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
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
fear of too much contradicting thee May it not be as well said in the next Catholick Kings Reign that the Duke of Guise and Cardinal Heads of the League were killed for their Religion also Now no body is ignorant but 't was their Factious Authority which made that jealous Prince design their Deaths though by unwarrantable means The Duke of Guise and his Brother were not killed for their Religion for they were killed by one of the same Religion and one that was bent against the Protestants as much as they Only because he spared the blood of the Protestants your Zealots hated him and so much the more because a Protestant being his Heir he would not declare him uncapable of the Succession For these causes by the Popes consent these Guises whom he called the Maccabes of the Church entred into an Holy League against their King and called in the Succors of Spain and Savoy which they paid for with the Rights of the Crown they maintained a sharp War against him and did all that was in their power to deprive him of his Kingdom and Life Whereupon that jealous Prince as you favourably call him for his own preservation was urged to deal with them as they had dealt with the Protestants from whose case this of the Guises is so vastly different that one would wonder why you should mention it But since you have led us thus far out of the way let us invite you a little farther The Pope Excommunicated the King for this Action and granted 9 Years of true Indulgence to any of his Subjects that would bear Arms against him and foretold as a Pope might do without Astrology that e're long he should come to a fearful Death The Subjects took Arms and earned the Indulgence A Friar took his Knife and fulfilled the Prediction by ripping up those Bowels that were always most tenderly affected with kindness to the Monkish Orders But what joy was there at Rome for this as if the news of another Massacre had come to Town one would think so by the Popes Oration to his Cardinals in which he sets forth this work of God the Kings Murther for its wonderfulness to be compared with Christs Incarnation and Resurrection And the Friars Vertue and Courage and fervent Love of God he prefers before that of Eleazar in the Maccabees or of Judith killing Holofernes and the murthered King who had profest himself to dye in the Faith of the Roman Catholick Apostolick Church he declared to have died in the Sin against the Holy Ghost Pray Sir may it not well be said that Papists cannot live without persecuting Protestants when we see a Popish King stabb'd and damned for not persecuting them enough or for doing the work of the Lord negligently If it were for Doctrine that Hugonots suffered in France this Haughty Monarch would soon destroy them now having neither Force nor Town to resist his Might and Puissance They yet live free enough being even Members of Parliament and may convert the Kings Brother too if he think fit to be so Thus you see how well Protestants may live in a Popish Country under a Popish King nor was Charlemain more Catholick than this for though he contends something with the Pope 't is not of Faith but about Gallicane Priviledges which perchance he may very lawfully do Iudge then worthy Tatriots who are the best used and consider our hardship here in England where it is not only a Fine for hearing Mass but death to the Master for having a Priest in his House and so far we are from preserment That by Law we cannot come within 10 miles of London all which we know your great mercy will never permit you to exact You say if this were true then this Hanghty Monarch would soon destroy his Hugonots now No such consequence Sir for he may persecute them and not destroy them he may destroy them but not so soon Princes use to go their own pace whilst they are upon their legs but if any misfortune throws them upon all four then the Pope gets up and rides them what pace he pleaseth Nor is this Monarch yet so Catholick as Charlemain was if he were he would do as Charlemain did He would be Patron of all the Bishopricks in his Empire even of Rome it self if it were there He would make the Pope himself know the distance between a Prelate and an Emperor He would maintain the Rights of his Crown and not chop Logick about Gallicane Priviledges which you say like a sly Jesuite that perchance he may lawfully do He would call a Council when he pleased to separate Errors from the Faith as Charlemain himself called a Council against Image-Worship which was then creeping into the Church This were a good way of destroying the Hugonots by taking away all causes of strife amongst Christians By any other way than this he cannot destroy them without the violation of his Laws which as they are the only Forces and Towers whereby Subjects ought to be secured against their King so since he is pleased to allow them no other these Laws backt with his puissance are forces enough to secure them against their fellow-Subjects We cannot pass this Paragraph without observing your Jesuitical ingenuity how you slight those favours that you have how you complain of those hardships that you have not and how you insult over the poor Hugonots by comparing with them who generally would mend their condition by changing with you Pray Sir do not Popish-Peers sit in our English Parliaments as well as Protestants in the French or have you not as free access to our Kings Brother as they have to theirs or would you have his Highness to Catechise as the Abbot had the Duke of Glocester perhaps that you would have Otherwise we know nothing but His Highness's Wisdom and care of his Conscience that guards him from you Of the Laws you complain hideously Worthy Patriots consider our hardship And yet those very Laws you complain of you never knew executed in your life and you tell us soon after that you know they never will be For what cause then were they enacted Plainly for this cause to guard the lives of our Princes against your traiterous practices It hath often been urged that our Misdemeanors in Queen Elizabeth's days and King James's time was the cause of our Panishment Your Misdemeanors We cry you mercy if they were no more but that comes next to be argued Whether they were Misdemeanors or Treasons We earnestly wish that the Party had more patience under that Princess But pray consider though we excuse not their faults whether it was not a question harder than that of York and Lancaster the cause of a War of such length and death of so many Princes who had most right Q Elizabeth or Mary Stuart for since the whole Kingdom had crowned and sworn Allegiance to Q. Mary they had owned her
these single shots failed Father Parsons gave a broad-side to the Royal House of Scotland For he publisht a Book under the name of Dolman wherein he set up divers Competitours for the Succession and consequently so many Enemies to the unquestionable Right of that Family And to provide one sure Enemy upon the place he found out a Title for the Earl of Essex the most ambitious and popular Man in the Nation to whom also he craftily dedicated his Book In which he mentions among other Books of this nature one written by Lesley concerning the Queen of Scots Title another by Heghinton for the King of Spains Title and another concerning the Prince of Parma's But for his part before these and all others he prefers the Title of the Infanta And to shew that he meant as he said he caused their Scholars in the Seminaries abroad to subscribe to it and made them swear to maintain it and bound the Missionaries to promote it in those places whither they were to be sent Whereas for King James his Title he preferrs several others before it and tells us I have not found very many in England that favour it meaning sure of your Catholicks with whom his converse chiefly was and concerning whom he gives this remarkable testimony that the Catholicks make little account of his Title by nearness of Succession We have reason to believe he did not wrong them because when an answer was written to his Book the Arch-Priest Blackwel would not suffer it to be published And your next Head-Officer the Provincial of the Jesuites declared he would have nothing to do with King James his Title and 't was the common voice of the men of his Order that if King James would turn Catholick they would follow him but if not they would all die against him Which pious Resolutions were seconded with agreeable Actions For they endeavoured as far as Catholicks are obliged by their Principles viz. as far as they durst and were able at first to hinder him from coming in and afterwards to throw him out again or to destroy him in the place as we shall have occasion to shew you in the answer to the next Paragraph The mean while out of this present discourse in which you cannot deny any thing that is material to our purpose It appears that this hard Question of Right to the Crown was not between the Parties themselves in one or t'other of whom you confess the Right was It appears that your Infallible Judge of Controversies very easily and impartially resolv'd it by denying both sides of the Question and assuming the whole right to himself It appears that your Catholicks who are said to have sided with one against the other did in truth side with the Pope against them both And lastly it appears that their Misdemeanors were inexcusable Treasons if any Treason can be inexcusable that is befriended with such an Apologist 'T was for the Royal House of Scotland that they suffered in those days and 't is for the same Illustrious Family we are ready to hazard all on any occasion Sir we have found you notoriously False in that which you Affirm Pray God you prove True in that which you Promise Nor can the consequence of the former procedure be but ill if a Henry VIII whom Sir W. Raleigh and my Lord Cherbury two famous Protestants have so homely Characteriz'd should after twenty years cohabitation turn away his Wife and this out of scruple of Conscience as he said when as History declares that he never spared Woman in his Lust nor Man in his Fury This Character would better agree with many a Head of a Church whom we could name you than with Henry VIII of whom better Historians speak better things But if he were such a Monster as you would make him perhaps it was for want of a better Religion for he was perfectly of Yours except only in the point of Supremacy And you had no occasion for this flurt at him unless that having undertaken to put the best colours upon Treason you might think you did something towards it in bespattering of Kings We have a touch of the same Art in the next Paragraph Where having undertaken to excuse the Gun-powder-Treason you call it first a Misdemeanor then the Fifth of November and then a Conjuration soft words all of them but you deal wicked hardly with the great Minister of State whom you make to have been the Author of it as if the Traitors had not conspired against the State but the State against them But before we come to answer this It will be needful to set down the story as it appears out of the Examinations and Confessions of the Traitors themselves The rise of this Treason was from the before-mentioned Breves of Pope Clement VIII in which he required all his Catholicks that after the death of that wretched Woman Queen Elizabeth they should admit none but a Catholick to reign over them These Breves were by Garnet the Provincial of the Jesuites communicated to Catesby and others who in Obedience thought best to begin their Practices in her life time So they sent Father Tesmund and Winter into Spain to crave the assistance of that Crown The Spaniard sent them back with the promise of an Army But soon after Queen Elizabeth died and no Army came Therefore again they sent Christopher Wright into Spain to hasten iâ— and Stanley out of Flanders sent Fawks thither upon the same errand who finding the Councils of Spain at this time wholly enclined to peace returned quickly back and brought nothing but despair along with them Yet the Breves had so wrought upon Catesby that he could not find in his heart to give over but still casting about for ways he hit upon this of the Powder-Treason which as being much out of the common Rode he thought the most secure for his purpose He communicated this to Winter who approved it and fetcht Fawks out of Flanders to assist in it Not long after Piercy being in their company and offering himself to any service for the Catholick Cause though it were even the Kings Death Catesby told him that that was too poor an Adventure for him but saith he if thou wilt be a Traitor there is a Plot of greater advantage and such a one as can never be discovered Thus having duly prepar'd him he took him into the Conspiracy And the like he did with so many more as made up their Number thirteen of the Laity But where were the Jesuites all the while rot idle you may be sure The Provincial Garnet was privy to it from the beginning so were divers more of the Society Insomuch that when Watson endeavour'd to have drawn them into his Plot for the setting up of the Lady Arbella's Title in opposition to King James his they declin'd it saying They had another of their own then afoot and that they would