and Attempts against Her Majesties most Royal Person now for the explaining of all such Ambiguities and Questions which otherwise might happen to grow by reason of any sinister or wrong Construction or Interpretation to be made or inferred of or upon the Words or Meaning thereof Be it declared and enacted by the Authority of this present Parliament The Association approved and confirmed that the said Association and every Article and Sentence therein contained as well concerning the disallowing extending or disabling of any Persons that may or shall pretend any Title to come to the Crown of this Realm and also for the pursuing and taking Revenge of any Person for any such wicked Act or Attempt as is mentioned in the same Association shall and ought to be in all things expounded and adjudged according to the true Intent and Meaning of this Act not otherwise nor against any other Person or Persons The latter of the said two Acts of Parliament is intituled An Act against Jesuits Seminary Priests and such other like disobedient Persons The Preamble runs thus 27 Eliz. cap. 2. Rast Stat. 2. part f. 285. Treason for Priests and Jesuits to come into England Harbouring them Felony c. WHereas divers Persons called or professed Iesuits Seminary Priests and other Priests which have been and from time to time are made in the Parts beyond the Seas by or according to the Order and Rites of the Romish Church have of late years come in and been sent and dayly do come and are sent into this Realm of England and other the Queens Majesties Dominions on purpose as it hath appeared as well by sundry of their own Examinations and Confessions as by divers other manifest Means and Proofs not only to withdraw Her Highnesses Subjects from their due Obedience to Her Majesty but also to stir up and move Sedition Rebellion and open Hostility within the same Her Highnesses Realms and Dominions to the great indangering of the Safety of her most Royal Person and to the utter Ruine Desolation and Overthrow of the whole Realm if the same be not the sooner by some good Means foreseen and prevented For reformation whereof it is enacted That all Iesuits Seminary Priests and other Priests whatsoever Ordained within or without the Queens Dominions by virtue of the Popes Authority should depart within forty Days That those who should afterwards return into the Kingdom should be guilty of High-Treason That he who should wittingly and willingly Harbour Relieve and Maintain them should be guilty of Felony that those who were brought up in Seminaries if they returned not within six Months after Notice given and submitted not themselves to the Queen before a Bishop or two Iustices should be guilty of High Treason and if any so submitting themselves should within ten years approach the Quéens Court or come within ten Miles thereof their Submission should be void That those who should by any Means whatsoever send or convey over any Money to Students in such Seminaries should incur the Penalty of a Premunire That if any of the Peers of the Realm that is Dukes Marquisses Earls Viscounts or Barons of Parliament should offend against these Laws he should be brought to his Tryal by his Peers That if any should know of any such Iesuits or other Priests above said lurking within the Realm and should not discover them within twelve Days he should be Fined and Imprisoned at the Queens Pleasure That if any Man should be suspected to be a Iesuit or Priest as aforesaid and not submit himself to Examination he should for his Contempt be imprisoned till he did submit himself That he who should send his Children or any others to Seminaries and Colledges of the Popish Profession should be fined in an hundred Pounds of English Money and that those who were so sent thither should not succeed as Heirs nor enjoy any Estates which should any way fall to them the like for all such as should not return home from the said Seminaries within a year unless they did conform themselves to the Church of England That if the Wardens or Officers of the Ports should permit any others besides Sea-men and Merchants to cross the Seas without Licence of the Quéen or six Privy Councellors they should be put out of their Places and the Masters of such Ships as carried them should forfeit their Ships and Goods and suffer Imprisonment for a whole Year Reflections upon the foregoing Plots Treasons and Acts of Parliament occasioned by them From which said Plots Conspiracies and Treasons and the said Acts of Parliament occasioned by the same I observe these things amongst many others observable 1. That there are no Villanies that can be imagined so bad but the Romish Clergy even the Pope himself will tell you is lawful to be Committed to carry on the interest of that Religion and instruments enough are to be found amongst Men of that Communion to undertake the Committing thereof one instance whereof we have in this Parry who did not only think it lawful but undertook it to murder his own Lawful Soveraign and had Authority so to do from the Pope himself and that he might sit in the House of Commons must needs be Guilty of a Wilful Perjury for by 13. Eliz. cap. 2. none could sit in that House but he who first had taken the Oath of Supremacy and that he did sit there is plain from the History and tho it doth not appear that he had a Dispensation for it yet 't is not to be doubted but that he was sure of a Pardon in case he had not a Dispensation 2. That the Protestants in those days thought it not only lawful but their Duty to Associate for the preservation of their Prince and of their Religion and having so done they were so far from being blamed by the Parliament that the Parliament did esteem it not only as a Lawful but a Commendable Act and added their Sanction to confirm what before they judged Lawful 3. That the Parliament in the 27 th Year of Queen Elizabeths Reign were so far from questioning their own power of determining and limiting the Crown and the Succession thereof that they did not only think it in their Power but reduced it into Act too to make the Successor Guilty of High Treason that should imbrue His or Her hands in the Blood of the Predecessor and hereby altered the Law 1. H. 7.4 Fitz. Abr. tit Parl. 3. Bro. Abr. tit Parl. 37. Plowd 238. b. that the Accession to the Crown purges the Treason because all Persons named in Acts of Parliament even the King himself are bound by such Acts of Parliament wherein they are named they being no ways alterable but by the same power not Persons that made them 4. That the severity of the Laws hitherto made did not actually deter the Papists from Plotting and Conspiring the Death of the Queen and the subverting the Protestant Religion Nor was it likely to
without any evasion equivocation or mental reservation whatsoever and without any dispensation already granted me for this purpose by the Pope or any other Authority or Person whatsoever or without any hope of any such dispensation from any Person or Authority whatsoever or without thinking that I am or can be acquitted before God or Man or absolved of this Declaration or any Part thereof although the Pope or any other Person or Persons or Power whatsoever should dispence with or annul the same or declare that it was null and void from the beginning The same Oaths and Declarations to be made in every succeeding Parliament in full House that all members of Parliament not swearing and declaring as aforesaid and Popish Recusants convict are forbidden the Kings and Queens presence That if any Member of the House of Peers or Commons do any thing contrary to this Act or shall offend in any of the Cases aforesaid such Member should be thenceforth judged a Popish Recusant Convict and should be disabled to hold or execute any Office in any of his Majesties Dominions and likewise to sit and â—ote in either House of Parliament or make his Proxy in the House of Peers or in prosecute any suit in Law or Equity or to be Guardian to a Child or Executor or Administrator to any Person and uncapable of any Legacy Deed or Gift and should fofeit for every willful offence against this Act the sum of Five hundred Pounds to be recovered by whomsoever would sue for the same and to be prosecuted in any of his Majesties Courts where no Essoin Protection or Wager of Law should lye that either House of Parliament may cause any of their Members to swear and subscribe as aforesaid and upon their sitting without taking the same they should be adjudged disabled in Law to all intents whatsoever to sit or vote in the said Houses during that Parliament That the Places of Members of the House of Commons disabled to vote should be void and new Writs issue out for new Elections that the King and Queens sworn Servants should swear as aforesaid and subscribe the Declaration and that if after refusal of the same they presumed to come into their Majesties presence they should be disabled to hold any place and incur the Penalties aforesaid Nothing contained in this Act to relate to the Subjects of the King of Portugal being in the Queen Dowagers service not exceeding the number of eighteen at one time That during the taking the Oaths all proceedings in Parliament should cease and the Oaths c. and Names of the Persons who should take them should be entred in Parchment Rolls and for every such entry not above the sum of Twelve pence to be paid This Act not to extend to such who come into the King or Queens presence being Licensed by six Privy-Counsellors upon some urgent occasion therein to be expressed and such License not to exceed Ten days at a time and not above Thirty days in a Year That all offenders against this Act that shall take the said Oaths c. shall be discharged and freed from all Penalties and Incapacities incurred thereby but such freedom and discharge not to extend to restore any such person to any office or place filled upon voidance by this Act nor to any other Officer till after the Expiration of one Year from taking the said Oath c. nor to discarge the said forfeiture of Five hundred Pounds as aforesaid nothing in this Act to extend to the then Duke of York Thus I have given an Historical Account of the making of these Laws and of the Laws themselves and as they were highly reasonable in their Making so certainly it is as highly reasonable to continue them if the attemps of the Popish party under King James the Second be duly weighed which were carried so far that the Protestant Religion had been inevitably destroyed with the Professors thereof had not we been redeemed out of their hands by the Conduct and Valour of his present Majesty to whom under God we owe our Deliverance and therefore can never sufficiently express our gratitude He hath given sufficient Testimony of his Zeal for the Protestant Religion and therefore it is reasonable to believe that he will readily concur to the Making any Laws that shall be thought fit to preserve it I know of but one and that is Castration of all Priests and Jesuites when ever they are found here and breeding up the Children of Papists in the Protestant Religion Which I humbly offer to the Consideration of the Parliament for I believe this will terrify them more than Gallows or Galleys And how necessary it is for this Kingdom to rid themselves of this Vermin every one sees but they that are either Papists or so blinded with hopes or expectations of the late Kings return that they neither can nor will see And now methinks I hear some of the Church of England tell me I have shewn the reasonableness of the Laws against the Papists but have not said one word in vindication of the Laws against the Dissenters who have been as violent against the Church of England as ever the Papists were and the Laws against them are equally as just To this I give this Answer that I ways alwas of Opinion that the differences between the Church of England and the Dissenters have been made and carried on by the Papists And I wish there were not too much truth in it that the Papists influenced the Counsels when the Laws were made against the Dissenters I am sure a very Learned Pen * Dr. Sherlock of the Church England own'd the putting them in severe Execution the last seven or eight years to have proceeded from Popish Councils And I doubt not but the severe usage of the Church of England by the Dissenters when in Power was promoted by the same Party Since therefore the Papists can transform themselves into all shapes to promote differences amongst Protestants in order to their Ruine it can't certainly but be honest Policy for the Protestants in order to the preservation of the whole to unite against them as the common Enemy And therefore as we who are Lawyers never love to go to Law especially with one another so the Protestants in England under the denomination of the Church of England and Dissenter being now pretty even as to severities on both hands let them no more quarrel but shake hands and be friends which will tend more to the preservation of the true Religion amongst us than all the Laws that can be made FINIS
submit themselves to the Romish Bishops and Prelates and the Histories of those times acquaint us that they were the Professors of the true Religion afterwards called Protestants By Colour of this supposed Act certain persons that held that Images were not to be worshipped Co. Inst 3 d. fol. 40. and such like Doctrines which the Protestants now hold were detained and tormented in Prison till they were compelled before the Masters of Divinity as they called themselves to take an Oath and did swear to worship Images which was against the Moral and Eternal Law of Almighty God. This these Popish Bishops and Prelates did by vertue of this Law which indeed was none for it was onely signed by the King at the instance of the Bishops and Prelates and never assented to by the Commons and therefore in the next Parliament the Commons preferred a Bill reciting the said supposed Act and constantly affirmed that they never assented thereunto and therefore desired that the same might be made void for they protested that it was never their intent to be justified and to bind themselves and their Successors to the Prelates more than their Ancestors had done in times past whereto the King gave his Royal Assent in these words y pleist au Roy. But in the Proclamation of the Acts of that Parliament Co. 12.58 and 3. Inst f. 41. which was 6. R. 2. the said Act of 6. R. 2. whereby the said supposed Act of 5. R. 2. was declared to be void is omitted and afterwards the said supposed Act of 5. R. 2. ca. 5. was continually printed and looked on as a Good Law and the said Act of 6. R. 2. was by the Prelates from time to time kept from the Print Such pious Frauds have been always practised by the Popish Clergy and always found necessary for the supporting of the credit of that Church CHAP. II. Hen. IV. THe Rage of the Popish Clergy against the Wicklivites or Professors of the true Religion increasing with the increase of the light of the Gospel and they fearing that the said contrivance might be detected to the end that they might be yet more able effectually if it were possible to suppress the truth when they had requited R. 2. for granting them that supposed Law with deposing him and assisting H. 4. to usurp the Crown they in the 2 d. H. 4. apply themselves to him for a further Law for the preservation of the Catholick Faith as they called it against Christ's true Religion by them miscalled Heresie and he in gratitude to them in assisting him in his coming to the Crown granted them a Law to their Hearts content which follows as it is printed in Rastal 's Statutes in these words Whereas it is shewed to our Soveraign Lord the King on the behalf of the Prelates and Clergy of this Realm of England in this present Parliament 2 H. 4. ca. 15. Rast Stat. f. 180. By this Law the Professors of the true Religion were to be burnt as Hereticks that although the Catholick Faith builded upon Christ and by his Apostles and the holy Church sufficiently determined declared and approved hath been hitherto by good and holy and most noble Progenitors of our Soveraign Lord the King in the said Realm amongst all the Realms of the World most devoutly observed and the Church of England by his said most noble Progenitors and Ancestors to the honour of God and of the whole Realm aforesaid laudably endowed and in her Rights and Liberties sustained without that that the same Faith or the said Church was hurt or grievously oppressed or else perturbed by any perverse Doctrine or Wicked Heretical or Erronious Opinions Yet nevertheless divers false and perverse people of a certain new Sect of the Faith of the Sacraments of the Church and the Authority of the same damnably thinking and against the Law of God and of the Church usurping the Office of Preaching do perversly and malitiously in divers places within the said Realm under the colour of dissembled Holiness preach and teach these dayes openly and privily divers new Doctrines and wicked heretical and eronious Opinions contrary to the same Faith and blessed determinations of the Holy Church And of such Sect and wicked Doctrine and Opinions they make unlawful Conventicles and Confederacies they hold and exercise Schools they make and write Books they do wickedly instruct and informe people and as much as they may excite and stir them to Sedition and Insurrection and maketh great strife and division among the people and other Enormities horribly to be heard daily do perpetrate and commit in subversion of the said Catholick Faith and Doctrine of the Holy Church in diminution of God's Honour and also in destruction of the Estates Rights and Liberties of the said Church of England by which Sect and wicked and false Preachings Doctrines and Opinions of the said false and perverse people not only most greatest peril of the Souls but also many other harts flanders and perils which God prohibit might come to this Realm unless it be the more plentifully and speedily holpen by the King's Majesty in this behalf namely whereas the Diocesans of the said Realm cannot by their Iurisdiction Spiritual without aid of the said Royal Majesty sufficiently correct the said false and perverse people nor refrain their malice because the said false and perverse people do go from Diocess to Diocess and will not appear before the said Diocesans but the same Diocesans and their Iurisdiction Spiritual and the Keys of the Church with the Censures of the same do utterly contemn and despise and so their wicked Preachings and Doctrines doth from day to day continue and exercise to the hatred of Right and Reason and utter destruction of Order and good Rule Vpon which Novelties and Excesses above rehersed the Prelates and Clergy aforesaid and also the Commons of the said Realm being in the said Parliament praying our Soveraign Lord the King that his Royal Highness would vouchsafe in the said Parliament to provide a convenient Remedy The same our Soveraign Lord the King gratiously considering the premises and also the laudable steps of his said most noble Progenitors and Ancestors for the conservation of the said Catholick Faith and sustentation of God's Honour and also the safeguard of the Estates Rights and Liberties of the said Church of England to the laud of God and merit of our said Soveraign Lord the King and prosperity and honour of all the said Realm and for the eschewing of such Dissentions divisions hurts slanders and perils in time to come and that this wicked Sect preachings doctrines and Opinions should from henceforth cease and be utterly destroyed by the assent of the States and other discreet men of the Realm being in the said Parliament hath Granted Established and Ordained from henceforth and firmly to be observed That none within the said Realm or any other Dominions subject to his Royal Majesty presume to preach openly
taken by a general Councel free and Lawfully called to pluck up those Roots of Dangers and Jealousies which arise about Religion as well between Prince and Prince as between them and their Subjects and to make it manifest that no States or Potentates either hath or can Challenge power to dispose of Earthly Kingdoms or Monarchies or to dispense with Subjects obedience to their natural Soveraign In which charitable Account there will be no Prince living that will be readier then we shall be to concur even to the utmost of our Power not only out of particular Disposition to live peaceably with all States and Princes of Christendom but because such a settled Amity might by an union in Religion be established amongst Christian Princes as might enable us all to resist the common Enemy Given at our Pallace at Westminster the 22 d. Day of February in the first Year of our Reign c. This Proclamation I thought fit to insert because by it it appears that King James himself was of opinion that the before mentioned Conspiracy was conceived by the Popish Priests however they prevailed upon some of the Protestant Profession to joyn with them in Midwiving it into the World and therefore may truly be called Popish By the Kings issuing out this Proclamation the heat and hopes of the Jesuits and their Correspondents were somewhat allayed but it made way for more dark and secret Contrivances which they afterwards put into Practice and I shall give a full Account of But before I do that I shall give you King James the First his Opinion of the Papists both Laicks and Clericks as he himself delivered it in his first Speech to his first Parliament in 1603. Take it in his own Words as related by Wilson King James his Speech against Papists Wilson f. 19. For the Papists I must put a difference betwixt my own private Profession of my Salvation and my politick Government of the Realm for the weal and quietness thereof As for my own Profession you have me your Head now among You of the same Religion that the Body is of as I am no stranger to you in Blood no more am I a stranger to you in Faith or in Matters concerning the House of God. And altho' this my Profession be according to my Education wherein I thank God I suckt the Milk of Gods truth with the Milk of my Nurse yet I do here protest unto you that I would never for such a Conceit of Constancy or other prejudicate Opinion have so firmly kept my first Profession if I had not found it agreeable to all Reason and to the Rule of my Conscience But I was never violent nor unreasonable in my Profession I acknowledge the Roman Church to be our Mother Church altho defiled with some Infirmities and Corruptions as the Jews were before they Crucified Christ And as I am no Enemy to the Life of a sick Man because I would have his Body purged of ill Humours no more am I an Enemy to their Church because I would have them reform their Errors not wishing the down-throwing of the Temple but that it might be purged and cleaned from Corruption Otherwise how can they wish us to enter if their House be not first made clean But as I would be lother to dispense in the least point of mine own Conscience for any Worldly respect then the foolishest Precisian of them all So would I be as sorry to streighten the politick Government of the Bodies and Minds of all my Subjects to my private Opinions Nay my Mind was ever so free from Persecution or inthralling of my Subjects in Matters of Conscience King James his Mildness to Papists as I hope those of that Profession within this Kingdom have a proof since my Coming that I was so far from increasing their Burthens with Rhehoboam as I have so much as either time occasion or Law could permit lightned them And even now at this time have I been careful to revise and consider deeply upon the Laws made against them that some Overture might be made to the present Parliament for clearing these Laws by reason which is the Soul of the Law in Case they have been in times past further or more rigorously extended by Judges then the meaning of the Law was or might tend to the hurt as well of the innocent as of the guilty Persons And as to the Persons of my Subjects which are of that Profession I must divide them into two ranks Clericks and Laicks for the Laicks I ever thought them far more excuseable then the other sort because their Religion containeth such an ignorant doubtful and implicite kind of Faith grounded upon their Church that except they do generally believe whatsoever their Teachers please to affirm they cannot be thought guilty of these particular points of Heresies and Corruptions which their Teachers so wilfully profess And again I must subdivide the Laick into two Ranks which are either quiet and well minded Men peaceable Subjects who either being old retain their first Drunk in Liquor upon a certain Shamefacedness to be thought Curious or Changeable Or being young Men through evil Education have been Nursed and brought up upon such Venome instead of wholsome Nutriment and this sort of People I would be sorry to punish their Bodies for the Error of their Minds the Reformation whereof must only come of God and the true Spirit But the other Rank of Laicks who either through Curiosity Affectation of Novelty or Discontentment have changed their Coats only to be Factious stirers of Sedition and perturbers of the Common-wealth this giveth a ground to me the Magistrate to take better heed to their Proceedings and to correct their Obstinacy But for the Clericks I must directly say and affirm that as long as they maintain one special point of their Doctrine and another of their Practise they are no way sufferable to remain in this Kingdom the point of Doctrine is that Arrogant and Ambitious Supremacy of their Head the Pope whereby he not only Claims to be spiritual Head of all Christians but also to have an Emperial Civil power over all Kings and Emperors Dethroning and Crowning Princes with his Foot as pleaseth him and dispensing and disposing of all Kingdoms and Empires at his Appetite The other point which they observe in continual Practise is the Assassinates and Murthers of Kings Thinking it no sin but rather a Matter of Salvation to do all Acts of Rebellion and Hostility against their natural Sovereign Lord if he be once Cursed his Subjects discharged of their Fidelity and his Kingdom given a prey by that three Crowned Monarch or rather Monster their Head. And in this point I have no occasion to speak further here saving that I could wish from my Heart It would please God to make me one of the Members of such a general Christian Union in Religion as laying Wilfulness aside on both hands we might meet in the midst which
in one Week viz. in May 1606 who though he won his Wager yet was a Looser never getting his Winnings Piercy Wright c. who now lurked about London to expect the fatal Blow informed of the Discovery takes Horse making what haste they can to their Companions appointed to be at the Rendezvous on Dunsmore in brief according to their Abilities they run into open Rebellion but to their own Destruction The high Sheriffs with other Magistrates and Loyal Subjects so hunting them that they were either all dispersed slain or taken and the Chief of them afterwards condemned and executed Proceedings against Garnet and his Confederates printed by Robert Barker Printeâ— to the Kings most excellent Majesty 1606. to prevent untrue and incoherent Reports and Relations of their Tryals as the Epistle to the Book informs us And for the Confirmation of the Truth of these things I shall here insert the Heads of Sir Edward Coke's Speech at the Tryal of Robert Winter and divers others for their Treason in Westminster-Hall before the Earl of Nottingham the Earl of Suffolk the Earl of Worcester the Earl of Devonshire the Earl of Northampton the Earl of Salisbury the Lord Chief Justice of England the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer Sir Peter Warburton Knight one of the Justices of the Court of Common-Pleas Lords Commissioners for that purpose On the 27 th of January 1605. were arraigned upon one Indictment Robert Winter Esq Thomas Winter Gent. Guy Fawks Gent. John Garnet Esq Ambrose Rookwood Esq Robert Keys Gent. and Thomas Bates upon another Indictment Sir Everard Digby At the Tryal of Winter and the rest upon the first Indictment * The Heads of the Speech of Sir Edward Coke at the Tryal of some of the Conspirators Sir Edward Coke than Attorney General made a very long and learned Speech wherein he first answered the Clamor that the Papists and their Adherents had then made because they were not sooner tryed Then he opened the Hainousness of the Crime in all the Aggravating Circumstances of it He said that as the Powder-Treason was of its self prodigious and unnatural so was it in its Conception and Birth most monstrous as arising out of the dead Ashes of former Treasons and then takes notice of very many if not all the Treasons before mentioned I think in this Speech and the Speech he made at Garnets Tryal all I am sure the most are taken in He then considered the Powder-Plot it self with regard to the Persons by whom the same was conspired And they were Clergy and Laity of the Roman Communion The Laity Gentlemen of good Houses of excellent Parts however most perniciously seduced abused corrupted and Jesuited of very competent Fortunes and Estates It being then said that there was never a Religious Man in the Action saith he in answer I never yet knew a Treason without a Romish Priest and names as ingaged in this Henry Garnet alias Wally the Superior of the Jesuits Legier here in England Father Creswel Legier Jesuit in Spain Father Baldwin Legier in Flanders as Parsons at Rome besides their Cursory Men as Gerrard Oswald Tesmond alias Greenway Hamond and Hall then he opened the Doctrines and Practices of the Jesuits and other Priests of the Romish Church which he proves from Simanca Creswels Philopater and other Books Then he considered the Persons against whom this Treason was conspired the King the Queen the Royal Issue Male the most honourable and prudent Councellors and all the true hearted and worthy Nobles all the Reverend and Learned Bishops all the Grave Judges and Sages of the Law all the principal Knights Citizens and Burgeesss of Parliament the Flower of the whole Realm Then he considered that this was designed notwithstanding the King had used so great Lenity toward the Papists that by the space of a whole Year and four Months he took no Penalties of them due upon the Statutes and besides this divers of the Papists were greatly preferred Then he considered the House of Parliament which they pretended they chose because there the Penal Laws were made against them which he answered by briefly showing what Laws were made against them and that their own Treasons were the true Grounds of making them Then he considered the End of this Conspiracy which was to bring a final and fatal Confusion upon the State and this is to be effected by damnable Means by mineing by thirty six Barrels of Powder having Crows of Iron Stone and Wood laid upon the Barrels to have made the Breach the greater Then he considered the Secresie of the Contrivance and Carriage of this Treason in three Respects the first that Catesby had Recommendation for a Regiment of Horse in the Low-Countries that under that Pretence he might furnish this Treason with Horse without Suspicion The Second was the Oath before mentioned The Third the Sacrament He then took notice of the admirable Discovery of this Treason and proceeded to make nine several Observations upon the whole which were these First The Mine had never been discovered had not the Cellar been hired 2. The Kings Directing the Search to be made there from those dark Words A Terrible Blow 3. Catesby Rookwood and Grants their narrow Escapes having a few Days before they were taken been in very great Danger of being blown up by Gun-powder 4. Gun-powder was the Invention of a Fryar 5. Binham was sent to the Pope to give notice of this Blow and to crave his Direction and Aid 6. Notwithstanding their rising in open Rebellion and giving out that the Catholics Throats would be cut not one Man came in to take their Parts but their own Company 7. The Sheriff immediately supprest them 8. The Discovery was made a few hours before it was to have been put in Execution 9. That there never was any Protestant Minister in any Treason and Murther that had been then attempted within the Realm Then he compared this Plot with that of Raleigh and Watson and Clark. 1. They had both one end 2. Both to be effected by Popish and discontented Persons Priests and Laymen 3. They all played at Hazzard the Priests were at the By Raleigh at the Main but these in at all purposing to destroy King Issue whole State. 4. All obliged by the same Oath and Sacrament 5. The same Proclamation after the Fact for Reformation of Abuses 6. The like Army provided for Invading 7. The same Pension of Crows promised 8. The Agreeing of the Times which was when the Constable of Spain was coming hither which was intended a Colour to the Invasion that it might not be suspected After Sir Edward Coke had ended his Speech The Evidence against the Traitors the Examinations of Winter and the rest subscribed by themselves were shown particularly to every one of them and acknowledged by them to be their own and true and in their Examinations every one had confest the Treason which Confessions were afterwards openly and distinctly read by
and to employ the Power he left him to restablish him in the Estate and Dignitys of his Father on the 27th of March in the Twenty third Year of his Reign he gave up the Ghost From what Account I have given of Matters relating to the making the Penal Laws and the Reasons of not putting them in Execution in this Kings Reign I gather these things 1. That there is no heed to be taken to any promises made Advice given nor Oaths taken by Papists for if the Interest of the Popish Religion Intervenes the Promises Advice yea even the Oaths themselves must give way and 't is Meritorious too 2. That when it is to serve the Popish Interest they are allowed to deny the plainest truths although confest by Men in Articulo Mortis at the very point of Death 3. That whenever they are detected of any Conspiracy or Treason they immediately set their Wits to work to throw the odium of it upon some sort of Protestants or other nay sometimes they make it an essential part of the Conspiracy it self 4. That when they found themselves lost as to more private Conspiracies they involved Christendom in War to destroy the Protestant Interest upon the Colour of the Elector Palatines having Usurped the Crown of Bohemia notwithstanding he was legally Elected and made use of the Cowardise of King James to carry on that Design 5. That they want not Arts to deceive even Protestants themselves if they look not narrowly to them so much can they transform themselves into the likeness of Truth 6. That the loss of the Palatinate the differences between King James the first and his Parliaments the Spanish Treaty and at last the compleating the French Match were all carried on by Popish Intregues and to serve the Popes turn Certainly then there was good reason for the making the Penal Laws in this Kings Reign and the Parliament are greatly justified in pressing an Execution of them which had it been granted a Man may with good reason believe all the Civil Wars in the succeeding Reign had been prevented And this might lead me to show the share the Popish Party had in the beginning managing and carrying on that unhappy and ever to be lamented War but my design being only to show the reasonableness of making the Penal Laws against the Papists and there being but one Law made against them in this unfortunate Princes Reign I shall only give the grounds of making that Law and pass on to the Reign of his Son King Charles the Second CHAP. IX K. Ch. I. King Charles 1. His Accession to the Crown Bakers Chron. f. 451. Rushw Coll. 1 Pt. f. 165 167 170. KIng James the First being dead King Charles the First was immdiately Proclaimed he buried his Father the 7th of May 1625. The 13th of June in the same Year the Match between him and the French Kings daughter was consummated here in England A Chappel at Sommerset House was built for the Queen and her Family with conveniences thereunto adjoyning for Capuchin Fryers who were therein placed and had permission to walk abroad in their Religious Habits Thence forwards greater multitudes of Seminary Priests and Jesuites repaired into England out of foreign Parts then before The Parliament meet The 18th day of June the Parliament opened they after the usual Proceedings at the first sitting down Petitioned the King concerning Religion and against Papists he by his Answer gave them assurance of his real performance of what they desired in every particular Papists Pardon'd contrary to promise Rushw Coll. 1 Pt. f. 280. But notwithstanding this soon after his Majesty granted a Pardon to one Alexander Baker a Jesuite and unto ten other Papists which was gotten as there was information given by the importunity of some Foreign Ambassador and passed by immediate Warrant and was recommended by the Principal Secretary of State without the payment of the ordinary Fees. And divers Copys of Letters and other Papers found by two Justices of Peace in the House of one Mary Estmonds in Dorsetshire were stifled by the Secretarys means The Commons upon these passages made observations First that the Pardon was dated the very next day after his Answer to their Petition Secondly That the Pardon dispensed with several Laws as 21. and 27. Eliz. and 3. Jac. provided to keep the Subjects in due obedience Thirdly That the Pardon was signed by the Principal Secretary of State. The Commons therefore declared that these actings tended to the prejudice of true Religion his Majesties dishonour the discountenancing of Ministers of Justice the grief of the good People the animating of the Popish Party who by such Examples grew more proud and insolent and to the discouragement of the High Court of Parliament The Petition concerning Religion and the Kings Answer take as they are printed in Rushworths Collection First Part f. 281. To the King 's Most Excellent Majesty Most Gracious Sovereign IT being infallibly true that nothing can more establish the Throne and assure the Peace and Prosperity of the People then the unity and sincerity of Religion we your most humble and Loyal Subjects the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of this present Parliament assembled and hold themselves bound in Conscience and Duty to represent the same to your Sacred Majesty together with the dangerous consequences of the increase of Popery in this Land and what we conceive to be the principal cause thereof and what may be the Remedies The Dangers appear in these Particulars 1. In their desperate ends being both the Subversion of the Church and State and the restlessness of their Spirits to attain these ends the Doctrine of their Teachers and Leaders perswading them that therein they do God good Service 2. Their evident and strict dependency upon such Foreign Princes as no way affect the good of your Majesty and this State. 3. The opening a way of popularity to the Ambition of any who shall adventure to make himself head of so great a Party The Principal Cause of the increase of Papists 1. The want of the due Execution of the Laws against Jesuits Seminary Priests and Popish Recusants occasioned partly by the Connivency of the State partly by defects in the Laws themselves and partly by the manifold abuse of Officers 2. The interposing of Foreign Princes by their Ambassadors and Agents in favour of them 3. Their great Concourse to the City and frequent Conferences and Conventicles there 4. The open and usual resort to the House and Chappels of Foreign Ambassadors 5. the Education of their Children in Seminaries and Houses of their Religion in Foreign Parts which of late hath been greatly multiplied and enlarged for the entertaining of the English 6. That in some places of your Realm your People be not sufficiently Instructed in the Knowledge of the true Religion 7. The Licentious Printing and Dispersing of Popish and Seditious Books 8. The Employment of Men ill affected in Religion in
the Honour of God so much as in you lyeth I Grant and promise so to do Then one of the Bishops read this passage to the King. Our Lord and King we beseech you to Pardon and to Grant and to preserve unto us and to the Churches committed to your Charge all Canonical Privildges and do Law and Justice and that you would protect and defend us as every good King to his Kingdom ought to be a Protector and Defender of the Bishops and the Churches under their Government The King Answereth With a willing and devout Heart I Promise and Grant my Pardon and that I will preserve and maintain to you and the Churches committed to your Charge all Canonical Priviledges and due Law and Justice and that I will be your Protector and Defender to my Power by the assistance of God as every good King in his Kingdom in right ought to protect and defend the Bishops and Churches under their Government Then the King arose and was led to the Communion Table where he takes a solemn Oath in sight of all the People to observe all the Promises and laying his hand upon the Bible said The things which I have here Promised I shall perform and keep So help me God and the Contents of this Book The sixth Day of February the Parliament met The Parliament meets Papists are prohibited from going to Mass at Ambassadors Houses the Judges are ordered to put the Laws in Execution againsts Papists which notwithstanding the Committee of Grievances reported to the Commons House That one general evil was the encrease and countenancing of Papists The Marshal of Middlesex meeting with resistance in seizing of Romish Priests Goods and complaining of the matter the then Arch-Bishop writ to Mr. Attorney General on behalf of the Priests which Letter was as followeth Good Mr. Attorney I thank you for acquainting me what was done Yesterday at the Clinck But I am of opinion The Arch-Bishops Letter on behalf of the Priests Rushw Coll. 1. part f. 243. that if you had curiously enquired upon the Gentleman who gave the Information you should have found him to be a Disciple of the Jesuites for they do nothing but put Tricks on these poor Men who do live more miserable Lives then if they were in the Inquisition in many parts beyond the Seas By taking the Oath of Allegiance and writing in defence of it and opening some points of high consequence they have so displeased the Pope that if by any cunning they could catch them they are sure to be burnt or strangled for it and once there was a Plot to have taken Preston By this Letter it appears how unwilling the Government was to be in any sort cruel even the Priests and yet how ungrateful are the Papists to this Day as he passed the Thames and to have shipped him into a bigger Vessel and so to have transported him into Flanders there to have made a Martyr of him in respect of these things King James always gave his Protection to Preston and Warrington as may be easily shewed Cannon is an old Man well affected to the cause but medleth not with any Factions or Seditions as far as I can learn they complain their Books were taken from them and a Crucifix of Gold with some other things which I hope are not carried out of the House but may be restored again unto them for it is in vain to think that Priests will be without their Beads or Pictures Models of their Saints and it is not improbable that before a Crucifix they do often say their Prayers I leave the things to your best Consideration and hope that this deed of yours together with my word will restrain them for giving offence hereafter if so be that lately they did give any I heartily commend me unto you and so rest Your very Loving Friend G. Canterbury The Parliament Petition the King against Papists Rushw Coll. 1. part f. 391. In this Parliament the Commons Petitioned the King to remove the Papists or justly suspected out of Places of Government Authority and Trust and named them of the Nobility and Gentry to the number of sixty one who were got into such Offices and prayed they might be displaced The Petition and Names take as followeth To the Kings most Excellent Majesty The Parliaments Petition against Papists with the names of the Persons who were crept into Offices notwithstanding the severity of the Laws against them YOur Majesties most Obedient and Loyal Subjects the Commons in this present Parliament assembled do with great Comfort remember the many Testimonies which your Majesty hath given of your sincerity and Zeal of the true Religion established in this Kingdom and in your particular gracious Answer to both Houses of Parliament at Oxford upon their Petition concerning the Causes and Remedies of the increase of Popery that your Majesty thought fit and would give Order to remove from all places of Authority and Government all such Persons as are either Popish Recusants or according to direction of former Acts of State justly to be suspected which was then presented as a great and principal Cause of that Mischief But not having received so full Redress herein as may conduce to the peace of this Church and Safety of this regal State they hold it their Duty once more to resort to your Sacred Majesty humbly to inform you that upon Examination they find the Persons under written to be either Recusants Papists or justly suspected according to the former Acts of State who now do or since the sitting of the Parliament did remain in places of Government and Authority and trust in your several Counties of this your Realm of England and Dominion of Wales The Right honourable Francis Earl of Rutland Lieutenant of the County of Lincoln Rutland Northamton Nottingham and a Commissioner of the Peace and of Oyer and Terminer in the County of York and Justice of Oyer from Trent Northwards His Lordship is presented to be a Popish Recusant and to have affronted all the Commissioners of the Peace within the North Riding of Yorkshire by sending a License under his Hand and Seal unto his Tenant Thomas Fisher dwelling in his Lordships Mannor of Hemsley in the said North Riding of the said County of York to keep an Alehouse soon after he was by an Order made at the Quarter Sessions discharged from keeping an Alehouse because he was a Popish Convict Recusant and to have procured a Popish Schoolmaster namely Roger Conyers to teach Schollars within the said Mannor of Hemsley that formerly had his License to teach Scholars taken from him for teaching Scholars that were the Children of popish Recusants and because he suffered these Children to be absent themselves from the Church whilst they were his Schollars For which the said Conyers was formerly complained of in Parliament The Right Honourable Vicount Dunbar Deputy Justice in Oyer to the Earl of Rutland from Trent Northward and
Bail or Mainprize and for the second offence twenty pounds and for want of payment should suffer six months Imprisonment without Bail or Mainprise and for the third offence should forfeit all his Goods and Chattels and suffer Imprisonment during his life time From which Act it is evident that all the mild Methods were taken that could be thought on to win over the Papists to the Reformed Religion for the Penalties incurred were not only suspended but the offender pardoned after they had been so long winkt at and the Penalties upon which Conformity was injoyned must be by all considering men adjudged reasonable to be inflicted upon those that remained obstinate after such kind usage and the rather for that it is apparent they made it their business to compel persons to go to Mass One thing I can't let pass without a remark That in this as well as the Statute of the 1 st of Edward the 6 th the tryal of the offence is to be according to the Antient Laws of the Land by a Jury and that till then they could incur none of the Penalties so careful were the Reformers for the Liberties even of Papists Hist Ref. pt 2. p. 115 116 117 118. Bâ—ker 's Ch on p. 303 304. But notwithstanding all this favour shewn to the Papists in one year they broke out into open Rebellion in four Counties in England viz. in Oxfordshire Devonshire Norfolk and Yorkshire So restless and unquiet are the Popish party and such implacable Enemies to the Protestants that if they be in power nothing but destroying them by Law will serve and if not then Plots Conspiracies and open Rebellions are their Methods Hist Ref. pt 2. p. 140. 3 4 E. 6. ca. 5. Rast Stat. f. 989. 34 E. 6. ca. 10. Images taken away Keeble's Stat. f. 676. Rast Stat. f. 994. these four Insurrections gave just occasion to make that severe Law against unlawful Assemblies and rising of the Subjects that if any to the number of twelve should meet together unlawfully for any matter of State and being required by any lawful Magistrate should not disperse themselves it should be Treason The next Act of Parliament that I shall take notice of and indeed but just touch it is the 3 d. and 4 th of Edward the 6 th ca. 10. Whereby divers Romish Books and Images were abolished and put away and that without any punishment of the Papists that used them but only a Penalty on the Officers and Ministers of Justice who did not put the said Law in Execution Thus things stood till the 6 th of Edward the 6 th and then an Act was made for the confirmation of the Liturgy which takes notice in the Preamble 5 6 E. 6. ca. 1. Keehâ—e 's Stat. f. 676. Rast Stat. f. 1009. The Liturgy confirmed That a great number of people in divers parts of the Realm following their own sensuality and living either without knowledge or due fear of God did wilfully and danmably before Almighty God abstain and refuse to come to their Parish Churches and other places where Common-Prayer Administration of the Sacraments and Preaching of the Word of God was used upon Sundaies and other daies ordained to be holy daies and doth thereby Enact that uniformity of Prayer and Administration of Sacraments shall be used in the Church requires Conformity thereunto and leaves them who come not to Church to be punished by the censures of the Church And Enacts March. Ref. 93. That all persons that are present at any other Common-Prayer or Sacraments for the first offence shall suffer six months Imprisonment without Bail or Mainprise for the second offence a years Imprisonment and for the third Imprisonment during life But none to have this inflicted but they who are legally convicted according to the Laws of the Land which cannot be esteemed severe seeing they were occasioned by the Treasons and Rebellions of them upon whom they were inflicted CHAP. VI. Q. Mary HAving shewn how kind and merciful King Edward the 6 th was to the Papists all his Reign notwithstanding their severe usage of the Protestants in his Predecessours Reigns Queen Mary her accession to the Crown and how she used the Protestants before she had a Parliament 35 H. 8. ca. 1. Rast Stat. f. 835. Hist Ref. 2. pt li. 2. p. 235. and their Treasons and Rebellions against himself and the then Established Government I shall now give an Account what usage the Protestants had in the Reign of his Successour Queen Mary Upon the Death of King Edward the Crown devolved upon Queen Mary according to the settlement of it by 35 H. 8. but she being a Papist and King Ed. the 6 th having by his Letters Patents limited the Crown to the Lady Jane Daughter of Frances Dutchess of Suffolk who was a Protestant the Council Proclaimed the Lady Jane Queen which Proclamation sets forth that the late King had settled the Crown as aforesaid and declared that it should not descend to his two Sisters since they were both Illegitimate in the Spiritual Courts and by Acts of Parliament and were only his Sisters by the half blood who tho' it were granted they had been Legitimate are not Inheritable by the Law of England it was added that there was also great cause to fear that the King's Sisters might marry Strangers and so change the Laws of the Kingdom and subject it to the Tyranny of the Bishops of Rome and other Foreign Laws for these Reasons they were excluded from the Succession and the said Lady Jane was Proclaimed Queen as aforesaid she promising to be most Benign and Gracious to all her people to maintain God's Holy Word and the Lavvs of the Land requiring all the Subjects to obey and acknowledge her And now all had been well and the Reformed Religion was in a likely way to flourish could the Protestants have been all of a mind and the common sort of People been as well satisfied as the Council great part of the Nobility and all the Judges but one were in what was done But oh the Calamities that divisions bring upon a Kingdom Suffolk and No folk 's mens kindness to Queen Mary Hist Reform part 2. p. 233.237 Baker 's Chro. p. 312. The Earl of Arundel having given Queen Mary notice of the Death of her Brother and the design of setting up the Lady Jane she retires to Framlingham Castle in the County of Suffolk whither many from Norfolk and a great body of Suffolk men gathered about her who were notwithstanding all for the Reformation they before they would assist her desired to know of her whether she would alter the Religion set up in King Edward's days to whom she gave full assurances that she would never make any Innovation or Change but be contented with the Private Exercise of her own Religion upon this they were all possest with such a belief of her sincerity that it made them resolve to hazard their Lives and
other offences whatsoever abovesaid In the Act abovesaid as afore is said mentioned and all circumstances of the same and of every of them and thereupon according to the Tenour of the Act aforesaid to give Sentence or Judgment as upon good proof the Matter shall appear unto you And therefore we command you that you do at such certain days and places which you or the greater part of you shall for that purpose set and agree upon diligently proceed upon the premises in form aforesaid c. Mary Queen of Scots Tryed Camb. Annals f. 361. The Commissioners met at Fotheringay Castle the 11 th of October 1586. and Tryed Mary Queen of Scots the substance of the Tryal you may see in Cambdens Annals from Pag. 344 to 361. as he took the same out of the Commentaries and Memorials of Edward Barker principlal Register to the Queen Thomas Wheeler publick Notary Register of the Audience of Canturbury and other persons of Credit which were there present On the 25 th of October all the Commissioners met at the Star-Chamber at Westminster to which place they had adjourned except the Earls of Shrewsbury and Warwick which were both of them sick at that time Sentence was pronounced which Sentence was this The Sentence By their unanimous assents and consents they do pronounce and deliver this their Sentence and Judgment at the day and place last above mentioned and say that since the conclusion of the aforesaid Session of Parliament in the Commission aforesaid specified namely since the first day of June in the 27 th Year aforesaid and before the date of the said Commission divers Marters have been compassed and imagined within this Realm of England by Anthony Babington and others with the Privity of the said Mary pretending a Title to the Crown of this Realm of England tending to the hurt death and destruction of the Royal Person of our said Lady the Queen And also that since the aforesaid first day of June in the 27 th Year aforesaid and before the date of the Commission aforesaid the aforesaid Mary pretending a Title to the Crown of this Realm of England hath compassed and imagined within this Realm of England divers Matters tending to the hurt death and destruction of the Royal Person of our Soveraign Lady the Queen contrary to the form of the Statute in the Commission aforesaid specified The Parliament 29. Eliz. Cap. 1. Rast Stat. 2. Part. f. 334. The twenty ninth of October following the Parliament met and the first Act they made was an Act for the confirmation of the Proscription of Thomas late Lord Paget Charles Paget Francis Englefeild Francis Throckmorton William Shelley Anthony Babington Thomas Salisbury Edward Jones Edward Abbington Charles Tilney Chidiock Tichbourn Robert Barnwell John Charnock and John Travers The Preamble of which Act of Parliament strengthening the Credit of the former History I have here incerted An Act of Parliament for proscribing Babington and the Rest In most humble wise beseecheth your Royal Majesty the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and all other your most Loving and Obedient Subjects the Commons of this your most High Court of Parliament Assembled That where Thomas Paget late Lord Paget late of Drayton in the County of Middlesex Francis Englefeild late of London Kt. Charles Paget late of London Esq Francis Throckmorton late of London Esq William Shelley late of Clapham in the County of Sussex Esq Anthony Babington late of Dethick in the County of Derby Esq Thomas Salisbury late of Lleweny in the County of Denbygh Esq Edward Jones late of Cadogan in the same County of Denbygh Esq Edward Abbington late of Henlippe in the County of Worcester Esq Charls Tilney late of â—â—ndon Esq Chidiock Tichbourn late of Port-Chester in the County of Southampton Esq Robert Barnwell late of London Gent. John Charnock late of London Gent. and John Travers late of Prescot in the County of Lancaster Gent. Having no fear of God before their Eyes have most falsely and Treacherously committed perpetrated and done many unnatural detestable and abominable Treasons to the most fearful peril and danger of the destruction of your most Royal Person and to the utter loss disherison and destruction of this your Highnesses Realm of England if God of his infinite goodness had not in due time revealed and given knowledge to your Highness of their Trayterous intent of and for the which said Treasons being manifestly and plainly proved the said Traytors and Offenders before named have been lawfully indicted and some of them have been and are lawfully and by due process Out-Lawed and thereby justly attainted and some other by Tryal of the Country and their own confessions and judgment thereupon given lawfully and justly convicted and attainted according to the Laws of this your Realm as by the Records of their several attainders more plainly it doth and may appear and for the which several Offences some of the same Offenders have suffered pains of Death according to their demerits And then the Parliament Confirms their attainder and confiscates their Lands and Tenements Goods and Chattels The next thing this Parliament did was by their Votes to approve The Tryal and Condemnation of Mary Queen of Scots approved and Her Execution desired by the Parliament and their Reasons for it D' Ewes Journal 392 393 395 400 401 405 408. Camb. Annal. l. 3. f. 363. and confirm the Sentence given against the Queen of Scots and desired it might be published the Reasons whereof were delivered in divers Speeches made in the House of Commons upon this occasion and which are to be seen in Sir Simon D' Ewes his Journal at large They were drawn from the dangers that threatned Religion the Queens Person and the Realm by means of Mary Queen of Scots who having been bred up in the Popish Religion and sworn a confederate in the Holy League for the extirpation of the Protestant Religion had now for a long time Arrogated unto her self the Title of Queen of England while the Queen lived whom as being excommunicate she held it lawful to do mischief to as far as lay in her Power and to take away her life a thing meritorious One who had over-thrown and ruined sundry flourishing Families in the Kingdom and cherished all the Treasonable designs and Rebellions in England to spare her therefore were nothing else but to spoil the People who would take impunity in this Case much to heart and would not think themselves discharged of their Oath of Association unless she were punished according to her deserts and lastly they called to her remembrance how fearful the examples of Gods vengeance were upon King Saul for sparing Agag and upon King Ahab for sparing the Life of Benhaddad These Reasons were strongly inforc't by a Petition presented by the Parliament to the Queen and by her answer it appears what a great straight she was in D' Ewes Journal f. 400. Queen Eliz. in a great
is the Center and perfection of all things For if they would leave and be ashamed of such new and gross Corruptions of theirs as themselves cannot maintain nor deny to be worthy of Reformation I would for my own part be content to meet them in the mid way so that all Novelties might be renounced on either side For as my Faith is the true Ancient and Apostolick Faith grounded upon the express word of God so will I ever yeild all reverence to Antiquity in the points of Ecclesiastical Policy And by that means shall I ever with Gods Grace keep my self from either being an Heretick in Faith or Shismatick in Matters of Policy But of one thing would I have the Papists of this Land to be admonished that they presume not so much upon my Lenity because I would be loath to be thought a Persecutor as thereupon to think it lawful for them daily to encrease their number and strength in this Kingdom whereby if not in my time at least in the time of my Posterity they may be in hope to erect their Religion again No As they were very lately let them assure themselves that as I am a Friend to their Persons if they be good Subjects so am I a vowed Enemy and do denounce Mortal War to their Errors And as I would be sorry to be driven by their ill Behaviour from the Protection and Conservation of their Bodies and Lives so I will never cease as far as I can Suffering the increase of Popery called by Jam. 1. a betraying England and Scotland to tread down their Errors and wrong Opinions For I could not permit the increase and growing of their Religion without betraying my self and my own Conscience and this whole Island as well the part I am come from as the part I remain in in betraying their Liberties and reducing them to the former slavish Yoke which both had cast off before I came among them as also the Liberty of the Crown in my Posterity which I should leave again under a new Slavery being left free to me by my Predecessors And therefore I would wish all good Subjects that are deceived with this Corruption if they find any beginnings in themselves of Knowledge and Love to the truth to foster the same by all lawful Means and to beware of quenching the Spirit that worketh within them And if they can find as yet no Motion tending that way to be studious to read and confer with Learned men and to use all such means as may further their resolutions assuring them that as long as they are disconformable in Religion to us they cannot be but half my Subjects be able to do but half service and I shall want the best half of them which is their Souls After which the Parliament considering the said Proclamation and Speech and that notwithstanding the Jesuites and Seminary Priests flockt over in great numbers into England made an Act of Parliament intituled 1 Jac. cap. 4. Rast Stat. 2. part f. 550. An Act for the due Execution of the Statutes against Jesuites Seminary Priests Recusants c. By which it is Enacted THat all Statutes made against Iesuites Priests and Recusants should be put in due Execution but conforming himself should be discharged If the Heir of Papists be a Protestant An Act for puting the Laws against Papists in Execution and for punishing the Heirs of Papists he shall be discharged of all the Penalties Charges and Incumbrances happening upon Him or Her in respect or by reason of any of His or Her Ancestors Recusancy But if the Heir of a Papist shall happen to be within the Age of sixteen Years at the time of the Death of his Ancestor and shall after such Age be or become a Papist such Heir shall not be freed of the Penalty c. Unless He or She Conforms that the two parts of a Papists Lands shall go towards the satisfaction of the twenty pounds per Month forfeiture and after his Death shall remain in the Kings hands until the Arrears be satisfied that none shall send or cause to be sent any Person to any Colledge Seminary or house of Iesuites Priests or any other Papist Popish Order Professing or Calling whatsoever upon the Penalty of a hundred Pound forfeiture they that go or are sent are disabled to inherit purchase take have or enjoy any Estate whatever real or personal and all Estates or Terms conveyed to their Vse or in Trust for them are thereby made void and null That no Woman or Child under the Age of 21 Years shall go beyond Seas without License of the King or of six of the Privy Councel first had under their hands the Officer of the Port that suffers such to pass forfeits his Office and all his Goods and Chattels the Owner of the Ship his Ship and Tackle and the Master and Marriners their Goods and shall suffer twelve Months imprisonment without Bayl or Main prize Keeping School contrary to the Act forty Shillings forfeiture The Gunpowder-Treason in 1604. King James having by his Proclamation before the Parliament met and in his Speech at the opening of the Parliament thus freely declared against the Papists especially the Priests and Jesuites and the Parliament having made the said Law against them and they dispairing of any Tolleration in Matters of Religion which they had Petitioned for now to their old Work of Plotting again and a Plot they laid they did I say It was of that Nature that it is next to incredible that such a Complicated Villany should ever enter into the heart of Man quà Rational much more quà Christian but one would rather think it had been the product of a Consult in Hell amongst the Devils themselves and if degrees of wickedness can be allowed to be there amongst the worst of Devils too The Plot it self Foulis Hist l. 10. cap. 2. f. 507. Wilsons Hist f. 28. Bakers Chron. f. 507. The Actors in it The Plot was this with one blow to destroy King Queen Prince Nobles and Commons who were not Papists this is designed to be effected by blowing up the Parliament House when the King and Parliament were sitting and killing those of them who were not in the House The Persons concerned in this Plot were Robert Catesby the Contriver hereof Henry Garnet John Gerrard Oswald Tesmond and other Jesuites the Advisers thereto Thomas Piercy Robert Winter John Grant Ambrose Rookwood John Wright Francis Tresham Sir Everard Digby Guy Fauks Robert Keys Thomas Bates and others Assistants in carrying it on To carry on this Design when it was laid first an Oath of Secrecy was compiled and afterwards the Conspirators took the same and not only so but Garnet confest them and they afterwards received the Sacraments to bind them to the greater Secrecy the Oath was this You shall swear by the Blessed Trinity and by the Sacrament you now purpose to receive never to disclose directly or indirectly
The Oath of Secrecy by Word or Circumstance the Matter that shall be proposed to you to keep Secret nor desist from the Execution thereof till the rest shall give you leave After this was done every Man betakes himself to the part assigned him some to provide Money other Materials and others a place to lay the Materials in The place pitched upon for placing the Materials in was Cellars under the Parliament House which Thomas Piercy had hired for that purpose the Materials were thirty six Barrels of Gun-Powder provided in Flanders carried into the Cellar from Lambeth in the Night covered over with Wood and Coals and all provided at the Charge of the English * Sr. Everard Digby 1500 l. Mr. Francis Tresham 2000. l. Piercy 4000 l. besides others Papists who promised themselves the extirpating this Northren Heresie as they called it and introducing in its Room Popish Superstition and Idolatry as we call it and the Divines of our Church have proved it to be to the Conviction of all 〈◊〉 who will not Wilfully shut their eyes against the Light. Things being thus prepared they looked upon the King and Prince Henry as already made a Sacrifice to attone the See of Rome for the revolt that England had made from her and Percy had undertaken for the slaying the Duke of York Charles the First that there might be no ingredient in the Sacrifice wanting to make it acceptable but because it was thought necessary for a Colour to their Bloody designs to preserve the Succession the Lady Elizabeth must be spared and made Queen Foulis Hist l. 10. cap. 2. f. 507. and the Odium of blowing up the Parliament cast upon the Puritans They designed the Accomplishment of this unparallel'd Cruelty on the 5 th of November 1604. when the King and both Houses of Parliament were to meet and that very day they appointed a great Hunting Match at Dunsmore Heath near Comb the Lord Harringtons House in Warwickshire where the Lady Elizabeth was upon which pretence divers Papists were to meet well Armed in order to seize and secure her with intention to marry her to a Papist and by that means to introduce Popery To carry on their Design of fixing this Plot upon the Puritans Foulis Hist l. 10. cap. 2. f. 508. they framed a Proclamation which they got printed and ready for publishing upon the Sign given which they supprest and burnt upon the Discovery though some of them by chance came to light and were seen and read by Dr. Parker Dean of Lincoln Sir William Ellis Recorder of the said City and others And that they might gain the greater Credit with the People in this Contrivance Keys Brother-in-Law to Mr. Pickering had a few days before either borrowed or bought the Swift-horse well known in London and thereabouts of Mr. Pickering of Tich March Grove in Northamptonshire a noted Puritan whom they also designed to kill upon which Faux having fired the Match and Touch-wood leading to the Train was to escape as they bore him in Hand But O Horrid Impiety their Design was to kill him as soon as he had imbrued his Hands in so much Innocent Blood just as he was to mount the Horse as being Pickerings Man which the People would easily believe seeing the Horse was so well known to them and the Multitude once perswaded of this would be more facile to joyn with them under notion of doing Justice upon such supposed Traitors and Wretches They also consulted how to keep the Romish Lords from going that Day to Parliament the better to strengthen their Cause by their Preservation But in the heighth of all their Hopes and Expectations a Discovery is made thus The Manner of the Discovery some of them supposed by Monteagle to be Piercy but Bishop * Answer to Sir Anthony VVeldon's Court of King James p. 73. M. S. Goodman saith it was Tresham who writ the Letter having a great Affection to the said Lord Monteagle Son and Heir to the Lord Morley had a mind to preserve him from the intended Slaughter So one Evening a Letter Sealed is delivered in the Street the Strand by an unknown Fellow to one of the Lords Foot-men charging him to deliver it with Care to his Lord. Monteagle opens it finds it without Date and Subscription writ with a very bad Hand and in a Stile he knew not what to make of The Letter was this My Lord OVT of the Love I bear to some of your Friends I have a care of your Preservation Foulis Hist l. 10. cap. 2. f. 508. Wilson's Hist f. 30. therefore I would advise you as you tender your Life to devise some Excuse to shift off your Attendance this Parliament for God and Man have concurred to punish the Wickedness of this time And think not slightly of this Advertisment but retire your self into your Country where you may expect the Event in Safety for though there be no Appearance of any stir yet I say they shall receive a terrible Blow this Parliament and yet they not see who hurts them This Councel is not to be contemned because it may do you good and can do you no harm for the Danger is past as soon as you have burned this Letter and I hope God will give you the Grace to make good use of it to whose Holy Protection I commend you Monteagle wondred at the Letter and its Delivery and thinking it might relate to some Mischief thought it his Duty to make it known so away he goeth to White-Hall shows it to the Earl of Salisbury then Secretary of State who tells some other of the Privy Council of it and the King being returned from his Hunting at Royston they delivered it to him His Majesty having seriously considered it and all other Circumstances concluded that it might relate to some Design to blow up the Parliament and in this Jealousie ordered the Rooms and Vaults about the House to be searched which was done the Night before the Session when in the aforesaid Cellar under the Lords House were found the Barrels of Powder and at the Door standing Guido Faux booted and Spurred with a large dark Lanthorn now to be seen in Oxford Library with Matches Tinder-Box and other Materials for his Design Faux was presently carried to Court and examined where he appeared sturdy and scornful maintaining the Design to be lawful that James was not his King because an Heretic was sorry that the Plot failed and that he had not blown up the House with himself and those that were sent to search affirming that God would have had the Plot concealed but it was the Devil who revealed it at last Faux himself confest all that he knew of the Treasons Thus far discovered the King suspecting some Commotions or Risings sent with all speed to prevent them by timely Notice by Lepton and others This was that Mr. John Lepton of Yorkshire who rid so often betwixt London and York
of Parliament because they yet strengthen and confirm the Truth of the said Conspiracy and that they do so must be confest unless Men will fly in the Face of that Parliament I have here inserted as I find the same in Rastal's Statutes The First is Intituled An Act for publick Thanks-giving to Almighty God every Year on the Fifth Day of November FOrasmuch as Almighty God hath in all Ages shewed his Power and Mercy 3 Jac. 1. ca. 1. Rast Stat. 2. Part. f. 588. The Act for keeping the Fifth of November yearly as a Day of Thanks-giving in the Miraculous and Gracious Deliverance of his Church and in the Protection of Religious Kings and States and that no Nation of the Earth hath been blessed with greated Benefits than this Kingdom now enjoyeth having the true and free Profession of the Gospel under our most gracious Sovereign Lord King James the most Great Learned and Religious King that ever reigned therein enriched with a most hopeful and plentiful Progeny proceeding out of his Royal Loyns promising Continuance of this Happiness and Profession to all Posterity and the which many malignant and devilish Papists Iesuits and Seminary Priests much envying and fearing conspired most horribly when the Kings most excellent Majesty the Queen the Prince and all the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons should have been assembled in the upper House of Parliament upon the fifth Day of November in the Year of our Lord 1605. suddenly to have blown up the said whole House with Gun-powder an Invention so inhuman barbarous and cruel as the like was never before heard of and was as some of the principal Conspirators thereof confess purposely devised and concluded to be done in the said House that where sundry necessary and religious Laws for preservation of the Church and State were made which they falsly and slanderously term cruel Laws enacted against them and their Religion both Place and Persons should be all destroyed and blown up at once which would have turned to the utter Ruine of this whole Kingdom had it not pleased Almighty God by inspiring the Kings most excellent Majesty with a Divine Spirit to interpret some dark Phrases of a Letter shewed to His Majesty above and beyond all ordinary Construction thereby miraculously discovering this hidden Treason not many Hours before she appointed time for the Execution thereof therefore the Kings most excellent Majesty the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and all His Majesties faithful and loving Subjects do justly acknowledge this great and infinite Blessing to have proceeded meerly from God his great Merry and to his most Holy Name do ascribe all the Honour Glory and Praise And to the end this unfeigned Thankfulness may never be forgotten but be in a perpetual Remembrance that all Ages to come may yield Praises to his Divine Majesty for the same and have in Memory This joyful Day of Deliverance Be it therefore enacted by the Kings most excellent Majesty the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same that all and Angular Ministers in every Cathedral and Parish Church or other usual Place for Common-prayer within this Realm of England and the Dominions of the same shall always upon the fifth Day of November say Morning-prayer and give unto Almighty God Thanks for this most happy Deliverance and that all and every Person and Persons inhabiting within this Realm of England and the Dominions of the same shall always upon that Day diligently and faithfully resort to the Parish Church or Chappel accustomed or to some usual Church or Chappel where the said Morning-prayer Preaching or other Service of God shall be used and then and there to abide orderly and soberly during the time of the the said Prayers Preaching or other Service of God there to be used and ministred And because all and every Person may be put in mind of this Duty and be the better prepared to the said Holy Service be it enacted by Authority aforesaid that every Minister shall give Warning to his Parishioners publickly in the Church at Morning-prayer the Sunday before every such fifth Day of November for the due Observation of the said Day And that after Morning-prayer or Preaching upon the said fifth Day of November they read publickly distinctly and plainly this present Act. The Second is intituled An Act for the Attainder of divers Offendors in the late most barbarous monstrous detestable and damnable Treasons The Preamble of which Act runs thus 3 Jac. 1. ca. 2. Rast Stat 2. part f. 589 An Act for the Attainder of the Conspirators IN most humble manner beseeching your most excellent Majesty your most Loyal Faithful and true Hearted Subjects the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled That whereas Arthur Creswel Jesuite who at the time of his Profession to be a Iesuite took upon him the Name of Joseph Creswel Oswald Tesmond Jesuite and Thomas VVinter late of Huddington in the County of VVorcester Gent. the last Day of June in the four and fortieth Year of the late Queen Elizabeth of famous Memory at Valedolide within the Kingdom of Spain and at divers other days within the same four and fortieth Year of the said late Queen at Valedolide aforesaid and elsewhere within the same Kingdom of Spain by the Means Procurement and Privity of Robert Catesby late of Ashby in the County of Northampton Esq Francis Tresham late of Rushton in the said County of Northampton Esq and Henry Garnet Iesuite assuming upon him to be Superior of the Iesuits within this Ream of England and others being all natural born Subjects of this Realm did Traiterously and against the Duty of their Allegiance move and incite Philip then and yet King of Spain then being at open Enmity and Hostility with the said late Queen with Force to invade this Kingdom of England and to joyn with the Papists and discontented Persons wiâ—â—in this Realm of England to depose and overthrow the same late Queen of and 〈◊〉 her Crown and of and from all Her Royal Estate Title and Dignity and to suppress and abolish the true Religion of Almighty God truly and sincerely professed within this Kingdom and to restore the Superstitious Romish Religion within the same and to bring this Antient Famous and most renowned Kingdom to utter Ruine and miserable Captivity under Forreign Power and for that the greatest Impediment unto the same Invasion would be the want of Help of good Horses the said Thomas VVinter the rather to incourage the said King thereunto was to offer unto the same King on the Behalf of the Papists of England to give him Assistance presently upon the Landing of his Forces with one thousand five hundred or two thousand Horses and that for their better accomplishing thereof he should move the said King to furnish the Papists of England with a good Sum of Money partly to be employed to
after fear to enter into any cogitation to attempt the like Barbarous and detestable Treasons that the Convictions and Attainder of the said Robert Winter Thomas Winter Guy Fauks Ambrose Rookwood John Graunt Robert Keyes Thomas Bates and Sir Everard Digby might be confirmed which was confirmed by Authority of Parliament accordingly and then it was Enacted that as well the said Robert Winter Thomas Winter Guy Fauks Ambrose Rookwood John Graunt Robert Keyes Thomas Bates and Sir Everard Digby as also the said Robert Catesby Thomas Piercy John Wright Hugh Owen and Francis Tresham should be attainted of High Treason and forfeit as in Cases of High Treason according to their several and respective Convictions and Attainders When the Parliament had thus first acknowledged Gods goodness in this deliverance and made the said Act of Attainder The consideration of the Treachery and Villany of this Gun-Powder-Plot undertaken under the pretence of maintaining and restoreing Popery engaged the State to consult the preservation of the Government and the Protestant Religion and considering the furious Zeal and wicked Principles of the Papists in affirming the lawfulness of deposing and killing all Heretical Kings and such they esteem all Protestant Kings to be that the Pope had Power to deprive Temporal Princes absolve Subjects from their Obedience and such-like Villanous Positions with the many wicked Practices against the Crown and Life of Queen Elizabeth and King James Upon these and such like considerations after several serious deliberations and consultations in Parliament to prevent the like mischiefs they thought fit to draw up a solemn Oath whereby every one should Abjure such Treasonable Doctrines and Swear for the future to behave themselves as became good Subjects which Oath was this The Oath of Allegiance Anno Tertio Jacobi primi Foulis Hist. l. 10. c. 2. f. 522. I A. B. Do truly and sincerely acknowledge profess Testifie and Declare in my Conscience before God and the World that our Soveraign Lord King is Lawful and is Rightful King of this Realm and of all other his Majesties Dominions and Countries And that the Pope neither of himself nor by any Authority of the Church or See of Rome or by any other means with any other hath any Power or Authority to depose the King. Or to dispose any of his Majesties Kingdoms or Dominions Or to Authorize any Forreign Prince to Invade or annoy him or his Countries Or to discharge any of his Subjects of their Allegiance and Obedience to His Majesty Or to give License or leave to any of them to bear Arms raise troubles c. Or to offer any Violence or Hurt to his Majesties Royal Person or Government or to any of his Majesties Subjects within his Majesties Dominions As also I do swear from my Heart that notwithstanding any Declaration or Sentence of Excommunication or Deprivation made or granted or to be made or granted by the Pope or his Successors or by any Authority derived or pretended to be derived from him or his See against the said King his Heirs or Successors or any Absolution of the said Subjects from their Obedience I will bare Faith and true Allegiance unto his Majesty his Heirs and Successors And him and them will defend to the utmost of my Power against all Conspiracies and attempts whatsoever which shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity by Reason or Colour of any such Sentence or Declaration or otherwise And will do my best endeavour to disclose and make known unto His Majesty his Heirs and Successors all Treasons and Traiterous Conspiracies which I shall know or hear of to be against him or any of them And I do further Swear that I do from my Heart Abhor Detest and Abjure as Impious and Heretical this damnable Doctrine and Position that Princes which be Excommunicated or deprived by the Pope may be Deposed or Murthered by their Subjects or any other whatsoever And I do believe and in Conscience am resolved that neither the Pope or any Person whatsoever hath Power to Absolve me of this Oath or any part thereof Which I acknowledge by good and full Authority to be Lawfully Ministred unto me And do Renounce all Pardons and Dispensations to the Contrary And all these things I do plainly and sincerely acknowledge and Swear according to the express Words by me spoken according to the plain and common sence and understanding of the same words without any Equivocation or Mental Evasion or Secret Reservation whatsoever And I do make this Recognition and acknowledgment heartily willingly and truly upon the true Faith of a Christian So help me God. A. B. Unto which Oath so taken the said Person shall subscribe His or Her Name or Mark. The Papists lookt upon the (a) Cecil Earl of Salisbury principal Secretary of State to be the chief promoter of the Oath of Allegiance and therefore used all their endeavours to deter him from Prosecuting it thinking that if they could take him off these Parliamentary transactions would fall to the ground they therefore sent the following Letter to him viz. My Lord VVHereas the late unapproveable and must wicked design The Papists threatning Letter to the Earl of Salibury Foulis Hist l. 10. c. 3. f. 521. for destroying of his Majesty the Prince and Nobility with many other of worth and quality attempted through the undertaking Spirits of some more fiery and turbulent then Zealous and dispassionate Catholics hath made the general State of our Catholic Cause so scandalous in the Eye of such whose corrupted Judgments are not able to fan away and sever the fault of the Professor from the profession its self as that who now is found to be of that Religion is persuaded at least in mind to allow tho God knoweth as much abhoring as any Puritan whatsoever the said former most inhumane and Barbarous project And whereas some of His Majesties Councel but especially your Lordship as being known to be as the Philosopher termeth it a Primus Motor in such uncharitable proceedings are determined as it is feared by taking advantage of so foul a scandal to root out all the Memory of Catholic Religion either by suddain Banishment Massacre Imprisonment or some such unsupportable vexations and pressures and perhaps by decreeing in this next Parliament some more cruel and horrible Laws against Catholics then already are made In regard of the premises there are some good Men Good men and Roman Catholics who through their earnest desire for the continuing the Catholic Religion and for saving many Souls both of this present and of all future posterity are resolved to prevent so great a mischief tho with a full assurance aforehand of the loss of their dearest Lives You are therefore hereby to be admonished May Murther Privy Councillors that at this present there are Five who have severally undertaken your Death and have vowed the performance thereof by taking already the Blessed Sacrament if you
continue your daily Plotting of so Tragical Stratagems against Recusants It is ordered that none of these Five knoweth who the other Four be for the better preventing the discovery of the rest if so any one by attempting and not performing should be apprehended It is also already agreed who shall first attempt it by shot and so who in order shall follow In accomplishing of it there is expected no other than assurance of Death yet it will willingly be embraced for the preventing of those general Calamities which by this your transcendent Authority and Grace with His Majesty are threatned unto us And indeed the difficulties herein are more easily to be digested since Two of the intended attempters are in that weak estate of Body that they cannot live above three or four Months The other Three are so distressed in themselves and their Friends as that their present griefs for being only Recusants do much dull all aprehensions of Death None is to be blamed in the true censuring of Matters for the undertaking hereof Nor are they to be blamed for it for we protest before God we have no other means left us in the World since it is manifest that you serve but as a Match to give Fire unto his Majesty to whom the worst that we wish is that he may be as great a Saint in Heaven as he is King on Earth for intending all mischiefs against the poor distressed Catholics Thus giving your Lordship this charitable admonition the which may perhaps be necessary hereafter for some others your inferiours at least in grace and favour if so they run on in their former inhumane and unchristian rage against us I cease putting you in mind For 't is true and Spiritual Resolution that where once True and Spiritual Resolution is there notwithstanding all dangers whatsoever the weak may take sufficient revenge of the great Your Lordships well admonishing Friends c. A. B. C. c. It may be your Lordship will take this but as some forged Letter of some Puritans thereby to incense you more against Recusants But we protest upon our Salvation it is not so Neither can any thing in humane likelihood prevent the effecting thereof but the change of your Course towards Recusants This Letter at the beginning affords fair seeming to detest the Gun-Powder-Plot as Watson did the Popish Treasons in Queen Elizabeths time and was hanged for Treason in the beginning of the Reign of King James but little credit is to be given to what they say if it be considered that the very design of it is to apoligize for Murther and that they therein assert that although they Murther Privy Counsellors yet the Murtherers may be good men nor are they to be blamed for it for it is a true and spiritual resolution What influence this Letter had the sequel will evince for the said Oath was immediately confirmed by Act of Parliament and the Papists injoyned to take it in the Circumstances and upon the Penalties in the Act for that purpose mentioned the sum and substance of which Act followeth it is Intitled An Act for the better discovering and repressing of Popish Recusants The Preamble of the Act runs thus 3. Jac. 1. c. 4. Rast Stat. f. 591. Papists must receive the Sacrament and take the Oath of Allegiance c. upon pecuniary mulcts if neglected FOrasmuch as it is found by daily Experience that many His Majesties Subjects that adhere in their hearts to the Popish Religion by the infection drawn from thence and by the Wicked and Divelish Councel of Iesuits Seminaries and other like Persons dangerous to the Church and State are so far perverted in the point of their Loyalty and due Allegiance to the Kings Majesty and the Crown of England as they are ready to entertain and Execute any Treasonable Conspiracies and Practices as evidently appears by that more then barbarous and horrible Attempt to have blown up with Gun-powder the King Queen Prince Lords and Commons in the House of Parliament Assembled tending to the utter Subversion of the whole State lately undertaken by the instigation of Iesuits and Seminaries and in Advancement of their Religion by their Schollars Taught and Instructed by them to that purpose which Attempt by the only goodness of Almighty God was discovered and defeated And where divers Persons Popishly affected do nevertheless the better to cover and hide their false Hearts and with the more safety to attend the opportunity to execute their mischievous Designs repair sometimes to Church to escape the Penalty of the Laws in that behalf provided Then for the better discovery of such Persons and their Evil affections to the Kings Majesty and to the State of the Realm to the end that being known their Evil Purposes might be the better prevented It was enacted that every Papist that Conforms shall Yearly receive the Sacrament upon twenty pounds Forfeiture upon the first Years neglect forty pounds the second sixty pounds the third and so forwards sixty pounds Yearly until he or she shall have received it That Papists their Children of Nine Years and Servants shall be once a Year presented at the general or Quarter Sessions Which presentments are to be recorded at the Sessions That the Iustices of Assize and Goal Delivery and Iustices of Peace shall hear and determine the Offence That Proclamation shall be made at the Assizes or Sessions for the Offender to render his body to the Sheriff Bayliff or Keeper of the Goal of the Liberty before the next Assizes or Sessions c. And if the Offender doth not he stands Convicted and forfeits twenty pounds a Month for every Month contained in the Indictment whereon he his Convicted That every Conviction shall be certified into the Exchequer that the King may refuse twenty pounds a Month and take two parts of the Papists Lands save their Mansion House That the Kings two parts shall not be Leased to Papists Noblemen and Noblewomen are excepted That the Oath of Allegiance shall be tendred to all Persons of the Age of Eighteen Years or above Convicted or Indicted for Recusancy for not going to Church for not receiving the Sacrament or that pass through any Country Shire or Liberty and unknown Who refuse taking this Oath incur a Premunire except Women covert who are to be Committed to the Common Goal without Bail or Mainprize till they take the Oath No Indictment or other Proceedings against the Papists shall be discharged or reversed for default of Form but Conformity discharges all Proceedings whatever Felony in any that go beyond Seas to serve any Forreign Prince c. or being there shall voluntarily serve such Prince not first having taken the Oath Felony in any Gentleman or Person of higher Degrée or any that is or hath born Office in Camp Army or Company of Souldiers to go beyond the Seas voluntarily to serve a Foreign Prince or shall voluntarily serve any Prince unless he first enters into Bond
they thought to have destroyed And yet so far hath both my Heart and Government been from any bitterness as almost never one of those sharp additions to the former Laws have ever yet been put in Execution And that ye may yet know further for the more convincing these Libellers of wilful Malice who impudently affirm that this Oath of Allegiance was devised for deceiving and intrapping of Papists in point of Conscience The truth is that the Lower-House of Parliament at the first framing of this Oath made it contain that the Pope had no Power to Excommunicateme which I caused them to reform only making it to conclude That no Excommunication of the Popes can warrant my Subjects to practice against my Person or State denying the deposition of Kings to be in the Popes lawful Power As indeed I take any such Temporal violence to be far without the Limits of such a spiritual Censure as Excommunication is So careful was I that nothing should be contained in this Oath except the profession of Natural Allegiance and Civil and Temporal obedience with a Promise to resist all contrary uncivil violence This Oath now grounded upon so great and just occasion set forth in so reasonable Terms and ordained only for making a true distinction between Papists of quiet dispotion and in all other things good Subjects and other Papists such as in their hearts maintained the like violent bloody Maxims that the Powder Traytor did * And here I can't but take notice that the very design of the Oath of Allegiance was to make a distinction between Papists of unquiet and turbulent and of quiet and peaceable Minds and had not in its original any influence upon the Protestants nor did at the time of making concern them and that after Protestants were enjoyned to take it the same was intended to no other purpose then to difference them from Papists and therefore the taking the new Oaths to their present Majesties cannot but be well consistent with the former Oath of Allegiance especially if it be considered that the late King is himself a Papist So that it is evident King James thought the said Plots Treasons Conspiracies and other unbecoming and undutiful words and practices was ground sufficient to make the said Law. And doubtless The Powder-Treason justifies the State in making another Act of Parliament the same Session Intitled An Act to prevent and avoid danger which may grow by Popish Recusants The preamble of which Act making it further to appear that the Powder-Treason was the occasion of making this Law I shall here insert the Preamble verbatim and then the substance of the Act. WHereas divers Iesuits 3 Jac. 1. ca. 5. Rast Stat. f. 597. Papists banished the Court and the City of London upon a pecuniary Mulct Seminaries and Popish Priests dayly do withdraw many of his Majesties Subjects from their true Service of Almighty God and the Religion established within this Realm to the Romish Religion and from their Loyal obedience to his Majesty and have of late scretly perswaded divers Recusants and Papists and encouraged and embolâ—ned them to commit most damnable Treasons tending to the overthrow of Gods true Religion the destruction of his Majesty and his Royal Issue and the overthrow of the whole State and Common-wealth if God of his Goodness and Mercy had not within few hours before the intended time of the Execution thereof revealed and disclosed the same wherefore to discover and prevent such secret and damnable Conspiracies and Treasons as hereafter may be put in use by such evil disposed Persons if remedy be not therefore provided Then the Law provides That the discoverer of Iesuites or Priests or harbourers of them shall have the third Part of all that is recovered against them so as the same exceeds not One hundred and Fifty Pounds and Fifty Pounds only where it exceeds the sum of One hundred and Fifty Pounds No Papist shall come to Court upon the Penalty of a Hundred Pounds for every default Papists not to come into London nor ten Miles compass of the same upon forfeiture of One hundred Pounds Papists confined to their Houses or Places of above and not to remove above five Miles from thence Not to Travel without Licence how Licence to be obtain'd and no License to be given to enable them to the contrary but such as are prescribed by this Act His Majesty Three of the Privy-Council Four Iustices of the Peace with the Privity may License and assent of the Bishop Lieutenant or Deputy Lieutenant under Hand and Seal the cause of removing must be inserted in the Warant and Oath made of the truth of it Papists disabled from Practicing as Lawyers Common or Civil c. All Papists convict are disabled from practising as a Counsel Clark Attorney or Sollicitor Advocate or Proctor as Physician using the Trade of an Apothecary from being Iudge Minister Clark or Steward of or in any Court or keeping any Court or being Town Clark or other Minister or Officer in any Court from bearing any Office or Charge as Captain Lieutenant Corporal Serjeant Antient Bearer or other Officer in Camp Troop Band or Company of Souldiers from being Captain Master Governour or bearing any Office or Charge A Man having a Wife a Papist Convict is disabled from exercising any public Office or Charge Feme Covert Convict looses part of her Joynture c. of or in any Ship Castle or Fortress and forfeits one hundred pounds for every Offence besides the disability No Popish Recusant Convict nor any having a Wife being a Popish Recusant Convict shall exercise any public Office or Charge in the Common-wealth but are utterly disabled Feme Covert Convict looses two parts of her Ioynture and Dower is disableâ— from being Executrix or Administratrix to her Husband and to have any Part of his Goods or Chattels A Popish Recusant Convict is disabled as an Excommunicate Person But notwithstanding it he may sue for or concerning only such of his or her Lands c. or the issues thereof which are not to be seized or taken into the Kings Hands his Heirs or Successors by force of any Law for or concerning his or her Recusancy or any part thereof Every Man that is a Papist covict Marrying contrary to the Orders of the Church of England is disabled from being Tenant by the courtesie if any Lands c. of his Wives and if she hath no Lands forfeits a hundred Pounds a Woman Papist convict so marrying is disabled to Claim Dower Papists must Marry according to the usage of the Church of England Papists must Bapt. according to the usage of the Church of England Their Children must not be sent beyond Seas Papists shall not present to Livings Popish Books inhibited Papists to be disarmed Ioynture and Widows Estate and Franck Bank in customary Lands Papists must baptize their Children according to the Rites of the Church of England upon a hundred Pounds
by her Authority from any other whatsoever c. Dated at Rome at St. Peters c. 1. Feb 1608. Birket upon the Receipt of this Breve draws up and sends abroad this admonishing Letter To all the Reverend Secular Priests of ENGLAND Most Dearly beloved Brethren WHereas I have always desired to live without molesting or offending others Birkets Letter to the Popish Clergy against taking the Oath and going to Church Foulis Hist l. 10. cap. 3. f. 530. it cannot be but a wonderful corosive Sorrow and Grief unto me that against mine own inclination I am forced as you have seen by the Breve it self to prescribe a certain time for such as do find themselves to have been contrary to the Points which are touched in the said Breve concerning the Oath and going to Church that they may thereby return and conform themselves to the Doctrine declared by his Holiness both in this and the other former Breves And therefore now by this Present do give notice unto you all that the time which I prefix and prescribe for that purpose is the space of two Months next ensuing after the knowledge of this Admonition Within which time such as shall forbear to take or allow any more the Oath or going to Church I shall most willingly accept their doing therein Yet signifying unto you withal that such as do not within the time prescribed give this Satisfaction I must tho much against my Will for fulfilling his Holinesses Commandments deprive them and denounce them to be deprived of all their Faculties and Priviledges granted by the See Apostolick or by any other Authority thereof unto them or to any of them and so by this Present do denounce hoping that there is no Man will be so wilful or disobedient to his Holinesses Order but will conform himself as becometh an obedient Child of the Catholick Church And so most heartily wishing this Conformity in us all and that we may Live and Labour together Unanimes in Domo Domini I pray God give us the Grace to effect that in our Actions whereunto we are by our Order and Profession obliged Your Servant in Christ George Birket Arch-Priest of England and Protonotary Apostolical This 2d of May 1608. There was by reason of these Bulls great Writing against the Lawfulness of Papists taking the Oath And it can't be but all of them who writ against it make this their Foundation That it takes away the Popes power of depriving Kings and absolving Subjects from their Allegiance So that certainly it was high time for the State to take care of the safety of their Religion and their Prince the Defender thereof The Parliament therefore in the Seventh Year of King James the First that they might know who were Friends to a Foreign power and consequently Enemies to the established Government made an Act of Parliament Intitled An Act for Administring the Oath of Allegiance and Reformation of married Women Recusants Which is the last Law I find made in this Kings Reign relating to the Papists The Preamble runs thus 7. Jac. 1. cap. 6. Rast Stat. 2. part f. 666. For taking the Oath of Allegiby Protestants as well as by Papists And Feme Courts Papists to Penalties VVHereas by a Statute made in the third Year of your Majesties Reign intituled An Act for the better discovering and repressing of Popish Recusants The form of an Oath to be ministred and given to certain Persons in the same Act mentioned is limited and prescribed tending only to the Declaration of such Duty as every true and well affected Subject not only by Bond of Allegiance but also by the Commandment of Almighty God ought to bear to your Majesty your Heirs and Successors which Oath such as are infected with Popish Superstition do oppugne with many false and unsound Arguments the just defence whereof your Majesty hath heretofore undertaken and worthily performed to the great Contentment of all your Loving Subjects notwithstanding the Gain-sayings of contentious Adversaries And to shew how greatly your Loyal Subjects do approve the said Oath they prostrate themselves at your Majesties feet beseeching your Majesty that the same Oath may be Administred to all your Subjects To which end we do with all humbleness beseech your Highness that it may be Enacted And then To shew how greatly they approved the said Oath they desired it might be Administred to all the Subjects of England and accordingly it was Enacted That it should be taken by all Persons above the Age of eighteen Years The penalty for the refusâ—ing upon tender is Imprisonment without Bayl or Main-prize and disability to execute any place of Iudicature to bear any other Office to use or Practice the Common or Civil Law Physick or Chirurgery the Art of an Apothecary or any Liberal Science for His or Her gain By this Act a married Woman that is a Papist convict if she doth not within three Months after Conviction conform shall be committed to Prison without Bayl or Main-prize unless her Husband will pay ten Pounds a Mouth for the Wives offence or the third part of all his Lands c. for so long time as she remaining a Papist convict shall continue out of Prison during which time and no longer she may be at Liberty The Penal Laws in this Reign justified And certainly Watson and Clarks Plot the Gun-Powder Treason and the restless endeavours of the Pope and the Jesuits by his sending and their bringing over Bulls to alienate the Kings Subjects from their Allegiance will highly justifie the State in making these Laws against the Papists that were made in this Kings Reign And the more reasonable will they appear to be if it be considered that we do not find that he ever Executed one Person Priest Jesuit or other for Religion but all Died for Treason even Garnet himself was sorry that he could not Dye for Religion his guilt of Treason being so notorious And therefore these Plots Conspiracies and Treasons carry in the Face of them the greatest ingratitude imaginable The King in the Tenth Year of his Reign being affrighted with Henry the Fourth of France his being Stabbed by Ravilliac ventures upon a Proclamation King James his last Proclamation against the Jesuits Wilsons Hist f. 51 52. strictly commanding all Jesuits and Priests out of the Kingdom and all Recusants to their own Houses not to come within ten Miles of the Court and secures all the rest of his Subjects to him by an universal taking of the Oath of Allegiance which the Parliament both Lords and Commons then sitting began and the rest of the People followed (a) Wilsons Hist f. 25. Soon after this Parliament was Dissolved and Prince Henry was created Prince of Wales after which the Kings first Treaty for disposal of any of his Children was by his Leiger Ambassador in Spain with that King for the Lady Elizabeth (b) Wilsons Hist f. 91. Rushw Col. 1 part f. 1. and
afterwards another Treaty was set on foot for Prince Henry with a Daughter of Spain What Religion the Spaniard was of is well known and what effect the Crown of England Matching into Popish Families abroad hath had is more to be lamented then remembred any other ways then to avoid the like mischiefs for the future In the 12 th Year of his Reign there were a generation about the Court Camb. f. 77. A Parliament called and dissolved because they complained of grievances and particularly of the increase of Papists that undertook for the calling such a Parliament as the King would have these were Men that presumed they had friends in every County and Borough who by their power among the People could make Election of such Men for Knights and Burgesses as should comply solely with the Kings desire and Somerset was the head and chief of these undertakers but these projects against the Fundamentals of the English Government proved an abortive for the Parliament meeting such Faces appeared there as was no ways pleasing to the Court who instead of contributing to the Kings wants lay open his wasts especially upon the Scots with whom they desire a share of Favour The Bread by our Saviour's Rule properly belongs to the Children of the Kingdom and they beseech his Majesty to stop the Current of future access of that Nation to make residence here having enough to eat up their own Crums they enquire into the Causes of the unexpected increase of Popish Recusants since the Gunpowder Plot the detestation whereof they thought should have utterly extinguished them and they attribute it to the admission of Popish Nobility into his Councels the silencing of many watchful and dilligent Ministers the divers Treaties his Majesty had entertained not only for the Marriage of Prince Henry but for Prince Charles with the Daughters of Popish Princes which disheartned the Protestant and encouraged the Papist they laid open with these many other miscarriages in Government the King desirous to conceal these Matters dissolves the Parliament and Committed to the Tower and other Prisons such as were most active for the common good and who can deny but that this must needs give encouragement to the Papists In the 15 th Year of his Reign he put out a Book to Tollerate Sports on the Lords Days this Book came out with a Command injoyning all Ministers to read it to their Parishoners and to approve of it A Book of Sports obtruded and those that did not were brought before the High Commission Imprisoned and Suspended This was a contrivance of the Papists and their adherents to trap the most Conscientious Men of the Church of England who were in all other matters exactly conformable and to lay them aside and good reason the Papists had for this because no Nation will ever receive their innovations in Matters of Religion where there is a Sound Orthodox Learned and Pious Clergy Wilsons Hist. f. 105. Wilson says that some of the Ministers that were Suspended said that they would Preach the Gospel in a Fools Coat rather then be silent for a Surplis and the Conjuring of them with the Cross in Baptism and the Circle of the Ring in Marriage could not make a well composed Reason and a sound Conscience then start at it But when so frighful an Aparition as the Dancing Book appeared some of the Ministers left all for fear others by force they were so terrified by it This I have set down in Willsons own words because it appears by this that the Men that were suspended were proceeded against not for Puritanism or Nonconformity to the discipline of the Church of England but for non-complying with things obtruded on them by right down Papists or those who whether they saw it or no I cannot tell were carrying on the Popish designs The King having all along had a design of Matching his Son Rushw Col. 1. part f. 11. either to Spain or France it is no wonder that the Priests and Jesuits swarm here and much less a wonder that they endeavour to promote their own Religion for if they will do it when the Edge of Justice is sharpned against them much more when he that should make use of the Sword is so merciful that let them do what they will he will not or so fearful he dares not strike As Prophanness by reason of the Book of Sports crept in by their means so did Idolotry and Superstition for their was now more enmity against Ministers of the Gospel then Popish Priests and no wonder for let a Peoples Morals be once throughly debauched and 't will not be very difficult to make them outwardly of what Religion you will. The Jesuits Jugling with the Boy of Bilson Wilsons Hist. f. 107. The Popish Priests and Jesuits having now more liberty then they had had for above fifty Years resolve to make much of their time and because they cannot much boast of real holiness pretended Miracles must recommend them to the People for this purpose the Boy of Bilson was set up by them as he himself afterwards confest to Act the part of one possest with a Divel and they were to come and disposes him that so it might appear how much Gods Power was exprest in their weakness and to difference the truth and holiness betwixt the Catholic Religion and the Heresie profest among Protestants such Godly cheats are they always making use of to deceive the Hearts of the simple This Boy Bishop Morton discovered to be an imposture and when he had made the discovery and the Boy found he was detected he confest the whole Matter to be thus That he was inticed to one Mr. Giffords House in Stafford-shire where there were four Romish Priests who gave him Mony and many fair words promising him great matters if he would be conformable to their instructions In three days time they had taught him to practice his tricks so well that they ventured him home to his Fathers to exercise them publickly He came home in a very distracted manner to his Parents amazement and in a short time the thing was noised and a great deal of Company coming to see him his Parents got Money by it which was an incouragement to him to persist so that when the Priests came to disposes him he would not be disposest but went on and as they had instructed him accused a poor Old Woman of Witchcraft for which she was Tryed and Condemned and had been Executed had it not been for Bishop Morton detecting this imposture The whole story you may read at large in Wilson from f. 106. to 111. Wilsons Hist. f. 130. Henry Earl of Northumberland who was Sentenced in the Star-Chamber Thirty Thousand Pounds and Imprisoned in the Tower for harbouring in his House the aforenamed Thomas Piercy his Kinsman who was one of the Plotters of the Gunpowder-Treason was in the Seaventeenth Year of this Kings Reign set at liberty The
Spaniards gives the overture of the Match Rushw Col. part 1. f. 4. The King having had thoughts of a Match for Prince Charles with France and the Duke of Savoy having been before him and prevailed for his Son the Prince of Piedmount The Spaniard giving the overture of a Match King James embraceth it and Articles of Religion between the King of England and Spain were agreed on which were these c. Articles of Religion agreed upon between the Kings of England and Spain That the Popes Dispensation be first obtained by meer Act of the King of Spain That the Children of this Marriage be not constrained in Matters of Religion nor their Title prejudiced in case they prove Catholics That the Infanta's Family being Strangers may be Catholics and shall have a decent place appointed for all Divine Service according to the use of the Church of Rome and the Ecclesiasticks and Religious Persons may wear their own proper Habits That the Marriage shall be Celebrated in Spain by a Procurator according to the instructions of the Councel of Trent and after the Infanta's Arival in England such a Solemnation shall be used as may make the Marriage valid according to the Laws of this Kingdom That she shall have a competent number of Chaplains and a Confesser being Strangers one whereof shall have Power to Govern the Family in Religious Matters But none of the People of England but were averse to this Match except the Papists whose interest indeed it was to carry it on After the Bohemians had chosen the Count Palatine King of Bohemia he craved advice of his Father in Law King James touching the acceptation of that Royal dignity But before he could receive his advice he was prevailed upon to accept it Count Palatine chose King of Bohemia Wilsons Hist f. 132. Rushw Col. 1. part f. 12. because the emergency of the Cause would admit of no delay and afterwards sent to King James to excuse it When this important business of the Count Palatines accepting the Crown of Bohemia was related in the Kings Councel to evince of what advantage it was to the Protestant Cause I shall here insert Arch-Bishop Abbots Letter to Sir Robert Nauton the Kings Secretary the Arch-Bishops infirmities not permitting him at that time to attend the Councel That God hath set up this Prince his Majesties Son in Law Arch-Bishop Abbot's Letter touching the Count Palatines accepting the Crown of Bohemia as a mark of Honour throughout all Christendom to propagate the Gospel to help the oppressed that for his own part he dares not but to give advice to follow where God Leads apprehending the Work of God in this and that of Hungary that by Peece and Peece the Kings of the Earth that gave their Power to the Beasts shall leave the Whore and make her desolate that he was satisfied in Conscience the Bohemians had just cause to reject that Bloody Man who had taken a course to make that Kingdom not Elective in taking it by the donation of another the slighting of the Viscount Doncaster in his embassage gave cause of just displeasure and indignation therefore let not a Noble Son be forsaken for their sakes who regard nothing but their own ends our striking in will comfort the Bohemians Honour the Palsgrave strengthen the Princes of the Vnion draw on the United Provinces stir up the King of Denmark and the Palatines two Vncles the Prince of Orange and the Duke of Bovillon together with Termoville a rich Prince in France to cast in their shares The Parliament is the Old and honourable way for raising of Money and all that may be spared is to be returned this way and perhaps God provided the Jewels that were laid up in the Tower by the Mother for the preservation of the Daughter who like a Noble Princess hath professed that she will not leave her self one Jewel rather then not maintain so Religious and Righteous a Cause certainly if countenance be given to this Action many brave Spirits will offer themselves therefore let all our Spirits be gathered up to animate this business that the World may take notice that we are awake when God calls By this Letter it plainly appears that it was the Arch-Bishops Opinion that it tended much to the promoting the Reformation that the Count Palatine should accept the Crown of Bohemia and the Crown of England should stand by him in it and whoever reads the most impartial writers of those times will find that the Spanish Match which was then a foot and Popish Councels at home was the true Cause of the loss of the Palatinate and the ruine of that Protestant Prince and how could things be expected otherwise so long as Gondamor had so far the ascendant of the King that when the Earl of Essex solicited the King after the War was begun to send more Forces Gondamor obstructed it whatever he desired was done and few or none were well respected at Court but Spanish * Wilsons 144. Rushw 1. part f. 18. vide the private instructions to the Spanish Ambassador sent into England Pentioners under whom the Papists flourished After the Palatinate was lost the King outwardly seemed willing to assist towards the Recovery of it and therefore proposes it first to the Privy Councel and afterwards called a Parliament which was to meet the thirteenth of January in the 18 th Year of his Reign proposing to himself that the People for regaining the Palatinate would open their Purses which he might make use of and that a good agreement Between him and his People would induce his Brother of Spain to be more Active and so he should have supply from the one and dispatch from the other i. e. Mony and the Spanish Match were the ends he aimed at let the Palatinate Sink or Swim 't was no matter This the Jesuits and Seminary Priests knew well enough and therefore they Wilsons Hist. f. 151. rangeing up and down like Spirits let loose did not now as formerly creep into Corners using close and cunning Artifices but practised them openly having admission to our Councellors of State. And when Secretaries and such as manage the intimate Councels of Kings are Jesuits and Clients to the Pope there can be no tendency of affection to a contrary Religion or Policy Yet these were the Men that carried all before them at Court And the Protestant interest must needs flourish under such Ministers of State especially if it be considered that England was not only Man'd with Jesuits all Power now failing to oppose them but the Women also began to practice the Trade Women Jesuitrices calling themselves Jesuitrices This Order was first set on foot in Flanders by Mrs. Ward and Mrs. Twitty two English Gentlewomen who Cloathed themselves in Ignatian Habit and were Countenanced and Supported by Father Gerrard Rector of the English Colledge at Leige with Father Flack and Father More Their design was to Preach the Popish
Doctrine to their own Sex in England i. e. to Alienate their Hearts from their Soveraign if he be not of their Religion or will not at least connive at it to engage them in Plots Conspiracies and Treasons for the destroying Heretical i. e. Protestant Kings and Heresie that is Protestantism that they do or should defend This project took so as any thing doth that tends to promoting Mother Church that in a short time this Mrs. Ward by the Popes indulgence who will indulge any thing that tends to destroy what he calls Heresie became the Mother General of no less then two Hundred English Damsels of good Birth and Quallity whom she sent abroad to Preach This Story and many other Jesuitical exploits are more particularly related in Wadsworths Spanish Pilgrim to which I refer the Reader The Parliament meet Wilsons Hist f. 193. Rushw Coll. 1 pt f. 23. On the 30 th of January 1620. the Parliament met according to the Summons and notwithstanding the King 's smooth Speech to them they petitioned him for the due Execution of the Laws against Jesuits Seminary Priests and Papists which evidences that there was either none or at least a very slender Execution of those Laws They rip up Grievances They rip up many Grievances that the People had groaned under during the Intervals of Parliament by Monopoly Patents and otherwise punished the great Managers of them with exemplary Punishments and to make the Redress of these Grievances pass the more easily with the King they gave him two Subsidies which was very acceptable to him The Parliament adjourned without taking care of the Palatinate or Protestant Religion Rushw Coll. 1 pt f. 35. Wilsons Hist f. 164. He having got this Supply when the Parliament had sate about four Months he sent them word by the Lord Treasurer that he would have them adjourn as being more expedient than a Prorogation that he had redressed Corruption in Courts of Justice by his Proclamation called in the Patents of Inns of Osteries and of Gold and Silver Thread and cherished the Bill against Informers and Monopolies but not a word of Care taken to recover the Palatinate or putting the Laws in execution against the Papists The Commons take it amiss which the King resents and on the fourth of June 1621. in the ninteenth Year of his Reign Wilson saith till February he declared for an Adjournment till November following and that he will in the mean time of his own Authority redress Grievances The House of Commons immediately before this Recess taking to heart the Miseries of the Palatinate and knowing how much the Protestant Religion was concerned in it resolved that the drawing back in so good a Cause should not be charged on their Slackness and therefore made the Declaration following with an universal Consent The Commons Declaration touching the Palatinate Rushw Coll. 1 pt f. 36. Wilsons Hist f. 164. THE Commons assembled in Parliament taking into most serious Consideration the present State of the Kings Children abroad and general afflicted Estate of the true Professors of the same Christian Religion professed by the Church of England in foreign Parts and being touched with a true Sense and Fellow-feeling of their Distresses as Members of the same Body do with unanimous Consent in the Name of themselves and the whole Body of the Kingdom whom they represent declare unto His most Excellent Majesty and to the whole World their hearty Grief and Sorrow for the same and do not only joyn with them in their humble and devout Prayers to Almighty God to protect his true Church and to avert the Dangers now threatned but also with one Heart and Voice do solemnly protest That if His Majesties pious Endeavours by Treaty to procure their Peace and Safety shall not take that good Effect which is desired in Treaty wherefore they humbly beseech His Majesty not to suffer any longer Delay that then upon Signification of His Majesties Pleasure in Parliament they shall be ready to the utmost of their Powers both with their Lives and Fortunes to assist him so as that by the Divine Help of Almighty God which is never wanting unto those who in his Fear shall undertake the Defence of his own Cause he may be able to do that with his Sword which by a peaceable Course shall not be effected Soon after this the King was plyed from Spain and Rome The King plied for Favour to Papists to enlarge his Favours to Popish Recusants and it could not be otherwise expected so long as there was any thoughts of so near an Alliance between Spain and England The Parliament met again the twentieth of November The Parliament meet and because the House of Commons found that though the King declared for War he pursued Peace and resolved to close with Spain They resolved to try the Kings Spirit by the following Petition and Remonstrance wherein they laid open the Distempers of those Times with their Causes and Cures The Causes they told him were these The Vigilance and Ambition of the Pope A Remonstrance by the Parliament against Popery Wilson f. 167. Rushw Coll. 1 pt f. 40. and his Son the Spanish Prince The Devilish Doctrines of the Romish Church The distressed Estate of the Protestants abroad The disasterous Accidents to his a The Count Palatines Family Children abroad The strange Confederacy of the Popish Princes to subvert the Protestant Religion here The great Armies raised by the Spaniard The Papists Expectations of the Spanish Match Foreign Princes interposing for Favour to Papists here The Papists open Resort to Foreign Ambassadors Their Concourse to London and their Conventicles there The Education of their Children in Seminaries The Grants of their Forfeitures to Persons who take little or nothing of them The printing Popish Books The Swarms of Priests and Jesuits The common Incendiaries of all Christendom disperst in all parts of the Kingdom The growing Mischiefs to Church and State they told him were these The Popish Religion is incompatable with ours and draws with it an unavoidable Dependance on Foreign Princes It opens a wide Gap for Popularity to any who shall draw too great a Party b We have lately seen the Truth of this verified when the Papists from Connivance actually got a Toleration and that with an Equality and had got the Superiority and subverted our Religion had not God in his Providence interposed it hath a restless Spirit and will strive by these Gradations If it get but a Connivance it will press for a Toleration if that should be obtained they must have an Equality from thence they will aspire to Superiority and will never rest till they get a Subversion of the true Religion The Remedies proposed were That the King would take his Sword into his Hand that he would therewith assist the Protestants abroad not to rest upon a War in these Parts only but give a Diversion otherwise That this War
might be against him that had maintained the War in the Palatinate That he would put the Laws in Execution against the Papists That the c Charles the First Prince might be married to a Protestant That the Children of the Nobility and Gentry beyond Seas might be called home That Papists Children and their Children whose Wives were Papists might be educated by Protestant School-Masters and Teachers That the King would revoak all former Licences for Youth to travel beyond Sea and grant no more after That all former Grants of Papists Lands might be avoided if by Law they could and no such Grants made afterwads The Commons had no small reason to take notice of the State of the Protestant Interest abroad seeing besides the great Wound made in Germany Protestants persecuted abroad Rushw Coll. 1 pt f. 43. and the Cruelties of the prevailing House of Austria the Protestants in France were almost ruined by Lewis the Thirteenth and yet notwithstanding the King understanding they were preparing the above mentioned Remonstrance writ a Letter to Sir Thomas Richardson Speaker of the House of Commons December the 3 d. 1621. Wherein he let him know He heard to his Grief that his Absence being sick had emboldned some fiery and popular Spirits of the House to argue and debate Matters far above their Reach and Capacity The King is angry at the Remonstrance and writes to the Speaker to prevent it Rush Coll. Ibid. tending to his Dishonour and Breach of Prerogative Royal. Therefore commanded him to make known to the House that none should presume to meddle with any thing concerning his Government or deep Matters of State and particularly that they should not deal with his dearest Sons Match with the Daughter of Spain or any other his Friends and Confederates That except they did reform it before it came to his Hands he would not hear nor answer it Another Remonstrance Rush Coll. 1 pt f. 44. And he was as good as his Word as will appear afterwards for upon the Receipt of this Letter the House drew up another Remonstrance with the greatest Submission imaginable wherein they lay the Ground of their former Remonstrance upon the deplorable Estate of his own Children in the Palatinate and the apparent Danger and almost unavoidable Ruine of the Protestants and the Protestant Religion at Home and abroad evidenced by Transactions an Account whereof they had received from his Majesty himself by three Honorable Lords and tackt their former Remonstrance to the latter and so presented them but the former he rejected utterly and gave a long Answer to the latter but granted nothing whereof they complained as may be seen by the Answer it self printed in Wilson f. 178. and Rushworth f. 46. In the said Answer he discovered his great Concern for the Spanish Match and his Backwardness to proceed against Papists however the same is blended by specious Pretences of the Necessity of shewing Favour to the Papists here to procure the gentle Usage of the Protestants abroad VVilson's Hist f. 188. Rushw Coll. 1 pt 53 54 55. The Parliament dissolved He denied in his Answer the Rights and Priviledges of the Commons to be their Birth-right they protest them so to be he tears the Protest out of the Journal Book of the House of Commons and the sixth of January 1621. by Proclamation dissolves the Parliament And whether that were the way to recover the Palatinate or secure the Protestant Religion at home or abroad needs no great Sagacity to determine Papists discharged from Imprisonment VVilson's Hist f. 195. Rushw Coll. 1 pt f. 62 63. In the twentieth Year of this Kings Reign the Prisons were opened Priests and Jesuits walked about at Noon And Gondamore who did what he pleased vaunts of four thousand Papists that his Intercession had released either to make his Service the more acceptable to his Master or to let him see how willing the King was to do any thing to advance that Match which they never intended The King was not so nice but that he could stay for * Car. Bandino Car. Lode visio a Dispensation from Rome To expedite which he wrote to some of the most active Cardinals there and received Answers from them full of alluring Hopes And that he might give some more publick Testimony of his Indulgence to the Papists the mortal Enemies of the Protestants he commanded Doctor Williams Bishop of Lincoln then Lord-Keeper of the Great Seal of England to pass Writs under the Great Seal to require the Judges of every Circuit to enlarge all such Papists as were imprisoned for Recusancy accordingly the Writs were issued forth under the Great Seal and the Lord-Keeper wrote to the Judges on this manner which Letter take Verbatim as printed in Wilson The Lord Keeper Williams his Letter to the Judges in Favour of the Papists VVilson's Hist f. 196. AFter my hearty Commendations to you His Majesty having resolved out of deep Reasons of State and in Expectation of like Correspondence from Foreign Princes to the Professors of our Religion to grant some Grace and Connivance to the imprisoned Papists of this Kingdom hath commanded me to pass some Writs under the Broad Seal to that purpose requiring the Judges of every Circuit to enlarge the said Prisoners according to the Tenor and Effect of the same I am to give you to understand from His Majesty how His Majesties Royal Pleasure is that upon receipt of these Writs you shall make no Niceness or Difficulty to extend that His Princely Favour to all such Papists as you shall find Prisoners in the Goals of your Circuits for any Church Recusancy whatsoever or refusing the Oath of Supremacy or dispersing Popish Books or hearing saying of Mass or any other Point of Recusancy which doth touch or concern Religion only and not Matter of State And so I bid you farewel Your Loving Friend Jo. Lincoln Westminster Coll. 2. Aug. 1622. In order to the Match with Spain the King agreed to such Articles of Religion The Spanish Match the Nature of the Articles Rushw Coll. 1 pt f. 66 67. as were Satisfactory in the Judgment of the learnedest and greatest Clergy of Spain That they declared their Opinion that upon the Offer of such Conditions the Pope ought not to with-hold the Dispensation and the Pope himself was satisfied that he had in a manner done already all that was desired No wonder then that the Papists were quiet here in England and not engaged in Plots and Contrivances against the Kings Person for the Reason is plain the whole Substance of the Spanish Treaty was a Plot for ruining the Palatinate and thereby weakning in order to destroy the Protestant Interest abroad which they effected by feeding the King with the Hopes of that Match and thereby diverting him from taking the Parliaments Advice in order to recover the Palatinate You may read the whole Story in VVilson and Rushworth and when they had
brought their Designs about and the Palatinate was irretrievably lost they broke off the Match and left the King and Prince in the Lurch Right Popish Jugling After this Treaty was dissolved the King thinks of a Match with France The French Match Rushw Coll. 1 pt f. 114. A Parliament called and the Lord Kensington was sent Ambassadot into France to feel the Pulse of that Court touching it and gives an Account that it would be accepted soon after which a Parliament was called to meet the twelfth of February in the 21 st year of this King 1623. and now the King is of the Mind to take the Parliaments Advice about his Sons Match as he told them and is grieved for the Increase of Popery if after all the foregoing Passages it be to be believed and promises a great deal and porforms never a whit And here I cannot omit what Wilson saith speaking of this Parliaments Petition against Papists and the Kings Answer both which he hath printed at large f. 272.273 274 275. to which I refer the Reader If the King saith he had seriously and really considered the very last Clause of this Petition wherein the Glory of God and the Safety of his Kingdoms so much consisted as the Parliament wisely express and foresee and which the King saith is the best Advice in the World and which he promised so faithfully to observe in the next Treaty of Marriage for his Son it might perhaps have kept the Crown upon the head of his Posterity But when Princes break with the People A good Caution for all Christian Princes and States in those Promises that concern the Honour of God God will let their People break with them to their Ruine and Dishonour And this Maxim holds in all Powers whether Kingdoms or Common-wealths as they are established by Justice so the Justice of Religion which tends most to the Glory of God is principally to be observed The Parliament followed the Chase close The Parliament displaceth Papists and bolted out divers of the Nobility and Gentry of Eminency popishly affected that had earthed themselves in Places of high Trust and Power in the Kingdom as if they meant to undermine the Nation Their Names Wilson saith were these Francis Earl of Rutland the Duke of Buckinghams Wives Father Sir Thomas Compton Their Names VVilson's Hist f. 276. that was married to the Dukes Mother and the Countess her self who was the Cynosure they all steered by the Earl of Castle-haven the Lord Herbert after Earl of Worcester the Lord Viscount Colchester after Earl of Rivers the Lord Peter the Lord Morley the Lord Windsor the Lord Eure the Lord Wotton the Lord Teinham the Lord Scroop who was Lord President of the North and which they omitted the Earl of Northampton Lord President of Wales who married his Children to Papists and permitted them to be bred up in Popery Sir William Courtney Sir Thomas Brudnell Sir Thomas Somerset Sir Gilbert Ireland Sir Francis Stonners Sir Anthony Brown Sir Francis Howard Sir William Powel Sir Francis Lacon Sir Lewis Lewkner Sir William Awbury Sir John Gage Sir John Shelly Sir Henry Carvell Sir Thomas Wiseman Sir Thomas Geâ—rard Sir John Filpot Sir Thomas Russel Sir Henry Beddingfield Sir William Wrey Sir John Counwey Sir Charles Jones Sir Ralph Conyers Sir Thomas Lamplough Sir Thomas Savage Sir William Mosely Sir Hugh Beston Sir Thomas Riddall Sir Marmaduke Nivell Sir John Townesend Sir William Norris Sir Philip Knevet Sir John Tasborough Sir William Selbie Sir Richard Titehborn Sir John Hall Sir George Perkins Sir Thomas Penrodduck Sir Nicholas Saunders Knights besides several Esquires popishly addicted either in their own Persons or by means of their Wives too tedious to be expressed here and these were dispersed and seated in every County who were not only in Office and Commission but had Countenance from Court by which they grew up and flourished so that their Exuberancy hindred the Growth of any Goodness or Piety their Malice pleased to drop upon Soon after which the Parliament was adjourned after they had made thirty five publick Acts and seventy three private ones but nothing was done with relation to the Papists Rushw Coll. 1 pt f. 154 155. VVilson f. 277. saith the King desired this Match above all Earthly Blessings The King admiring the Alliance of mighty Kings though of a contrary Religion desired the Match with France unmeasurably notwithstanding his Promise to the Parliament which the French perceived and though they were very forward before yet now abated of that Forwardness And whereas they were at first very modest in their Demands in favour of the Papists yet now inlarged those Demands and strained the King to the Concession of such Immunities as he had promised the Parliament he would never grant In August 1624. this Match was concluded and in November the Articles were sworn unto by King James Prince Charles and the French King the Articles concerning Religion were not much short of those for the Spanish Match Papists encouraged by the Treaty with France Rushw Coll. 1 pt f. 154. The Papists formerly daunted by the Breach of the Spanish Match were now again revived by the Marriage Treaty with France And at this time upon the Death of William titular Bishop of Calcedon most of the English Secular Priests did petition the Pope that another Bishop might be sent over into England there to ordain Priests give Confirmation and exercise Episcopal Jurisdiction Among others Matthew Killison and Richard Smith were presented And though the Regulars were opposite to the Seculars in this Matter yet those of the Order of St. Benedict joyned with the Seculars and Rudesin Barlo the President of the English Benedictines of Doway wrote a Letter in their Behalf at the Congregation at Rome named of the Propagation of the Faith. Dated the 12 th of December 1624. In which Letter was this Passage That there were above sixty Benedictine Monks in England and that it is not to be doubted said he for that it is already seen the good Success under the first Bishop that another Bishop being constituted there would be more joyful Fruits within two Years in the English Mission than hitherto hath been for sixty years now lapsed But not long after the Episcopal party of the Romish Church prevailing Pope Vrban the VIII created Richard Smith Bishop of Calcedon and sent him into England with Episcopal Authority over the Priests within the English Dominions The Close of this Kings Reign Rushw Coll. f. 155. And now I am come to the Close of this Kings Reign for after he had notwithstanding all his connivance at the Papists out of either Ambition or Cowardise recommended the Protection of the Church of England to the then Prince of Wales Charles the First advised him to love his Wife but not her Religion and exhorted him to take special care of his Grand-Children the Children of the Elector Palatine by his Daughter
See of Rome confer any Ecclesiastical function whatsoever toward or upon your Majesties natural Subjects within your Dominions Answ This is fit to be ordered according as is provided and it shall be so published by Proclamation 8. That your Majesties learned Councel may receive Order and Commandment to consider of all former Grants of Recusants Lands that such of them may be avoided as are made to the Recusants use or interest out of which the Recusant receiveth any benefit which are either void or voidable by the Law. Answ The King will give Order to his learned Councel to consider of the Grants and will do according as is desired 9. That your Majesty will be likewise pleased strictly to command all your Judges and Ministers of Justice Ecclesiastical and Temporal to see the Laws of this Realm against Popish Recusants to be duly executed and namely that the censure of Excommunication be declared and certified against them and that they be not absolved upon publick satisfaction by yielding to Conformity Answ His Majestys leaves the Laws to their course and will order in the point of Excommunication as is desired 10. That your Majesty will be pleased to remove from Places of Authority and Government all such Persons as are either Popish Recusants or according to direction of former Acts of State to be justly suspected Answ ' This his Majesty thinks fit and will give order for it 11. That present order be taken for disarming all Popish Recusants legally convicted or justly suspected according to the Laws in that behalf and the Orders taken by his late Majesty's Privy Councel upon reason of State. Answ The Laws and Acts in this Case shall be followed and put in due Execution 12. That your Majesty be also pleased in respect of the great resort of Recusants to and about London to command forthwith upon pain of your indignation and severe Execution of the Laws that they retire themselves to their several Countrys there to remain confined within five Miles of their Places Answ ' For this the Laws in Force shall be forthwith Executed 13. And whereas your Majesty hath strictly commanded and taken Order that none of the natural born Subjects repair to the hearing of Masses or other Supersttious Services at the Chappels or Houses of foreign Ambassadors or in any other places whatsoever we give your Majesty most humble thanks and desire that your Order and Commandment therein may be continued and observed and that the offenders herein may be punished according to the Laws Answ The King gives consent thereto and will see that observed which herein hath been commanded by him 14. That all such insolencies as any that are Popishly affected have lately Committed or shall hereafter commit to the dishonour of our Religion or to the wrong of the true Professors thereof be exemplarily Punished Answ ' This shall be done as is desired 15. That the Statute of 1 Eliz. for the payment of twelve pence every Sunday by such as shall be absent from Divine Service in the Church without a lawful excuse may be put in due Execution the rather for that the penalty by Law is given to the Poor and therefore not to be dispensed withal Answ It is fit that this Statute be Executed and the Penalties shall not be dispensed withal 16. Lastly that your Majesty would be pleased to extend your princely care also over the Kingdom of Ireland that the like courses may be there taken for the restoring and establishing of true Religion there Answ His Majesties Cares are and shall be extended over the Kingdom of Ireland and he will do all that a Religious King should do for the restoring and establishing of true Religion there And thus Most Gracious Soveraign according to our duty and zeal to God and Religion to your Majesty and your safety to the Church and Common-wealth and their Peace and Prosperity we have made a Faithful Declaration of the present Estate the Causes and Remedies of this encreasing disease of Popery Humbly offering the same to your Princely care and wisdom The Answer of your Majesties Father our Late Soveraign of Famous Memory upon the like Petition did give us great comfort of Reformation but your Majesties most Gracious Promises made in that kind do give us confidence and assurance of the continual performance thereof in which comfort and confidence reposing our selves we most Humbly pray for your Majesties long continuance in all Princely felicity Rushw Coll. 1 pt 191. The 10 th of August the King sends to the Commons to have a present supply and promises to let them meet again in Winter and redress their greivances then they insist to have both go on together The Parliament dissolved but withal make a most submisive Declaration of their affection and duty to him Which notwithstanding he by Commission 12 August 1625. dissolved them Rushw Coll. 1. pt f. 191.192 The King soon after issued out a Proclamation to call home Papists Children and soon after Disarmed the Papists but as this was pleasing so his Letter soon after sent to the Leivetenants for the loan of Money upon Privy Seals and other things of the like kind were as distastful to the People A Parliament called Papists proceeded against But these Courses not having the wisht for success and the King being pressed with his own necessities summoned a Parliament to meet in February and enjoyned the Arch-Bishops and Bishops in both Provinces to proceed by Examination and other Church censures with the utmost severity against the Papists and those more especially who were Popishly affected and did encourage and advance the growth of Popery and issued out a Proclamation to confine Convicted Papists to their dwelling Houses or within five Miles thereof On Candlemas Day he was Crowned and at the time of his Coronation took the Coronation Oath in manner following Sir says the Arch-Bishop will you grant and keep K. Charles 1. Crowned The Coronation Oath Rushw Coll. 1. part f. 200. Arch-Bishop and by your Oath confirm to the People of England the Laws and Customs to them granted by the Kings of England your Lawful and Religious Predecessors and namely the Laws Customs and Franchises granted to the Clergy by the Glorious King St. Edward your Predecessor according to the Laws of God the true Profession of the Gospel established in this Kingdom agreeable to the Prerogative of the Kings thereof and the ancient Customs of the Realm I Grant and Promise to keep them Sir Will you keep Peace and Godly Agreement according to your Power both to God The Kings Answer the Holy Church the Clergy and the People I Will keep it Sir Will you to your Power cause Law Justice and Discretion to Mercy and Truth to be executed to your Judgment I Will. Sir Will you grant to hold and keep the Laws and Rightful Customs which the Commonalty of this your Kingdom have and will you defend and uphold them to
a Commission Issued to compound with Papists for their Forfeitures A Parliament was Summoned to meet the 17 th of March 1627. and a little before this Parliament Assembled a Society of Papists were taken in Clerkenwel divers of them were Jesuits and the House wherein they were taken was designed to be a Colledge of that Order Amongst their Papers was found a Copy of this Letter written to their Father Rector at Bruxells discovering their designs upon this State and their judgment of the temper thereof with a conjecture of the success of the ensuing Parliament which Letter because it contains Matter that justifies the making of the Law that was made against the Papists in this Sessions of Parliament as I find it Printed in Rushworth f. 474. I have here inserted A Letter from a Jesuit concerning the ensuing PARLIAMENT Father Rector LET not the damp of astonishment seize upon your Ardent and Zealous Soul A Letter from a Jesuit concerning the ensuing Parliament Rushw Coll. 1. pt f. 474. in apprehending the suddain and unexpected calling of a Parliament We have not opposed but rather furthered it so that we hope as much in this Parliament as ever we feared any in Queen Elizabeths days You must know the Council is engaged to assist the King by way of Prerogative in Case the Parliament any way should fail You shall see this Parliament will resemble the Pelican which takes a pleasure to dig out with her Beak her own Bowels The Election of Knights and Burgesses hath been in such confusion of apparent faction as that which we were wont to procure heretofore with much Art and Industry when the Spanish Match was in Treaty now breaks out naturally as a botch or boyl and spews out its own Rankor and Venom You remember how that famous and immortal Statesman the Connt of Gondomar fed King James his fancy and Rocked him asleep with the soft sweet sound of Peace to keep up the Spanish Treaty likewise we were much bound to some Statesmen of our own Country for gaining time by procuring the most advantageous Cessation of Arms in the Palatinate and advancing the Honour and integrity of the Spanish Nation and villifying the Hollanders remonstrating to King James that the State was most ungrateful both to his Predecessor Queen Elizabeth and his Sacred Majesty that the States were more obnoxious then the Turk and perpetually injured his Majesties Loving Subjects in the East-Indies and likewise they have usurped from his Majesty the Regality and unvaluable profit of the narrow Seas in fishing upon the English Coasts c. This great Statesman had but one principal means to further their great and good designs which was to set on King James that none but the Puritan Faction which plotted nothing but Anarchy and his Confusion were averse to this most happy Vnion We Steered on the same Course and have made great use of this Anarchical Election and have prejudicated and anticipated the great one that none but the Kings Enemies and his are chosen of this Parliament c. We have now many Strings to our Bow and have strongly Fortified our Faction and have added two Bulwarks more For when King James lived you know he was very violent against Arminianism and interrupted with his pestilent Wit and Learning our strong designs in Holland and was a great Friend to that Old Rebel and Heretick the Prince of Orange Now we have planted that Soveraign drug Arminianism which we hope will purge the Protestants from their Heresie and it Flourisheth and beareth Fruit in due Season The Materials which build up our Bulwark are the Projectors and Beggars of all Ranks and Qualities howsoever both these Factions co-operate to destroy the Parliament and to introduce a new Species and Form of Government which is Oliargchy Those serve as direct Mediums and Instruments to our End which is the Vniversal Catholick Monarchy Our Foundation must be Mutation and Mutation will cause a Relaxation which will serve as so many violent Diseases as the Stone Gout c. to the speedy Distraction of our perpetual and insufferable Anguish of Body which is worse than Death it self We proceed now by Councel and mature Deliberation how and when to work upon the Dukes Jealousie and Revenge and in this we give the Honour to those which merit it which are the Church Catholics There is another Matter of Consequence which we take much into our Consideration and Tender care which is to stave off Puritans that they hang not in the Dukes Ears they are impudent subtil People And it is to be feared least they should negotiate a Reconciliation between the Duke and the Parliament at Oxford and Westminster but now we assure our Selves we have so handled the Matter that both Duke and Parliament are irreconcileable For the better prevention of the Puritans the Arminians have already lockt up the Dukes Ears and we have those of our own Religion which stand continually at the Dukes Chamber to see who goes in and out we cannot be too circumspect and careful in this Regard I cannot chuse but laugh to see how some of our Coat have accoutred themselves you would scarce know them if you saw them and 't is admirable how in Speech and Gesture they act the Puritans The Cambridge Schollars to their woful Experience shall see we can act the Puritan a little better than they have done the Jesuites They have abused our sacred Patron St. Ignatius in jest but we will make them smart for it in earnest I hope you will excuse my merry Digression for I confess unto you I am at this time transported with Joy to see how happily all Instruments and Means as well great as less co-operate unto our Purposes But to return unto the main Fabrick our Foundation is Arminianism The Arminians and Projectors as it appears in the Premises affect Mutation this we second and enforce by probable Arguments in the first place we take into Consideration the Kings Honour and present Necessity and we shew how the King may free himself of his Word as Lewis the Eleventh did and for his great Splendor and Lustre he may raise a vast Revenue and not be beholden to his Subjects which is by way of Imposition and Excise then our Church Catholicks proceed to show the Means how to settle this Excise which must be by a mercenary Army of Horse and Foot. For the Horse we have made that sure they shall be Forreigners and Germans who will eat up the Kings Revenues and spoil the Country where-ever they come though they should be well paid what Havock will they make there when they get no Pay or are not duly paid they will do more Mischief then we hope the Army will do We are provident and careful that this mercenary Army of two thousand Horse and twenty thousand Foot shall be taken on and in Pay before the Excise be setled In forming the Excise the Country is most likely to rise If
the Mercenary Army subjugate the Country then the Souldiers and Projectors shall be paid out of the Confiscations if the Country be too hard for the Souldiers then they must consequently mutiny which is equally advantagious unto us our superlative Design is to work the Protestants as well as the Catholicks to welcome in a Conqueror and that is by this Means We hope instantly to dissolve Trades and hinder the building of Shipping in devising probable Designs and putting on the State upon Expeditions as that of Cadiz was in taking away the Merchant Ships so that they may not easily catch and light upon the West-India Fleet c. This produced a Fast and a Petition from the Parliament to the King against the Papist which Petition and the Kings Answer are as followeth The Parliaments Petition to the King and the Kings Answer all relating to the Papists Most Gracious Sovereign Rushw Coll. 1 pt f. 516. WE Your most Loyal and Obedient Subjects the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled having to our singular Comfort obtained Your Majesties Pious and Gracious Assent for a publick Fast to appease the Wrath of Almighty God kindled against us and to prevent those grievous Judgments which God doth apparently press upon us do in all Humility present unto Your Sacred Majesty all possible thanks for the same And because the publick and visible Sins of the Kingdom are the undoubted Causes of those visible Evils that are fallen upon us amongst which Sins as is apparent by the Word of God Idolatry and Superstition are the most heinous and crying Sins To the end that we may constantly hope for the Blessing of God to descend upon this our publick Humiliation by abandoning those Sins which do make a Wall of Separation betwixt God and Us. 1. Article WE most humbly and ardently beg at the Hands of Your most Sacred Majesty that Your Majesty will be pleased to give continual Life and Motion to all those Laws that stand in force against Jesuits Seminary Priests and all that have taken Orders by Authority of the See of Rome by exacting a more due and serious Execution of the same amongst which Number those that have highly abused Your Mejesties Clemency by returning into the Kingdom after their Banishment contrary to Your Highness's express Proclamation We humbly desire may be left to the Severity of Your Laws without admitting of any Mediation or Intercession for them and that such of Your Majesties unsound and ill-affected Subjects as do receive harbour or conceal any of their viperous Generation may without delay suffer such Penalties and Punishments as the Laws justly impose upon them His Majesties ANSWER unto the First ARTICLE of this PETITION TO the first Point His Majesty answereth that he will according to your Desire give both Live and Motion to the Laws that stand in force against Jesuits Seminary Priests and all that have taken Orders by Authority of the See of Rome and to that end His Majesty will give strict Orders to all His Ministers for the Discovering and Apprehending of them and so leave them being apprehended to the Tryal of the Law. And in case after Tryal there shall be Cause to respite Execution of any of them yet they shall be committed according to the Example of the best Times to the Castle of Wisbich and there be safely kept from exercising their Functions or spreading their Superstitious and Dangerous Doctrine and the Receivers and Abettors they shall be left to the Law. THat Your Majesty would be pleased to command a surer and streight Watch to be kept in and over Your Majesties Ports and Havens 2. Article and to commit the Care and Charge of Searching of Ships for the Discovery and Apprehension as well of Jesuits and Seminary Priests brought in as of Children and young Students sent over beyond the Seas to suck in the Poyson of Rebellion and Superstition unto Men of approved Fidelity and Religion and such as shall be convicted to have connived or combined in the bringing in the one or conveying of the other that the Laws may pass upon them with speedy Execution His Majesties ANSWER to the Second ARTICLE TO the second Article His Majesty granteth all that is in this Article and to this end will give order to the Lord Treasurer Lord Admiral and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports that in their several Places they be careful to see this Article fully executed giving strict Charge to all such as have Place and Authority under them to use all Diligence therein And His Majesty requireth them and all other His Officers and Ministers to have a vigilant Eye upon such as dwell in dangerous Places of Advantage or Opportunity for receiving or transporting of any such as are here mentioned And His Majesty will take it for good Service if any will give Knowledge of any such as have connived or combined or shall Connive or Combine as is mentioned in this Article that Justice may be strictly done upon them THat considering those dreadful Dangers never to be forgotten which did involve Your Majesties Sacred Person 3. Article and the whole representative Body of Your Majesties Kingdom plotted and framed by the free and common Access of Popish Recusants to the City of London and to Your Majesties Court Your Majesty would be graciously pleased to give speedy Command for the present putting in practise those Laws that prohibit all Popish Recusants to come to the Court or within ten Miles of the City of London as also those Laws that confine them to the Distance of five Miles from their dwelling Houses and that such by-past Licenses not warranted by Law as have been granted unto them for their Repair to the City of London may be discharged and annulled His Majesties ANSWER to the Third ARTICLE TO the third His Majesty will take order to restrain the Recourse of Recusants to the Court and also for the other Points of this Article His Majesty is well pleased that the Laws be duly executed and that all unlawful Licenses be annulled and discharged 4. Article THat whereas it is more than probably conceived that infinite Sums of Money have within this two or three Years last past been extracted out of the Recusants within the Kingdom by Colour of Composition and a small Proportion of the same returned into Your Majesties Coffers not only to the sudden enriching of private Persons but to the emboldning of Romish Recusants to entertain Massing Priests into their private Houses mimick Rites of their gross Superstition without fear of Controul amounting as by their daily Practice and Ostentation we may conceive to the Nature of a concealed Toleration Your Majesty would be graciously pleased to entertain this Particular more neerly into your Princely Wisdom and Consideration and to dissolve this Mystery of Iniquity patched up of colorable Leases Contracts and Preconveyances being but Masks on the one part of Fraud to deceive
Pretence of Charity or otherwise c. is disabled to sue to be Commitee of any Ward or Executor or Administrator is not capable of any Legacy or Deed of Gift or to bear any Office within the Realm forfeits all his Goods and Chattels forfeits his Lands and other real Estate for his Life In case of Conformity these Penalties are not to be incurred and in case the Lands have been seised they shall be restored And now I think I may appeal to the Reader himself whether there was not ground enough for the making this Law if there had been nothing more done in this Kings Reign then the Writing the Letter before mentioned which makes so full a Discovery of a Design they were driving on of subverting our Religion and introducing their own And if it be considered that there is no Penalty annexed to this Law that relates to the Loss of Life Member or Liberty it cannot be thought severe after such continued and restless Endeavors of that Party for our Destruction and bringing us back to our former Bondage under a foreign Yoke And let the Share they had in blowing up the Differences between King Charles I. and his Parliaments which at last ended in the late unnatural Civil War and in a Temporary Destruction of our Monarchy be considered that after Charles the First was beheaded Charles The Second they attempted the Perverting of his Sons when in Exile to the Idolatry and Superstition of the Romish Church And that they at last prevailed effectually with one at least to go over to their Communion and that it was known to the Parliament in the twenty fifth Year of the Reign of Charles the Second that he was so reconciled Let I say these things be considered and it cannot be thought hard that that Law passed the Parliament the Substance of which I have here inserted It is intitled An Act for preventing Dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants WHereby for preventing Dangers which might happen from Popish Recusants 25. Ca. 2. ca. 2. Papists made uncapable of any Place or Office of Profit or Trust in the Kingdom and quieting the Minds of His Majesties good Subjects it was enacted That all and every Person and Persons as well Peers as Commoners that should bear any Offices or Places of Trust or that received any Sallery from His Majesty or any his Predecessors or were in the Service or Employment of his Highness the Duke of Yoâ—k being within the City of London or thirty Miles distant from the same should take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy in the Court of Chancery or Kings-Bench before the end of Trinity Term then next following or at the Quarter Sessions for the Place where they should reside and should likewise receive the Sacrament according to the Vsage of the Church of England at or before the first Day of August 1673. that all Persons who should be admitted into any Office or Place as aforesaid after the first Day of Easter Term to take the said Oaths either in the said Courts or in the Quarter Session for the County where he or they should reside and receive the Sacrament within three months after their Admittance to such Office c. And should deliver a Certificate into the Court where he takes the said Oaths of the receiving the Sacrament That whosoever should refuse to take the said Oaths should be adjudged incapable of any other Office and if after his Refusal he shall exercise any Office he shall not prosecute any Suit in Law Equity or be Guardian to any Child or Executor or Administrator of any Person or be capable of any Deed or Gift or to bear any Office and shall forfeit five hundred Pounds to whomsoever will sue for the same in any of His Majesties Courts where no Protection or Wager of Law should lye That the Names of all such Persons as should take the said Oaths be in the Courts of Chancery and Kings-Bench and Quarter Sessions inrolled with the Time of taking the same in Rolls for that purpose and that none should pay above the Sum of twelve Pence to any Officer for their Entry of the taking the said Oaths That no Person not bred up in the Popish Religion by his Parents should breed up or suffer his Children to be bred up in the Popish Religion under Penalty of being disabled from bearing any Office or Places of Trust and all such Children so brought up and educated shall be disabled from bearing any such Offâ—ces until they be reconciled to the Church of England take the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and receive the Sacrament And that all Persons taking the said Oaths shall at the taking the same subscribe the Declaration following I A. B. do declare that I do believe that there is no Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or in the Elements of Bread and Wine at or after the Consecration thereof by any Person whatsoever And of this Subscription a Register to be kept as of taking the Oaths this Act not to extend to prejudice the Peerage of the Realm or take away Creation or Bills of Impost or any Salary for Life or Years granted for sufficient Consideration nor to make void any Estates of Inheritance not being Offices or to make void any Pension granted to any Person instrumental in preserving the King at Worcester that all Persons refusing to take the Oaths having Offices of Inheritance must appoint Deputies to take the said Oaths and subscribe the said Declaration that all Peers may take the Oath in Parliament if the Parliament be sitting within the time for doing thereof No married Woman or Person under the Age of eighteen Years or being beyond the Seas or found to be Non Compos Mentis shall by Vertue of this Act lose or forfeit his or her Office other then such married Women during the Life of her Husband only for any Neglect of taking the Oaths so as the respective Persons within four Months after the Death of the Husband coming to the Age of eighteen Years returning into this Kingdom and becoming of sound Mind shall take the said Oaths in manner as is thereby appointed provided that any Person who by his or her Neglect or Refusal according to this Act should lose or forfeit any Office might be capable by a new Grant of the said Office or of any other and to have and hold the same again such Person taking the said Oaths and doing all other things required by this Act so as such Office be not granted to and actually enjoyed by some other Person at the time of the re-granting thereof This Act not to extend to Commission Officers in the Navy if they subscribe the Declaration This Act not to extend to prejudice the Earl of Bristol and his Lady in the Pensions granted to them Likewise not to extend to Constables Tything-men Church-Wardens or other like private inferior Officers Before this Act of Parliament was
made the Papists were ingaged in a most Horrid Plot against the Protestant Religion and the Parliament having now made this Act whereby the Papists are excluded from all Places of Profit and Trust it is not hard to believe that their Malice was thereby greatly heightned and their Rage very much increased against the Protestants and their Actings put it beyond doubt that it was so For this Act passed in the Year 1673. and then it is we find them deeply ingaged in contriving our Destruction and so inhumane were they that notwithstanding the late King Charles the Second's Kindness to them yet unless he would fully comply with them in the butchering his Protestant Subjects extirpating the Protestant Religion which they called a * Coleman's Tryal p. 69. Pestilent Heresie and the introducing of the Romish Superstition and Idolatry he must be taken out of the way to make room for one that would I confess I have met with very many that have owned the Dis-believing of any such Design but when I seriously reflect upon the Letters that were produced against Mr. Coleman and owned by himself to be his when I consider the Evidence that was given by all the Witnesses that proved the Horrid and Treasonable Popish Plot that was discovered in 1678. and the Agreement that there is in the Substance of the thing although there may be some Variations as to Circumstances when I consider the Witnesses were Strangers to one another that did so agree in their Testimony and that the Discovery was so sudden and the Witnesses came in so quick one after another after the Discovery that it is not to be presumed there could be any Subornation when I consider the Credit they had with the King himself and with four Parliaments when I consider the great Attempts notwithstanding to take the Odium off the Papists and cast it upon the Protestants when I consider the unwearied Pains taken by the Papists and some that are much worse because they espoused their Cause under a Protestant Vizar to lay the Murther of Sir Edmond-Bury-Godfrey at the Protestants Door and to wipe off the Stain thereof from the Papists when I consider the Methods that were taken in the late King James the Seconds his Reign so exactly pursuant to what was designed in case Charles the Second had fallen as was contrived * Either by Shooting Poison or Stobing the first of which Methods was by granting a general †The Declaration for Liberty of Conscience Designed to be published in case the Popish Plot had then taken effect you may find printed in Coleman's Trial p. 58. Liberty of Conscience and thereby deluding divers Protestants to serve a Popish Interest although against their Wills it is to me matter of Amazement that there should remain the least doubt of the Truth of that Plot in the Minds of any that are really Protestants especially when I consider that there wanted nothing in the late King James's Reign but a Parliament to take off the Penal Laws and Tests to bring that Popish Plot to the highest Perfection that the Papists ever designed and what Endeavors there were to obtain that is sufficiently known To run through the whole Series of that Popish Plot would be to draw out this Account of the Grounds of making the Penal Laws to a Length beyond what its Design can warrant which is the publick Good and therefore as a Confirmation of the Truth of that Plot and to refresh the Memory of those who perhaps are willing to forget it I shall here only insert Coleman's Letters as you will find them printed in his Tryal and also Bedloes Depositions as they were taken before and printed by Sir Francis North then Lord Chief Justice of the Common-Pleas and afterwards made Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England for the good Services he had done the Crown Coleman's Letters are as followeth Mr. Coleman's First Letter SInce Father St. German has been so kind to me Coleman 's Tryal p. 44. as to recommend me to your Reverence so advantagiously as to encourage you to accept of my Correspondency I will own to him that he has done me a Favour without consulting me greater than I could have been capable of if he had advised with me because I could not then have had the Confidence to have permitted him to ask it on my Behalf And I am so sensible of the Honour you are pleased to do me that though I cannot deserve it yet to shew at least the Sense I have of it I will deal as freely and openly with you this first time as if I had had the Honour of your Acquaintance all my Life And shall make no Apology for so doing but only tell you that I know your Character perfectly well though I am not so happy as to know your Person and that I have an Opportunity of putting this Letter into the Hands of Father St. Germans Nephew for whose Integrity and Prudence he has undertaken without any sort of Hazard In order then Sir to the plainness I profess I will tell you what has formerly passed between your Reverences Predecessor Father Ferryer and my self About three Years ago when the King my Master sent a Troop of Horse Guards into his most Christian Majesties Service under the Command of my Lord Durass he sent with it an Officer called Sir William Throckmorton with whom I had a particular Intimacy and who had then very newly imbraced the Catholic Religion to him did I constantly write and by him address my self to Father Farryer The first thing of great Importance I presumed to offer him not to trouble you with lesser Matters or what passed here before and immediately after the fatal Revolution of the Kings Declaration for Liberty of Conscience to which we owe all our Miseries and Hazards was in July August and September 1673. when I constantly inculcated the great Danger the Catholic Religion and his most Christian Majesties Interest would be in at our next Sessions of Parliament which was then to be in October following at which I plainly foresaw that the King my Master would be forced to something in prejudice to his Alliance with France Which I saw so evidently and particularly that we should make Peace with Holland that I urged all the Arguments I could which to me were Demonstrations to convince your Court of that Mischief and pressed all I could to perswade his most Christian Majesty to use his utmost Endeavor to prevent that Session of our Parliament and proposed Expedients how to do it But was answered so often and so positively that his most Christian Majesty was so well assured by his Embassador here our Embassador there the Lord Arlington and even the King himself that he had no such Apprehensions at all but was fully satisfied to the contrary and looked upon what I offered as a very zealous Mistake that I was forced to give over arguing though not believing as I did
but confidently appealed to Time and Success to prove who took their Measures rightest When it happened what I foresaw came to pass the good Father was a little surprised to see all the great Men mistaken and a little one in the Right and was pleased by Sir William Throckmorton to desire the Continuance of my Correspondence which I was mighty willing to comply with knowing the Interest of our King and in a more particular manner of my more immediate Master the * * James the Second Duke and his most Christian Majesty to be so inseparably united that it was impossible to divide them without destroying them all Upon this I shewed that our Parliament in the Circumstances it was managed by the timerous Councels of our Ministers who then governed would never be useful either to England France or Catholic Religion but that we should as certainly be forced from our Neutrality at their next Meeting as we had been from our active Alliance with France the last Year That a Peace in the Circumstances we were in was much more to be desired than the Continuance of the War and that the Dissolution of our Parliament would certainly procure a Peace For that the Confederates did more depend upon the Power they had in our Parliament than upon any thing else in the World And were more encouraged from them to the continuing of the War So that if they were Dissolved their measures would be all broken and they consequently in a manner necessitated to a Peace The good Father minding this Discourse somewhat more then the Court of France thought fit to do my former urg'd it so home to the King that his Majesty was pleased to give him Orders to signifie to his R. H. my Master that his Majesty was fully satisfied of his R. H's good intention towards him that he esteemed both their Interests but as one and the same That my Lord Arlington and the Parliament were both to be lookt upon as very unuseful to their Interest That if his R. H. would endeavour to dissolve this Parliament his most Christian Majesty would assist him with his Power and Purse to have a new one as should be for their purpose This and a great many more Expressions of kindness and confidence Father Ferryer was pleased to Communicate to Sir William Throckmorton and commanded them to send them to His Royal Hhighness and withal to beg his Royal Highness to propose to his most Christian Majesty what he thought necessary for his own Concern and the advantage of Religon and his Majesty would certainly do all he could to advance both or either of them This Sir William Throckmorton sent to me by an Express who left Paris the Second of June 1674. Stilo novo I no sooner had it but I Communicated it to his R. H. To which his R. H. commanded me to Answer as I did on the twenty ninth of the same Month That his R. H. was very sensible of his most Christian Majesties Friendship and that he would Labour to cultivate it with all the good Offices he was capable of doing for His Majesty That he was fully convinced that their Interests were both one That my Lord Arlington and the Parliament were not only unuseful but very dangerous both to England and France That therefore it was necessary that they should do all they could to dissolve it And that his R. H's opinion was that if his most Christian Majesty would write his thoughts freely to the King of England upon this Subject and make the same proffer to his Majesty of his Purse to dissolve this Parliament which he had made to his R. H. to Call another he did believe it very possible for him to succeed with the Assistance we should be able to give him here And that if this Parliament were dissolved there would be no great difficulty of getting a new one which would be more useful The Constitutions of our Parliaments being such that a new one can never hurt the Crown nor an old one do it good His R. H. being pleased to own these Propositions which were but only General I thought it reasonable to be more particular and come closer to the Point we might go the faster about the work and come to some issue before the time was too far spent I laid this for my Maxim The dissolving of our Parliament will certainly procure a Peace Which Proposition was granted by every Body I conversed withal even by Monsieur Rouvigny himself with whom I took Liberty of conversing so far but durst not say any thing of the Intelligence I had with Father Ferryer Next that a Sum of Money certain would certainly procure a Dissolution this some doubted but I am sure I never did For I knew perfectly well that the King had frequent Disputes with himself at that time whether he should dissolve or continue them And he several times declared that the Arguments were so strong on both sides that he could not tell to which to incline but was carried at last to the continuance of them by this one Argument if I try them once more they may possibly give me Money if they do I have gained my Point If they do not I can dissolve them then and be where I am now So that I have a possibility at least of getting Money for their continuance against nothing on the other side But if we could have turn'd this Argument and said Sir their Dissolution will certainly procure you Money when you have only a bare possibility of getting any by their continuance and have shewn how far that bare possibility was from being a Foundation to build any reasonable hope upon which I am sure His Majesty was sensible of And how much 300000 Pounds Sterling certain which was the Sum we propos'd was better than a bare possibility without any reason to hope that that could ever be Compassed of having half so much more which was the most he design'd to ask upon some vile dishonourable Terms and a thousand other hazards which he had great reason to be afraid of if I say we had had Power to have argued this I am most Confidently assured we could have Compassed it for Logick in our Court built upon Money has more powerful Charms than any other sort of reasoning But to secure his most Christian Majesty from any hazard as to that Point I propos'd His Majesty should offer that Sum upon that Condition and if the Condition were not perform'd the Money should never be due If it were and that a Peace would certainly follow thereupon which no Body doubted His Majesty would gain his Ends and save all the vast Expences of the next Campaign by which he could not hope to better his Condition or put himself into more advantagious Circumstances of Treaty then he was then in But might very probably be in a much worse considering the mighty opposition he was like to meet with and the uncertain Chances of
War. But admitting that His Majesty could by his great Strength and Conduct maintain himself in as good a Condition to Treat the next Year as he was then in which was as much as could then reasonably be hoped for he should have saved by this Proposal as much as all the Men he must needs lose and all the Charges he should be in a Year would be valued to amount to more than 300000 Pounds Sterling and so much more in Case his Condition should decay as it should be worse than it was when this was made And the Condition of his R. H. and of the Catholick Religion here which depends very much upon the success of his most Christian Majesty delivered from a great wany frights and real hazards Father Ferryer seemed to be very sensible of the benefit all Parties would gain by this Proposal But yet it was unfortunately delayed by an unhappy and tedious Fit of Sickness which kept him so long from the King in the France Comte and made him so unable to wait on His Majesty after he did return to Paris But so soon as he could compass it he was pleased to acquaint His Majesty with it and wrote to the Duke himself and did me the Honour to write unto me also the 15 th of Septemb. 1674. and sent his Letter by Sir William Throckmorton who came Express upon that Errand In these Letters he gave his R. H. fresh assurance of his most Christian Majesties Friendship and of his Zeal and readiness to comply with every thing his R. H. had or should think fit to propose in favour of Religion or the business of Money And that he commanded Monsieur Rouvigny as to the latter to Treat and deal with his R. H. and to receive and observe his Orders and Directions but desired that he might not at all be concerned as to the former but that his R. H. would cause what Proposition he should think fit to be made about Religion to be offered either to Father Ferryer or Monsieur Pompone These Letters came to us about the middle of September and his R. H. expected daily when Monsieur Rouvigny should speak to him about the Subject of that Letter But he took no notice at all of any thing till the 29 th of September the evening before the King and the Duke went to Newmarket for a Fortnight and then only said that he had Commands from his Master to give his R. H. the most firm assurance of his Friendship imaginable or something to that purpose making his R. H. a general Complement but made no mention of any particular Orders relating to Father Ferryer's Letter The Duke wondring at this Proceeding and being obliged to stay a good part of October at Newmarket and soon after his coming back hearing of the Death of Father Ferryer he gave over all other further prosecuting of the former Project But I believe I saw Monsieur Rouvigny's Policy all along who was willing to save his Masters Money upon assurance that we would do all we could to stave off the Parliament for our own sakes that we would struggle as hard without Money as with it And we having by that time upon our own Interest prevailed to get the Parliament Prorogued to the 13 th of April he thought that Prorogation being to a day so high in the Spring would put the Confederates so far beyond their measures as that it might procure a Peace and be as useful to France as a Dissolution Upon these Reasons I suppose he went. I had several Discourses with him and did so far open my self to him as to say I could wish his Master would give us leave to offer to our Master 300000 Pounds for the Dissolution of the Parliament And shewed him that a Peace would most certainly follow a Dissolution which he agreed with me in and that we desired not the Money from his Master to excite our Wills or to make us more industrious to use our utmost Powers to procure a Dissolution but to strengthen our Power and Credit with the King and to render us more capable to succeed with his Majesty as most certainly we should have done had we been fortified with such an Argument To this purpose I press'd Monsieur Pompone frequently by Sir William Throckmorton who returned hence again into France on the 10 th of November the Day our Parliament should have met but was Prorogued Monsieur Pompone as I was informed by Sir William did seem to approve the thing But yet had two Objections against it First that the Sum propos'd was great and could be very ill spar'd in the Circumstances his most Christian Majesty was in To which we answer'd That if by his Expending that Sum he could procure a Dissolution of our Parliament and thereby a Peace which every Body agreed would necessarily follow His most Christian Majesty would gain his Ends and save five or ten times a greater Sum and so be a good Husband by his Expence And if we did not procure a Dissolution he should not be at that Expence at all For that we desired him only to promise upon that Condition which we were content to be obliged to perform first The second Objection was the Duke did not move nor appear in it himself To that we answer'd That he did not indeed to Monsieur Pompone because he had found so ill an effect of the Negotiation with Father Ferryer when it came into Monsieur Rouvigny's hands But that he had concern'd himself in it to Father Ferryer Yet I continued to prosecute and press the Dissolution of the Parliament detesting all Prorogations as only so much loss of time and a means of strengthening all those who depend upon it in opposition to the Crown the interest of France and Catholick Religion in the Opinion they had taken that our King durst not part with his Parliament apprehending that another would be much worse Second that he could not live long without a Parliament therefore they must suddenly meet The longer he kept them off the greater his necessity would grow and consequently their Power to make him do what they listed would increase accordingly And therefore if they could but maintain themselves a while the Day would certainly come in a short time in which they should be able to work their Wills. Such Discourses as these kept the Confederates and our Male-contents in heart and made them weather on the War in spight of all our Prorogations Therefore I press'd as I have said a Dissolution until February last when our Circumstances were so totally Changed that we were forced to change our Councels too and be as much for the Parliaments sitting as we were before against it Our Change was thus before that time the Lord Arlington was the only Minister in Credit who thought himself out of all danger of the Parliament He having been accused before them and justified and therefore was Zealous for their Sitting And to increase his
Reputation with them and to become a perfect Favourite he sets himself all he could to Persecute the Catholick Religion and to oppose the French. To shew his Zeal against the first he revived some old dormant Orders for prohibiting Roman Catholicks to appear before the King and put them in Execution at his first coming into his Office of Lord Chamberlain And to make sure work with the Second as he thought prevailed with the King to give him and the Earl of Ossery who married two Sisters of Myne Heere Odyke's leave to go over into Holland with the said Heere to make a Visit as they pretended to their Relations But indeed and in truth to propose the Lady Mary eldest Daughter of his Royal H. as a Match for the Prince of Orange not only without the Consent but against the good liking of his R. H. Insomuch that the Lord Arlington's Creatures were forced to excuse him with a Distinction that the said Lady was not to be looked upon as the Dukes Daughter but as the Kings and a Child of the State was and so the Dukes Consent not much to be considered in the disposal of her but only the interest of State. By this he intended to render himself the Darling of Parliament and Protestants who look'd upon themselves as secured in their Religion by such an Alliance and design'd further to draw us into a close Conjunction with Holland and the Enemies of France The Lord Arlington set forth upon this Errand the 10 th of November 1674 and returned not till the 6 th of January following During his absence the Lord Treasurer Lord Keeper and the Duke of Lauderdale who were the only Ministers of any considerable Credit with the King and who all pretended to be entirely united to the Duke declaimed loudly and with great violence against the said Lord and his Actions in Holland And did hope in his absence to have totally supplanted him and to have routed him out of the Kings favour And after that thought they might easily enough have dealt with the Parliament But none of them had Courage enough to speak against the Parliament till they could get rid of him For fear they should not succeed and that the Parliament would Sit in spight of them and come to hear that they had used their endeavours against it Which would have been so unpardonable a Crime with our Omnipotent Parliament that no Power could have been able to have saved them from Punishment But they finding at his Return that they could not prevail against him by such Means and Arts as they had then tryed resolved upon new Councels Which were to out-run him in his own Course Which accordingly they undertook and became as fierce Apostles and as Zealous for Protestant Religion and against Popery as ever my Lord Arlington had been before them and in pursuance thereof persuaded the King to issue out those severe Orders and Proclamations against Catholicks which came out in February last By which they did as much as in them lay to extirpate all Catholicks and Catholick Religion out of the Kingdom Which Councels were in my poor Opinion so detestable being levelled as they must needs be so directly against the Duke by People which he had advanced and who had professed so much Duty and Service to him that we were put upon new thoughts how to save his R. H. now from the deceits and snares of those Men upon whom we formerly depended We saw well enough that their Design was to make themselves as grateful as they could to the Parliament if it must Sit they thinking nothing so acceptable to them as the Persecution of Popery And yet they were so obnoxious to the Parliaments displeasure in General that they would have been glad of any Expedient to have kept it off Though they durst not engage against it openly themselves but thought this Device of theirs might serve for their purposes hoping the Duke would be so alarm'd at their Proceedings and by his being left by every Body that he would be much more afraid of the Parliament than ever and would use his utmost power to prevent its Sitting Which they doubted not but he would endeavour And they were ready enough to work underhand too for him for their own sakes not his in order thereunto but durst not appear openly And to encourage the Duke the more to endeavour the Dissolution of the Parliament their Creatures used to say up and down That this Rigour against the Catholicks was in favour of the Duke and to make a Dissolution of the Parliament more easie which they knew he coveted by obviating one great Objection which was commonly made against it which was That if the Parliament should be Dissolved it would be said That it was done in favour of Popery Which Clamour they had prevented before hand by the Severity they had used against it Assoon as we saw these Tricks put upon us we plainly saw what Men we had to deal withal and what we had to trust to if we were wholly at their mercy But yet durst not seem so dissatisfyed as really we were but rather magnified the Contrivance as a Device of great Cunning and Skill All this we did purely to hold them in a belief that we would endeavour to dissolve the Parliament and that they might rely upon his R. H. for that which we knew they long'd for and were afraid they might do some other way if they discovered that we were resolved we would not At length when he saw the Sessions secured we declared that we were for the Parliaments meeting as indeed we were from the moment we saw our selves handled by all the Kings Ministers at such a Rate that we had reason to believe they would Sacrifice France Religion and his R. H. too to their own Interest if occasion served And that they were led to believe that that was the only way they had to save themselves at that time For we saw no Expedient fit to stop them in their Carreer of Persecution and those other destructive Councels but the Parliament Which had set it self a long time to dislike every thing the Ministers had done and had appeared violently against Popery whilst the Court seem'd to favour it And therefore we were Confident that the Ministers having turned their Faces the Parliament would do so too and still be against them And be as little for Persecution then as they had been for Popery before This I undertook to mannage for the Duke and the King of France's interest And assured Monsieur Rouvigny which I am sure he will testifie if occasion serves that that Sessions should do neither of them any hurt For that I was sure I had Power enough to prevent mischief though I durst not engage for any good they would do Because I had but very few Assistances to carry on the Work and wanted those Helps which others had of making Friends The Dutch and Spaniard spared no Pains or
expence of Money to animate as many as they could against France Our Lord Treasurer Lord Keeper all the Bishops and such as called themselves Old Cavaliers who were all then as one Man were not less industrious against Popery and had the Purse at their Girdle too Which is an excellent Instrument to gain Friends with and all united against the Duke as Patron both of France and Catholick Religion To deal with all this Force we had no Money but what came from a few private hands And those so mean ones too that I dare venture to say that I spent more my particular self out of my own Fortune and upon my single Credit then all the whole Body of Catholicks in England besides Which was so inconsiderable in Comparison of what our Adversaries commanded and we verily believe did bestow in making their Party that it is not worth mentioning Yet notwithstanding all this we saw that by the help of the Non-conformists as Presbyterians Independants and other Sects who were as much afraid of Persecution as our selves and of the Enemies of the Ministers and particularly of the Treasurer who by that time had supplanted the Earl of Arlington and was grown sole Manager of all Affairs himself we sheuld be very able to prevent what they design'd against us and so render the Sessions ineffectual to their Ends though we might not be able to Compass our own Which were to make some brisk step in favour of his R. H. to shew the King that his Majesties Affairs in Parliament were not obstructed by reason of any Aversion they had to his R. H. Person or Apprehensions they had of him or his Religion But from Faction and Ambition in some and from a real Dissatisfaction in others that we have not had such Fruits and good Effects of of those great Sums of Money which have been formerly given as was expected If we could then have made but one such step the King would certainly have restored his R. H. to all his Commissions Upon which he would have been much greater than ever yet he was in his whole Life or could probably ever have been by any other Course in the World than what he had taken of becoming Catholick c. And we were so very near gaining this Point that I did humbly beg his R. H to give me leave to put the Parliament upon making an Address to the King that His Majesty would be pleased to put the Fleet into the hands of his R H. as the only Person likely to give a good Account of so important a Charge as that was to the Kingdom and shewed his R. H. such Reasons to perswade him that we could carry it that he agreed with me in it that he believ'd we could Yet others telling him how great a damage it would be to him if he should miss in such an undertaking which for my part I could not then see nor do I yet he was prevail'd upon not to venture though he was perswaded he could carry it I did Communicate this Design of mine to Monsieur Rouvigny who agreed with me that it would be the greatest advantage imaginable to his Master to have the Dukes Power and Credit so far advanced as this would certainly do if we could Compass it I shew'd him all the Difficulty we were like to meet with and what Helps we should have But that we should want one very material one Money to carry on the Work as we ought And therefore I do Confess I did shamefully beg his Masters help and would willingly have been in everlasting Disgrace with all the World if I had not with that Assistance of twenty thousand Pounds sterling which perhaps is not the tenth part of what was spent on the other side made it evident to the Duke that he could not have missed it Monsieur Rouvigny used to tell me that if he could be sure of succeeding in that Design his Master would give a very much larger Sum But that he was not in a Condition to throw away Money upon uncertainties I answered That nothing of that Nature could be so infallibly sure as not to be subject to some Possibilities of failing but that I durst venture to undertake to make it evident that there was as great an assurance of succeeding in it as any Husbandman can have of a Crop in Harvest who sowes his Gound in its due Season and yet it would be counted a very imprudent piece of wariness in any body to scruple the ventring so much seed in its proper time because it is possible it may be totally lost and no benefit of it found in Harvest He that minds the Winds and the Rains at that rate shall neither Sow nor Reap I take our Case to be much the same as it was the last Sessions If we can advance the Dukes Interest one step forward we shall put him out of the step of Chance for ever For he makes such a Figure already that cautious Men do not care to Act against him not always without him because they do not see that he is much out-power'd by his Enemies Yet is he not at such a pitch as to be quite out of danger or free from Opposition But if he could gain any considerable new addition of Power all would come over to him as to the only stedy Centre of our Government and no body would contend with him further Then would Catholics be at rest and his most Christian Majesty's Interest secured with us in England beyond all Apprehensions whatsoever In Order to this we have two great designs to attempt this next Sessions First that which we were about before viz. To put the Parliament upon making it their humble request to the King that the Fleet may be put into his R. H ' s. care Secondly to get an Act for general Liberty of Conscience If we carry these two or either of them we shall in effect do what we list afterwards And truly we think we do not undertake these great points very unreasonably but that we have good Cards for our Game Not but that we expect great opposition and have great reason to beg all the Assistance we can possibly get and therefore if his most Christian Majesty would stand by us a little in this Conjuncture and help us with such a Sum as 20000 l. Sterling which is no very great Matter to Venture upon such an undertaking as this I would be content to be Sacrificed to the utmost Malice of my Enemies if I did not succeed I have proposed this several times to Monsieur Rouvigny who seemed always of my Opinion and has often told me that he has writ into France upon this Subject and has desired me to do the like But I know not whether he will be as Zealous in that point as a Catholic would be because our prevailing in these things would give the greatest blow to the Protestant Religion here that ever it received since its Birth
which perhaps he would not be very glad to see especially when he believes there is another way of doing his Masters business well enough without it Which is by a Dissolution of the Parliament upon which I know he mightily depends and concludes that if that comes to be Dissolved it will be as much as he needs care for proceeding perhaps upon the same manner of Discourse which he had this time twelve Months But with submission to his better Judgment I do think that our Case is extreamly much altered to what it was in relation to a Dissolution for then the Body of our Governing Ministers all but the Earl of Arlington were intirely United to the Duke and would have govern'd his way if they had been free from all fear and controul as they had been if the Parliament had been removed But they having since that time engaged in quite different Councels and Embarkt themselves and Interests upon other Bottoms having declared themselves against Popery c. To dissolve the Parliament simply and without any other step made will be to leave them to Govern what way they list which we have reason to suspect will be to the prejudice of France and the Catholic Religion And their late Declarations and Actions have Demonstrated to us that they take that for the most popular way for themselves and likliest to keep them in absolute Power Whereas if the Duke should once get above them after the Tricks they have plaid with him they are not sure he will totally forget the usage he has had at their hands Therefore it imports us now to advance our Interest a little further by some such Project as I have named before we dissolve the Parliament Or else perhaps we shall but change Masters a Parliament for Ministers and continue still in the same Slavery and Bondage as before But one such step as I have proposed being well made we may safely see them Dissolved and not fear the Ministers but shall be Established and stand firm without any Opposition for every body will then come over to us and worship the Rising Sun. I have here given you the History of three years as short as I could though I am affraid it will seem very long and troublesome to your Reverence among the multitude of affairs you are concern'd in I have also shewn you the present State of our Case which may by Gods providence and good Conduct be made of such advantage to Gods Church that for my part I can scarce believe my self awake or the thing real when I think on a Prince in such an Age as we live in converted to such a degree of Zeal and Piety as not to regard any thing in the World in comparison of God * * The bringing in Idolatry and Superstition the invading of Liberty and Property and the inslaving the Nation Almighties Glory the Salvation of his own Soul and the Conversion of our poor Kingdom Which has been a long time opprest and miserably harrast with Heresie and Schism I doubt not but your Reverence will consider our Case and take it to heart and afford us what help you can both with the King of Heaven by your Holy Prayers and with his most Christian Majesty by that great Credit which you most justly have with him And if ever his Majesties affairs or your own can ever want the Service of so inconsiderable a Creature as my self you shall never find any Body readier to Obey your Commands or faithfuller in the Execution of them to the best of his power than Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant Coleman's Coleman's Second Letter The Copy of the Letter Written to Monsieur Le Chese the French Kings Confessor which Mr. Coleman confessed he himself wrote and Counterfeited in the Dukes Name â—oleman's â—ryal p. 66. THe second of June last past his most Christian Majesty offered me most generously his Friendship and the use of his Purse to the Assistance against the Designs of my Enemies and his and protested unto me that his interest and mine were so closely link'd together that those that oppose the one should be lookt upon as Enemies to the other and told me moreover his Opinion of my Lord Arlington and the Parliament which is that he is of Opinion that neither the one nor the other is in his Interest or mine And thereupon he desired me to make such propositions as I should think fit in this conjuncture All was transacted by the means of Father Ferrier who made use of Sir William Throgmorton who is an honest Man and of truth who was then at Paris and hath held correspondence with Coleman one of my Family in whom I have great confidence I was much satisfied to see his most Christian Majesty altogether of my Opinion so I made him Answer the 29 th of June by the same means he made use of to write to me that is by Coleman who addrest himself to Father Ferrier by the Forementioned Knight and entirely agreed to his most Christian Majesty as well to what had respect to the Union of our Interest as the unusefulness of my Lord Arlington and the Parliament in order to the Service of the King my Brother and his most Christian Majesty and that it was necessary to make use of our joynt and utmost Credits to prevent the success of those evil designs resolved on by the Lord Arlington and the Parliament against his most Christian Majesty and my self which of my side I promise really to perform of which since that time I have given reasonable good proof Moreover I made some proposals which I thought necessary to bring to pass what we were obliged to undertake assuring him that nothing could so firmly establish our Interest with the King my Brother as that very same offer of the help of his Purse by which means I had much reason to hope I should be enabled to perswade to this Dissolving of the Parliament and to make void the designs of my Lord Arlington who works incessantly to advance the Interest of the Prince of Orange and the Hollanders and to lessen that of the King your Master notwithstanding all the protestations he hath made to this hour to render him Service But as that which was proposed was at a stand by reason of the sickness of Father Ferrier so our affairs succeeded not according to our designs only Father Ferrier wrote to me the 15 th of the last Month that he had Communicated those propositions to his most Christian Majesty and that they had been very well liked of but as they contained things that had regard to the Catholic Religion and to the offer and use of his Purse he gave me to understand he did not desire I should Treat with Monsieur Rouvigny upon the first but as to the last and had the same time acquainted me that Monsieur Rouvigny had order to grant me whatsoever the conjuncture of our affairs did require and have expected
wickedness and resolution of the Jesuites they stuck at nothing to compass their own ends they had attempted to poison him but he had escaped When he had finished this Discourse which lasted about a quarter of an hour I asked him if the Company should not withdraw and he said yes and ordered his Nurses to go out and only his Wife to stay to tend him And thereupon all went out saving Mrs. Bedlow and my self and my Servant William Janes then I told him I thought it convenient that what he should then say unto me should be upon Oath he replyed that it was necessary it should be so and called for a Bible but my Servant having brought a Book with him administred the Oath to him and laying his Paper upon a Chair by the Bed-side writ down his Deposition as he delivered it When Mr. Bedlow had concluded and said That was all he had to inform me of I took the Paper and read it over distinctly to him and he approved it and signed it laying the Paper upon a Pillow I thought it not fit considering his Condition to perplex him with Questions but took his Information as he offered it and held no discourse with him when the Company was withdrawn but concerning the true setting down his Depositions and when he seemed to be weary to mind him of taking Cordials which his Wife reached to him as he desired them The next day Mr. Bedlow's Brother came to me and told me that his Brother desired a Copy of the Deposition he made before me But I told him I had well considered it and could not give him a Copy without the Kings leave But I would move the King in it and if he gave leave I would take care to send one to him And Mr. Bedlow's Brother then told me That it was his Brothers desire that I should represent to his Majesty his Condition and that his Sickness was very chargable and move his Majesty on his behalf for some supply of Money for his Subsistance which I promised to do This is all that I can recollect of what passed upon this Occasion and is in substance true but the very Words or the Order I cannot positively remember Francis North. To the Right Honourable Sir Lyonel Jenkins One of His Majesties Principal Secretaries of State. SIR I Always intended to write from hence to pay my thanks for the whole Circuit which was much more pleasant by your Favour of holding Correspondence with me But now I have business of some Importance for as I soon as I came to this City I received a Message from Mr. Bedlow by Sir John Knight that he being very ill and in the Judgment of Physitians in great danger of Death had some business of great moment to impart to me I knowing the Man and the Season would not refuse the pains to give him a Visit and being satisfied by Physitians that there was no Contagious quality in his Distemper though I did not much fear it I went well accompanied and in the presence of the Company he declared that what he had said relating to the Plot was true and be being a dying Man had nothing lay upon his Conscience upon that score The greatest trouble he had was the danger the King whom he loved above all things was in from the Papists at this time who would attempt his Life as soon as ever he should cease to be kind to them and many other expressions of this kind After this I asked if he had any thing to impart to me in private he told me he had and having made the Company withdraw all but my Clark I took the inclosed Examination upon Oath you may imagine I was not curious to perplex him with Questions I took it just as he delivered it of what signification it will be I leave to wiser Men I think my duty is to send it to you that you may inform his Majesty of the truth I shall wait upon you at Windsor upon Sunday next to receive your further Commands Your most humble and faithful Servant Francis North. And now the Truth of this is thus confirmed by as strong Testimony as can well be given the first part of it premeditated Letters of one of the Conspirators themselves nay the chiefest those Letters owned and acknowledeged by him to be his own Writing and he afterwards fairly tryed legally convicted and condemned and afterwards justly executed for the Treason The other verba morientis which have always weight unless they be dilivered Men who 't is known think it meritorious to dye with a falsehood in their Mouth when 't is to serve the interest of the Church whereof they profess to dye Members I say the Truth of this being thus apparent there certainly needs no other ground or reason to be given for the making the 30. Car. 2. ca. 1. for excluding Papists from sitting in either House of Parliament especially if it be considered how much they by being at Court and sitting in Parliament in the precedent Reigns had interrupted the Protestants in the measures they designed to take for their own preservation which things were examined into upon the discovery of this Plot and therefore it appeared absolutely necessary to exclude them both the Court and the Parliament The Preamble of the Act and the Substance of the Enacting Part take as followeth FOR as much as divers good Laws have been made for preventing the increase and danger of Popery in this Kingdom which have not had the desired effects 30. Car. c. 1. An Act for excluding the Papists the Parliament by reason of the free access which Popish Recusants have had to his Majesties Court and by reason of the Liberty which of late some of the Recusants have had and taken to sit and vote in Parliament Wherefore for the safety of his Majesties Royal Person and Government It was Enacted that from the first day of December 1678. No Member of the House of Peers or Commons should vote or sit in either House after the Speaker was chose till every such Peer or Member had first taken the several Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and made subscribed and credibly repeated the Declaration following I A. B. do solemnly and sincerely in the presence of God profess testifie and declare that I do believe that in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper there is not any Transubstantiation of the Elements of the Bread and Wine into the Body and Blood of Christ at or after the Consecration thereof by any Person whatsoever and that the Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome are Superstitious and Idolatrous And I do solemnly in the presence of God profess testify and declare that I do make this Declaration and every part thereof in the plain and ordinary sence of the Words read unto me as they are commonly understood by English Protestants