best assistance to the support of the Estate Royal and of the Kingdom wherein they lived It is true through the malice of the Devil and Instigation of some Enemies of the Church some of them for the asserting of their legal Immunities and to preserve the Liberty of their spiritual Jurisdiction entirely Free as it ought they were dirven now and then yet very seldom in comparison of such a long tract of time as we instance in unto some vehement and earnest contestation with their Princes and though much further then was pleasing to them yet I suppose not beyond terms of due respect and the Authority of their Function much less did they endeavor to stir up rebellion or instigate the people to sedition and commotions against their Princes nor did they ever upon their own account solely concur in any thing of that nature The first King that ever gave cause in this Kingdom effectually and in the face of the world to trie the admirable patience obedience and loyalty of Catholikcs was King Henry the Eighth Flagellum Dei that scourge of God to the Church of England and all good Catholikes therein yet outwardly professing the same Religion in most things with Catholikes This he did first by a pretended Accusation of the Clergy to be fallen in a Praemunire because Scil they did that which all their predecessors the Bishops and Clergy of England for many Hundreds of years confessedly had done without any exception taken viz. for acknowledging the power Legantine of Cardinal Wâ—lsey which yet the King himself for his own ends and in his own case had first of all procured 2. upon the Statute of supremacy And 3. by suppression of the Abbies These were his Three first breaches by which the Foundation strength and glory of the Catholike Church in England became afterwards utterly ruinated By the first his way was levelled to the Second and the Second obtained gave him power and authority to compass the Third By the First indeed onely the Clergy smarted in a fine of an Hundred thousand pound The second lay heavy upon the Clergy and Temporalty both But by the Third viz. the suppression of the Abbies and Religious houses if we consider the infinite prejudice which the poor Commonalty suffered thereby both in point of spiritual and temporal interest the whole Kingdom might be said to be worse then conquered by him that is Robbed Spoiled Enslaved to the exorbitancy of his sole Will Prodigality Lust and Tyranny And all this done to be revenged on the Pope who condescended not to humor him in the business of his marriage Therefore and to advance his own power and greatness That Authority and Jurisdiction which had alway been acknowledged as sacred by the English ever since the English were Christians must in a moment be abandoned disclaimed abjured himself by an unheard of and fatal Ambition instead thereof made Head of the Church and all persons who out of scruple of Conscience refused to conform to such grand sudden and sacrilegious Innovations and to swear they knew not what were cut shorter by the head executed at Tyborn imprisoned banished and put into such condition as he was sure they should not oppose him The ground of the Praemunire was at first onely a quarrel which he pick't against the Cardinal Wolsey but afterwards stretched it upon the Tenters and made it reach the whole Clergy who being thereupon Summoned into the Kings Bench the business was so aggravated there by the Lawyers The Kings Learned Counsel that in the Convocation house they presently concluded to submit themselves to the King and offer him no less sum then One hundred thousand pound for their pardon This was look't upon by the Christian world as a Prodigy That so many Shepherds should be afraid of one Wolfe And though it becomes us not hear to censure whether they did as they ought yet certainly this weakness of the Pastors boded no good to the Flock and it is observed that neither themselves nor the Church nor Religion ever prospered in England afterwards However the King accepts of thâ—ir offâ—r and signs their Pardon but with a fetch far worse then the first For undâ—r a prâ—â—eâ—ce of procuring this Pardon to be confirmed to them in Parliament he draws thâ—m in there how willingly or unwillingly let the world judge to acknowledge him Supream Head of the Church It was a course even at that time not thought agreeable to Justice or Honor. For as we said the Cardinal Wolsey had the Kings License for the exercise of his Legantine power both under the Kings hand and the Great Seal of England and was employed by the Kings particular Mandate and pleasure in the quality of Legat to sit with the other Legat Cardinal Campegius and examine the business of his marriage And could the Divorce have been granted according to the Kings minde it is easily conjectured the Cardinal had never been questioned for his Legat-ship Touching the Second of Supremacy All the Subjects of England ever acknowledged that the Crown and State of England quoad Temporalia in Temporal affairs and matters is independent of any other power but of that Transcendent Majestie which saith Per me reges regnant and this to the intent that Kings and all Governors considering who will one day take their Audit may be more careful to rule with Justice and common equity without partiality passion prejudice against any mans person further then his crimes against Publike Order Common Right and the Peace of the State shall make him obnoxious and by so doing may keep their accounts streight against the day of Account And on the other side that Subjects remembring their duty and who it is that layeth this jugum suave the sweet Yoke of good Government upon their Shoulders might be induced to obey with more fidelity and prompt affection But the Question which King Henry the first of all Kings Princes or States of Christendom propounded to his Clergy and People in Parliament concerned matters purely Spiritual and wherein not himself onely and his Subjects at home but all Christian Kings Princes States and people in the world were concerned And therefore required far greater deliberation I say not then was used for in truth that was little or none at all the Kings pleasure and resolution was known and that as the world went then was sufficient but I say then could possâ—bly be used in England which was then but one single Kingdom and a small Province of Christendom And for the suppression of the Abbeys and Religious houses by that Act and this other of Supremacy together the Clergy of England were brought absolutely into Captivity and stood meerly as they have done ever since at the pleasure of the King and of the State Their Possessions the greatest part of them were seized their Goods forfeited their Churches profaned and sacked and upon the spoils thereof together with the sale of the Vestments Chalices Bells and other
done it to her no little trouble No they never attempted any kinde or any shew of violent resistance at all either by Domestick or Forreign help but always from first to last most submissively behaved themselves towards her tendring her safety and the Peace of the Realm far above their own Lives Liberties and Estates 'T is true it was once debated among them whither they ought not to proceed to Excommunication against her both for the preservation of Catholikes and discharge of their Office Yet considering the great trouble and inconveniences that might arise thereby both to her Majestie and the State in case the people should fall into any disorders thereupon or take Arms in defence of Religion They concluded notwithstanding her case and proceedings were very much liable to censure yet for their parts to leave her to Gods Judgement and referred the whole business to his Holiness And herein also the Favor and Interest of King Philip as they had always done did stand her in no small stead For he knowing the practises of France upon this occasion and how much they labored at Rome that sentence of Excommunication might pass against Queen Elizabeth onely out of design and hoping to invest themselves of England thereupon under the Title and pretensions of Queen Mary of Scotland who was the next Heir and at that time married to their King Was the more willing to hinder it least by this means England and Ireland both together with Scotland should come to be Incorporate as it were into the Crown of France and so become an enemy too potent for him to deal with out of which respect also even in Queen Maries time more then once he had kept of proceedings against her which otherwise would have concerned her very neerly Therefore so long as there was any hope that the Queen might be capable of better Counsels he ceased not by his Ministers to do all good Offices here betwixt the Queen and the Clergy and at Rome hindered the passing of the censures for no small time notwithstanding all the indeavors and instances thereunto made by the French But the Prelates all this while as I said chose rather a Durate then Armate ever professing with their mouths and making it good no less with their examples and practises that Preces and Lachrimae indeed Prayers and Tears were the onely weapons which they had to fight against the Queen Though the world knows how little these prevailed with her whose severity towards them continued in the same extremity from first to last not relenting nor affording the least remission in any degree of Liberty or Estate unto their dying day Doctor Scot Bishop of Chester died at Lovain in Exile Goldwel of Asaph died at Rome Pate Bishop of Worcester was indeed at the Councel of Trent and subscribed there for the Clergy of England but never returned Doctor Oglethorpe Bishop of Carlile who had Crowned the Queen was yet deprived with the rest dying suddenly and very shortly after so did also Doctor Tonstal that Learned and Famous Prelate Bishop of Durham while he was Prisoner at Lambeth Yet not before he had personally given the Queen a sound and Godly Admonition concerning her strange proceedings with that liberty and freedom of zeal which became so venerable a Prelate and true Pastor of Gods Church as he was and as some have said Godfather to the Queen Bourn Bishop of Bath and Wells was prisoner to Cary Dean of the Chappel and there dyed Doctor Thirlby Bishop of Ely was first committed to the Tower afterwards He and Secretary Boxhal were sent to Lambeth and there ended their days Bishop Bonner of London Watson of Lincoln with the Abbot of Westminster Fecknam died all prisoners and as some say in the Marshalsey Prior Shelly was banished and died in Exile This was the the very Sad yet as by their Patience Submission and Sufferance appeared very Christian Catastrophe of so many grave religious and good Prelates of England chief Pastors of the Church of God in our nation Thus was a third and the most venerable State of the Realm who like the Cedars of Liâ—â—anus ever since King Etheldreds time for so many years together had stood flourishing in great Dignity and Power in this Land on a sudden cast down disgraced put in prison or banished the Realm The chief and immediate cause of which hard procedings against them was the refusing the Oath of Supremacy for no other crime no other fault could be charged upon them This indeed they refused as a thing which concerned their Conscience very much And although perhaps some of the Prelates now living had either for fear or upon surprizal in the Reign of King Henry the Eighth when it was first enacted given more consent or connivence to it then became Prelates of the Church to do yet they had now better considered themselves and resolved to be constant not onely to the Doctrine of Catholike Faith in that point but also to the judgement of the whole Kingdom which so lately in full Parliament had desired the Abrogation of that Law and acknowledged the Supremacy of Ecclesiastical Authority to be where Christ placed it viz. in the Sea Apostolike Nor did the English Prelates refusing to acknowledge the Queen Head of the Church any thing more then what the Protestants themselves at least no mean ones among them would likewise do For 't is manifest that setting aside some few English at home they do generally abroad dislike the Princes Supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes as much as any Not to mention Gilby who in his Book called Admonitio ad Anglos calls King Henry the Eighth reproachfully Monstrum Libidinosum Aprum qui Christi locum invasit c. A libidinous Monster a Wilde Bore broken into Christs Vineyard and making himself Head of the Church which belongs onely to Christ Calvin himself in his Commentary upon O see is very angry at those who attribute so much to Secular Princes as to give them such absolute power in the affairs of Religion and in plain terms confesseth Qui initio tantoperè extulerunt Henricum Regem Angliae certè fuerunt inconsiderati homines c. They saith he who first advanced the Authority of King Henry of England to such a height did not well consider what they did when they gave him that Supream Power in all Causes it was a matter which always greeved me very much saith he For indeed they did no less then blaspheme when they called him Supream Head of the Church under Christ Sir Thomas Moor Bishop Fisher Abbot Whiteing of Glastenbury and those many other Holy Abbots and Religious men of all sorts who suffeâ—ed in the case of Supremacy under Henry the Eighth never said more And Luther himself saith no less but more scurrilously as his humor was Quid ad nos Mandatum Electoris Saxoniae What hath the Prince Elector of Saxony to do to command me Let him look to his Sword and see
how well he manageth that and leave matters of Preaching to the Clergy such as himself was Scilicet Tom. 2. Fol. 259. and Tom. 1. Lat. Fol. 540. he tells them plainly Non est regum aut Principum c. It belongs not to Kings and Princes to take upon them to establish Doctrine no not the true Doctrine but to be subject and obedient themselves in that case And Chemnitius in his Epistle to the Elector of Brandenburgh speaking of Queen Elizabeth after he had taxed her sufficiently in other particulars he fals at last upon her Title of Supremacy in these words Et quòd foemineo a saeculis inaudito fastu se Papissam caput Ecclesiae facit saying by a strange Womanish and unheard of kinde of Arrogance she makes her self as it were a She-Pope in her own dominions Head of the Church What the doctrin practise of those in Scotland is and hath ever bin since their pretended Reformation is too well known to be disputed Cartwright teacheth the same in all his Books but especially in his last And so do all the Presbyterians generally both here and beyond Seas They of Amsterdam in their Confess Fid. 1607. go somewhat further Pag. 50. Art 2. when they resolve That Vnicuique Ecclesiae particulari est par plenum jus c. That every particular Church hath ful and equal power with any other Church or Churches to use exercise and enjoy whatsâ—ever ordinances of Perpetuity Christ hath committed to his Church therefore it is cleer upon that supposition That no one Person is left Supream Governor over many Dr. Whitacre in his answer to Reinolds speaking upon this subject Pag. 4. hath a passage not easie to be understood The Title saith he of Supream Head of the Church hath been disliked by diverse Godly Learned men and of right it belongeth to the Son of God and therefore saith he never did our Church give that Title unto the Prince nor did the Prince ever challenge it By saying that many Godly Learned men disliked it meaning Calvin Gilby Knox Luther c. mentioned before and upon this ground viz. that of right it belongeth to the Son of God he sheweth sufficiently what his own judgement therein is But when he saith never did our Church give the Title of Supream Head of the Church to the Prince nor the Prince challenge it who can tell what he meaneth For admit that what was done by King Henry the Eighth were not rightly said to be done by their Church yet I hope they will own the Church in King Edward the Sixths time who challenged the Supremacy notoriously enough as appeareth in the first Parliament which he held wherein it was Enacted That whosoever after the Fifth of March nex ensuing should deny that the Kings Heirs and Successors were not or ought not to be Supream Head in Earth of the Church of England and Ireland immediately under God for the third assertion should be guilty of Treason And that Queen Elizabeth after him declined the Title and chose rather to be called Supream Governess mended the matter not a whit For it was not the Title onely but the power pretended unto and exercised by and under that Title at which men made scruple and that power Queen Elizabeth claimed and exercised all her Reign as much as ever King Edward her Brother had done So that the refusing of this Oath being the onely or chief matter alledged for the deprivation of the Catholike Bishops seeing Protestants themselves were no better agreed about it they might in all reason have expected if not a milder sentence yet at least a more favorable Execution thereof from the Queen whom they had so lately and so unanimously acknowledged and no less willingly then any other persons of the Realm Who always bear themselves obsequiously towards her in temporal matters never made complaint never writ Libels Invectives or Books against her as the Reformers in other parts perpetually did against their Princes and as too many of her Subjects at home that is to say Ministers of her own making and others in short time set themselves to do No Homilies of sedition were dispersed among the people No Wyat No Oldcastle appeared in the Field by their instigation notwithstanding all the Adversity Disgrace Wants which they suffered In a word such was their behavior constantly towards her even to the very last of their lives that noe indifferent man will attribute it to any thing else but to the most excellent and right Christian resolution of those worthy men to suffer perfectly for such a good cause and unto that Patience Humility Obedience Aequanimity and Resigned Temper of Spirit which as it was exemplary in them so is it indeed Innate as I may say and most natural unto all Vertuous and Religious men that are truely Catholike And such in truth though envy frown when we speak it is the general Inclination and Temper of all English Catholikes towards their Sovereign Prince both within and without the Realm as the experience of their quiet behavior for so many years together of hard times have cleerly shewen When I speak of Catholikes within the Realm I mean Recusants in general as we are called men and women of all Estates and Conditions who have had our shares and tasted of the Cup of affliction as God was pleased to administer it unto us at this present not much less then a Hundred of years When I speak of those without the Realm I mean the Seminaries of Priests Religious Persons and Students that be Catholike beyond the Seas Concerning which Seminaries we are to know that when the old Clergy of England Bishops and Priests were some languishing in Prison other in Exile many dead and all in disfavor The Secretary and such other Politick Protestants as then sate at the Stearn of Government in England did confidently imagin that in a short time both Priest and Priesthood would be worn out and extingished in this Nation And truely it was observed that about the year 1576. there were not above Thirty of the old Priests remaining in the Realm Hereupon Doctor Allen a man even raised by God to do his Country good in a time of greatest necessity together with some others of the English Clergy begun the Seminary at Doway about the year 1569. meerly out of spiritual charity towards their poor Country and a Christian Providence to prevent the utter decay of Religious Professors Priests and others who might serve in time to come to uphold true Religion in England and to preserve a Continuation of the Catholike Church there as it had ever been from the Apostles times to that present unto succeeding Generations And as by the great blessing of God we see their pious Counsels have had an happy effect unto this day notwithstanding the many oppositions adversities and difficulties which they have met with as well from England as from other places They intended also
own Religion as beleeving it to be right or the best neither are Catholikes to be excepted in that point They must be permitted to desire at least and wish for the restoring of Catholike Religion as it ought to be But surely as to the means whereby they procure it and the course and manner of their proceeding that seek and endeavor it This treatise hath already shewen what great odds and difference there is betwixt the proceedings of Catholikes and that of Protestants And that what the one viz. Catholikes seek â—â—ely by way of Petition Supplication Prayer and humble Remonstrating of their Sufferances The other viz. Protestants seek chiefly by fire and Sword and Cannon Bullet and by Thundring of Ordnances rather then Apologies in their Princes ears Beside to proceed a little further in this Parallel the Catholikes generally and for a long time both in Germany and France were Passive as in England they are still to this day The Protestants were Aâ—tive and the offendors Catholikes onely defend their own maintain the possession of that which they have quietly held out of all memory of Men and Ages Protestants invade and usurp by force Priests desire onely to keep that which they once de jure had Ministers seek to get that which they had not Catholikes obey ex conscientiâ out of an inflexible principle of Conscience and absolutely submit unto all lawful and established Government Protestants generally speaking but upon condition and with such limitations and restrictions of their obedience as they themselves think good to prescribe Priests are punished not for any formal wickedness or that which is a crime in its own nature but for something that is so onely by interpretation or in the judgement of the present State which perhaps a few days agoe did not judge so but the quite contrary Calvinists when they suffer suffer for real and foule crimes for Sedition Rebellion Murther Treason not imputative onely fictitious or made such of late by the prevailing of some particular faction in the State but truly and properly so and adjudged for such by all Laws Divine and Humane of their own Countries and of all Christendom beside long before they or their Grandsires were born Witness the examples of this last year in France of Lescun President of the Assemblies at Rochel Haute-Fountain Chamier P. Gomboult and some others who all suffered for real and actual Treasons and by vertue of such Laws not as the Parliament at Paris or some party there had procured to be enacted a few years or a few moneths before on purpose to entrap them but by the ancâ—â—nt known Lawâ— of â—rancâ— b wh ch they themselves knew the Kingdom was governed and had been ever governed time out of minde and therefore could not in any reason but expect the execution of them upon themselves in case they would persist to offend Witness the Treasons of their Brother Bischarcy in Poland who attempted to kill the King and did indeed wound him very dangerously as he was going to Church They object to us the positions of some private and disavowed persons and words onely We object to them the resolutions of whole general Assemblies held by them and those rebellions which have followed thereupon not in word onely but in deed and in act their real and actual Conspiracies their many Battles really and actually fought in the Field without lawful Authority or any publike Call against their Sovereign Princes with other manifold iniuries and insolencies committed Lastly Protestants reform commonly per populum and by Tumults Catholikes do nothing of this kinde but by Law Order and their proper Superiors So that the difference betwixt them is manifâ—st and the integrity of the professions of Catholike in point of obedience and loyalty towards their Prince beyond that of Calvinists or Protestants generally speaking is visible to every eye Why may they not then under the Favor of the State enjoy like Liberty of Conscience Person and Estates with other good Subjects notwithstanding that they differ in Judgement from the profession of the State Why may not a Catholike be tolerated to live and injoy without molestation that which God Nature and the Laws of the Land do give him as well as a Calvinist Why should the Laws of England be fettered with so many Shacles of Interpretative and Temporary Treason to the prejudice of many innocent persons and to the scandal of the Government Admit that for some worldly respect they were indeed nâ—cessary in State-policy for the times wherein they were enacted yet the times changing so much as thâ—y have done and those causes entirely ceasing which made them seem necessary then it may be thought now not onely safe as undoubtedly it is but honorable and just to repeal them May it not with great reason be wondered at that a Nation so Just so Honorable so Wise as this of England hath ever been acknowledged by the Nations abroad and settled by Extraordinary Dispensations of Divine Providâ—nce upon such Equitable fair and just principles of government as be constantly held forth by the Supream Authority of the Nation should permit any thing to be counted Treason by an Act of Parliament which is so generally over all Christendom at this day and hath been so anciently and even till of late times in this our own Nation so much honored maintained and reverenced by all men especially I say when there is no cause of suspicion remaining when there is no cause nor colour of jealousie from any persons that desire this liberty at least none but what may be easily removed by the wisdom of the State and plenary satisfaction given in that behalf both to themselves and to all the good people of the Nation How much Religious men and persons Ecclesiastical now called Traytors by the Law were wont to be esteemed in this Nation is not necessary now to speak our own Chronicles and the Constitutions of our very Laws themselves do abundantly declare it If a bondman entred a Cloysture he could not be commanded out by any power whatsoever The Law it self anciently holding it more reasonable that even the King should loose his interest in such a body then that he should be taken out from the Order which he had chosen The like was judged if the Kings Wards entred Religion An Alien by Law can hold no Lands in England yet if he be a Priest he may by Law be a Bishop here and enjoy his Temporalties as Lanfranck Anselme and some others did who were never Denizens It is well known The Six Clearks of the Chancery were anciently Clearks of the Church The Master of the Rolls Master of Requests Lord Privy Seal yea the Lord Chancellors and Treasurers of the Realm not onely commonly but in a manner constantly till of late times were Bishops Clergy-men How strange therefore may it seem that the Laws of England should make a Function so ancient and honorable in England to be Treason which
THE Jesuites Policy To suppress MONARCHY Historically displayed With their SPECIAL VOW Made to the POPE Printed in the Year 1669. BABEL OR Monarchomachia Protestantium NOt many years since upon divulging of a Letter written by Master Aldred against the Match with Spain and of that scandalous Libel against the Ambassador Count Gondamour as also by the instigation of some Hot-spurs in their Pulpits the people of London were much incensed to snarl and murmur even at the very name of Spain and every Artificer presumed like an Aristarchus to censure the King for that Negotiation as for an error of State which might possibly cast the whole body of the Kingdom into a distemper As if forsooth the Kings affection to the Kingdom and his own issue had been unnaturally frozen or that his judgement had failed him and those Superior Planets of the Counsel had also lost their light and erred in their course Whereupon I was urged by divers of my good Friends to write the Apology of that Action and Proceeding because some of them had heard me deliver at sundry times not onely a full Answer to all the Objections of the contrary faction but also divers Reasons in defence thereof founded as they thought upon very just and solid considerations And truly to speak what I think the benefits which the Realm may reap by this match are such and so advantageous as I wish it rather done then disputed on For first it setleth a firm Peace between both the Kingdoms which is a matter of greater importance then they seem to apprehend who so much oppose it Secondly Traffick will thereby be established and increased when the Seas by a concurrence of both Kings shall be scoured of Turks and Pyrats Thirdly The Kingdom will be again stored with Treasure and Coyn provided we keep it lockt up within our Four Seas and not suffer so much of it to be offered daily to that Idol of Cambaia Fourthly The Crown will be disengaged from a burdensom weight of Debts and by consequence the Subject likely to be much eased in matter of Contribution and Taxes Adde hereunto the renewing and confirmation of the ancient Treaties with the House and Dukes of Burgundy which is not to be reckoned as a Cypher in the business and what it is to have so great a Monarch as the King of Spain a firm friend and ally England very well knoweth It is true the Kingdom was never so full of Money as it was by spoils and depredations betwixt the years 1576. and 1590 but how dear those purchases might have cost us wise men saw if God who had determined to give the Crown of this Nation to her issue who suffered both disgrace and death here for his glory had not made both Winds and Sea at that time to fight for England Lastly Virginia a Colony of ours tenderly to be regarded shall hereby settle her Staples and Mart and adâ—â—nce their Trade by a much safer passage and entercourse with the Islands But to me it is above all arguments That this Match is so much for the Honor Safety and Commodity of Prince Charls which every true Patriot I conceive is bound in conscience to further and advance But thus we shall be said to leave Holland in the bryars an old and assured Friend and of power upon all occasions to assist the Realm God grant the Prince never stand in need of them And for our selves we may remember how small furtherance nay rather how great hinderance they have been to the Traffick of this Realm and what great losses and damage our Merchants have sustained by their means in the Indies Muscovy and Greenland I need not tell you how chargable a Neighbor they have been nor how unsure a Friend ever prefering France before England and yet notwithstanding the Favors which they may still receive at his Majesties hand are neither few nor small if themselves by inconsiderate courses deserve not otherwise But what cause do they pretend who murmur so much against Spain They object the Sin the Curse the disparagement to Match with a Catholike Have they any reason for that Yes Because the Jews were not permitted to marry with the Ammonites nor Religious persons with the profane But that is an opinion which relisheth too much of Judaism and the Talmud the Bar is removed we are now under the Law of Grace both Jews and Gentiles Circumcision and Uncircumcision in Christ are united and made one and incorporated into one Body his Church It is true the Jews might not marry out of their Tribes because the promise was made to Abraham and his Seed therefore his Seed was not to be stained with impure blood or a commixture of Paganism But now the promise being already performed that Judicial Law is abrogated Yea say they but still it sheweth that God is not well pleased when his children mix with superstitious people True But who are the Superstitious and of which side is the true Religion We know that is a question and will be But this is out of question That they are both of them Christians both are Baptized into that blessed Name both lay hold on the promises on the Testaments on the Gospel both pray the same Pater Noster both confess the same Creed yea both reverence the first Four general Councels of the Church Who indeed is the Catholike is Filius Christi of the surer side by reason of the Mother Church and of the elder House But is it indeed so strange a thing that a Protestant should marry a Catholike not to speak here of Queen Elizabeths Treaty with Mounsieur which yet how far and fairly it was proceeded in by both parties Camd. in Elizab. our famous Camden shews at large Did not Henry King of Navar a Protestant and the Protector of the Protestant Churches in France marry with the French Kings Sister a Catholike Thuanus lib. It was propter bonum publicum as this is for publike tranquillity and peace sake and therefore did the Elders and Consistory of Genevah so much as check or reprove him for it nay did they not allow it The same King afterward matcheth his own Sister an earnest Protestant to the Duke of Lorrain Thuanus lib. who is known to be a Prince no less earnestly Catholike and a Champion of the Catholike Church in France Nay did not Lewis himself the Prince of Conde and Protector in chief of the Hugenot party when time was apprehend with great desire the overture of a marriage with Mary Thuanus lib. Leslae hist Scot. in Mariâ Stuartâ Queen of Scotland and which certainly had taken effect had not the Admiral for his particular interests laid blocks in his way But above all others it is memorable and by us Englishmen not unfit to be considered what a bloody quarrel it was made Goodwins Annals in Ed. 6. that King Edward the Sixth who was a Protestant King and the first that ever was known
in England might not marry Queen Mary of Scotland a Papist as all the World knew yet the Protector made it no scruple of Conscience to pursue that business to the utmost hazzard Calvinism and Lutheranism are themselves as opposite as the Antipodes yet they enter-marry frequently and their issué bear witness thereof Was it then tolerable in the Reformed Churches and is it now intolerable with Spain Or is there any particular cause of scrupulosity and fear in this overture more then in those other doth the State of the Kingdom and fear of alterations trouble them that fear is vain The Husband is head of the Wife and though the Infanta be born in Familiâ Imperatrice yet there is no Soveraignty invested in her she can make no mutation of State least of all without consent of the State and we have little cause to distrust her having had such a president before of King Philip who being king of England yet neither did nor could attempt of himself any alteration And if the English be sure to hold their Religion it were neither Justice nor Humanity if she should be denied hers There is no man of Honor would offend a Lady of her Dignity for a difference that concerns her Soul her Faith her Devotion towards God What then is the reason why this Match seems so distasteful Is the name are the qualities of a Spaniard become so odious amongst us Surely ab initio non fuit sic of old it was not so it is neither an ancient quarrel nor a natural impression in the English In the time of Edward the Third there was a firm and fixed amity between England and Portugal and from that Lancaster of England the Kings of Portugal are descended As for Castile John of Gaunt married Constance the Daughter of King Peter by right of whom the Crown of Castile appertained unto him and his Daughter Katherine was married afterward to Henry the Third King of Castile upon which Match as appears yet in the Records of the Savoy John of Gaunt resigning that Crown the controversie ended and the Kings of Spain as flourishing Branches of the Tree and Stock of Lancaster have ever since quietly possessed that Kingdom So that Prince Charls by this Match is likely to warm his Bed again with some of his own Blood I might adde further that King Henry the Seventh married his Son to King Ferdinands Daughter on purpose to continue the Successon of that amity I might remember the Treaties of 1505. between King Henry the Seventh and Philip of Austria Son in Law to King Ferdinand for the preservation and strengthning of that League And how much the amity of England was esteemed and how readily embraced by Charls the Fifth Emperor and Grand-childe of Ferdinand appeareth very well by the Treaty Arctioris Amicitiae in the year 1514. And by that renowned Treaty of Calice the greatest Honor perhaps that ever was done to the English Crown and by the Treaty 1517. between Maximilian the Emperor Charls King of Spain and King Henry the Eighth not to speak of the Treaties for entercourse in the years 1515. and 1520 nor of the Treaty at Cambray 1529. nor lastly of that famous one 1542. Let it suffice that by them all it is manifest with what mutual constant and warm affections both Crowns and both Kingdoms entertained the strictest correspondence that could be till the Schism of Henry the Eighth and disgrace done to Queen Katherine by that unhappy Divorce and the Kings confederating with France made the first breach So as in those days we see there was no such unkindness no such hatred no such Antipathy betwixt the two Nations The first spark of difference between them brake out in Queen Maries time about the matter of Religion no other pretext could be found to make that breach which Wyat desired Yet neither is this the true nor the sole motive of the grudge which is now taken There is an other impostume which will not be cured without lancing The remembrance the hatred ever since Eighty Eight Manet altâ mente repostum Sticks still in our Stomacks and it is most true Hinc illae lachrymae from hence springs all our pain Well but let us be as indifferent as we can let us consider not onely their attempts upon us but the provocations that is the wrongs which we first did unto them Strad de bell Belgic Let us remember the Money intercepted which the King was sending unto D'Alva the want whereof at that time hazarded well nigh the loss of all the Netherland Provinces so lately reduced Camd. in Elizab. the assistance given to the Prince of Orange by Gilbert Morgan and others the first voyage of Sir Francis Drake the sacking of Saint Domingo the Protection of Holland by Leicester the infinite Depredations Letters of Mart executed to the infinite damage of the Spaniards beside the Philippicks the invectives which were in every Pulpit the Ballads and Libels in every Press were provocations such as Flesh and Blood would not endure in the meanest persons I speak nothing at all of the Portugal voyage nor of the surprize of Cales nor of the Island voyage but can any wise man think That the King of Spain should not be sensible of such indignities Was it not probable nay was it not equal that he should send a fury to Kingsale to revenge these wrongs And yet notwithstanding this Hostility when His Majesty came to the Crown how friendly yea how quickly did the King of Spain alter his course and send the Constable of Castile as the Dove out of the Ark to see if the Flouds of Enmity were any whit faln and to seek Peace with an Olive branch in his hand to establish a general Amnestia or Perpetual Oblivion of all unkindness past to bury all quarrels and reconcile the two Crowns and Kingdoms into an everlasting Friendship And surely cursed will he be that seeks to violate this Peace and under colour of Religion to extirpate Charity and publike concord And I pray what would be thought of the loyalty of that man who should now set himself to trouble and exasperate mens mindes with the old feuds and quarrels which this Nation hath had with Scotland But stay here my Pen must intrude no further without warrant into the Labyrinth of this secret Councel I know not whether it be agreeable to the Kings pleasure or no or fit matter for private Subjects to discourse upon I know very well how unsearchable the secrets of Princes are in what an abyss they lie and how much too deep to be sounded by every shallow discourser I remember also what Praying and Preaching here was against the Match of Queen Elizabeth with Mounsieur a business of very like nature with this in hand and declaimed against upon the same pretended peril of Religion alteration of Government and what not Yet it is very well known That those of the Councel who did most oppose it
were men which of all others were thought to care least for Religion Sir Philip Sidney indeed like a Noble and worthy Courtier as he was endeavored by a short Treatise to present unto Her Majesty the unfitness disproportion and inconveniencies of that Match both in relation to Her Person and the whole Realm but he did it privately and with discreet circumspection Stubs like an indiscreet and fiery Zelot taking the question in hand and prosecuting it in a way more likely to incense and corrupt the people then to advise or inform the Queen Cund in Elizab. his hand paid for his presumption And though some of the greatest and wisest of the Councel appeared very earnestly for it as a thing which was likely to unite the whole Kingdom of France unto England and would surely bring along with it the offer of the Netherlands by the Prince of Orange and the States whereby England was like to become a petent Monarchy yet was the whole Body of the Kingdom cast into much distemper and jealousies thereby Some upon partiality and faction others upon distrust of the practises of France some for their own some for their friends sinister ends and ambitions as in this very case I am perswaded men are not a little possessed with the same diseases and humors And if I did not well know the nature of the multitude which is a Beast with many heads and as mad brains I should wonder how they durst oppose the designs of their Sovereign a Prince of so great Experience and Judgement and who hath managed this business from the beginning with such wariness caution and prudence as this great Conjunction cannot portend any other effects then honor comfort and prosperity to the whole Nation Is he not the fittest to judge in his own case And his case being the case of the Commonwealth in general if any private man shall arrogate to himself either more wisdom to amend what is already done or pretend more affection to the State or more providence to foresee and prevent inconveniences certainly he must needs fall into the custody of the Court of Wards till he recover himself But having said this I shall leave the whole matter as a deliberative still and tell you in few words what the occasion was of this Discourse which followeth The occasion of the following Discourse THere met at a Merchants House in London where Merchants for their Table and Hospitality do worthily bear the Bell from all the Merchants in Europe divers persons of quality where being together in a Garden before Dinner T. Aldreds Letter the Pamphlet aforesaid and some strange reports of seditious practises from Amsterdam were read and discoursed upon In the midst of all comes in a fine Chaplain belonging to a great person in England and one that was of the Merchants acquaintance who hearing but a little of the discourse which at that time was the common Table-talk of City and Country with much vehemency he affirmed the Match was likely to breed great troubles and mischief to the Kingdom and that forsooth in regard as well of the increase of Catholikes within the Realm which it would occasion as also in regard of Spain which he ignorantly called an ancient Enemy Hereupon also he took occasion to rail bitterly against the Church of Rome as the Seminary of all the commotions in Europe and the contriver and plotter of all Treasons in England And being resolved to shew his Rhetorick in the Ruff and to omit nothing which might exasperate the company against Catholikes he alledged for examples in thundering language Heywards Reign of Edw. 6. the death of King Edward the Sixth sillily enough that you will say the many conspiracies against Queen Elizabeth buâ— especially that horrible project of the Gun-powder Treason which being undertaken onely by a few desperate Male-contents in justice might rather be buried with the offendors then objected perpetually to innocent men who do generally with great sorrow abhor the very memory of the fact and were publikely acquitted thereof by the King himself in the next Parliament following See the Kings Speech in Parliament Besides this he urged That Princes be disquieted yea endangered many times by Excommunications Bulls and other censures from the Pope by the Catechisms and Doctrines of Jesuites and that the Subjects of England are withdrawn by them from their obedience to their lawful Princes Lastly That they are a people so full of treacheries and disloyalty as no Nation can shew the like He forgat nor you must think to arm himself with the authority of Doctor Morton whose Maxim it was That we may now as well expect a white Aethiopian as a good Subject of that Religion He produced a Book entituled A discovery of Romish Doctrine in the case of Conspiracy and Treason wherein the Author playeth his master-prize against poor Catholikes with equal malice and indiscretion charging them with an infinity of scandalous accusations able to drive men into despair of the Kings Grace towards them and to breed in His Majesties Royal Heart an everlasting distrust of them He urged Parson Whites rash and uncharitable judgement against them That all their Religion was full of such Doctrines as afforded Monsters of conspiracy against the State that they teach men to murther Kings to blow up Parliaments and that since Bells time never was there such a ravenous Idol found as are the Priests of the Seminaries Ormerode also that famous Picture-maker was alledged in this heat who by a great mistake took upon him to condemn the singular and renowned Doctor Allen as affirming That Princes may be slain by their Subjects from the Text Numb 25. At length he concluded all with that Rhetorical flourish of Monsicur Lewis Baily in his Book of The Practice of Piety pag. 783. which he produced with much oftentation as if it alone had been enough to cast the whole Society of the Fathers into a fit of a Quartane Jesuites and Priests saith he are sent to withdraw Subjects from their Allegiance to move Invasion and to kill Kings If they be Saints who be Scythians Who are Cannibals if they Catholikes This conclusion for the art and wit of it could not but deserve a plaudite so the company went to Dinner and after Dinner this fine Chaplain was gone in haste Thereupon some of the company not so much taken with his Rhetorick as were the rest desired a Gentleman then present who well understood the World and was a freeman not obliged to any particular order furthen then as a Son of the Church to deliver his opinion of the Ministers invective which at last upon their much importunity he was perswaded to do in such maner as is here with his leave and particular information represented to you After some pause Claudius accusat Maechos quoth he Catilina Cethegum This is most ridiculous who can endure to hear a Gracchus inveigh against Sedition A man may perceive by the Prologue That
onely the Popes Indulgences Bulls and such like but even all the Canon Law it self that he could but get into his hands If you ask by what warrant He gives you none but his own Authority his private spirit was Commi â—â—on and pretence of the Gospel as he called it all the Apology he could make for such pranks An insufficient pretence certainly For although it be true That the Canon Law for the most part of it be originally nothing but the Constitutions of Popes at several times and occasions published yet much of it is also the decrees of Councels Provincial National and Oecumenical and all of it ratified by prescription which is Common Law by general approbation and use of the Country and by the Imperial Laws themselves and therefore his audaciousness was intolerable in giving so publike an affront to the Government of Germany as well Civil as Ecclâ—siastick And the Laws themselves how needless or inconvenient soever this vain man could imagine them yet could not be lawfully and orderly suppressed in the Empire but by the Authority of the Empire it self But as he did thus presumptuously and of his own head abrogate so far as he could the Canon Laws so did he vilifie and despise the Civil Laws also as shall be shewn hereafter in due place for as yet we must trace him in his extravagancies and furies against the Church Having lost his own senses through pride and overmuch confidence of himself he was willing that all the World should be blinde therefore he endeavors to introduce Barbarism and to put out the eyes of his Almayns that in such state they might not be able to see either his errors or their own folly to be so much abused and bewitched by a Sot Universities must down which because Cambridge and Oxford will not perhaps believe I shall produce his own words in his Book against Ambrosius Catharinus Ad Evangelium funditùs evertendum nec astutius nec efficacius commentum c. The Devil saith he never invented a more cunning and more pernicious means to root up utterly the Gospel of Christ then the design of founding the Vniversities And that no man should go about to colour or excuse this Paradox by some favorâ—ble interpretation and sense he seconds it with another elsewhere full as absurd or worse Lib. de abrog Missâ For disswading the people from sending their children to be bred up in the Universities he passeth a sentence of condemnation on them in these words Academias per idolum Moâ—och figuratas puto I am of opinion saith he that the Idol Moloch in old â—ime was a Type of these Vniversities And therefore that it was as unâ—awful for the people to send their children thither for breeding as it was of old for the children of Israel to give of their sons to be consecrated unto that Idol of which we read Levit. 20.2 3 4. The reason he gives is like his assertion Ex isto enim fumo for out of the smoke saith he of these Vniversities do arise all those Locusts which at this day possess the Chairs that is the places of Dignity and Honor in the Church But why will the man have all Universities thus suppressed on the sudden Is it because Catholike Religion and School-divinity was taught in them that can hardly be thought For why did he shut up the Sâ—hoâ—l-doors at home Cochlaeus in Act. Luther at Wittemberg where he prevailed for many years together Why did he neglect the teaching and educating of youth in his own Religion and Profession Why did he forbid Aristotle Tully and other Authors to be read who meddle not with Religion Vlemberg in vitâ ejus Why did Carolstad chuse rather to go to Plough then read a Lecture Nay his own Fidus Achates Philip Melancthon in his Book called Didymus commends Witcliff for a wiseman Qui omnium primus vidit Academias â—sse Satanae Synagogas Because he forsooth was the first that discovered the Christian Vniveâ—sities to be Synagogues of Satan Well said Master Philip in whom indeed so loose an assertion was the more to be wordrâ—d at being himself otherwise so great a Scholar But thus we see what a spirit of confusion and giddiness possessed them at the beginning and how uncertain they were all what to hold or maintain But above all others Vlemberg in vitâ Philippi this was true of Melancthon who was indeed a very Academick always Sceptical inconstant and wavering so as neither himself nor his own party knew well what he was And for this opinion in particular against the Universities and Humane Learning he retracted it in his Book Ad Waldenses which Carolstad would never do and therefore died very miserable and poor in the Country You may perceive by this that at the first rising of these men and their Preaching of Reformation the spirit to which they pretendâ—d had not in many years perfectly illuminated them nor cleared their judgement from many and stupid absurdities of Error to which men of but common discretion are not usually Subject which we may not a little wonder at seeing men extraordinarily called by God and such they would be thought to be as for example the Prophets Apostles St. Paul and others were compleatly fitted for their work from the first instant of their vocation It appears also what Luthers design was viz. At three blows to have cut down three great Cedars of the Empire The Clergy the Canon Law the Vniversities For without Vniversâ—ties the Clergy could not well be educated nor without Laws could they be governed and so being necessarily chained together he could not break the Link without subverting all Neither did he as it is cleer seek a Reformation but an Extirpation of them all together And this I dare affirm That all those hundred Gravamina presented unto the Emperor Charls at Noremberg did not contain one quarter of the danger mischief and publike calamity which these three Articles would have brought upon Germany could they have been executed to his minde And yet behold a greater mischief followeth if greater be possible for I am now to lay down some few of his Positions of State by which it shall appear yet further what prodigious incivility arrogance and presumption was in the man and to how great contempt and prejudice his proceedings tended not of Ecclesiastical Prelates and persons onely whom he made it as it were matter of Conscience and a part of his Gospel to revile and slander but of the Emperor himself and the other Princes of Germany yea of all Princes States and Magistrates whatsoever that stood in his way and complied not with his strange and exorbitant courses And to dâ—scover his spirit the better you shall have a taste in the first place of his behavior with King Henry the Eighth of England a Prince at that time famous and renowned as any in the World and whom but a little before upon report of his disgust
of the Leaguers That if they obeyed not they should repent it And yet again at Spires he labored to have prevailed with them by fair means but thither the Duke being grown more jealous and fearful of Caesar would not come However by this course which the Emperor constantly held towards them you may see how unwilling he was to disturb the Peace or to begin the War and how inexcusable they were that rejected so often the offers of accommodation But beside this if I should relate the malice and contempt they used to him you might well think they ought not to have expected the least degree of mercy from him in case they should fall into his hands as it hapned they did For in all their publike Letters they vouchsafed him no other Title then Charls of Gaunt Surius in Chron. usurping the name of Emperor whereby they renounced all obedience to him and so far as in them lay deposed him Which was an indignity the meanest Prince of them all would not have accounted sufferable in his own person I must not forget that the Landsgrave did usually both by Letters and Messages with no little bravery and confidence assure the Princes and Towns of the League that within three moneths they would force Charls to flie out of Germany and leave the Empire to them But how then did their pretences hang together that this League was made onely se defendendo and for their Lawful Protection Surely they aimed at some thing more when they talked of expelling the Emperor out of Germany As they also did when they solicited the Kings of France England Denmark the Hans Towns and Swisses to joyn with them and dishonorably abused him by many foul and infamous aspersions It is true France indeed though his enemy at that time nobly denied them Denmark lingred expecting the success neither was King Herry forward though his great Counsellor and Favorite Cromwel sollicited their business diligently and was so forward as to promise an hundred thousand Crowns for their aid At which time Doctor Thirlby Bishop of Westminster and Sir Philip Hobby were the Kings Ambassadors with the Emperor and by that occasion witnesses of the whole Tragedy And yet a little further to disprove their proceedings by Law Let us remember first the Decree at Worms above mentioned which as Gail the Lawyer hath told us in the case of publike Peace obligeth all persons alike Let us remember the Decree of Maximilian the First Emperor about the year 1500. in these words Consentientibus Statuum Ordinum votis c. By the general consent of the Princes and States of the Empire an Edict or Constitution was published necessary for publike Peace called in the Language of the Empire Landtfrieden By which Constitution Proscription or Banishment was adjudged to all such as disturbed the publike Peace by force of Arms Gailius de Pace lib. 1. c. 14. which Gail further explains to this sense Omnia Bella c. All War saith he made without consent of the Prince and Commission from him upon private revenge or quarrel onely is adjudged unlawful And Cap. 5. In crimen laesae Majestatis incurrit c. He commits high Treason saith he whosoever within the Empire raiseth Arms but by the Emperors Authority and Commission because he usurps to himself that which is the proper Prerogative Imperial Yea Lib. 1. tit 190. their own Goldastus confesseth it to be ancient Law Nemo intra Imperii fines c. That no man presume to gather Soldiers within the bounds of the Empire but by consent of the Prince of that respective Circle where he is and that he give sufficient Caution to the State that he intends not to attempt any thing against the Emperor or against any of the States of the Empire Tom. 2. And in another place he alledgeth a Decree of Ludovicus Pius against the King of the Romans and his Confederates as guilty of High Treason for attempting against the Emperor The like also of Henry the First against Arnulphus Duke of Baviere who rebelled against him and of Otho the First against Ludolphus King of the Romans and lastly of Maximilian the First against Emicho Earl of Lingen whom he proclaimed Traytor confiscated his Lands and Estate and gave them to other Princes of the Empire onely for going to serve the French King in his Wars though out of the Empire contrary to his Proclamation And as for the Imperial Towns which confederated with these Princes there is as little to be said for them For it is a Maxim of Law recorded by Gail Vbi supra that Civitatum Imperialium solus Imperator est dominus That the Emperor onely is Lord of the Imperial Cities and not their several Magistrates And that they pretended their Liberties in this case against the Emperor to no purpose And for Luther who was the primum mobile and cheif wheel of all these motions or rather the malus Genius that Fury which agitated the people and stirred them up to all these disorders if the Princes and Towns were thus guilty he could not be innocent If the Flock did erre the Shepherd which led them was to blame I shall not here charge him again with any small faults I will not accuse him of belying Caesar most impudently when he wrote to his friend thus Wormatiam ingressus sum In Epist I entred Worms saith he at a time when I knew that Caesar would not keep Faith with me Nor of his traducing or vilifying that most Fundamental Constitution of the Empire in Aureâ Bullâ making it one of the cheif miracles which Antichrist was to work viz. The translating of the Empire from the Greeks to the French in the person of Carolus Magnus Turesel Epitom lib. 6. p. 204. which was done by Pope Leo the Third Nor of his usurping upon the Emperor and Temporal Governmâ—nt in those pretended Laws of his which he published concerning the Publike Exchequer and how he would have Church-Lands and Abby-Lands to be disposed when he and the Princes should be Masters of all It shall be enough that I say He first counselled the Princes to take Arms and oppose Caesar in his quarrel and this Sleydan himself acknowledgeth And that all his Preaching and all his endeavors were to overthrow the Ecclesiastical Electors whose Dignities and Estates being established by the Aureâ Bullâ it was Treason or Sedition in the highest degree so to do The three Ecclesiastical Electors are three Chancelors of the Empire and in respect of their Regalities immediately subject to the Emperor so as there lieth no appeal from them to the Pope but to the Emperor and Chamber at Spires Luther therefore contriving their ruine attempted treacherously to pull the fairest Flowers out of the Imperial Crown Neither could he effect the suppression of them but he must undermine and endanger the State of the Temporal Electors also who as links of the same chain must necessarily
of Conde and the Hugonots pretending it was not against the King but against an evil Counseller and to deliver themselves from the oppression of one who abused the Kings youth That same one was the Duke of Guise who being himself a stranger say they and hating the Nobility of France on purpose to oppress them of the Reformed Religion and to set the Crown on his own head in case the King should die armed himself into the Field c. That thereupon the Nâ—bles of France perceiving his malicious designs viz. To murder and destroy so many innocents took up Arms to defend themselves against such a Tyrant That for the Kings consent it was not to be expected nor as the case stood much to be regarded seeing he was in the hands of the Guises and had neither age to discern nor freedom to deny nor power to execute the Law Lastly say some Beza teacheth obedience to Magistrates in his Book De confess fid very largely Cap. 5. Sect. 45. and prescribeth no other remedy to private persons oppressed by a Tyrant but prayers and tears to amend their lives Touching the first point the Apologists will seem confident that this Battle of Dâ—eux was neither against Law nor the King and yet afterward confess that they understand not the Law of France nor the Circumstances of the War So they pretend certainty in a matter wherein they have not Science which is to beat themselves with their own weapon But was indeed that War neither against the King nor the Law Assuredly against them both as will appear by the Laws of Charls the Eighth 1487. of Francis the First 1532. of Francis the Second 1560. at Fountain Bleau which I shall cite hereafter in the case of Rochel and Montauban Secondly it is certain that Battle was not in King Francis his time but in the Reign of Charls the Ninth And after the death of King Francis all men not unacquainted with the proceedings of that time know full well that the House of Guise did bear no sway at Court the Duke was made as it were a stranger to the State the Queen-Mother the King of Navar and the Constable sate at the stern and ruled all Therefore it is not true that the King was in captivity under the faction of Guise nor true that the Duke armed himself into the Field for the Constable commanded in cheif he and the Marshal of Saint Andrews were the Kings Lieutenants and had the Kings Commissions to warrant what they did The Duke of Guise lead onely the Rear of the Army Mons Lanow's discourses Mons Mauvissier Comment and though it were his fortune to stand master of the Field and to win the day yet he had not any charge in the Battle but onely of his own Companies Thirdly Neither did the Princes of Bourbon take arms onely to deliver themselves from the oppre sion of Guise For if it were so why did they not lay down when they saw not the Duke of Guise but the Constable Montmorency coming against them armed no less with the Kings Authority then with his Forces to chastize them as Rebels The Constable was a man against whom they could pretend nothing he was the Honor of the Admirals House the Admirals Kinsman and his great friend especially when he was prisoner at Melun by commandment of Henry the Second He was now the Kings Vicegerent in the Field why did they not reverence him yea why did they themselves begin the fight why did they first affront and assail the Kings Army This therefore is but matter of meer pretext for Beza himself confesseth plainly This Field was fought to restore or establish their pretended Religion Vbi supra Fourthly Neither is it true that the Duke of Guise is a stranger in France Is he a stranger in France who is descended clearly from the Stock and Line of Charlemaign who is no stranger in France I wis Is he a stranger in France who is a Peer of France and Cosin-German to the Prince of Conde their Protector whose own Mother was Antonietta Princess of Bourbon whose Ancestors have enjoyed the greatest Offices and Honors in the Court of France Neither may we forget the great services they have done for the Crown of France at Rome at Metz Verdun Theonville and at Calice especially in a time when all Franâ—e was in mourning and distress too for the loss which Monsieur the Admiral had received at St. Quintins Lastly that dream viz. That the Duke should aspire to the Crown is the pitifullest of all a meer fable taken out of the Legend of Lorrain and other Libels of that time For how many Walls of Brass were betwixt him and it The King himself yong his Brothers yonger their Mother living the King of Navar their trusty and Noble Friend with the whole Nobility of France as they themselves acknowledge Was it not then a likely object for such a Strangers pretensions It being then apparently false That the King was in the hands that is under the power of Guise let us consider the last Proposition viz. That the Kings Commission which the Constable had and the Prince wanted and fought against at the Battle of Dreux was not much to be regarded because at that time the King had neither age to discern nor liberty to deny c. As for Liberty it is answered already And for age what if the King wanted age naturally in his politick capacity he did not We are to know a King hath two bodies or his person may be considered under a double capacity that of Nature and that of Policy His Body politick as it never dieth so it is never defective of Authority or Direction The acts of the Body politick be not abated by the Natural bodies access The Body politick is not disabled to govern by the non-age of the natural See 26. Lib. Assis Placit 24. where by Justice Thorps judgement the gift of a King is not defeated by his non-age In the Book of Assis tit droit placit 24. Anno 6. Ed. 3. for a Writ of Right brought by Edward the Third of a Manor as Heir to Richard the First the exception of non-age against the King was not admitted For though the Natural body dieth yet the Body politick which magnifieth and advanceth the quality of the Natural is not said to die So 4. Eliz The Leases of the Dutchy made by Edward the Sixth were resolved by all the Judges to be good though made in the Kings minority So though the Kings Body natural cannot discern or judge yet that disableth not the King that the acts of his Minority ordered by his Counsel and the Regent should be of no validity which their own Hottoman in his France-Gallia might have taught them And let them resolve us whether the Counsel and State of England would take it well if a Catholike should affirm as he might do much more truly that the change of Religion made
by Edward the Sixth was not warrantable being done in his Minority and when he had neither age to discern what he did nor liberty to discern any thing to the Protector and Northumberland in whose hands he was If you approve not this Argument why do you disallow the same plea for the Authority of the King of France was the age of the one a Bar in Law and not in the other or was the one an absolute King and not the other was King Edwards consent sufficient to authorize his Uncles doings and was King Charls his consent insufficient and nothing worth to authorize the Constable with his Army to pursue and punish their Army of Rebels Beza's opinion therefore In câ—nfess fid is much contrary to what he alloweth and commendeth here For if there be no other remedy but preces and lachrymae for private persons against the oppressions of a Tyrant he betrayed the Admiral and the Prince very foully to bring them into the fields of Dreux to fight against the King for Religion Doctor Bilson hath taken up somewhere one notable singularity to excuse the Prince of Conde viz. That he was not an absolute Subject of France ought not simple subjection to the Crown Ergo might lawfully do something more then others But it argueth such a gross ignorance in the Laws of France and in the state of that Prince that it deserveth more to be pitied then answered Neither could it help the Admiral who had no other Protection then that of his Sword nor Priviledge but from his new Religion But because that smooth profession of Beza above mentioned is so much insisted on and cunningly used as it were to cast a mist before the eyes of an unwary Reader it will be necessary to clear that business a little further by letting you see the man himself in more proper colours as in relation to this point First therefore read his Positions and Catechism of Seditions viz. That Book of his called Vindiciae contra Tyrannos There acting the part of Junius Brutus a Noble Roman indeed but great enemy of Kings he propounds in the first place this Question Whether Subjects be bound to obey their Kings when they command contrary unto Gods Law and resolveth presently Pag. 22. We must obey Kings for Gods sake when they obey God But otherwise Pag. 24. we are absolved For as the Vassal saith he looseth his Fief or Lordship if he commit Felony so doth the King loose his Right and his Realm also viz. By commanding contrary unto Gods Law Which considering that Gods Law is onely as they themselves shall think good to interpret it is dangâ—rous enough But Pag. 65. he is more notable Conspiracy saith he is goâ—d or ill according as the end is at which it aimeth Which is a most pernicious Maxim and a Doctrine fit for nothing but to encourage Ruvillac Poltrot or some such villanous assassinate to his desperate work or to be a buckler to the Conspirators at Ambois So Pag. 66. The Magistrates saith he or any one part of the Realm may resist the King being an Idolater as Lobna revolted from Joram when he forsook God And Pag. 132. The Government of the Kingdom is not given to the King alone but also to the Officers of the Realm And again Pag. 103. The Kings of France saith he Spain and England are crowned and put as it were into pâ—ssession of their charge by the States Peers and Lords which represent the people And Pag. 199. There is a stipulation in all Kingdoms Hereditary As in France when the King is crowned the Bishops of Beauvois and Loan ask the people if they desire and command This man shall be King What if they do it is no argument that the people do therefore chuse him to be King for his Kingdom is confessed already to be Hereditary and so the Succession determined by Law much less that they make him such It is an acceptation onely not an election a declaration of their willing Subjection Obedience and Fidelity towards him and nothing else as you may be well informed out of Francis Rosselets Ceremonies at the Consecration or Inauguration of the Kings of France Was there ever an Assembly of Estates held to consecrate or elect a King of France or do the Kings of France count the time of their Reign from their Inauguration onely and not from their entrance was not Charls the Seventh full Eight years King of France before he was crowned as the French Historians themselves report Gaguin Giles or think you that the Peers are Ephori No they are Pares inter se but not Companions to the King They are not States as in Holland to rule and direct all Affairs For in France and England all the Authority depends upon the Kings and what is the State but the Authority of the Prince Who onely by his Letters Patents createth Peers disposeth all Offices giveth all Honors receiveth all Homages in cheif as being the sole Fountain from whence springeth both Nobility and Authority And he that would either restrain this Sovereignty within any narrower bounds or communicate it to others makes no difference between the Crown of a King and the Berrette of a Duke of Venice Many other Maxims and Rules he hath of this nature fit for nothing but to introduce Anarchy and confusion in the World most of them false all of them dangerous Vails onely to cover the ugly faces of Sedition and Treason because in their proper shapes no man living can abide to see them I might here travel and weary you further with as much good stuff out of his Book De Jure Magistratus for his it is as most men think or else Hottomans who was his Comrade But I shall leave them both for indeed they touch the string of Sovereignty with too rough a hand yea rather they strain to break it if they could by such gross and misinterpretable Paradoxes as when they say The States are above the King that is the Body above the Head As if any man could seriously make it a question whether people should be commanded by the Master or by some of their fellow-servants by the Subject or by the Sovereign by the Prince of Conde and the Admiral or by their Lawful King and Sovereign King Charls And therefore had King Philip good reason to cut off the head of that Justice of Arragon upon a just occasion and to teach the people by example what the true meaning was of Nos qui podemos tanto come vos All which Paradoxes it were easie to refel but that I have undertaken onely to discover and not to combate And because they are both learnedly and piously confuted already by Barclay Baurican and Blackwood Onely by the way I shall desire you to observe how politickly they go to work They profess not openly and absolutely any desire to change the State or to depose Kings But this they do They labor by insinuation first
any good authority or proof do precipitate themselves unhappily into far greater Zeal in them is like a Sword in a mad mans hand dangerous to himself and others But to the matter What other probabilities did they produce against her Many She mourned faintly for his death which is a sign she was weary of his life She acquitted Bothwel for his death and did not punish him as he deserved Ergo let her die But what a Nugipoliloquides is this Buchanan are such conjectural presumptions as these matter of evidence sufficient to depose Princes As for her Mourning and the Funerals His Body was Embalmed and laid by James the fifth her Father the Lord Tracquaire Justice Clerk and others attended the Corps indeed most of the Counsel being Protestants the Catholike Ceremonies were not permitted and in Scotland it is not the custom to reserve the Corps Fourty days Nor was it decent that the Queen her self should have been there personally mourning as a Subject therefore she mourned privatly as his Sovereign and Wife which she did so long that her Counsel and Physitians both were forced to disswade her from it and to cease All which Sir Henry Killegrew might witness who was sent from England to condole and comfort her What could be required more of a Wife But as concerning Earl Bothwel and the Marriage following herein the jugling of Murray and his faction was most admirable and worthy to be known For First was not Bothwel acquitted for this crime by his Peers was not Murray himself who best knew the Plot together with the Lord Lindsey Sempil and other adherents principal to procure his purgation The Queen did not acquit him out of her own affection or will onely but by their advice and Counsel who were the chief Pilots of the State at that time Nay did not the same parties Murray Sempil c. procure others of the Nobles to joyn with them and sollicited the Queen to Marry Bothwel pretending it necessary for her to take such a Husband to defend her in troublesome times yea did they not in some maner force her to it and by their Hand-writing to Bothwel did they not binde themselves to obey him in case he would marry her did not they themselves viz. Murray Sempil and the rest in order to this procure the Divorce of Bothwel from his first Wife sister to the Earl of Huntly and are thereby most cleerly convinced of double dealing But what follows The charg of the Murther And of this the Lord Harris accused Murray himself viz. that at Craigmillar he Morton and Bothwel did consult conspire and determine the Kings death for the effecting whereof Indentures were there drawn and subscribed by them And to convince it more evidently Pourry Paris and Hay who were all three Executed for the Murther confessed at their death and called God to witness that those two Murray and Morton were the principal contrivers of it The like did John Hepburn Bothwels servant at his Execution for the same Fact protesting that he had seen the Articles and Writings drawn to that purpose as we said To blinde the world therefore a little Murray and Morton take up Arms upon a pretence to apprehend Bothwel and send out ships to pursue him at Sea whom themselves had sent away yea had sent the Lord Grange on purpose to him to advise and will him for his own safety to be gone promising that no body should pursue him as indeed none did very hastily for he stayed after this no less then two Months in Scotland viz. until Murray was returned out of France Then of necessity he must be gone otherwise by his stay or their taking him they would be all betrayed themselves So he finding himself over-reach't by his Associates in the Conspiracy and being as sure to be overpowered by them if he should abide it was content at last to withdraw and be offered up as a Sacrifice to the censure of the world for their purgation This therefore was the Texture and sum of the Plot concerning the death of the Lord Darley Husband to the Queen and the Queens Marriage of Bothwel These two Catilines Murray who was the Queens base Brother and Morton caused the King to be slain using Bothwels consent and assistance in it which Bothwel they perswade afterward to Marry the Queen and deal as effectually with the Queen that she should be willing to Marry Bothwel and this on purpose that they might have ground hereby to ruin them both and possess themselves of the government as in a short time they did upon a colourable though feigned accusation brought against them viz. against the Queen and Bothwel as conspiratours and contrivers of the Kings death T is well known the Earl Murray never truly loved the Lord Darley He was once in Arms and in the field to have kild him and thereupon flâ—d into England After this he perswaded the Lord Darley to give his consent to the Murthering of David Riza the Queens Secretary in which action a Pistol was also set to the Queens Belly being then great with Childe to terrifie her and if it could have been to procure her Micsarrying but the Lord Darley having obtained the Queens pardon for this yet fearing lest Murray should inform Her Majestie concerning him further then he liked he resolves with himself to kill Murray but first out of I know not what reason discovers his intention to the Queen whom he supposed to be very much incensed against Murray but she utterly disliked the business and would not endure him to speak of it which coming afterwards to Murrays knowledge as he had before practisd to estrang the Queen from her Husband and offered to procure her a Divorce from him which she also utterly condemned so now he resolves to make away him viz. the Lord Darlâ—y and to that end Plots with the Earls Morton and Bothwel as hath been said yet himself cunningly to divert suspicion and that he might be thought absolutely innocent in the business when as now all things were agreed upon withdraws himself from the Court first and then goes into France a little before the Murther was committed All which passages being indeed the most intricate maze of Treachery one of them that ever was devised by wicked men were made to appear plain enough unto Queen Elizabeths Commissioners at York as is manifest by Sir Ralph Sadlers Notes concerning that business which I have seen but afterward more cleer then the Sun at the Tryal and Execution of the Earl Morton Surius Chron. For Murray had met with vengeance before having been Pistolled by a man of his own profession as he rode in the Street at Edinburgh about the year 1570. Yet upon such false and treacherous Foundations as these do they ground all their disloyal proceedings and hard usage of the Queens Majestie their natural Sovereign afterward viz. That which they used towards her at Carbery hill their slanderous Libels their imprisoning her
Cujus contrarium verum est But let that pass The Clergy of England they count Atheists call them soldiers of Antichrist and a Bastardly Ministery And from the Fountain of this frenzy sprang in late times all those infamous and scandalous Libels of Vdal Penry Brown Greenwood Martin Marprelate Martin junior Hay any work for a Cooper The supplication to the President of Wales and many other to the late Queen and troublesome to the State But the spring-head of all was Calvin himself who Epist 105. declares magis sibi placere c. that he forsooth did rather approve the Scottish Reformation then that of England Gramercy good Sir John You like it better why because it was the issue of your own happy Brain 't is well known Knox fetcht his Coales from your Fire and cast his Engin of Reformation in your Mould and so upon the matter in commending it like a wise man you commend your self So Epist 26. he tells Cranmer relictam esse congeriem That there was a great heap of Popish superstitions yet remaining in the Church of England which did not onely dim but even much darken and corrupt the purity of Gods worship Hence it was that during all Queen Maries Reign The English Church at Genevah as they calld themselves was Antagonist and at defiance with the English Church at Franckfort for they at Franckfort defended the Authority of Bishops and used the Leiturgy and Ceremonies which were commanded by King Edward the sixth notwithstanding Mr. Calvin writing to the Protector by whose Authority they had been established was so modest as to call them scoffingly and by way of contempt Tolerabiles Ineptias certain fooleries but yet such as might be born withal for a time It is therefore we see no Hyperbolical charge or Calumny to say that this Presbyterian Discipline is the Palladium of Calvinists for which they do not onely contend but fight tanquam pro aris focis against all Kings and Princes that oppose it more eagerly and bitterly then for any other thing which no man will deny that knowes what their proceedings have been are in France Scotland Low-countries Bohemia and elsewhere or that hath read Bsialicon Doron written by a Pen that had cause enough to be sensible of their disorders or that Book of Philippus Nicolai De regno Xti which is ful of predictions of what lawless attempts and practises they would serve themselves to advance their consistory above the court which have not all prov'd untrue or lastly that of Joannes Schutz a learned Lutheran Lib. 50. caus who tells them plainly that they trust onely upon their Soecular power That they are seditious people and defend their opinions best with a Sword in their hand But that which King James himself saith of them is most remarkable Ego a Puritanis Prefat monitor c. I saith he have been vexed with these Puritans from my very Birth yea they persecuted me while I was yet in my Mothers Belly and it mist but little that they had not murdered me before I was born Among which Pranks that of the Ministers at Sterling must not be forgotten who appeared themselves in the field under the Command of some of the Nobility of that faction and forced the King to yeeld his person to them and to suffer a new guard to be put upon him and his old removed For which insolent attempt the chief of them viz. Mr. Patrick Galloway Pollard Carmichel and Andrew Melvin were glad afterwards to take covert in England yet James Gibson stood to it and called the King Jeroboam and persecutor Lawson opposed and affronted him to his face Pont and Balcanqual by open Proclamation and in the presence of a publike Notary censur'd him very formally and did what they could to withdraw the peoples Loyalty and affection from him When Philautia and Phantasia that is self-love and self-conceit do meet in Conjunction in the Brain there must needs be a great Eclipse of the understanding and a Heart swollen and blown up with singularity doth so far contemn yea hate whatsoever opposition is made against her that being not able to govern the strong passion and those fervors of a proud spirit which boyl incessantly within her Men run like so many furies upon rash and inconsiderate attempts both against the reverence due to Majestie Justice and all good government A thing manifestly observable in these Zelots And therefore the Zuinglians who are otherwise more then their half Brethren can scarcely approve them in the point of the Consistory For saith Gualter Minister of Zurich Comment in 1 Cor. c. 5. Galli habent sua seniorum Concilia c. The Reformed French saith he have their Consistories of Elders in whose hands all power and authority Ecclesiastical is as it were deposited and in These all counsels and resolutions are taken all Taxes and impositions layd for the maintaining of War against the King Proper work doubtless for the Ministers of Gods word as they will be called and for a Spiritual Court as it pretends to be and to as good a purpose De Offic. Ministror lib. 15. cap. 19.20 22. Musculus also sheweth as little esteem of them in his Loci Commun cap. 10. But above all Schultingius in his Hierarchica Anachresis doth most graphically and to the life discover their exorbitant and absurd practises shewing how all Kings Princes and Governors are made subject to their Excommunications that truly Brutum Fulmen of their elderships How Nobility and Commons both must assemble at the Summons of the Pastor who is more then half Pope in his Parish being attended by Assisting Elders rather to countenance what he will have done then to do any thing contrary to his minde Lastly Calvin at Genevah is the Supream Oracle beyond whom there is no appeal really Papa though out of a dissembled humility he seems not willing to be called Doctor So he And what confusion in the Civil State this Constitution of pretended Discipline may further cause in time Hooker in the Preface to his Books of Ecclesiastical Policy sheweth at large Titulus Quartus GEVXISM OR The Troubles in HOLLAND AND THE United Provinces BY Course we arrive now at the States of Holland Zealand and those other united Provinces that is at an Aceldama a Field of blood where the Principles mentioned so oft already in this Narrative and the Tragical effects of them have been acted with most lamentable fury and rage for many years together I will not be large in the declaration of them to shew you how the Lutheran faction first began and how violently the Calvinists succeeding did prosecute their work for then I should weary you I shall labor to be as breif as I may and rather to Epitomize things then dilate them Of all their Actions That Union of Vtrecht was the most notorious a devise cleerly according to the rules of Junius Brutus and in imitation of the Switz
Fifteen years after the beginning of the troubles Adde hereunto that when the Emperor procured the Treaty at Colen in the yeer 1579 and made choise of most Honorable and eminent persons for that purpose viz. Two of the Princes Electors the Bishop of Wurtzburgh the Count Wartzemburgh and Doctor Lawenman the King of Spain was as forward and sent thither the Duke de Terra Nova And the Duke Areschot with some others were Commissioners from the States with Commission Signed by the Arch-Duke Mutthias The States had by their Letter to the Emperor bearing date June the Eighth 1578. promised that they were and so would continue constantly resolved Vt in Belgio colatur religio Catholica sua Regi constet Authoritas that both Catholike Religion and the Kings Authority should be maintained in the Netherlands Before this at Worms in the year 1577. the Agents of the States submitted and referred themselves to the Emperor as likewise the King of Spain did Therefore both parties being so inclinable and consenting in Eodem Tertio in the same Umpire who could expect but that a general peace should follow But Davus perturbat omnia When the Emperors Commissioners were come to Colen at the time appointed viz. by the beginning of April the States Commissioners appeared not till the Fourth of May and then with a Commission insufficient and their Treating restrained to a Term of Six weeks and no longer when as themselves had been twice the time in but framing their instructions which the Commissioners of the Emperor took for a great error as justly they might do All which delays had been craftily procured by the Prince of Orange and his party on purpose to obstruct the peace And in the Articles themselves the States Commissioners propounded many things contrary to promise In the Articles proposed by the Duke de Terrâ Novâ in the behalf of his Master All kinde of severity relating to Religion was mitigated as the Emperors Commissioners had assured them to the intent ut nemo justè queri possit c. that no man might complain of the King as if he desired either to Tyrannize over their bodies or to Seize their Estates or to Oppress their Consciences for matter of Religion But nothing could prevail so the Imperial Commissioners finding such dallying and delays in the States That in Sixteen weeks they could get no answer and that in their Letters they did onely renew old grievances and quarrels they broke up the Treaty and departed Nevertheless Bâ—lduc and Valenciennes received the Articles So did Over-Issle and Tournay Artois and Henault guided by the Bonus Genius of the Country and Em. Lâ—lain that valiant and religious Marquis of Renty together with Monsieurs de Capre Heze Barze and the rest contemned the course of Orange offered their obedience to the King and made peace with the Duke of Parma But as for the Hollanders they were now further off then ever they publish discourses against the Treaty and labor by all means possible how to make good their usurpation and perfect their Union which they were all this time a framing not forgetting to scatter seeds of dissention and further discord among the Provinces in which business their Ministers helped them not a little And lastly at this time also by the advise of Orange and England they admitted Monsieur the Duke of Alenson in the year 1578. to a kinde of Protectorship of the Provinces creating him Duke of Brabant and absolute Prince of the Netherlands And all to shew how irreconcileable they were to their natural Sovereign Thus much hath been said to shew the Kings good inclination to Peace Now for his Tyranny and Exaction which they pretended and objected in the second place as the cause of making that Union and also his breaking of their Priviledges and the too severe Government of his Ministers contrary as they say to his Oath at Coronation surely so long after D' Alva's times and under the moderate Government of the Duke of Parma and after so many significations of the Kings gracious disposition and offers to ease their burthens if they would themselves this may rather be judged a Cavil to shift Peace then any desire to be rid of War But as for the business of the Tenth Penny an exaction which they so much complain of we must draw the Curtain a little and tell you it was necessity and not his own will which forced him to require that and that otherwise neither would he have done it nor the King have suffered it But as it happened being driven to an extremity for the satisfying of the Soldiers who always grow wilde if they want Pay he was constrained to incur an inconvenience that he might avoid a mischief England and Orange were the cause of it For about this time some of the Counsel here by the instigation of the Prince had made stop of no less sum then Six hundred thousand Duckets which were sent out of Spain to the Army but driven by hard weather and ill fortune upon the coast of Hampshire notwithstanding as some say the Queen had given a safe Conduct for the passage thereof But the Polititians of those times and Enemies of Spain knew well into what Streights the want of this money would drive D' Alva and that of necessity he must commit some error or other which would encrease the hatred of his Government and perhaps arm the peoples fury once more to sedition Besides this the King had sent another sum of Two hundred thousand Duckets by the Duke de Medina but that also was intercepted at Sea by the Zealanders and converted to other uses This man was of a milder nature and sent on purpose to qualifie the severity of D' Alva who by his natural Sterneness and some errors in Government which the general malice of the people and disfavor of some Forreign Princes did much aggravate had made himself it must be confessed not a little odious but having as was said lost his money and Ships he had small heart to stay among them so he quickly returned home again and with a resolution it seemed never to have further dealing with such sharking Cormorants and left D' Alva in a Labyrinth of difficulties how to get money and govern his Soldiers But however it appears by this that it was never the Kings pleasure nor purpose but meerly the necessity of his present wants which compelled the Duke to demand that Tribute and that the quarrel upon it was rather made and contrived by themselves then given And these great pretenders for the Commons that seemed then so extreamly careful of the peoples ease and sollicitous to keep them free from Taxes Impositions c. Let me ask them one question Why do they now Tax them so much Why do they lay such heavy burthens upon them they themselves now they have them in their power Excises Subsidies Taxes of all sorts which they have augmented and do daily augment and raise
their practises and most justly are they excluded from the protection and benefit of those Laws Liberties and Peace which themselves would destroy if they could prevaile as the Sequel will shew Paraeus and the rest of the Calvinists in the Palatinate were the Firebrands of the Bohemian War they seduced the people set the Princes at variance among themselves and cast that whole Kingdom into a most desperate combustion though to their own shame and confusion at last as it it pleased God I need not be very sollicitous how to report the business aright both the original of the War as also its progress and success are so generally known by the relations of the French Mercury of Mercurius Gallo-Belgicus and others that there cannot easily be any false play used But the long many secret practises and plottings about it were discovered chiefly upon the Battle at Prague by intercepting the very Rolls and Records thereof First of all in the Secreta Principis Anhaltini Cancellaria printed in the year 1621. which certainly was no Fiction as that Catholicon published against the Leaguers in France was but a serious admonition plainly and down-right making report how things were carried without any affectation or disguise as a Treatise made rather to deliver Truth then to shew Art And hereof Lundorpius an Historiographer of Franckford must needs be thought an impartial witness who sets down the Letters and Records themselves for some time viz. so much of them as concerned the time of his writing And afterward they were verified by Cogmandolo who in his Treatise of like Subject called Secreta Secretorum avoucheth the same things So that there being no just ground as I conceive either of jealousie or doubt concerning this relation I shall professedly upon that foundation build my cheifest reports concerning this business In the year 1608. this great Union did begin The Cheifs whereof were the Count Palatine of the Rhine Christian Prince of Anhalt and the Marquis of Onoltzbach Count Mansfield was a principal Agent and in the year 1619. contrary unto and in contempt of the Imperial Proclamations Letters c. sent Two thousand men to the Aid of the Bohemians against the Emperor Afterward they admitted Joachim Marquis of Brandenburgh to be as it were Vicar or Lieutenant General of the League They admitted also the Marquis of Baden the Duke of Wittembergh Landsgrave of Hessen Duke of Dupontz and Strasburgh Norimbergh and many other Cities All which contributed so largly to these Wars as the Emperor never received the like Aid from them against the Turke For as Cogmandolo testifieth The several Taxes afforded by them from the year 1608 to the year 1619 amounted in the whole sum to no less then Four Millions one hundred seventy six thousand nine hundrd and seventeen Florens The concurrence of so many Princes could not but argue mighty force which was much increased by the Negotiations of Mansfeld and Nomarus in Italy which Nomarus was Baltazar Newwen principal Secretary to Onoltzbach and of Volrad Plessen with the Hollanders and of others with the Duke of Bullion Bethlehem Gabor and the Rebels of Hungary And though they could not perswade the King of England to enter into their League for great and weighty reasons which he alledged yet they hoped for some good assistance from the Grisons and gave out also that the Hans Townes favored their Union They omitted not to sollicit the Venetians also with much earnestness as conceiving it to be their interest to keep the other Princes of Europe in balance as much as may be and to be jealous of the too potent Supereminency of any one but what answer the Common-wealth gave them is not certainly known The pretense of their Union was that it was purely defensive for the protection only of their Religion Liberties and Priviledges Vetus Cantilena the old song I confess but who can beleeve them Can it be supposed of Anhalt that he took Arms onely for Conscience having been so well beaten in France for it both out of his Honor and Fortunes or that Count Mansfeld is a man that fights onely for Conscience and Publike liberty whose Trade and patrimony is the Sword and who braving the World most commonly with a running Army more used to Pillage then Fight Robs and Spoils all where ever he comes Besides doth not Achatius a Donau write to Anhalt November the Fifteenth 1619. that the intention of Bethlehem Gabor a principal Confederate was pied a pied by degrees yet as closely as foot could follow to root out the Antichristian Papacy where he came This was something more then to be onely defensive And in the Union it self which contains One and twenty Articles in all although they say it was onely their Buckler against the Catholikes assaulting them yet do they not profess Art 8. to have intention to expel Papism as they call it and to preserve themselves from the Yoak of Spain and forreign Government And doth not Bethlehem Gabor in his Letter to the Turk profess also how much he labors now Vt rasa Pontificiorum Cobors c. that those shaven Companies of Papelings so he calls the Catholike Clergy and Religious might be utterly destroyed This therefore was certain had they prevailed Catholike Religion long before this time had been extinct in those Countries and Catholikes themselves banished destroyed and gone In order to this do they not decree among themselves Pag. 43. to fall upon Church-men and Church-goods first Pag. 131. do they not resolve to invade some part of their Adversaries Country as they call the Catholikes having first compelled them to be so for their own defense and in particular do they not name and design out the Arch-Bishoprick and City of Triers as lying fairest in their way and being a Prince Electors Country Catholike and the Clergy rich But their Noblest and Chief project was to invest themselves of two Crowns goodly booties indeed if they could catch them and Temptations fit for such high Spirits that is to say of the Kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary The reason is given Pag 25. because thereby in the Assembly of Electors they should be always Secure of a double Vote And therefore doth the Count Palatine confess in his Letter to the Duke of Saxony that he took upon him the Administration of Bohemia among other reasons principally for this viz. That by this means the Election of the King of the Romans might be hence forward in the power of the Protestants This was certainly a main part of their design according to that which Anhalt writes unto Donau in May 1519. That it were better the Turk were chosen to wear that Crown then Ferdinand yea Gabor tells the Turk that the Palatine and Brandenburgh were resolved no longer to endure Ferdinand and that all those Provinces that were Confederate with them ☞ Corde animo omnia officia fidelissimè praestabunt were ready with heart and goodwil to tender all faithful services to his
treasonable design should Confederate themselves with one who is a declared Enemy of the Emperor and the Turks Vassal a Reprobate a Monster called Bethlehem Gabor and calling himself Prince of Transylvania King of Hungary and what not one who to hold himself firm in the Turks grace had already delivered up to him the Town and Fort of Lip the Towns of Solimos Tornadg Margat and Arad all well fortified places in Hungary â—nd labored hourly how to do him further service to the prejudice of Christendom One who had â—worn Allegiance to his Soveveign Lord Gabriel Batthori Prince of Transylvania yet afterward Trayâ—erously murthered him and usurped his State One who made a League with the Emperor Matthias in the year 1615. to be quiet and to attempt nothing contrary unto the Liberties and Peace of Hungary yet presently after invaded the Country in person with a great Army took upon him the Crown carried the Emperors Lievtenant Andrew Dockzy whom he had taught by Treachery prisoner into Transylvania banished all the Clergy and maintained his Soldiers with the spoils of the Church profaned the Cathedral Church at Poson with his own Heretical or Mahometan Chaplains and from thence certified the Turk boastingly under his own hand how successfully he had now begun the wotk which he promised that most of the Nobles of Hungary were under his command and that since the Popes Clergy gloried to weare their Crowns shaven he would make bold to shave some of them heads and all Upon which good news and in expectation to turn all his Warres now upon Christendom the Turk instanstly makes Peace with the Tartar and offereth Gabor to assist him upon any occasion of need with Forty thousand men Yet I say upon this mans head did the Union resolve to set the Crown of Hungary to which end his neerest Kinsmen lay all this time at Heydlebergh as an Intelligencer Treating with them yet disguised under the habit of a Scholar Let now the impartial Reader cast his eye upon Germany and see as an effect of this wicked Combination the picture of Troy on fire that is to say the lively image and horror of War And when he hath done so let him reflect how well it would please him to see the face of L ndon and Middlesex so disfigured â—â—th wounds and desolation Tâ—â—â—â—rious Zealot who is now mâ—â—tâ—â—rward to blow the Coals of dâ—ssentionâ— and to inflâ—â—me a State that is at quiet would quake and tremble when he should consider in what devastation all that once flourishing Country of the Empire now lieth mourning and groaning by reason of this War Those fertil Provinces about the Rhine all wasted and impoverished by Soldiers on both sides especially about Worms Tillage forborne Traffick decayed Trades ceased Taxes imposed Fortifications raised at the charge of the Country and for what onely for defense and security of those who oppress or impoverish them No man master of his own all at the will of Soldiers and Strangers and above an Hundred thousand persons reckoned to be slain These are the effects and issues of this War the fruits of Calvinism which though directly prohibited by the Laws of the Empire and onely tolerated by connivance and the mercy of the State yet was now come to such a point that it sought to suppress the Emperor himself and hazarded the subversion of the whole State both Ecclesiastical and Temporal An unchristian return doubtless and without any stamp of Religion Their sole justifying Faith will scarce justifie this because it was with breach of Faith and of so many civil bonds and contrary to charity The true marks of Charity are Humility Patience and Zeal perfectly conjoyned and qualified with the other two Your little Patience and less Humility do convince your Zeal to be no less counterfeit then your Faith is fruitless Charity would never have suffered you to invade the Duke of Bavieres Country notwithstanding he was willing to have stood Newter and onely because he would not joyn with you Charity never counselled Anhalt to design for pillage and as it were to devour before-hand the spoil of a City valued at Two and thirty Millions as he did in his Letters to Donau 1619. Charity never directed Christians to seek assistance from the Turk Christs greatest enemy nor to frame so many treacherous and malicious plots as they did Pag. 32 42 66 80. of their Cancâ—llaria against such as were either Neighbors or Friends to them or their lawful Superiors What the Laws of the Empire are concerning such proceedings hath been seen above in the daie of Luther where they are sufficiently condemned I shall therefore add here one onely passage of Leopold King of the Romans in his Supplication unto his Father Otho the first Emperor who because he had broken the Peace of Germany and called in Forreigners Membrum Imperii appellari non debeo I ought not saith he to be accounted any longer a Member of the Empire having brought in Forreign and Barbarous Nations into the heart of Germany â—ut these Minions of Genevah stand not upon the Law it is Gospel that they plead let the Gospel therefore condemn them The Word of God saith Per me Reges c. Kings reign by me It is by Gods appointment that they bear rule over men Therefore forbear ye people shew reverence to the Ordinance of God observe your dâ—stance Touch not mine Anointed The Gospel saith Let every soul be subject to the higher pâ—wers c. And he that resists resisteth Gods Ordinance and shall receive damnation Yea the Gospel saith Be subject unto every ordinance of man viz. That is established and by which the Will of Divine Providence may be seen For the Lords sake whither to a â—ing as Supream or more Excellent or unto Governors c. How much do the Doctrine of the Cospel and the Doctrine of Calvin differ The Gospel teacheth us to honor the King to obey Governors c. Calvin directs us rather to degrade and depose them But this is a matter needs no disputation Grace and Honesty would decide it best Titulus Sextus STATISM OR The Changes in ENGLAND About Religion AFter a tedious Voyage abroad we are at last to look homeward and to stâ—er our course for England where it must be confessed no such Paradoxâ—s are now current or practiâ—es on foot either among the Prelates or any part of the inferior Clergy I hope as abroad we have both heard and seen And it is no marvel for now they have the wind with them they live in a calm There is no great tryal of their patience and temperature of Spirit save onely what Martin Mar-Prelate and his Fellows do now and then give them Bâ—ing therefore in so great Peace themselves through the favor of the State they were mad men and should forget their own Interest if they did not Preach now very zealously against Tumults and Disloyalty in others But if we look back unto times past and observe
which tasted of the severity of those Laws were not a little insolent and prone to attempt Yet that she was withal a Princess very merciful is manifest by her compassion shewn to such as deserved not well of her that is To the Dutchess of Somerset to Sir John Cheek who had been the principal corrupter of King Edward her Brothers Infancy to Sir Edward Montague Lord Cheif Justice who had both counselled and subscribed to her disinheriting to Sir Roger Ch lmley to the Marquis of Northampton to the Lord Robert Dudly to Sir Henry Dudly to Sir Henry Gates c. who stood all of them attainted and the Duke of Suffolk All which persons were very obnoxious to Her Justice she knew very well they neither affected Her Religion nor Title They were already her prisoners in the Tower yet she released them all But for all this the Zealots of her time would not be quieted nor suffer her to enjoy any quiet They Libel against the Government of Women they pick quarrels and murmur at her marriage they publish invectives and scurrilous Pamphlets against Religion yea they forbear not to conspire and plot Her Deprivation out of a desire to advance Her Successor to the Crown under whom every Calvinist expected a Golden Age. The austerities and abstinences which Catholike Religion prescribed and which the Queen by Authority of Parliament had but lately reduced and was her self very exemplary in the observation of them were not much pleasing to some Gallants about the Court nor to many others both in City and Country whose affections were better satisfied with the Liberties of the former Age and therefore desired some change of this But among other Instruments of mischeif that Book written by Goodman intituled Of Obedience was a most pernicious Incentive among the commons teaching expresly Ad Nobil Scot. P. 94. That Queen Mary deserved to be put to death as a Tyrant and a Monster And that other of Knox with whom the Zealots of England did correspond too much where he hath among many other of like nature this passage Illud aud actèr affirmaverim c. This I dare boldly say saith he the Nobility Magistrates Judges and whole people of England were bound in Conscience not onely to oppose and withstand the proceedings of that Jesabel Mary whom they call their Queen but even to have put her to death and all her Priests with her After this Sir Thomas Wyat takes up Arms for which Master Fox worthily Chronicles him marches his Army like another Cyrus as some called him over Shâ—oters-Hill threatning both the Court and the City Prince and People And for this Goodman in his Book Of Obedience commends him saith He did but his duty and that it was the duty of all who professed the Gospel to have risen with him This was their doctrin then And though it be said That Goodman recanted his opinion in Queen Elizabeths days it was perhaps onely that part of it which opposed the Government of Women And if he did it absolutely what doth it prove but the inconstancy of such men and how easily they can conform themselves to times that favor them and of what spirit they are under the cross and affliction Wyats pretence was particoloured looking as he would seem both at Religion and bonum Publicum in his opposing the Queens marriage with Spain as both Holinshead and Stow agree They that suppose it to have been meerly upon a civil account are confuted by the Queen her self in her Speech at Guildhal where she tells the City That she had sent divers of her Counsel to Wyat to demand the Reasons of his Insurrections and that they found The business of the marriage was onely a cloak to cover Religion which was the thing principally aimed at For he urged also to have the Tower delivered to him to have power to nominate and chuse new Counsellors declaring plainly That he would not trust but be trusted But Master Fox is plain in the case for he confesseth of all that Rabble which followed Wyat That they conspired among themselves for Religion and made Wyat their cheif The marriage was looked upon by them onely as an accessory thing and a means to strengthen that which they meant to overthrow and eo nomine for that respect onely it was to be hindred Upon this account William Thomas a Gospeller of those times conspireth to kill the Queen and at his death is so far from repenting of such a foul intention That he glorieth to die for the good of his Countrey Yea the Faction grew so tumultuous and bold That Doctor Pendleton was shot at in the very Pulpit Preaching at Pauls and Master Bourn had a Dagger thrown at him in the same place the multitude being so disorderly That the Lord Major himself had much ado to quiet them and the Lords of the Counsel were forced to come thither the next Sunday with a guard to keep things in order and to prevent further combustions which were feared At Westminster upon Easter-day a desperate fellow wounded the Priest as he was at Mass in Saint Margarets Church there After this they found out a Perkin Warbeck and brought him upon the Stage one Wilâ—iam Fetherston counterfeiting King Edward whom the world and some of themselves especially knew well enough to be dead on purpose to amuze the Queen and disturb the State There was one Cleber sometimes a Pedant living at Yakesly in Norfolke put to death for a conspiracy against the Queen Vdal Staunton Peckham and Daniel were committed for the same crime for which and for attempting to rob the Exchequer and her Treasury and also for Heresie they had their desert Not to speak of the Treasons of Dudley and Ashton set on by the French In Devonshire Sir Peter and Sir Gawin Cary great Protestants together with Sir Thomas Denny took arms to impede King Philips arrival in England possessed themselves for some time of Excester Castle but afterward seeing things go contrary to their expectation they made an escape by getting over into France Thomas Stafford coming well instructed from Genevah made Proclamations publickly in several places of the Kingdom that Queen Mary was not lawful Qeen was unworthy to reign and to abuse the people further gave out no less boldly then falsly that already Twelve of the best fortified places in England were committed to the Spaniards Upon which pretense Bradford Proctor Streachly and he surprize the Castle of Scarborough in Yorkshire a Fort of singular strength which they would hold against the Spaniards they should have said against their Queen and Sovereign but they lost it and their heads beside Henry Duke of Suffolk one to whom the Queen had given life before being Father to the Lady Jane and a privy Counsellor in those Treasons of Northumberland fled into Leicestershire with the Lord Gray making Proclamation against the Queens marriage but not being able to raise a Commanding Army as he hoped was compelled
to flie and lurk in corners Till the Earl of Huntingdon apprehending him brought him up again to his old lodging in the Tower where he made an unfortunate end I shall not urge the practises of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton a man of great wit and policy notwithstanding he was Indicted of high Treason and arraigned at Westminster with Arnold Warner and others because though the case were plain yet the Jury acquitted him but to their own cost and trouble And it was well for him the Advocates of those times desired not so much to triumph in the calamities of poor men nor that the prisoner should loose his head rather then they their oration and the glory of the day But say some there were no Ministers had any hand in those tumults none of them were Trumpeters to Sedition at that time What was Goodman and Gilby Were not they Ministers Was not Jewel a Ministâ—â— â—ho preacht at Gl ceâ—â—er against the Queens proceedâ—ngs Was not Doctor Sands a Ministâ—r though Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge when he walkt abâ—ut with the Ragged Staff and assisted the proclaimers of Lady Jane Were not Hooper Rogers Crowly Ministers all enrolled as friends and favorers of these actions And were there not divers other Ministers both of Kent and other Counties who upon Wyats fall forsook the Realm or was there any thing more likely to drive them out then a guilty Conscience what shall we say of those two Apostles falsly so called of the time Cranmer and Ridley W re not they Ministers yet great instruments of the Queens troubles And that not in King Edwards time onely upon which account some would excuse them but after his death and under the Reign of Queen Mary For Ridleys Sermon of Pauls Cross wherein like another infamous Shaw he so highly magnified and defended the Title of Lady â—anâ— and perswaded the people to accept and obey her as Queen iâ—pugning against all honesty and conscience the right of King Henries two Daughters was the Sunday after King Edward was dead And 't is well known the Reign of a Prince commenceth not from the time of his Coronation but instantly upon the death of his predecessor And therefore was he justly attainted and convicted of Treason Cranmer was both Counsellor and Oracle in the business and was therefore arraigned and condemned with the Lady Jane and Guildford Dudly as contriver and principal assistant in that Treason as appeareth by the Records in the Kings Bench. This man was a very Proteus in all his actions and of a disposition most servil and vitiously plyable to any humor of the King and ready always to follow the prevailing party He was first a principal instrument of the Kings divorce from â—â—â—en Kâ—â—bâ—â— ne whereby the 〈◊〉 Gatâ—â— were let opon to the Lady Anne Bolen yet afterward to serve the Kings Appetite he was used again as a chief instrument in her condemnation as appears by the Statute where Cranmâ—rs Sentence is recorded judicially 28. Hen. 8. c. 7. as of his own knowledge convincing her of some fowl act Nor can any wise or indifferent man but condemn him of inexcusable iniquity that being a Counsellor of State Primate and M tropolitan of the Realm pretending also to be a Reformer of Religion would so much betray his Master whose creature he was as to frustrate and make void his will whereof himself was made chief Executor subscribe to extinguish his issue as much as possibly he could by disinheriting his two Daughters and transferring the Crown to another Line and Family and all this most basely and contrary to his conscience onely to please a Subject and to avoid â—omâ—â—inde of affliction which he feared upon the Succession of Qâ—een Mary and against which 't is manifest by the frequent changings lapses relapses and perjuries which he made he was never well armed It is manifest therefore that in all places at home as well as abroad this Spirit of Reformation hath ever been and is seditiously pragmatical and dangerous unto Princes and States wheresoever it getteth footing and is not countenanced and advanced so far as to bear all the sway it self It is in this onely respect not in any other like the Motto of her who meerly for temporal and worldly ends made her self the great Patroness of it that is it is Semper Eadem always the same and never changeth This was it which induced them of Genevah to expel their Bishop and Leige-Lord This was it which induceth them of Sâ—ethland to renounce their lawful King Them of Holland to depose their Sovereign Prince This was it which Sollicited the Bohemians to depose the Emperor their Elected Crowned and Acknowledged King That imprisoned the most Vertuous and Religious Queen and Martyr Mary Queen of Scotland and cast her undeservedly into those calamities which pursued her to death This was it which held out Rochel and Montauban in defiance against their King and lastly that which begat so many conspiracies commotions and causes of jealousie unto Queen Mary of England So as within the space of Sixty years it hath been observed More Princes have been deposed and persecuted by Protestants their Subjects upon the quarrel and difference of Religion then had bin by the Popes excommunications or by the attempts and practises of any Subjects Catholikes in Six hundred before Of the troubles which have arisen to other Princes upon this occasion we have spoken somewhat already The business of Sweden is defended by one Master T. M. upon these grounds First That it was done by the demand of the whole State But this is a manifest falshood For if you take the whole State formally that is for all the people of the Nation it is certain that Sigismund their lawful King had not onely a great but the far greater and better part of the people well affected to him If you take it Virtually that is for some general Assembly representing the people legally met and resolving upon that business there never was any such called The meetings that were were onely of Duke Charls his faction who in comparison of the Kings party both of Nobility and Commons were but few yet as it often happens the better case was more negligently managed and those for the Duke who were also inclined to Innovation in Religion being more active industrious and unanimous in their design made shift to secure the Military provisions and to invest themselves of the chief Strengths of the Kingdom before the others and so prevailed as Chytraeus himself a Protestant Author is sufficient witness Chytra Continuat Crantzii Secondly he saith it was for the defence of their Priviledges and Liberties None of which were violated as by the same Chytraeus appeareth Thirdly that it was for the fruitoin of Religion That 's true indeed and confessed That they might introduce and establish a new Religion they renounced their old King which is the thing we charge them with and wherein whatsoever they did
violence of his own exorbitant passions without any order or colour of Law and as no just Prince ought to govern how much less would they have thought it lawful and how little would they approve it to be done against such Princes as govern legally and do nothing concerning Religion or otherwise but according as the Laws and and publike Constitutions of their several Kingdoms do direct and inable them to do He that proclaymed the Prerogative of Kings in these terms Vos Estis Dii I have said Yee are Gods surely intended to teach the world rather a lesson of obedience then rebellion And there is no Prince or State in the world Let them countenance what Sect or Profession of Religion soever they please but shall finde it at one time or another a necessary Bulwark for them to retreat unto against the inundations of popular fury Who doth deny but that it is necessary that the governments of all Princes whatsoever should be regulated and moderated by Laws and that all persons in Authority do observe all rules whatsoever that are proper for them or prescribed to them by those to whom that power belongeth We pretend not to enhaunce the Authority of Princes so far as to exempt them from the rule of Law or to make them Arbitrary in their government but this we say Vos Esi is Dii in relation unto Princes and all Persons established in Supream Authority justly that is by the will of Divine Providence and consent of the people is a great exemption of them from any popular Cognizance For what does it intimate but that * Egodixi Allmighty God himself hath made them Gods unto the people that is to say persons of Knowledge Experience Foresight Care Providence and other abilities Intellectual which are the natural and genuine principles of government competent and sufficient for the government of people who are not otherwise generally speaking Et pro majori parte able to govern themselves in civil society and for their preservation in peace and quietness which is the end of Government We think it is most proper for God onely to say Transferam Regna de gente in gentem Revolutions of Governments and Translating of one Kingdom to another are the Extraordinary Dispensations of Divine Providence and for reasons onely known unto his supream and secret wisdom Which although they be acted that is brought to pass by the hands of men yea through their infirmities and many times blamable passions as experience often sheweth and as in the case of King Rehoboam the Son of Solomon 1 Reg. 12.16 may seem plain yet are not the common people licensed hereby to run upon any irregular designs of their own head and to renounce their Governors headily and hastily of themselves for every lght greivance and misgovernment that may seem to afflict them To remove Tyrants and oppression from a people is the work of Divine Mercy as it is of his justice to permit them to oppress and from him only must they expect deliverance abiding in the mean while with patience until his Divine hand shall appear leading them to such means as they may with justice and good order use to the procuring of their liberty The Second Part. JERUSALEM OR The Obedience Loyalty and Conformity OF CATHOLIKES unto Publike Order HItherto we have insisted onely upon the Doctrines and practises of those who call themselves Reformed Churches or Protestants in the charge of Rebellion and Tumult against the Civil Magistrate by which how tolerable and quiet they are in any Kingdom or State whose Religion is not framed according to their Mode the indifferent Reader will judge It remaineth now that we make good the contrary concerning our selves and shew that those vertues which we pretend to be the true and proper Characters of our Religion viz. Humility Devotion Obedience Order Patience c. are more generally and more constantly exercised by Catholikes in times of Tryal then by any other Sect or Sort of people whatsoever This we intend to do but not so much Theoretically or by way of any long and speculative discourse as Practically Historically and by way of instance shewing what the behavior and practise of Catholikes have been in this case upon occasions given Neither shall we range far abroad into the world because that would be less pertinent to our main purpose which is onely to justifie our selves in this point so far as reason and truth will give us leave and enlarge our discourse beyond its intended bounds But we shall content our selves onely with domestick examples and that experience which the Catholikes of this Nation have given of themselves from time to time in this kinde What kinde of people they were anciently in this Land in the time of King Lucius and the Brittons I shall not need to relate but refer you to the Ecclesiasticall Histories of those times the rather because the Centurists of Magdeburgh and Master Fox in his Acts and Monuments will have these Catholikes to be Protestants and of their Church which though it be very false yet I may not ingage for the cleering of that point now Nor shall I insist any longer upon those times of the Saxons after they were converted to Christianity to shew their vertues and singular devotion towards God and how happily by means thereof the Church and Common-wealth did grow up together unto that perfection of Spiritual and Temporal glory which they injoyed under that Blessed Prince and Saint King Edward the Confessor I shall not tell you how highly the good Prelates of the Church were then reverenced by the people nor how much their holy Counsels and Authority did conduce to the happy government of the State It sufficeth Lamb. Archaion Camden Spelm. Concil that many old Saxon Laws and other Monuments yet upon record Venerable Bede and the Stories of those times with other Modern Authors are witnesses of it beyond all exception From King Edward the Confessor downwards to King Henry the Eighth there is no man of judgement will affirm or thinketh that any other Religion was known in England but the Roman-Catholike that is the same that had been long before planted here by Saint Austin and those Good men his followers who were sent hither to convert the English Saxons by Saint Gregory the Great Bishop of Rome for which charity towards our Nation Doctor Whitaker giveth him thanks and professeth it was a great Benefit and for ever most gratefully to be remembred In all which time although the Clergy made Canons and managed all things pertaining to Religion by an Authority of their own that is to say given them by God and derived to them from an other origin then that of the State or Supream Magistrate Temporal yet never did the Kings of this Realm finde them generally otherwise then obedient unto their Government and ready to serve them in such capacity as the Laws and duties of their function permitted and to contribute their
the Moveables and Ornaments belonging to them the Augmentation Court was erected For the King seeing this extraordinary passiveness and submission of the Clergy could never think he had power sufficient till he had more then enough and therefore having already discharged his conscience from all Bonds but such onely as himself should think good to tie he took liberty to commit such outrages and violence upon Sacred things as no age before him nor since can parallel For first viz. Anno 27. of His Reign he appoints the Secretary Cromwel and Doctor Leigh as his Commissioners to visit the Abbyes and they by vertue of their said Commission first take out all the Plate cheifest Jewels and Reliques belonging to those houses and seize them to the Kings use Then they dismiss all such persons Religious as were under the age of Four and twenty years and had a desire to be at liberty in the world Anno 28. All the smaller Religious houses of the value of Two hundred pounds per annum and under were given to the King by Parliament with all their Lands and Hereditaments and of these the number was not less then Three hundred seventy and six who were able to dispend per annum to the benefit of the poor and service of the Publike not less then Three thousand two hundred pounds of old Rents of Assize bâ—side their Moveables Which bâ—ing undervalued and sold at mean rates yet amounted to above One hundred thousand pounds The Religious themselves and all people depending on them which were not a few were on a sudden outed and left unprovided even of Habitation above Ten thousand persons for no particular crimes charged or proved against them turned out of their own doors and driven to seek their fortune where they could A thing which compassionated the very common people themselves though not a little alienated in their affections at that time towards Monasticks more then they were wont to be to see so many persons compelled to Beg and live by Almes who by their bountiful and constant Hospitality had formerly releived many Anno 30. of His Reign some of the greater Abbies viz. Battle-Abby and the Abby of Lewis in Sussex Martin Abby in Surry Stratford in Essex were suppressed and all things belonging to them converted to the Kings use For indeed they were forced in some sort to proceed thus politickly in their work of desolation and to carry it on by degrees by reason of the Commonalty who though they stirred not yet they stood amazed as it were murmuring as lowd as they durst and were not a little unsatisfied at such doings But in the years 32. and 33. generally all the Monasteries of England of what value soever went to wrack and were destroyed The Lands belonging to Saint John's of Jerusalem were likewise given to the King and the Corporation of those Knights quite dissolved Though to turn out these with some kinde of contentment there was as some say certain Pensions during life distributed among them to the value of Two thousand eight hundred and seventy pounds In Anno 37. was the last sweep which King Harry made For then all the Chauntries in any part of the Kingdom which were many and numerous All Churches and places Collegiate yea the very Hospitals which were built and endowed by their several Founders onely and expresly for the relief of the poor were yet given to the King and permitted wholly to his order and disposing The value of Church Lands in England at this time amounted to above Three hundred and twenty thousand one hundred and eighty pounds per annum and of it the King took into his own possession and apropriated to the Crown to the value of One hundred sixty one thousand one hundred pounds yearly rent The rest it seems was sold or exchanged or distributed among Favourites Lastly to abuse the poor Commons perfectly and more easily to wipe them of those great and constant advantages as well Temporal as Spiritual which they received from these Religious places while they stood a proposition is made in Parliament by the Projectors and Sharers in this worke and 't is given out also to the people abroad That out of the Revenues of these Lands thus given to the King a standing Army for defence of the Kingdom and all other Military occasions of State should be maintained of no less then Forty thousand men besides Forty Earls Sixty Barons and Three thousand Knights for the Command and Conduct of this Army where need should be So that the Commons of England by this means should never heare of Tax or Subsidy any more This indeed was as pleasing a bait for the people as could be devised and it took accordingly They bit willingly at it But the Hook sticks in their jaws to this day Such a motion as this to note in a word by the way was made in that Parliament of Henry the fourth which they called the Lay-mens Parliament by those which countenanced Wicleff and loved the Lands far better then they did the Religion of the Church But their designs at that time were defeated by the Stout and Religious opposition of Thomas Arundel Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and other Prelates joyning with him Though now there were an unfortunate and unworthy Thomas found yet siting in that Seat of Canterbury ready to side with them for his own carnal ends and to countenance the Wicleffists of these times that is those Lutheran and malicious Spirits who by their Libels The supplication of Beggars well answered by Sir Thomas Moores Supplication of Souls and other wicked practises went about to destroy the Church and extripate true Religion Adde here unto the Kings natural Inclination to vain glory which was very great and begat those prodigal expences which he used towards his Favorites and Flatterers And these could not be long maintained but by extraordinary support which being not to be had in any way of Legality and Justice Avarice at last and many other vices which he was fallen to prompted him to fall upon the Church The Lords and Courtiers could not dislike the motion knowing what a rich Prey would fall to be divided among them Especially this pleased the principal Secretary of State afterward Lord Privy Seal Lord High Chamberlain of England and Earl of Essex who being a man of great experience and of a deep reach in worldly policies knew full well that such a confused Innovation as this and so full of Spoyle would be infinitely advantagious to him and a Ladder to clime at ease unto what Wealth or Honor he could wish He therefore instigates the King with all might and main to go through with the Action and to stand stoutly to his Prerogative and profit knowing his conscience was already buried in Anne Bolens Tombe To this end and the better to pave the way to his evil designs Sacriledge and Blood not seldom going along together Three of the principal Abbots of the Kingdom and Barons
been dedicated to it died himself not long after of a Carbuncle Sigon de regn Italiae Lib. 1. So Gondericus King of the Vandals when he took Sivill took also the spoils of the Churches and seized upon all their riches but to revenge it the Devil seized and possessed him Tarapha in Honorio What need I alledge more Julian the Apostate was also a Church-robber Tripart Histor lib. 6. c. 31. most tyrannical and notorious but his end is well known And so it is what misery befell Heliodorus the Treasurer of King Selencus for the like crimes though but attempted against the Sanctuary at Hierusalem 2 Maccab. chap. 3. Nicephorus Phocas the Emperor was the neerest parallel to King Henry that we meet with in all the Ecclesiastical Story For he resumed all donations that had been made unto Monasteries and Churches in his time but such afflictions and furies haunted him for it ever after that his Successor Basilius though himself none of the best Emperors that have reigned was yet careful to abrogate those Lawes of Phocas among the first Acts which he did and as the root of all publike calamities of those times Nor did indeed King Henry himself finde any better success to attend his impieties Did he not like that sacrilegious Herod mentioned before live jealous of his Wives and not confident even of those his Friends which he had so much enriched with the spoils of the Church His exorbitant lusts which were the original cause of all the mischief became at last his torments For after his Divorce from his first and lawful Queen Katharine no wife could please him long few of them could get protection for their heads and none of them all live long either secure or joyful Beside did his Exchequer thrive any better for the Augmentations Was his Treasury any whit better furnisht then his Predecessors before him Catholike Princes and Favorers of the Church Nay was there ever King of England more necessitated then he was in point of Treasure and that immediatly as it were and in very few years after those great spoils Did ever King of England before him lye more heavy upon his subjects in matter of Taxes Subsidies Loanes then he did after that Did ever any of them use more ignoble and unprincely wayes to raise money then he Our own Chronicles and the much base money which he coined doe sufficiently shew how things went with him in that regard But that which may seem most of all to be noted as an argument of Gods displeasure against him was the frustrating of that which was pretended to be his chief project and design in all those frequent marryings and unmarryings viz. Succession and Issue All his hopefull Stem and Branches have been taken away one after another without Issue and some of them but unhappily too And his Crown and Scepter translated much contrary to his intentions unto another Name and Nation God suffering him as a blinde man to erre in his ends and wander in all his courses Yea all that great Treasure which he raked together upon the ruins of the Church how was it employed How spent but in the excess of vanity and evil Neither to any honour of the Realm nor to the ease of his subjects nor to the maintenance of souldiers nor to the relief of the poor all which were pretended mainly when the business was to be done but in Tiltings Triumphs Mummeries Masquings in pleasing and enriching his Mistresses and to satisfie the greedy appetites and expectations of those sollicitors of his Lusts In a word Bolen and Prodigality consumed all And touching those who were thought to be the occasion and chief instruments of these disorders that is to say Cardinal Wolsey and the Lord Gromwel when they had served his turn sufficiently and were grown rich they were themselves upon pretended and but light occasions taken with disgrace and misfortune turned out of the World leaving their Estates at his mercy And for himself when he had wearied his subjects with a long chargeable and ingloricus Reign and that he found his soul as much oppressed with the guilt of innumerable heinous sins as his body was become unweildy and troublesome to others through his excessive intemperance he died as some good Authors say Thuan. desirous to repent and to be reconciled to the Church but what effect his desires had which we wish might be to the saving of his soul is only known to God But what course think we would the Lutherans of Germany the Câ—nsâ—storians of Genevah and France the Brethren of Scotland have taken in this case What would they have done should they have found themselves at any time oppressed abused robbed of their Rights and Interests and harrassed with injuries as the Catholikes of England were by such a Tyrant as this Yet the Catholikes took all patiently made no mutinies raised no tumults no insurrections that were considerable or generally owned It is acknowledged even by our adversaries that these Abbyes and their Dependants were almost the third part of the Realm men of understanding power and interest their Revenues great their Tenants many and rich They were not a little favored also by the people for their constant Hospitalities and good House-keeping among them well esteemed likewise generally amongst the Nobility and Gentry Besides the Knights of St. Johns of Jerusalem who found themselves in the same predicament with the rest by their Fraternities and Interests abroad might have procured great troubles to the King especially by the Pope and Emperors assistance yet to shew the world what they were to give an example of the patience of true Israelites and due obedience of good Subjects yea to imitate in some sort the Divine pattern of their Masters meekness they resolved rather to endure Gods just punishment upon them in the Kings great injustice then to Arm themselves into the Field like so many Lutherans Calvinists or Geuses against their lawful Sovereign having no lawful order or authority so to do The Arms they took up were not Zuinglius his Sword nor Beza's Pistols but the ancient and most proper Arms of true Christians Prayers and Tears Submission Resignation Patience under the rod of God and of a wicked King I shall add this onely Argument more of the inconveniences which followed upon these proceedings of the King and of the provocation which Catholike people had under him if it had been possible to be put into disorder viz. That although the number of Gentry were somewhat encreased by the suppression of Abbyes and alienation of Church Lands yet the Rents of Lands were presently and very much enhaunced thereupon Inclosures were set on foot Depopulations generally made the price of all things raised to the extreme detriment of the poorer sort of people ever since as the Protestants themselves complained Ascham Epist ad Protect and the Yeomanry infinitely decayed who before this were accounted and found to be upon all occasions the
more honorable with them and more becomming good Christians then the Sword and Fortune of a Conqueror in comanding In which most Christian posture I leave them to proceed Titulus Tertius THe last and greatest tempest against poor English Catholikes was raised by Queen Elizabeth This not onely shook the foundations of the Church which had been so lately repaired by the most Catholike Princess Queen Mary but proceeded so far as humane policy and power could to extirpate the very name and memory of Catholike Religion in England Camd. in Elizab. And this as it were in an instant and without noise For as her own Historian Camdeu reporteth it was done Sine sanguine sudore No man unless perhaps it were Master Secretary Cecil did so much as sweat in the bringing in of New Religion nor was any mans blood I mean at the first beginning drawn about it The Christian world stood amazed at the first news of such a sudden alteration Both because Religion had been so lately and so solemnly restored by Parliament as also because the Queen her self that now was always professed her self so much Catholike during the Reign of her Sister She constantly every day heared Mass saith the same Camden and beside that ad Romanae Religionis normam soepius confiteretur went often to Confession as other Roman Catholikes did Yea saith Sir Francis Ingleseild when she was upon other matters sometimes examined by Commissioners from the Queen she would her self take occasion to complain that the Queen her Sister should see me to have any doubt of her Religion and would thereupon make Protestation and Swear that she was a Catholike The Duke of Feria's Letter to King Philip is yet extant to be seen wherein is certified that the Queen had given him such assurance of her beleefe and in particular concerning the point of Real Presence that for his part he could not beleeve she intended any great Alteration in Religion The same profession also she made to Monsieur Lansack as many Honorable Persons have testified and at her Coronation she was Consecrated in all points according to the Catholike maner and anointed at Mass by the Bishop of Carlile taking the same Oath to maintain Catholike Religion the Church and Liberties thereof as all other her Catholike Predecessors Kings and Queens of England had ever done Concerning the grounds which moved her to make this Alteration so much contrary to the expectation and judgement of Christendom we shall speak in due place This was manifest that the long sickness of Queen Mary gave her great advantage time both to deliberate and draw all platforms into debate to prepare instruments in readiness for all designs and to make choise of the fittest and surest Counsellors such as were most likely to advance her ends Neither did she seem to value her Honor overmuch in order to the bringing about of her chief design For in open Parliament after her intentions for a change began to be discovered she protested that no trouble should arise to the Roman Catholikes Horas Preface of Queen Elizab. for any difference in Religion Which did much abate the opposition which otherwise might probably have been made by the Catholike party and put the Clergy themselves in some hopes of Fair quarter under her Government She knew full well that a Prince alone how Sovereign soever could not establish a new Religions in his Kingdom but that it must be the work of a Parliament to give Authority and Countenance to a business of that nature Therefore to win the Bishops and the rest of the Catholikes in Parliament to silence at least she was content to use policy with them and promise them fair as Monsieur Mauvissieir hath well observed Les memoir de Mons. Mich. Castelnau who was a long time Embassador heer from the French King and curiously noted the passages of those times Add hereunto That when the Act for Supremacy was revived which was always the great Wheel of these Motions whereas by King Henry's Law both Bishops and Barons stood in danger thereof as the examples of Sir Thomas Moor Lord Chancellor of England and Doctor Fisher Bishop of Rochester had shewen in this Parliament the Queen was content to exempt the Lords and Barons absolutely from the Oath as they in King Edward the Sixths time had exempted themselves and to leave the Rigor of it onely upon the Clergy and Commons She also thought good to qualifie the Stile somewhat viz. from Supream Head changing it into Supream Governor which though it altered not the sence yet it abused some into a beleef that the Queen pretended not unto so much in matters Ecclesiastical as the King her Father had done Beside we are to remember that King Henry by pulling he Abbyes had much weakned the power of the Clergy in Parliament having deprived them of the Votes of no less then Five and twenty Abbots who constantly sat in Parliament in the quality of Barons And lastly it is well known The Lower House of Parliament it self as they call it was so calmly spirited in those times that they used not much to oppose what their good Lords of the upper House liked All which things considered and that too many of the Catholikes both Lords and others thinking it better wisdom to purchase their future security by present silence then to expose themselves to trouble and vexation afterward by opposing that which they feared they should not be able to hinder therefore either but faintly resist or quietly absent themselves who can wonder if the whole business were carried with ease upon such promises of the Queen and by the industry and craft of Sinon alias Secretary Cecil who had the chief Management of it in his hands By his advise it was thought fitting that the Noble Earl of Arundel should for a time be abused with some hopes of marrying the Queen who thereupon by the interest which he had in the house of Peers ingrosed into his own hands the Proxies or voices of so many of them who thought good to be absent as when time came served the Queens turn exceedingly well The duke of Norfolk Son in law to Arundel but now a Widower was already exasperated against the Pope because he might not have dispensation to marry his Kins-woman and therefore it was no hard matter to joyn him with Arundel The Queen had also against this time either made or advanced in dignity and consequently in interest certain new Lords whom she knew to be favorers of her design viz. William Lord Parr was made Marquis of Northampton a good Speaker and a Politick man Edward Seymour Son to the late Duke of Sommerset was made Viscount Beauchamp and Earl of Hartford Sir Thomas Howard was made Viscount Bindon Sir Oliver Saint John Lord St. John of Bletso Sir Henry Cary Lord Hunsdon She had also as much weakened the Catholikes party by discharging from the Counsel-Table many of the old Counsellors
proceedings she was not onely left destitute of all her Allies and Confederates and driven as it were to stand solely upon her own guard against France who was already an Enemy and against Spain who was a friend not very well satisfied But she was forced even at first and at the entrance of her Reign to run upon a Rock which might have Shipwrackt her whole State which was to assist the Rebells in Scotland against their lawful Sovereign under a pretence of expelling the French who were brought in thither by Authority of the Queen onely to maintain the Government established This might have taught her own people a bad lesson at home a man would think though it did not as it proved And being thus engaged in Scotland she was obliged in pursuance of her design to succor the Admiral and those Rebellious Hugonots of France by whose perswasion she invaded Normandy took possession of the Towns of Newhaven Diep and some other places delivered to her by the Vidame of Charteres But the disgrace in ill-defending and loosing of them especially of Newhaven was one of the greatest blemishes that ever the English before that time received upon French ground and far greater then it was Honor to have them delivered upon such occasion into the Queens possession For certainly had either the cause been just or prudently managed they might upon that advantage have easily brought home Calice again or lockt up the Gates of Roan and Paris But they did neither nor brought home any thing but a great Plague after them in most mens judgement a scourge to the Realm for that offence After this upon the like necessity of self-preservation and upon the Reason of State which Polybius prescribeth Vicini nimâ—ùm crescentiâ— potentia quâcunque ex causâ deprimenda By all meanes keep thy Neighbor from growing too great she made no scruple to impede and give obstruction to the affairs of King Philip in the Netherlands who was her Neighbor her Ally her Confederate yea upon more occasions then one and in matters of no small exigence the best friend which she had in the world Yet by reason of those pernicious Counsels concerning Religioâ— which she was fallen upon she was as it were compelled to disown his just interest and profess her self Ungrateful in the face of the world Thereupon Orange and the States are assisted against their lawful Sovereign King Philip. I must not deny but even in doing this she pretended respect unto the Kings interest professing in her Declaration concerning that business Stow. That what she did was to preserve the Ancient Amity and Leagues betwixt the Crown of England and the House of Burgundy and to prevent the loss and utter revolt of those Countries from the Kings obedience which she knew otherwise the States and Orange would deliver up to some other Prince more professedly his Enemy So true it is that which Machiavel observed I suppose much about those times viz. That wise Princes seldom or never want pretences for their Actions What a fair colour is here given to a foul Cause But where is Conscience Christianity and Truth in the mean time The world could see well enough through the Vizard and knew at what mark both the Queen and the States aimed But most Sage sure and worthy of so great a Commander and wise man as himself was is that of Thucydides Nullus Princeps a suis subditis justè puniendis arcendus est c No Prince saith he ought to be hindred from punishing his Subjects according to the Laws and whosoever goeth about to do so by his evil example parem in se legem Statuit c. he makes a Law against himself and inables his own Subjects in like case to seek forreign protection against his jusâ—ice And this the Queen with the whole Nation might have found true by sad experience if that either Henry the Second or Francis the Second Kings of France had lived or that her own Subjects I mean those whom she had not a little injured and alienated by her Misgovernment had not been more loyally respective of her dignity and more inclined to obedience and sufferance for a good cause then many other people in the world were But Divine Providence having decreed for our much unworthiness and many sins to remove the Candlestick of this Nation that is to deprive us of the Light of the true saving Faith and of all publike and free exercise of true Christian Religion and to deliver us up to the darkness and many old delusions of Heresie and to follow our own ways in those things wherein it most of all concerned us to have been ruled by good Authority which is the greatest judgement that can befall a Nation or any people in this woâ—ld all things cooperated to the accomplishment of his just displeasure against us And the Queen with heâ— party were permâ—tted to go on with their work without any interruption Even before her Coronation or that any debate or resolution had been taken in Parliament de novo concerning Religion she being her self but a Sheep of the Flock as Constantine Thedosius and many others her Christian Predecessors in Princely Dignity have not blushed to acknowledge yet presumed to put all the Shepheards of the Kingdom to silence commanding that none of the Bishops or other Prelates should preach till her pleasure was further known And after the Parliament all of them that refused the new revived Oath of Supremacy were deprived of all Honors Dignities and Employments which they had in Church or Common-wealth and committed to several Prisons Of this sort there are reckoned no less then Fourteen Bishops of England all Vertuous and Learned Prelates that were instantly deposed and Ten of Ireland Twelve Deans Fifteen Heads or Masters of Colledges Six Abbots besides inferior dignitaries of the clergy viz. Arch-Deacons and other Priests without number together with Master Shelley Prior of Saint Johns of Jerusalem All these as to their demeanor towards the Queen were blameless there was not the least exception taken against them in that respect The Bishops themselves were all sitting in Parliament at the time of Queen Maries death and acknowledged by diverse Proclamations Queen Elizabeths Right and Title to the Crown The Arch-Bishop of York Doctor Heath was then Chancellor of England and labored by all means possible to do her Majestie service and to settle the Hearts of her people in obedience and loyalty towards her as to their natural and lawful Sovereign especially in that grave Oration which he made to the Nobility and Commons of Parliament upon the first report of Queen Maries death The Bishops joyntly did their Homage and Fealty to her in all dutiful maner and though they were not without some suspicion that she intended to change Religion yet did they practise neither Scotizing nor Genevating towards her Never did they incense the people against her though they were generally Catholik and they might probably have
Daneus or any other of those Niblers at Bellarmine as Master Normington of Cambridge once called them in a Sermon at Saint Maries much less with the impudencies of the Minister Crashaw nor with the mistakes of Chark Fenner Beard Burton or any other Triobolary Controvertists at home either of former or present times but as you see onely with faults of their Prime Leaders Classicall men Prelates and Dignitaries of their Church so if it should happen that any private man of our own writing onely by private Authority and judgement should either through oversight or indiligence be found chargeable with some kinde of mistake we would not have it stood upon as if it were the common practise of all to write so negligently or that the defence of Catholike Religion did any wit depend upon such mistakes As we say the defence of Protestancy doth very much upon those mistakes which we are ready to bring in charge against them and without which there were not half the colour for defence of it Concerning the third point viz. That the Priests and Students in the English Seminaries beyond Sea are Practicers against the State and do stir or endeavor to stir the People to Rebellion it is indeed an odious and heavy charge which the Book called The execution of Justice c. layeth roundly upon them and is seconded therein by a Proclamation in the year 1580. which doth directly charge those Priests and others as Accessories and privy to the Counsels of Philip King of Spain the Pope and some other Catholike Princes which as 't is said had combined together about that time to invade England to depose the Queen and subdue the Nation to the Spaniard But for answer I say that jealousie is a kinde of Argus full of eyes and so she is painted but they are all purblinde which is the cause that she mistakes so oft starts at her own shadow and is always trembling and doubting the worst of every body We cannot deny but there were great States-men that governed England in those days under the Queen yet howsoever it happened with all their Opticks they seemed not to have any particular foresight of the dangers which threatned them till they were at their doors yea having by error of Government provoked and drawn them upon themselves yet they took a course more proper to kindle the flame then to quench the fire But this is not a business to be discussed now That which we are to do is to justifie the Priests and other Good men of the Seminaries that they are not Traitors are not Enemies of the State do not practise consult cooperate where they live to any thing prejudicial to their Prince and Country First if any such Confederation had been betwixt his Holiness the King of Spain and other Princes against England as is pretended but was never yet proved and 't is well known that what the Catholike King did afterward as it was upon great provocations given so was it also upon his own score onely and with no other assistance but what was his own and ordinary in such cases Yet I say suppose there had been such Confederation or League betwixt them is it probable that so great and wise Princes as they were would acquaint a few poor Contemplative men Students at Rhemes and Doway with their designs Men so inconsiderable every way in relation to such service so useless and unable in respect of their maner condition and place of living to contribute any thing to the work Is it credible they would manage such high matters and of so great importance so weakly Let no man say That Priests might serve them by preparing a party here and by their reconciling of men to the Pope For it is not the Priests work to reconcile men to the Pope but unto God and to the Communion of the true Catholike Church whereof although the Pope as successor to Saint Peter be Supream and chief Pastor yet Catholikes by returning to the Church and consequently acknowledging that Supremacy of Spiritual Authority in his Holiness are not obliged so much as to take notice of any Temporal designs that he hath no though they were perhaps for advancement of Religion much less to consent concur or cooperate with them contrary to the Law of nature their Duty of Allegience and the interest of their native Country Secondly among so many Priests as by that time there were both in England and beyond the Seas and in so long a time that this pretended Confederacy was in framing when Spies and Intelligencers were many and well paid by the State was there so much as one Priest nominated or accused to have been so corrupted or induced any way by those Princes or their Ministers to practise ought to the prejudice of their Country was there ever any one apprehended or convicted of such a treaâ—on was there ever any Subject of England called in question for entertaining Priests that were sought after upon that account In a word when the Spanish Armado was under Sail for England was there so much as one Priest or Seminary-man found or known to be in it or at any time since discovered to have been used or imployed in that service 'T is confessed the Proclamation spoken of before being framed on purpose to put people into a fright and to make honest men odious doth traduce them sufficiently as persons suborned to prepare the way and procure safe landing for the Navy But Si accusasse sufficit quis erit innocens Such general charges prove nothing but passion or some undue byassed and distempered judgement They that know such men well know it to be a business far out of their way to spie Countries to observe how Ports are garded and what Havens lie upon the Goast However it is evidence of fact and the conviction at least questioning of some one person for such crime that would be given in the case Which seeing there never was Indifferent men cannot but think such Accusations to have been very injurious and that the great fears and jealousies shewen had more of the Chimaera and fiction in them then of real danger It was otherwise with the poor English themselves in Spain not long after both Religious and others For when the English Armado in the year 1589. made an attempt upon Lisbon and invaded some parts of Portugal the King of Spain took them to be so little either his Friends or Enemies to their Prince and Country as they are traduced that he laid them all fast by the Heeles and kept them close prisoners during the whole time that the Action lasted as many of them as were found at Valâ—adolid Burgos and some other places in Spain Nor was there in those many Actual attempts of Treason supposed to be made against Queen Elizabeth so much as one Priest Monk or Friar ever attainted or impeached about them Nor in the whole Five and forty years of her Reign any more then two
we see well enough it had been in other cases of this Nature Neither in King Edward the Sixths time nor against the Kings of Scotland Denmark Sweden Duke of Saxony Marquis of Brandenburgh or any other Protestant Prince was there ever any such sentence issued to this day Whereupon Father Pâ—rsons and Father Campian procured some kinde of mitigation concerning it presently after the publishing and Pope Gregory following declared That the Subjects of England ought to perform all duties to Queen Elizabeth notwithstanding the censures So little reason is there in truth that Protestants should clamour so loud as they do and cry out nothing but Treason Treason against religious and good men who as they have no other business so come they hither for no other end but to do them good and so far as lieth in their power and office to save their souls They tell the world that no less then two hundred Priests have been executed in England for Treason since the times of Reformation which is certainly a very heavy report and sufficient to make them odious to all the world if it were true or that there were any thing in it but fallacie and aequivocation of words whiles they call that Treason in England which in all parts of Christendome besides is both called and counted Religion and the highest Vertue For we beseech them to tell us of what Treason do they convict us at any time but the Treason of being a Priest the Treason to say Mass the Treason to refuse the Oath the Treason to absolve Penitents confessing their sins the Treason to restore men to the Communion of the Church the Treason to Preach and Administer Christs Sacraments the Treason to be bred up in the Seminaries that is in such places where onely as things now stand in England thâ—y can be Catholikely bred and fitted for such Christian imployment What actual and real Treason is in England according to the true sâ—nse and notion of that crime â—dious both to God and man the Statute of 25 Edw. 3. will inform us better then any other being enacted when the whole Kingdom was of one mind and of one judgement as all Christian Kingdoms and Societies ought to be not rent nor overborn by factions and parties undermining and supplanting one another by indirect and undue meanes as it was when these new Statutes of Treason were made By that Statute and by the opinions of the most learned Judges in England Ploydon Stamford c. Treason must alwayes be some Action or Intention actually discovered not an opinion onely or a profession of Religion And this is the reason why Sir John Oldcastle Stow. one of Mr. Fox his Martyrs in the Reign of Henry the Fifth mentioned before though he were both Traytor and Heretike yet for his Treason he was condemned in one Court and for his Heresie in another as also were Cranmer and Ridley in Queen Maries time Secondly it must be some Act or Intention discovered of a subject prejudicial to his Sovereign or to the State where he lives But what hurt had ever I say not Queen Mary Henry the Eighth while he stood right Henry the Seventh or any other Catholike Prince but even Queen Elizabeth her self King James or any other Protestant Prince by a Priests saying Mass absolving of Penitents preaching of sound Doctrine to them and particularly of all due and just obedience to Civil Magistrates as they have ever constantly done Therefore by the common Laws of England and in it self it is not it cannot be Treason or criminous to be a Priest to say Mass Absolve c. But onely by Statute Laws it is made so upon temporary and present occasions and for certain politick ends which men have projected of themselves and which they are resolved to follow And therefore also it is by the very Statutes themselves provided 22. and 27. Elizab. That if a Priest conforms be content to go to Church to renounce the Pope or his Orders c. he becomes ipso facto without more ado Rectus in Curia and is actually discharged of all imputation of Treason no further proceedings lie against him Yea even at the very place of Execution and when the instruments of death are upon him yet still 't is in his own power if he please in three words to pardon himself and frustrate the expectation of so many eyes as are commonly waiting to see his last Exit Let him but say I will conform or I will swear c. Ther 's no man living dares meddle with him further Which is far otherwise where the offence is judged to be Treâ—son indeed and really prejudicial to the Prince or State But the fatal resolution being taken to change Religâ—on upon a principle or pretended reason of State as false as the Counsel it self was evil viâ— That otherwise the Queen could not be secure either of her Kingdom or Life it was necessary to take a severe course with those men whose Function obliged them to maintain True Religion and to endeavour to reduce things again into the old State From this root also sprang their extream jealousie and hatred of the Queen of Scots For she being Heir Apparent to the Crown after Queen Elizabeth and a Princess zealously affected unto Catholike Religion and so strongly Allied in France Those Statesmen who had contrived and wrought all the alterations here could never think themselves secure so long as her head stood upon her shoulders Therefore was she first invited into England upon pretence of Friendship and for Safety But when she was here used with so much unkindness and kept under restraint for little less then twenty years together that at last in order to procure her Liberty she was indeed provoked to doe something which it was easie for them who loved her not to interpret to be Treason and so they cut off her head From hence also sprung those continual injuries and practises of much ingratitude against the King of Spain The intercepting of his Treasure The holding of his Towns The ayding of Orange and the States as hath been said Lastly from this onely Source and Fountain of unjust Policie sprung all those laws of severity and bloud against Recusants as we are commonly called viz. of Twenty pound a moneth of Two third parts of Estate against Hearing Mass against Harbouring a Priest against Being reconciled c. It is well known the Recusants of England against whom those Laws were made were generally persons in all degrees of the Noblest quality in this Nation Vertuous Grave Wise Charitable Just and Good men of fair and friendly Conversation towards all I shall not say Loyal to their Prince because the contrary is so commonly beleeved Stow. yet our own Chronicles will not altogether deny them right in that regard while they testifiâ— how diligent and forward they were to offer their service to the Queen and State even in that great Action of Eighty eight Neither were
continue such so long as they keep under some few fiery zealots that would still be blowing the coals of dissention among them Not to speak of Sweden Denmark c. doth not that famous Kingdom of Poland Tolerate diversity of Religions doth not the great Emperor of Mosko the same and is not the general Unity of their Subiects which ariseth thereupon and would certainly be otherwise if the Government were otherwise is it not a Wall of Brass to both of them against their great enemy the Turk Let Germany also be our example that vast Nation and people no less Magnanimous and Stout is not Toleration judged expedient among them could any thing else cure their troubles Let us consider how peacably and happily Catholikes and Lutherans have conversed and lived there together for no less then an Hundred years and upwards without any dissention without any trouble upon the account of Religion save onely what Ambition and the factious Spiritedness of some particular Princes have bred and brought upon the Country much against the will of the people under that pretence No man doubteth but Charls the Fifth Emperor and Ferdinand his Brother were in their times great and wise Princes yet found they no better means to redress the troubles of State then by commanding Vt utraque pars caveret c. That special care should be had on both sides to compel no man to make profession of Religion otherwise then in his own Conscience he should be perswaded was best As Dresserus a Protestant relates it rejecting with much disdain the contrary opinion of some who as he saith would have but one Religion onely professed in the Empire And for France the case and condition of affairs there is notorious to all the world Nor could that Kingdom ever be brought to quiet till the Calvinists therein were brought upon their knees that is to such pass as to be glad of and to bâ—gge for that favorable Toleration of their profession from the King which themselves in no parts of the world beside will grant to others What reason can be given by indifferent men why the policy of England should be so singular and so differing from that of all other Christian Kingdoms and Nations about her Why should our Government be more severe in this point and more Sanguinary then that of our Neighbors It may seem to reflect something upon the honor of our Nation to mention the Turk in this case Yet certainly it cannot be denied but that Christians live quietly in his Dominions and upon conditions so easie that I am perswaded the Catholikes of England would be well contented with the like If onely it be determined that we must purchase that with our money which all other our fellow-subjects the people of this Nation do enjoy freely and count it their natural right In a word therefore to conclude seeing that both in the judgement of Protestant Divines and in the practice of Protestant Princes and States Toleration of diverse Religions is held neither unlawful nor unexpedient in Government and seeing that for so long a time of afflictions persecution of our Priests and other manifold pressures upon us for matters of Conscience Catholikes have yet through the grace of God demeaned themselves so loyally and obsequiously in all points as they have not done or attempted to do upon their own account or for the interest and advancment of their own profession any thing offensive to the State or prejudicial to the publike peace seeing that nothing can be fastned upon them in that kinde with any colour of truth but onely the business of the Gun-Powder-Treason and seeing that was a devise though acted by the hands of some desperate and wicked Catholikes yet contrived rather by the Devil and some crafty Enemies which we had in the State to make us eternally odious and suspected in the Nation and to disoblige some great person of his promises in favor of us as it may be justly thought considering what kinde of States-men sate at the Helme in those times what knowing men D' Ossat Lettres liur 2. ep 43. Pryns Antip. of Prelat P. 151. strangers abroad have writ and what Protestants themselves at home have discovered since upon that subject Seeing that Catholikes always wished well to his Majesties Title and prayed for his happy succession to these Kingdoms seeing we were not of Counsel with those who sent Beal into forreign parts to promote the Titie of Suffolk nor that set Hales on work at home as he did with law and little art to make it good nor that procured Sir N. B. to make a nest for the Phaenix by such a great volum as he wrote to that purpose Seeing that we were ever Champions to his Majesties just claim Especially Sir Anthony Brown that wise and noble Author of the Book against Leicester and that Aiax of the Law whom no man ever durst encounter in this cause Master Plâ—ydon We hope so long and so try'd fidelity will by the Kings gracious favor procure us at last some liberty and refreshment and that our humble supplication shall be considered wherein casting our selves down at the feet of our Sovereign and of the State we beg onely of them in those words of the Poet. Hanc animam concede mihi Tua caetera sunto Let our souls be left free unto God and as for our Bodies or Estates take them dispose of them freely as Justice requireth and in due proportion with our Neighbors and other the good people of the Nation for the service of the Kingdom and of the publike AN APPENDIX Concerning LUTHERS Mission I Was now going out of the field but behold an Ambush appears which is laid to surprize me it pretends at one charge to rout all the forces of my arguments and to bereave me of my hopes of Victory by eluding rather then disproving of what I have said It is a reply which some men are pleased to make in behalf of Luther whose heat and irregular vehemency which I call sedition was nothing but zeal say they of Gods honor and truth which burning within his own breast happened to kindle some lively sparks also in others They say that Luther was Elias a Prophet sent immediately and extraordinarily by God to reform the errors and corruptions of the world to restore vertue and good life to detect Antichrist who had for so many ages bewitched the whole Church with his impostures and seduced her into Idolatrie and Heresie And that therefore such a Prophet was not to be tedder'd as it were and bound up to the rules of ordinary professors But if he neglected Authority despised the Laws abused and insulted upon the Majestie of Princes disturbed the peace and tranquility of their States we are not to wonder nor lay it to his charge It was no more then a Prophet might do Tune es qui conturbas Israel did not Ahab say to Elias Art not thou he which troublest Israel The