was in defence of these Which I shall the rather do since I find his Life very lately published in French with a high character of him and dedicated to the King of France but especially because I find that those among us of that Religion who disown Gregory the sevenths principles are willing to believe him a Martyr upon other grounds viz. that his quarrel with the King was upon the account of the antient Municipal Laws of England which had a respect to the immunities of Clergie-men I shall therefore prove 1. That the matters in Dispute between the King and Becket were the very same that Gregory the seventh and his successors contended about with Christian Princes 2. That the pleas made use of by Becket and his party were no other than those which Gregory the seventh and his successors used so that they had no relation at all to the Municipal Laws but to the controversie then on Foot between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Power In both which I hope to make some passages clearer than they have yet been having had the advantage of perusing several MSS. relating to this matter and especially that Volume of Epistles which Baronius accounts an unvaluable Treasure and as far as I can perceive the Cotton MS. is more compleat than the Vatican which Baronius made use of 1. For the matters in Dispute between them The whole controversie might be reduced to two heads 1. Whether Ecclesiastical Persons were unaccountable to the Civil Power for any misdemeanours committed by them 2. Whether the Pope had the Soveraign Power over Princes and all under them so that he might contradict the Kings Laws and Customs and command his Subjects against his consent to come to him and whether the Kings Subjects in such cases were not bound to obey the Pope let the King command what he please These in truth were the points in debate and the most weighty particulars in the Customs of Clarendon were but as so many branches of these In that Copy of them which is extant in the Cotton MS. and was drawn up by the Kings own Order the occasion of them is set down to have been the differences which had happened between the Clergie and the Kings Iustices and the Barons of the Kingdom about the Customs and Dignities of the Crown the most considerable of those which the Pope condemned were concerning 1. The Tryal of Titles of Advowsons and Presentations in the Kings Courts 2. The Tryal of Clergie-men before the Kings Iudges and the Churches not defending them after conviction or confession 3. That neither Archbishops Bishops or others should go out of the Kingdom without the Kings consent and giving security to the King that in going staying or returning they will do nothing to the prejudice either of the King or Kingdom 4. The profits of Ecclesiastical Courts upon absolutions for they demanded not barely personal security of all excommunicated persons to stand to the Churches judgements but Vadium ad remanens as the Law term was then which implyes real security or so much money laid down which was to come to the Court if they did not perform the conditions expressed For it was one of the things the Kings Ambassadour complained of to his Mother the Empress that the matters in controversie were not things of advantage to mens souls but to their own purses and that the Faults of Offenders were not punished in the Ecclesiastical Courts by the injoyning of Penance but by the giving of money And the Empress her self in her discourse with Nicholas de Monte the Archbishops Friend insisted on these pecuniary mulcts for sins as one of the great occasions of the troubles which made people suspect this pretence of Ecclesiastical Liberty to be only a cloak for their own profits But however the good Pope whether he understood this Vadium ad remanens or no at all adventures condemned it For what should the Court of Rome do without exchanging Money for Sins 5. That no Person who held of the King in capite or belonged to him should be excommunicated or have his Land interdicted without making the King acquainted with it or his Iustice in his absence 6. That in matters of Appeal they were to proceed from the Arch-deacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Arch-bishop and from thence to the King and not to proceed further without his express leave These were the main things in dispute and what do they all amount to but the very same Rights of the Crown which the Kings predecessors did insist upon and what could be the sense of Becket in opposing them but that Clergie-men were not accountable for their Faults to the Civil Power and in case of the Popes command whether upon appeal or otherwise Bishops and others were to go to his Court in spight of the King as Anselm and Theobald had done before It is agreed by Baronius himself that the quarrel brake out upon the Arch-bishops denying to deliver up the Clergie-man that was accused and convicted of Murder after Ecclesiastical Censure to the Secular Power which the King earnestly desired and Becket as peremptorily denyed And upon what principle could this be done but the highest pretence of Ecclesiastical Liberty that ever Gregory the seventh or any other asserted And it is plain by this that the King did not deny the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction nor hindered the proper Censures of the Church upon offenders but the Question was meerly this Whether Ecclesiastical persons having committed crimes against the publick peace were only to be punished with Ecclesiastical Censures and never to be delivered over to Civil Iustice Which was the main hinge of the Cause and which Becket stood to to the last And that this was the true State of the Controversie appears by the representation made of it to Alexander the third by the whole Clergie of the Province of Canterbury who confess that the peace of the Kingdom was very much disturbed by the insolence and crimes of some of the Clergie for upon the account of this exemption any Villains were safe if they could but get into any kind of Orders the King for the safety of his people pressed the Bishops after their Censures to give such guilty persons up to the Laws because bare degrading was by no means sufficient punishment for wilful murder which was all the Church censures reached to This all the Bishops at first opposed as derogatory to the Churches Liberty but afterwards Becket excepted the rest saw a necessity of yielding at present for as they confess themselves this liberty was extended even to a Lector or Acolythus and the Empress Matildis said that the Bishops gave orders very loosely without titles by which we may easily imagine what a miserable state the whole Kingdom might be in if these things were suffered So that we see the plea insisted upon at the beginning of the quarrell was that no persons in any Ecclesiastical
as the Bishop of London saith had rather he had wounded his body than his reputation by such an escape into forreign parts where he was sure to be represented as a Tyrant and persecutor of the Church Becket was driven back by a Tempest the King takes no notice of it uses him kindly and bids him take care of his Church Not long after a Controversie happened about some Lands which Becket challenged as belonging to his Church the King sends to him to do justice to the Person concerned in it notwithstanding complaints are brought to the King for want of it the King sends a summons to him to appear before him that he might have the hearing of the Cause Becket refuses to obey the summons and sends the King word he would not obey him in this matter at which saucy answer the King was justly provoked as a great disparagement to his Royal Authority Upon this he calls the Parliament at Northhampton where the People met as one man the King represents his case with becoming modesty and eloquence however he consented that his fault should be expiated by a pecuniary mulct after this the King exhibited a complaint against him for a great summ of money received by him during his Chancellorship which he had never given account for it was 44000 Marks as the Bishop of London told the Cardinals who were sent by the Pope afterwards to end the Controversie Becket pleaded that he was discharged by his promotion as though as the Bishop of London said promotion were like Baptism that wiped away all Scores But this being a meer civil Cause as the Bishop tells Becket yet he denyed to give answer to the King and appealed to the Pope as the judge of all men living saith sarisburiensis and soon after in a disguise he slips over the Sea and hastens to the Pope who received him with great kindness and then he resigns his Arch-bishoprick into the Popes hands as our Historians generally agree because he received investiture from the King and takes it again from the Pope This is the just and true account of the state of the Controversie as it is delivered by one of the same time that knew all the intrigues and which he writes to Becket himself who never answered it that I can find nor any of his party and by one who was a Person of great reputation with the Pope himself for his Learning Piety and the severity of his Life And is it now possible to suppose that Gregory 7. if he had been in Beckets place could have managed his cause with more contempt of Civil Government than he did when he refused to obey the Kings summons declined his Iudicature in a Civil Cause and broke his Laws against his own solemn promise and perjured himself for the Popes honour If this be only defending ancient priviledges of the Church I may expect to see some other moderate men of the Roman Church plead for Gregory 7. as only a stout defender of the ancient Canons and an enemy to the Popes temporal Power But men are to be pittyed when they meet with an untoward objection such as that from Beckets Saintship and Martyrdom is to prove the doctrine of Ecclesiastical Liberty and the Popes temporal Power to be the sense of their Church if they cannot find that they endeavour to make a way to escape and I hope the Persons I now deal with have more ingenuity than to think this new pretence any satisfactory plea for Beckets Cause And as the Bishop of London tells Becket it is not the suffering but the cause which makes a Martyr to suffer hardship with a good mind is honour to a man but to suffer in a bad cause and obstinately is a reproach and in this dispute he saith the whole weight of it lay upon the Kings power and some Customs of his Ancestors and the King would not quit the Rights of his Crown which were confirmed by Antiquity and the long usage of the Kingdom This is the cause why you draw your sword against the Sacred Person of the King in which it is of great consequence to consider that the King doth not pretend to make new Laws but as the whole Kingdom bears him witness such as were practised by his Ancestors And although it appears that he wished well to the main of Beckets Cause yet he blames him exceedingly for rashness indiscretion and insolency in the management of it and bids him remember that Christ never entred Zacchaeus his house till he came down from the Sycamore Tree and that the way of humility did far better become him and was likely to prevail more with the King than than which he took § 13. But Becket being out of the Kings reach and backed by the King of France and favoured by the Court of Rome made nothing of charging the King with Tyranny as he and his party do very frequently in the Volume of Epistles and because the Empress his Mother pleaded for some of the Customs as antient Rights of the Crown she is said to be of the raâ—e of Tyrants too The King finding himself thus beset with a swarm of Horneâ—◠〈…〉 of his own Power to 〈…〉 farther attempts upon his Crown and Royal Authority which was exposed to such publick ignominy in forreign parts and therefore sends this precept to all the Bishops to suspend the profits of all such Clergie-men as adhered to him Nosti quam male Thomas Cantuariensis Archiepiscopus operatus â— est adversus me Regnum meum quam male recesserit ideo mando tibi quod Clerici sui qui circa ipsum fuerint post fugam suam alii Clerici qui detraxerunt honori meo honori Regni non percipiant aliquid de redditibus illis quos habuerant in Episcopatu tuo nisi per me nec habâ—ant aliquod auxilium nec consilium a Te Teste Richardo de Luci apud Marlebergam After this the King commands the Sheriffs to imprison every one that appealed to the Court of Rome and to keep them in hold till his pleasure were known and he causes all the Ports to be watched to prevent any Letters of Interdict from the Pope and if any Regular brought them he was to have his feet cut off if in Orders he was to lose his eyes and something else and if he were a Lay-man he was to be hanged Accordingly the Popes Nuntio was taken with Letters of the Popes coming over for England and imprisoned by the Kings Order But the difference still growing higher and the King being threatned with excommunication and the Kingdom with an interdict the King commands an Oath to be taken against receiving Bulls from the Pope or obeying him or the Archbishop and the penalty no less than that of Treason which is so remarkable a thing I shall give it in the words of the MS. A. D. MCLXIX Rex Henricus jurare facit
omnem Angliam a laico duodenni vel quindecim annorum contra Dom. Papam Alexandrum B. Thomam Archiepiscopum quod eorum non recipient literas neque obedient mandatis Et si quis inveâ—tus foret literas eorum deferens traderetur Potestatibus tanquam Coronae Regis capitalis inimicus Here we see an Oath of Supremacy made so long ago by Henry the second and those who out of zeal or whatsoever motive brought over Bulls of the Popes made lyable to the charge of Treason but the Archbishop by vertue of his Legatine Power took upon him to send persons privately into England and to absolve them from this Oath as is there expressed The same year the King being in Normandy sent over these Articles to be sworn and observed by the Nobles and People of England 1. If any one be found carrying Letters from the Pope or any Mandate from the Archbishop of Canterbury containing an Interdict of Religion in England let him be taken and without delay let justice pass upon him as upon a Traytor to the King and Kingdom 2. No Clergie-man or Monk or Lay-Brother may be suffered to cross the Seas or return into England unless he have a Pass from the Kings Iustice for his going out and of the King himself for his return if any one be found doing otherwise let him be taken and imprisoned 3. No man may appeal either to the Pope or Arch-bishop and no plea shall be held of the Mandates of the Pope or Archbishop nor any of them be received by any person in England if any one be taken doing otherwise let him be imprisoned 4. No man ought to carry any Mandat either of Clergie-man or Laick to either of them on the same penalty 5. If any Bishops Clergie-men Abbots or Laicks will observe the Popes interdict let them be forthwith banished the Realm and all their Kindred and let them carry no Chattels along with them 6. That all the Goods and Chattels of those who favour the Pope or Archbishop and all their possessions of whatsoever rank order sex or condition they be be seized into the Kings hand and confiscated 7. That all Clergie-men having revenews in England be summoned through every County that they return to their places within three months or their revenues to be seized into the Kings hands 8. That Peter-pence be no longer paid to the Pope but let them be gathered and kept in the Kings Treasury and laid out according to his command 9. That the Bishops of London and Norwich be in the Kings Mercy and be summoned by Sheriffs and Bailiffs to appear before the Kings Iustices to answer for their breach of the Statutes of Clarendon in interdicting the Land and excommunicating the person of Earl Hugh by vertue of the Popes Mandat and publishing this excommunication without Licence from the Kings Iustices I hope these particulars will give full satisfaction that the Controversie between King Henry the second and Becket was not about some antient Saxon Laws but the very same principles which Gregory the seventh first openly defended of the Popes temporal Power over Princes and the total exemption of Ecclesiastical Persons from Civil Iudicatures § 14. 2. This will yet more appear if we consider that the Pleas used by Becket and his party were the very same which were used by Gregory the seventh and his Successors The beginning of the quarrel we have seen was about the total exemption of Men in any kind of Ecclesiastical Orders from civil punishments which was the known and avowed principle of Gregory the seventh and his successors and it seems by Fitz Stephen that several of the Bishops were for yielding them up to the Secular Power after deprivation and said that both Law and Reason and Scripture were for it but Becket stood to it that it was against God and the Canons and by this means the Churches Liberty would be destroyed for which in imitation of their High-Priest they were bound to lay down their lives and bravely adds that it was not greater merit of old for the Bishops to found the Church of Christ with their blood than in their times to lay down their lives for this blessed liberty of the Church and if an Angel from Heaven should perswade him to comply with the King in this matter he should be accursed By which we see what apprehension Becket had of the nature of his cause from the beginning of it for this was before the King insisted on the reviving the Antient Customs at Clarendon Where it seems Beckets heart failed him which the Monks and Baronius parallel with S. Peters denying Christ but it seems the Cock that brought him to Repentance was his Cross-bearer who told him that the Civil Authority disturbed all that wickedness raged against Christ himself that the Synagogue of Satan had profaned the Lords Sanctuary that the Princes had sat and combined together against the Lords Christ that this tempest had shaken the pillars of the Church and while the Shepherd withdrew the sheep were under the power of the Wolf A very loyal representation of the King and all that adhered to his Rights After this he spoke plainly to him and told him he had lost both his conscience and his honour in conspiring with the Devils instruments in swearing to those cursed customs which tended to the overthrow of the Churches Liberty At which he sighed deeply and immediately suspends himself from all Offices of his Function till he should be absolved by the Pope which was soon granted him The Pope writes to the King very sharply for offering to usurp the things of Iesus Christ and to oppress the poor of Christ by his Laws and Customs and threatens him to be judged in the same manner at the day of judgement and tells him of Saul and Ozias and Rehoboam and parallels his sin with theirs and bids him have a care of their punishments And was all this zeal of the Pope only for the good old Saxon Laws When the Bishop of Exeter begged the Archbishop at Northampton to have regard to his own safety and theirs too he told him he did not savour the things of God he had spoken much more pertinently according to P. W. if he had told him he did not understand the Saxon Laws When the Earl of Leicester came to him to tell him he must come and hear his sentence he told him that as much as his soul was better than his body so much more was he bound to obey God and Him than an earthly King and for his part he declared he would not submit to the Kings judgement or theirs in as much as he was their Father and that he was only under God to be judged by the Pope and so appealed to him Which being an appeal to the Pope in a Civil cause about accounts between the King and him it does plainly shew that he did not think the King had any Authority over
for holy Poverty saith Antonine he not only tore the writings asunder but prayed God to be revenged on that Monastery which he was no sooner almost gone from but the greatest part of it was burnt to the Ground Long after these Ludovicus de Barbo A. D. 1409. attempted the Reformation of the Benedictin Order in Italy by restoring poverty chastity and obedience and this was called the Congregation of S. Iustina de Padua and since the Congregation of Cassino wherein many new Constitutions were added to the Benedictin Rule several other attempts of Reformations are mentioned by Antonine and others But to how little purpose all the former Reformations of the Monastick state were we need no other Testimony than of S. Antonin who reckoning up the original Benedictins the Camaldulâ—nses Vallis Umbrosae the Cluniacenses Cistertians and Carthusians he concludes with a passionate lamentation of their monstrous degeneracy in the words of S. Bernard and afterwards adds that it was scarce possible at first to believe that an Order begun with so much severity as that of Monks should fall into so great loosness when the old Monks met together in S. Antony 's time their minds were so taken up with divine things that they forgot their bodily refreshments but now saith he it is quite otherwise nothing of the Scriptures nothing that concerns mens souls nothing but idle talk and laughing when the Monks do meet together and S. Bernard complains of them as though there were nothing but idleness and luxury and intemperance to be found among them The Cistertians whom S. Bernard magnified so much in his time were declined saith S. Antonin so far from the steps of their Fathers that they were become unprofitable The Cluniacenses he saith were as black within as without the Camalduleâ—ses were degenerated from the steps of Romualdus and were all gone backward a very few excepted Among those of the Vallis Umbrosa there was scarce one to be found who did good in a word he saith all the Monkish and Regular Orders which began with so much fervour and zeal had so far by degrees fallen off from the Rules of their Fathers that they had nothing left among them but their meer vows and how well those were kept in such a degeneracy is easie to imagine The only order which he allows to have preserved to his time its first vigour was the Carthusian Which began about the same time with the Cistertian but Bruno the first institutor of it was far from thinking the Benedictin Rule to be perfect and therefore he endeavoured as Romualdus had done in Italy to revive the old Egyptian discipline and severity and with his companions he began a kind of Eremitical life living twelve together in distinct Cells though within the same walls under the inspection of a Prior with 18 Lay Brethren and a few Mercenaries their diet was the coursest bread wine very much diluted with water eating no flesh sick or well buying no fish but eating them when given Sundays and Thursdays they might eat cheese or eggs Tuesdays and Saturdays pulse or boil'd herbs the other days only bread and water and they eat only once a day except the great holy-days and then they eat together and say Mass and keep their Canonical hours in publick which at other times excepting only Mattins and Vespers they observe in their Cells where they are obliged to perpetual silence and labour and reading and prayer Their habit is a short and strait garment rough and sordid even to frightfulness and they wear sackcloth next their skin This is the account given of their Order by Guibert Iacobus de Vitriaco and by Petrus Cluniacensis who commends it for the sanctity and strictness of it a very â—ood Rule saith Pâ—lydore Vâ—rgil if the passions of the mind could be confined within Cells and the flesh be tamed by solitude and idleness which S. Hierome sound it so hard to do with the greatest pains A most certain way to Heaven if only eaâ—ing flâ—sh and cleanly apparel and conversing with our Friends were the things that sent men to hell Humbertus complains that in his time A. D. 1264. a great deal of the severity of their first discipline was abated by dispensations and relaxations but whatever agreeableness they may pretend in other things to the old Egyptian Lâ—â—urae they are as far beyond them in the point of riches as may be for although they began at first with the pretence of great poverty and restraining their Goods and Cattel and Lands within certain bounds yet for their number they have attained to as great riches as any Order whatsoever whereas Cassian saith The old Egyptian Monks had nothing at all to live upâ—n but the fruit of their own labour and refuâ—â—â— to receive any thing to the advantage 〈…〉 Monastery from any who came 〈…〉 Although the Carthusians had no Rule given them at first yet they have been governed by certain customes of their own among which one is that it is not lawful for them to observe the Discipline or Vigils or Religious exercises or Fasts of any other Religious Order which had been a very profane custome among them if they had believed that their Rules were from Divine Inspiration § 13. When all the former Monastick Orders had lost their reputation in the world as to their pretence of Poverty which they began with then appeared another sort who would not be called Monks but Friers and to satisfie the World as to their Poverty they declared they would have nothing appropriated to them as a community but would live upon the charity and benevolence of others and therefore would go under the name of Mendicant Friers which grew so numerous at first that the Council of Lyons reduced them to four viz. the Dominicans Augustinian Eremites Carmelites and Franciscans But among these the highest pretenders to poverty were the last mentioned who would be contented with nothing short of the perfection of poverty For this above all things was S. Francis his Mistress which he pretends almost to adore and in one of his Collations he calls Poverty the Queen of Vertues a special way to felicity the root of perfection the hidden treasure mentioned in the Gospel for which a man parts with all that he hath to attain the height of which he saith a man must not only renounce worldly prudence but in some sort humane Learning too for saith he that man doth not perfectly renounce the world that retains the bag of his own sense within his heart Poverty he calls the Foundation of his Order upon which it would stand or fall nay such a true lover of poverty he was that they say of him he could never be reconciled to the Ants because they provided for themselves so long before hand But for those of his Order he charges them as Solomon did about Wisdom above all things to follow Poverty and especially in their
doth not retch thereof For as men supposen such letters and many others that Fréers behoten to men be full false deceits of Freers out of all reason and Gods Law and Christian mens faith Freer what charity is this to be Confessors of Lords and Ladies and to other mighty men and not amend hem in their living but rather as it seemeth to be bolder to pill their poor tenants and to live in lechery and there to dwell in your office of Confessor for winning of worldly goods and to be bold great by colour of such ghostly offices this seemeth rather pride of Freers than charitie of God Fréer what charity is this to sain that who so liveth after your Order liveth most perfectly and next followeth the state of Apostles in povertie and penance and yet the wisest and greatest Clerks of you wend or send or procure to the Court of Rome to be made Cardinals or Bishops or the Popes Chapleins and to be assoiled of the vow of poverty and obedience to your Ministers in which as ye sain standeth most perfection and merit of your Orders and thus ye faren as Pharisées that sain one and do another to the contrary Fréer was S. Francis in making that Rule he set thine Order in a fool and a liar or else wise and true If ye sain that he was not a Fool but wise ne a liar but true why shew ye contrary to your doing when by your suggestion to the Pope ye said that Your Rule that Francis made was so hard that ye mow not live to hold it without declaracion and dispensation of the Pope and so by your déed Ne let your Patron a Fool that made a rule so hard that no man may well kéep and eke your déed proveth him a lier where be saith in his rule that he took and learned it of the Holy Ghost For how might ye for shame pray the Pope undo that the Holy Ghost bit as when ye prayed him to dispense with the hardness of your Order Fréer is there any perfecter Rule of Religion than Christ Gods Son gave in his Gospel to his Brethren Or than that Religion that S. James in his Epistle maketh mention of If you say yes then puttest thou on Christ that is the Wisdom of God the Father unkunning unpower or evil will For then he could not make his Rule so good as another did his and so he had be unkunning or that he might not make his Rule so good as another man might and so were he unmighty or he would not make his Rule so perfect as another did his and so he had béen evil willed For if he might and could and would have made a Rule perfect without default and did not he was not Gods Son almighty For if any other Rule be perfecter than Christs then must Christs Rule lack of that perfection and so were default and Christ had failed in making of his Rule but to put any default or failing in God is blasphemie If thou say that Christs Rule and that Religion S. James maketh mention of is perfectest why holdest thou not thilk Rule without more And why clepest thou the rather of S. Francis or S. Dominicks Rule or Religion or Order than of Christs Rule or Christs Order Fréer canst thou any default assigne in Christs Rule of the Gospell with the which he taught all men sickerly to be saded if they kept it to their ending If thou say it was too hard then saiest thou Christ lied for he said of his Rule My yoke is soft and my burden light If thou say Christs Rule was too light that may be assigned for no default for the better it may be kept If thou saiest there is no default in Christs Rule of the Gospel sith Christ himself saith it is light and easie what néed was it for Patrons of Friers to adde more thereto and so make an harder Religion to save Fréers than was the Religion of Christs Apostles and his Disciples helden and were saved by But if they woulden that their Fréers saten above the Apostles in Heaven for the harder Religion that they kéepen here so would they sitten in Heaven above Châ—ist himself for their more and strict observations then so should they be better than Christ himself In these Questions besides several others extant in Chauctr we have the hypocrisie and fraud of these Mendicant Friers fully set forth by a Person who lived among them in the time of their greatest flourishing here in England which Hypocrisie of theirs in the pretence of Poverty is attested by our Historians Walsingham saith that they offered the Pope at one time for a dispensation to break their Rule as to the liberty of enjoying rents and Lands 40000 florens of Gold and much more money The Pope asked them where their money was they told him in the Merchants hands the cunning Pope pretended to take three dayes time to consider of it In the mean time he sends for the Merchants absolves them from their obligation to the Friers and charges them under pain of an Anathema to pay the money into his Treasury and then tells the Friers he would not have them to break their Rule by which they were bound to touch no money And so saith he what they had unjustly gotten was justly taken away I know no reason they could have to complain of any injustice in the Pope since they declare the property and Dominion of what they enjoyed was in the Apostolical See And it were pitty the Pope should have nothing but a meer name and title Matthew Westminster from whom Walsingham took not only the story but most of the very words of it saith it was quadringenta millia and not quadraginta as it is in Walsingham 400000 Florens of gold and much more to have the liberty to receive lands and revenews expresly against their Rule and Solemn Vow of perfect poverty Matthew Paris describes their Frauds as to the Parochial Priests and other Convents their flatteries and insinuations into Great men and adds that they were so excellently skilled in the arts of getting money that the Pope made choice of them above others to be his Collectors both here and in other Countries in so much he saith that the Pope made them instead of Fishers of men Fishers of money So much had they kept to their Rule in S. Francis his sense i e. to the meer letter of it for no men were more skilful in the getting of money than they were if they did but keep themselves from fingering of it they thought they observed that part of his Rule at least whatever became of their perfect poverty Which he sets forth when he saith that within 24 years after their first coming into England their Mansion houses were like Royal Palaces wherein they had unvaluable Treasures most impudently transgressing the Rules of Poverty which was the Foundation of their Profession And then describes their hanging about
great and rich mens beds when they lay a dying in hopes of a prey their drawing people to confess to them their obtaining private Testaments their commending their own Order and discommending all others to that degree that the people commonly believed they could not be saved unless they were ruled by the Mendicant Friers Nay they were so busie not only to get priviledges but to insinuate themselves into Courts and great Families that no businesses almost were managed without them either relating to money or marriages with much more to the same purpose in him and if we believe the concurrent testimony of these Historians there were never greater Hypocrites known since the Pharisees and before the Jesuits than these pretenders to perfect Poverty who hated that in their hearts to which they made the greatest shew of Love We may perceive by chaucer what wayes they had of wheadling great persons into an opinion how much better it was to be buried among them than any where else the Bishops saw well enough what all this was designed for viz. to have the profits of burials and therefore in behalf of the Parochial Clergy they opposed it as long as they durst but Pope Innocent 4. declared their Churches to be Conventual and then to have liberty of burying in them which they made good use of both here and in other places to their great advantage So that what by the Favour of great Persons whom they flattered to become their Confessors what by their Masses and extraordinary Offices what by Burials and the charitable benevolence of well disposed persons to them they made a good shift to keep themselves a good way out of the reach of the Perfection of Poverty while in the mean time they pretended to nothing more than that But they found more comfort in their own purse-opening way than the Parochial Clergy did in their setled maintenance they having found out the knack of pleasing those humours in persons that had the greatest command of their purses but besides these wayes when the charity of particular persons began to coole towards them they had a certain rate upon houses which they lived upon which Sancta Clara confesses and saith it was easie for the people and abundantly sufficient for them So that laying all these wayes together although they had sworn so much affection to perfect Poverty and professed to love and admire it above all things yet they endeavoured with all their care and diligence to keep it from coming within their Doors § 15. But all this would not satisfie them for the Conventual Friers were never quiet till for the greater height of their poverty they procured leave from the Pope that they might enjoy Lands and possessions as well as others so much is confessed by their Martyrologist and the defender of their Order against Bzovius upon this a new Reformation began among them first by Paulutius Fulginas but very little regard was had to it till Bernardinus Senensis appeared in the head of it and then it spread very much these were called Fratres de observantiâ from their strict observance of S. Francis his Rule and many and great differences happened between them which it hath cost the Papal See some trouble to compose which were so high that Leo 10. in the Preface to the Bull of Union declares that almost all the Princes in Christendom had interceded with him to end the controversie between these two sorts of Beggers viz. those who had good Lands and revenues and others that had rich houses and furniture and other conveniences but had no endowments For this same Pope declared that these strict Observantines might enjoy the most magnificent Houses and costly furniture without any diminution to the perfection of their poverty because the right and property of them was not in themselves but in the Papal See but I cannot understand why the same reason should not hold for Lands too supposing the same Right and property to be in the Popes for it cannot enter into my head that a man is a jot the poorer because his estate lyes in goods and Iewels and not in Lands or why this may not be in Trustees hands as well as the other Indeed that was the solemn Cheat in all this affair that how rich soever really this Order of Mendicants was yet forsooth they had nothing at all to live upon but the Alms of the people for they had vowed the very height of poverty Why saith a plain Countrey man that is not well skilled in Metaphysicks the beggars in our Countrey do not live in such stately houses and have no such rich Ornaments nor feed so well nor are so well provided for as you are we that have Land of our own would be glad to have all things found us at so cheap a rate Do you think that riches lyes only in trouble and care and hard labour if that be it I confess you are poor enough but in no other sense that I see Alas poor man saith the good Frier we are as poor as Iob for all this Now that cannot I understand for my heart saith the other surely you call things only by other names than we do and make that poverty that we plain men call riches Well saith the Frier I will shew my charity to your understanding in helping of that if you will shew yours to us poor Friers therefore you must know that although we have the full use and possession for our benefit in the things you see yet Pope Nicholas 3. in the Bull Exiit and Pope Clement 5. in the Bull Exivi de Paradiso hath declared that we have no propriety and Dominion in them but that is reserved to the Papal See So that we enjoy all things but have right to nothing Say you so saith the Countrey man Then I believe you come within the compass of the Statutes against Vagabonds and sturdy Beggars for you live upon that which is none of your own and refuse to Work Tush saith the Frier that is an heretical Statute and we defie Q. Elizabeth and all her works as long as the Pope hath declared us to be poor we are so and will be so although we had ten times as much as we have For our holy Father the Pope can change not only the names but the natures of things nay I will tell you farther if we had as much wealth as the King of Spain in the Indies if we had only the possession and the supreme right or Dominion were declared to be in the Pope we were in perfect poverty for all this I cry you mercy Sir replyes the Countrey man I beseech you intercede with his Holiness to make me one of his Beads-men for I perceive poverty as he makes it is better than all my Lands that I have the Fee-simple of but I pray think of a better way to keep me out of the reach of the Statute for if I
Prince doth challenge in another Princes Dominions contrary to and above the Laws of the Land and what obedience it is that subjects may pay to such a forreign Prince without the privity and contrary to the command of his own Soveraign which cannot be done by a general Answer but by distinct assigning the bounds of the Popes Temporal and Spiritual Power in England and what the full intent of them is that the King may discern whether he hath enough of either to preserve himself and the Peace of the Kingdom 3. That till such time as the Roman-Catholick Subjects of England give as good security to the King for their Fidelity and peaceable behaviour as all his other subject do they have no cause to wonder that they may be made subject to such Laws and restraints as may disable them from being dangerous when they profess to owe obedience to a forreign Prince who doth as much profess not to be a friend to their Countrey and will not declare what that obedience is 4. That the Roman Catholick Subjects of England have a more immediate dependance on the Pope than is allowed in any Catholick Countryes and that those who under pretence of Religion refuse to declare that it is in no Earthly Power to absolve them from their Fidelity to the King do refuse to give as full satisfaction and security for their Allegiance as Catholick Subjects do give for their Fidelity to Catholick Kings there being no French Roman Catholick who dares refuse to do it 5. That there is so much the more reason to require this since the late instance of the Irish Rebellion wherein the Pope absolved the Kings Subjects from their Oaths and took upon himself to be their General in the Person of his Nuntio and assumed the exercise of the Regal Power both at Land and Sea and imprisoned those Catholicks and threatned to take away their Lives who had promoted the peace and desired to return to the Kings subjection and hath since given a severe check to those of the Irish Nobility and Clergie who had declared that the Pope had no Power to dispense with their Fidelity to his Majesty or to absolve them from any Oaths they should take to that purpose and imployed his Nuntio to discountenance and suppress that Declaration and to take care that it should proceed no further and that Cardianl Barbarine at that same time put them in mind that the Kingdom of England was still under Excommunication and since that the Pope hath made many Bishops in Ireland which his Predecessors had forborn to do from the death of Queen Elizabeth to A. D. 1640. And therefore there is no reason to believe that the Court of Rome doth recede from its former principles as to these things § 2. These several particulars carry so much weight along with them as may easily raise the expectation of any one to see what Mr. Cressy will reply to them And in truth he enters the Field like a Champion for he saith his Apologie is published permissu Superiorum and what he writes on this special subject he desires the Person of Honour to consider not as the inconsiderable opinion of one particular person only And he doth assure him that there is not any one Point of Controversie upon which they more earnestly desire to be summoned to give an account before equal Iudges than this Thus he enters the lists and walks his ground and brandishes his sword and makes legs to the Judges with more than ordinary assurance and fails in no point of a Champion but overcoming his Adversary Which he is so far from that after these Bravado's and flourishes he dares not stand before him but looks round about him to discern any way to escape But although it be beneath the Greatness of his Adversary to pursue him over all his Bogs and to draw him out of his Fastnesses yet I shall endeavour to bring him into the Lists again that his Adversary may not go away blushing at so mean a Triumph There are five things which Mr. Cressy offers at by way of Answer to the Discourse of the Person of Honour on this subject 1. That there is no reason to suspect the Catholick subjects of England to be more wanting in Fidelity to their Prince than of other Nations whose Catholick Ancestors were so far from acknowledging any Supremacy of the Pope in Temporals and much less any Authority in him to depose Princes that even in those times when Church-men had the greatest Power in this Kingdom Statutes were made with the joynt Votes of the Clergic upon occasion of some Usurpations of the Roman Court in which the Penalty was no less than a Praemunire against any one who without the Kings License should make any Appeals to Rome or submit to a Legats jurisdiction or upon the Popes Summons go out of the Kingdom or receive any Mandats or Brieffs from Rome or purchase Bulls for presentments to Churches and which is most considerable the ground of their rejecting Papal Usurpations is thus expressed For the Crown of England is free and hath been free from earthly subjection at all times being immediately subject to God in all things touching the Regalities of the same and not subject to the Pope to which he saith the Bishops assented and the Lords and Commons declared their Resolution to stand with the King in the cases aforesaid and in all other cases attempted against him his Crown and Regalitie in all points to live and to dye 2. That whatsoever they suffer here in England by vertue of the Poenal Laws it is purely for their Religion and the Catholick faith and therefore he parallels our Poenal Laws with those of the Medes and Persians against Daniel and of Nero Domitian and Dioclesian against the Apostles and their successors and yet Mr. Cressy confesses that the occasion of the Poenal Laws was the treasonable actions of some of their own Religion but he adds that they were scarce one score of persons and abhorred by all the rest for which actions of theirs he confesseth that care is taken of exacting Oaths both of Fidelity and Supremacy from Roman Catholicks as dangerous Subjects and dayes of Thanksgiving are kept for the discovery and prevention of such personal Treasons whereas saith he the whole Kingdoms deliverance from almost an universal Rebellion designing the extinction of Monarchy and Prelacy both and executing the murder of the lawful Soveraign is not esteemed a sufficient motive for such publick Thanksgivings neither it seems is there at all a necessity of requiring from any a Retraction of the Principles of Rebellion or a promise that it shall not be renewed By which we might think Mr. Cressy had been utterly a stranger in his own Countrey and had never heard of the thirtieth of Ianuary or the twenty ninth of May which are solemnly observed in our Church and the Offices joyned
reservations in their minds they give instead of real satisfaction greater cause of jealousie because of the abuse they put thereby upon the Government For if men do aequivocate in renouncing aequivocation which it is very possible for men that hold that Doctrine to do they thereby forfeit their credit to so high a degree that they cannot be safely trusted in any Oaths or Protestations This therefore ought to be made sure that men use the greatest sincerity in what they do or else there is no ground to grant any favour upon their offers of satisfaction 3. Where there is sufficient ground to believe that the much greater number will not give sufficient satisfaction as to the renouncing the dangerous principles to Civil Government there is no reason for a total repeal of the Poenal Laws already established For if the Reason of the Laws was just at first and the same Reason continues it becomes not the Wisdom of a Nation to take off the curb it hath upon a dangerous and growing party and however cautious and reserved many may seem while the Laws are in force no man knows how much those principles may more openly shew themselves and what practices may follow upon them when impunity tempts them I do not plead for sanguinary Laws towards innocent and peaceably minded men whatever their opinions be and how hardly soever my Adversaries think and speak of me I would shew my Religion to be better than theirs by having more Charity and Kindness towards them than I â—ear they would shew me were I in their circumstances but I find that even some of themselves think fit not to have those Laws taken off from men of the Iesuitical Principles as appears by a Discourse written to that purpose since his Majesties Return by one of their own Religion Wherein he shews 1. That the Iesuitical party by their unjust and wicked practices provoked the Magistrates to enact those Laws and that their seditious principles are too deeply guilty of the Blood of Priests and Catholicks shed in the Kingdom ever since they came into it and that it is their principle to manage Religion not by perswasion but by command and force and then reckons up the several Treasons in Queen Elizabeth's time the Iesuitical design of excluding the Scottish succession and title of our Soveraign the Gunpowder Treason which if it were not their invention he confesses they were highly accessary to it by prayers before hand and publick testifications after the fact was discovered nay many years after they did and peradventure to this very day still do pertinaciously adhere to it 2. That their practices of usurping Iurisdiction making Colledges and Provinces in and for Enland possessing themselves of great summs of money for such ends are against the ancient Laws of the Land even in Catholick times it being the Law of England that no Ecclesiastical Community may settle here unless admitted by the Civil Power and those that entertain them are subject to the penalties ordained by the Ancient Laws 3. That it is no evidence of their Loyalty that any of them have been of the Kings side it being a Maxim or Practice of their Society in quarrels of Princes and Great men to have some of their Fathers on one part and others for the contrary which is a manifest sign they are faithful to neither 4. That there is no ground to trust them because of their doctrine of Probability and their General can make what doctrine he pleases probable for the opinion of three Divines is sufficient to make a Doctrine probable and whatever is so must be done by them when commanded by their Superiours so that the tenderness of their Consciences is only about doing or doing what their Superiours orders them besides their doctrines about deposing Princes Equivocations mental Reservations and divers other juggles 5. That they have never yet renounced the doctrine of the Popes deposing Princes that their Generals order against teaching this doctrine was a meer trick and never pretended to reach England that Santarellus his Book was Printed ten years after it teaching the power of deposing in all latitude and why should the peace of Kingdoms have no better security than their Generals Order Who knows how soon that may alter when good circumstances happen and then it will be a mortal sin not to teach this doctrine that the Iesuits have never spoken one unkind word against this Power of deposing Princes that when the Pope shall think fit to attempt deposing a King of England no doubt their Generals Order will be released 6. That by their particular vow of obedience to the Pope they are bound to do whatever he commands them as for example if the Pope should excommunicate or depose the Prince and command them to move Catholicks to take up Arms they are bound by their Vow to do it 7. That they make themselves Soveraigns over the Kings Subjects by usurping a power of life and death over those of their Order for pretended crimes committed in England which is High Treason for their Subjects have other Soveraigns besides the King 8. That there can be no sufficient security given by them who hold the Popes personal infallibility for whatever protestations or renunciations they may make at present they will be obliged to the contrary whensoever the Pope declares his judgement so and therefore no hearty Allegiance can be expected from those who hold it but such as must waver with every blast from Rome 9. That they not only renounce the doctrines of Equivocation and Mental Reservation without which all other protestations afford very little security but men ought to be assured that they do not practise them when they do renounce them and he desires them to find out some way for this which it seems came not into his head 10. That without renouncing those doctrines which are dangerous to the Civil Government there is no reason to expect favour from it for temporal subjection to Princes is the main ground of the peace and good Government of the Common-wealth and what is against that is against the Law of God and Nature § 24. I now come in the last place to consider the proposals made by Mr. Cressy for satisfaction to the Government and the repeal of the poenal Laws which are of two kinds 1. Subscribing the censures of the Faculty of Paris 1663. and 1626. 2. Taking the Oath of Allegiance if the word heretical were turned into Repugnant to the word of God But 1. It were worth knowing what Authority Mr. Cressy had to make these proposals in behalf of all the Roman-Catholicks of England he saith indeed that his Book is published permissâ— Superiorum and what he writes is not the inconsiderable opinion of one particular person only And what then It may be two or three more may be of his mind it may be his Superiours are it may be several Gentlemen not governed by the Iesuitical party aâ—e but is the