Christendom with their noise and clamours of the dreadful Persecutions in England that Great man thought it not below him to write this Apology for the Execution of Justice here and to shew how reasonable just and moderate the Proceedings of the State were considering the height and insolence of the provocations and this was published in several Languages and dispersed in the Courts of Princes to undeceive them as to all the false reports of the Romish Emissaries who have taken upon them that publick Character of the Popes Ambassadors to lye abroad for his and their own advantage 2. But after that by the means of Cardinal Allen and others they had endeavoured to blast the reputation of that Apology and after the death of that great Minister of State the Secular Priests did publish their Important Considerations wherein they assert the Truth of what was said in the Apologie and vindicate the Honour and Justice of the Penal Laws which is the second Treatise here published and printed according to their own Copy and which hath been so much concealed or bought up by those of that Religion that it hath been heard of by few and seen by fewer Protestants 3. And lest any should say that all those dangerous Principles to Government are since his Majesties happy Restauration utterly disowned by them I have added a third Treatise printed by one of their own Religion 1662. which charges the Jesuitical Party so deep with those Principles and Practices as to make them uncapable of any Favour If other persons will pursue the same method in retrieving such considerable Treatises as these are they may do more service to our Church and Nation than by writing Histories themselves and I shall desire the late Apologist to set these Authors of his own Church against the petty Historians he so punctually quotes on all occasions And we have so much the more reason to consider these things since in a very late Treatise called the Bleeding Iphigenia the Irish Rebellion is defended by one of the Titular Bishops to be a just and holy War and seeing they still think it lawful what can we imagine then that they want but another occasion to do the same things THE EXECVTION OF JUSTICE IN ENGLAND For maintenance of Publick and Christian Peace c. IT hath been in all Ages and in all Countries All Offenders cover their faults with contrary causes a common usage of all offenders for the most part both great and small to make defence of their lewd and unlawful facts by untruths and by colouring and covering their deeds were they never so vile with pretences of some other causes of contrary operations or effects to the intent not only to avoid punishment or shame but to continue uphold and prosecute their wicked attempts to the full satisfaction of their disordered and malicious appetites Rebels do most dangerously cover their faults And though such hath been the use of all Offenders yet of none with more danger than of Rebels and Traytors to their lawful Princes Kings and Countries Of which sort of late years are specially to be noted certain persons naturally born Subjects in the Realm of England and Ireland who having for some good time professed outwardly their obedience to their Soveraign Lady Queen Elizabeth have nevertheless afterward been stirred up and seduced by wicked Spirits Rebellion in England and Ireland first in England sundry years past and secondly and of latter time in Ireland to enter into open Rebellion taking Arms and coming into the Field against her Majesty and her Lieutenants with their Forces under Banners displayed inducing by notable untruths many simple people to follow and assist them in their Traitorous actions And though it is very well known that both their intentions and manifest actions were bent to have deposed the Queens Majesty from her Crown and to have traiterously set in her place some other whom they liked whereby if they had not been speedily resisted they would have committed great bloodsheds and slaughters of her Majesties faithful Subjects and ruined their native Country The Rebels vanquished by the Queens Power Yet by Gods power given unto her Majesty they were so speedily vanquished as some few of them suffered by order of Law according to their deserts many and the greatest part upon Confession of their faults were pardoned Some of the Rebels fled into other Countries the rest but they not many of the principal escaped into Foreign Countries and there because in none or few places Rebels and Traitors to their natural Princes and Countries dare for their Treasons challenge at their first muster open comfort or succour these notable Traitors and Rebels have falsly informed many Kings Princes and States and specially the Bishop of Rome commonly called the Pope from whom they all had secretly their first comfort to Rebell that the cause of their flying from their Countries was for the Religion of Rome Rebels pretend Religion for their defence and for maintenance of the said Popes Authority Whereas divers of them before their Rebellion lived so notoriously the most part of their lives out of all good rule either for honest manners or for any sense in Religion as they might have been rather familiar with Catalin or Favourers to Sardanapalus than accounted good Subjects under any Christian Princes As for some examples of the heads of these Rebellions out of England fled Charles Nevill Earl of Westmerland a person utterly wasted by looseness of life and by Gods punishment even in the time of his Rebellion bereaved of his Children that should have succeeded him in the Earldom and how his Body is now eaten with Ulcers of lewd causes all his Companions do see that no Enemy he had can wish him a viler punishment And out of Ireland ran away one Thomas Stukeley a defamed person almost through all Christendom and a faithless Beast rather than a Man fleeing first out of England for notable Piracies and out of Ireland for treacheries not pardonable Ringleaders of Rebels Charls Nevill Earl of Westmerland and Thomas Stukeley which two were the first Ringleaders of the rest of the Rebels the one for England the other for Ireland But notwithstanding the notorious evil and wicked lives of these and others their Confederates void of all Christian Religion it liked the Bishop of Rome as in favour of their Treasons not to colour their offences as themselves openly pretend to do for avoiding of common shame of the World but flatly to animate them to continue their former wicked purposes that is to take Arms against their lawful Queen to invade her Realm with Foreign Forces to pursue all her good Subjects and their Native Countries with Fire and Sword for maintenance whereof there had some years before at sundry times proceeded in a thundring sort The effect of the Popes Bull against the Queen of England Bulls Excommunications and other publick Writings denouncing her Majesty
of Desmond the strange manner of the death of Dr. Sanders the Popes Irissh Legat who also wandring in the Mountains in Ireland without succor dyed raving in a Phrensie And before him one James Fits-Morice the first Traiter of Ireland next to Stukely the Rakehel a man not unknown in the Popes Palace for a wicked crafty Traiter was slain at one blow by an Irish noble young Gentleman in defence of his Fathers Country which the Traiter sought to burn A fourth man of singular Note was John of Desmond Brother to the Earl a very bloody faithless Traiter and a notable Murderer of his familiar friends who also wandring to seek some prey like a Wolf in the Woods was taken and beheaded after his own usage being as he thought sufficiently armed with the Popes Bulls and certain Agnus Dei and one notable Ring about his neck sent from the Popes finger as it was said but these he saw saved not his life And such were the fatal ends of all these being the principal heads of the Irish War and Rebellion so as no one person remaineth at this day in Ireland a known Traiter To this number they may if they seek number also add a furious young Man of Warwickshire by name Somervile John Somervile to increase their Kalender of the Popes Martyrs who of late was discovered and taken in his way coming with a full intent to have killed her Majesty whose life God always have in his custody The attempt not denied by the Traiter himself but confessed and that he was moved thereto in his wicked spirit by inticements of certain seditious and traiterous persons his Kinsmen and Allies and also by often reading of sundry seditious vile Books lately published against her Majesty But as God of his goodness hath of long time hitherto preserved her Majesty from these and the like Treacheries so hath she no cause to fear being under his Protection she saying with King David in the Psalm My God is my helper and I will trust in him he is my protection and the strength of the power of my salvation And for the comfort of all good Subjects against the shadows of the Popes Bulls it is manifest to the World that from the beginning of her Majesties Reign by Gods singular goodness her Kingdom hath enjoyed more universal Peace her People increased in more numbers in more strength The Prosperity of England during the Popes curses and with greater riches the earth of her Kingdoms hath yielded more fruits and generally all kind of worldly felicity hath more abounded since and during the time of the Popes Thunders Bulls Curses and Maledictions than in any other long times before when the Popes Pardons and Blessings came yearly into the Realm so as his Curses and Maledictions have turned back to himself and his Fautors that it may be said to the fortunate Queen of England and her People as was said in Deuteronomy of Balaam The Lord thy God would not hear Balaam but did turn his Maledictions or curses into Benedictions or blessings the reason is for because thy God loved thee Although these former reasons are sufficient to perswade all kind of reasonable persons to allow of her Majesties actions to be good reasonable lawful and necessary yet because it may be that such as have by frequent reading of false artificial Libels and by giving credit to them upon a prejudice or forejudgment afore grouned by their rooted opinions in favour of the Pope will rest unsatisfied therefore as much as may be to satisfie all persons as far forth as common reason may warrant that her Majesties late action in executing of certain seditious Traiters hath not proceeded for the holding of opinions Reasons to perswade by reason the Favourers of the Pope that none hath bin executed for Religion but for Treason either for the Popes Supemacy or against her Majesties Regality but for the very Crimes of Sedition and Treason it shall suffice briefly in a manner of a repetition of the former reasons to remember these things following First The first reason it cannot be denied but that her Majesty did for many years suffer quietly the Popes Bulls and Excommunications without punishment of the Fautors thereof accounting of them but as of words or wind or of Writings in Parchment weighed down with lead or as of water-bubbles commonly called in Latine Bullae and such like but yet after some proof that courage was taken thereof by some bold and bad Subjects she could not but then esteem them to be very Preambles or as forerunners of greater danger and therefore with what reason could any mislike that her Majesty did for a bare defence against them without other action or force use the help of reviving of former Laws to prohibit the Publication or Execution of such kind of Bulls within her Realm Secondly when notwithstanding the prohibition by her Laws The second reason the same Bulls were plentifully but in secret sort brought into the Realm and at length arrogantly set upon the Gates of the Bishop of Londons Palace near to the Cathedral Church of Pauls the principal City of the Realm The Bull of Pius Quintus set up at Pauls by a lewd person using the same like a Herald sent from the Pope who can in any common reason mislike that her Majesty finding this kind of denunciation of War as a defiance to be made in her principal City by one of her Subjects avowing and obstinately maintaining the same should according to justice cause the offender to have the reward due to such a fact and this was the first action of any capital punishment inflicted for matter sent from Rome to move Rebellion The first punishment for the Bull. which was after her Majesty had reigned about the space of twelve years or more Thirdly when the Pope had risen up out of his Chair in his wrath from words and writings to actions The third reason and had contrary to the advice given by S. Barnard to his Predecessor that is when by his Messages he left Verbum and took Ferrum that is left to feed by the Word and began to strike with the Sword and stirred her Noble men and People directly to disobedience and to open Rebellion Rebellion in the North. and that her lewd Subjects by his commandment had executed the same with all the Forces which they could make or bring into the field who with common reason can disallow that her Majesty used her principal Authority and by her Forces lawful subdued Rebels Forces unlawful and punished the Authors thereof no otherwise than the Pope himself useth to do with his own Rebellious Subjects in the Patrimony of his Church And if any Prince of People in the World would otherwise neglect his Office and suffer his Rebels to have their wills none ought to pity him if for want of resistance and courage he lost both his Crown his Head his Life
attempt again that enterprise And again he saith That the King is so interessed together with the Pope to seck as he termeth it her Majesties reformation that he the said King is bound in Justice to do it and cannot without prejudice of his high estimation and greatness refuse at the sconest opportunity to attempt it Mary withal to comfort us he writeth That the King intendeth no rigorous dealing with our Nation in the prosecution of his Invasion when he cometh hither Which great favour of the King towards us we are to ascribe to good Father Parsons if we may believe his dutiful Subject Mr. Southwell the Jesuit For thus he telleth us If ever saith he the King should prevail in that designment of his new Invasion Father Parsons assisted with Cardinal Alanes Authority hath done that in our Countries behalf for which his most bitter enemies and generally all her Majesties Subjects shall have cause to thank him for his serviceable endeavours so far hath he inclined fury to clemency and rage to compassion Sure we are greatly beholding to this good Father that hath had so kind a remembrance of us But we wish that he had rather imployed himself as a religious man in the service of God and his private meditations than thus to have busied himself in setting forward and qualifying it when he hath done so outragious a designment and do pray with all our hearts that neither we nor this Kingdom do ever fall into the hands of the Spaniards whose unspeakable cruelties in other Countries a worthy Catholick the Bishop hath notably described to all posterity The same Mr. Parsons also together with his fellow Jesuit Mr. Creswell as men that pretend extraordinary love to their Country have written a large Volume against the said Proclamation wherein what malice and contempt can devise that might provoke her Majesty to indignation against us is there set out very skilfully they themselves well knowing that no other fruit or benefit could come unto us by that discourse except it were still to plague us Whilst the said Invasion was thus talked of and in preparation in Spain a shorter course was thought of if it might have had success Mr. Hesket was set on by the Jesuits 1592. or thereabouts with Father Parsons consent or knowledge to have stirred up the Earl of Derby to rebellion against her Highness Not long after good Father Holt and others with him perswaded an Irish man one Patrick Collen as he himself confessed to attempt the laying of his violent and villanous hands upon her Majesty Shortly after in the year 1593. that notable Stratagem was plotted the whole State knoweth by whom for Doctor Lopez the Queens Physician to have poysoned her for the which he was executed the year after This wicked designment being thus prevented by Gods providence the said traiterous Jesuit Holt and others did allure and animate one Yorke and Williams to have accomplished that with their bloody hands that the other purposed to have done with his poyson we mean her Majestie destruction Hereunto we might add the late villanous attempt 1599. of Edward Squire animated and drawn thereunto as he confessed by Walpole that pernicious Jesuit But we must turn again to Father Parsons whose turnings and doublings are such as would trouble a right good Hound to trace him For in the mean time that the said Traiters one after another were plotting and studying how best they might compass her Majesties death they cared not how nor by what means he the said Father Parsons so prevailed with the King as he attempted twice in two sundry years his new Invasion meaning to have proceeded therein not with such great preparation as he did at the first but only to have begun the same by taking some Port Westward toward which he came so far onward as Silley with his Fleet. At both which times God who still hath fought for her Majesty and this Realm did notably prevent him by such winds and tempests as the most of his Ships and men perished in the Sea as they were coming hitherward Furthermore the said good Father in the midst of all the said traiterous enterprises both at home and abroad devised and set forward by him and his Companions was plodding amongst his Papers and playing the Herald how if all his said wicked designments failed he might at the least intitle the King of Spain and consequently the Infanta his Daughter to the Crown and Kingdom of England To which purpose he framed and afterwards published a Book wherewith he acquainted the Students in those Seminaries in Spain and laboured nothing more than to have their subscriptions to the said Infantaes title therein promising unto her their present Allegiance as unto their lawful Soveraign and that when they should be sent into their Country they should perswade the Catholicks there to do the like without any further expectation of the Queen of England's death as Mr. Charles Paget affirmeth in his Book against Parsons We spake of the Seminaries in Spain before somewhat suspiciously and now you see the reason that moved us so to do Besides we do not doubt but that in the perusing of this our discourse you will be assaulted with many strange cogitations concerning our full intent and meaning therein Which although it cannot chuse but that it doth already in part appear unto you yet now we come to a more clear and plain declaration of our purpose You see into what hatred the wicked attempts of the Jesuits against her Majesty and the State hath brought not only all Catholicks in general but more especially us that are secular Priests although we did ever dislike and blame them nay detest and hate them no men more For any of us to have been brought up in the Seminaries beyond the Seas hath been and still is as you know a matter here very odious and to us full of danger But by Father Parsons courses with the Seminaries in Spain and now that he is Rector of the English Seminary in Rome and so taketh upon him by his favour there to direct and command all the rest what will the State here think of the Priests that shall come from any of those Seminaries hereafter where they must be brought up according to the Jesuitical humor and sent hither with such directions as shall be thereunto agreeable The said Book of Titles compiled by Parsons is here very well known almost to the whole Realm and Mr. Charles Paget hath not been silent as touching the Infanta and the bringing up of Students to be sent hither as Priests to promote her title Sundry sharp courses have been taken already with us and many Laws are made against us But now what may we expect but all the cruelty that ever was devised against any man if the State should think both us and all other Catholicks to be either addicted or any way inclined to the advancement of any foreign Title against her Majesty or her
so to allow of the Popes said Bulls and of his Authority without exception as in obeying thereof they take themselves fully discharged of their Allegiance and Obedience to their lawful Prince and Country yea and to be well warranted to take Arms to Rebell against her Majesty when they shall be thereunto called and to be ready secretly to join with any Foreign Force that can be procured to invade the Realm whereof also they have a long time given and yet do for their advantage no small comfort of success and so consequently the effect of their labours is to bring the Realm not only into a dangerous War against the Forces of Strangers from which it hath been free above 23. or 24. years The Seditious Fugitives labour to bring the Realm into a War external and domestical a Case very memorable and hard to be matched with an example of the like but into a War Domestical and Civil wherein no blood is usually spared nor mercy yielded and wherein neither the Vanqueror nor the vanquished have cause of triumph And forasmuch as these are the most evident perils that necessarily should follow if these kind of Vermine were suffered to creep by stealth into the Realm and to spread their poyson within the same howsoever when they are taken like Hypocrites they colour and counterfeit the same with profession of devotion in Religion it is of all persons to be yielded in reason The duty of the Queen and all her Governours to God and their Country is to repel practices of Rebellion that her Majesty and all her Governours and Magistrates of Justice having care to maintain the peace of the Realm which God hath given in her time to continue longer than ever in any time of her Progenitors ought of duty to Almighty God the Author of Peace and according to the natural love and charge due to their Country and for avoiding of the Floods of blood which in Civil Wars are seen to run and flow by all lawful means possible as well by the Sword as by Law in their several seasons to impeach and repel these so manifest and dangerous colourable practices and works of Sedition and Rebellion And though there are many Subjects known in the Realm that differ in some opinions of Religion from the Church of England and that do also not forbear to profess the same yet in that they do also profess Loyalty and Obedience to her Majesty None charged with capital Crimes being of a contrary Religion and professing to withstand Foreign Forces and offer readily in her Majesties defence to impugn and resist any Foreign Force though it should come or be procured from the Pope himself none of these sort are for their contrary opinions in Religion prosecuted or charged with any crimes or pains of Treason nor yet willingly searched in their Consciences for their contrary opinions that savour not of Treason And of these sorts there are a number of persons not of such base and vulgar note as those were which of late have been executed as in particular some by name are well known and not unfit to be remembred The first and chiefest by Office was Dr. Heth that was Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England in Queen Maries time who at the first coming of her Majesty to the Crown shewing himself a faithful and quiet Subject continued in both the said Offices though in Religion then manifestly differing and yet was he not restrained of his liberty nor deprived of his proper lands and goods but leaving willingly both his Offices lived in his own House and injoyed all his purchased Lands during all his natural life until by very age he departed this World and then left his House and living to his Friends an example of gentleness never matched in Queen Maries time The like did one Dr. Pool that had been Bishop of Peterborough an ancient grave person and a very quiet Subject There were also others that had been Bishops and in great estimation as Dr. Tunstal Bishop of Duresm a person also of very quiet behaviour Names of divers Ecclesiastical persons professing contrary Religion never charged with capital Crimes There were also other Dr. White and Dr. Oglethorp one of Winchester the other of Carlisle Bishops and Dr. Thurleby and Dr. Watson yet living one of Ely the other of Lincoln Bishops not pressed with any capital pain though they maintained the Popes Authority against the Laws of the Realm and some Abbots as Mr. Fecknam yet living a person also of quiet and courteous behaviour for a great time Some also were Deans as Dr. Boxall Dean of Windsore a person of great modesty and knowledge Dr. Cole Dean of Pauls a person more earnest than wise Dr. Reynolds Dean of Exeter and many such others having born Office and Dignities in the Church and had made profession against the Pope which they began in Queen Maries time to change yet were they never to this day burdened with capital pains nor yet deprived of any their goods or proper livelyhoods but only removed from their Ecclesiastical Offices which they would not exercise according to the Laws And most of them for a great time ere retained in Bishops Houses in very civil and courteous manner without charge to themselves or their friends until the time that the Pope began by his Bulls and Messages to offer trouble to the Realm by stirring of Rebellion about which time only some of these aforenamed being found busier in matters of state tending to stir troubles than was meet for the common quiet of the Realm were removed to other more private places where such other wanderers as were men known to move sedition might be restrained from common resorting to them to increase trouble as the Popes Bull gave man fest occasion and yet without charging them in their Consciences or otherwise by any inquisition to bring them into danger of any capital Law so as no one was called to any capital or bloody question upon matters of Religion but have all injoyed their life as the course of nature would and such of them as yet remain may if they will not be Authors or Instruments of Rebellion or Sedition injoy the time that God and nature shall yield them without danger of life or member And yet it is worthy to be well marked The late Favourers of the Popes Authority were the chief Adversaries of the same by their Doctrines and Writings that the chiefest of all these and the most of them had in the time of King Henry the Eight and King Edward the Sixth either by Preaching Writing reading or arguing taught all people to condemn and abhor the Authority of the Pope yea they had many times given their Oaths publickly against the Popes Authority and had also yielded to both the said Kings the Title of supream head of the Church of England next under Christ which title the Adversaries do most falsly write and affirm that
the Queens Majesty doth now use a manifest lie and untruth And for proof that these foresaid Bishops and learned men had so long time disavowed the Popes Authority many of their Books and Sermons against the Popes Authority remain printed to be seen in these times to their great shame and reproof to change so often and specially in persecuting such as themselves have taught and established to hold the contrary There were also and yet be a great number of others A great number of Lay persons of livelyhood being of a contrary Religion never charged with capital Crime being Lay-men of good possessions and Lands men of good credit in their Countries manifestly of late times seduced to hold contrary opinions in Religion for the Popes Authority and yet none of them have been sought hitherto to be impeached in any point or quarrel of Treason or of loss of Life Member or Inheritance so as it may plainly appear that it is not nor hath been for contrarious opinions in Religion or for the Popes Authority as the Adversaries do boldly and falsly publish that any persons have suffered Death since her Majesties Reign and yet some of these sort are well known to hold opinion that the Pope ought by Authority of Gods word to be Supream and only Head of the Catholick Church and only to rule in all causes Ecclesiastical and that the Queens Majesty ought not to be the Governour over all her Subjects in her Realm being persons Ecclesiastical which opinions are nevertheless in some part by the Laws of the Realm punishable in some degrees No person charged with capital Crime for the only maintenance of the Popes Supremacy and yet for none of these points have any persons been prosecuted with the charge of Treason or in danger of life And if then it be inquired for what cause these others have of late suffered Death it is truly to be answered as afore is often remembred that none at all are impeached for Treason to the danger of their Life but such as do obstinately maintain the contents of the Popes Bull afore-mentioned which do import that her Majesty is not the lawful Queen of England the first and highest point of Treason and that all her Subjects are discharged of their Oaths and Obedience Such Condemned only for Treason as maintain the effects of the Popes Bull against her Majesty and the Realm another high point of Treason and all warranted to disobey her and her Laws a third and a very large point of Treason And thereto is to be added a fourth point most manifest in hat they would not disallow the Popes hostile proceedings in open Wars against her Majesty in her Realm of Ireland where one of their Company Dr. Sanders a lewd Scholar and Subject of England a Fugitive and a principal Companion and Conspirator with the Traitors and Rebels at Rome was by the Popes special Commission a Commander as in form of a Legate and sometime a Treasurer or Pay-Master for those Wars which Dr. Sanders in his Book of his Church Monarchy did afore his passing into Ireland openly by Writing Dr. Sanders maintenance of the Popes Bull. gloriously avow the foresaid Bull of Pius Quintus against her Majesty to be lawful and affirmeth that by vertue thereof one Dr. Mooreton an old English Fugitive and Conspirator was sent from Rome into the North parts of England to stir up the first Rebellion there whereof Charles Nevill the late Earl of Westmerland was a Head Captain And thereby it may manifestly appear to all men how this Bull was the ground of the Rebellions both in England and Ireland and how for maintenance thereof and for sowing of Sedition by Warrant and allowance of the same these persons were justly condemned of Treason The persons that suffered Death were Condemned for Treason and not for Religion and lawfully Executed by the ancient Laws temporal of the Realm without any other matter than for their practices and Conspiracies both abroad and at home against the Queen and the Realm and for maintaining of the Popes foresaid Authority and Bull published to deprive her Majesty of her Crown and for withdrawing and reconciling of her Subjects from their natural allegiance due to her Majesty and to their Country and for moving them to Sedition and for no other causes or questions of Religion were these persons condemned although true it is that when they were charged and convinced of these points of Conspiracies and Treasons they would still in their answers colourably pretend their actions to have been for Religion but in deed and truth they were manifest for the procurement and mainenance of the Rebellions and Wars against her Majesty and her Realm And herein is now the manifest diversity to be seen and well considered betwixt the truth of her Majesties actions and the falshood of the blasphemous Adversaries that where the factious party of the Pope the principal Author of the Invasions of her Majesties Dominions do falsly alledge that a number of persons whom they term as Martyrs have died for defence of the Catholick Religion the same in very truth may manifestly appear to have died if they so will have it as Martyrs for the Pope and Traitors against their Soveraign and Queen in adhering to him being the notable and only open hostile Enemy in all actions of War against her Majesty A full proof that the maintainers of the Bull are directly guilty of Treason her Kingdoms and People and that this is the meaning of all these that have so obstinately maintained the Authority and contents of this Bull the very words of the Bull do declare in this sort as Dr. Sanders reporteth them PIus Quintus Pontifex Maximus de Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine declaravit Elizabetham praetenso Regni jue necnon omni quocunque dominio dignitate privilegioque privatam Itemque Proceres subditos populos dicti regni ac caeteros omnes qui illi quomodocunque juraverunt à juramento hujusmodi ac omni fidelitatis debito perpetuo absolutos That is to say Pius Quintus the greatest Bishop of the fulness of the Apostolick Power declared Elizabeth to be bereaved or deprived of her pretended right of her Kingdom and also of all and whatsoever Dominion Dignity and Priviledge and also the Nobles Subjects and People of the said Kingdom and all others which had sworn to her any manner of ways to be absolved for ever from such Oath and from all debt or duty of fealty and so forth with many threatning Cursings to all that durst obey her or her Laws And for Execution hereof to prove that the effect of the Popes Bull and Message was a flat Rebellion it is not amiss to hear what Dr. Sanders the Popes firebrand in Ireland also writeth in his visible Church Monarchy which is thus Pius Quintus Pontifex Maximus Dr. Mortons secret Ambassage from Rome to stir the Rebellion in the
of their Rights and Royal Preheminences though the same concerned but a City or a poor Town and sometime but the not allowance of some unworthy Person to a Bishoprick or to an Abbey never refrained to despise all Popes Curses or Forces but attempted always either by their Swords to compel them to desist from their furious actions or without any fear of themselves in body soul or conscience stoutly to withstand their Curses and that sometime by force sometime by Ordinances and Laws the ancient Histories whereof are too many to be repeated and of none more frequent and effectual than of the Kings of France But leaving those that are ancient we may remember how in this our own present or late Age it hath been manifestly seen how the Army of the late noble Emperour Charles the Fifth Father to King Philip that now reigneth was not afraid of his Curses when in the year of our Lord 1527. Rome it self was besieged and sacked and the Pope then called Clement Rome sacked and the Pope Clement taken Prisoner by the Emperors Army and his Cardinals to the number of about thirty three in his Mount Adrian or Castle S. Angelo taken Prisoners and detained seven months or more and after ransomed by Don Vgo di Moncada a Spaniard and the Marquess of Grasto at about four hundred M. Duckats besides the ransoms of his Cardinals which was very great having not long before-time been also notwithstanding his Curses besieged in the same Castle by the Family of the Colonesi and their Fautors his next Neighbours being then Imperialists and forced to yield to all their demands 1550. King Henry the Second of France his Edicts against the Pope and his Courts of Rome Neither did King Henry the Second of France Father to Henry now King of France about the year 1550. fear or regard the Pope or his Court of Rome when he made several straight Edicts against many parts of the Popes Claims in prejudice of the Crown and Clergy of France retracting the Authority of the Court of Rome greatly to the hinderance of the Popes former profits Neither was the Army of King Philip now of Spain The besieging of Rome and the Pope by the Duke of Alva with King Philips Army whereof the Duke of Alva was General stricken with any fear of cursing when it was brought afore Rome against the Pope in the year of our Lord 1555. where great destruction was made by the said Army and all the delicate Buildings Gardens and Orchards next to Rome-Walls overthrown wherewith his Holiness was more terrified than he was able to remove with any his Curses Queen Mary and Cardinal Pool resisted the Pope Neither was Queen Mary the Queens Majesties late Sister a person not a little devoted to the Roman Religion so afraid of the Popes cursings but that both she and her whole Council and that with the assent of all the Judges of the Realm according to the ancient Laws in favour of Cardinal Pool her Kinsman did forbid the entry of his Bulls and of a Cardinal Hat at Callis that was sent from the Pope for one Fryer Peyto whom the Pope had assigned to be a Cardinal in disgrace of Cardinal Pool neither did Cardinal Pool himself at the same time obey the Popes commandments nor shewed himself afraid being assisted by the Queen when the Pope did threaten him with pain of Excommunication but did still oppose himself against the Popes commandment for the said pretended Cardinal Peyto who notwithstanding all the threatnings of the Pope was forced to go up and down in the streets of London like a begging Fryer D. Peyto a begging Fryer a stout resistance in a Queen for a poor Cardinals Hat wherein she followed the example of her grandfather King Henry the Seventh for a matter of Allum So as howsoever the Christian Kings for some respects in Policy can endure the Pope to command where no harm nor disadvantage groweth to themselves yet sure it is and the Popes are not ignorant The Kings of Christendom never suffer the Popes to abridge their Titles or Rights though they suffer them to have rule over their People but where they shall in any sort attempt to take from Christian Princes any part of their Dominions or shall give aid to their Enemies or to any other their Rebels in those cases their Bulls their Curses their Excommunications their Sentences and most solemn Anathematicals no nor their Cross-keys or double edged Sword will serve their turns to compass their intentions And now where the Pope hath manifestly by his Bulls and Excommunications attempted as much as he could to deprive her Majesty of her Kingdoms to withdraw from her the obedience of her Subjects to procure Rebellions in her Realms yea to make both Rebellions and open Wars with his own Captains Souldiers Banners Ensigns and all other things belonging to War shall this Pope or any other Pope after him think that a Soveraign Queen possessed of the two Realms of England and Ireland stablished so many years in her Kingdoms as three or four Popes have sit in their Chair at Rome fortified with so much duty love and strength of her Subjects acknowledging no Superiour over her Realms but the mighty hand of God shall she forbear or fear to withstand and make frustrate his unlawful attempts either by her Sword or by her Laws or to put his Souldiers Invaders of her Realm to the Sword martially The Queen of England may not suffer the Pope by any means to make Rebellions in her Realm or to execute her Laws upon her own rebellious Subjects civilly that are proved to be his chief Instruments for Rebellion and for his open War This is sure that howsoever either he sitting in his Chair with a triple Crown at Rome or any other his Proctors in any part of Christendom shall renew these unlawful attempts Almighty God whom her Majesty only honoureth and acknowledgeth to be her only Soveraign Lord and Protector and whose Laws and Gospel of his Son Jesus Christ she seeketh to defend will no doubt but deliver sufficient power into his Maidens hand his Servant Queen Elizabeth to withstand and confound them all And where the seditious Trumpetters of infamies and lies Additaments to the Popes Marty rologe have sounded forth and entituled certain that have suffered for Treason to be Martyrs for Religion so may they also at this time if they list add to their forged Catalogue the headless body of the late miserable Earl of Desmond who of late secretly wandring without succour as a miserable Begger was taken by one of the Irishry in his Cabin and in an Irish sort after his own accustomed savage manner his head cut off from his body an end due to such an Arch-rebel And herewith to remember the end of his chief Confederates may be noted for example to others The strange ends of James Earl of Desmond D. Saurders James Fitzmorice John
and his Kingdom Fourthly The fourth reason when her Majesty beheld a further increase of the Popes malice notwithstanding that the first Rebellion was in her North parts vanquished in that he entertained abroad out of this Realm the Traiters and Rebels that fled for the Rebellion and all the Rabble of other the Fugitives of the Realm and that he sent a number of the same in sorts disguised into both the Realms of England and Ireland who there secretly allured her People to new Rebellions The Invasion of Ireland by the Pope and at the same time spared not his charges to send also out of Italy by Sea certain Ships with Captains of his own with their Bands of Souldiers furnished with Treasure Munition Victuals Ensigns Banners and all other things requisite to the War into her Realm of Ireland where the same Forces with other auxiliar Companies out of Spain landed and fortified themselves very strongly in the Sea-side and proclaimed open War erecting the Popes Banner against her Majesty may it be now asked of these persons Favourers of the Romish Authority what in reason should have been done by her Majesty otherwise than first to apprehend all such Figitives so stollen into the Realm and dispersed in disguising habits to sow Sedition as some Priests in their secret Profession but all in their apparel as Roisters or Ruffins some Scholars like to the basest Common people and them to commit to Prisons and upon their examinations of their Trades and Haunts to convince them of their Conspiracies abroad by testimony of their own Companions and of sowing Sedition secretly at home in the Realm What may be reasonably thought was meet to be done with such seditious persons but by the Laws of the Realm to try condemn and execute them and especially having regard to the dangerous time The Popes Forces vanquished in Ireland when the Popes Forces were in the Realm of Ireland and more in preparation to follow as well into England as into Ireland to the resistance whereof her Majesty and her Realm was forced to be at greater charges than ever she had been since she was Queen thereof And so by Gods power which he gave to her on the one part she did by her Laws suppress the seditious stirrers of Rebellion in her Realm of England and by her Sword vanquished all the Popes Forces in her Realm of Ireland excepting certain Captains of mark that were saved from the Sword as persons that did renounce their quarrel and seemed to curse or to blame such as sent them to so unfortunate and desperate a Voyage But though these reasons grounded upon rules of natural reason The Politick Adversaries satisfied shall fatisfie a great number of the Adversaries who will yield that by good order of Civil and Christian Policy and Government her Majesty could nor can do no less than she hath done first to subdue with her Forces her Rebels and Traiters and next by order of her Laws to correcdt the Aiders and Abettors and lastly to put also to the Sword such Forces as the Pope sent into her Dominions yet there are certain other persons Objection of the Papists that the persons executed are but Scholars and unarmed more nicely addicted to the Pope that will yet seem to be unsatisfied for that as they will term the matter a number of silly poor Wretches were put to death as Traiters being but in profession Scholars or Priests by the names of Seminaries Jesuits or simple School-masters that came not into the Realm with any Armor or Weapon by force to aid the Rebels and Traiters either in England or in Ireland in their Rebellions or Wars of which sort of Wretches the commiseration is made as though for their contrary opinions in Religion or for teaching of the people to disobey the Laws of the Realm they might have been otherwise punished and corrected and yet not with capital punishment These kinds of defences tend only to find fault rather with the severity of their punishments than to acquit them as Innocents or quiet Subjects But for answer to the better satisfaction of these nice and scrupulous Favourers of Traiters it must be with reason demanded of them if at least they will open their ears to reason whether they think that when a King being stablished in his Realm hath a Rebellion first secretly practised and afterward openly raised in his Realm by his own seditious Subjects and when by a Foreign Potentate or Enemy the same Rebellion is maintained and the Rebels by messages and promises comforted to continue and their Treasons against their natural Prince avowed Many are Traiters though they have no Armor nor Weapon and consequently when the same Potentate and Enemy being Author of the said Rebellion shall with his own proper Forces invade the Realm and Subjects of the Prince that is so lawfully and peaceably possessed in these cases shall no Subject favouring these Rebels and yielding obedience to the Enemy the Invador be committed or punished as a Traiter but only such of them as shall be found openly to carry Armor and Weapon Shall no Subject that is a spial and an explorer for the Rebel or Enemy against his natural Prince be taken and punished as a Traiter because he is not found with Armor or Weapon but yet is taken in his disguised apparel with writings or other manifest tokens to prove him a Spy for Traiters after he hath wandered secretly in his Soveraigns Camp Region Court or City Shall no Subject be counted a Traiter that will secretly give earnesty and prest money to persons to be Rebels or Enemies or that will attempt to poyson the Victual or the Fountains or secretly set on fire the Ships or Munition or that will secretly search and sound the Havens and Creeks for landing or measure the depth of Ditches or height of Towers and Walls because these offenders are not found with armor or Weapon The answer I think must needs be yielded if reason and experience shall have rule with these Adversaries that all these and such like are to be punished as Traiters and the principal reason is because the actions of all these are necessary accessaries and adherents proper to further and continue all Rebellions and Wars But if they will deny that none are Traiters that are not armed they will make Judas no Traiter that came to Christ without Armor colouring his treason with a kiss Now therefore it resteth to apply the Facts of these late Malefactors that are pretended to have offended but as Scholars The Application of the Scholastical Traiters to others that are Traiters without Armor or Book-men or at the most but as persons that only in words and doctrine and not with Armor did favour and help the Rebels and the Enemies For which purpose let these persons be termed as they list Scholars School-masters Book-men Seminaries Priests Jesuits Fryers Bead-men Romanists Pardoners or what else you will
was she dealt with by you Did not Pius Quintus practise her Majesties subversion she good Lady never dreaming of any such mischief Was not one Robert Ridolphi a Gentleman of Florence sent hither by the Pope under colour of Merchandize to sollicite a Rebellion Did not Pius Quintus move the King of Spain to joyn in this Exploit for the better securing of his own Dominions in the Low Countries Was not the Bull denounced against her Majesty that carrieth so fair a Preface of zeal and pastoral duty devised purposely to further the intended Rebellion for the depriving of her Majesty from her Kingdom Had not the Pope and King of Spain assigned the Duke of Norfolk to be the Head of this Rebellion Did not the Pope give order to Ridolphi to take 150000 Crows to set forward this attempt Was not some of that Money sent for Scotland and some delivered to the said Duke Did not King Philip at the Popes instance determine to send the Duke of Alva into England with all his Forces in the Low Counries to assist the Duke of Norfolk Are all these things true and were they not then in hand whilst her Majesty dealt so mercifully with you How can you excuse these designments so unchristian so unpriestly so treacherous and therefore so un-prince-like When we first heard these particulars we did not believe them but would have laid our lives they had been false but when we saw the Book and found them there God is our witness we were much amazed and can say no more but that his Holiness was misinformed and indirectly drawn to these courses But to proceed it being unknown to the State what secret matters were in hand against them both at home and beyond the Seas the Catholicks here continued in sort as before you have heard till the said Rebellion brake forth in the North 1569. a little before Christimas and that it was known that the Pope had excommunicated the Queen and thereby freed her Subjects as the Bull importeth from their subjection And then there followed a great restraint of the said Prisoners but none of them were put to death upon that occasion the Sword being then only drawn against such Catholicks as had risen up actually into open Rebellion Wherein we cannot see what her Majesty did that any Prince in Christendom in such a case would not have done And as touching the said Bull many both Priests and Lay Catholicks have greatly wished that it had never been decreed denounced published or heard of For we are perswaded that the Pope was drawn thereunto by false suggestions of certain undiscreet turbulent persons who pretending to him one thing had another drift in their heads for their own advancement And therefore we have ever accounted of it as a sentence procured by surreption knowing it to be no unusual thing with the Pope through indirect means and factious heads to be often deceived in matters of Fact as we now find it in the setting up of our new Arch-Priest Now upon all these occasions her Majesty being moved with great displeasure called a Parliament in the thirteenth year of her Reign 1571. wherein a Law was made containing many branches against the bringing into this Land after that time of any Bulls from Rome any Agnus Dei Crosses or Pardons and against all manner of persons that should procure them to be so brought hither with many other particularities thereunto appertaining Which Law although we hold it to be too rigorous and that the pretended remedy exceeded the measure of the offence either undutifully given or in justice to have been taken yet we cannot but confess as reasonable men that the State had great cause to make some Laws against us except they should have shewed themselves careless for the continuance of it But be the Law as any would have it never so extreme yet surely it must be granted that the occasions of it were most outragious and likewise that the execution of it was not so tragical as many since have written and reported of it For whatsoever was done against us either upon the pretence of that Law or of any other would never we think have been attempted had not divers other preposterous occasions besides the causes of that Law daily fallen out amongst us which procured matters to be urged more severely against us In the year 1572. out cometh Master Saunders Book de visibili Monarchia wherein he taketh upon him to set down how the Pope had sent one Master Morton and Master Web two Priests before the said Rebellion to the Lords and Gentlemen in the North to excite them with their Followers to take up Arms. And the rather to perswade them thereunto they signified unto them by the Popes commandment that her Majesty was excommunicated her Subjects were released from their obedience and much more to that purpose Likewise the said Mr. Saunders doth justifie the said commotion and ascribeth the evil success it had to the over-late publishing of the said Bull it being not generally known of till the year after when Master Felton had set it upon the Bishop of Londons Gate affirming that if it had been published the year before or when they were in Arms the Catholicks would undoubtedly so have assisted tem the said Rebels as that they must no question of it have prevailed against the Queen and had certainly executed the said sentence at that time for her deposition from the Crown Besides whereas the State in the said Parliament had confirmed the attainder of the chief persons by name that were as heads in the said Rebellion and had been in the field against her Highness Mr. Saunders building Castles in the Air amongst his Books doth too much magnifie the said Rebels to the great discredit of the Church of Rome and his Holiness actions in such matters they being men arraigned condemned and executed by the ancient Laws of our Country for high Treason This intolerable and very uncatholick course thus held by divers to the great offence of many good Catholicks of the graver and discreeter sort and to the great hinderance of our common Cause hath been since followed by Mr. Parsons and some of his sort with no good discretion or foresight God he knoweth brag these great States-men of their impregnable Wisdom and Policy never so proudly Furthermore about the coming out of the said Book of Mr. Saunders the whole Plot before mentioned of the Pope and the King of Spain with the Duke of Norfolk for the disinheriting of her Majesty and other intended mischiefs fell out to be fully disclosed Afterwards within some four or five years it was also commonly known to the Realm what attempts were in hand by Mr. Stukeley assisted with Mr. Saunders and other Catholicks both English Irish and Italian for an Enterprise by force in Ireland under pretence to advance the Catholick Religion which for that time through some defects succeeding not the Pope himself in the year
1579. abused still by false pretences did set forward that course and sending thither certain Forces Mr. Saunders too much Jesuited did thrust himself in person into that action as a chief Ring-leader and to perswade the Catholicks when he should come into Ireland to joyn with the Popes said Forces for the better assisting of certain Rebels then in Arms against their Soveraign Now whilst these practices were in hand in Ireland Gregory the Thirteenth reneweth the said Bull of Pius Quintus and denounceth her Majesty to be excommunicated with intimation of all other particulars in the former Bull mentioned which was procured we doubt not by surreption the false Jesuits our Country-men daring to attempt any thing by untrue suggestions and any lewd surmises that may serve their turns This Stratagem accomplished and ground laid whereupon they imagined to work great matters these good Fathers as the Devil would have it come into England and intruded themselves into our harvest being the men in our consciences we mean both them and others of that Society with some of their adherents who have been the chief Instruments of all the mischiefs that have been intended against her Majesty since the beginning of her Reign and of the miseries which we or any other Catholicks have upon these occasions sustained Their first repair hither was Anno 1580. when the Realm of Ireland was in great combustion and then they entred viz. Mr. Campion the Subject and Mr. Parsons the Provincial like a tempest with sundry such great brags and challenges as divers of the gravest Clergy then living in England Doctor Watson Bishop of Lincoln and others did greatly dislike them and plainly foretold that as things then stood their proceedings after that fashion would certainly urge the State to make some sharper Laws which should not only touch them but likewise all others both Priests and Catholicks Upon their arrival and after the said brags Mr. Parsons presently fell to his Jesuitical courses and so belaboured both himself and others in matters of State how he might set her Majesties Crown upon another head as appeareth by a Letter of his own to a certain Earl that the Catholicks themselves threatned to deliver him into the hands of the Civil Magistrate except he desisted from such kind of practices In these tumultuous and rebellious proceedings by sundry Catholicks both in England and Ireland it could not be expected but that the Queen and the State would be greatly incensed with indignation against us We had some of us greatly approved the said Rebellion highly extolled the Rebels and pitifully bewailed their ruine and overthrow Many of our affections were knit to the Spaniard and for our obedience to the Pope we all do profess it The attempts both of the Pope and Spaniard failing in England his Holiness as a temporal Prince displayed his Banner in Ireland The Plot was to deprive her Highness first from that Kingdom if they could and then by degrees to depose her from this In all these Plots none were more forward than many of us that were Priests The Laity if we had opposed our selves to these designments would out of doubt have been overruled by us Saunders Morten Web c. How many men of our calling were addicted to these courses the State knew not In which case the premises discreetly considered there is no King or Prince in the World disgusting the See of Rome and having either force or metal in him that would have endured us if possibly he could have been revenged but rather as we think have utterly rooted us out of his Territories as Traiters and Rebels both to him and his Country And therefore we may rejoyce unfeignedly that God hath blessed this Kingdom with so gracious and merciful a Soveraign who hath not dealt in this sort with us Assuredly if she were a Catholick she might be accounted the Mirror of the World but as she is both we and all other Catholicks her natural Subjects deserve no longer to live than we hereafter shall honour her from our hearts obey her in all things so far as possibly we may pray for her prosperous Reign and long life and to our powers defend and protect both her and our Country against any whatsoever that shall by force of Arms attempt to damnifie either of them For in the said Garboils and very undutiful proceedings how hath her Highness dealt with us From the time of the said Rebellion and Parliament there were few above twelve that in ten years had been executed for their consciences as we hold although our Adversaries say for Treason and of those twelve some perhaps can hardly be drawn within our account having been tainted with matters of Rebellion The most of the said number were Seminary Priests who if they had come over into England with the like intents that some others have done might very worthily have been used as they were But in our consciences nay some of us do know it that they were far from those seditious humors being men that intended nothing else but simply the good of our Country and the conversion of Souls Marry to say the truth as we have confessed before how could either her Majesty or the State know so much They had great cause as Politick persons to suspect the worst Besides to the further honour of her Majesty we may not omit that the States of the whole Realm assembled in Parliament Anno 1576. were pleased to pass us over and made no Laws at that time against us The ancient Prisoners that had been restrained more narrowly in the year 1570. were notwithstanding the said enterprises in Ireland again restored to their former liberty to continue with their friends as they had done before Such as were not suspected to have been dealers or abettors in the said treasonable actions were used with that humanity which could well be expected But when the Jesuits were come and that the State had notice of the said Excommunication there was then within a while a great alteration For such were the Jesuits proceedings and with so great boldness as though all had been theirs and that the State should presently have been changed Her Majesty had seen what followed in her Kingdom upon the first Excommunication and was therefore in all worldly Policy to prevent the like by the second The jealousie also of the State was much incresed by Mr. Sherwins answers upon his examination above eight months before the apprehension of Mr. Campion For being asked whether the Queen was his lawful Soveraign notwithstanding any sentence of the Popes he prayed that no such question might be demanded of him and would not further thereunto answer Two or three other questions much to the same effect were likewise propounded unto him which he also refused to answer Matters now sorting on this fashion there was a greater restraint of Catholicks than at any time before Many both Priests and Gentlemen were sent into the Isle of Ely
and other places there to be more safely kept and looked unto In January following 1581. according to the general computation a Proclamantion was made for the calling home of her Majesties Subjects beyond the Seas such especially as were trained up in the Seminaries pretending that they learned little there but disloyalty and that none after that time should harbor or relieve them with sundry other points of very hard intendment towards us The same month also a Parliament ensued wherein a Law was made agreeable in effect to the said Proclamation but with a more severe punishment annexed For it was a penalty of death for any Jesuit or Seminary Priest to repair into England and for any to receive and entertain them which fell our according to Bishop Watsons former speeches or prediction what mischief the Jesuits would bring upon us We could here as well as some others have done shew our dislike with some bitterness of the said Law and penalty But to what purpose should we do so It had been a good point of wisdom in two or three persons that have taken that course to have been silent and rather have sought by gentleness and sweet carriage of themselves to have prevented the more sharp execution of that Law than by exclaiming against it when it was too late to have provoked the State to a greater severity against us And to confess something to our own disadvantage and to excuse the said Parliament if all the Seminary Priests then in England or which should after that time have come hither had been of Mr. Mortons and Mr. Saunders mind before mentioned when the first Excommunication came out or of Mr. Saunders his second resolution being then in Arms against her Majesty in Ireland or of Mr. Parsons traiterous disposition both to our Queen and Country the said Law no doubt had carried with it a far greater shew of Justice But that was the error of the State and yet not altogether for ought they knew improbable those times being so full of many dangerous designments and Jesuitical practices In this year also divers other things fell out unhappily towards us poor Priests and other the graver sort of Catholicks who had all of us single hearts and disliked no men more of all such factious enterprises For notwithstanding the said Proclamation and Law Mr. Heywood a Jesuit came then into England and took so much upon him that Father Parsons fell out exceedingly with him and great troubles grew amongst Catholicks by their brablings and quarrels A Synod was held by him the said Mr. Heywood and sundry ancient Customs were therein abrogated to the offence of very many These courses being understood after a sort by the State the Catholicks and Priests in Norfolk felt the smart of it This Summer also in July Mr. Campion and other Priests were apprehended whose answers upon their examinations agreeing in effect with Mr. Sherwins before mentioned did greatly incense the State For amongst other questions that were propounded unto them this being one viz. If the Pope do by his Bull or Sentence pronounce her her Majesty to be deprived and no lawful Queen and her Subjects to be discharged of their allegiance and obedience unto her and after and Pope or any other by his appointment and authority do invade this Realm which part would you take or which part ought a good Subject of England to take some answered that when the case should happen they would then take counsel what were best for them to do Another that when that case should happen he would answer and not before Another that for the present he was not resolved what to do in such a cafe Another that when the case happeneth then he will answer Another that if such deprivation and invasion should be made for any matter of his faith he thinketh he were then bound to take part with the Pope Now what King in the world being in doubt to be invaded by his enemies and fearing that some of his own Subjects were by indirect means drawn rather to adhere unto them than to himself would not make the best tryal of them he could for his better satisfaction whom he might trust to In which tryal if he found any that either should make doubtful answers or peremptorily affirm that as the case stood betwixt him and his enemies they would leave him their Prince and take part with them might he not justly repute them for Traitors and deal with them accordingly Sure we are that no King or Prince in Christendom would like or tolerate any such Subjects within their Dominions if possibly they could be rid of them The duty we owe to our Soveraigns doth not consist in taciturnity or keeping close within our selves such Allegiance as we think sufficient to afford them but we are especially when we are requited thereunto to make open profession of it that we may appear unto them to be such Subjects as we ought to be and as they may rely upon if either their Kingdoms or saferies be in hazard or danger And we greatly marvel that any Jesuits should be so hard laced concerning the performance of their duties towards the Fathers and Kings of those Countries where they were born and whose Vassals they are considering unto what obedience they tye themselves toward their own general provincial and other Governors unto whom they were no way tied but by their own consents and for that it hath pleased them voluntarily to submit themselves unto them If a quarrel should fall out for example betwixt the Jesuits and the Dominicans it would seem a very strange matter to the Provincial or General of that Society to be driven to be demanded of a Jesuit which part he would take But therewith we have not to intermeddle only we wish that whilst they look for so great subjection at those mens hands that be under them they do not forget their own Allegiance towards their Soveraigns or at the least so demean themselves as we poor men every way their equals and as sound Catholicks as themselves that we go no further may not be brought into hatred with her Majesty unto whom we profess all duty and true alleiance let other men qualisie the same as they list About the time of the overthrow of the Popes Forces in Ireland his Holiness by the false instigations of the Jesuits plotted with the King of Spain for the assistance of the Duke of Guise to enterprise upon the sudden a very desperate designment against her Majesty and for the delivery and advancement to the Crown of the Queen of Scotland For the better effecting whereof Mendoza the Jesuit and Ledger for the King of Spain in England set on work a worthy Gentleman otherwise one Mr. Francis Throckmorton and divers others And whilst the same was in contriving as afterwards Mr. Throckmorton himself confessed 1584. the said Jesuitical humor had so possessed the hearts of sundry Catholicks as we do unfeignedly rue in our
made to disclaim the Popes power in absolving Subjects from their Obedience to the Civil Government Are all these but four or five Nay I could reckon above four or five besides all these so that there is no farther security of your not preaching this Doctrine than until the Pope please to attempt again the Deposition of some King of England for then no doubt but your Generals Decree will be released and the Interest of your Order to preach this Doctrine again As to that perverse and unseasonable insinuation that Others too have defended the Popes deposing power as well as you I answer perhaps Flattery or Errours may have prevailed so far with some others besides Jesuits yet with this difference in the point we now treat some persons of other Communities have written for that exorbitant power in the Pope and very many and far more against it not only the faculties of Paris and Sorbonne but seven or eight whole Universities in France have unanimously and solemnly condemned it All this while what single Jesuit has spoken one unkind word against it though both particularly suspected and highly concerned to clear themselves Cry you mercy you there subscribed also their Condemnation of it But why find I not that alledged here if there be not some juggle in 't Sure you would not have waved urging it among your best Reasons did not your hearts disavow that forced compliance then and so hate the Medium for the Conclusions sake Your Generals Prohibition as your Reasons seem to express it is Not to teach c. that Doctrine and then you are free at least to teach c. the contrary which who of you ever did so much as in a private Conference Nor will it help you if your Generals Prohibition be to speak either for or against that Opinion which I believe is the truth though your Reasons craftily dissemble it since then you neither have hitherto given nor can hereafter give the least satisfaction to Princes without disobeying your General Let any one but cast his eye upon F. Lloyd or Fisher a famous man in his generation and consider what he writes in his Answer to the Nine Points That he omitted the discussion of the Ninth Point about the Pope's Authority to depose Kings for being bound by the command of his General given to the whole Order not to publish any thing of that Argument without sending the same first to Rome to be reviewed and approved his Answer to that Point could not have been performed without very long expectation and delay And so goes on referring His Majesty and the Reader in general to the Treatises lately written on that Subject to which said he 'T is not needful any thing should be added And I ask first is not this Jesuits proceeding with his King extremely both uncivil and disloyal too his Majesty commands an English Jesuit to write concerning the Opinion of deposing Kings and giving away their Kingdoms by Papal power whether directly or indirectly What says the Jesuit to this important question wherein all Princes and particularly his Majesty was so nearly concerned He could not answer it without sending it first to Rome to be approved c. and so excused himself and made no answer at all which now of these two will you guess was the Jesuits supreme Soveraign the King or his General Nor should I have stayed so long upon the example of one particular Jesuit though never so eminent among them but that by these their Reasons I see they all cleave to the same Principle of not meddling with this point whatever it costs them without leave of their General Secondly I ask concerning those late Treatises here mentioned by the Jesuit were they not those very Books which Paris and so many whole Universities of France publickly condemned I have this motive to think so F. Fisher wrote this Book 1626. these Treatises were that very year condemned and some of them as Santarellus printed but the year before But that F. Fisher adhered to the affirmative of the Popes deposing power is clearly evident by his other excuse that commonly Kings are not willing to hear the proofs of coercive Authority over them c. As also when his Adversary objected that Suarez's Book was burnt by the Hangman he answers far from disliking his Brother Jesuit in these peremptory words I likewise demand of you says Fisher if Jesuit Suarez his Book be prejudicial to Princely Authority why is the same allowed in all other Catholick Kingdoms c Does this sound as if the Jesuits had changed their inclination to that Doctrine whilst one of their eminentest Writers strives thus to defend nay applaud even Suarez one of the most offensive and extragavant even Jesuits that ever medled with that Subject 7. May Seventh Doubt is about your dependence on the Pope which you gloriously explicate to consist in this that The Jesuits are obliged by a particular Vow to be ready to go even unto the utmost Bounds of the Earth to preach the Gospel to Infidels I desire to know by what virtue you explicate your Vow in these words the terms of your Vow are these Insuper promitto specialem Obedientiam summo Pontifici circa missiones which by the tenour of the words signifies to go whither he shall send you and do what he shall command you in your Missions First there 's never a word of preaching the Gospel nor of Infidels and your Missions may be as well to Caholicks as to Infidels as we see the Peres de la Mission in France for the most part are imployed among Catholicks and I would demand whether your Mission into England be not as well to Catholicks as to Protestants Wherefore by this Vow you are bound to do whatever the Pope commands you as for example if the Pope should excommunicate or depose the Prince and command you to move the Catholicks to take Arms you were bound by your Vow to do it And therefore 't is no wonder if you give the Pope a Catalogue of these men and their qualities for they are generally speaking those who are eminentest in your Order and brag to him how great an Army of Pens and Tongues you bring devoted to him to further any attempt or design he shall command Besides is it not well known that none of your Order go into Infidels Countries but such as desire it whereof no small part do it for discontentment they find in your Colledges and that the Pope may as well send one of the Pillars of St. Peter's Church in Rome to preach to Infidels as one of your professed Fathers if it be against your General 's and his own will Therefore this special obedience is but a flash of vanity above others by which the Pope has a Chimerical power over you such as your subtilty in Divinity will call potentia remota which without your own wills shall never come into Act. Yet do I not think that His
Majesty will quarrel with you for this Vow as you explicate it though to tell you my sence of it I do not know how it stands with His Prerogative that the Pope shall have power over his Subjects which may be useful to him to send them without his leave to Japan and China But this Authoity you assume to your selves and further For you do not only oblige your Subjects to come in or go out of the Kingdom when you command them but play the Judges of life and death upon the Kings natural Subjects without his leave or any crime that according to Civil Laws deserves punishment You presume by your power to send them to Watten or some such place wherein either your selves have high Justice or the high Justice is at your Devotion there frame Process against them and execute them without making account to His Majesty of the life of his Subject for pretended crimes committed in England This taking the whole story together I conceive to be no less than making your selves Soveraigns over His Majesties Subjects that is to be an Act of high Treason Yet all parts of this Action are evidently in your hands in virtue of your obedience and your having such places of high Justice in your Command so that your Subjects have other Soveraigns than the King's Majesty whom by consequence they ought to fear more than him since their power is more immediate and pressing and pressed on their Consciences As for the Practice 't is said to have been used upon one Thomas Barton an eminent Scholar among you who wrote a Book called The agreement of Faith and Reason How true it is I undertake not to justifie but if you 'l justifie your selves from High Treason it behoves you to produce the man And so you have my seventh Doubt 8. My Eighth Doubt is that you equivocate with us in this word Dependence for you turn it to be dependence by Vow whereas more likely it means dependence of Interest and signifies that 't is your interest to ingage the Pope to you by maintaining all height of Supreme Authority in him though it be ever so irrational and against Gods Law For by so doing you also can use it all for your own Interest in procuring for your selves and friends whatever lies either in the Popes Authority or Grace as Exemptions Priviledges Benefices c. For men look not on your Body as on others whose Generals have no other power than according to their Rules to look to their Discipline But on you they look as on an Army managed by one man whose Weapons are Pens and Tongues and the Arts of Negotiation and all plausible means of commending your selves to the World Which you exercise in such a height as to have had the boldness to threaten the Pope with a Schism to tell the King of Spain your Tongues and Pens had gotten him more Dominions than his Armies to attempt breaking the Liberties of Venice to be able to raise Seditions in most Countries and to be dreadful to the very Kings and Princes And all this because as Christ proposed to his Disciples the love of one another for the Badge of Christianity so your Generals propose to you blind obedience for the Badge of a Jesuit that is by cooperating with them to make them powerful and great Lords and your selves invincible and terrible to all that oppose you For this end you exalt the Popes Infallibility that you may get your Opponents condemned in Rome and then cry them down for Hereticks For this reason you teach the Pope to have all Authority in the Church and other Bishops to be but his Deputies so joyning with your Brother-Presbyters in really destroying the Hierarchy that when you by Grace or surreption have purloyn'd a Command from that Court you may treat all that resist you as Schismaticks and Rebels to the Church Yet if we believe Mr. White acknowledged an able man they are both damnable Heresies and destructive of Faith and Church and many others also of our most learned dislike them though their courage c. reaches not to brand them so severely In this complication of Interests then and not in your glorious Vow consists the dependence you have so specially on the Pope in a matter not of Religion but of Temporal profit and greatness 9. My Ninth Doubt is about the comparison you make between your selves and others telling us how you are by special Vow excluded from all Benefices and Dignities by which the Pope may win the affection of other Church-men Concerning which I first inquire whether this be roundly true I doubt you 'd be loth to reject all the Abbeys and Benefices annexed to your Colledges to verifie this Vow as you have set it down in your Paper and therefore the effect of your Vow is only that private men may not be alienated from your Order with hope of quiet lives in such Benefices and not the contempt of the Power and Honour following it as is sufficiently testified by another Vow of yours which is that if any of yours for special reasons be made Bishop he shall be bound to be subject to the Provincial or Rector of the place of his Residence and to take their advice in the government of his Church which you extend as far as to Cardinals to a capacity of which Eminent Dignity notwithstanding your special Vow your Dispensations easily reach So that your Vow is no Religious one of despising Honours but a politick abuse mask'd under the veil of Religion that the abler men of your Order may not be separated from it and so the Body may remain the stronger and your General more potent to resist the Pope himself Neither does this any way diminish but increase your dependence on the Pope both because 't is by him your Houses are furnisht with Benefices and those never to return to the Popes Donation as because you oblige your Friends by procuring others for them you being at his elbow to suggest this or that friend on whom all his Benefices may be conferred by which means you get the endearment due to the Pope from those Friends to the increase of your own power and riches and your selves still find out new pretended necessities to beg more So that this Holy Vow of yours no ways makes you less subject to the Pope but to suck his paps the harder as those know who have seen what passed in France and Flanders these late years especially under the Archduke Leopold 10. Yet have I another Doubt concerning this Vow of yours viz. Whether it does not make you as refractory to Kings and Princes as to the Pope For to speak truth whatever the Right is in other Countries in England where the Canons and Concordates with the Pope have been out of use a hundred years and by consequence have no force even in your own Doctors opinions and therefore things are to be governed by Nature and Reason at least in
England I say all such Benefices and Collations belong more to the King than to the Pope For it being clear that the Offices to which Benefices are annexed are to be provided of able men and who are able men one can tell that understand not the Office 't is plain that Secular Clergy-men ought to be the chusers of Officers of their kind Regulars of Regular Superiors and by consequence the Donors of such Benefices But the people first got an influence on the chusing of Bishops because 't was rationally believed those would be able to do most good who were in the peoples good liking But when Bishops grew to have great Revenues and to be esteemed men of so high Quality in the Common-wealth the Emperors and Kings began to cast an eye on their Election and not without reason for it concerns them that none be in eminent places but such as they are secured of will breed no disturbance in the Common-wealth After this if any Clergy-man had done the King service he found in the best way of recompence to cause him to be chosen into a place of Authority and Eminency The Popes title to the giving of Benefices began by his Office of Patriach of the West which since the Council of Nice he more narrowly looked to the government of exhorting and correcting by Letters such Bishops and Churches there as did not their duties And this held till Pepin found how efficacious the reverence of the Pope was to make him obeyed and accepted for King of France Since which time whether for Ambition or for security sake men began to think no Act firm unless it were ratified at Rome In times following the Popes began to have need of Christian Princes and these found it the sweetest way to help the Popes by granting imposition upon the Clergy So came the first-fruits to the Popes and to assure those Incomes the custom of having Bulls from Rome to confirm the Elections of the Clergy was likewise introduced So that this Authority of the Popes comes from the Princes Agreements with them and not from any Superiority or Power of the Popes Wherefore these Agreements being by time and essential changes annulled all giving of Benefices belong to the Chusers and the King I come now to the close If your renouncing of Benefices make you less subject to the Pope as you pretend it makes you in England less subject to the King And if it makes you more hardly rewardable and more pressing on the Pope it will make you the like to Kings As in Leopold's time you were so wholly the means for coming to Benefices that hardly a command from Spain could take place for any that was not your Confident 11. My Eleventh Doubt is how you answer your banishment out of France and Venice viz. that Both these States have repealed their Acts. Which answer makes nothing to this that you either did not deserve the sentence or deserved to have it released one of which any judicious man would have expected at your hands Now to come to particulars the Venetians were so resolute against you that they made it Treason for any of their State so much as to motion your return and refused divers Princes intercessions for you Till their case reducing them to fear the slavery of the Turk if they had not the Popes assistance promised them largely if they would re-admit you they rather chose to struggle with your Treasons at home than admit the Barbarians conquest of their Dominions Whether they have cause to repent or not I know not But the current news at this present is that the Pope who procured your admittance has having found you so unfaithful to him notwithstanding all his love to you insomuch that he 's about question you by what means you are so suddenly raised to so great wealth wherein I fear he 'l not find obedience so ready as he found flattery when he was to pleasure you Your measure in France was indeed hard the fault being not proved to be universal but particular and so in divers places was never executed and easie to be repealed having proceeded more out of presumption than proof But your case in England is far different your whole English Congregation following their Head Parsons and maintaining his Acts even since his Death 12. My Twelfth Doubt is concerning your conclusion Whether you intend to mend what hitherto you have done amiss or rather to persist in your Equivocations and Dissimulations For first whereas you being the chiefly or only suspected Body are therefore bound to offer more satisfaction than others you make your Proposition to submit to whatever all other Catholick Priests shall agree to which sounds as much as if any disagree you will adhere to them or in plain terms that you 'l agree to no more than by shame you shall be forced to for not plainly appearing the worst of Priests and Enemies to the Catholick Cause 13. My Thirteenth Doubt is why you pretending to be the greatest Divines among Catholicks remit your selves to the determinations of others and not as good Subjects ought examine what satisfaction is necessary and fit to be given the State and both offer it your selves and provoke others to do it not standing so scrupulously upon your generals decree which surely should not be thought to bind in such extreme cases even the Laws of the Church and of general Councils we know oblige not where our obedience would ruine us and will you still more precisely observe your own By-Laws than the sacred Canons of the Universal Church Methinks therefore in due satisfaction concerning the pretences of the Pope against the King whatever Catholick Doctors hold favourable to Princes in these differences should by you be gathered together and subscribed and promised to be maintained with all your power As first the Doctrine which denies that the Pope has any Authority in any case to depose or temporally molest the King or any of His Majesties Subjects Likewise that he has no Authority to release any lawfully made Oath of Allegiance or other promise to his Majesty or any of his Subjects And because none of these or the like assertions can be strong and firm in the mouth of him that holds the Pope's Infallibility in determining points of Faith but whenever the Pope shall determine the contrary he must renounce what before he held for good therefore you should do the like in respect of the Pope's Infallibility Moreover because if the Pope by his own or any others Authority may force his Majesties Subjects to go into Countries where they cannot enjoy the protection of their Prince the Subjects are not free to maintain these assertions therefore this Position also that a Subject to England is bound to appear before any foreign Tribunal without His Majesties consent is also to be condemned Nor is it less necessary you should expresly renounce the Doctrines of Equivocation and Mental Reservation without which all the