I Do Appoint Robert Boulter to Print this my Narrative Entituled A Further DISCOVERY of the late Horrid and POPISH-PLOT c. and that no others Print the same JOHN SMITH October 12. 1679. THE NARRATIVE OF Mr. John Smith OF Walworth in the County-Palatine of Durham Gent. Containing a further DISCOVERY Of the late Horrid and POPISH-PLOT With an Account of 1 st The inconsistency of the Popish-Principles with the Peace of all States 2 ly Their Destructiveness to all Protestant Kingdoms 3 ly The Incouragements upon which the Papists undertook so Hellish a Design against England 4 ly The Progress they had made in it 5 ly The Reasons of their endeavouring more especially the Death of His present Majesty 6 ly With a Vindication of the Justice of the Nation upon the Traitors already Executed LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Robert Boulter at the Turks-head in Corn-hill 1679. To the KING AS I owe my Allegiance and have Dedicated my Life to Your Majesty so I desire with all Humility in my self and Zeal for Your Happiness to offer up these Papers unto You. Many of Your Subjects are capable to present You with what is more sutable to the Greatness of Your Understanding but nothing can be laid at Your Feet which more nearly concerns the Preservation of Your Sacred Person the Safety of Your Crown and Security of Your Royal Dignity The danger of Conspiracies lies in their being concealed none ever perished by a detected Plot but such as have wilfully abandoned themselves to be destroyed And therefore while some of your Subjects to defeat the Hellish Machinations of the Papists against your Majesty and People are contented to expose themselves not only to secret Assassinations but to the vow'd Revenge of a disloyal and desperate Party It is hoped that you will not at once both desert your Self and de-relinquish the care of three Kingdoms as well as Sacrifice those Loyal Souls to gratifie implacable Enemies Sir 'T is past the Malice and Strength of your Adversaries either to destroy your Life or subvert your Government unless which God avert you joyn in the Conspiracy by some Personal accession And against dangers that you voluntarily expose your self unto there is no promise that the immense Wisdom or Almighty Power should interpose to save you The Conspirators find it convenient to alter the Methods of accomplishing their Treason but they remain unchangeable in their Traiterous Designs But Sir it is in your own Power not only to Reign in defiance of their violent Attempts but to render your People happy while you live and relinquish them safe when you dye For to all this there is no more required but your hearkning to the Advice of your Parliament who as they are best able to Counsel you so their own interest and the welfare of those they represent will always oblige them to it Might your Popish Adversaries but once divide betwixt you and your People and dispossess you out of the hearts of your Subjects the next thing will be having left you none to stand by you to wrest your Crown from you and deject you from your Throne As it is impossible you should miscarry while you and your People agree so no humane means can prevent the Destruction of these Kingdoms and the Unhappiness of your Royal Self and Family in their Ruines if through the Clamours of the Popish Party you should be divided from your People as represented in Parliament and to be withdrawn from hearkning to their Advice Your Majesties Most humble and most loyal Subject JOHN SMITH TO THE READER HAd the many Discoveries of the Plot already communicated to the World served either to dismay the Conspirators from their further proceeds or to awaken the Nation proportionably to its danger The Conveying of this to the knowledge of the Kingdom had been wholly forborn 'T is true that the offering this Information to His Majesty and the Council was an indispensible Duty which could not be superseded without Disloyalty to the Government but the divulging it to the Kingdom is to be resolved into that Lethargy as the motive of it which too many still lye under Shall it be said that our supine folly and unreasonable unbelief promote our ruine beyond what the malice of our Enemies was able to accomplish Shall their Address in impudent Pamphlets wheedle a company of easie and silly Souls to disbelieve what the King the Council and two Parliaments being first assured themselves have both recommended it to the Faith of these Kingdoms and consigned it over to Posterity as an unquestionable certainty It is not without astonishment that I observe how a generation of men whose interest makes it necessary and whose principles makes it lawful to Lye are able by meer impudence to out-face the fullest Evidence and most uncontrollable Convictions of their Guilt Reader Thou wilt therefore find in these following Sheets not only a further Attestation given to prove a Hellish Conspiracy against His Majesty the Protestant Religion and the Government by Law Established but thou wilt meet with some account both of the Advantages which did facilitate them in their designs and of the several steps which they had taken to accomplish them And if after all this the Protestant Inhabitants of these Nations will suffer themselves to be destroyed by continuing their Divisions notwithstanding such fair warning I will only say that they deserve to perish without Compassion and Pity A further DISCOVERY Of the late Horrid and Popish-PLOT WHat disturbances and fatal mischiefs the claim and exercise section 1 of Papal Authority and Jurisdiction have caused even in Kingdoms where both Princes and People were in all things else of the Romish Faith the Histories of foregoing Ages do sufficiently inform us The alone demurring to the Usurpations of the Roman Pontife hath derived from the pretended Infallible Chair the Excommunication of Princes the discharging Subjects from their Allegiance the Alienation of Crowns and Kingdoms the interdicting the performance of all Divine Services in Nations which according to their own stile were in all things else Catholick For besides the manifold instances which all parts of the Western World afford us to this purpose such as Gregory the seventh his Excommunicating Henry the fourth Sylvester the third his Anathematizing Henry the fifth Gregory the ninth his cursing Frederick the second Emperour of Germany And Innocent the third his Excommunicating Philip August and setting his Kingdom under an Interdict Benedict the thirteenth Charles the sixth and Boniface the eighth Philip the Faire Kings of France I say besides these and many other Forraign instances of this nature the Kingdom of England alone hath afforded us too many woful proofs of the Papal Vsurpation and falsly pretended Jurisdiction over Temporal Monarchs and their Dominions So that towards the recommending the Romish Religion and the Authority of the See of Rome to the love of my Country-men I need only put them in mind of the
crimes to be but venial offences which even in the Justice of God do deserve Eternal punishment and partly by that security from future wrath which they propose to them who are guilty of the most daring and prodigious Enormities through their Doctrines referring to Pennances Absolutions and Papal Indulgencies They had all imaginable grounds of confidence that no profane Protestants whatsoever others did would withstand them in their designs of introducing a Religion which had so carefully provided for them Now being furthered by these several advantages for the introducing section 7 their Religion into these Kingdoms again and the overthrowing the ancient and legal Government The next thing to be discoursed of is the several steps which they had actually taken and the progress which they had made for the final compassing of those direful and tragical designs And their first remarkable advance was their merciless and cruel burning of the City of London whereof as they were evidently proved the Authors and Instruments by many Depositions taken by Order and Authority of Parliament Anno 1667. so it hath been further testified against them by Mr. Oates and Mr. Bedloe with an enumeration of many particulars clearly demonstrative beyond all controll of their Guilt in that particular And though they were prevented and disappointed of what they further intended at that time and whereunto the burning of London was only designed as a Prologue yet the compassing the devastation of the City was in it self alone no small attainment in the matter of their Catholick and main project For besides the greatly impoverishing the whole Nation as well as the Inhabitants of the said City thereby the re-building of London and the providing of Bread for distressed Families was subject enough to employ the thoughts and cares of most men for divers years without affording them leisure to watch observe and provide against the Designs of the Papists Besides it may not be improbably conceived that through Londons lying in Ashes and the whole Kingdoms being distressed through the influence which this Metropolitan hath upon all parts of the Nation both the War which His Majesty was then engaged in with the Dutch was the less vigorously prosecuted and they emboldned to that which they perpetrated in burning some of the Royal Navy in His Majesties Chambers And which hath been more fatal from this Fountain of Distress that the Kingdom laboured under as an effect of the burning of London was the French King encouraged to the aggrandising himself by those Conquests which he made upon the Spanish Provinces in the Netherlands And His Majesty whose Wisdom sufficiently instructed him that it was the interest even of His own Dominions to have the ballance of Europe kept even found himself disabled from giving that Check and Opposition to that Princes designs which we may very well conceive that otherwise he would have done A second step which the unwearied Enemies of the Protestant Religion section 8 in these Dominions had taken towards both the extirpating of it and subverting the Government was their having interested the French King in their Councels and their having in a great measure engaged him to assist them with Money and what else might be convenient for the executing their Designs and Attempts As the Jesuits heretofore laboured in nothing more effectually than the advancing the King of Spain to the universal Monarchy of Europe So that Crown being by various ways and means not here to be insisted upon much weakned and rendred wholly uncapable of aspiring any further in that matter The pragmatical and treacherous Jesuits have of late years entirely applied themselves to the serving the interest and promoting the grandure of the French Monarch And when time the revealer of truth shall have discovered the mysterious workings of those Sons of pride and deceit it will then appear how they have both kindled those flames of War which have for some years past laid many flourishing Provinces in Europe wast and rendred all the Neighbouring Kingdoms and Lands fields of Blood but that they have by the interest which they have obtained in all Courts influenced some Princes to a Neutrality and others to an open Confederacy with France so that the French Monarch is now justly become the dread of all his Neighbours But that which I am observing is this namely that the French King being arrived at that formidable greatness which he now stands in the Plotters and Contrivers of the ruine of England drew him into their Councels and obtained promises of Assistance towards the rooting out of Heresie as according to the Roman stile they call the Protestant Religion and nourishing a mis-understanding betwixt His Majesty and His People And as they do conceive this to be a great advance towards their main project otherwise they would neither have so laboured to compass it nor bear themselves so much upon it having gained that point so in case that other means for the enslaving of these Nations and subversion of Religion should fail them which at present they nourish their hopes with the success of we may rationally look for no better consequences and effects from what I have mentioned than that the King being Excommunicate and the Nation cursed with him Lewis the 14 th should be intrusted to execute the Papal Bann And that Innocent the 11 th having made a donation of these Kingdoms to him as Pius the 5 th did to Philip the 2 d. King of Spain he should with a strength proportionable to the extent of his own Dominions and the greatness of his preparations for less designs endeavour to take possession of them as Philip the second once did And how ready they will be to animate the French King to contribute the assistance of his Treasure and Arms for the rooting out of English Hereticks we may justly fear and presume from the Councels they give him in reference to his own Subjects that are of the Reformed Religion For in a late Book to the maxims of which the conduct of his whole affairs seems very much adapted he is not only informed that his Ancestors never failed to be Protectors of the Apostolick See and the Church but that they turned their Arms and exposed their Lives against the Albigenses they vanquished them they destroyed them they imprisoned the poor men of Lyons And he is further told that both by principles of Christianity and maxims of Policy it is necessary for him to reduce all his Subjects to one and the same belief and that the Edict of Nantes as being extorted from his Predecessors by violence and with Sword in hand ought to be no obstruction in the execution of so blessed a design but that the said Edict is to be revoked or at least neglected Now his compliance with this advice against the Protestants in France evidenced in many instances whereby he hath endeavoured to extirpate them and their Religion though by degrees and in the ways of Fraud and Art
Entertainment that William Rufus Henry the second King John and Henry the eighth Princes of this Kingdom met with from the Universal Father For even that Prince whom I mentioned last not only lived and died himself in the Romish Faith but put to death all such as were Arraigned for being otherwise minded So that the only reason why he was Excommunicated by two Popes one after another his Kingdom interdicted his Subjects absolved from the Fealty they owed him and a disposal made of his Crown to others who were intrusted with the Exemption of the Papal Censure was nothing but his declining the Authority and Jurisdiction of the Pope and his vindicating those Rights which by our ancient Law appertained to the Imperial Crown of this Land Let Princes and People be never so zealous in all other points of the Roman Faith if they do but dispute the Universal-Jurisdiction of the Triple Crown they expose themselves to Depositions Interdicts and whatsoever else it pleases his Holiness to denounce against them It is but for a Monarch or State to thwart the Capricio and cross the humour of the Pope or disoblige the Court of Rome and they immediately run the hazard of being destroyed under the very Countenance and Allowance of those Doctrines which have the stamp of Articles of Faith The Interdict of the State of Venice by Paul the fifth the Murther of Henry the third of France and the Assassination of Henry the fourth likewise of France were some of the late Commentaries upon the foregoing Principles and Items to the world that though they did not think fit to act up to them at all times yet they reserved them in their Petto to be made use of upon occasion And it may not be altogether unworthy of our observation that the Murther of Henry the third by James Clement a Dominican was not only magnified in a solemn Oration by Sixtus the fifth which was afterwards Printed and Published at Rome but it hath been lately translated by some Romish Priest or other with the Latin in one Column and English in another and that in all likelihood to inflame some Papal Votary to the like attempt upon His Sacred Majesty section 2 So that were there no dishonour to arise to God danger to the Souls of men by the re-introduction of Popery amongst us the hazard of enslaving these Nations to a Forraign Power and of making the Crown truckle to the Papal Mitre may awaken every generous as well as Loyal Soul both to watch against and oppose all secret tendencies as well as open attempts towards a matter of so pernicious a Consequence Nor is it unworthy of our remark that besides those foregoing advantages which the Pope would have over this Nation in common with other Nations by virtue of his Monarchy over all persons and things in ordine ad spiritualia upon which alone he might as heretofore he hath done Anathematize our Kings Divest them of their Royal Power and not only Absolve their Subjects from Fidelity and Obedience but Commissionate and Impower them to make War upon their Soveraigns and both to Depose and Murder them under the encouragement of meriting Heaven by so doing I say it is not unworthy of our reflection what other latent claims besides these as he may be likely to revive of an absolute and uncontroulable Temporal Jurisdiction over these Kingdoms The King of England saith Bellarmine is subject to the Pope by a two-fold right first by reason of his Apostolick Power and secondly by right of proper Dominion For as to England he may be ready to plead if not King Henry the second his submitting his Crown to the Pope yet King John's resignation of it into the hands of the Popes Legat and receiving it again as a Feudatory to the See of Rome And for Scotland he may possibly revive that title which so long ago as Boniface the Eighth he pretended over that Kingdom namely That the Kingdom of Scotland belongs of right to the Church of Rome and that it is in the Popes power alone to give it to or take it from whom he pleases And lastly for Ireland who knoweth but that they may start as a pretence for a temporal Jurisdiction over that Nation Henry the thirds swearing homage to the Pope for it and obliging himself to pay a Tribute in recognition of the Papal right It s true these things are impertinent and ridiculous in themselves yet were Popery re-established in England and the people brought under the conduct of the Jesuites who as they labour most effectually in the perversion of the Nation so being the Janizaries of the Holy See its easie to apprehend how far they may mis-improve them towards the serving the interest of the Pope in case any difference should arise either between the King and him or any other Forraign Prince that his Holiness for secular ends shall think fit to befriend Surely it s with respect to these pretensions that Bellarmine so solemnly declareth That these Kingdoms are the Diminions of the Church and that the Pope is our natural and direct Lord and the King at best but his Vassal And it was in pursuance of this right that Gregory the thirteenth Commissioned Tho. Stukeley an English Rebel against Queen Elizabeth to conquer the Kingdom of Ireland for his Holiness's Bastard-Son James Boncompagnon And by virtue of the same pretension did Innocent the tenth during the late Wars usurp a Royal Power over that Nation and accordingly gave forth all kind of Commissions by the hands of his Nuncio And if divers principles of Popery are unfriendly to the safety of Monarchs section 3 and quiet of Kingdoms even where their Religion is Nationally received and submitted to we cannot imagine that the Peace and Security of these Nations who not only are of a different Religion but declare against them as Antichristians and Idolaters should be better provided for if occasion serve to do mischief For besides the liableness of all Protestant Princes and People to the fatal consequence of the foregoing Doctrines of the Papal Usurpation and Jurisdiction over all Nations they have others particularly and especially calculated to Authorise and Justifie their destruction and ruine Such as that we are all Hereticks and thereupon are not only de jure Excommunicated by the Lateran Councel under Innocent the third but de facto pronounced such for ever by Paul the fourth anno 1558. And as if that were not sufficient we are in de Bulla Coenae Domini read commonly on Maunday Thursday solemnly Cursed And thereupon the Papists in the several Dominions where the Protestant Religion obtains are not only discharged from all Allegiance to Princes but all Catholicks are obliged by the strictest bond of Conscience and under the penalty of the utmost hazard of their Souls to depose such Heretical Princes They are so far from being guilty of murder saith Vrban the third that kill any who are Excommunicate that