ere while a laudable Papist and Queen Elizabeth for all this might be a very good Pâ—otestant Sure we are that King James and King Charles who were nearest concerned in this matter never imputed the Fault of it to her Religion Your other instance is of that most execrable Murther committed on the best of Kings by his own Subjects and by such as you say would fain be called Proâ—estants Sir we would fain be called Christians and Members of the Catholick Church would you take it well of a Turk that should therefore charge our faults upon you but you do worse than a Turk in charging these mens faults upon us They were neither then nor since of our Communion but that blessed Prince was whom they murther'd He declared upon the Scaffold I dye a Christian according to the profession of the Church of England as I found it left me by my Father He charged the Princess Elizabeth not to grieve and torment her self for him for that would be a gloâ—ious Death which he should dye it being for the Laws and Liberties of this Land and for maintaining the true Protestant Religion He died with some Care not to leave you this advantage by his Death as it appears by these words of his last Letter to His Majesty that now is The scandal of the late Troubles which some may object and urge to you against the Protestant Religion established in England is easily answered to them or your own thoughts in this that scarce any one who hath been a beginner or an active prosecutor of this late War against the Church the Laws and Mee either was or is a true lover embracer or practicer of the Protestant Religion established in England which neither gives such Rules nor ever before set such Examples My Lords and Gentlemen we know who were the Authors of this last abomination how generously you strove against the raging Torrent nor have we any other ends to remember you of it but to shew that all Religions may have a corrupted spawn and that God hath been pleased to permit such a Rebellion which our Progenitors never saw to convince you perchance whom for ever may he prosper that popery is not the only source of treason But do you indeed know who were the Authors of this last abomination Pray Sir be plain with us for in these doubtful words there seems to be more truth than every man is aware of The Rebellion that led to it began we know in Scotland where the design of it was first laid by Cardinal Richelien His Majesties irreconcileable Enemy Then it broke out in Ireland where it was blest with His Holiness's Letters and assisted by his Nuntio whom he sent purposely to attend the Fire there Lastly here in England you did your parts to unsettle the People and gave them needless occasions of jealousie which the vigilant Phanaticks made use of to bring us all into War and Confusion Both in England and Scotland the special Tools that they wrought with were borrowed out of your Shops It was His Majesties own Observat on by which you may guess whose spawn they were Their Maxims saith he were the same with the Jesuites their Preachers Sermons were delivered in the very phrase of Becanus Scioppius and Eudaemon Johannes their poor Arguments which they delivered in their seditious Pamphlets printed or written were taken almost verbatim out of Bellarmin and Suarez In Ireland where you durst do it you imploy'd Iron and Steel against him with which you might as well have preserved him if you had pleased but you denyed to do that as he tell us only upon account of Religion Then followed the accursed Fact it self agreed to in the Councils of your Clergy contriv'd and executed by the Phanaticks In vain did the poor Royallist strive against it for what could he do when two such streams met against him of which the deepest was that which came from Rome where the false Fisherman open'd all his Flood-gates to overwhelm us with those troubles which for the advantage of his trade he had often before endeavoured but could never prevail till now to send them pouring in upon us Little we think when your Prayers and ours were offer'd up to beg a blessing on the Kings Affairs ever to see that day in which Carlos Gifford Whitgrave the Pendrels should he punish'd by your desires for that Religion which obliged them to save their forlorn prince a stigmatized man for his Offences against King Church a chief promoter of it Nay less did we imagine that by your Votes Huddleston might be hang'd who again secured our Sovereign and others free in their fast Possessions that sate as Judges and sealed the Execution of that great Prince of happy Memory That many Gentlemen of your Church were not of your Party we do willingly acknowledge and that some of them in that critical day of Danger did the King very eminent Service But so did Protestants too therefore you cannot ascribe this to Your Religion Nor does it seem reasonable that to requite particular persons for their service we should abandon those Laws which may secure the publick against as great a danger To question his Life that had freely exposed it for our Sovereigns were too great a Barbarity for any Christians but of your Sect or any Age but Queen Maries dayes for then Sir Nicholas Throgmorton was indeed so dealt with but we do not more detest those times than such examples And we know that His Majesty without any trespass on his Laws may protect and reward those persons whom he judgeth deserving it as well as his Royal Predecessors did in whose Reigns the penal Laws were made Pray be you as favourable to the stigmatized Man whom sure you are not angry with for his Offence against King and Church whatsoever you say and if he be now a promoter of any thing that displeaseth you bear with him as His Majesty doth for whom he lately did his utmost against Phanaticks toward the bringing of him in and he would not willingly live to see the Pope turn him out again For the Regicides be as severe with them as you please only beware how you tax His Majesty's Mercy for fear you may have need of it We confess we are unfortunate and you just Judges whom with our lives we will ever maintain to be so nor are we ignorant the necessity of Affairs made both the King and you do things which formerly you could not so much as fancy Yet give us leave to say we are still loyal nay to desire you to believe so and to remember how Synonymous under the late Rebellion was the word Papist and Cavalier for there was never no Papist that was not deemed a Cavalier nor no Cavalier that was not called a Papist or at least judged to be popishly affected Your fawning upon the Parliament and commending of your selves we pass over as things
The Late APOLOGY In behalf of the PAPISTS Reprinted and Answered In behalf of the ROYALLISTS LONDON Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun in S. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXIII TO THE AUTHOR OF THE Apology SIR ABout fourscore Years ago in a time when there were such Apprehensions of the Papists as now there are and howsoever they are now surely then they were not without cause some of your Predecessors to palliate the matter and to make their Governors more secure of them writ a Book to this effect that Catholicks are to imploy no other Arms against their Prince but the Arms of Christians viz. Tears and Spiritual Means daily Prayers and Watchings and Fastings So you begin My Lords and Gentlemen The Arms which Christians can use against lawful Powers in their severity are only Prayers and Tears We cannot say that you writ your Book for the same End as they did But we do not like it that you jump so together in the same Beginning Now since nothing can equal the infinity of those we have shed but the cause viz. to see our dearest Friends forsake us we hope it will not offend you if after we have a little wip'd our eyes we sigh out our Complaints to you Of the Cause of your Tears we shall say more anon Of the Quantity of them you say very extravagantly Nothing can equal the infinity of those we have shed For you might have excepted those of the Protestants in Queen Maries dayes or of them that suffered in the late Irish Rebellion You ought to have excepted the Fears of your Fabulous Purgatory and yet those are said to be short of Infinity But you Jesuites love to be Hyperbolical whether ranting or whining as if that Religion which obliges you to damn all other Christians had likewise forbidden you to speak like other Men. We had spoke much sooner had we not been silent through Consternation to see you inflamed whom with reverence we honor and also to shew our submissive patience which used no slights nor tricks to divert the Debates of Parliament for no body can imagine where so many of the great Nobility and Gentry are concerned but something might have been done when as in all Ages we see things of publick advantage by the managers dexterity nipt in the bud even in the very Houses them selves Far be it from Catholicks to perplex Parliaments who have been the Founders of their I riviledges and all Antient Laws Nay Magna Charta it self had its rise from us which we do the less boast of since it was not at first obtained in so submiss and humble a manner In the same Roman Style you commend your owne silence and patience You boast that you have been the Founders of the Parliaments Priviledges and all Antient Laws Of the first let every man believe as he sees cause But the second we cannot allow in either sense whether you mean it of your selves or of your Predecessors For as now in your Church men are of two sorts even so they were heretofore in this Realm There were some that wholly minded the common interests of Christian Religion and Civil Government Others were Papalini asserters and promoters of the Popes usurpations They which acted in those first capacities were not more your Predecessors than Ours They which acted in the other were truly and only Yours You say We sung our Nunc Dimittis when we saw our Master in his Throne and you in your deserved Authority and Rule 'T is very well And yet some of you sung your Venite Exultemus when you saw his Blessed Father upon the Scaffold But what of that since the Son is King who is not glad that he is King or whom would it not grieve to have his Loyalty called in Question Nor could any thing have ever grieved us more but to have our Loyalty called into question by you even at the instigation of our greatest Adversaries If we must suffer let it be by you alone for that 's a double Death to men of Honor to have their Enemies not only accusers but for their insulting Judges also Sir he that is Loyal and a man of Honor has no cause to fear Death double or single For our Kings have alwayes Declared that they put no man to death for Religion Therefore if you Truly fear Death it is for Treason If you only pretend this it is a Calumny Either way you are no friend to the Government for all your pretences to Honor and Loyalty These are they that by beginning with us murthered their Prince and wounded you and shall the same method continue by your Approbation We are sure you mean well though their design be wicked but never let it be recorded in story that you forgot your often Vows to us in joyning with them that have been the cause of so great Calamity to the Nation How far it is true that the Kings Murtherers began with you we shall consider anon But it seems you take the Liberty of bestowing that Character upon whom you please that no man hereafter may dare move for the Execution of any Law against you for fear of being said to continue the Method of the Kings Murtherers As for any Vows that we have made to you whatsoever they are you are more sure of them than we can be of any that you make to us for we have no Pope to dispense with them Neither is it recorded in Story that English Protestants ever joyn'd with the Enemies of their Nation Of all Calumnies against Catholicks we have admired at none so much as that their Principles are said to be inconsistent with Government and they themselves thought ever proue to Rebellion 'T is a Calumny of yours to call those things Calumnies which are true and which you cannot Deny without such a Presumption as we should much admire in you if it were not so very Ordinary Concerning your Principles where should we look for them but in your Councils your Decretals and the Books of your Divines In each of these we are taught that the Pope has a Power to depose Kings and to discharge Subjects from their Allegiance which Doctrines are utterly inconsistent with Government for whosoever believes them no Prince can be secure of him But whosoever is a Papist is bound to believe them And he that has imbib'd this Faith may well be thought ever prone to Rebellion The Council of Lateran under Pope Innocent III. expresly Ordains that in case any Prince be a favourer of Hereticks after admonition given The Pope shall discharge his Subjects from their Allegiance and shall give away his Kingdom to some Catholick that may root out those Hereticks and possess his Kingdom without contradiction 'T is observable that this Pope was himself a deposer of Kings namely of John King of England and of Otho IV. the Emperor and also that this Council which made Rebellion a Duty was the first that made Transubstantiation
of the Nations could find no example of the like in all Antiquity It was cloak'd over with shews of the greatest Amity in the world namely of a Marriage between the Houses of Valois and Bourbon to which all the chief of the Protestants were most lovingly invited There after the Jollity of Mirth and caresles of Entertainment in the dead-time of the night the whole City was in Arms about them they fell upon all the Protestants Houses and Lodgings they butchered them without distinction Men Women and Children till the Channels ran down with Blood into the River And scarce a Protestant was left alive except the Bridegroom and the Prince of Conde who turned Papists to escape their hands and yet they could not escape them the one being poisoned and the other stabb'd by men of your Religion This hellish Stratagem you say was condemned as wicked by Catholick Writers It was likewise extoll'd as glorious by Catholick Writers But pray Sir what think you of it you are bashful in company but one may guess at your meaning First you say it was a Cabinet-Plot a fine soft word for the butchering of 30000 persons Next in answer to them that call it murther you seem to blame it as a thing done to Halves for what else can you mean by calling it an ill-machinated Destruction Lastly whatsoever it was that which drew it upon them you say was their Rebellion let their Faith have been what it would Nay Sir it was their Faith let their Obedience have been what it would For neither had that King better Subjects than those which were Massacred nor had his Successor erranter Rebels than those that did Massacre them Brave Coligni was the first murthered and his Head was sent to Rome while his Body according to his own ominous wish was mangled and dragged about the Streets of Paris The Duke of Guise was chief of the murtherers whose factious Authority as you sweetly style it was as black a Rebellion as ever that Kingdom saw But to end this Question whether these men were massacred for Protestant Religion or for Rebellion let us take judges between us for possibly We may be partial for the one and You for the other First of Rebellion a King should be the most competent Judge hear therefore what King James saith who lived in the fresh memory of those dayes I could never yet learn saith he by any good and true Intelligence that in France those of the Religion took Arms against their King In the first Civil Wars they stood only upon their Guard they stood only to their lawful Wards and Locks of Defence They armed not nor took the Field before they were pursued with Fire Sword burnt up and slaughtered Besides Religion was neither the root nor the rinde of those intestine Troubles The true ground of the Quarrel was this during the Minority of King Francis II. the Protestants of France were a refuge and succor to the Princes of the Blood when they were kept from the King's Presence and by the Power of their Enemies were no better than plainly driven and chased from the Court I mean the Grandfathers of the King now Reigning and of the Prince of Conde when they had no place of safe Retreat In regard of which worthy and honorable Service it may seem the French King hath reason to have the Protestants in his gracious remembrance With other Commotion or Insurrection the Protestants are not justly to be charged Certain it is that King Henry III c. by their good Service was delivered from a most extream eminent peril of his Life c. they never abandoned that Henry III. nor IV. in all the heat of Revolts and Rebellions raised by the Pope and the more part of the Clergy c. Then of Religion since you will allow none but the Pope to be Judge let us hear his Judgment from Thuanus who was a Roman Catholick and a most authentick Historian He tells us the Pope had an account of the Massacre from his Legate at Paris that he read his Letter in the Consistory of Cardinals that there it was decreed that they should go directly to St. Marks and there solemnly give thanks to Almighty God for so great a blessing conferred upon the Roman See and the Christian World That soon after a Jubilee should be publisht through the whole Christian World and these causes were exprest for it To give thanks to God for destroying in France the Enemies of the Truth and of the Church c. In the Evening the Guns were fired at St. Angelo and Bonefires were made and nothing was omitted of all those things that use to be performed in the greatest Victories of the Church Some dayes after there was a Procession to St. Lewis with the greatest resort of Nobility and People First went the Bishops and Cardinals then the Switzers then the Ambassadors of Kings and Princes then under a Canopy went His Holiness Himself with the Emperor's Ambassador bearing up his Train for him c. Over the Church-Door was an Inscription set up in which the Cardinal of Lorain in the name of the King of France congratulated his Holiness and the Colledge of Cardinals c. for the plainly stupendious effects and altogether incredible events of their Councils given him and of their Assistances sent him and of their twelve Years Wishes and Prayers Soon after the Pope sent Cardinal Ursin in his name to congratulate the King of France who in his Journey through the Cities highly commended the Faith of those Citizens that had to do in the Massacre and distributed his Holiness's blessings amongst them And at Paris being to perswade the reception of the Council of Trent he endeavoured it with this Argument That the memory of the late Action to be magnified in all ages as conducing to the Glory of God and the Dignity of the Holy Roman Church might be as it were sealed by the Approbation of the Holy Synod for that so it would be manifest to all men that now are or hereafter shall be that the King consented to the destruction of so many lives not out of hatred or revenge or sense of any injury of his own but out of an ardent desire to propagate the Glory of God That what could not be expected whilst the Faction of Protestants stood now since they were taken away the Catholick Apostolick Roman Religion which by the Synod of Trent is cleared from the venom of the Sectaries might be established without Controversie and without Exception through all the Provinces of the French Dominion Well spoken worthy Head of the Church we will take thy Judgment about cutting of throats at any time thou dost not mince the matter as this English limb of thee doth who yet is thus far to be commended that since he durst not say of it as he desir'd for fear of provoking us yet he would not call it as it deserved for
these single shots failed Father Parsons gave a broad-side to the Royal House of Scotland For he publisht a Book under the name of Dolman wherein he set up divers Competitours for the Succession and consequently so many Enemies to the unquestionable Right of that Family And to provide one sure Enemy upon the place he found out a Title for the Earl of Essex the most ambitious and popular Man in the Nation to whom also he craftily dedicated his Book In which he mentions among other Books of this nature one written by Lesley concerning the Queen of Scots Title another by Heghinton for the King of Spains Title and another concerning the Prince of Parma's But for his part before these and all others he prefers the Title of the Infanta And to shew that he meant as he said he caused their Scholars in the Seminaries abroad to subscribe to it and made them swear to maintain it and bound the Missionaries to promote it in those places whither they were to be sent Whereas for King James his Title he preferrs several others before it and tells us I have not found very many in England that favour it meaning sure of your Catholicks with whom his converse chiefly was and concerning whom he gives this remarkable testimony that the Catholicks make little account of his Title by nearness of Succession We have reason to believe he did not wrong them because when an answer was written to his Book the Arch-Priest Blackwel would not suffer it to be published And your next Head-Officer the Provincial of the Jesuites declared he would have nothing to do with King James his Title and 't was the common voice of the men of his Order that if King James would turn Catholick they would follow him but if not they would all die against him Which pious Resolutions were seconded with agreeable Actions For they endeavoured as far as Catholicks are obliged by their Principles viz. as far as they durst and were able at first to hinder him from coming in and afterwards to throw him out again or to destroy him in the place as we shall have occasion to shew you in the answer to the next Paragraph The mean while out of this present discourse in which you cannot deny any thing that is material to our purpose It appears that this hard Question of Right to the Crown was not between the Parties themselves in one or t'other of whom you confess the Right was It appears that your Infallible Judge of Controversies very easily and impartially resolv'd it by denying both sides of the Question and assuming the whole right to himself It appears that your Catholicks who are said to have sided with one against the other did in truth side with the Pope against them both And lastly it appears that their Misdemeanors were inexcusable Treasons if any Treason can be inexcusable that is befriended with such an Apologist 'T was for the Royal House of Scotland that they suffered in those days and 't is for the same Illustrious Family we are ready to hazard all on any occasion Sir we have found you notoriously False in that which you Affirm Pray God you prove True in that which you Promise Nor can the consequence of the former procedure be but ill if a Henry VIII whom Sir W. Raleigh and my Lord Cherbury two famous Protestants have so homely Characteriz'd should after twenty years cohabitation turn away his Wife and this out of scruple of Conscience as he said when as History declares that he never spared Woman in his Lust nor Man in his Fury This Character would better agree with many a Head of a Church whom we could name you than with Henry VIII of whom better Historians speak better things But if he were such a Monster as you would make him perhaps it was for want of a better Religion for he was perfectly of Yours except only in the point of Supremacy And you had no occasion for this flurt at him unless that having undertaken to put the best colours upon Treason you might think you did something towards it in bespattering of Kings We have a touch of the same Art in the next Paragraph Where having undertaken to excuse the Gun-powder-Treason you call it first a Misdemeanor then the Fifth of November and then a Conjuration soft words all of them but you deal wicked hardly with the great Minister of State whom you make to have been the Author of it as if the Traitors had not conspired against the State but the State against them But before we come to answer this It will be needful to set down the story as it appears out of the Examinations and Confessions of the Traitors themselves The rise of this Treason was from the before-mentioned Breves of Pope Clement VIII in which he required all his Catholicks that after the death of that wretched Woman Queen Elizabeth they should admit none but a Catholick to reign over them These Breves were by Garnet the Provincial of the Jesuites communicated to Catesby and others who in Obedience thought best to begin their Practices in her life time So they sent Father Tesmund and Winter into Spain to crave the assistance of that Crown The Spaniard sent them back with the promise of an Army But soon after Queen Elizabeth died and no Army came Therefore again they sent Christopher Wright into Spain to hasten iâ— and Stanley out of Flanders sent Fawks thither upon the same errand who finding the Councils of Spain at this time wholly enclined to peace returned quickly back and brought nothing but despair along with them Yet the Breves had so wrought upon Catesby that he could not find in his heart to give over but still casting about for ways he hit upon this of the Powder-Treason which as being much out of the common Rode he thought the most secure for his purpose He communicated this to Winter who approved it and fetcht Fawks out of Flanders to assist in it Not long after Piercy being in their company and offering himself to any service for the Catholick Cause though it were even the Kings Death Catesby told him that that was too poor an Adventure for him but saith he if thou wilt be a Traitor there is a Plot of greater advantage and such a one as can never be discovered Thus having duly prepar'd him he took him into the Conspiracy And the like he did with so many more as made up their Number thirteen of the Laity But where were the Jesuites all the while rot idle you may be sure The Provincial Garnet was privy to it from the beginning so were divers more of the Society Insomuch that when Watson endeavour'd to have drawn them into his Plot for the setting up of the Lady Arbella's Title in opposition to King James his they declin'd it saying They had another of their own then afoot and that they would