The Late APOLOGY In behalf of the PAPISTS Reprinted and Answered In behalf of the ROYALLISTS LONDON Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun in S. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXIII TO THE AUTHOR OF THE Apology SIR ABout fourscore Years ago in a time when there were such Apprehensions of the Papists as now there are and howsoever they are now surely then they were not without cause some of your Predecessors to palliate the matter and to make their Governors more secure of them writ a Book to this effect that Catholicks are to imploy no other Arms against their Prince but the Arms of Christians viz. Tears and Spiritual Means daily Prayers and Watchings and Fastings So you begin My Lords and Gentlemen The Arms which Christians can use against lawful Powers in their severity are only Prayers and Tears We cannot say that you writ your Book for the same End as they did But we do not like it that you jump so together in the same Beginning Now since nothing can equal the infinity of those we have shed but the cause viz. to see our dearest Friends forsake us we hope it will not offend you if after we have a little wip'd our eyes we sigh out our Complaints to you Of the Cause of your Tears we shall say more anon Of the Quantity of them you say very extravagantly Nothing can equal the infinity of those we have shed For you might have excepted those of the Protestants in Queen Maries dayes or of them that suffered in the late Irish Rebellion You ought to have excepted the Fears of your Fabulous Purgatory and yet those are said to be short of Infinity But you Jesuites love to be Hyperbolical whether ranting or whining as if that Religion which obliges you to damn all other Christians had likewise forbidden you to speak like other Men. We had spoke much sooner had we not been silent through Consternation to see you inflamed whom with reverence we honor and also to shew our submissive patience which used no slights nor tricks to divert the Debates of Parliament for no body can imagine where so many of the great Nobility and Gentry are concerned but something might have been done when as in all Ages we see things of publick advantage by the managers dexterity nipt in the bud even in the very Houses them selves Far be it from Catholicks to perplex Parliaments who have been the Founders of their I riviledges and all Antient Laws Nay Magna Charta it self had its rise from us which we do the less boast of since it was not at first obtained in so submiss and humble a manner In the same Roman Style you commend your owne silence and patience You boast that you have been the Founders of the Parliaments Priviledges and all Antient Laws Of the first let every man believe as he sees cause But the second we cannot allow in either sense whether you mean it of your selves or of your Predecessors For as now in your Church men are of two sorts even so they were heretofore in this Realm There were some that wholly minded the common interests of Christian Religion and Civil Government Others were Papalini asserters and promoters of the Popes usurpations They which acted in those first capacities were not more your Predecessors than Ours They which acted in the other were truly and only Yours You say We sung our Nunc Dimittis when we saw our Master in his Throne and you in your deserved Authority and Rule 'T is very well And yet some of you sung your Venite Exultemus when you saw his Blessed Father upon the Scaffold But what of that since the Son is King who is not glad that he is King or whom would it not grieve to have his Loyalty called in Question Nor could any thing have ever grieved us more but to have our Loyalty called into question by you even at the instigation of our greatest Adversaries If we must suffer let it be by you alone for that 's a double Death to men of Honor to have their Enemies not only accusers but for their insulting Judges also Sir he that is Loyal and a man of Honor has no cause to fear Death double or single For our Kings have alwayes Declared that they put no man to death for Religion Therefore if you Truly fear Death it is for Treason If you only pretend this it is a Calumny Either way you are no friend to the Government for all your pretences to Honor and Loyalty These are they that by beginning with us murthered their Prince and wounded you and shall the same method continue by your Approbation We are sure you mean well though their design be wicked but never let it be recorded in story that you forgot your often Vows to us in joyning with them that have been the cause of so great Calamity to the Nation How far it is true that the Kings Murtherers began with you we shall consider anon But it seems you take the Liberty of bestowing that Character upon whom you please that no man hereafter may dare move for the Execution of any Law against you for fear of being said to continue the Method of the Kings Murtherers As for any Vows that we have made to you whatsoever they are you are more sure of them than we can be of any that you make to us for we have no Pope to dispense with them Neither is it recorded in Story that English Protestants ever joyn'd with the Enemies of their Nation Of all Calumnies against Catholicks we have admired at none so much as that their Principles are said to be inconsistent with Government and they themselves thought ever proue to Rebellion 'T is a Calumny of yours to call those things Calumnies which are true and which you cannot Deny without such a Presumption as we should much admire in you if it were not so very Ordinary Concerning your Principles where should we look for them but in your Councils your Decretals and the Books of your Divines In each of these we are taught that the Pope has a Power to depose Kings and to discharge Subjects from their Allegiance which Doctrines are utterly inconsistent with Government for whosoever believes them no Prince can be secure of him But whosoever is a Papist is bound to believe them And he that has imbib'd this Faith may well be thought ever prone to Rebellion The Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent III. expresly Ordains that in case any Prince be a favourer of Hereticks after admonition given The Pope shall discharge his Subjects from their Allegiance and shall give away his Kingdom to some Catholick that may root out those Hereticks and possess his Kingdom without contradiction 'T is observable that this Pope was himself a deposer of Kings namely of John King of England and of Otho IV. the Emperor and also that this Council which made Rebellion a Duty was the first that made Transubstantiation an Article of Faith Next for the Bulls and Decrees of your Popes which according to Bellarmine are sufficient to make that to be sin which is not sin or not to be sin which is sin it would be tedious to instance in all that could be produc'd to this purpose From Gregory VII downward such a Trade was driven of deposing Kings that
King he would not meddle between them I leave that Question saith he to be decided by the two Supream Powers the Pope and the King when occasion shall be for it My Lords and Gentlemen had this been a new Sect not known before something perchance might have been doubted but to lay this at their doors that have govern'd the civilliz'd world is the miracle of miracles to us Sir we know not how to cure your wonder but by shewing you 't is unreasonable For you can it a Miracle that men judge according to good Evidence Who doubts less of the dangerousness of your Principles and Practices than they that have Read most and had most Experience of them We can give you no greater instance than in King James of blessed Memory who was no stranger to you either way and this is his judgment of you That as on the one part many honest â—en sâ—dâ—ced with some Errors of Poâ—ery may yet remain goâ—d and faitâ—ful Subjects So on the other part none of those that truly know and believe â—he whole grounds and School-conclusions of â—heir Doctrines can ever prove either goâ—d Christians or good Subjects But pray Sir when was it that you govern'd the civiliz'd World For the Eastern and Southern Churches never own'd your Government nor yet the Western while Learning flourished But when Barbarity had over-run it then Popery grew up by degrees and made it more Barbarous both in Ignorance and in Cruelty Then came in those Doctrines of Transubstantiation c. Then came in those Papal Usurpations c. which the Woâ—ld being again Civiliz'd hath partly thrown off and partly reduced into more tolerable terms Did Richard the First or Edward Long-shanks suspect his Catholicks that served in Palestine and make our Countryes Fame big in the Chronicle of all Ages or did they mistrust in their dangerous absence their Subjects at home because they were of the same profession could Edward the Third imagine those to be traiterous in their Doctrine that had that care and duty for their Prince as to make them by Statute guilty of Death in the highest Degree that had the least thought of ill against the King be pleased that Henry the Fifth be remembred also who did those Wonders of which the whole World does yet resound and certainly all History will agree in this that 't was Oldcastle he feared and not those that believed the Bishop of Rome to be Head of the Church The Reigns of those Kings whom you speak of were in those dark times when all Goodness declin'd and Corruptions were daily growing upon us Richard the First being told he had three wicked Daughters Pride Covetousness and Leachery said he could not Match them better than among your Templers Fathers and Friars Edward the First out-law'd the whole Clergy of this Realm for refusing to pay the King any Taxes because the Pope had forbidden them to do it And both those other Princes whom you mention made Laws against his Usurpations Edward the Third made a notable one of this kind by advice of that very Parliament in which he enacted his Laws against Treason And certainly Henry the Second was more vex'd with Becket than ever Henry V. feared Oldcastle We doubt not those Kings had many good Subjects and our King hath some better than you seem to be But they differed not in Religion as you do from ours And yet then your Faction was always encroaching where it was suffered and dangerous where it was opposed Did not your Pope force King John to do him homage for England Did he not wrestle with Edward I. for the Sovereignty of Scotland Hath he not often laid claim to the Kingdom of Ireland If the old Gentleman in a pet should go to turn out his Tenant what would our King have left when these are disposed of We will no longer trouble you with putting you in mind of any more of our mighty Kings who have been feared abroad and as safe at home as any since the Reformation of Religion We shall only add this That if Popery be the enslaving of Princes France still believes it self as absolute as Denmark or Sweden The French King will believe what he pleases but not all that you say of him For he cannot but know that the Pope gave away that Kingdom from some of his Predecessors and maintained War in it against his Grandfather till he brought him to his terms And why hath not His Holiness dealt so with him that now is partly for the sake of his Religion but chiefly for fear of a Storm lest his Coin should do that which Lewis the Twelfth's only threatned in the Inscription of it PERDAM BABYLONIS NOMEN Nor will ever the House of Austria abjure the Pope to secure themselves of the fidelity of their Subjects For the Austrian Princes that are so link'd to the Pope and whose Subjects are all Papists you suggest a mad way to secure themselves by firing their Countrey about their ears But what is this to England where since the exclusion of that trash which you call the Catholick Faith the King and the greatest part of his People are no Papists and have had so much trouble and danger for it from them that are May not Reason and Experience teach us to fear that having to do with the same kind of Adversaries we may still have some troublesome and dangerous Enemies No we have none to fear but our selves if we may believe you For say you We shall always acknowledge to the whole world that there have been as many brave English in this last Century as in any other place whatsoever yet since the exclusion of the Catholick Faith there hath been that committed by those who would fain be called Protestants that the wickedest Papist at no time dreamt of Pray Sir what may that be For you have murthered Kings and them of your own Religion four or five in this Realm since the Conquest not to speak of those Numbers elsewhere But that was in the growing Age of Popery In latter times have you so soon forgot our Kings Grand-Father Henry IV. murthered by Ravilliac or his Predecesfor Henry III. murthered by Fryar Clement and the People you have kill'd up by whole Families and Townships Witness England Ireland France Piedmont which you may hear of elsewhere These things have been done by Papists broad awake and what must that be which the wickedst of them never dreamt of 'T was never heard of before that an absolute Queen was condemned by Subjects and those styled her Peers or that a King was publickly Tryed and Executed by his own People and Servants First you tell us of the Queen of Scots being put to Death in Queen Elizabeths Reign It was by the same colour of right we suppose that Wallis suffered in Edward the First 's Reign namely of that Sovereignty that our Princes challenged over Scotland But Edward I. was
ere while a laudable Papist and Queen Elizabeth for all this might be a very good Pâ—otestant Sure we are that King James and King Charles who were nearest concerned in this matter never imputed the Fault of it to her Religion Your other instance is of that most execrable Murther committed on the best of Kings by his own Subjects and by such as you say would fain be called Proâ—estants Sir we would fain be called Christians and Members of the Catholick Church would you take it well of a Turk that should therefore charge our faults upon you but you do worse than a Turk in charging these mens faults upon us They were neither then nor since of our Communion but that blessed Prince was whom they murther'd He declared upon the Scaffold I dye a Christian according to the profession of the Church of England as I found it left me by my Father He charged the Princess Elizabeth not to grieve and torment her self for him for that would be a gloâ—ious Death which he should dye it being for the Laws and Liberties of this Land and for maintaining the true Protestant Religion He died with some Care not to leave you this advantage by his Death as it appears by these words of his last Letter to His Majesty that now is The scandal of the late Troubles which some may object and urge to you against the Protestant Religion established in England is easily answered to them or your own thoughts in this that scarce any one who hath been a beginner or an active prosecutor of this late War against the Church the Laws and Mee either was or is a true lover embracer or practicer of the Protestant Religion established in England which neither gives such Rules nor ever before set such Examples My Lords and Gentlemen we know who were the Authors of this last abomination how generously you strove against the raging Torrent nor have we any other ends to remember you of it but to shew that all Religions may have a corrupted spawn and that God hath been pleased to permit such a Rebellion which our Progenitors never saw to convince you perchance whom for ever may he prosper that popery is not the only source of treason But do you indeed know who were the Authors of this last abomination Pray Sir be plain with us for in these doubtful words there seems to be more truth than every man is aware of The Rebellion that led to it began we know in Scotland where the design of it was first laid by Cardinal Richelien His Majesties irreconcileable Enemy Then it broke out in Ireland where it was blest with His Holiness's Letters and assisted by his Nuntio whom he sent purposely to attend the Fire there Lastly here in England you did your parts to unsettle the People and gave them needless occasions of jealousie which the vigilant Phanaticks made use of to bring us all into War and Confusion Both in England and Scotland the special Tools that they wrought with were borrowed out of your Shops It was His Majesties own Observat on by which you may guess whose spawn they were Their Maxims saith he were the same with the Jesuites their Preachers Sermons were delivered in the very phrase of Becanus Scioppius and Eudaemon Johannes their poor Arguments which they delivered in their seditious Pamphlets printed or written were taken almost verbatim out of Bellarmin and Suarez In Ireland where you durst do it you imploy'd Iron and Steel against him with which you might as well have preserved him if you had pleased but you denyed to do that as he tell us only upon account of Religion Then followed the accursed Fact it self agreed to in the Councils of your Clergy contriv'd and executed by the Phanaticks In vain did the poor Royallist strive against it for what could he do when two such streams met against him of which the deepest was that which came from Rome where the false Fisherman open'd all his Flood-gates to overwhelm us with those troubles which for the advantage of his trade he had often before endeavoured but could never prevail till now to send them pouring in upon us Little we think when your Prayers and ours were offer'd up to beg a blessing on the Kings Affairs ever to see that day in which Carlos Gifford Whitgrave the Pendrels should he punish'd by your desires for that Religion which obliged them to save their forlorn prince a stigmatized man for his Offences against King Church a chief promoter of it Nay less did we imagine that by your Votes Huddleston might be hang'd who again secured our Sovereign and others free in their fast Possessions that sate as Judges and sealed the Execution of that great Prince of happy Memory That many Gentlemen of your Church were not of your Party we do willingly acknowledge and that some of them in that critical day of Danger did the King very eminent Service But so did Protestants too therefore you cannot ascribe this to Your Religion Nor does it seem reasonable that to requite particular persons for their service we should abandon those Laws which may secure the publick against as great a danger To question his Life that had freely exposed it for our Sovereigns were too great a Barbarity for any Christians but of your Sect or any Age but Queen Maries dayes for then Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was indeed so dealt with but we do not more detest those times than such examples And we know that His Majesty without any trespass on his Laws may protect and reward those persons whom he judgeth deserving it as well as his Royal Predecessors did in whose Reigns the penal Laws were made Pray be you as favourable to the stigmatized Man whom sure you are not angry with for his Offence against King and Church whatsoever you say and if he be now a promoter of any thing that displeaseth you bear with him as His Majesty doth for whom he lately did his utmost against Phanaticks toward the bringing of him in and he would not willingly live to see the Pope turn him out again For the Regicides be as severe with them as you please only beware how you tax His Majesty's Mercy for fear you may have need of it We confess we are unfortunate and you just Judges whom with our lives we will ever maintain to be so nor are we ignorant the necessity of Affairs made both the King and you do things which formerly you could not so much as fancy Yet give us leave to say we are still loyal nay to desire you to believe so and to remember how Synonymous under the late Rebellion was the word Papist and Cavalier for there was never no Papist that was not deemed a Cavalier nor no Cavalier that was not called a Papist or at least judged to be popishly affected Your fawning upon the Parliament and commending of your selves we pass over as things
Legitimate Daughter to Henry the Eighth and therefore it was thought necessarily to follow by many That if Mary was the true Child Elizabeth was the Natural which must then needs give way to the thrice Noble Queen of Scots Under Queen Elizabeth you wish your Party had more patience and we think they Needed none for in the first ten Years of her Reign they had no Business for it In all that space of time which was twice as long as Queen Maries Reign though it was fresh in memory what the Papists had done yet not one of them suffered Death till the Northern Rebellion which being raised against her only upon the account of her Religion it appears that She was the persecuted person She had the occasion for Patience and you would have wished Them more Loyalty if any such thing had been in your thoughts But perhaps you wish they had so much patience as not to have discovered their design before it was fully ripe for execution Not unlike For it appears you account Rebellion no fault by this that you say you excuse not their faults and yet you do excuse their Rebellion You excuse them by saying it was a very hard Question whether the Right of the Crown lay in her or in the Queen of Scots for that many thought Queen Elizabeth Illegitimate Pray Sir who Thought it or when arose that Question The Arch-Bishop of York though a Papist in his Speech at the publishing of Queen Maries Death said No man could doubt of the justness of the Lady Elizabeths Title to the Succession The whole Kingdom received her and owned her as Queen more generally and freely than eyer they did Queen Mary The Neighbour Kings of Spain and France and the Emperor offered Marriage to her in hopes to have got the Crown by her The Queen of Scots her self did acknowledge her and claimed nothing more than to be Heir to her and so did King James that was her Successor So that whosoever opposed Queen Elizabeths Right if they were English 'c is apparent they were Rebels and if they were Papists we may guess what led them to it For the first that Questioned her Title was Pope Paul IV. who would not acknowledge her for sundry causes the chief that he alledged were these First Because this Kingdom is a Fee of the Papacy and it was audaciously done of her to assume it without his leave The second was because she was Illegitimate for if her Fathers Marriage were good the Pope must let down his Mill. But after all this his Successor Pius IV did own her and would have done any thing for her so she would have owned him Which because she would not the next Pope Pius V. issued out his Bull against her and deposed her not for Bastardy but for Heresie that is for being a Protestant for which Heresie it was that the Northern men Rebelled against her and many more of her Subjects disowned her and some or other were every foot plotting how to take away her life True it is that some of these pretended to do it in favour of the Queen of Scots But how if that Queen had not been a Catholick or Queen Elizabeth had not Been thought Illegitimate would a legitimate Protestant have been so contended for or would a Popish Bastard have been rejected by them Pope Gregory XIII had occasion to consider this For his Holiness had a Bastard of his own to provide for and another of the Emperors no doubt good Catholicks both of them To one he gave the Kingdom of Ireland and set out Stukely with Forces to win it for him To the other he gave the Kingdom of England and gave him leave to win it for himself But what was all this to the thrice Noble Queen of Scots Possibly she might have been preferred to have married one of the rwo but then it must have been expresly with this condition That her Son King James who was a Heretick should have nothing to do with the Succession When their bubbles were broken and she was dead all her Right descended to King James who being as little to the Pope's mind as Q. Elizabeth was Sixtus V. only took no publick notice of Him but he proceeded with all his might against Her He curst her afresh and publisht a Croysade against her and gave the whole Right of Her Kingdoms to Philip the II. King of Spain But neither that Popes Bounty nor his three Successors Blessings nor the Spanish Arms nor the Italian Arts for no way was left untried could ever prevail against Gods Providence which till the end of her days kept that Queen always fast in her Possessions At last Pope Clement VIII seeing there was nothing to be done against her resolv'd to let her go like a Heretick as she was and to take the more care that another Heretick should not succeed her For which cause he sent over two Breves into England one to the Clergy and the other to the Laity commanding them not to admit any other but a Catholick though never so near in Blood to the Succession that is to say in plain words not to admit King James to Reign after Queen Elizabeths death So 't is clear that your Popes never stuck at that hard Question that you speak of Let us see what our Country-men did who as you say suffered for it in those days They did like obsequious Members at every turn as their Head directed them They acted for the Papal Interest as far as they were able They made the House of Scotland the Cloak for it as far as it would reach And it reacht pretty well as long as the Title was in Queen Mary But after the Title came to be in King James Pray Sir name us those Papists or but one single person of them that either died or suffered for Him and then you bless us with a discovery What then were they idle for so many years as past between the commencing of his Title and the Death of Queen Elizabeth Nothing less For they were as busie as Bees in contriving how to hasten her Death and how to put him by the Succession And if it were for his Service that they would have destroyed Her pray for whose service was it that they would have defeated Him but that will be known by the story Soon after his Mothers Death was the Spanish Invasion which would have defeated him with a Witness if it had sped and yet our Papists both Negotiated it and writ in Defence of it Afterwards in Scotland your Jesuites procured the Earl of Huntley and others to raise a powerful Rebellion against him In England they endeavoured to perswade the Earl of Derby to set up a Title to the Crown who honestly revealing it was poisoned soon after according to the prophetical threatning of Hesket whom they had made use of to perswade him When