For which Joseph Stevan ‖ Ioseph Stevan Epist ad Gregor XIII de osculo pedum Papae Iure meritoque in Religionis Ecclesiae infensissimum hostem Fredericum Barbarossam non ut in salem insatuatum quem jubet Christus pedibus proterere sed potius ut horrendam belluam calcibus insultavit who writ at Rome to Gregory the XIII of kissing the Popes feet checks Duarenus saying that Pope Alexander the III. trod the Emperour Frederick under foot not onely as salt which hath lost its savour but as an horrible wild beast And Otho Frisingensis both relates it and commends it * Otho Frising lib. 5. cap. 14. Quod sactum summis liberum est sacerdotibus cum Principum tyrannidem aut violatam fidem aut Ecclesiae imminutam dignitatem vident and saith That the Popes have the power to do so much when they see the tyranny of Princes or that faith is violated or the dignity of the Church imbezelled So though the History were not as it is most undoubtedly true the approving and exalting of the fact in the Court of Rome makes that Court as guilty as if it had been done But it was done and as bad was done by other Popes Pope Celestin the III. gave Constantia a Nunne in marriage to the Emperour Henry the VI. and gave him for her dowry the Kingdome of both the Sicilies upon Platina Uspergensis condition he should expell Tancred who was possess'd of the Kingdome Hence a bloody War between Henry the VI. and Tancred It is ordinary to the Pope to give that which is none of his When the Pope giveth a Kingdome from a Prince that enjoyeth it he commands together the people to resist him making a sport to spill their blood and damn their souls Baronius commends very much that Popes behaviour Annal. Roger. an 1191. Sedebat Dominus Papa in Cathedra Pontificali tenens coronam auream inter pedes suos Imperator inclinato capite recepit coronam imperator similiter de pedibus Domini Papae Dominus autem Papa statim percussit cum pede suo coronam Imperatoris dejecit eam in terram significans quod ipse potestatem ejiciendi eum ab Imperio habet si ille demeruerit in the Crowning of the Emperour Henry the VI. and his Wife thus related in the Annalls of Rogerius The Pope was sitting in his pontifical chair holding an Imperial golden Crown between his feet and the Emperour bowing his head received the Crown and the Empress likewise by the feet of the Pope And the Pope presently hit the Emperours Crown and kick'd it down to the ground thereby signifying that he had power to cast him down from the Empire if he deserved it Baronius having related this amplifieth it with this morality ‖ Baron Tom. 12. Anno 1191. sect 10. Ut fixum menti Caesaris haereret nempe dare custodire conservare auserre si causa exigeret imperium esse in voluntate Romani Pontificis ejusmodi voluit commenere eum exemplo That it might remain fixed in the Emperours mind that it lieth in the Popes pleasure to give keep preserve and take away the Empire if there be cause for it he would admonish him with such an example Could the Devil have set up pride to a higher pin to put the Emperours Crown at his feet as a foot-stool for him to tread upon put the Crown on the Emperours head with his feet as an office too low for his hands and then with his foot kick'd it down as having a quarrell against the Imperiall Crown and together a contempt for it This and the treading upon the Emperours neck were significant ceremonies with a witness And what more effectual course could have been taken to raise rebellion in all the States of Christendome then thus to blast the respect of Majesty For thereby all Nations were taught that their Princes were not Sovereigns but the Popes Vassalls and Liegemen That themselves were not their Kings Subjects but the Popes who could kick down their Crowns when he listed and that when that supreme Head shall command it the Feet that is the inferiour Members of the State must make Foot-balls of the Crowns of Emperours and Kings After Celestin the III. came Innocent the III. as proud but more active then he England hath reason to remember this Pope For he excommunicated King John deposed him absolved his Subjects from their allegiance to him and cast an Interdict upon England which lasted six years All which time no Divine Service was said in the Kingdome but in some priviledged places no Sacrament was administred and no corps buried in Consecrated Ground The Kingdome of England he gave to Philip August of France if he could take it and that by a formal order thus related by Matthew Paris The Pope by the counsell Matth. Paris in vita Reg. Johan Papa ex consilio Cardinalium Episcoporum aliorum vivorum prudentium sententialiter definivit ut Rex a solio deponeretur Ad hujus quoque sententiae executionem scripsit Dominus Papa potentissimo Regi Francorum Philippo quatenus in remissionem peccatorum suorum hunc laborem assumeret of the Cardinalls Bishops and other prudent men gave a definitive sentence that the King should be put down from his Throne For the execution of that Sentence the Pope writ to the most potent King of the French Philip that for the remission of his sins he should take that labour upon him A new way for that King to get the remission of his sins to invade his neighbours estate As in the age of our Fathers Pope Sixtus the V. gave nine years of true indulgence to all the French that would bear Arms against their King Henry the III. Thus the remission of sins purchased by the blood of the Son of God and presented by his Gospell to all that repent and believe is by the Pope given as a reward of Invasion and Rebellion Matthew Paris writes that The Pope having gotten the Kingdome of England to himself to his thinking sent to Philip August to enjoyn him to be reconciled with King John else he would put France to Interdict Philip answered that he feared not his sentence and that it belonged not to the Church of Rome to pronounce a sentence against the King of France It is a long and a sad story how King John was persecuted by Pope Innocent the III. his Barons made to rise against him his Neighbours to fall upon him his Clergy to revile him and his people to despise him till that unlucky King was brought to such an extremity that to buy his peace he gave his Kingdome to the Pope and yet could not get his peace that way The Gold which he laid at the Legats feet in sign of subjection the Legat trod under his feet in scorn yet took it in his hand after so great was his clemency What a cruel tyranny did the
following Popes exercise over his Son Henry the III. in his long and unfortunate Reign insulting over his weakness and superstition How licentiously did these Wolves tear and raven in England while the publick cry of the oppressed Matth. Paris in vitae Hen. III. people represented unto the King that his Kingdome was become like a Vine whose fence is pulled down and rooted out by the wild Bear These Histories which make the usurpations of the Roman Court to be abhorred yet are set forth by the Jesuite Petra Sancta as examples for all Princes And Petra Sancta Not. in Epist ad Balzac he would have all Kings to imitate King John and Henry the III. of England in their subjection to the Pope He could not have chosen more frequent examples to dehort them from it considering the gulf of miseries which they sunk into by their stooping under the Popes tyranny But they have more reason to follow the example of the next King brave Edward the I. who recovered his own and his Kingdomes liberty by expelling all the Roman Exactours out of England and by his contempt of Rome reigned peaceably and glorious For the Pope who in the Reigns of his Father and Grandfather was thundering continually and cudgelling both King and people never spake a word against this stout King Pope Innocent the III. played with his Spiritual Sword in Germany as well as in England for he excommunicated the Emperour Otho the IV. Platina in Innocent III. Otho iram Pontificis in se concitavit à quo anathemate notatur Imperii titulis privatur and deprived him of the titles of the Empire as Platina speaks warily for Popes cannot take away Kingdomes but onely deny to acknowledge the titles The Emperour Fredericke the II. was worse used by the Popes though much deserving of the Roman See to which he had given the County of Fundi For he was excommunicated and deposed by Pope Honorius the III. and again by Gregory the IX for that Monster Platina of pride and greedinesse when the Emperour was gone on his errand into Palaestina anathematized him raised him enemies in Germany by his preaching Friars Matth. Paris in Vita Hen. III. Reg. Angl. Vspergensis Trithemius and taking advantage of his absence sent an army into Appulia and seised upon the Emperours Lands Twice he shewed himself reconciled with the Emperour and twice again broke with him and excommunicated him but with ill successe to himself For by all these Excommunications and Depositions the Emperour thrived who after a long patience fell upon the Pope made his Interdicts laid upon the Empire to be hissed out and so distressed the Pope by his armies that he died for wrath and sorrow The same Emperour was also excommunicated and Platina Matth. Paris persecuted by Pope Innocent the IV. And when after the Emperours death the armes of his Son prospered in Italy he gave the Kingdome of Sicily to Richard brother to Henry the III. of England Richard not acquainted with the Popes giving of Kingdomes asketh that the Forts and the Treasure and Hostages be given to him Herein wiser if he had stayed there then others who accept that which the Pope cannot deliver I will passe by many Popes that came after who sent their Excommunications no further then the Kingdome of Naples and Sicily and filled Italy with factions that they might fish in troubled waters Let us fix our contemplation a little upon that high pattern of Pontifical vertues Boniface the VIII upon whom Platina bestoweth this Character That Boniface Platina in Bonifacio Bonifacius ille qui Imperatoribus Regibus Principibus Nationibus Populis terrorem potius quam religionem injicere conabatur Quique dare regna auferre pellere homines ac reducere pro arbitrio conabatur aurum undique conquisitum plus quam dici potest sitiens who studied to give terrour rather then religion unto Emperours Kings Princes and Nations and laboured to give and take away Kingdomes drive men away and bring them again according to his pleasure One that was thirsty of goods scraped up from all places more then can be exprest The passages between him and the French King Philip the Fair are known yet perhaps not to all This is the History in short This Pope having a grudge against him about the Collation of Benefices and desiring to pick a quarrel sent to him the Bishop of Pamiers Stella Histoire de France to command him to undertake an expedition to the Holy Land and to threaten him if he refused The Bishop did that errand so malapertly that the King offended committed him to prison The Pope angry demanded the Bishop again and had him and sent this Letter to the King Fear God and keep his Commandements We will have thee to know that thou art our Subject both for the Spiritual and the Temporal That no Collation of Benefices and Prebends belongs to thee And if thou hast the custody of any of them that are vacant we will have thee to reserve the fruits for their Successors And if thou hast granted any Benefices We declare all such Collations null and as far as they are executed de facto We revoke them Those that believe otherwise we hold them for Hereticks These goodly Letters being brought to Paris by a Legate were pluckt from him by the Kings Council and Judges and cast into the fire by the Earle of Artois And to them the King returned this Answer Philip by the Grace of God King of the French to Boniface calling himself Sovereign Pontife but little greeting or rather none at all Let thy most egregious folly know that in temporal things we are subject to no man That the Collation of Churches and Prebends belongs unto us by Royal Right and converting the same to our use during the vacancy That the Collation by us made and to be made shall be valid and that in vertue of the same we will couragiously defend the possessors Those that hold otherwise We hold to be idiots and bereaved of their sense The Pope inraged excommunicates the King but none durst be the publisher or bearer of that Bull. The King assembleth at paris his Knights Barons and Prelates and asketh them of whom they hold their Lordships and the temporal of their Ecclesiastical preferments All answer that they hold them of the King not of the Pope whom they charge with heresie and many crimes The Pope assembleth a General Council as Platina calleth it though it was gathered out of few Platina Countries and by a Decree of that Council depriveth Philip of his Kingdome and giveth it to the Emperour Albert and laboureth to arme Germany and Netherlands against France But that vigorous King sent Nogaret into Italy who by the help of Sciarra Columna whose Family Boniface had cruelly opprest got two hundred horse and surprised the Pope at Anagnia whom they mounted upon a poor jade and brought him prisoner
all his false turns But both my Readers and I have better businesses then to heap up dung or search all the Impostures of a Novice of the Iesuites For the end he brings some rules of Law concerning the nature of the English Monarchy which if he had studied well he had never taken upon him to defend the doctrine of the Iesuites which is inconsistent with them For they allow not that which he affirmeth That the Monarchy of England can do no homage having no superiour and that the Crown of England is independent and his jura Regalia are holden of no Lord but the Lord of heaven Bellarmine saith the clean contrary and makes the Pope Sovereigne of England by double right as we heard before Yet this Scholar of the Iesuites may give Bellarmines sense to that assertion that the Crown of England is independent for holding with his Masters that the Crown of England belongeth to the Pope he will say also that it is independent and oweth homage to none but God meaning that the Pope the right Sovereigne oweth homage for it to none but God The man being evidently a Scholar of the Jesuites cannot but be instructed in the doctrine of equivocations about which Tolet Tolet lib. 4. Instruct Sacerd. cap. 21. Aliquando uti licet aequivocatione decipere audientem ut cum Iudex petit juramentum ab aliquo ut dicat crimen vel proprium vel alienum si omnino est occultum jurare cogatur utatur aequivocatione puta Nescio intelligendo intra se ut dicam tibi vel simile Et lib. 5. c. 38. lib. 4. c. 21 22. gives large instructions in his book of the Instruction of Priests saying expresly That it is lawful sometimes to use equivocations and to deceive the hearer And Sanchez tells us in what case it is lawful to equivocate There is a just cause saith he to Sanch. oper Mor. l. 3. c. 6. num 19. Causa jure utendi his amphibologiis est quoties id necessarium aut utile est ad salutem corporis honorem tes familiares tuendas use these equivocations whensoever it is necessary or useful for the preservation of body honour or estate Since then the sect and Religion of the Jesuites which subjecteth the Crown of England unto the Pope cannot subsist in England without palliating that criminal doctrine with equivocation They finde it necessary for the preservation of body honour and estate to profess that the Monarchy of England can do no homage having no superiour and that the Crown of England is independent but to whom that independant Crown belongs that they will reserve in their thoughts Or if they say they will be true to the King they will by the King understand the Pope or the King of Spain to whom the Pope gave the Kingdome of England fourscore years ago and never recalled that gift since Wherefore if this Gentleman appear in Print again or any of his confreres for him about this point of obedience we must desire him to speak more home before he can justifie himself to be a true Philanax Anglicus and a good English subject of his Majesty To that end let him declare that he acknowledgeth the following Articles as true and just and is ready to subscribe unto them I. The Kings Most Excellent Majesty Charles the II. hath no superiour on Earth de jure in the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland and other His Majesties Dominions II. All Roman Catholicks born in these His Majesties Dominions are his subjects de jure and of none else although they have taken the Orders of the Church of Rome or have a General of some Religion to whom they have sworn obedience III. The Doctrine of Cardinal Bellarmine is false that the King of England is subject to the Pope by double right besides his pretended subjection in matters spiritual IV. The Pope hath no power to deprive Kings of their Kingdoms or any way to dispose of their Crowns or their Lives V. The Pope cannot absolve the subjects of His Majesty King Charles the II. or of any of His Successors from the Oath of their Allegiance Neither are they now absolved from it by any precedent Decree from the Popes VI. A King declared heretick or excommunicate by the Pope is not thereby disabled from exercising his Kingly jurisdiction VII The excommunicating or depriving of a King by the Pope doth not exempt that Kings natural subjects from the duty of their Allegiance VIII King John had no power to give his Kingdome to the Pope without the consent of his Peers and Commons Neither is that Contract of any validity IX A Priest having learned in Confession a Conspiracy against the Kings life ought to discover it to the King or his Councel X. The Peers and Commons of England and other His Majesties Dominions have no power to judge their King much less to depose him or put him to death or to choose another King or to alter the Government of the State He that will refuse to subscribe these Articles and openly profess his consent unto them cannot justifie his love and fidelity to the King and is altogether unfit to charge the Protestants with rebellious tenets Vacuum culpa esse decet qui in alium paratus est dicere He that is in an error cannot justifie himself but by forsaking it That yeilding is glorious and to be overcome by the truth is a great victory Without such a justification lessons of loyalty given by a Iesuite are unsuitable and of as little effect as a Lecture of Chastity preach'd by an allowed Curtizan of Rome JOH VIII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 CAROLE qui Latias artes fulmina bruta Et Capitolini contemnis Vejovis iras Macte manumissus coelesti lumine Princeps Lumine Romuleas tibi dispellente tenebras Assertamque sacro capiti firmante coronam Dum trepidi Reges sancti luminis orbi Serva Quirinali submittunt colla tyranno Tu liber specta stantes ad fraena Monarchas Stratorum officio succollantesque cathedrae Augustos lixas mox flexo poplite curvos Turpia purpureo libantes oscula socco Erige tu curvos rectus fratresque doceto Quos Regum Pater agnoscit Natosque Deosque Quà m male prostituat divum Rex sanctus honorem Tarpeiam lambens crepidam solosque pudendum Excussisse jugum libertatique litasse Gnaviter amplexos coelestia lumina Reges FINIS ERRATA PAge 8. line 17. Galileo p. 9. l. 5. put out which p. 11. in the margent l. 10. tenerentur p. 19. l. 12. matter p. 24. l. 14. Popes p. 26. l. 10. by the preaching l. 12. oppressing l. opposing p. 30. l. ult Francis the II p. 31. l. 7. Iesuites p. 33. l. 20. Henry the IV. l. 22. because p. 3â— l. â—4 the ordinary l. 13. any of five Kings p. 49. l. 28. unequitable l. equitable p. 53. l. 13. stonie the just p 87. l. 13. frequent l. pregnant p. 113. l. 24. Pope p. 115. in the margent 1. 6. non sine manibus p. 124. l. put out persons put letters p. 128. l. 25. Mutius p. 137. l. 26. depose
suturi licitum habeant sine Rebellionis aut Infidelitatis crimine resistendi ac contradicendi nobis Successoribus nostris Romanorum Regibus vel Imperatoribus in perpetuam libertatem Caesarea anno 1356. Whereby if the Emperour or the King of the Romans violate any of the Rights of the Subject established by that Capitulation It is declared to be lawfull for the Electors Princes Prelates Nobles and Commons either jointly or severally to resist them without crime of Rebellion or Infidelity Three hundred and fifty years before that a German Pope Gregory V. had brought in the Institution of the Electors as the Centuriators of Magdeburg report But Aventinus and Onuphrius more credibly make it of later date after the death of Frederick II. whom Pope Innocent IV. had persecuted to death and the Empire being much weakned by the loss of that great Emperour to weaken him more yet either Innocent IV. or his Successor Alexander III. procured seven perpetual Electors whose Interest should be to keep alwaies the Emperours low to keep themselves high Since that time the Emperours Authority in many parts of Germany is little more then a title and a respect without power for the Electors may both elect and depose him They and the other Princes of the Empire govern their Signories and pay nothing to him but homage And the Cities called Imperial are they that have the greatest exemptions from the Imperial Lawes Wherefore the exclamations of the Adversaries about the resistance of the Elector of Saxony with other Princes of the Empire and some Imperial Cities against the Emperour and about the words of German Divines or Jurists to that purpose are very ignorantly or maliciously urged as rebellious for neither the words nor the actions of those Germans ought to be weighed in the balance of the duty of other subjects to their absolute Sovereignes Luther who was always very rigid for the subjection of every soul to the higher powers and had written a book expresly of that subject had much ado to be perswaded to consent to a confederacy of defensive arms against the Emperour who being set on by the Court of Rome oppressed the liberties of Germany and to suppress the growing Reformation took more cognizance of cases belonging to the jurisdiction of the Princes and cities of the Empire then he was allowed by the authentical capitulations till the learned in the Law satisfied him about the Statutes of his Countrey and his reason and conscience shewed him that the Apostle commanding Christians to submit themselves to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake requireth of them an obedience proportioned to the constitutions of the States of which they are members Of that consultation Sleidan giveth this account Before they made the confederacy Sleidan Hist lib. 8. ad an 1531. Priusquam soedus iniretur in consilium adhibiti sunt non Iurisconsulti modo sed Theologi quoque Lutherus enim semper docuerat Magistratui non esse resistendum exstabat ejus ea de re libellus Cum autem in hac deliberatione periti juris docerent legibus esse permissum resistere nonnunquam nunc in eum casum de quo leges inter alia mentionem faciunt rem esse deductam ostenderent Lutherus ingenue profitetur se nescivisse hoc licere Et quia leges Politicas Evangelium non impugnat aut aboleat uti semper docuerit Deinde quoniam hoc tempore tam dubio tamque formidoloso multa possint accidere sic ut non modo jus ipsum sed conscientiae quoque vis atque necessitas arma nobis porrigat defensionis causa foedus iniri posse dicit five Caesar ipse sive quis alius forte bellum ejus nomine saciat they called to counsel not onely Jurists but Divines also For Luther had taught alwayes that the Magistrate must not be resisted and a book of his concerning that subject was extant But when in that consultation the learned in law shewed that it was permitted by the laws to resist sometimes and demonstrated that at that time their business was come to that very case of which the laws make mention among other things Luther did ingeniously profess that he knew not that it was lawfull And because the Gospel doth not impugne or abolish the Politick laws as he had alwayes taught Also because the time being so perillous and full of terrour many things might happen which would put the armes in our hands not onely by the prescript of the law but by the force of conscience and necessity he declared his opinion that a defensive League might justly be made whether the Emperour himself or any other in his name should make war against us While they were thus met at Smalcald the Emperour sent letters to them not to condemn or dissolve their meeting as a King of England or France would have done for he knew that by the laws they might meet to look to their common interest without him yea and against him But to charge the Protestants to send help against the Turk who was advancing with a great army towards Germany The Protestants answered that because the Emperour would grant them no peace at home nor suspension of the decree of confiscation against their estates for their Religion and that they were in daily expectation of proscription and hostile dealing from him they could not cut off their own sinews and lay themselves open to his hostility to help him against a foreign enemy But if he would make all fiscal proceedings for the matter of Religion to surcease till the time of the promised Councel and grant them peace and safety at home they would not onely assist him against the Turk with all their power but serve him in all the publick interests to which their duty bound them And this is that confederâ—… 〈…〉 which the Adversary cryeth down as the â—pâ—… 〈…〉 â—…rn of Rebellion from that time to our days how 〈…〉 the equitable Reader judge If it be objected that this abridging of the Emperours power was wrongfully got from him I will grant it It was jus quod coepit ab injuria a right that began by wrong yet confirmed by the Emperours with authentical Charters and strengthened by long prescription The Emperour may thank the Popefor it who having an ancient jealousie of the Imperial rights in Italy and not able to suffer any King of the Romans but themselves have powerfully laboured for many ages to break the Emperours power every where And it was by their practises that the constitution of the Electors and the Golden Bull was made and those great immunities given to the Princes of the Empire and Imperial Cities whereby the Emperour is remained a manacled Prince so unable in most parts of the Empire to stretch his hands upon the meanest persons that trouble him that he could never so much as secure Luther a poor Monk though urged to it by the most powerfull and irresistible sollicitations
rebellion is the enterprise of Amboise An. 1560. But the Protestant Religion had subsisted already forty years in France under the crosse And the Professors of the same though numerous had never fought for their Religion but by their constancy in asserting the truth and suffering for it The enterprise of Amboise was a 〈◊〉 quarrel of State not of Religion and â—â—…andâ—â— the Leader was a man most averse from the Protestant Religion The quarrel was this King Francis the II. being about sixteen years of age and younger in understanding then years was altogether governed by some Lords of the House of Guise then lookt upon as strangers and the Princes of the blood were excluded from the businesses of State These excluded Princes plotted to surprise the Court at Amboise and remove strangers from about the Kings person thinking themselves sufficiently warranted by their quality and interest that plot was cried Thuan. Hist lib. 24. Nullos ex conjuratis convictos fuisse alicujus molitionis in Regemaut Reginam sed tantuÌ„ in exteros sui in Aulâ tyrannicé omnia administrabant nempe Guisianos down as rebellious because it did not take effect and being discovered the House of Guise did not fail to make it a matter of High Treason although the great Thuanus depose for the conspirators that None of them was convicted of any attempt against the King and Queen but onely against strangers who governed all things about the Court in a tyrannical way Who so knoweth the interests of the Princes of the blood in France will never call that attempt treason And if they could do so much by the right of their birth their right was never the worse for their being Protestants Francis II. being dead soon after and his Successor Charls the IX being under age the Princes of the blood had more right then before to claim the management of the publick affairs being intrusted with them by the Laws of the Kingdome in the Kings minority at least in conjunction with the Queen Mother And being excluded from it again they raised an Army to recover their right That right is not considered at all by Jesuites that take upon them now a hundred years after to censure their actions but these Princes and their followers are represented onely as Hereticks and Rebels that made Warre against their Sovereigne After the King was out of minority the Princes and their party seeing that the King was much incensed against them and was of a dangerous and implacable nature durst not come neer him and the frequent Massacres made them keep themselves in a posture of defence and repel force by force To be rid of them at once the King used that famous and unparallelled treachery of a feigned peace with the Protestants sealed with the Marriage of his Sister with the Head of their party the first Prince of the blood next to his Brothers Henry King of Navarre and having invited them to the Wedding he slew them in their beds The number of the slain in cold blood on St. Bartholomew's Day and since within the space of three moneths amounted to about a hundred thousand An action publickly commended by the Pope and the Murtherers rewarded with many spiritual graces by his Holinesse That the relicks of the party after that general execution took defensive arms as it is not to be commended it is not to be wondred at neither Men are not Angels and there is nothing more natural then to strive for life The House of Guise having formed the League pretended for the destruction of Heresie but intended 〈◊〉 them for the pulling down of the Royal House King Henry the III. perceiving this too late made â—â—e of Henry King of Navarre then the apparent Heir of the Crown and of his Protestants Army to oppose the League That King being stabbed by a Monk soon after the Head of the Protestant party became lawful King and his Protestant Army the Royal Army yet their arms then though never so just were as much condemned by the Pope as before and as much taxed of rebellion But that praise cannot be denied to their arms that by them as Gods chief instruments the rebellion of the League was defeated and the lawful King preserved raised and setled upon his Throne whilest the Jesuited Zealots exprest their zeal of religion by attempting to stab him and were too good Catholicks to be good Subjects Since our Adversary alledgeth the words of King James of blessed and glorious memory and sets himself forth under the name of Philanax a Lover of the King he must in duty stand to the judgement of that great and judicious King This Sentence his Majesty pronounceth of that cause which this enemy calleth a Defence of the Right of Kings most unanswerable rebellion pag. 14. I never knew yet saith the King that the French Protestants took arms against their King In the first troubles they stood onely upon their defence Before they took arms they were burnt and massacred every where and the quarrel did not begin for Religion but because when King Francis the II. was under age they had been the refuge of the Princes of the blood expelled from the Court even of the Grandfather of the King now reigning and of that of the Prince of Conde who knew not where to take sanctuary For which the present King hath reason to wish them well It shall not be found that they made any other warre nay is it not true that King Henry the III. sent armies against them to destroy them and yet they ran to his help as soon as they saw him in danger Is it not true that they saved his life at Tours and delivered him from an extreme peril Is it not true that they never forsook neither him nor his Successour in the midst of the revolt and rebellion of most part of the Kingdome raised by the Pope and the greatest part of his Clergy Is it not true that they have assisted him in all his battails and helped much to raise the Crown again which was ready to fall Is it not true that they which persecuted the late King Henry the II. enjoy this day the fruits of the services done by the Protestants who are now maligned not for controversies of Religion but because that if their advice was followed the Crowne of the French Kings should no more depend on the Pope there would be no Frenchman in France that is not the Kings Subject there would be no appeal to Rome of beneficial and matrimonial causes and the Kingdome should be no more tributary under colour of Annats and the like impositions Even Cardinal Perron cleareth them from that imputation of rebellion when he saith that the doctrine of the deposition of Kings by the Pope was received in France till Calvin He doth then silently acknowledge that Kings were ill served before and that those whom he calls hereticks having brought forth the Holy Scripture to the publick sight
have made the Right of Kings known which was opprest before Such a judgement is of great weight coming from a wise King who was truly informed of the businesses of his neighbours Certainly si perito in arte sua credendum est If a skilful Artist must be believed when he speaketh within the compasse of his Art none can decide better what rebellion is and what is not then a great Monarch jealous of the Royal Authority skilled in the duty of Subjects and one that had a long struggling with rebellious spirits This Sentence was pronounced by his Majesty in the year 1615 when France had peace at home and abroad Two years after they had the like testimony of their fidelity from their own King by a Letter of his Majesty written to their Deputies assembled in a Synod at Vitre in these terms Nous avons receu bien volontiers les nouuelles assurances protestations que vous nous auez faites de vostre fidelite obeissance En laquelle persistans comme vous devez que vous auez sait par le passè vous pouuez aussi estre assurez que nous aurons toussours soin de vous maintenir conserver en tous les avantages qui vous ont esté accordez These Letters were printed and published with other Declarations We have received with good satisfaction the new assurances and protestations which you have made unto us of your fidelity and obedience In the which if you persist as you ought and as you have done before you may also be assured that we shall alwayes have a care to maintain and preserve you in all the advantages which have been granted unto you These Letrers bear the Date of May 29. 1617. from Paris Cardinal d'Ossat speaking to Cardinal Aldobrandin Nephew to Clement the VIII about the execrable murther attempted by Iohn Chastel against Henry the IV. of France told him that if Sil y avoit lieu a de tels assassinats ce seroit aux Heretiques a les purchasser executer qu'il a quittez abandonnez qui avoyent a se craindre de luy toutesois ils n'ont rien attenté contre luy ni contre aucun de cinq de nos Roys ses predecesseurs quelque boucherie que leurs Majestez ayent fait desdits Huguenots Card. d'Ossat Epist 8. a Mr. de Velleroy Ian. 25. 1595. pag. 77. such attempts were allowable they were more proper to execute for the Hereticks so he is pleased to call the Protestants whom the King hath left and forsaken and who have reason to stand in fear of him and yet they never attempted any such thing neither against him nor against any of the Kings his predecessors what slaughter soever they have made of the said Hugenots But the greatest testimony of their fidelity is that famous Edict of Nantes which was expressely made to reward them with priviledges for their constant adhering to their King in the long calamities of France Seeing then that the French Protestants were acknowledged good Subjects by their Sovereigne and have deserved by their signal loyalty and long services to the Crowne those few priviledges which they hardly enjoy it is evident how unjust the extraordinary expostulation is That the Roman Catholicks have not the publick allowed exercise of Religion in England as the Protestants have in France There is great reason for that differing dealing The French Protestants have deserved that liberty and more by their constant fidelity and valour having maintained their King with their purses and defended him with their swords so many years against the Jesuitical party who had made a League with strangers to keep him from the Crown and take away his life It is known that the Grandfather of the King now reigning was set upon the Throne by the swords of his Protestant Subjects Let the Jesuitical party of England shew the like service to their Sovereigne whereby they deserve the like recompence What care did they take of the preservation of their Sovereigns lives Queen Elizabeth and King Iames How did they defend their Crowns against the claim and invasion of strangers Did they further or hinder the return of our gracious King now reigning If some few Roman Catholicks have fought for our glorious King and Martyr Charles the I. their whole party fares the better by it now and finds the King a grateful Prince remembring good deeds and forgetting injuries Then the difference of their doctrine in point of Government ought to make a great difference in the allowance of the publick exercise of their Religion The Jesuited Catholicks acknowledge another Sovereigne over their King both for the Spiritual and the Temporal a forreigne power which can dispense them of their Allegiance to him The Protestants acknowledge no Sovereigne above their King and give no jealousie by their doctrine to the Roman Catholick Princes and States under which they live as the Jesuites have done even to Roman Catholicks by whom they have been expelled out of their Dominions as Teachers of a doctrine tending to rebellion Of the troubles that followed who so will give an impartial judgement must look upon the condition of the French Protestants since King Henry IV. bought his peace with the party of the League by the change of his Religion That King seeing himself obliged to provide for the safety of his Protestant subjects by whose armes and long service he had been preserved in his adversities and finally placed upon the Royal Seat gave them some places of strength in several Provinces of the Kingdome for certain years and by an Edict called the Edict of Nantes the free enjoying of their estates and the open exercise of their Religion with some limitation of places Of the priviledges granted them by that Edict there were many infractions especially since the death of Henry the IV. who both by his authority and together by his ancient interest in the Protestant party kept all quiet and preserved them from those wrongs to which the weakest are alwaies obnoxious The term being expired of the grant of those places King Lewis the XIII renewed it for four or five years after which he would have them out of their hands That they were to be restored upon the Kings demand was the opinion of grave Protestants the severest exactors of the obedience of subjects to the Sovereign of my Reverend Father especially who being eminent and respected in the party was a principal means to keep the Protestant Churches on this side Loire in peace and in duty to their King for which his Majesty sent him a considerable summe of money which he refused to take saying that he could be loyal to his King without being bought But the necessity of their keeping those places seemed to be justified by the reason of the first grant which was to preserve them from the violence of their bitter enemies for said they if so many places of safety could not keep us
am not without suspition that when those places of safety were granted to them by Henry the IV. their enemies in the Kings Counsel suggested or furthered that grant for their undoing in the time to come for they might well foresee that on the one side a wise King would not suffer long such a disease in his own bowels as a party of his subjects armed with places of security against him and that on the other side the party so secured would not part with that security for their Religion Liberties and Lives without committing such actions as would make them obnoxious to their Sovereigns anger and their ruine Three or four years after the rendition of all those places to the King the Duke of Montmorancy raised a party against him in Languedock of which he was Governour hoping to find the Protestants which are numerous there prepared subjects for an insurrection yet neither his solicitations nor the resentment of their sufferings could move them to assist him But they joyned universally with the King and did rare service in a battel where that Duke was defeated and taken and with him a Jesuited Bishop And it is to be noted that old Marshal de la Force a Protestant that hardly escaped the Massacre of St. Bartholomew was one of the chief Commanders of the Kings Army The Adversary gives a touch of the wars begun in Germany Bohemia and Hungary in the year 1619. of which he imputes the whole cause to the Protestants I undertake not to justifie their errours I say onely that whoso had looked with an ordinary judgement upon the face of those Countreys as they were then divided and ballanced between the Papist and the Protestant party might have foretold without a spirit of prophecy that they should not enjoy a long peace there being so many free spirits animated to liberty and revenge by the severity of the superstitious house of Austria towards their Protestant subjects If Bethlem Gabor was a prodigious man and a demi-Turk as this man makes him it is nothing to us as Religion justifieth no mans faults no mans faults can condemn Religion The notion under which I fancy that man is that of a cannon-shot without bullet which makes a great and short crack and no effect All that the Adversary saith of his dealing with the Turk sheweth that the Protestants of Hungary were so opprest by the Emperour that they wisht themselves the Turks subjects I pray God they do not so still and with them the other Protestants belonging to the Emperours hereditary Countreys seeing their brethren that live under the Turk enjoy the freedome of their Religion The same reason might make the Protestants of the Empire slow to contribute towards the war against the Turk yet I hear they are as forward as any It is not declaiming against them as the Adversary doth but using them like Christians that will make them joyn heartily with the Emperour in that war The Spanish branch of the house of Austria hath lost great part of Netherlands by the inflexibleness of Philip the II. of Spain to grant liberty of Religion to his Protestant subjects Let the German branch of Austria which useth the like hardness take heed of the like loss The Reformation of Religion in the United Provinces is that upon which the Adversary triumpheth most it being very apparent to his thinking that they brought it in by shaking the Yoke of the King of Spain But there is great difference between reforming and establishing the Reformation The first was done by the Word the second by the Sword and the first forty years before the second The Reformed Religion was spred over the Seventeen Provinces many years before there was any thought of making an Union against the Spaniard neither was that Union made upon the score of Religion but of State for maintaining their Franchises against the oppression of Spain as it was sufficiently justified by their choosing of Francis Duke of Alenson a Roman Catholick for their Prince An. 1583. which they would never have done if the Union had ever marched under the notion of Religion as our Adversary pag. 32. affirmeth or if the Protestants had been the greater number And that Religion was not that which knit the party and that there was no such thing in the Articles it appeared again when some Provinces forsook the Union because the Prince of Orange had put Religion among the causes of their defensive Warre If then the Union was unjust the injustice must not be cast upon Religion since it was not made upon that interest and if it was just it could not become unjust by the accession of the interest of Religion to the other interests So that which way soever the Adversary takes it the Roman Catholicks bear an equal share with the Protestants in the right and wrong of the cause Flanders and Brabant were as guilty as Holland and Zealand The difference is that Flanders and Brabant were beaten to obedience by the Duke of Parma but Holland and Zealand proved too strong for him The World beholds with amazement the successe of that Union that these little Provinces should bring their Prince to be their suppliant that he might be allowed to quit his right over them and acknowledge them Free States yea and to justifie their armes It is that successe not their guilt that makes our Adversary so vehement against them for ill Gamesters will be angry when they are loosers Whether it be out of wilfulnesse or ignorance this Gentleman mis-represents that businesse speaking of the King of Spain as of an absolute Sovereigne of the Low Countries and of the people as of meer Subjects Philip the II. was not their King but their Count. But I have said something of that in my Clamor Regii Sanguinis ad Caelum it is besides my businesse to inquire how the rights of Sovereignty were divided between the Prince and the People which ought to be known before the case be stated If the cause of Religion made the quarrel irreconcileable Philip the II. may thank himself for it Strada the great friend of the Spaniard tells us that the Great Council of Spain represented to the King that unlesse he granted liberty of conscience to his Subjects of the Netherlands the Countrey would be lost and the Warre perpetual whereupon the King fell on his knees before a Crucifix and vowed that he would choose to lose his Dominions rather then to permit heresie so he called the Protestant Religion If many years after they were offered to be secured for their Religion as our Adversary saith which I never heard before it was pag. 39. too late It is an unequitable motion and more advantageous for the Roman party than ours that excesses happening by the ordinary course of humane businesses be not imputed to Religion Oppression will make subjects to shake off the yoke And the prosperity of their defection keeps them from returning to their
III. Hic statim ubi Pontificatum iniit Cleri Romani consensu Leonem tertium Imperatorem Constantinopolitanum Imperio simul communione Fidelium privat quod sanctas Imagines è sacris aedibus abrasisset Degree by the consent of the Roman Clergie deprived Leo the III. Emperour of Constantinople both of his Empire and of the Communion of the faithful because he had swept away the holy Images out of the Churches Observe that Platina that writ about the year 1472. at Rome speaks according to the great interest of that time and place which was That an Emperour excommunicated was ipso facto deprived of his Empire Whereas the Popes that lived 700 years before either had not that ambition or wanted the courage to depose Emperours But the Popes that reigned two or three hundred yeers ago made that power of deposing Princes as ancient as they could by their Historians The same must be said of the pretended deposition of Chilperick King of France by Pope Zachary the next Successor of Gregory the III. Cardinal Perron sets forth that example to fright Kings in his Oration before the three States of France and saith that the Pope absolved the people of France from their Allegiance to that King for which he alledgeth the testimony of two new Authors Paulus Aemilius and Du Tillet But Ado Bishop of Vienna in his Chronicle saith That the French by the counsel of Embassadors and of Pope Zachary established Pepin their King And Trithemius in his Abridgement of Annals speaks thus Chilperick King of the French is put out from the Kingdome as incapable to reigne by the common consent of the great persons of the Kingdome Pope Zachary giving them counsel But although the Champions of the Court of Rome ascribe to these ancient Popes that power which they never exercised or pretended to That assertion of theirs is very favourable to my purpose which is to shew that the Roman Court is and delights to be the Troubler of Christendome by that usurpation of deposing Kings and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance For the more they strive for it and labour to root it in Antiquity the more they shew the stirring of Rebellions to be essential and original unto their wicked Throne After Zachary followed Stephen the II. who set on Pepin to expel the Exarchs out of Italy and obtained Platina of him the Exarchat for himself though belonging to the Emperour of Constantinople his true Sovereigne So there was both Rebellion and Robbery in that proceeding Wherein he followed the steps of Gregory the II. who thirty yeers before had robbed the Emperour his Master of the City of Rome and the Roman Dutchy Yet in these Dominions the Emperours of the West which then begun again kept the Imperial power a Platina in vita Eugenii II. Lotharius in Italiam veniens Magistratum delegit qui populo Romano jus diceret Platina affirmeth That when Lothary came into Italy he chose Magistrates to judge the people of Rome For in the partage between the sons of Lewis the Meek Italy and Rome fell to the share of Lothary the eldest But above all the testimony of Sigonius is express who speaking of the posture of Italy in the yeer 973. saith That the Pope kept Rome Ravenna and the Sigonius de Regno Italiae lib. 7. ann 973. Pontifex Romam Ravennam ditiones reliquas tenebat authoritate magis quam imperio quod Civitates Pontificem ut Reip. Principem Regem vero ut summum Dominum intuerentur atque ei tributa obsequiaque praeberent rest of his Territories rather by Authority then Soveraignty because the Cities look'd upon the Pope as a Prince of the Common-wealth but upon the King as their Soveraigne Lord and to him they payd Tribute and yeelded Obedience It appeareth by the Histories of Volaterranus Blondus and Sabellicus that it is but about two hundred yeers since the Pope is absolute Master in Rome And for the Spiritual It was about the year 800. power Sigonius affirmeth That Pope Hadrian the I. yeilded to the Emperour Charlemagne the power of ordering the Church and electing the Pope which was so approved by Pope Leo the VIII eightscore yeers after that a Sigonius de reg Ital. ad an 963. Non sine causa Adrianum I. Carolo magno tribuisse ut Ecclesiam ordinaret Pontificem eligeret Platina in Paschalis I. Paschalis nulla interposita Imperatoris authoritate Pontiséx creatur Hanc ob rem ubi Pontificatum iniit statim Legatos ad Ludovicum misit qui ejus rei culpam omnem in Clerum populum rejicerent quod ab his vi coactus esset pontisicium munus obire Accepta hac satisfactione Ludovicus respondit populo Clero majorum instituta pacta servanda esse caverent ne dein ceps Majestatem lae derent he said that it was not without cause that Hadrian the first had done so Yet Pope Paschalis the I. got into the Roman See without the Emperours Authority and consent as his Predecessor Stephen the IV. had done before him and then sent to Lewis the Meek to purge himself and cast the fault upon the importunity of the Clergie and the people The Emperour accepted the excuse but said withal That the Clergie and the people should no more offend the Emperours Majesty in that sort Let it be then remembred that the Popes power is an usurpation first upon the Emperours of the East and since upon those of the West that it be not found strange that his power having begun by Rebellion and Usurpation is maintained in the following ages by answerable means and liveth by the same elements of which it was composed This also will give an evidence to the judicious Reader of the true cause why the Popes had such a long and pertinacious quarrel with the Emperours and thundred continually upon them with Excommunications created to them enemies and tore the Empire with Factions even that they might strip the Emperour of all his right in Italy make themselves independent both for the Spiritual and the Temporal and raise their greatnesse upon the fall of the Empire So the many examples which I shall bring of excommunicating and deposing of Emperours and absolving their subjects from their Allegiance shall lay a double guilt of rebellion upon the Popes both as commanding rebellion abroad and practising rebellion at home against their lawful Sovereigns The first Pope that offered to excommunicate the King of France was Gregory the IV. who joyned with Sigebert An. 832. the Sonnes of Lewis the meek who had conspired against their Father But the French Bishops threatned to excommunicate him so he desisted The first Pope that attempted to draw his spiritual Sword against the Emperour was that honest man Gregory Anno circiter 1080. the VII called before Hildebrand who excommunicated the Emperour Henry the IV but deposed him before The Empire he translated to Rudolph Platina
to Rome where he was so ill beloved that no body stirred to rescue him With this adversity his proud heart was broken and he died five and thirty dayes after Benedict the XI who was elected in his place absolved Philip presently And his Successor Clement the V. to that Absolution added a complemental Bull in which Philip is exalted as a pious and religious Prince As it may be seen Extravagante Meruit and well deserving of the Church as it may be seen Extravagante Meruit For the Popes easily pardon the sins of those whom they fear Truly that vertuous King hath left a fair lesson to posterity by what wayes the favour of that Holy See ought to be purchased and preserved And since Lewis the XIV now reigning is taking the like course with the Pope he is like to be in time the favourite of his Holinesse and to obtain from him another Bull meruit declaring how well that eldest Son of the Church hath deserved from the Church his Mother Pope Iohn XXIII angry that Ludovicus Bavarus had taken upon him the administration of the Empire before Platina Hieronymus Marius he got his leave refused to crown him though many times desired by him The Emperour did nothing the lesse continue his power and imperial care both in Germany and Italy and going to Rome the Pope then sitting at Avignon was crowned by the joynt consent of Clergy Nobles and People Upon which he was excommunicated and deprived of the Empire as far as words could do it by this Pope And the same Sentence was confirmed against the Emperour by the Successor of Iohn Benedict the XII Clement the VI. who came next after was more inclement then his predecessors in persecuting Ludovicus Bavarus For he excommunicated all the Bishops that Nauclerus adhered to him and set Bulls at the doors of all the Churches to raise rebellion against him And when the Emperour would submit to him and sue for peace he required such conditions of him as neither he nor the Princes of the Empire would or could yield unto as that he should depose himself put all his Estate and his own Sons in the Popes power and promise to undertake no more any thing without the Popes leave These conditions being rejected by the Emperour Clement charged the Electors to elect another Which when the Archbishop of Ments refused to do representing the Emperours innocency he deprived him of his Archbishoprick and of his Electoral dignity The other Electors corrupted with money by John King of Bohemia elected his Son Charles King of the Romans whom Clement approved whence great and bloody Warres followed and the Emperour Ludovicus Bavarus was taken away by poyson by Clements means as some Authors write That Election of Charles the IV. was the breaking Fasciculus temp Volatterran of the back of the Empire which the Popes had been long labouring for For this Charles that he might be elected Emperour pawned the tributes of the Empire to the Electors And the Electors made him swear that he would never disengage that pawne Then they made him make that authentical Capitulation which I have produced in my first Chapter The Empire being thus weakned and losing the Tributes which are the sinewes of Warre was disabled from resisting the Turk who hath since wasted the Christian Provinces with little opposition and hath destroyed so many Churches or turned them into Moskites For all these distractions the Church and the Empire may thank the See of Rome which had a hand in all the Negotiations of the Princes of Germany and Italy and whose Authority acted alwayes for the depression of the Emperour Neither could all these conditions so hurtful to the Imperial Dignity and the publick subsistence have past into standing laws if the Pope had not promoted them or if he would have shewed himself against them Since this Pope Clement the VI. for about fifty or threescore years I find not that the Popes had many irons in the fire out of the limits of Italy the Papal power being much broken with Schismes So that the Popes instead of fulminating Bulls against Emperours and Kings courted its several Monarchs of Christendome to take their party against their Anti-popes Benedict the XIII in the year 1408. being incensed Theodoricus à Niem in nemore unionis against Charles the VI. of France for inhibiting the exactions of the Papal Court sent a Bull of Excommunication against the King and his Princes The University Somnium Viridarii of Paris required that the Bull should be torne and that Pope Benedict whom they called Peter de Luna should be declared Heretick Schismatick and disturber of peace Which was done The Bull was torne by Sentence of the Court. And two Bullists bearers Carolus Molinaeus contra parvas datas relates that Sentence of the Court. of that Bull made that which they call Honourable amends upon the Pallace stairs then were carried in two dung carts arrayed in Jerkins of course linnen cloth painted with paper Miters on their head the trumpets sounding before them and the common people howting upon them and abusing them So little account did they make of the roaring of the Popes Bulls For a hundred years after Benedict the XIII I find not that the Popes made use of their spiritual Sword against any Prince out of Italy and Sicily partly by reason of Schismes when that Roman Beast had many heads partly by reason of the Councils occasioned by these Schismes For they had three Councils in lesse than forty years at Constance at Basil and at Florence and the first and second of them took upon them to depose Popes and gave credit to that dangerous opinion so odious to the Court of Rome that the Council is above the Pope This kept the Popes for a time in some order and respect to the Princes of Christendome but for some wrangling about pragmatick sanctions which grew not so high as to Warre or Excommunication But in recompence Julius the II. raised warres and tumults as much as would serve for a hundred years He drew both his Swords against several Princes and States of Christendome especially against that excellent King Lewis the XII of France For having drawn him into Italy for his ends he makes a League Oâ—â—phrius Paul â—â—â—â—us to drive him out excommunicates him and puts his Kingdome to Interdict Excommunicates the Venetians giveth their dominions to any that will take them Driveth the Bentivogli out of Bononia exposeth their houses to pillage Excommunicates the Duke of Ferrara and invades his Countrey by Armes goes to Warre in person Makes the English the Spaniards and the Switzers to fall upon the French takes many Imperial Cities Excommunicates the King of Navarre and giveth his Kingdome to the King of Arragon who upon that invades and takes it And this is all the title that the Spaniard hath to Navarre which he keepeth to this day So much blood was
with his whole power against Queen Elizabeth and had raised a great Army for that expedition But when Stukely came to Sebastian he found him possess'd with a new project to help a Moor King of Fez against another King who kept him out of possession and to get the Kingdome from them both To that War he invited Stukely promising that presently after that work done which he represented to him most easie they should go together to the War against England and Ireland So they sailed over into Africa where Sebastian and his whole Army were destroyed and with him Stukely and the Popes Italian Souldiers were cut in pieces A deliverance of England ever to be remembred with praise and admiration So let thine enemies perish O Lord. This Pope had a great hand in that unparallelled villany wrought by the marriage of Henry King of Navarra with the Sister of Charles the IX of France A marriage which Pius the V. would never consent unto by reason of their difference in Religion But when his Successor Gregory the XIII was told by the Cardinall of Lorrain that this marriage was intended as a trap to destroy Henry and his Protestant party he presently gave his dispensation for the celebrating of it and encouraged the design The horrible massacre which attended the jollity of that marriage was received at Thuanus Rome with triumphant expressions of publick joy And Cardinal Vrsin was sent Legat into France to praise the Kings piety and wisdom in that great action and to bestow blessings and spiritual graces upon the King and the Actors of that fearful Tragedy The Court of Rome might well praise what themselves had procured if not contrived and truly the plot hath an Italian garb and looks not like a production of the French soil Not long after this Pope sent to Henry the III. of France and to his people Indulgences for millions of years which were to be obtained by making processions to four Churches in Paris and by being zealous and diligent in the extirpation of heresies that is in his style to extermine the Protestants The male line of the Kings of Portugal being extinct this Pope laid a claim to the Kingdome as depending from the holy See and would have the Nation to have taken Arms for him against the heirs from the females But his claim was hissed out with great scorn In the year 1580. this Pope sent an Italian called San Iosepho with some Italian Troops into Ireland to joyn with the Irish Rebells When they were demanded by a message from the Lord Deputy who they were and what they came for they answered Some that they were sent by the most holy Father the Pope and some from the Catholick King of Spain to whom the Pope had given Ireland because Queen Elizabeth had justly forfeited her Title to Ireland by her heresie A doctrine which at the same time was preach'd in England and Ireland by Jesuites and other Seminary Priests with great boldness and vehemency till the Queen and her Councell perceiving what danger the State was running into by these mens activeness and impunity Campian and some others sent by the Pope on that errand were apprehended And being examined they obstinately defended the Popes authority over the Queen and maintained that she was no Queen as being lawfully deposed by the Pope upon which they were condemned and executed That Crown of Martyrdom the Pope procured to his Confessors And the greater the number is of those Martyrs that the Papists muster the more they exaggerate the Popes cruelty to his truest Vassalls For could the Pope expect that persons sent to perswade the people to dispossess and kill their Sovereign should have other dealing from the hand of Justice The principal Article of the late Papal Creed is that which Pius the V. sets forth in his Bull against the Queen that God hath made the Bishop of Rome Prince over all people and all Kingdoms But the English Papists are taught that besides that general right over all Kingdomes the Pope hath a peculiar right over England and Ireland as his proper Dominions This is Bellarmins doctrine which he hath made bold to maintain unto King James himself The King Bellarm. lib. cui Titulus Tortus pag. 19. Rex Anglorum duplici jure subjectus est Papae uno communi omnibus Christianis ratione Apostolicae potestatis quae in omnes extenditur juxta illud Ps 44. Constitues eos Principes super omnem terram Altero proprio ratione recti dominii of England saith he is subject to the Pope by double right The one by reason of his Apostolick power which extends over all men according to that Charter Ps 44. Thou shalt establish them Princes over all the earth The other proper by a right dominion Then he pleadeth that England and Ireland are the Churches dominions the Pope the direct Lord and the King his Vassal This then being become an Article of Religion in which the English Papists are instructed and this in consequence that if the Pope disallow the King he is no more King of England but an Usurper and must be used accordingly Let any man judge who hath some equity and freedome of judgement left whether a prudent Prince and Council of State ought to suffer such an instruction to be given to the people Truly the more Religion is pretended for that doctrine and the practice of Rebellion obtruded as a commandement of the Church the more it concernes the loyal Magistrate to oppose it vigorously Pope Sixtus the V. to favour the enterprise of Philip the II. upon England renewed the Excommunication of Queen Elizabeth pronounced by Pius the V. deprived her verbo tenus of her Kingdome absolved her subjects from all Allegiance to her and published a Croisada against her as against the Turk giving plenary Indulgence to all that would make warre against her But the Popes Curses provoked Gods blessings upon the Queen who might say as David when Shimei cursed him The Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day All the storms raised against England were blown over without harme The great preparations of Spain served onely to disable it and secure England And the many attempts against the Queens life upon that Bull contributed to her safety by manifesting to the World the wickednesse of Rome and the pernicious effects of the Roman principles For which I might produce the Examinations and Confessions of many that suffered for attempting to murther the Queen but I will bring but one for all William Parry acknowledged that he had promis'd at Rome to kill the Queen about which he was most troubled in his conscience till he lighted upon Dr. Allens book which taught that Princes excommunicate for heresie were to be deprived of Kingdome and life Which book saith he did vehemently excite me to prosecute my attempt This Popes Excommunications had more effect in France for after that he had excommunicated King Henry the
Article of the Catholick Roman faith that Princes excommunicated by the Pope are ipso facto deposed and their subjects absolved from all obedience and fidelity to them It is directly though not believed but by few You have that fundamental Law authentically pronounced by Gregory the VII and it is made a Canon of the Roman Church By Apostolical Causa 15. Qu. 5. cap. Nos Sanctorum Eos qui excommunicatis fidelitate aut Sacramento constricti sunt Apostolica authoritate a juramento absolvivimus ne sibi fidem observent omnibus modis prohibemus authority we absolve from their oath all them that are bound by fidelity or oath to excommunicate persons and by means we forbid them to keep faith unto such persons I would ask the Roman Catholicks Seriously do you believe this And are you ready to seal that faith with your obedience or sufferings upon occasions If you believe and will maintain it you are not good subjects but dangerous persons in the State If you deny faith and obedience to that Papal Decree you are not good Roman Catholicks for if you were you would acknowledge the Pope the Head of the Faith with Bellarmine and that the Pope cannot erre in his Canons and that it is in the Popes power to make Articles of faith according to the determination of the Council of Trent Now the Pope hath made this an Article of your faith the denying of it an heresie and the resisting of it a crime punish'd in the persons of Kings by the deprivation of Kingdom and life Open your eyes Christian souls that are so much blinded as to pin your faith upon the Popes Decrees And reading in your own Authors the histories of the Popes behaviour which I have here represented acknowledg that those Decrees for many hundred years have been the powerful stirrers of rebellion in Christendome and the ambition of Popes the first Intelligence that sets the great Orb of sedition on going After that the Popes have thus commanded and wrought rebellion by express Decrees and filled the Christian world with fire and blood these five or six hundred years have the Jesuites the face when we object this against the Head of their Faith to object unto us in exchange some passages out of books either false or disowned by us if true And the defensive Arms of a few persons living under the Cross and driven by themselves upon the brink of despair The evil which men of our Religion have said or done we condemn freely and openly Let the Romanists condemn also so many Decrees of the Popes which have been the Incentives of war and brands of rebellion But that they cannot as long as they remain Papists sworn to approve all that the Pope saith or doth The difference between the faults of the Pope and those of Protestants about the point of obedience is this That disobedience with us is a crime but with him it is a Law We punish rebels but the Pope rewards them We say to rebels after St Paul That they that So did Sixtus the V. of which before resist the higher powers shall receive to themselves damnation But the Pope promiseth eternal life to make subjects rebel against their King We abhor the murtherers of Kings but the Pope sets them on by his excommunications and after the murther committed makes panegyricks on their praise Can the Romanists produce among us a Priest that hath made himself a Temporal Prince by robbing his Master of his land who hath kickt down the Emperors crown trodden upon his neck with his foot deposed him from his Kingdom made his son rise in Arms against him absolved his subjects from their obedience and given his Dominions to another One that makes himself the absolute disposer of Kingdoms and Master of the Universe Such a Priest is no where to be found but at Rome After this true account of so many Emperours and Kings deposed and killed and so much rebellion slaughter and desolation wrought in Christendom by the Papal excommunications and factions let the conscionable Reader who is not altogether ignorant in modern History judge what truth there is in our Adversaries assertion That in this last Century of years there have been pag. 93. more Princes deposed and murthered for their Religion by those Protestants of Integrity then have been in all the others since Christ's time by the Popes excommunications or the attempts and means of Roman Catholicks He should have set down a list of those Princes deposed and murthered by Protestants and for their Religion For my part I have heard of none Indeed Charles the I. our holy King and Martyr suffered for his Religion and the Adversary may take that one for many because he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 worth alone many Princes But they that murthered him were not Protestants they disavow that name And it was for the Protestant Religion that he suffered But since he speaks of the means and attempts made by Roman Catholicks against Princes he shall hear a little more of them CHAP. V. The Adversaries Defence of the Jesuites examined Their Doctrine and Attempts against the Crown and life of Kings THe Adversary who is commended in the Epistle to the Reader as a most observant Son of the Church of England takes upon him the defence of the Jesuite Mariana so infamous for his doctrine of killing of Kings and saith three things about that The one is That he handleth that matter only problematically page 94. But the Court of Parliament of Paris composed of grave heads did not understand it so when they condemned his book to the fire Neither doth he speak of the murther of Henry the III. of France problematically when he exalteth the murtherer in these words Making a shew of delivering Mariana lib. 1. de Rege Regis Iustitutione cap. 6. Specie litteras in manus tradendi cultro quem herbis noxiis medicatum manu tegebat supra vesicam altum vulnus inflixit Insignem animi confidentiam Facinus memorabile Caeso Rege ingens sibi nomen fecit letters to the King he gave him a deep wound above the bladder with a poysoned knife which he hid in his hand O admirable confidence of minde O memorable action by killing the King he got to himself a great name And in the same place he taxeth the Kings servants who presently killed that murtherer of cruelty and barbarousness The second answer for Mariana is That the question was not for killing of Kings but for killing of Tyrants page 94. This man shews himself a right scholar of the Jesuites for this is their distinction But if a King deposed by the Pope keeps his Kingdome in spight of him they account him no more a King but a Tyrant And whereas there are two sorts of Tyrants some by usurpation which they call Tyrannos in Titulo Tyrants in the Title some Tyrants by administration the Jesuites hold That a lawful King
insurgere Ipsorum unumquemque qui vel minoribus Ecclesiae Ordinibus sit initiatus quodcunque crimen admiserit in laesae Majestatis crimen non posse incidere quippe qui minime sint amplius Regis subditi nec jurisdictioni ejus subjecti Ita Ecclesiasticos per eorum doctrinam a seculari potestate eximi Manus cruentas licere impune Regibus sacro-sanctis afferre Hoc eos libris editis asserere hath that right to put Kings out of the communion of the Church that an excommunicate King is a tyrant and that his subjects may impunedly rise against him That every one of those that have but one of the least Orders of the Church cannot be guilty of Treason what crime soever he commit because Clergy-men are no more the Kings subjects nor under his jurisdiction So that Ecclesiastick persons are by their doctrine exempted from the secular powers and may impunedly fall upon their Kings with their sanguinary hands This they affirm in their published books That grave Iudge spake that upon good ground for the books of the Iesuites insist much upon the exemption of Clerks from Temporal Iurisdictions Whence the Iesuite Emanuel Sa draweth this conclusion That Emanuel Sa in Aphorismis tit Clericus Rebellio Clerici adversus Principem non est crimen lesae Majestatis quia Principi non est subditus the Rebellion of a Clergy-man against the Prince is not Treason because he is not the Princes subject Which words are omitted in the Edition of Paris but they remain in that of Collen and in that of Antwerp For that reason Bellarmine findes great fault with those that slew the Monk who had murdered Henry the III. of France as I alledged before because they had slain sacratum virum a consecracred man A more sacred man in his opinion and more inviolable then the Sacred Majesty of a King The murder of that great Prince the Venerable Harlay represented unto the King and how it was Thuanus ibid. exalted as a holy Act by the Iesuite Guignard who had writ a book in the commendation of the murtherer And puts his Majesty in minde of the Attempt made upon his person by Peter Barriere suborned by the Iesuite Varade He might also have put him in minde of John Chastel Thuanus a Scholar of the Iesuites who hit him in the mouth and struck out one of his teeth intending to have cut his throat In his examination he confess'd that he being guilty of a great crime was kept prisoner by the Iesuites in the chamber of Meditations where after they had long terrified his soul they propounded to him a way to Iessen his torments in hell which he had deserved by his crimes and that was to kill the King which the miserable youth promised and attempted Upon this the Colledge of the Iesuites was searched and many persons seized on among which was found a book in the praise of James Clement the murtherer of Henry the III. written by the Iesuite Guignard as himself confess'd containing many arguments and reasons to prove that it was lawful and just to kill Henry the III. together with many inductions and incitements to make away his Successor who was Henry the IV. then reigning The Theams given to young Scholars were found to be about killing of Tyrants with praises of the attempt and exhortations to it And it was found that after that Paris was reduced to the Kings obedience the Masters of the Forms had forbidden their scholars to pray for the King The yeer before Barriere being examined had confess'd that the Iesuite Varade Rector of the Colledge of the Iesuites had incited and adjured him upon the Sacrament of Confession and the Communion of the Lords Body to kill the King assuring him that Thuanus if he suffered for it he should obtain the Crown of Martyrdome Upon all these evidences Vpon that Pyramide the Iesuites were called Homines norae maleficae superstitionis qui Remp. turbabant quorum instinctu piacularis adolescens dirum facinus instituerat the Jesuites were expelled out of France by Arrest of the Court of Parliament and a Pyramid erected with inscriptions declaring their expulsion and the causes of it for a memorial of perpetual execration to posterity Ten years after they returned from their exile the same men corrupting the youth and working rebellion till in the end they got what they would have even the Kings heart which they keep in their principal house la Flesche after he had been stabbed by Ravaillac a wretch who in his examination and confession shewed sufficiently by whose instructions he was perswaded to that parricidial act for he gave this reason why he did it because the King would make War unto God in as King James defence of the right of Kings much as he prepared warre against the Pope and that the Pope was God which is the plain doctrine of the Jesuites And being inquired whether he had ever confess'd his design to any he named the Jesuite Aubigny and that he had shewed him the Knife Which when Aubigny denied Ravaillac maintained it to him before his Judges To favour the design of killing that great King and prepare the World for it four moneths before he was murdered the Arrest of the Court of Parliament of Paris Note this against John Chastel who had attempted to murder him was censured and forbidden to be read by an Act of the Consistory at Rome and together the History of Thuanus for relating too plainly that horrid action and the part which the Jesuites had in it By the same Consistorial Act a Book of Mariana was censured not that which approveth the murthering of Kings The Court of Rome was not so unkind as to disgrace a work which doth their work but another Book which treats of Coynes Certainly had they disliked that notorious Book condemned to the fire by the Court of Parliament of Paris they would not have forgotten to censure it while they were in hand with Mariana As soon as Henry the IV. was stricken the Colledge of the Jesuites was environed with a Guard the Magistrate and the people looking upon them as the Doctors and Contrivers of high Treason And presently they were sued by the University of Paris as corrupters of the youth and teachers of treasonable doctrine Peter Marteliere a famous Advocate pleaded for the University and maintained that in the Confession of Ravaillac evident marks were found of the Doctrine of the Jesuites The Jesuites were cast and commanded to shut up their Colledge and not to teach Schollars any more The Kings Councell required their expulsion but they had friends about the Queen Regent and were suffered to stay and in time recovered also the liberty to teach Five years before that Kings death it was a famous History how Father Cotton a Iesuite and his Confessor Thuanus Hist lib. 123. ad an 1604. had written in a paper some questions which he had propounded to
a Maid who was said to be possessed with a Devil who told strange things Among other things about which he would be resolved these were some What should be the issue of the conversion of Monsieur de Laval and of the enterprises against Geneva and the continuance of Heresie and of the estate of Madamoiselle Acarie and of the life of the King Which last question is a matter capital by the Lawes for which Tertullian giveth the same reason that an Tertul. Apologet. Qui de salute Principis vel summá Reip. Mathematicos ariolos aruspices Vaticinatores consulit cum co qui responderit capite punitur Cui autem opus est scrutari super Caesaris salute nisi à quo adversus illum aliquid cogitatur aut post illam speratur sustinetur English Lawyer would give because it is imagining the Kings death This paper he had laid in a Book which he had promised to Monsieur Gillot a Councellor of the Great Chamber and through oversight he gave that paper with the Book Two years after this Monsieur de la Force Vice-Roy of Bearn and Navarre by the intelligences which he had from Spain by reason of his neighbourhood unto it was advertised that a Spaniard of such a stature of such a hair and in such apparel departed such a day from Barcelona to go into France with intendment to make away the King by poyson or other means This Spaniard came to Paris and address'd himself to Father Cotton who brought him unto the King and gave great commendations of him A while after came the Letters of Monsieur de la Force giving warning to his Majesty against that Spaniard with the foresaid description The King shewed the Letters to Father Cotton and commanded him to bring back again that Spaniard But Cotton returning a good while after told the King that he could not find the man and that he was gone Not a year before the Kings death Cotton writ unto a Provincial of Spain divers things which the King had revealed unto him in confession Which treachery being discovered Cotton was in disgrace for six moneths and then was forgiven But he did not forgive the King who was stabbed soon after A few dayes after the young King being importuned by him put him off with this gird I will tell you nothing for you will write it into Spain as you did my Fathers Confession Half a year after the Kings death the Court of Parliament seeing evidently that the murther of the King and that of his next Predecessor were the productions of the doctrine of the Iesuites condemned the Book of Bellarmine against Barklay as containing a false and execrable proposition which tends to the overthrowing of the Powers ordained and established by God inciting Subjects to rebellion and withdrawing them from the authority of Princes to plot against their Lives and Kingdoms and trouble the publick peace and tranquillity I have spoken before of the Decree of the Theological Santarellus de Haeresi Schismate Faculty of Paris against the Book of the Iesuite Santarel confirmed by the judgement of the University in May 1626. The same Book had been condemned by the Court of Parliament of Paris Martii 13. of the same year to be burnt And because the Book was printed at Rome by permission of the Superiours and with the approbation of Mutins Vitelescus General of the Iesuites and Master of the Sacred Palace the Iesuites of Paris were sent for by the Court and demanded Whereas their General had approved that Book and declared his opinion that the contents of it were certain and good whether they believed as he did They answered that Since their General lived at Rome he could not but approve that which the Court of Rome approveth What do you believe then said the Court The clean contrary said the Iesuites And what should ye do if you were at Rome As they do at Rome said they To which some of the Court answered What then Have these men one conscience at Rome and another at Paris God keep us from such Confessors The same Court sent for Father Cotton and commanded him to confute the Book of Santarell Cotton being put to a sad dilemma either to offend the Pope his Master and his General and the whole Society or to answer an Indictment of high Treason freed himself by a sudden death being in perfect health before or some of his Society took that pains for him It seems that the Court were more peremptory with him then King Henry the IV. who shewed him once that Book of Mariana which since was condemned to the fire and commanded him to confute it But he gave some ill excuse to the King who press'd him no further about it About the same time that this great Prince was slain by the faction of the Iesuites the Prince of Transylvania was in the same danger by them So much is certified by Letters of the Baron of Zerotin May 2. 1610. that a Iesuite perswaded a Lord of Transylvania in whose house he lived to kill the Prince But the Prince having discover'd the Plot killed the Conspiratours and the Iesuite the Author of the conspiracy This Jesuite was taken tardy and had not the luck of many of his Confreres who frame the plots and look standing out of the reach of the blows the acting of the desperate attempts upon which they have cast others Yet there was a Scottish Jesuite of the Colledge of Clermont in Paris his name Alexander Hayes who was so zealous as to wish openly and that often that King Henry the IV. would passe by his Colledge that he might throw himself down upon him from the window and break his neck But by that crosse caper he might be sure to break his own For these words and for teaching openly that it was good to dissemble and performe obedience in shew for a while he was condemned by Sentence of the Court to perpetual banishment and if ever he returned to be hanged without any other forme of arraignment Now if from their feats in forreign Countries we look to their doings in England what troubles they have stirred and what mischiefs they have plotted continually against this State now above a hundred years We are at a losse in that prodigious heap of iniquity They have afforded matter to large Volumes of History and the labour of the worthy writers need not to be seconded by mine And when the Jesuite Eudemono-Iohannes in his Apologetick for Garnet would excuse or deny the treasons wrought under the pretence of a Catholick zeal the truth of them was asserted by the R. Reverend and Learned Robert Abbot Bishop of In his Antilogia Salisbury out of the publick Acts and Records of Courts and out of the very books of Adversaries Bluâ—t and Watson How many attempts were made against the life of the Blessed Queen Elizabeth And in what treason was there a Jesuite wanting Parry Cullen Williams
York Squire Hesket Lopez Babington with his associates and how many more All were assisted and prompted by Jesuites as the judicial examinations will justifie And now we speak of Babington and his associates I find two brothers Bellamy's both apprehended for hiding them after they were openly proclaimed traitors in their house neer Harrowhill where they were kept ten dayes and clothed in rustical habits There they were all taken and thence carried to prison where one of the Bellamies strangled himself the other was executed with the conspirators his name Hierome Bellamy From which of the two brothers our Adversary Thomas Bellamy is descended and whether from either or neither himself best knows But it seems by his behaviour that the crime of hiding and disguising traitors runs in the blood For what is his covering of the parricidial doctrine of Jesuites with falfe constructions but hiding and disguising traitors whose doctrine is declared treasonable by sundry Acts of Parliament Let him take warning by the crime and the ill successe of these men of his name and apply to himself that Sentence of Tully which he misapplyeth to the Protestants of Integrity Mirror te Antoni quorum facta imitere corum exitus non pertimescere Since you imitate the actions of men of your name Sir Bellamy I wonder you are not frighted with thinking of their ends The Devil and the Jesuites having been so often disappointed of their attempts against England in the end contrived the foulest plot that ingenious cruelty did in any age imagine the Gunpowder-Treason which shall be to the Worlds end the wonder of succeeding ages and the shame of ours This was the godly product of the English Seminaries abroad and the Roman education It is easie to judge that the plotters of it had been bred long in another Climate then the middle aire of England for it looks like one of the feats of Caesar Borgia Non nostri generis monstrum nec sanguinis Of that attempt to cut off King and Kingdome with one blow none could be capable but such as had many years breathed the same aire where he reigned who wished that the Romans had but one neck that he might cut it off with one stroke But a Jesuite is capable of devising and the Romish zeal of executing any mischief though never so prodigious to promote the Papal interest And they have law for it even the Roman Decree the Oracle of the Pope himself We do not account them for Causa 23. qu. 5. Can. Excommunicatorum Non enim eos homicidas arbitramur quos adversus excommunicatos zelo Catholicae Matris Ecclesiae ardentes aliquos eorum trucidasse configerit murtherers saith his Holinesse who burning with the zeal of our Catholick Mother the Church against exmunicate persons shall happen to kill some of them Now England was lying under many excommnnications when the Gunpowder-Treason was plotted and lyeth under them still for they never were repealed Truly so far we must excuse Campian Garnet Hall Hamond and other Jesuites who have plotted or incouraged rebellions and treasons in England They have done no more then they were commanded or allowed by the Pope And here I must be a suitor to all the conscionable Roman Catholieks who abhorre these wicked wayes to acknowledge ingenuously that the Actors were grounded upon the fundamental Laws of the Court of Rome And that the Pope the Head of their Faith is he that commands by his Canons and Bulls the slaughter of those that displease him the breach of faith the deposing of Kings and the rebellion of the people as I have sufficiently demonstrated before If after that they adhere to the other points of the Roman Religion upon this main ground of the Roman Faith That the Pope cannot erre they blinde themselves wilfully and building their faith upon an unsafe ground they may come short of the end of their faith the salvation of their souls This power of deposing Kings and exposing them to the attempts of their enemies so peremptorily assumed by the Pope and so boldly executed by his zealous agents ought to be grounded upon some proof out of holy Writ In all the passages which I have alledged out of Jesuites books I finde but two of those proofs The one of Bellarmine who proveth Bellarm. lib. cui Titulus Tortus p. 19. Rex Anglorum subjectus est Papae jus omnibus Christiadis communi ratione Apostolicae potestatis juxta illud Ps 4. 4. Constitues eos Principes super omnem terram that the King of England is subject unto the Pope by a right common to all Christians by reason of the Apostolick power according to this Text Psal 44. Thou shalt make them Princes over all the earth In that Psalm which with us is the 45. this promise is made to the Kings Spouse which is the Church the Spouse of Christ our King Instead of thy Fathers house shall be thy children whom thou mayest make Princes over all the earth Answerably to that we learn Rev. 1. 6. That God hath made us Kings and Priests unto God our Father That blessing then to be understood and fulfilled in Gods good time belongs to all the true children of the Church The ingrossing of it to the Pope alone to the exclusion of all Christians is a bold and indeed a ridiculous inclosing of Commons without any warrant Suarez brings a proof of the like validity After that horrid assertion alledged before that after that a Prince is excommunicated he may be dispossess'd or slain by any persons whatsoever He prevents the objection out of Rom. 13. 1. Let every soul Suarez adversus sect Anglic lib. 6. c. 6. sect 24. 〈◊〉 Paulus his verbis Omnis anima potestatibus sublimioribus subdi a sit Rom. 13 nunquam addidit etiam potestatibus excommunicatis vel deprvatis a Papa omnes subditisint be subject to the higher Powers and saith that the Apostle never added Let all be subject also to the Powers excommunicated and deprived by the Pope A recreative proof which would make but a poor enthymema The Apostle addeth not that we must be subject also to the higher Powers deprived by the Turk Ergo if the Great Turk pronounce a sentence of deprivation against a Christian Prince the Subjects of that Prince are free from their allegiance and may dispossess and kill him when they think good But what These proofs are as concluding as those that the Popes themselves bring to prove their power Nicholaus 1. Epist ad Michael Imp. Constant Petro specialiter ostensum est ut ea mactaret manducaret Illi soli jussum est ur rete plenum piscibus ad littus traheret as when Pope Nicholas the I. proveth the Papal power because it was said to Saint Peter Kill and eat and because to him alone was granted that power to draw a Net full of Fishes to Land Likewise Bonifacius the VIII proveth his primacy Bonifac. VIII