribute to make War against him as a Tyrant If I would add to that the Story that I know this Gentleman told you concerning the Death of the late King of England we should find that the Sorbonne has ever been of the same Opinion Let things be told as they are every time that our Kings shall have assairs that will carry them to extremity against the Court of Rome the Clergy of France will suppress the discontents while that affairs go well for the Court of France but if things turn otherways the dictates of our Divines against the King will not fail to break out Every sincere person will allow that it has never been otherwise than so and that it will be always thus which may be observed in the very least disputes By example in that the King has now lately had with the Pope upon the account of the Regality and of the Vrbanists the publick has seen a Letter from the Clergy Addressed to the King when he departed to visit the Frontiers of the Low-Countries In that Letter these Gentlemen promise the King let whatever be the issue of his Disputes with the Pope they will be always inviolably fixed to his Majesties Interests But we know from good hands that the Archbishop of Paris and the Sieur Rose Secretary of the Cabinet are the sole Authors of that Letter the Bishops have almost openly disavowed it And this makes it apparent enough that in this Dispute they were of the Popes side Must it not then be confessed that it is the King's Interest to preserve the only Party that makes Oath of Fidelity to him without exception and without reserve that can never have engagements contrary to his Service either with Spain or the Court of Rome or with the revolted Clergy favouring the Enemies of the State And it is well known that in the time of Henry the Third while that all the Corporations of the Kingdom were in an actual Rebellion against their Prince the Hugonot was the only one which remained Loyal If it was necessary to add any thing more pursued our Civil Lawyer for to prove that it is the King's Interest to protect the Reformed in his States one might say that the Alliances that have been made with Foreign Protestants have not been disadvantageous to the State Since the year 1630 its engagements with England Holland Sweden and the Elector of Brandenburg have been a great help towards its humbling the House of Austria Cardinal Richlieu successfully employed the King of Sweden for to punish the pride to which that House was mounted after the defeat of the Palatine House that had accepted the Crown of Bohemia And it is well enough known that the Protection that the King gave the Protestants in his Territories facilitated those Foreign Engagements and Alliances Thus our Orator ended and made a pause at this place Par. He has forgot a great Article That which is against the Peace of a State is ever against his Interests who governs it Nothing is more incompatible with Peace than diversity of Religions Prov. He did not forget it but he thought he had said enough for one time and referred what he had more to say till the next day This morning sour Gentleman returned and as what was said is fresher in my memory perhaps I shall give you a more exact account I know very well continued our Hugonot Civil Lawyer that I am to