both for our selves at home and our brethren abroad now at this present fallen as it were into utter despaire may be revived and restored to some new hope with better assurance of successe then hath happened hitherto For which purpose I have thought it necessary to advertise you in what termes this countrey now standeth far otherwise then of late both we at home and others abroad did make account of You know how we have depended in firme hope of a change of the state of this countrey by the meanes of the devout and earnest incitations of the Popes Holinesse of the King Catholiqve and of other Potentates of the Holy League to take upon them the invasion and conquest of this Realme and by your assurances and firme promises we were now of a long season past perswaded that the King Catholique had taken upon him the same glorious Act and thereof from yeare to yeare we looked for the execution being continually fed and nourished from you to continue our hope and sundry times solicited by your earnest requests and perswasions to encourage our party at home not to waver as many were disposed by sight of continuall delayes but to be ready to joyne with the outward forces that should come for this invasion Neverthelesse the delayes and prolongations of times appointed for the comming of the Kings forces specially by sea have been so many as until this last spring we were in despaire at what time you advertised us with great assurance that all the Kings preparations which had bin in making ready these 3 or 4 yeares together were now in full perfection and without faile would this Summer come into our Seas with such mighty strength as no Navy of England or of Christendome could resist and abide their force and for more surety and for avoyding of all doubts to make the intended conquest sure the same should also have joyned to it the mighty army which the Duke of Parma had made ready and kept in readinesse in the low countries all this yeare past wherwith he should land and so both by sea and land this Realme should be invaded and a speedy conquest made thereof to the which were alwayes added sundry reasons Whereupon was gathered that neither by sea nor by land there would be any great resistance found here but a strong party in this Realme to joyne with the forrain force For otherwise then with such helps to be assuredly had from hence I know it was alwayes doubted that no forrein force could prevaile against this Realme being as it is environed by sea and notably replenished with more mighty and stronger people then any country in Christendome But with the hope of the landing of these great armies and our assistance in taking part we here continued all this yeare past in assured hope of a full victory untill this last month But alas and with a deadly sorrow we must all at home and abroad lament our sudden fall from an immeasurable high joy to an unmeasurable deep despaire and that so hastily fallen out as I may say we have seen in the space of eight or nine dayes in this last month of Iuly which was from the appearance of the Catholique great Navy upon the coast of England untill it was forced to fly from the coast of Flanders neare Callice towards the unknowne parts of the cold North all our hopes all our buildings as it now appeareth but upon an imagined conquest utterly overthrown and as it were with an earthquake all our castles of Comfort brought to the ground which now it seemeth were builded but in the ayre or upon waves of the sea for they are all perished all vanished away even from our thoughts And herewith I am astonished what I may best thinke of such a worke so long time in framing to be so suddenly overthrown as by no reason could proceed of man or of any earthly power but onely of God And if so it be as no body can otherwise impute this late change and fall from our expected fortune but to God Almighty then surely our case is either dangerous or doubtfull how to judge thereof whether we have been these many yeares in the right or not For I do find and know that many good and wise men which of long time have secretly continued in most earnest devotion to the Popes authority begin now to stagger in their minds and to conceive that this way of reformation intended by the Popes Holinesse is not allowable in the sight of God by leaving the ancient course of the Church by Excommunication which was the exercise of the spirituall sword and in place thereof to take the temporall sword and put it into a Monarchs hand to invade this Realme with force and Armes yea to destroy the Queene thereof and all her people addicted to her which are in very truth now seen by great proofe this yeare to be in a sort infinite and invincible so as some begin to say that this purpose by violence by bloud by slaughter and by conquest agreeth not with Christs doctrine nor the doctrine of S. Peter or S. Paul And to tell your Lordship truly I find presently a great number of wise and devout people though they continue in their former Religion yet doe they secretly condemne this intended reformation by bloud and force Insomuch as I heard a good divine alledge a text of S. Gregory in these words Quid de Episcopis qui verberibus timeri volunt Canones dicunt bene paternitas vestra novit pastores sumus non percussores Nova enim est praedicatio quae verberibus exigit fidem This sentence I obtained of him because it seemeth to be charitably written But leaving this authority among Doctors I must needs say that in very truth no one thing hath done at this time more hurt to the action then the untimely hasty publishing abroad in this Realme before this Army of Spaine was ready to come forth to the seas of sundry things written and put in print sent into this Realm to notifie to the people that all the Realme should be invaded and conquered that the Queen should be destroyed all the Nobility and men of reputation of honour wealth that did obey her and would defend her or that would withstand the invasion should be with all their families rooted out and their places their honours their houses and lands bestowed upon the conquerors things universally so odiously taken as the hearts of all sorts of people were inflamed some with ire some with feare but all sorts almost without exception resolved to venture their lives for the withstanding of all manner of conquest wherewith every body can say this Realme was not threatened these five hundred yeares and more These reports were brought to this Realme with good credit not in secret but in publike writings and printings and took deep root in all kind of people of this land and
Soveraigne and themselves to be discharged of their Allegiance and to repute all Magistrates under her to be unlawfull and in conscience not to be obeyed with many more such matters which I neverthelesse count to be very vain calumniations tending to make the facts of all such holy Priests as are sent with Commission to win mens soules to be direct treasons against the Queen and the state of the Realme These Defenders of these judgements and executions contend and doe most earnestly maintaine that all such Priests Jesuites Seminaries and others so perswading the people against the Queen the Lawes and the Government and state of the Realme and all others that are so perswaded by them are manifest traitors and so they say that their enditemonts and all processe of law extended and pursued against them do manifestly declare the same Wherein these our adversaries doe sometimes for maintenance of their arguments shew the very copies of their enditements and judgements wherein there is no mention made of charging them with their Religion but that they have attempted to perswade the Queens subjects to forsake their Allegiance and consequently to be rebels to their Queen and Soveraigne In this sort these men for their advantage doe at all times with these and many like earnest arguments maintaine their proceedings against the holy Priests and Jesuites that have suffered death for their conscience as just and necessary And though where I and others may reply without perill to our selves as surely in some small companies we may using modest words we object the confession of the Catholike faith by the parties at their death and that with great constancy which our adversaries cannot deny so as it may seeme they dye for their Religion yet is it on the other part against us alleadged and maintained that they are neither endited condemned nor executed for their Religion or for offering of themselves to die for their Religion but onely for their former treasons in conspiring against the Queen state of the Realme no otherwise then of late time Babington and all his Complices who were condemned for their attempt to have raised war in the Realm and to have murdered the Queen and to have set up the Q. of Scots all which the said Babington and all his complices voluntarily confessed and were condemned and executed only for those their great treasons and yet divers of them at the place of their execution did in like maner as these Priests and Jesuites use to doe make confession of their Catholike faith with offer to dye for the same and yet say our adversaries it ought not to be affirmed that Babington and his complices were put to death for Religion but for their treasons And for further maintenance of the coloured arguments wherwith I and others my good faithfull and Catholike brethren are often troubled how to answer them it is alleadged that the great number of gentlemen and gentlewomen ye some of honourable calling and of other meaner degrees are knowne manifestly to be of a contrary Religion to the Lawes of the Realme both near the Court and far oft and yet they are never pursued by any forme of Law to put their lives in danger or questioned or imprisoned for their opinions in Religion whereby to bring them in any danger Onely such as are presented or complained of by the Parishioners where they dwell for never comming to any Church by the space of certaine months in a whole yeare are thereof indited and afterward being called to answer thereto if they can shew no such lawfull excuse as the Law hath provided they are then condemned to pay a penalty out of their goods and lands if they have any and not otherwise punished nor yet by inquisition any of them examined of their faith But yet say these defendors if they shew themselves by their open deeds and facts to be reconciled from their allegiance obedience to the queen and that they will therein persist then they are therwith charged and punished according to the Lawes therfore provided These arguments in their defence I doe not repeate as allowing of them but yet surely they doe move me and some others that are wife to thinke that indeed the rashnesse of divers comming secretly into the Realme and professing themselves to be Priests many of them being both very young unlearned and of light behaviour hath done great harme to the goodnesse of our common cause and if they and such others could have temperately and secretly instructed the people and used more circumspection in their owne living and behaviour there would have bin a greater increase of numbers perswaded in conscience to have joyned with us in our profession Wherof I am the bolder to write to you my Lord that you may confer with our countrey-men that have accesse unto you and that they also may deale with the Fathers of the Jesuites that more care and choice be had of such English men as are hereafter to be sent into England and not to send every yong man that hath more boldnesse then learning and temperance for such a function In the former part of this my declaration to you of the universall concurrence of all men of value wealth and strength in the body of the Realme to serve and defend the Queen and the Realme I forgot to report unto you the great numbers of Ships of the subjects of the Realme as of London and other Port Townes and Cities that voluntarily this yeare were armed able to make a full Navy of themselves for an army and all at the proper costs of the Burgesses for certaine moneths with men victuall and munition which did joyne with the Queens owne Navy all this Summer a thing never in any former age heard of otherwise then that such ships were alwayes hired waged and victualled by the Kings of the Realm which argued to the griefe of me and some others a most vehement and unaccustomed affection and devotion in the Cities and Port Townes such as they shewed themselves therin ready to fight as it had been pro aris focis Of the number and strength of the Queenes owne ships of war I thinke you have been sufficiently informed many times heretofore But yet I will make you a true report of the state of them this present Summer what I have credibly heard therof because I have been very sorry to heare how you and others have been therein abused And that not only in this matter of the Queens ships but in some other things also of late whereof some part hath been here by very many maliciously and in common speeches imputed to your owne invention and publication whereof in a few words I will make some digression before I shall shew the estate of the Queens Navy In this Summer past there was printed in Paris by your direction as it was reported a notable untruth which I did see and reade That the King of Scots
had besieged Barwicke and had won it by assault and possessed it quietly whereof no part was true nor any cause to imagine the same though I wish it had so been but not for any good will that I now beare to that King but for the trouble to this Queen For in truth there is no good for us to be hoped for from the King of Scots howsoever the Scottish Bishops in France have sought to make you beleeve otherwise who is so rooted in the Calvinists Religion as there is never hope that he can be recovered to the Church of Rome and so I thinke you are of late duely informed and by his violent actions against divers Catholikes and against all that favour the Spaniards may certainly appeare And likewise another great untruth was lately printed as your enemies say by your direction also in Paris that now in Iuly last when the Spanish Fleet and English had met and fought betwixt France and England the Spaniards had then a great victory wherein they had sunke the Lord Admirall of England with sixteen of the Queens great ships into the bottome of the Seas and that all the rest were driven to fly with the Vice-Admirall Francis Drake Upon these two so notable untruths which the adversaries spightfully called Don Bernardin Mendozas mendacia many who honour you were right sorry that you should give so hasty credit to publish the same as your enemies say you did though I have to my power for clearing of your honour given it out that these and such like have proceeded of the lightnesse of the French who commonly print more lies then truths in such doubtfull times and not of you whose honour and wisedome I thought would not be justly touched with so great untruths and lies considering alwayes a small time will discover things that are in facts reported untruly and bringeth the Authors to discredit and infamy There hath been a speech also reported here to have proceeded from you in France that hath caused a great misliking of you in Scotland which is that you should in open assembly and in a bravery say that the young King of Scots whom you called in your language a boy had deceived the K. your master but if the Kings Navy might prosper against England the K. of Scots should lose his Crowne and of this the King of Scots hath been advertised out of France and useth very evill language of you which I will not report But now to leave this digression and to returne to let you know the truth of the state of the Queens Navy this Summer The same was in the beginning of the yeare when the brute was brought of the readines of the Kings Armado in Lisbone and of the army by land upon the Sea-coasts in Flanders with their shipping divided into three companies the greatest under the charge of Charles L. Haward high Admirall of England whose father grandfather uncles great unckles and other of his house being of the noble house of the Dukes of Norfolk had also been high Admirals afore him whereof both France and Scotland have had proof Another company were appointed to remaine with the L. Henry Seymour second son to the Duke of Somerset that was Protector in King Edwards time and brother to the Earle of Hartford and these companies for a time continued in the narrow seas betwixt England and Flanders under the charge of the said high Admirall to attend on the Duke of Parmas actions A third company were armed in the West part of England towards Spain under the conduct of Sir Francis Drake a man by name and fame known too too well to all Spam and to the Kings Indias and of great reputation in England and this was compounded partly of some of the Queens owne ships and partly of the ships of the West parts But after that it was certainly understood that the great Navy of Spaine was ready to come out from Lisbone and that the fame thereof was blowne abroad in Christendome to be invincible and so published by books in print The Queen and all her Councell I am sure whatsoever good countenance they made were not a little perplexed as looking certainly for a dangerous fight upon the Seas and after that for a landing and invasion Whereupon the Lord Admirall was commanded to saile with the greatest ships to the West of England towards Spaine to joyne with Drake whom he made Vice-Admirall and to continue in the Seas betwixt France and England to stop the landing of the Navy of Spaine And with the Lord Admirall went in certaine of the Queens ships the Lord Thomas Haward second son to the last Duke of Norfolke and the Lord Sheffeld sonne to the Admirals sister who is wife to the Queenes Embassadour in France with a great number of Knights of great livelihood And at that time the Lord Henry Seymour was left with a good number of ships in the narrow Seas upon the coast of Flanders to attend on the Duke of Parma Whilst these two Navies were thus divided I confesse to you that I and others of our part secrerly made a full account that none of all these English ships durst abide the sight of the Armado of Spaine or if they would abide any sight yet they should all be sunke at the first encounter For such constant opinion we had conceived by the reports of the world that the greatnesse and the number of the ships and the army of Spaine being the chosen vessell of all the Kings Dominions was so excessive monstrous beyond all the Navies that ever had been seen in Christendome not excepting the Armado at Lepanto that no power could abide in their way But how far deceived we were therein a very short time even the first day did manifestly to the great dishonour of Spaine discover For when the Catholique army came to the coast of England which indeed the English confesse did seeme far greater then they looked for and that they were astonied with the sight of them yet the Lord Admirall and Drake having but onely fifty of the English ships out of the haven of Plimmouth where the rest remained for a new revictualling without tarrying for the rest of the Navy that was in Plimmouth they did offer present sight and furiously pursued the whole Navy of Spaine being above 160 ships so as the same with the furious and continuall shot of the English one whole day fled without any returning And after the English Navy being increased to an hundred great and small renued their fight with terrible great shot all the whole day gaining alwayes the wind of the Spanish Navy And as I am sorry to remember the particularities which the English have largely written to their owne praise so to speake all in one word for nine dayes together they still forced them to flye and destroyed sunke and tooke in three dayes fight divers of the greatest ships out of which
to adventure their lives against all invasions whatsover without respect of Pope or other Potentate The Recusants are not put in danger of their lives for their Religion but are fined at sums of money The Jesuites are not executed for Religion but for treasons The Seminaries for the most part come disguised like Russians Babington suffered for his treasons voluntarily confessed not for Religion though at his death he professed the Romane Religion A multitude of gentlemen suspected to be Papists yet never endangered of their lives Many of the Priests that are sent into the Realme are young rash and of lewd life A great strength of the English Navy by the ships of the Port Townes that did serve without wages Two notable lyes printed in Paris and imputed to Don Bernardia Mendoza A most manifest lye printed in Paris of a Spanish victory when it was altogether an English victory Mendacia of Mendoza The state of the Navy of England this Summer L. Haward L. Admirall L. Hen. Seymour Sir Francis Drake L. Tho. Haward L. Sheffeld The fight of the English Navy with the Spanish The flying away of the Spanish Navy The Spaniard prisoners say that Christ shewed himselfe a Lutheran in this Summer voyage of the Spanish Navy God shewed no favour to the Spanish Navy from the beginning to the ending Don Pedro de Valdez Captaine Generall of the Armado of Andaluzia Hugo de Moncada Generall of the Galliasses of Naples Diego de Pimentelli Captain of the Galleon named St Matthew I consider him 1. The three hopes conceived against England are now all frustrated 2. 3. The English Navy will be stronger the next yeare Offer of Hollanders and Zelanders to joyne with the English Navy Iustinian Nassan Admirall of Holland with 46. ships of war ioyned to the English Navy against the Duke of Parma Arguments to prove no miscontentment of the people toward the Queen The providence of the Queene to make her Realme strong The Queene being in the army in Essex when most danger was threatened by the enemies in landing The nottable applause of the people to the Queene for her presence in the camp The singing of Psalmes by the English army in the camp An army provided for the Queen beside the army ready to withstand the landing of the enemy Great power of horsmen brought by the Nobility to attend on the Queens person The Viscount Mountagues show of horsemen was the first A number of great Lords shewed their horsmen Earle of Lincolne L. Windesor L. Chancelour Earle of Warwick L. Treasurer L. Compton Earle of Leycester L. Rich. S. Walt Mildmay S. Hen. Cromwell S. Iohn Points Earle of Essex with a great band of hors-men and footmen aforethe Queen at St. Iames Course at the field Tourney Earle of Worcester Earle of Hertford L. Audley L. Morley L. Dacres L. Lomeley L. Mounâ—joy L. Sturton L. Darcy L. Sands L. Mordant Marques of Winchester Earle of Sussex Earle of Shrowsbury L. Talbot Earle of Darby L. Strange Earle of Bath Earle of Pembroks noble offer Earle of Northumberland Earle of Cumberland M. Henry Brooke Sir tho Cecil Sir Wil. Hatton Sir Horatio Pallavicino M. Robert Cary Sir Charles Blunt M. Tho Gerard M. Wil. Hervy Earle of Oxford M. Robert Cecil L. Dudley S. Wal. Rawlegh M. Wil. Cecil M. Edward Darcy M. Arthur Gorge Earle of Huntington L. Scroope L. Darcy L. Evers Earle of Kent L. Hunsdon L. Cobham L. Grave L. North L. Chandos L. St. Iohn L. Buckhurst Earle of Rutland Earle of South-hampton Earle of Bedford Offer of the King of Scots to the 〈◊〉 of England Bands of horsemen and footmen erected by the Bishâ—ps The third and last hope which the Catholikes had of a party in the realme was all frustrate The Spanish prisoners condemne the Kings purpose as being abused by the exiled Catholiques whom the Spaniards call traitors to their countrey No possibility to invade and conquer a Realme without favour of a party inward The Spanish prisoners condemne the enterprise course of Don Bernardin of Mendoza Sir Francis Euglefield Lord Paget Earle of Westmerland Thomas Stukeleyes abusing of the King of Spain and the Pope newly remembred by the Spaniards A conclusion by the writer to perswade another course not by violence No hope for furtherance of the Popes authority by any now living that may succeed the Queen in the line Royall A conclusion what is best to maintaine the Catholike Religion in England A tolleration from the Pope for the Recasants in England Order taken by the K of Scots in favour of the English Great murmurs of all sorts against the Spaniards Report of the horrible cruelty intended by the Spaniards Banners Streamers and Ensignes of the Spaniards shewed to the people Daily prayers Publick prayers and giving of thanks