Master the Emperour Henry and that in following their ungodly Counsels he had brought upon him Gods heavy and just Judgments And so Henry the Emperour prevailing by Gods power caused Gregory the Pope by a Synod in Italy to be deposed as in like times before him his Predecessor Otho the Emperour had deposed one Pope John for many hainous crimes and so were also within a short time three other Popes namely Sylvester Bennet and Gregory the Sixth used by the Emperour Henry the Third about the year of our Lord 1047. for their like presumptuous attempts in temporal actions against the said Emperours Many other examples might be shewed to the Emperours Majesty and the Princes of the holy Empire now being after the time of Henry the Fourth as of Henry the Fifth and after him of Frederick the First and Frederick the Second and then of Lewis of Bavar all Emperours cruelly and tyrannously persecuted by the Popes and by their Bulls Curses and by open Wars and likewise to many other the great Kings and Monarchs of Christendom of their noble Progenitors Kings of their several Dominions whereby they may see how this kind of tyrannous Authority in Popes to make Wars upon Emperours and Kings and to command them to be deprived took hold at the first by Pope Hildebrand though the same never had any lawful example or warrant from the Laws of God of the Old or New Testament but yet the successes of their tyrannies were by Gods goodness for the most part made frustrate as by Gods goodness there is no doubt but the like will follow to their confusions at all times to come And therefore as there is no doubt but the like violent tyrannous proceedings by any Pope in maintenance of Traiters and Rebels would be withstood by every Soveraign Prince in Christendom in defence of their Persons and Crowns and maintenance of their Subjects in Peace so is there at this present a like just cause that the Emperours Majesty with the Princes of the holy Empire and all other Soveraign Kings and Princes in Christendom should judge the same to be lawful for her Majesty being a Queen and holding the very place of a King and a Prince Soveraign over divers Kingdoms and Nations she being also most lawfully invested in her Crown and as for good governing of her People with such applause and general allowance loved and obeyed of them saving a few ragged Traiters or Rebels or persons discontented whereof no other Realm is free as continually for these twenty five years past hath been notably seen and so publickly marked even by strangers repairing into this Realm as it were no cause of disgrace to any Monarchy and King in Christendom to have her Majesties felicity compared with any of theirs whatsoever and it may be there are many Kings and Princes could be well contented with the fruition of some proportion of her felicity And though the Popes be now suffered by the Emperor in the Lands of his own peculiar Patrimony and by the two great Monarchs the French King and the King of Spain in their Dominions and Territories although by other Kings not so allowed to continue his Authority in sundry cases and his glorious Title to be the universal Bishop of the World which Title Gregory the Great above nine hundred years past called a profane Title full of Sacriledge and a Preamble of Antichrist yet in all their Dominions and Kingdoms as also in the Realm of England most notably by many ancient Laws it is well known how many ways the tyrannous Power of this his excessive Authority hath been and still is restrained checked and limited by Laws and Pragmatiques both ancient and new a very large field for the Lawyers of those Countries to walk in and discourse And howsoever the Popes Canonists being as his Bombarders do make his Excommunications and Curses appear fearful to the multitude and simple people yet all great Emperours and Kings aforetime in their own cases 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 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 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 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 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
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 sew 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 Bulls Excommunications and other publick Writings denouncing her Majesty being the lawful Queen and Gods anointed Servant not to be the Queen of the Realm charging and upon pains of Excommunication commanding all her Subjects to depart from their natural Allegiances whereto by birth and by Oath they were bound Provoking also and authorising all persons of all degrees within both the Realms to Rebell and upon this Antichristian Warrant being contrary to all
the Laws of God and Man and nothing agreeable to a pastural Officer not only all the rabble of the foresaid Traitors that were before fled but also all other persons that had forsaken their Native Countries being of divers conditions and qualities some not able to live at home but in beggery some discontented for lack of preferments which they gaped for unworthily in Universities and other places some Bankrupt Merchants some in a sort learned to contentions being not contented to learn to obey the Laws of the Land have many years running up and down from Country to Country practised some in one Corner some in another some with seeking to gather Forces and money for Forces some with instigation of Princes by untruths to make War upon their natural Country some with inward practises to murder the Greatest some with seditious Writings and very many of late with publick infamous Libels full of despiteful vile terms and poisoned lies altogether to uphold the foresaid Antichristian and Tyrannous Warrant of the Popes Bull. And yet also by some other means to further these intentions because they could not readily prevail by way of Force finding Foreign Princes of better consideration and not readily inclined to their wicked purposes it was devised to erect up certain Schools which they called Seminaries to nourish and bring up persons disposed naturally to Sedition to continue their race and trade and to become Seedmen in their Tillage of Sedition and them to send secretly into these the Queens Majesties Realms of England and Ireland under secret Masks some of Priesthood some of other inferior Orders with Titles of Seminaries for some of the meaner sort and of Jesuits for the stagers and ranker sort and such like but yet so warily they crept into the Land as none brought the marks of their Priesthood with them but in divers Corners of her Majesties Dominions these Seminaries or Seedmen and Jesuits bringing with them certain Romish trash as of their hallowed Wax their Agnus Dei many kind of Beads and such like have as Tillage-men laboured secretly to perswade the people to allow of the Popes foresaid Bulls and Warrants and of his absolute Authority over all Princes and Countries and striking many with pricks of Conscience to obey the same whereby in Process of small time if this wicked and dangerous traitorous and crafty course had not been by Gods goodness espied and stayed there had followed imminent danger of horrible uprores in the Realms and a manifest bloody destruction of great multitudes of Christians For it cannot be denied but that so many as should have been induced and throughly perswaded to have obeyed that wicked Warrant of the Popes and the Contents thereof should have been forthwith in their hearts and Consciences secret Traitors and for to be indeed errant and open Traitors there should have wanted nothing but opportunity to feel their strength and to assemble themselves in such numbers with Armour and Weapons as they might have presumed to have been the greater part and so by open civil War to have come to their wicked purposes But Gods goodness by whom Kings do Rule and by whose blast Traitors are commonly wasted and confounded hath otherwise given to her Majesty as to his Handmaid and dear Servant ruling under him the spirit of Wisdom and Power whereby she hath caused some of these seditious Seedmen and Sowers of Rebellion to be discovered for all their secret lurkings and to be taken and charged with these former points of High Treason not being dealt withal upon questions of Religion but justly condemned as Traitors At which times notwithstanding all manner of gentle ways of perswasions used to move them to desist from such manifest traitorous courses and opinions yet was the Canker of their Rebellious humours so deeply entred and graven into the hearts of many of them as they would not be removed from their traiterous determinations And therefore as manifest Traitors in maintaining and adhearing to the capital Enemy of her Majesty and her Crown who hath not only been the cause of two Rebellions already passed in England and Ireland but in that of Ireland did manifestly wage and maintain his own people Captains and Souldiers under the Banner of Rome against her Majesty so as no Enemy could do more These I say have justly suffered Death not by force or form of any new Laws established either for Religion or against the Popes Supremacy as the slanderous Libellers would have it seem to be but by the antient temporal Laws of the Realm and namely by the Laws of Parliament made in King Edward the Thirds time about the year of our Lord 1330. which is above 200. years and more past when the Bishops of Rome and Popes were suffered to have their Authority Ecclesiastical in this Realm as they had in many other Countries But yet of this kind of Offenders as many of them as after their Condemnations were contented to renounce their former traiterous assertions so many were spared from Execution and do live still at this day such was the unwillingness in her Majesty to have any blood spilt without this very just and necessary cause proceeding from themselves And yet nevertheless such of the rest of the Traitors as remain in Foreign parts continuing still their Rebellious minds and craftily keeping themselves aloof off from dangers cease not to provoke sundry other inferiour seditious persons newly to steal secretly into the Realm to revive the former seditious practises to the Execution of the Popes foresaid Bulls against her Majesty and the Realm pretending when they are apprehended that they came only into the Realm by the commandment of their Superiours the Heads of the Jesuits to whom they are bound as they say by Oath against either King or Country and here to inform or reform Mens Consciences from errors in some points of Religion as they shall think meet but yet in very truth the whole scope of their secret labours is manifestly proved to be secretly to win all people with whom they dare deal 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 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
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 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 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 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 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 manner of the death of Dr. Sanders the Popes Irish 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 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 or 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 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 grounded 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 either
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 them 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 proceeding 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 over-ruled by us 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
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 required 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 safeties 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 allegiance let other men qualifie 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 hearts the remembrance of it and are greatly ashamed that any person so intituled should ever have been so extremely bewitched Two Gentlemen about that time also viz. Anno 1583. Mr. Arden and Mr. Somervile were convicted by the Laws of the Realm to have purposed and contrived how they might have laid violent hands upon her Majesties sacred person Mr. Somerviles confession therein was so notorious as it may not be either qualified or denied And Doctor Parry the very same year was plotting with Jesuits beyond the Seas how he might have effected the like villany How the worthy Earl of Northumberland was about this time brought into the said Plot of the Duke of Guise then still in hand we will pretermit Mr. Parsons that was an Actor in it could tell the story very roundly at Rome It wrought the noble Earls overthrow 1585. which may justly be ascribed to the Jesuitical practices of the Jesuit Mendoza and others of that crew Hereunto we might add the notable Treasons of Mr. Anthony Babington and his Complices in the year 1586. which were so apparent as we were greatly abashed at the shameless boldness of a young Jesuit who to excuse the said Traiters and qualifie their offences presumed in a kind of supplication to her Majesty to ascribe the plotting of all that mischief to Mr. Secretary Walsingham The treachery also of Sir William Standley the year following 1587. in falsifying his faith to her Majesty and in betraying the trust committed unto him by the Earl of Leicester who had given him the honourable Title of Knighthood as it was greatly prejudicial to us that were Catholicks at home so was the defence of that disloyalty made by a worthy man but by the perswasions as they think of Parsons greatly disliked of many both wise and learned And especially it was wondred at a while until the drift thereof appeared more manifestly in the year 1588. that the said worthy person by the said lewd Jesuits laid down this for a ground in justifying of the said Standley viz. That in all Wars which may happen for Religion every Catholick man is bound in conscience to imploy his person and forces by the Popes direction viz. How far when and where either at home or abroad he may and must break with his temporal Soveraign These things we would not have touched had they not been known in effect to this part of the World and that we thought it our duties to shew our own dislike of them and to clear her Majesty so far as we may from such imputations of more than barbarous cruelty towards us as the Jesuits in their writings have cast by heaps upon her they themselves as we still think in our consciences and before God having been from time to time the very causes of all the calamities which any of us have endured in England since her Majesties reign Which we do not write simply to excuse her Highness although we must confess we can be contented to endure much rather than to seek her dishonour but for that we think few Princes living being perswaded in Religion as her Majesty is and so provoked as she hath been would have dealt more mildly with such their Subjects all circumstances considered than she hath done with us But now we are come to the year 1588. and to that most bloody attempt not only against her Majesty and our common Enemies but against our selves all Catholicks nay against this flourishing Kingdom and our own native Country The memory of which attempt will be as we trust an everlasting Monument of Jesuitical Treason and Cruelty For it is apparent in a Treatise penned by the advice of Father Parsons altogether as we do verily think that the King of Spain was especially moved and drawn to that intended mischief against us by the long and daily solicitations of the Jesuits and other English Catholicks beyond the Seas affected and altogether given to Jesuitism And whereas it is well known that the Duke of Medina Sidonia had given it out directly that if once he might land in England both Catholicks and Hereticks that came in his way should be all one to him his Sword could not discern them so he might make way for his Master all was one to him yet the said Father Parsons for so we will ever charge him though another man by his crafty perswasion took upon him to be the Author of that Book did labour with all the Rhetorick he had to have perswaded us upon the supposed arrival of the
disloyalty be purged out My sixth To offer even your selves an advantage if your courage and cause will stretch to improve it For the following Doubts are many of them such as Protestants themselves urge against your Reasons and are communicated here to you partly on purpose that you may provide better satisfaction My last to satisfie even the passionate too is Because your unchristian spirit of Calumny is still as unquiet as ever having of late most unjustly aspersed Principal Persons of almost every Body but your own which comportment of yours makes it but fit if Truth and the Common Good favour you not neither should I. To think and declare thus much satisfies me if it do not others I cannot help it Only I wish your favourers to beware of doing any thing that may be interpreted an abetment of you till you approve your selves heartily loyal lest they discover themselves too deeply tainted with your Principles and temper The Jesuits Reasons Vnreasonable DOVBTS 1. TO begin then My first Doubt shall be Whether you Jesuits have ground to hope the same favour with others For if you by your unjust and wicked practices provoked the Magistrates to enact those Laws if the rest of Priests and Catholicks were by you plunged in such miseries upon discovery of your Negotiations which were imputed to the whole Body of them how can you be thought to deserve remission whose seditious Principles are too deeply guilty of the Blood of Priests and Catholicks shed in the Kingdom ever since you first came into it Those who know your practices in the Countries where you by the means ordinarily of deluded Wives govern the Great Ones know this to be your Maxime to manage Religion not by perswasion but by command and force This Principle did your chief Apostle of England Robert Parsons bring in with him His first endeavours were to make a List of Catholicks which under the conduct of the Duke of Guise should have changed the state of the Kingdom using for it the pretence of the Title of Queen Mary of Scotland But her Council at Paris which understood business better were so sensible of his boldness that they took from him the Queens Cypher which he had purloyned and commanded him never more to meddle in Her affairs Poor Edmund Campian who is generally accounted an innocent and learned man and others suffered for such practices of his Parson's endeavours being suppressed by this Queen he turned himself to the Spaniard and with all his might fostered the Invasion of Eighty eight which is known to have been another occasion of Sanguinary Laws He wrote on that occasion his Dolman to justifie the Spaniards Title to England degrading the Scottish succession and Title of our Soveraign He wrote also Leicester's Common-wealth at that time called commonly Blewcoat because it was sent into England bound in blew paper which extremely exasperated the State and augmented its indignation against Catholicks The same man at Queen Elizabeths death procured a Bull from the Pope to the Catholicks in England against King James to hinder his coming to the Crown unless he would give liberty of Conscience and as his friends gave out had twenty thousand men listed for that effect had not his Majesty prevented the danger with sweet words Next followed that detestable Machination of blowing up that Royal Race and the whole Nobility with the House of Commons which was the occasion of the Oath of Allegiance and all the Persecution of Catholicks following upon it King James professing not to persecute for Religion but for Treason This you alledge not to be originally your Invention but is it no guilt to follow another mans wickedness when it leads to so horrid a crime For without doubt both by prayers before-hand and by publick testifications after the Fact was discovered you were highly accessary to it nay many years after you did and peradventure to this very day still do pertinaciously adhere to it I could urge great and manifest instances of this were it not to lose time That monstrous Straw of which all Christendom rung so long and the Pictures of Garnet and Oldcorne cannot be denied nor want they evidence of your inward minds After these came out the ridiculous and satyrical Books against King James the Corona Regia and the Quaeries And yet your so well affected spirits could not be at rest till your Patriarch Parsons was shamefully turned out of Rome by Monsieur Bethunes the French Ambassador and order from the King of France being discovered to plot a new Treason against his Country to introduce the Duke of Parma Thus you followed King James to his death Direct Treason against King Charles of glorious memory before the Wars I cannot accuse you of but how refractory you were to the Queens desires and orders at Rome for his late Majesties assistance is well known and what you have done since the beginning of the Wars and how you have behaved your selves both in and out of England is fitter for me to remit to his Majesty and the Courts Informations than to eâ—gage my pen in far fewer and weaker which I could produce Only I shall add this word If Colonel Hutchinson were well examined and pressed he would perhaps discover â—â—â—ange secrets about your treating with Cromwel no doubt much to his Majesties advantage So that leaving you this Doubt to ruminate upon whether the condition of them who have guiltily provoked and deserved the Sanguinary Laws be the same with theirs who have suffered for being mistaken to be their Fellows I proceed to 2. My Second Doubt about your first Reason That the Jesuits are free-born Subjects as well as others In which methinks I find one of your usual sleights of Equivocation For a Jesuit may signifie the man who is a Jesuit and may signifie with the complexion of being a Jesuit In the former sense there is no difference between any other Priest Regular or Secular and a Jesuit as to free-born but in the second there 's a wide one For the others have nothing against them but such Laws as had their beginning from difference in Religion their degrees and communities having been accepted by the Laws of the Kingdom in virtue of which they are free-born Subjects and parts of the Common-wealth as far as difference of Religion permits Now it being the Law of England that no Ecclesiastical Community may settle here unless admitted by the Civil Power as we see in proportion practised in all Catholick Estates and Jesuits never having participated of this favour all your practices of usurping Jurisdiction making Colledges and Provinces in or for England possessing your selves of great sums of monies for such ends and the like actions have been hitherto all usurpations unlawful both in respect of the Donors and Acceptors 'T is unlawful for any man even according to the sense and practice of Catholick times by virtue of your priviledges to live or preach in England or any of his Majesties
bethink your selves well of this Dilemma If your solicitings stop the progress of the Act how will you be hated as guilty of the continuance of those Sanguinary Laws if your endeavours do not stop it how will you be both hated for attempting it and scorned for miscarrying in 't FINIS All Offenders cover their faults with contrary causes Rebels do most dangerously cover their faults Rebellion in England and Ireland The Rebels vanquished by the Queens Power Some of the Rebels fled into other Countries Rebels pretend Religion for their defence Ringleaders of Rebels Charls Nevill Earl of Westmer land and Thomas Stukeley The effect of the Popes Bull against the Queen of England The practises of the Traitors Rebels and Fugitives to execute the Bull. Seminaries erected to nurse seditious Fugitives The Seminary Fugitives come secretly into the Realm to induce the people to obey the Popes Bull. Sowers of sedition taken convented and executed for Treason The seditious Traitors Condemned by the antient Laws of the Realm made 200. years past Persons Condemned spared from Execution upon refusal of their treasonable opinions The Foreign Traitors continue sending of persons to move sedition in the Realm The Seditious Fugitives labour to bring the Realm into a War external and domestical The duty of the Queen and all her Governours to God and their Country is to repel practices of Rebellion None charged with capital Crimes being of a contrary Religion and professing to withstand Foreign Forces Names of divers Ecclesiastical persons professing contrary Religion never charged with capital Crimes The late Favourers of the Popes Authority were the chief Adversaries of the same by their Doctrines and Writings A great number of Lay persons of livelyhood being of a contrary Religion never charged with capital Crime No person charged with capital Crime for the only maintenance of the Popes Supremacy Such Condemned only for Treason as maintain the effects of the Popes Bull against her Majesty and the Realm Dr. Sanders maintenance of the Popes Bull. The persons that suffered Death were Condemned for Treason and not for Religion A full proof that the maintainers of the Bull are directly guilty of Treason Dr. Mortons secret Ambassage from Rome to stir the Rebellion in the North. Persons and Campion are offenders as Dr. Sanders is for allowance of the Bull. Faculties granted to Persons and Campion by Pope Gregory 13. Anno 1580. Harts Confession of the interpretation of the Bull of Pius Quintus A Conclusion that all the infamous Books against the Queen and the Realm are false Difference of the small numbers that have been executed in the space of five and twenty years from the great numbers in five years of Queen Maries Reign An Advertisement to all princes of Countries abroad The Authority claimed by the Pope not warranted by Christ or by the two Apostles Peter and Paul Pope Hildebrand the first that made War against the Emperor An. Dom. 1074. The Judgement of God against the Popes false erected Emperour Pope Gregory the Seventh deposed by Henry IV. Henry 5. Frederick 1. Frederick 2. Lewis of Banar Emperours Whatsoever is alwful for other Princes Soveraigns is lawful for the Queen and Crown of England The Title of universal Bishop is a Preamble of Antichrist Rome sacked and the Pope Clement taken Prisoner by the Emperors Army 1550. King Henry the Second of France his Edicts against the Pope and his Courts of Rome The besieging of Rome and the Pope by the Duke of Alva with King Philips Army Queen Mary and Cardinal Pool resisted the Pope D. Peyto a begging Fryer The Kings of Christendom never suffer the Popes to abridge their Titles or Rights though they suffer them to have rule over their People The Queen of England may not suffer the Pope by any means to make Rebellions in her Realm Additaments to the Popes Martyrologe The strange ends of James Earl of Desmond D. Saunders James Fitzmorice John of Desmond John Somervile The prosperity of England during the Popes curses Reasons to perswade by reason the Favourers of the Pope that none hath bin executed for Religion but for Treason The first reason The second reason The 〈◊〉 Pius Qâ—â—â—â—â—… set up at Pauls The first punishment for the Bull. The third reason Rebellion in the North. The fourth reason The Invasion of Ireland by the Pope The Popes Forces vanquished in Ireland The Politick Adversaries satisfied Objection of the Papists that the persons executed are but Scholars and unarmed Many are Traiters though they have no Armor nor Weapon The Application of the Scholastical Traiters to others that are Traiters without Armor Six Questions to try Traiters from Scholars The offenders executed for Treason not for Religion Unreasonable and obstinate persons are left to Gods Judgment Saunders Morton Web c.