Antwerp 1640. In these Colledges and Seminaries of theirs they had then as they print 15591 Fellows of their society of Jesus besides the Novices Scholars and Lay-brethren of their Order amounting to neer ten times that number So infinitely did this evil Weed grow and spread it self within one hundred years after its first planting What the chief imployments of Ignatius and his numerous swarms of Disciples are in the World his own Society at the time of his Canonization for a Romish Saint sufficiently discovered in their painted Pageants then shewed to the people wherein they pourtraied this new Saint holding the whole world in his hand and fire streaming out forth of his heart rather to set the whole World on fire by Combustions Wars Treasons Powder-plots Schismes new State and old Church-Heresies then to enlighten it with this Motto VENI IGNEM MITTERE I came to send fire into the world which the University of Cracow in Poland objected amongst other Articles against them Anno 1622. Their number being so infinite and the Pope and Spaniard too having long since by Campanella's advice erected many Colledges in Rome Italy Spain the Netherlands and elsewhere for English Scotish Irish Jesuites as well as for such secular Priests Friers Nuns of purpose to promote their designs against the Protestant Princes Realms Churches Parliaments of England Scotland Ireland and to reduce them under their long prosecuted UNIVERSAL MONARCHY over them by Fraud Policy Treason intestine Divisions and Wars being unable to effect it by their own Power no doubt of late yeers many hundreds if not thousands of this Society have crept into England Scotland and Ireland lurking under several Disguises yea an whole Colledge of them sate weekly in counsel in or neer Westminster some few yeers since under Conne the Popes Nuntio of purpose to embroyle England and Scotland in bloody civil wars thereby to endanger shake subvert these Realms and destroy the late King as you may read at large in my Romes Master-piece published by the Commons special Order An. 1643. who occasioned excited fomented the first and second intended but happily prevented wars between England and Scotland and after that the unhappy Differences Wars between the King Parliament and our three Protestant Kingdoms to bring them to utter desolation and extirpate our reformed Religion The Kings Forces in which many of them were Souldiers after some yeers Wars being defeated thereupon their Father Ignatius being a SOULDIER and they his Military sons not a few of them secretly insinuated themselves as Souldiers into the Parliaments Army and Forces as they had formerly done into the Kings where they so cunningly acted their parts as extraordinary illuminated gifted brethren and grand States-men that they soon leavened many of the Officers Troopers and common Souldiers with their dangerous Jesuitical State-Politicks and Practises put them upon sundry strange designes to new-mould the old Monarchical Government Parliaments Church Ministers Laws of England erecting a New General Councel of Army-Officers and Agitators for that purpose acting more like a Parliament then Souldidiers And at last instigated the Army by open force against their Commissions Duties Oaths Protestations and Solemne League and Covenant to Impeach Imprison Seclude first eleven Commoners then some six or seven Lords after that to seclude seclude the Majority of the Commons House suppress the whole House of Lords destroy the King Parliament Government Priviledges Liberties of the Kingdom and Nation for whose defence they were first raised which by no other adverse power they could effect This produced new bloody divisions animosities wars in and between our three Protestant Realms and Nations and after with our Protestant Allies of the Netherlands with sundry heavy monthly Taxes Excises Oppressions Sales of the Churches Crownes and of many Nobles and Gentlemens Lands Estates to their undoing our whole Nations impoverishing and discontent an infinite profuse expence of Treasure of Protestant blood both by Land Sea decay of Trade with other sad effects in all our three Kingdoms yea sundry successive New changes of our publique Government made by the Army-Officers who are still ringing the changes according to Campanella's and Parsons Platforms So that if fire may be certainly discerned by the smoke or the tree commonly known by its fruit as the Truth it self resolves Matâ—h 12. 33. we may truly cry out to all our Rulers as the Jews did once to the Rulers of Thessaâ—onica in another case Act. 17. 6. THOSE Jesuites WHO HAVE TURNED THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN ARE COME HITHER ALSO and have turned our Kingdoms Kings Peers Monarchy Parliaments Government Laws Liberties yea and our Church and Religion too in a great measure UPSIDE DOWNE even by those very Persons who were purposely raised commissioned waged engaged by Protestations Covenants Vows Oathes Laws Allegiance and Duty to protect them from these Jesuitical Innovations and subversions Those who will take the pains to peruse all or any of these several printed Books most of them very well worth their reading written against the Jesuites and their Practises as well by Papists as Protestants as namely Fides Jesu Jesuitarum printed 1573. Doctrinae Jesuiticae praecipua capita Delph 1589. Aphorismi Doctrinae Jesuiticae 1608. Cambitonius De Studiis Jesuitarum abstrusioribus Anno 1609. Jacobus Thuanus Passages of the Jesuites Hist l. 69 79 83 94 95 96 108 110 114 116 119 121 124 126 129 131 132 134 136 137 138. Emanuel Meteranus his Passages of them Belgicae Hist l. 9 17 18 19 21 23 26 to 34. Willielmus Baudartius Continuation Meterani l. 37 38 39 40. Donatus Wesagus Fides Jesu Jesuitarum 1610. Characteres Jesuiticae in several Tomes Elias Husenmullerus Historia Jesuitici Ordinis Anno 1605. Speculum sive Theoria Doctrinae Jesuiticae necnon Praxis Jesuitaram 1608. Pasquier his Jesuite displayed Petrus de Wangen Physiognomia Jesuitica 1610. Christopherus Pelargus his Novus Jesuitismus Franciscus de Verone his Jesuitismus Sicarius 1611. Narratio de proditione Iesuitarum in Magnae Brit. Regem 1607. Consilium de Jesuitis Regno Poloniae ejiciendis The Acts of the States of Rhetia Anno 1561 and 1612. for banishing the Jesuites wholly out of their Territories NE STATUS POLITICUS TURBARETUR c. mentioned by Fortunatus Sprecherus Palladis Rheticae l. 6. p. 251 273. Melchior Valcius his Furiae Gretzero c. remissae 1611. Censura Jesuitarum Articuli Jesuitarum cum commonefactione illis opposita Anti-Jesuites au Roy par 1611. Variae Doctorum Theologorum Theses adversus quaedam Jesuitica Dogmata The Remonstrance of the Parliament of Paris to Henry the Great against the Re-establishment of the Jesuites And their Censure of Mariana his Book to be publickly burnt printed in French 1610. recited in the General History of France in Lewis 13. his life and Peter Matthew l. 6. par 3. Historia Franciae Variae Facultatis Theologiae Curiae Parisiensis quam aliorum opuscula decreta
and Priests in high contempt publishing many slanderous seditious trayterous and infamous speeches libels and books against them to render them odious and contemptible to the people full of Plots exasserations against the Church and Commonwealth like rebellious Traytors to bring all into an uproar that they may have all Countries Kingdomes Governments Successions States inhabitants and all at their pleasure 4. That the Jesuites have taught the people â—n â—rder to get England under their power in order to God or Religion as they stile it That Subjects are bound no longer to obey wicked or heretical Painces and Kings destecting from the Catholick Religion and drawing others with them but till they be able by force of arms to resist and depose them That the popular multitude may upon these grounds when they think meet place or displace their Princes and chief Officers at their Princes and chief Officers at their pleasure as men may do their tenants at will hirelings or ordinary servants putting no difference in their choice UPON ANY RIGHT OR TITLE TO CROWNS OR KINGDOMS BY BIRTH OR BLOOD OR OTHERWISE then as these Fathers forsooth shall approve it By this all things must be wrought and framed conformable to opportunities of times and occasions as for example The people must have a right and interest in them to do what they list in choice of their Kings and Supream Governours till they have set such a person or Usurper in the Crown as they for their ends have designed and then the times and occasions changing when such a one is setled in the Throne the former doctrine and practises must be holden FOR A MISTAKING yet such as seeing it cannot be holpen the people must beware hereafter of attempting the like again By this a check must be given to the publishers of such paradoxes when they have accomplished their designed ends after that a dispensation procured for the offenders and then all shall be well ever after till a new opportunity for their further advantage 5. That the Jesuites by absurd equivocations counterfeited perjuries Sacriledges and cousenage become all things to all men that they may gain all as to be Seminary Priests among Seminaries Secular Priests among Seculars Religious men among Religious Seditious men among Seditious Factious Spainiards amongst Spaniards ENGLISH TRAYTORS AMONG TRAYTORS SCOTISH VILLAINS AMONG SCOTS c. and amongst all these to deny and affirm to object and answer to swear and forswear whatsoever may be a gain to them for their pragmatical Commonwealth and Society No wonder then if they transform themselves into all shapes and take upon them all prefessions now 6. That the Jesuites by their devices and practises have brought all to Machiavels rule DIVIDE ET IMPERA in sowing division breeding of jealousies and making of hostile strife by opposition of King against King State against State Priest against Priest Peer against Peer Parents against children children against parents sisters against brothers servants against masters wives against husbands husbands against wives and one friend against another raising up rebellions MVRDRING OF PRINCES making uproars every where until they make those they cannot otherwise winne unto them either yeeld to be their vassals to live quiet by them or force them to flight or drive them out of their wits or otherwise plague them to death 7. That the Jesuits by their cursed positions and machiavillian practises have made religion it self a meer political and atheal device a pragmatical science of Figboys and but an art of such as live by their wits and the principles of Machiavel taught by their Robbies yea a very â—oâ—ch potch of omnium gatherum religious secular clergical laical ecclesiastical spiritual temporal M. ARTIAL civil Aecomenical political liberal mechannical municipal irregular and ALL Wâ—THOVT ORDER so that they are not worthy to be called religious ecclesiasticks catholicks nor temporal mechannical christians but rather Machiavillians Athiests Apostates their course of life shewing what their study is and that howsoever they boast of their perfections holiness meditations and exercises as if they were all Superlatives all Mâ—â—â—physicians all entia transcendentia yet their platform is heathenish tyrannical â—athannical able to set Aretine Lucâ—an Machiavel yea and Don Lucifer in a sort to school Those I say who shal sadly ponder all these premises and compare them with the late practises policies and proceedings of some swaying politicians of our age and the constitution of our Church State Religion and publiâ—e affairs must necessarily acknowledge that these pragmatical Iesuits have been very active prevalent-powerful sucâ—esful and not onely militant but triumphant of late yeares amongst us under some disguise or other that they have dangerously poysoned us with these their Machiavilian and Atheal pollcies practises positions and have more real Disciples Factors if not Tutors now amongst us then in any former ages And is it not high time then to endeavour to detect their persons and prevent their dangerous designs upon us with greatest care and diligence Truly though most others be negligent and careless herein yet that text of Ezek. 2 6 7. And thou son of man be not afraid of them neither be afraid of their words though bryars and thorns be with thee and thou dost dwel among scorpions be not afraid of their words nor be dismayed at their looks though they be a rebellious house And thou shalt speak my words unto them whether they wil hear or whether they wil forbear for they are most REBELLIOVS hath animated me to exonerate my conscience herein and to say with the prophet Isai 62. 1. For Zions Englands sake I will not hold my peace and for Ierusalems sake I will not rest until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth Wherefore Upon letious consideration of all these Premises and of all those Sacred Solemn Oathes that Protestation Vow league and Nationall Covenant which I have formerly taken lying still as so many indissoluble Obligations on my Soul notwithstanding the ingrate malicious unchristian Requitalls of all my former unmercinary services Sufferings for Religion Laws Liberties and the publique in times of greatest Danger recompences only with long causeless close imprisonments injuries affronts losses of all kindes by pretended friends and Patrons of our Liberties as well as by professed causeless Enemies And notwithstanding all other Discouragements from the generall baseness cowardize Sottishness slavishness degenerated Spirits of the whole Nation and their strange fearfulness even publiquely to own much less cordially to assist defend according to the sixth Article of the Covenant those few couragious Patrons who have hazarded their Lives Liberties Limbs Estates and all earthly comforts for the publique defence of Religion the Laws Liberties Priviledges of our Kingdome Chruch Parliament against the old and late avowed subverters of them whose very Company visits the generality of their former friends and acquaintance have declined as
if they had some plague sores on them not only during their late restraints but likewise since their enlargments out of them enough to perswade them never to write speake act or suffer any thing more for such ingrate unworthy Creatures but rather to put their helping hands to make them and their posterities slaves for ever I have yet once more out of pure zeal love conscience towards my native Country adventured my life liberty and decayed estate considering the lawlessnesse and Danger of the times not the justice and goodness of the Common Cause I plead for the necessary defence of the Fundamentall Liberties Franchises Lawes Rights Parliaments priviledges and Government of our eâ—slaved Nation though every way unworthy to be beloved by God or men of noble spirits in this Seasonable Legall Historicall vindication and Collection wherein I have with all boldness faithfulness without the least fear or flatterie of any Mortals or created powers whatsoever argued evinced maintained my own particular with the whole Nations publique right and inheritance in them and endeavoured as much as in me lyes to preserve them from the severall Jesuitical plots our religion counsels specified in the whole Commons House Remenstrance of 13. December 1641 exact Collection pa 3. to 14. of late years revived and more vigorously pursued than ever and to rescue them out of the Claws of Tyrany and all usurping arbitrary powers which have avowedly encroached on yea trampled them under feet of late more than ever the worst of all our Monarchs or beheaded King did though declaimed against as the greatest of Tyrants by some who have transcended him in his worst Regall Exorbitances and particularly in this which the Lords and Commons in parliament in their Declaration of Aug. 4 1642. thus grievously complained of and objected against the Kings ill Counsellers That the LAWS were no protection or defence of any mans right all was subject to will and power which imposed WHAT PAYMENTS THEY THOVGHT FIT to drain the subjects purses and supply THOSE NECESSITIES which their ill counsell had brought upon the King and gratify such as were instrumentall in promooting most ILLEGAL and OPPRESSIVE COVRSES Those who yeilded and complied were countenanced and advanced all others disgraced and kept under that so their mindes made poor base as they were never so poor and base as now and THEIR LIBERTIES lost and gone as they were never so much as now they might be ready to LET GO THEIR RELIGION whensoever it should be resolved to alter it which was and still is the GREAT DESIGN and all the rest made use of as instrumentall and subservient to it Vpon which consideration they thus concluded that Declaration Therefore we the Lords and Commons are resolved to expose our lives and fortunes for the defence and maintenance of the true religion the king person honor and estate the power and priviledg of Parliament the just rights and liberty of the subject And we do hereby require all those who have any sence of piety honor or compassion To HELP A DISTRESSED STATE especially SVCH WHO HAVE TAKEN THE PROTESTATION and are bound in the same duty with us unto their God their King and Country to come in to their aid and assistance That which hath not a little encouraged me hereunto is not only this their publike call but likewise this memorable passage vow protestation of the Lords and Commons assembled in parliament in their printed Declaration in answer to his Majesties of October 23. 1642. Which I fear most of them since in power have quite forgotten and therefore I beseech them now seriously to remember it Though we know very well there are too many of the Gentry of this Kingdome who to satisfy the LVSTS OF THEIR OWN AMBITION are content like Esau TO SELL THEIR BIRTH-RIGHT CARE NOT TO SVBMIT THEMSELVES TO ANY ARBYTRARY AND VNLIMITED GOVERNMENT so they may FOR THEIR OWN TIME PARTAKE OF THAT POWER to trample and insult over others and have not are not some of these declarers and censurers such themselves yet we are assured that there are of the Gentry many worthy and true hearted patriots but where are those many now who are ready to lay down their lives and fortunes and of late have given ample testimony thereof for maintenance of their Lawes Liberties and Religion and with them and others of their resolution we shall be ready to live and die But how many of these declarers have made good this publike engagement yea have not some of them been and still are more ready to secure seclude disoffice imprison kill slay any such true hearted patrons as I have felt by sad experience then to live and die with them And we must own it as our duty to use our best endeavors that the meanest of the Commonalty may enjoy their owne Birthrights Freedome and Liberty of the Laws of the Land being equally entituled thereto with the greatest Subject I trust therefore the Greatest Grandees in late or present power neither will nor can be offended with me and that all the Nobility Gentry Commons and true hearted Patrons in the Nation who bear any love to the Laws Liberties Freedom of the people for which their Ancestors and they have so long so stoutly contended heretofore and lately with our Kings will live and die with mee in this their Vindication and Defence against any of their fellow-Subjects who shall endeavor to subvert or deprive them of the full and free enjoyment of all or any of them according to this engagement and Declaration Wherein there are these further observable passages relating to the Parliaments priviledges and its Members which I desire our Army-Grandees who impeached secured secluded my self with other Members of the last true parliament levied war against and forcibly dissolved it with the Contrivers of our late New Modelled Governments would seriously ponder who in common justice must bee content to be as freely told of and reprehended for their faults in print where the publike and every mans private interest Right Liberty Security is concerned as they have censured others as well their superiors as equalls oft in print though perchance less peccant than themselves in that they object against them For the matter of his Majesties raising an Army against the Parliament wherein many Papists priests Jesuites were imployed and taking away the priviledge thereof we shall refer it to the judgment of every ordinary capacity whether it be void of sense to say that this war is raised against the parliament But the truth is that it is not a few persons but the Parliament it self is the thorn that lies in these mens sides which heretofore when it was wont to prick them was with much case by a sudden dissolution pulled out But now that is more deeply fastned by the Act of Continuance they would force it out by the power of an Army hath not this been the very practise of some Army-Grandees
of that Remonstrance and published in these ensuing terms as will evidently appear if applied to the Army and their Generall Counsel of Officers by adding or exchanging their names onely for the Kings in a parenthesis 1. That the King the Army General and their Generall Councell of Officers when he pleaseth may declare the Major part of both Houses a faction of Malignant Schismatical and ambitious Persons so that all Parliaments that have been heretofore and SHALL BE HEREAFTER AND ALL LAWS MADE IN THEM may by this means be called in question at pleasure yea nulled and repealed for ever as some former parliaments have been when held and over-awed by armed power or unduly elected packed summoned without Lawfull Authority or some of the Members forcibly secluded as you may read at large in the Statutes of 21. R. 2 c. 11 12. 16 17 18. 1. H. 4. c. 3. 1 H. 4. Rot. Parl. n. 22 23 36 48 66 70 39 H. 6. c. 1. and 17 E. 4. c. 7. worthy the serious perusal of our present Grandees and all illegitimate Parliaments where they may read the fatall end of all new unparliamentary projects laws devices wherein many now so much glory as if they would continue firm for ever when as in a few years space they will all probably prove nullities be for ever reversed yea branded to posterity as most pernicious presidents 2. That his Majesty the Army and their Generall Councell may declare what is the known Law of the Land against the judgement of the Highest Court and consequently of all his Courts So that the safety and right of King and people and THE LAW IT SELF must deupon his Majesties the Armie Generall and their Councels pleasure 4. That as the King hath a property in his Town Forts and Kingdomes so he the Army and their Generall Councell may dispose of them as he pleaseth and the Representative body of the whole Kingdome may not intermedle in discharge of his Majesties the Armies Generalls Councels trust though by the advice of evill Councellers they see it diverted to the hazard of the publique peace and safety of the Kingdome 5. That his Majesty the Army General and their Councell or any other person may upon suggestions and prâ—tences of Treason Felony or breach of peace or of their Trusts a fourth Army new minted cause Take the Members of Parliament without giving satisfaction to the House whereof they are Members of the grounds of such suggestion or accusation and without and against their consent as in the case of the late secured secluded Members and their two Juncto's since so they may Dismember a Parliament when they please and make it what they will when they will 6. That whosoever shall follow the King Army Generall and their Councell in the wars against the Parliament though it were to destroy Laws Liberty Religion the Parliament it self and the whole kingdome yet he shall be free from all crime or punishment And that on the other side to oppose by force any such force though in the most legall way and by authority of the representative body of the whole kingdome is to leavy war against the King Army Generall and TREASON with in the Letter of 25. E. 3. or of their new Knacks since So our Lands Liberties Lives Religion and Laws themselves Whereby all the Rights both of King and people are due to them and preserved for them shall be at the sole will and pleasure of the Prince Army General and General Councel of Officers in their new High Courts of Injustice or other martiall Judicatories O consider consider seriously by these particulars to what a sad low despicable condition all English parliaments are now for ever reduced by the late Army practises violences and rebellions insolencies against them never to be parallel'd in any age which hath really verified this clause in the Declaration of both Houses Aug. 4. 1642. objected against the King and his popish Army in relation to themselves That if the King by his army may force this Parliament as the parliaments army both forced and dissolved it they may bid farewell to all Parliaments for ever receiving good by them and if parliaments be lost they the people are lost their Laws are lost as well those lately made as in former times All which will be cut in sunder with the same sword now drawn for the Distruction of this Parliament Athanasius Bishop of Alexandria about the year of our Lord 340. objected this as a great crime barbarisme cruelty and violation of the priviledges of Councels to the Arrian Emperour Constantine That whensoever he called a Councel or Assembly of Bishops it was but for a shew For he would not permit them to be guided by the ecclesiasticall Canont but his will alone must be their onely Canon And when they advised him not to subvert the ecclesiasticall order nor bring the Arrian Heresie into the Church of God he would neither hear nor permit them to speak freely but grievously bending his brows for they had spoken crosse to his designes and shaking his sword at them commanded them to be taken away Whereupon he thus infers What Liberty for perswasion or place for advice is there left when he that contradicteth shal for his labour lose either his life or his Country VVhy hath the Emperour gathered so great a number of Bishops partly terrified with threats partly inticed with promises to condescend that they will not communicate with Athanasius And Hilary Bishop of Poictou An. 360. in his first Book against this Tyrannical Arrian Emperours Constantius thus censures his violent proceedings of this kinde to the subversion of the freedom and priviledge of Councils and their members Thou gatherest COVNCILS and when they be shut up together in one City thou TERRIFIEST THEM WITH THREATS as the Army Officers did the secluded members 6 and 7 Decemb. 1648 when they shut them up all night in Hell on the bare boards without beds in the cold and kept them fasting all the next day at Whit-Hall till 7 a clock at night thou pinest them with hunger thou lamest them with cold thou depravest them with Dissembling O thou wicked one what a mockery dost thou make of the Church and Councels Onely Dogs return to their vomit and thou compellest the priests of Christ to sup up those things which they have disgorged and commandest them in their confessions to allow that WHICH BEFORE THEY CONDEMNED what Bishops hand hast thou left innocent What tongue hast thou not forced to falshood Whose heart hast thou not brought to the condemning of his former opinion Thou hast subjected all to thy will yea to thy violence And have not some swaying Army Officers by their frowns menaces frauds open force upon the Parliament and its members beyond all the presidents in any ages done the like and exceeded this Arrian Tyrant And is it not then high time for all friends to Parliaments to protest and provide
WAS THE LIKE NEVER HEARD OF BEFORE TO THIS PRESENT And may we not then justly suspect fear conclude that all our late dismal changes and turning all things upside down in our Church State Kingdoms Parliaments were originally promoted contrived by the Jesuites and effected by the seduced Officers and Souldiers as their delâ—ded instruments 2. That this Jesuite Parsons in his Books of the Reformation of all the States of England as he prescribed Reformations to the Prince Court Counsellors Noblemen Bishops Prelates Pastors Universities Lawyers Laws in which he will have STRANGE METAMORPHOSES so likewise THE COURT OF PARLIAMENT HE WILL HAVE BROUGHT TO BETTER FORM as W. W. a secnlar Priest in A Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay-Gentleman Printed at Rhemes Anno 1601. Watson in his Quodlibets p. 92. to 96. 320. to 334. William Clark a secular Priest in his Answer to Father Parsons Libel p. 75. c. in direct terms attest And may we not then justly suspect that the late New-models and Reformation of our Kingdoms Parliaments Government Laws c. proceeded primarily from the Jesuites Projections and Plots against them if the Statutes of 23 Eliz. c. 1. 27 Eliz. c. 2. 35 Eliz. c. 2. 1 Jac. 1 2 4 5 7. 7 Jac. c. 6. and the manifold Declarations of both Houses of Parliament Exact Collection p. 491 462 497 498 616 631 666 698 813 to 828. may be judges 3. That the Jesuites drift directly is immediately by means of CONQUEST intended for England to bring it and all Christendom into an uproar FOR COMMON SOULDIERS TO EXAMINE THEIR SOVERAIGNS WHAT TITLE THEY HOLD BY that thereupon themselves by craft money and multitudes gathered together through their Policy may bring England and then Spain and all the rest under their subjection and Monarchy And that principally by this Jesuitical Position That every Precopie or Tartarian multitude getting once the stile and title of a PUBLICK STATE or HELVETIAN COMMONWEALTH may alter change and innovate the course of inheritances and succession TO CROWNS AND KINGDOMS and also to every private Persons heritage holden in Fee-simple as William Watson assures us in these very terms And whether the Jesuites have nor instructed our Army-Officers and Common Souldiers upon this pretext and for this very end to examine their Soveraigns yea our Parliaments Titles Priviledges and Powers too of late and dispose of them at their pleasure let themselves the whole Nation with all in present power in the fear of God most seriously consider without passion or affection before it be over-late 4. That the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance specially made prescribed by our most wise zealous Protestant Parliaments to prevent the Treasonable Plots and designs of Popes Jesuites and Papists against our Protestant Princes Realms Parliaments Religion though confirmed by many Statutes and containing in them onely the Declaration of such a Duty as every true and well-affected Subject not onely by the bond of Allegiance but also by the COMMANDMENT OF GOD ought to bear to the King his Heirs and Successors and none but persons infected with Popish Superstition formerly oppugned as the Prologue of the Statute of 7 Jacobi c. 6. positively resolves have by late State-innovators not onely been discontinued suspended but declaimed against and repealed as much as in them lay as UNLAWFUL OATHS The New Oath for abjuration of Popery with all Bills against Jesuites and Papists presented to the late King by both Houses the last Parliament and by him consented to in the Isle of Wight wholly laid aside and quite buried in oblivion The Solemn Protestation League and Covenant prescribed by the last Parliament and taken by all the well-affected in all the three Kingdoms to prevent the dangerous plots of Papists and Jesuites and our common enemies to destroy our Religion Churches Realms Government Parliaments Laws Liberties quite antiquated decried detested and a New Engagement forcibly imposed under highest penalties and disabilities upon all men diametrically contrary to these Oaths Protestations and Covenants which have been by a new kinde of Papal Power publickly dispenced with and the people absolved from them to become sworn Homagers to other new self-created Lords and Masters And are not all these to considerate zealous Protestants strong Arguments of the Jesuites Predominancy in our late counsels changes of Government 5. That the Notion of THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT in my weak apprehension deriving its original from the Jesuites-late invented PRESENT CHURCH the onely Supream Power and Judge of Controversies which all men must submit unto without dispute by their determination as they must do to that present Republican Government and new Optimacity and Popularity lately set up instead of our Monarchy Which two forms of Government as they were the inventions of Factious Graecians at first which put all their Cities into Combustions fury frenzy and civil wars against each other to their utter overthrow in conclusion witness these verses of Heniochus an ancient Greek Comaedian Tum geminae ad illas accesserunt Mulieres RITAS QUAE CUNCTA CONTURBARUNT OPTIMA Est nomen alieri alteri POPULARITAS RUNT Quarum incitatu PRIDEM EXTERNATAE FUso Parsons Campanella Cardinal Rechâ—liâ—u designed to introduce and set them up amongst us in England Scotland and Ireland of purpose to divide and destroy us by civil wars and combustions and bring us under their Jesuitical power at last as the marginal Authorities declare to all the world And if this be undeniable to all having any sence of Religion Peace or publick Safety left within their bâ—ests is it not more then high time for us to awake out of our former lethargy and sordid selfish stupidity to prevent our ruine by these and other forementioned Jesuitical practises Or can any English man or real Parliament be justly offended with me for this impartial discovery of them And for my endeavours to put all the dislocated Members and broken bones of our old inverted Fundamental body Politick into their due places joynts and postures again without which there is no more possibility of reducing it to its pristine health ease settlement tranquility prosperity or of preserving it from perâ—ecual pain inquieration consumption and approaching death therâ—of a natural body whose principal members continue dis-joynted and bones broken all in peices as all prudent State-Physitians must acknowledge These five Considerations together with the Premises will I presume sufficiently justifie this my undertaking and impartial discovery of Jesuitical Plots to ruine our Church Religion Kingdoms Parliaments Laws Liberties Government against all malicious Enemies Accusers Maligners whatsoever before all the Tribunals of God or Men where I shall be ready to justifie them upon all occasions In perpetual testimony whereof I have hereunto set my Hand and by God's Grace shall ever be ready to seal them and the truth of God with my blood if called out to do it Swainswick Aug. 12. 1654. Will.
Romans to forsake the field Claudius afterwards besieging Arviragus who succeded his brother in Winchester they fell to a treaty Claudius proffered Arviragus that he should marry his daughter and hold the Kingdome of Britain peaceably from the Romans under the ancient Tribute upon which suaserunt majores natu Arbiago promissionibus Claudii acquiescere The elders assembled no doubt in councell about it perswaded Arviragus to consent to Claudius his promises for they said it was no disgrace to him to be subject to the Romans seeing they enjoyed the Empire of the whole world Paruit Arviragus consilio suorum Cesari subjectionem fecit Arviragus obeyed and by the advice of his councell did homage to Caesar Anno Christi 52. Arviragus refused to be any longer subject to the Roman power or to pay them Tribute Whereupon Claudius sent Vespasian to reduce him to obedience who after one battaile fought with great losse on both sides came to an agreement After which Anno 63. Joseph of Arimathea with XI more of Phillips Disciples arrived in Britain and preached the Gospell boldly to whose Preaching Arviragus cum proceribus suis with his Nobles and People hearing such new and unaccustomed things utterly refused to consent to their Doctrine neither would they change the traditions of their Fathers yet because they came from far and their lives held forth modesty and meeknesse the King at their Petition granted them the Isle of Glastonbury then horrid and untilled surrounded with woods bushes and lakes to inhabit Which grant his two next successors Marius and Coillus who exercised Justice and Law reverenced the Nobles of the Realme and paid the Tribute to the Romans because all the world was subject to them by his example confirmed giving to each of them one hide of Land a piece to this day called the 12. hides of Glastonbury confirmed to the Abby of Glastonbury afterwards by the Charters of many of our Christian Saxon Kings ratified in their great Councels and Parliaments By these passages it is clear That Taxes and Tributes not granted and assented to in Parliament though imposed by a Conquering Invader binde not the Nation or succeeding Kings That matters of Peace and Warre were determined in Common-Councels and Parliaments in that age That no publick change in Religion or Customes could be made without the Kings and Nobles consents and that the grant of the King of any Crowne Lands without common consent in Parliament bound not his successors unlesse they specially confirmed them by their new Charters How many bloudy Battails with various successe the ancient Britons under the conduct of their Kings and Queens fought against the Roman Emperors Claudius Vespasian and their Generals Officers and Forces after Julius Caesars time for defence of their Native Liberties Rights Lawes Government Country and to exempt themselves from all Tributes Taxes Purveyances imposed on or exocted from them by the Romans How impatient they were of bearing any Taxes or Imposts they never knowing what Servitude was being borne only for themselves and alwayes free unto themselves free from all contagion of Tyranny How oft they revolted from and rebelled against the Romans from time to time for their Oppressions Taxes turning them out of their ancient inheritances by force and using them rather like Slaves then Freemen You may read at large in Cornelius Tacitus Annal. l. 14. and in the life of Agricola in Mr. Camdens Britannia p. 24 to 48. Speed Holinshed and others and more especially in the notable speeches of Caractacus and Galgacus encouraging the Britons manfully to fight for their Country Liberty Lawes c. recorded in these Authors the later of them thus justly taxing the Romans Usurpation Ambition Covetousnesse Rapines and Tyranny in these words Robbers they be of the world who having left no more land to spoile now search also the Sea If their enemies be rich they covet their wealth if poor they seek to gain glory to take away by main force to kill and spoyle they falsely terme Empire and Government when they lay all wasie as a Wildernesse that they call Peace That every man should hold his own children and bloud most dear nature hath ordained and even those are pressed for Souldiers and caried away to serve as Slaves elsewhere our substance they draw from us for Tribute our Corne for provision our very Bodies and Lands they wear out and consume in paving of Bogs and ridding of Woods with a thousand stripes and reproachfull indignities besides Slaves yet which be born to bondage are bought and sold once for al and afterwards fed and found at their own expences But Britain dayly buyeth dayly feedeth and is at dayly charge with her own Bondage And as in a private retinâ—e of household Servants the fresh man and last comer is laughed and scoffed at by his other-fellowes even so in this old servitude of the whole World our destruction only is sought as being the latest and vilest in accompt of all other c. We as yet were never touched never foiled never subdued as men therefore that mean to maintain their Freedome not for the Present but for ever let us shew straightwayes in the first joyning what manner of men Caledonia reserved in store for her self c. It is not by their own vertue but by our jarrings and discords that yet the Romans are grown into fame to our shame be it spoken many of our own Nation now lend their lives to establish a forain Vsurper not out of any loyall affection but out of fear and terrour weak linkes and bonds of love Remove but them once those who shall cease to fear will soon begin to hate The free Cities are discontent and in factions while those who are under them obey with ill will and they that do govern rule against right Here is the Generall and here is the Army there are the Tributes here be the metall mines and other miseries inseparably following them that live under the subjection of others which either to continue or endure for ever it lyeth this day in this field Wherefore as you are going to Battle bear in your minds both the Freedome of your Ancestors and the Bondage of your Posterity Upon which Speech they manfully sought with the Romans preferring their Liberties before their lives About the year of Christ 50. the Romans extraordinarily oppressed the Britons under Claudius the Emperor Laetus Decianus their Procurator renewed the confiscation of their goods which Claudius had pardoned The Roman Colony at Camolodunum thrust out the ancient Inhabitants seating themselves in their possessions without any other recompence but reproachfull termes calling them their drudges slaves and vassals and the Temple there erected in honour of Claudius was now become an eye-sore to them as an Altar of their perpetuall subjection whiles the Augustaâ—l Priests there attending wasted all their wealth under pretext of Religion And that which was their greatest grievance Prasutagus King of the
COMMON-WEALTH lest perhaps he might infect others or by his example or command turn them from the faith And that the Kingdom of such an Heretick or Prince is to be bestowed at the pleasure of the Pope with whom the people UPON PAIN OF DAMNATION ARE TO TAKE PART AND FIGHT AGAINST THEIR SOVERAIGN Out of which detestable treasonable Conclusions most Treasons and Rebellions of late times have risen in the Christian World and the first smoke of the Gunpowder Treason too as Iohn Speed observes in his History of Great Britaine p. 1250. 2. That the Iesuites have frequently put these treasonable Seditious Antimonarchical Jesuitical damnable Doctrines into practice as well against some Popish as against Protestant King Queen Princes States which they manifest 1. By their poysoning Ione Queen of Navarre with a pair of deadly perfumed Gloves onely for favouring the Protestants in France Anno 1572. 2. By their suborning and animating Iames Clement a Dominical Frier to stab King Henry the 3 of France in the belly with a poysoned Knife whereof he presently died Anno 1589. for which they promised this Traytor a Saintship in heaven 3. By Cammoles the Jesuites publick justification of this Clement in a Sermon at Paris Anno 1593. wherein he not onely extolled him above all the Saints for his Treason against and murder of Henry the 3. but broke out likewise into this further Exclamation to the people We ought to have some Ehud whether it be A MONKE or A SOULDIER or a Varlet or at least a Câ—w-herd For it is necessary that at least we should have some Ehud This ONE THING ONELY YET REMAINS BEHINDE FOR THEN WE SHALL COMPOSE ALL OUR AFFAIRS VERY WELL AND AT LAST BRING THEM TO A DESIRED END Whereupon by the Jesuites instigation the same year 1593. one Peter Bariere undertook the assasination of King Henry the 4 of France which being prevented and he executed thereupon they suborned and enjoyned one of their own Jesuitical Disciples John Castle a youth of 19 yeers old to destroy this King who on the 27 of December 1594. intending to stab him to the heart missing his aim wounded him onely in the cheek and stroke out one of his Teeth for which Treasonable Act he was justified applauded as a renowned Saint and Martyr by the Jesuites in a printed Book or two published in commendation of this his undertaking Yea Alexander Hay a Jesuite privy to Castle 's villany used to say That if King Henry the 4. should pass by their Colledge which he built for them he would willingly cast himself out of his window headlong upon him so as he might break the King's neck though thereby he brake his own Yet was he punished onely with perpetual banishment After which Jesuitical conspiracies detected and prevented notwithstanding this King Henry before these two attempts to murder him had by their sollicitations renounced the Protestant Religion professed himself a zealous Romanist recalled the Iesuites formerly banished for the murther of Henry the 3. against his Parliament and Counsels advice reversed all the Decrees of Parliament against them razed the publick Pillar set up in Paris as a lasting Monument of their Treasons and Conspiracies built them a magnificent Colledge in Paris endowed it with a very large revenue entertained Pere Cotton one of their Society for his Confessor who revealed all his Secrets to the King of Spain bequeathed a large Legacy of Plate and Lands to their Society by his will and was extraordinary bountiful and favourable towards them yet these bloody ingrateful villains animated that desperate wretch Ravilliac to stab him to death in the open street in Paris Anno 1610. Albigni the Iesuite being privy to this murder before it was perpetrated 4. By their suborning instigating sundry bloody instruments one after another to murder William Prince of Orange prevented in their attempts by Gods providence till at last they procured one Balthasar Gerard to shoot him to death with a Pistol charged with three Bullets the Iesuites promising him no less then HEAVEN AND A CANONIZATION AMONG THE SAINTS AND MARTYRS for this bloody Treason as they did to Iames Clement before for murdering the French King 5. By their poysoning of Stephen Botzkay Prince of Transylvania for opposing their bloody persecutions 6. By their manifold bloody Plots and Attempts from time to time to depose murder stab poyson destroy our famous Protestant Queen Elizabeth by open Insurrections Rebellions Invasions Wars raised against her both in England and Ireland and by intestine clandestine Conjurations from which Gods ever-waking Providence did preserve her Amongst other Conspiracies that of Patrik Cullen an Irish Frier hired by the Iesuits and their Agents to kill the Queen is observable Holt the Iesuite who perswaded him to undertake the murdering of her told him that it was not onely Lawful by the Laws but THAT HE SHOULD MERIT GODS FAVOUR AND HEAVEN BY IT and thereupon gave him remission of all his sins and the Eucharist to encourage him in this Treason the chief ground whereof and of all their other Treasons against this Queen was thus openly expressed by Iaquis Francis for Cullens further encouragement THAT THE REALM OF ENGLAND THEN WAS AND WOULD BE SO WELL SETLED that unless Mistris Elizabeth so he termed his Dread Soveraign though but a base Landress Son were suddenly taken away ALL THE DEVILS IN HELL WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PREVAIL TO SHAKE AND OVETURN IT Which then it seems they principally endeavoured and oft times since attempted and have now at last effected by those who conceit they demerit the Title of Saints though not in a Romish Calender and no less then Heaven for shaking overturning and making it No Kingdom 7. By their Conspiracy against King Iames to deprive him of his Right to the Crown of England imprison or destroy his person raise Rebellion alter Religion and SUBVERT THE STATE AND GOVERNMENT by vertue of Pope Clement the 8. his Bull directed to Henry Garnet Superiour of the Iesuites in England whereby he commanded all the Archpriests Priests Popish Clergy Peers Nobles and Catholikes of England That after the death of Queen Elizabeth by the course of Nature or otherwise whosoever should lay claim or title to the Crown of England though never so directly or neerly interessed by descent should not be admitted unto the Throne unless he would first tolerate the Romish Religion and by his best endeavours promote the Catholick cause unto which by his Solemn and Sacred Oath he should religiously subscribe after the death of that miserable woman as he stiled Queen Elizabeth By vertue of which Bull the Iesuites after her decease disswaded the Romish-minded Subjects from yielding in any wise obedience to King Iames as their Soveraign and entred into a Treasonable Conspiracy with the Lord Cobham Lord Gray and others against him to imprison him for the ends aforesaid or destroy him pretending that King
and defending them from the Justice thereof and by admitting such to bear places of great trust in the Army and to stand in defiance of the Parliament and the Authority thereof and it is not a far greater crime to make the Parliaments Army it self a Delinquent against the Parliament and Kingdome the fanctuary of such Delinquents against both and to continue such Officers in places of greatest trust in the Army who have levied actual war against the Parliament secluded secured members of Parliament kept divers years under their armed guards in defiance of the Parliament refusing to release them even when the Serjeant was sent from the House it self to demand the Members seised By all which it is apparent how our Priviledges have been torn from us by piece-meals from time to time And we might mention many passages whereby they were endeavoured to be pulled up by the root and totally subverted As the attempt to bring up the late Army from the North to force Conditions upon the Parliament His Majesties Letters and Commands to the Members of both Houses which found obedience in a great many to attend him at York and so By depriving the Parliament of their Members destroy the whole body And was not the actuall twice bringing up of the Parliaments own Army by the Army Officers against the Parliament it self to impeach secure some principall members of both Houses seclude the Majority of the Commons House suppresse the whole house of Lords break off the Preaty behead the King the Head of the Parliament against the Parliaments Votes alter the government force conditions on the Parliament it self to omit the 12 21 24 32 37 38 39. Articles of their New government with the secluding of all the Members lately admitted by Armed Souldiers till they took a New Engagement and keeping out all others a taking of the Priviledges of the Parliament from them all by whole-sale and a more desperate pulling up by the Roots and totall subversion of all the Priviledges and whole body of the Parliament then this objected against the Northern Army or the Kings Jesuiticall ill Councel VVhich is enough to prove the vanity of the Contrivers of that Declaration and of the Army Officers too to feed themselves with hope of beliefe That the Priviledges of Parliament are not Violated but intended to be preserved with all due observance Concerning the Allegation That the Army raised by the Parliament is to murder the KING oft alledged by the King and his Party in many printed PROCLAMATIONS Declarations before and after this here mentioned VVe hoped the Contrivers of that Declaration or any that professed but the name of a Christian could not have so little charity as to raise such a SCANDALL especially when they must needs know the Protestation taken by every member of both Houses and Army Officers too whereby they promise in the presence of Almighty God TO DEFEND HIS MAJESTIES PERSON The Promise and Protestation made by the Members of both Houses upon the nomination of the Earl of Essex to be Generall and to live and die with him wherein is expressed THAT THIS ARMY WAS RAISED FOR DEFENCE OF THE KINGS PERSON Our oft earnest and most humble Addresse to his Majesty to leave that desperate and dangerous Army c. A request inconsistent with any purpose to offer the least violence to His Person which hath and ever shall be dear unto us And concerning the imputation laid to our Charge of Raising this Army to Alter the whole Frame of Government and Established Laws of the Land which the King and his party frequently objected in print we shall need give no other Answer but this That the Army Raised by the Parliament is to no other end but for the Preservation of his Majesties Person to Defend themselves the Laws of the Land and the true Protestant Religion After which they there and elswhere conclude And by this time we doubt not but every man doth plainly discern through the Mask and Visard of their Hypocrisie what their the Kings ill Counsels design is To Subject both King and Parliament and Kingdome to their needy Ambitious and Avaritious Spirits and to the violent Laws Martial law of Governing the People by guards and by the Souldiers But alas for greife how superlatively have many of the Army Officers and their confederate members though parties to these Declarations and Protestations violated them and both Houses Faiths Trusts intentions ends in raising the Army in every of these particulars How have they verified justified the Kings Declarations Jealousies concerning the Parliaments Army in every point here and elswhere disclaimed by both Houses How have they exceeded out acted the Kings Jesuiticall Counsellers and most desperate Popish army in violating subverting both the Parliaments Priviledges Members and Parliaments themselves together with our Fundamentall Laws Liberties Government for whose preservation they were onely raised paid How have they pursued the Kings and his worst Counsellorsâ—ootsteps â—ootsteps in all the charges here objected against them by both Houses in relation to the Parliaments priviledges Members Constitution Rights Lawes to their utter Subversion dissolution and waged warre against them And doth not every man plainly discern through the Mask and Visard of their Hypocrisie to use both houses expressions that their designe is just the same with that here objected by the Parliament to the Kings ill Jesuited Counsellers and Popish army even to subject both King Parliament and Kingdome to their needy ambitious avaritious spirits and to the violent Laws marshall Law of Governing the people yea parliaments themselves by guards and by the Souldiers and By Conquest to establish an absolute and unlimited power over the Parliament and good subjects of this Kingdome as the Houses elsewhere thrice objected against the late King his Army and party being the very designe as many wisemen fear of the 27 Article of their new Government to settle a constant Annuall revenue for the maintenance of 20000 foot and 10000 Horse and Dragoones for the Defence and Security of England Scotland and Ireland O that they would now in the name and fear of God as they tender the eternal salvation of their souls the honour and priviledges of all future Parliaments the ease welfare settlement of our Nation Lay all this most seriously to their Hearts and make it a matter of their greatest lamentation and repentance Besides this have they not falsified that memorable late Declaration of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament Novemb. 2. 1642. in Answer to his Majesties well worthy perusall now and made good both for the time past and all succeeding Parliaments whiles there shal be any standing Army in England able to over power them all the odious scandalous positions in relation to the English Parliament its Members and priviledges deduced from the Kings Declaration onely by inference but disclaimed by the King summed up by them in the close
serpentem odiens CIVILIAQUE BELLA CREBRAS INJUSTE PRAEDAS SITIENS animae tuae caelestes portas pacis ac refrigerii praecludis Quid tu etiam insularis Draco MULTORUM TYRANNORUM DEPULSOR TAM REGNO QUAM ETIAM VITA snpradictorum novissime in nostro stylo prime in malo major multis potentia simulque malitia Largior in dando profusior in peccato robuste armis sed animae fortiâ—r excidiis Maglocune in tam vetusto scelerum aâ—ramento stolide volutaris Quare tantas peccaminum regiae cervici sponte ut ita dicam ineluctabiles celsorum seu Montium innectis moles Nonne in primis adolescentiae tuae annis avunculum Regem cum fortissimis propemodum militibus acerrime ense hasta igni oppressisti Parum cogitans propheticum dictum Viri inquiens sanguinum doli non dimidiabunt dies suos Quid pro hoc solo retributionis a justo judice sperares si non talia sequerentur quae secuta sunt itidem dicente per prophetam Vae tibi qui praedaris nonne ipse praedaberis qui occidis nonne ipse occideris cum dâ—siveris praedari tunc cades These sinnes brought the ancient British Kings with their Kingdomes and People to ruine Legitur in Libro Gildoe Sapientissimi Britonum Quod ijdem Britones propter Avaritiam rapinam Principum propter iniquitatem injuriam Judicum propter desidiam praedicationis Episcoporum propter luxuriam malos mores populi Patriam perdiderunt write Alcuinus and Malmesbury The Lord grant they may not bring our Kingdomes and Nations to like ruine and desolation now How many bloudy Warres and battles the Brotons after they were driven out of their Country into the Welsh Mountaines by the Saâ—ons fought with them for the defence of their Country Rights Liberties under the conduct of valient Cadâ—in who after twenty four yeares civill Dissention amongst the Britons and so long an Inter-regnum was by the UNANIMOUS CONSENT OF ALL THE PRINCES and NOBLES OF THE BRITONS ASSEMBLED TOGETHER in a great Parliamentary Councill AT LEGECESTER ELECTED and MADE 〈◊〉 OF THE BRITONS Which Nobles and Counsellor would not permit him to give way that Edwin the Saxon by his permission should be crowned King of Northamberland Aiebant enim CONTRA IVS VETERVMQVE TRADITIONEM ESSE Insulam unius CORONAE DVOBVS CORONATIS SVBMITTI DEBERE And after his decease under Cadwallo his Son who succeeded him in the Crown and under famous Cadwallader succeeding Cadwallo his Father in the Kingly Government by lineall dâ—scent by whose death both the royall blond with the Government of the Britons and the very name of Britain it self expired you may read at large in Geoffry Monmouth Bâ—da Gildas Maelmesbury Huntindon Mathew Westminster Fabian Holinshed Grafton Speed and others being over tedious to relate The divisions and discords amongst the British Nobility during Cadwalladers sicknesse seconded with eleven yeares sere pâ—stilence famine and all sorts of miseries whereby the land became desolate enforced them to forsake their native Country and to seek relief in forraign parts Whereupon the Saxons sending for more of their Countrymen into Britain replenished and planted the vacant Country dispossessing the Britons totally of their ancient rightfull Inheritance which they never since regained after they had possessed it from Brute to Cadwallader for two thousand seventy six yeares under one hundred and two Kings as John Brompton records in the beginning of his History col 725. And this shall suffice concerning the Britons Contests and Wars for their Liberties Laws Government Country Religion against the Romans Saxons and touching their Great Parliamentary Councils Proceedings in them from Julius Caesars to the Saxons Conquest and total supplantation of them by Treachery Violence and the Sword of which violent Intrusion Laeland our famous Antiquary and Archbishop Parker in his Antiquitâ—tes Ecclesiae Britannicae p. 12. give their Censure in point of Conscience who writing of Pope Gregories conversion of the Pagan Saxons who expelled the Britons to the Christian Faith conclude thus Debuerat Gregorius admonuisse Saxones GENTEM PERFIDAM ut si syncere Christiaâ—issimâ—m admittere vellent BRITANNIAE IMPERIVM QVOD CONTRA SACRAMENTVM MILITIAE PER TYRANNIDEM OCCVPAVERANT IVSTIS DOMINIS AC POSSESSORIBVS RESTITVERENT That is Gregory ought to have admonished the Saxons a PERFIDIOUS NATION that if they would sincerely embrace Christianity they then ought to restore the Kingdome of Britain which they had seised upon by Tyranny against the Oath of their Militia to the just Lords and Possessors thereof a Doctrine fit to be pressed on others now by all our Ministers which because they neglected to doe you may read what a divine retaliation their Postetity received from the Pagan Danes in the insuing Sections CHAP. III. SECT III. Comprising some remarkable Generall Historicall Collections proving the limited Power and Prerogative of the first Saxons Kings of England disabled to make any Lawes Warre Peace alienate their Crown Lands impose any Taxes Tributes in any Necessity or kind whatsoever but in and by common consent in the Generall Parliamentary Councils of their Nobles and Wisemen which they were obliged to summon upon all occasions when there was need and to govern their people justy according to Law The Saxons proceedings against their Tyrannicall oppressing Kings and the severe Judgements of God upon some Saxon Subjects for their Perjury Treachery disloyalty Rebellion against expulsions murders of their lawfull Soveraignes and unrighteous violent disinheriting the Christian Britons by the sword of their Native Country THe British Kings and Britons being for their Tyranny Perjury Treachery Injustice and other sinnes related reprehended by Gildas driven out and dispossessed of their Royalty and Country by the Saxons they about the year of our Lord 576. divided it into seven Kingdomes and set up seven Kings in severall parts of the Island who soon after waged civill Warres and more than civill Warres one with another These Kings all agreed utterly to delete the name of Britain and the memory of the Britons Whereupon they by common consent ordained That the Island should not be called Britain from Brute but England These Kings were at first elected by the Saxon Nobles and People to reign over them to govern the people of God and TO MAINTAIN and DEFEND THEIR PERSONS and GOODS IN PEACE BY THE RULES OF RIGHT And at the beginning so soon as they turned Christians they made their Kings to swear that they should maintain the Christian faith with all their power and GOVERN THEIR PEOPLE BY RIGHT without respect to any person and should be SUBJECT TO SUFFER RIGHT AS WELL AS OTHERS OF THE PEOPLE And although the King ought not to have any Peer in his Land for as much if he did wrong or offended against any of his people he or any of his Commissioners should not be both Judge and party it behoved of RIGHT THAT THE KING SHOULD
destroyed those of Northumberland and Lindesfaâ—ne horribly destroying the Churches of Christ with the Inhabitants at which time Duke Sigga who unworthily betrayed and slew his Soveraign King Alfwold of Northumberland worthily perished the whole Nation being first almost quite consumed with civill Warres and by these Pagan invaders whose Plague was farre more outragious and cruell than that of the Romans Picts Scots or Saxons Invasions and Depredations in former ages they most frequently invading and assailing the land on every side desiring not so much to obtain and rule over it as to spoile and destroy it with all things therein burning their houses carrying away their goods tossing their little children and murthering them on the top of their pikes ravishing their wives and daughters then carrying them away captives and putting all the men to the Sword which sad and frequent rumours from all parts struck such terrour into the hearts of King and people that their very hearts and hands failed and languished so that when they obtained any victory they had no joy nor hope of safety by it being presently encountred by new and greater swarmes of these Pagan Destroyers The cause of which sore Plague and Judgement he together with Mathew Westminster thus expresse In the Primitive Church of England Religion most brightly shined but in processe of time all vertue so withered and decayed in them VT GENTEM NVLLAM PRODITIONE ET NEQVITIA PAREM ESSE PERMITTERENT that they permitted no Nation to be equall to them IN TREASON AND WICKEDNESSE which most of all appeares in the History of the forecited Kings of Northumberland For men of every Order and Office DOLO ET PRODITIONE INSISTEBANT addicted themselves TO FRAUD AND TREASON in such sort as their impiety is formerly described in the Acts of their Kings Neither was any thing held disgraceful but Truth and Justice Nec honor nisi BELLA PLVS QVAM CIVILIA ET SANGVINIS INNOCENCIVM EFFVSIO causa dignissima caedis Innocentia Nor any thing reputed honourable but more than civill Warres and effusion of the bloud of Innocents and Innocency reputed a cause most worthy of death THEREFORE the Lord Almighty sent a most cruell Nation like swarmes of Bees who spared neither age nor sex to wit the Danes with the Gothes the Norwegians and the Sweeds the Vandals with the Prisons who from the beginning of King Edelwolfe to the coming of the Normans under King William wasted and made the fruitfull Land desolate for 230. yeares destroying it from Sea to Sea and from man to beast Which sore and dreadful long continued Judgement of God upon the Land for those crying sinnes now abounding amongst us as much almost as amongst the Northumberlanders and other Saxons then may cause us justly to fear the self same punishments or the like as they then incurred and the Britons before that under the bloudy Usurper Vortigenne unlesse we seriously repent and speedily reform them From these unparalleld prodigious Treasons Insurrections Regicides Rebellions of these Northumberlanders I conceive that infamous Proverb used by Maximilian the Emperor and frequent in Forraigne and other Writers first arose touching the English That the King of England was REX DIABOLORVM a King of Devils not of men or Saints SVBDICOS ENIM REGES EJICERE TRVCIDARE because the English especially the Northumberlanders so oft rebelled against expelled deposed and murdered their Kings beyond the Spaniards French and other Nations Which Proverb the late extravagant Proceedings of some Jesuitized pretended English Saints have now again revived out of the ashes of oblivion But I hope these sad recited old domestick Presidents will hereafter instruct both Kings Magistrates Parliaments and people to keep within those due bounds of Justice Righteousnesse Law Equity Loyalty Piety Conscience Prudence and Christian Moderation which the Lawes of God and the Land prescribe to both and the Council of Calchuth forecited long since prefixed them That the ancient English Saxon Kings at and from their primitive Establishment in this Realm had no power nor prerogative in them to impose any publike Taxes Imposts Tributes or Payments whatsoever on their people without their Common Consents and Grants in their Great Councils of the Realm for any spiritual or temporal use I shall evidence by the four first General publick Taxes that I meet with in the Histories of their times which I shall recite in Order according to their Antiquity though I shall therein somewhat swarve from my former Chronological Method in reciting some subsequent Lawes and confirmations relating to every of them for brevity sake out of their due order of time and coupling them with the original Lawes for and Grants of these general Charges and Taxes to which they have relation and then pursue my former method Henry Huntindon in the Prologue to his fifth Book of Histories p. 347. writes thus of those Saxons who first seised upon Britain by the Sword Saxones autem pro viribus paulatim terram Britanniae bello capiscentes captam obtinebant obtentam adificabant adificatam LEGIBVS REGEBANT not by arbitrary Regal power without or against all Law The first Taxes and Impositions ever laid under the Saxon Kings Government after they turned Christians upon the people of England were for the maintenance of Religion Learning Ministers Schollers long before we read of any Taxes imposed on them for the publick Defence of the Nation by Land or Sea all and every of which were granted imposed onely by common consent in their Great Councils before the Name of Parliament was used in this Island which being a French word came in after the Normans about Henry the third his reign without which Councils grant they could neither be justly charged nor levied on all or any Free-men of this Island by any civill or legall Right by those to whom they were granted and thereupon grew due by Law 1. The first General Tax or Imposition laid on and paid by the Saxon Subjects of this Land appearing in our Histories was that of Caericsceatae id est CENSVS ECCLESIAE in plain English Churchets or Church-Fees in nature of First-Fruits and Tythes The first Law whereby these Churchets Church-Fees or First-Fruits were imposed on the people and setled as an annuall duty on the Ministers paid onely before that time as voluntary Free-will Offrings to the Ministers of the Gospel by devout and liberal Christians was enacted by Ive King of the west Saxons in a Great Councill held under him Anno Dom. 692. Wherein by the exhortation advice and assent of Cenred his Father Heddes and Erkenwold his Bishops AND OF ALL THE ALDERMEN ELDERS AND WISE-MEN OF HIS REALM and a great Congregation of the Servants of God he established this Law among sundry others which none might abolish Cap. 4. De Censu Ecclesiae Cericsccata i.e. Vectigal or Census Ecclesiae reddita sint in Festo Sancti Maâ—â—tini Si quis hoc non compleat reus sit IX sol duâ—
THE SECOND PART OF A SEASONABLE LEGAL and HISTORICAL VINDICATION and CHRONOLOGICAL COLLECTION Of the Good old Fundamental Liberties Franchises Rights Lawes Government of all English Freemen their best Inheritance and onely Security against all Arbitrary Tyranny and Aegyptian Taxes Wherein the extraordinary Zeal Courage Care Vigilancy Civill Military and Parliamentary Consultations Contests to preserve establish perpetuate them to Posterity against all Tyrants Vsurpers Enemies Invaders both under the ancient Pagan and Christian Britons Romans Saxons The Laws and Parliamentall Great Councils of the Britons Saxons With some Generall Presidents concerning the limited Powers and Prerogatives of our British and first Saxon Kings the Fundamental Rights Liberties Franchises Laws of their Subjects the severe punishments of their Tyrannicall Princes on the one side and of unrighteous Vsurpers Traytors Regicides Treason Perfidiousnesse and Disloyalty on the other recorded in our Historians are Chronologically Epitomized and presented to publick View for the benefit of the whole English Nation By WILLIAM PRYNNE of Swainswick Esquire Prov. 22. 28. Remove not the Ancient Land-markes which thy Fathers have set 2 Sam. 10. 12. Be of GOOD COURAGE AND LET US PLAY THE MEN FOR OUR PEOPLE and for the Cities of our God and the Lord do that which seemeth him good Dan. 7. 25 26. And he shall think TO CHANGE TIMES AND LAWS and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of times But the Judgement shall sit and they shall take away his Dominion to consume and to destroy it unto the end London Printed for the Author and are to be sold by Edward Thomas dwelling in Green Arbour 1655. ERRATA IN the Epistle p. 2 l 38. r. 1540. p. 5. l. 10. r. secure p. 9. l. 2. 5. r. s. p. 10. l 37. r. Kings Queenes p. 16. l 3. dele they p. 19. l. 2. 1502. r. 1602. p. 22. l. 1. proceeding p. 24. l. 20. Oath of Supremacy p. 25. l 24. for this p 27. l 4. r. 1653. p. 35. l. 20. r. and our religion from c. p 47 l 18 Constantius l 26 for if p 51 l 2 p 52 l 37 twenty four r. fourty two Margin p. 20. l. 1. whether In the Book p. 2. l. 19 20. r. each single p. 39. l. 19. Dubricius p. 41. l. 11. quod p. 47. l. 13. Christianismum p. 53. l. 29. reservations p. 62. l. 9. by r. of p. 64 l. 20. Subditos p 67 l 23 dat r eat p. 71. l. 31. r. Schoole p. 72. l. 27. dele a. Margin p. 55. l. 29. r. Eventibus To all truely Christian Free-men of England Patrons of Religion Freedom Parliaments who shall peruse this Treatise Christian Reader IT hath been one of the most detestable Crimes and highest Impeachments against the Antichristian Popes of Rome that under a Saint-like Religious Pretext of advancing the Church Cause Kingdom of Jesus Christ they have for some hundred yeers by-past usurped to themselves as sole Monarchs of the world in the Right of Christ whose Vicars they pretend themselves to be both by Doctrinal Positions and Treasonable Practises an absolute Soveraign Tyrannical Power over all Christian Emperours Kings Princes of the World who must derive and hold their Crowns from them alone upon their good behaviours at their pleasures not onely to Excommunicate Censure Judge Depose Murder Destroy their sacred Persons but likewise to dispose of their Crowns Scepters Kingdomâ— and translate them to whom they please In pursuance whereof they have most traiterously wickedly seditiously atheistically presumed to absolve their Subjects from all their sacred Oaths Homages natural Allegiance and due Obedience to them instigated encouraged yea expresly enjoyned under pain of interdiction excommunication and other censures their own Subjects yea own sons sometimes both by their Bulls and Agents to revolt from rebel war against depose dethrone murder stab poyson destroy them by open force or secret conspiracies and stirred up one Christian King Realm State to invade infest destroy usurp upon another onely to advance their own antichristian Soveraignties Usurpations Ambition Rapines worldly Pompe and Ends as you may read at leisure in the Statutes of 25 H. 8. c. 22. 28 H. 8. c. 10. 37 H. 8. c. 17. 13 Eliz. c. 2. 23 Eliz. c. 1. 35 Eliz. c. 2. 3 Jacob. c. 1 2 4 5. 7 Jacob. c. 6. the Emperour Frederick his Epistles against Pope Gregory the 9. and Innocent the 4. recorded in Matthew Paris and others Aventinus Annalium Boiorum Mr. Tyndal's Practice of Popish Prelates the second Homily upon Whitsunday the Homilies against Disobedience and wilful Rebellion Bishop Jewels view of a seditious Bull John Bale in his lives of the Roman Pontiffs Doctor Thomas Bilson in his true difference between Christian subjection and unchristian Rebellion Doctor John White his Sermon at Paul's Cross March 24. 1625. and Defence of the Way c. 6 10. Doctor Crakenthorpe of the Popes temporal Monarchy Bishop Morton's Protestants Apology Doctor Beard 's Theater of Gods Judgements l. 1. c. 27 28. Doctor Squire of Antichrist John Bodin his Common-wealth l. 1. c. 9. The learned Morney Lord du Plessy his Mystery of Iniquity and History of the Papacy The Grimston's Imperial History Matthew Paris Holinshed Speed Cambden and others in the lives of Henry the 3. Queen Elizabeth and other of our Kings and hundreds of printed Sermons on the 5 of November The principal Instruments the Popes imployed of late years in these their unchristian Treasonable Designes have been pragmatical furious active Jesuites whose Society was first erected by Ignatius Loyola a Spaniard by Birth but A SOULDIER by Profession and confirmed by Pope Paul the 3. Anno 1640 which Order consisting onely of ten persons at first and confined onely to sixty by this Pope hath so monstrously increased by the Popes and Spaniards favours and assistance whose chief Janizaries Factors Intelligencers they are that in the year 1626. they caused the picture of Ignatius their Founder to be cut in Brass with a goodly Olive Tree growing like Jesses root out of his side spreading its branches into all Kingdoms and Provinces of the World where the Jesuites have any Colledges and Seminaries with the name of the Province at the foot of the branch which hath as many leaves as they have Colledges and Residencies in that Province in which leaves are the names of the Towns and Villages where these Colledges are situated round about the Tree are the Pictures of all the illustrious Persons of their Order and in Ignatius his right hand there is a Paper wherein these words are ingraven Ego sicut Oliva fructifera in domo Dei taken out of Ps 52. 8. which pourtraictures they then printed and published to the World wherein they set forth the number of their Colledges and Seminaries to be no less then 777. increased to 155 more by the year 1640. in all 932. as they published in like Pictures Pageants printed at
Iames was no King at all before his Coronation and that therefore they might by force of Arms lawfully surprise his person and Prince Henry his Son and imprison them in the Tower of London or Dover-Castle till they inforced them by duress to grant a free toleration of their Catholike Religion to remove some evil counsellors from about them and to grant them a free Pardon for this violence or else they would put some further Project in execution against them to their destruction But this Conspiricy being discovered The Traytors were apprehended arraigned condemned and Watson and Clerk two Iesuited Priests who had drawn them into this Conspiracy upon the aforesaid Pretext with some others executed as Traytors all the Iudges of England resolving that King Iames being right Heir to the Crown by descent was immediately upon the death of Queen Elizabeth actually possessed of the Crown and lawful King of England before any Proclamation or Coronation of him which are but Ceremonies as was formerly adjudged in the case of Queen Mary and Queen Iane 1 Mariae there being no Interregnum by the Law of England as is adjudged declared by Act of Parliament 1 Iac. c. 1. worthy serious perusal 8. By their horrid Gun-powder Treason Plot contrived fomented by Garnet Superiour of the English Iesuites Gerard Tesmond and other Iesuites who by their Apostolical Power did not onely commend but absolve from all sin the other Iesuited Popish Conspirators and Faux THE SOULDIER who were their instruments to effect it Yea the Iesuitical Priests were so Atheistical as that they usually concluded their Masses with Prayers for the good success of this Hellish plot which was suddenly with no less then 36 Barrels of Gunpowder placed in a secret Vault under the House of Lords to have blown up and destroyed at once King Iames himself the Queen Prince Lords Spiritual and Temporal with the Commons assembled together in the Upper-House of Parliament upon the 5 of November Anno Dom. 1605. and then to have forcibly seised with armed men prepared for that purpose the persons of our late beheaded King then Duke of York and the Lady Elizabeth his Sister if absent from the Parliament and not there destroyed with the rest that so there might be none of the Royal Line left to inherit the Crown of England Scotland and Ireland to the utter overthrow and subversion of the whole Royal Family Parliament State and Government of this Realm Which unparallel'd inhumane bloody Plot being miraculously discovered prevented the very day before the execution in perpetual detestation of it and of the Iesuits and their traiterous Romish Religion which both contrived and approved it the 5 day of November by the Statute of 3 Iacobi ch 1. was enacted to be had IN PERPETUAL REMEMBRANCE that ALL AGES TO COME might thereon meet together publickly throughout the whole Nation to render publick praises unto God for preventing this infernal Iesuitical Design and keep in memory THIS JOYFUL DAY OF DELIVERANCE for which special forms of publick Prayers and Thankesgivings were then appointed and that day ever since more or less annually observed till this present And it is worthy special observation that had this Plot taken effect it was agreed by the Iesuites and Popish Conspirators before-hand THAT THE IMPUTATION OF THIS TREASON SHOULD BE CAST UPON THE PURITANS TO MAKE THEM MORE ODIOUS as now they father all their Powder-Plots of this kinde which they have not onely laid but fully accomplished of late yeers against the King Prince Royal Posterity the Lords and Commons House our Englishâ—Parliaments and Government upon those Independents and Anabaptistical Sword-men reputed PURITANS who were in truth but their meer under Instruments to effect them When as they originally laid the Plots as is clear by Campanella's Book De Monarchia Hisp c. 25. and Cardinal Richelieu his Instructions at his death to the King of France And it is very observable that as Courtney the Jesuite Rector of the English Jesuits Colledge at Rome did in the yeer 1641. when the name of Independent was scarce heard of in England openly affirm to some English Gentlemen and a Reverend Minister of late in Cornwal from whom I had this Relation then and there feasted by the English Jesuites in their Colledge That they now at last after all their former Plots had miscarried they had found out a sure way to subvert and ruine the Church of England which was most formidable to them of all others BY THE INDEPENDENTS who immediately after infinitely increased supplanted the Prebyterians by degrees got the whole power of the Army and by it of the Kingdom into their hands and then subverted both the Parliament King and his Posterity So some Independent Ministers Sectaries and Anabaptists ever since 1648. have neglected the observation of the 5 of November as I am credibly informed and refused to render publick thanks to God for the deliverance thereon contrary to the Act for this very reason which some of them have rendred That they would not mock God in publick by praising him for delivering the late King Royal Posterity and House of Lords from destruction then by Jesuites and Papists whenas themselves have since destroyed and subverted them through Gods providence and repute it a special mercy and deliverance to the Nation from Tyranny and Bondage for which they have cause to bless the Lord Peforming that for the Jesuites and Powder-Traytors which themselves could not effect The Lord give them grace and hearts to consider how much they acted the Jesuites and promoted their very worst designes against us therein what infamy and scandal they have thereby drawn upon all zealous Professors of our Protestant Religion and what they will do in the end thereof 9. To omit all other forraign instances cited in Speculum Jesuiticum p. 124. to 130. where you may peruse them at leisure By their poysoning King James himself in conclusion as some of them have boasted 10. By the Popes Nuntio and Conclave of Jesuites Conspiracy at London Anno 1640. to poyson our late King Charles himself as they had poysoned his Father with a poysoned Indian Nut kept by the Jesuites and shewed often by Conne the Popes Nuncio to the Discoverer of that Plot or else to destroy him by the Scotish wars and troubles raised for that very end by the Jesuites in case he refused to grant them a universal liberty of exercising their Popish Religion throughout his Realms and Dominions and then to train up his Son under them in the Popish Religion To which not onely heretofore but now likewise they strenuously endeavour by all possible means to seduce him as appears more especially by Monsieur Militierre his late book dedicated to him for that purpose Surely all these premised instances compared together will sufficiently inform the world that the late unparellel'd capital Proceedings against our Protestant King Parliament Members Peers House and forced
detection and prevention of Jesuites and their treasonable forementioned practises against our Church Kingdomes Princes Religion Parliaments and Government by the wisdom and zeal of our best affected vigilant Protestant Parliaments I can neither hear nor read of any effectual means endeavoured or prescribed by any in power for the discovery of these Romish â—anizaries or banishing feretting keeping them out of England where they have wrought so much mischief of late yeers and whose utter ruine they attempt nor any encouragement at all given to the discoverers of their Plots and Persons but many affronts and discouragements put upon them and particularly on my self mewed up Close-Prisoner under strictest Guards in remotest Castles neer three yeers space whiles they all walked abroad at large of purpose to hinder me from any discoveries of their practises by my pen whiles they printed and vended publickly here in England above 30000 Popish books of several kindes during my imprisonment without the least restraint to propagate the Jesuites Plots and antichristian Romish Religion amongst us as you may read at large in the Stationers Beacon fired which seasonable book and Discovery of these Romish Emissaries books and plots some Officers of the Army in their Beacon quenched publickly traduced in print as a New Powder-treason of the Presbyterian Party to blow up the Army and that pretended Parliament of their own erection which themselves soon after blew up and dissolved in good earnest to carry on their designes against our Laws But most certain it is there hath been of late yeers not onely a General councel of Officers of the Army sitting many months together in counsel to alter and new model all our ancient Laws and Statutes in pursuance of Parson's design but likewise two Conventicles of their own selection and election sitting of late in the Parliament-House at Westminster assuming to themselves the Name and far more then the Power of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England together with the transcendent ambitious Title of The Supream Authority of the Nation in derogation of the Army-Officers Supremacy who sufficiently chastised them this strange Usurpation who have made it their chief business not onely to New-model our ancient Fundamental Government Parliaments Ministers Universities much according to Parsons and his Fellow-Jesuites forementioned Plat-formes and Thomas Campanella his Instructions to the King of Spain De Monarchia Hisp c. 25. but likewise to New-mould subvert eradicate the whole body of our Laws and with them the great Charter of our Liberties it self And in their last cashiered unelected Convention as some of their Companions now in greatest Power assure us in their True State of the case of the Commonwealth of England c. London 1654. p. 15 16 17 18. there was a strong prevailing Party whom nothing would satisfie but A TOTAL ERADICATION of the whole body of the good old Laws of England the Guardians of our lives and Fortunes to the utter subversion of civil Right and Propriety who likewise took upon them by vertue of a supposed right of Saintship in themselves to lay the foundation of a New Platform which was to go under the Name of A FIFTH MONARCHY never to have an end but TO WAR WITH ALL OTHER POWERS AND BREAK THEM TO PIECES baptizing all their proselytes into this Principle and Perswasion that the Powers formerly in being were branches of the Fourth Monarchy of England Scotland and Ireland which MUST BE ROOTED UP AND DESTROYED And what other Fifth Monarchy this could be but that projected universal Monarchy of the Jesuites which should bring the whole Monarchy of Great Britain and Ireland together with France Spain and all other Princes States in Christendom under the Jesuites subjection and break all other Powers in peices mentioned by Watson in his Quodlibets p. 306 to 333. or else that Elective New Monarchy of Great Britain and Ireland projected by Campanella and Cardinal Richeleiu which some Grandees now endeavour by their Instrument to erect and perpetuate for èver without Alteration in themselves and their Successors though they thus expresly brand it in others let themselves and wise men resolve it being apparent by the practises and proceedings of all the Propugners of this new Project that this Fifth Monarchy they intend to erect is neither the spiritual Kingdom of Jesus Christ in their own hearts mortifying their ambition covetousness pride self-seeking unrighteousness violence rapines and other worldly lusts nor the personal reign of Christ himself alone in and over our three Kingdoms and all other Realms and Nations for ever which they endeavour to evince from Dan. 2. 44 45. c. 7. 14 27. Micah 4. 1 2 7. Luke 1. 32 33. but a meer supream arbitrary temporal Authority without Bounds or Limits enchroached by and erected in themselves and their confederates without any colour of Right or Title by the Laws of God or the Realm and no wayes intended but refuted by all these sacred Scriptures and others which explain them This design of the Jesuites to alter and subvert the whole body of our Laws was so far promoted by the Jesuitical and Anabaptistical Party in this last Assembly elected onely by the Army-Officers that on August 20. 1643. as our News-books print they Ordered there should be a Committee selected to consider of A NEW BODY OF THE LAW for the Government of this Commonwealth who were to new-mould THE WHOLE BODY OF THE LAW according to Parsons his mould And hereupon our cheating Astrologers especially Lilly Culpeper the Jesuites grand Factors to cry down our Law Tythes and Ministers from the meer visible earthly Conjunctions Motions Influences of these New wandring excentrick Planets at Westminster onely not of any Coelestial Stars as they would make Country-Clowns believe took upon them in their Monthly Prognostications for this yeer 1654. almost in every Month to predict the pulling down of the Laws of the Nation and of Lawyers to the ground the calling of the great Charter it self into question with other Liberties as not suiting with English mens brains at this time The plucking up the Crabtree of the Law BY THE ROOTS to hinder the future growing of it there being no reason we should now be governed by the Norman Laws since the Norman Race is taken away by the same instrument the Sword that brought it in and the like But these Predicters of our Laws and Lawyers downfals could neither foresee nor predict the suddain downfal of these lawless earthly Westminster-planets from the Firmament of their new-created Power who should effect it by their influences Wherefore though I look upon these and all other their Astrological Predictions as meer Figments Cheats and Impostures in relation to the Coelestial Planets as are their twelve Signes and Houses of the Heavens whereon all or most of their artless Art and Predictions are grounded Yet I cannot but take notice of them as clear Discoverie of a strange
Jesuitical and Anabaptistical Combination of a predominant party amongst us to carry on this ancient Plot of the Jesuites related by Watson against the great Charter of our Liberties the whole body of our Laws And truely when I seriously consider the late great Revolutions Changes both of our Government Parliaments Laws and the manifold extravagant publick Innovations changes Proceedings originally contrived by the Jesuites but visibly acted avowed by Anabaptists Independents and some Pseudo-Presbyterians in the Army and elsewhere formerly reputed Puritans it puts me in minde of 3 memorable Prophetical Passages of William Watson in his Quodlibets printed 52 yeers since Anno 1602. which I have frequently thought on of late yeers as now experimentally accomplished I shall beseech our late and present Grandees and New State-Mint-Masters seriously to consider them which I shall here relate in his very printed words 1. I make no question of it if the Jesuites prevail in England THEY INTEND AND WILL TURN ALL THINGS TOPSY-TURVIE UPSIDE DOWN Cinq shall up Size shall under In Parsons High Counsel of Reformation ALL THE WHOLE STATE MUST BE CHANGED and the Lands and Seignories of CLERGY AND NOBILITY Universities Colledges and what not must be ALTERED ABRIDGED AND TAKEN AWAY And is not all this visibly effected already for the most part and the rest projected and ne'er accomplished 2. I verily think that ALL THE PURITANS WILL JOYNE WHOLLY WITH THE JESUITES AT LENGTH how far off soever they seem to be and are yet in external profession of Religion there being at least half an hundred Principles and odd Tricks concerning GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY TYRANNY POPULARITY CONSPIRACY c. which THEY JUMPE AS JUST TOGETHER IN AS IF BOTH WERE MADE OF ONE MOULD And is not this really verified of by sundry Puritan Anabaptists Independents some temporizing Presbyterians and by many Army-Officers Souldiers in late or present Power if they will but compare their last six yeers actions with the Jesuites O let them consider it seriously in the fear of God and lament it with the greatest grief of heart 3. The Jesuites without all question are more dangerous pernicicus and noysome to the Commonwealth of England and Scotland then the Puritans as having more singular fine wits amongst them and many learned men on their side whereas the Puritans have none but Grossum Caputs they many Gentiles Nobles and some Princes to side with them the Puritans but few of the first rare to have any of the second and none at all unless it be one of the last on their side And so by consequent IF MATTERS COME TO HEARING HAMMERING AND HANDLING BETWIXT THE JESUITES AND PURITANS THE LATER ARE SURE TO BE RIDDEN LIKE FOOLS AND COME TO WRACK And whether they have not been ridden outwitted wracked by the Jesuites plots wits wiles instruments both in their late Councels Innovations of Government Forcible dissolutions subversions of Parliaments Laws Liberties Anomalous Proceedings Designs let our late dis-housed dis-mounted Puritan Grandees and Statizers of all sorts determine at their leisure and let those in present Power take heed they be not ridden by them too like fools as well as their Predecessors yea wracked by them at the last when they have served those turns for which they set them up on horse-back for to ride to death our Kings Parliaments Kingdomes and utterly consume devour them with our Ministers Tythes Glebes Universitie Colledge Lands by Monthly endless Taxes Excises and a perpetual Law Tythe-oppugning Army It is worthy observation that Thomas Campanella prescribed the sowing and continual nourishing of Divisions Dissentions Discords Sects and Schismes among us both in State and Church by the Machavilian Plots and Policies he suggests punctually prosecuted among us of late yeers as the principal means to weaken ruine both our Nation and Religion and bring us under the Spanish and Popish yokes at last witness his JAM VERO AD ENERVANDOS ANGLOS NIHIL TAM CONDUCIT â—UAM DISSENTIO ET DISCORDIA INTER ILLOS EXCITATA PERPETUOQUE NUTRITA Quod cito meliores occasiones suppeditabit and that principally by instigating the Nobles and chief Men of the Parliament of England UT ANGLIAM IN FORMAM REIPUBLICAE REDUCANT AD IMITATIONEM HOLLANDORUM which our Reipublicans lately did by the power of the Army Officers or by sowing the seeds of an inexplicable war between England and Scotland BY MAKING IT AN ELECTIVE KINGDOM as some now endeavour under another Notion or by setting up OTHER KINGS of another Race or by dividing us into many Kingdoms or Reipublicks distinct one from another and by sowing the seeds of Schismes and making alterations and innovations in all Arts Sciences and our Religion The old Plots of Campanella Parsons and late designs of Cardinal Richelieu and the Pope Spaniard Jesuites to undo subvert our Churches Kings Kingdoms and Religion as the marginal Authors irrefragably evidence all visibly set on foot yea openly pursued and in a great measure accomplished by some late nay present Grandees and Army-Officers who cry up themselves for our greatest Patrons Preservers Deliverers and Anti-Jesuites when they have rather been but the Jesuites Popes Spaniards and other Forraign enemies instruments and factors in all the late changes new-models of our Government Parliaments pretended reformations of our laws and Religion through inadvertency circumvention or self-ended respects as many wise and godly men justly fear Certainly whoever shall seriously ponder the premises with these passages in William Watsons Quodlibets concerning the Jesuites 1. That some of the Jesuites society have insinuated themselves into all the Princes Courts of Christendom where some of their Intelligencers reside and set up a secret counsel of purpose to receive and give intelligence to their General at Rome of the secrets of their Soveraignes and of all occurrents in those parts of the world which they dispatch to and fro by such cyphers which are to themselves best but commonly onely to themselves known SO THAT NOTHING IS DONE IN ENGLAND BUT IT IS KNOWN AT ROME WITHIN A MONTH AFTER AT LEAST AND REPLY MADE BACK AS OCCASION IS OFFERED to the consequent overthrow of their own natural Country of England and their native Prince and Realms by their unnatural Treasons against them that so the Jesuites might be those long gownes which should reign and govern the Island of Great Brittain 2. That the Jesuites hope and endeavour to have England Scotland and Ireland under them to make these Northern Islands a JAPONIAN ISLAND OF JESUITES and one JESUITICAL MONARCHY and to infeoffe themselves by hook or by crook IN THE WHOLE IMPERIAL DOMIMIONS OF GRAT BRITAIN with the remainder over TO THEIR CORPORATION or puni-Fathers succeeding them as heirs specially in their society by a state of perpetuity PUTTING ALL THE WHOLE BLOOD ROYAL OE ENGLAND TO THE FORMIDON AS BUT HEIRS GENERAL IN ONE PREDICAMENT together 3. That the Jesuites have Magistracy Kings Magistrates Ministers Priesthood
Representative body of the whole Kingdome since dissolved by the Army is a Faction of Malignant Schismaticall ambitious Persons whose DESIGNE IS AND ALWAYES HATH BEEN TO ALTER THE WHOLE FRAME OF GOVERNMENT BOTH OF CHURCH AND STATE AND TO SUBJECT BOTH KING AND PEOPLE TO THEIR OWN LAWâ—ESSE â—â—BITRARY POWER AND GOVERNMENT and that they DESIGNE THE RUINE OF HIS MAJESTIES PERSON and OF MONARCHY IT SELF and consequently that they are TRAITORS â—nd all the Kingdome with them for 〈◊〉 act is the act of the whole Kingdome And whether their punishment and ruine may not also INVOLVE THE WHOLE KINGDOME IN CONCLUSION AND REDUâ—â—â— INTO THE CONDITION OF A CONQUERED NATION as some ARMY-OFFICERS and SOULDIERS openly averred we are now reduced to by and under them NO MAN CAN TELL BVT EXPERIENCE SHEWETH Vâ— and now we finde it most true in the ARMY-OFFICERS COUNCELL SOULDIERS THAT SVCCESSE OFTEN DRAWS MEN NOT ONELY BEYOND THEIR PROFESSION but also many times beyond their first intentions Surely as the Armies and their Confederates late proceedings in relation to themselves though not unto the forced dismembred dissolved Parliament and secured Members have fully verified this charge in every particular then reputed most false and scandalous which I thus press upon their consciences at this time and so largely insist on not to defame or asperse them to the world but to vindicate the Innocency Integrity of the Majority and secluded Members of both Houses against the scandalous printed aspersions of Militiere and other Papists to preserve and justifie the Honour of our Reformed Religion and of the most zealous Professors thereof to restore re-establish if possible the Priviledges the Freedom of all Future Parliaments much impaired endangered by their heady violent Proceedings to convince them by what Jesuitical Popish old Court-Principles Counsels Practises they have hitherto been mis-guided and to reclaim them as much as in me lieth for the future from the like destructive Practises for the publick Safety Peace Settlement of our distracted Kingdoms and do most earnestly beseech them as they are English men Souldiers Christians seriously to repent of and lay to heart lest they perish eternally for them at last So the Army-Officers Souldiers Great Successes in all their Wars Designs and forcible Proceedings against the King Parliament Kingdom Government Laws and Liberties as it hath caused them not onely beyond their Professions but also beyond their first Intentions Commissions Protestations to forget that Gospel-Precept given to Souldiers Luke 3. 14. to advance themselves to a more absolute Soveraign arbitrary Power over them then ever any Kings of England claimed or pretended to as their late Proceedings Remonstrances and transcendent Instrument of the Government of the three Kingdoms manifest so it hath been the principal Ground whereby they have justified all their unpresidented forementioned Exhoâ—bitances as lawful commendable Christian and that which hath struck such a stupyfying pannick fear such a stupendious cowardize baseness sottishness into the Generality of the Nobility Gentry Ministery and Commons of our late most heroick English Nation that there is scarce a man to be found throughout the Realm of any Eminency though we should seek after him like Diogenes with a Candle that dares freely open his mouth against the most irregular illegal violent destructive arbitrary Proceedings Usurpations Innovations Oppressions Taxes Projects to the shaking and utter subverting of our ancient Fundamental Laws Liberties Rights Properties Parliaments Parliamentary Priviledges Government and taking away of the very Lives of some and thereby endangering the Lives of all other English Freemen of all Degrees in mischristened High Courts of Justice Such a strange Charm is there in Success alone to metamorphise Men into meer temporizing slavish sordid sotts and beasts yea to cause not onely persons truly honourable but the very Devil himself and the worst of beasts to be wondred after applauded adored not onely as Saints but Gods We read Rev. 13. of a Monstrous deformed BEAST to whom the Dragon the Devil gave his Power Seat and Great Authority whereupon all the world wondred after the Beast and worshipped not onely the Dragon that gave him power but the Beast likewise saying Who is like unto the Beast WHO IS ABLE TO MAKE WAR WITH HIM And there was given unto him a Mouth speaking Great things and blasphemies and power was given him to continue and make war forty and two months And power was given unto him to make war with the SAINTS AND TO OVERCOME THEM and power was given him over all Kindreds and Tongues and Nations And HEREUPON IT FOLLOWS all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not written in the Lambes Book of Life And another Beast under him caused the earth and all that dwell therein to set up the Image of this Beast and to worship it and he caused all both small and great rich and poor free and bond to receive the mark of the Beast in their right hand and in their foreheads and none might buy or sell but he that had this mark and as many as would not worship this Beasts Image were ordered to be killed Yet this Blasphemous Beasts reign and power continued but twenty four Months Rev. 13. 5. This Beast in the height of his Power and Victories was by God himself threatned to go into captivity and be killed with the Sword as he had led others into captivity and killed them with the Sword ver 10. All his followers and worshippers shall soon after drink of the wine of Gods wrath and be tormented with fire and brimstone c. Rev. 14 9 10 11. The Saints at last shall get this victory over the Beast Rev. 15. 2. And the Beast himself notwithstanding all his former Victories Friends and great Armies was at last taken and his false Prophet with him and were both cast alive into a lake burning with fire and brimstone and all his Forces were slain with the Sword and the fowls were filled with their flesh Rev. 19. 19 20 21. From which Texts I have frequently silenced confounded some of our conquering Army-Officers and Souldiers whiles prisoner under them when they were vapouring of their Great Victories Successes and concluding from thence both their Saintship and the Goodness of their Actions saying oft-times like the Beasts followers here Who is able to make war with us And that with these genuine deductions from these Texts which they could not reply against worthy all Souldiers their saddest meditations 1. That God may nay oft-times doth give great power to the very worst and most blasphemous of all Men and Beasts that not only over one or two but many Tongues Nations as in this Text and Dan. 7. 3 to 29. c. 8. 4. to 27. 2. That such Beasts many times may and do not onely make war with but even overcome the very Saints themselves in battel as the Babylonians Assyrians and other ungodly Beasts did the Israelites Gods own Saints and People Psa
any thing against them or their Country because the memory of benefits would mollifie the genuine fiercenesse of their manners Which advice appeares to be ordered by divine providence write Mathew Westminster and others that evill might come upon these evill Britons and their bloudy Vsurper This Counsell being approved by all they sent eminent men Embassadors into Germany who might worthily represent the person of their Country The Germans hearing the businesse which they of their own accords desired requested from them with a thousand intreaties presently sent over Hengist and Horsa with three Ships fraighted with Souldiers and Armes Explentes petitionem Regis Senatusque The King upon their arrivall meets them bestowes rewards and the people large favours on them then giving them their faith they received the Isle of Tanoth to inhabit This agreement likewise was made between them That the English and Saxons with invincible labours should defend the Country against their enemies and that the Britons should pay them their military stipends for whose safety they pretended to watch And thus they received pay and Lands from the Britons Quasi pro patria pugnaturi re autem vera expugnaturi susceperunt as some of their profession and progeny have done of latter years These English and Saxons who arrived Ann. 449. soon vanquished and drove the Scots and Picts out of the Realme and then taking notice of the Kings and Britons idlenesse leudnesse and the riches of the Isle Hengist acquainting the rest of his Countrymen therewith sent over for more forces by degrees and for his daughter Rowena a very beautifull maide but a Pagan whom he maried to Vortigerne whereby he incurred the enmity of his Nobles and Sons and thereupon favoured the Saxons who promised to establish him in his Throne against his enemies more then the Britons bestowing all Kent and Northumberland on the English and Saxons Upon this the Britons growing jealous lest their new Gardians and Protectors should utterly supplant extirpate and disinherit them of their native Country by degrees as they did in the conclusion they all petitioned Vortigerne to banish them out of the Realme being Pagans who ought not to communicate with Christians but he contemning suorum consiliis acquiescere to follow the advise of his Nobles and native Subjects thereupon Magnates Britannie the Nobles of Britaine Anno 454. deserting and then depriving Vortigerne of his Royall Power made his Sonne Vortimer King Qui consiliis suorum in omnibus acquiescens who following their Counsels in all things began to expell the Saxons and to restore the Britons to their possessions which the Saxons had invaded repairing likewise the Churches and Christian Religion which they had almost quite ruined till at last he was poysoned by Rowena his Mother in Law Anno 460. cum quo simul spes victoria Brtionum est extincta retro fluxerint Such an incomparable losse is a good King to a Nation Vortimer being thus poysoned Vortigerne reassuming the Crown sends privately to Henâ—ist into Germany to come over to him with a small train lest coming otherwise the Britons should resist him with their united forces Hengist An. 461. lands with 4000 armed men which being related to Vortigerne and THE NOBLES OF Tâ—E REAâ—M they were very angry at it resolving to give him battle of which Hengist being informed by Roâ—ena excused the matter that he came with so great a force for fear of Vortiâ—er whom he thought to be alive but being now 〈◊〉 of his death he would commit himself and his pâ—ople to the Kings disposall to return or send away to 〈…〉 then as he should direct desiring him to appoint 〈…〉 and place UT HAEC 〈…〉 CONSENSU that these 〈…〉 by common consent Whereupon the 〈…〉 appointed a meeting at 〈…〉 for the 〈◊〉 and Saxons to treat Hengist 〈…〉 all the Saxons that went to the Treaty to 〈…〉 under their Garments and upon a Signall given 〈◊〉 that every one of them should kill the Briâ—on that 〈◊〉 next him Whiles they were treating Hengist took hold of Varâ—â—igerâ—â—es cloke which was the signall upon which the Saxons drawing out their Knives suddainly slâ—w about 460 of the 〈◊〉 NOBLES BARONS and CONSUâ—S being unarmed and suspecting no such thing but Consul Elâ—â—â— beholding the Treachery took up a Stakâ— which he there found by chance and with it slew 70. Saxons till his Stakâ— was quite spent and then saved himself by flight The King they took Prisoner enforcing him to grant them Kent Sussex Suffolke and Norfolke which he confirmed to them with an Oath and then they releâ—sed him After which they wastâ—d most of the Kiâ—gdom with fire and sword pulled down Churches slew the Prâ—â—sts burned up the Bookes of the holy Scâ—ipture leaving nothing undone that Tyranny could effect and forced Vortigerne with mâ—st of the Britons to retire into Wales for shelter in the Mâ—â—â—taines The Britons thus distressed by the Saxons under this bloudy Usurper who first called them in and under hand encouraged them against the Natives Anno 464. sent Messengers into Little Brittain to Aurelius Ambrosius and Vtâ—r Pendragon then of full age and right heires to the Crown to come speedily over to them with what forces they could raise to expell the Saxons and the Vsurper Vortigerne and receive the Crown and Kingdome of Brittain of right belonging to them Who thereupon arriving with great forces Anno 466 the Britons repair'd from all parts to Aurelius Ambrosius the elder Brother and assembling the Clergy forthwith crowned him for their King Which done the Britons exhorting him in the first place to assault the Saxons the King mindfull of the Treason done to his Father and Brother by Vortigerne refused to doe it till he had first destroyed this bloudy Traytor Whereupon marching with his Army to Genâ—rium a Castle in Wales wherein Vortigerne was he spake thus to his Captaines Consider most noble Captaines if these walls of this Tower can prâ—tect Vortigerne who hath wasted a fertile Country destroyed holy Churches almost deleted Christianity from Sea to Sea and that which I think is more to be lamented HATH BETRAYED MY FATHER and BROTHER Now most Noble Countrymen play the Men and in the first place revenge your selves on him by whom all these things have come to passe and after that turn your armes upon your Saxon Enemies Presently upon these words they endeavoured to throw down the Walls with divers Engines At last when other things failed they put fire to the wooden Walls which taking hold on them burnt both the Tower and Vortigerne to ashes as some record whereas others write it was done with fire and lightning then sent from heaven by God upon him The bloudy Usurper being thus destroyed this King and the Britons valiantly encountred the Saxons slew many thousands of them in sundry battles against Hengist and Ella whom they routed and chased throughout the Realm This King in his march finding the Churches every
where destroyed to the ground by the Saxons Anno 468. sent for Work-men and caused them to be new built placed Preshyters and Clerkes in them restored divine Service to its due state utterly destroyed the prophane Temples and Idols of the Saxons blotting out their memory from under heaven Moreover he studied and commanded to observe Justice and Peace to Churches and Church-men conferring many Gifts on them out of his Royall bounty with ample Rents commanding all to pray for the prosperity of the Realm and State of the Church The year following by his Letters directed to all the Coasts of Britain he commanded all who could bear Armes speedily to repair to him and to endeavour to exterminate the Pagans out of the confines of Britain Whereupon all of them being assembled together he marched with them against Hengist and the Saxons after a bloudy battel Hengist was taken Prisoner by Duke Eldol fore-mentioned and his whole Army routed The King upon this victory coming to Glocester calling his Captaines and Nobles together commanded them to resolve WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE CONCERNING HENGIST upon which Eldad Bishop of Glocester brother to Duke Eldol commanding all to be silent grinding his teeth for anger said Although all would set this man free yet I will hew him into peices O effeminate men why doe yee demurre Did not Samuel the Prophet when he hewed the King of Amaleck taken in warre in peices say As thou hast made many Mothers childlesse so will I this day make thy Mother childlesse among women So doe yee likewise concerning this other Agag who hath bereaved many Mothers of their Children Upon which words Eldol drawing forth his sword led Hengist out of the City and cutting off his head sent him packing to hell After this CONVOCAVIT REX CONSVLES ET PRINCIPES REGNI EBORACVM The King called the Consuls and Nobles of the Realm together to York and commanded them to repair the Churches the Saxons had destroyed himself building the Cathedrall there Then marching to London Anno 490. Octa and the other Saxons unable to withstand his power submitted to him confessing his God to be stronger than their Gods with whom he made this agreement that they should leave Kent and those other places they possessed and seat themselves in a Country neer Scotland which he gave them Then going to Ambri he caused great stones there remaining to this day to be set up as a Monument for the Noble Britons there treacherously slain Where he holding A COUNCIL WITH HIS BISHOPS ABBOTS and OTHER NOBLES was Crowned again on Whitsunday and granted the Metropolitical Sea of York then void to Sampson and that of the City of London to Dubritius and likewise REGNVM DISPOSVIT LEGESQVE RENOVAT set the Kingdomes in order and renued the Lawes After this he and the Britans had many battles with the Saxons to defend and recover their Country Liberties Lawes till at last he 〈◊〉 trâ—yterously poysoned Anno 497. whose death the Bâ—itons 〈◊〉 cum quo simul MILITIA ET 〈◊〉 Bâ—â—TONVM EXPIRAVIT as Mathew Westminster and others write From this memorable Story of Vortigerne Aurelius Ambrosius and the Britons and Saxons these particulars are observeable 1. That the British Kings in those times debated all their weighty affaires and concluded all matters touching Warre Peace and the publick defence of the Realm against invading Enemies in Grand Parliamentary Councils in which they likewise made Laws and Edicts 2. That the Princes Dukes and Nobles â—ere the onely or principle Members of the Great Councils of the Realm in those dayes by whose advice all things were managed 3. That Traytors to and Murderers of their lawfull Soveraignes usurping their Crownes bring commonly great fearful Judgements on the whole Kingdome and Nation in case they comply with them therein 4. That Vortegernes Treason in murdering his Soveraignes and usurping their Crown was the occasion of and punished with the long-lasting Warres with the Picts and Saxons yea the original cause of the great revolution of the Government Kingdome and Country of Britain from the Britons to the Saxons 5. That although a bloudy usurping Traytor may reign and deprive the right heir of the Crown of his right for many yeares yet his reign is usually full of warres vexations dangers troubles his end tragicall and the right heir called in and restored by the people themselves at last as herâ— Aurelius Ambrosius was after 21 yeares usurpation of his right and Joash in the seventh year of Athaliah's usurpation 2 Chron. 23. 6. That usurpers are apt to depresse the Nobility and oppresse the Natives of the Realm for fear they should oppose their Tâ—ranny and dethrone them 7. That aâ—l Heresies vices contempt of God and Religion usually sâ—â—ing up and overspread the Realm under Usurpers who give publick countenance to them to please all sides to suppoâ—â— uâ—just authority over them 8. That it is very dangerous to call in forrain Forces upon any necessity into a Kingdome as assistants who commonly prove worse Enemies in conclusion than those they are called in to 〈◊〉 9. That all Mercenary Guards and Souldiers especially Forraigners are for the most part very Treacherous and Perfidious forâ—ibly suppressing supplanting destroying those Princes and Nations they are hired to guard and protect 10. That lawful hereditary Kings are the cheifest Patrons of Gods Ministers Churches Religion and the death of such then religious just valient the greatest losse and misery that can befall a Nation 11. That all Subjects are obliged to defend with their armes and lives their Native Country and lawful Kings against Invaders and Usurpers 12. That the worst of Kings and Usurpers in cases of extream danger are enforced to all Common Councils and to crave the advice and assistance of their Nobles as Vortigerne did here as well as the justest Kings Aurelius Ambrosius dying by poson without Issue Anno 497. Vther Pondragon his Brother and next heir posting to Winchester assembled the Clergy and People of the Realm thither and took upon him the Crown of the Realm which done PRAECEPIT VTHER CONSVLES SVOS AT QUE PRINCIPES AD SEVOCARI VT CONSILIO SVORVM TRACT ARET QVALITER IN HOSTES IRRVPTIONEM FACERENT Vther commanded his Consuls and Nobles to be called to him that by their advice he might debate in what manner they should assault the Enemies whereupon they all assembling in the Kings presence upon mature debates they all agreed to the advice there propounded by Gorlois and encountring the Saxons slew many of them routed the rest took some chief Commanders Prisoners and put them in Prison at London whether the King repaired The feast of Easter approaching REX PRAECEPIT PROCERIBVS REGNI IBI CONVENIRE The King commanded all the Nobles of the Realm to assemble TOGETHER AT LONDON that wearing his Crown he might celebrate the holy day with due honour ALL PRESENTLY OBEYED and the King celebrated the Festivity with joy Among other Nobles
Gorlois Duke of Cornwall was present The King not long after being taken with a great sicknesse Octae and Osa the Saxon Generals bribing their Keepers efcaped out of Prison and then collecting all their forces resolved to extirpate the Britons and Christian Religion out of the Island in pursuance whereof they wasted the Land from Sea to Sea sparing neither Bishops nor Churches overruning all places without resistance The Britons deserting their sick King fled into Woods and Caves refusing to follow the Counsel and Conduct of Consul Lotho a most valiant man whom the King had made Generall of his Forces Hereupon King Vther being much grieved for the Subversion of the Realm the Oppression of the Church the Desolation of the Nobles and Dispersion of the People Anno 512. CONVOCATIS OMNIBVS REGNI SVI MAGNATIBVS calling together all the Nobles of his Realm in a General Parliamentary Councel sharply reproved them both for their Pride and Sâ—othfulnesse and casting out many bitter words with reproaches against them informed them that he himself would lead them against the Enemies that so he might reduce the minds of them all to their pristine state and audacity And commanding himself to be carried in his sick bed in a Litter into the Camp his infirmity not permitting him to be carried otherwise he marched therein with all the strength of the Kingdome against the Enemies who scorned to fight with him being sick in his Litter and at last forcing them to fight after many bloudy encounters utterly routed their forces and slew Octa and Osa their Generals Anno 516. The Saxons treacherously poysoning this Noble King the Bishops Clergy and People of the Realm assembling together buried him honourably at Ambri within the Quire of Giants The funeral being ended Dubricus the Arch-Bishop SOCIATIS SIBI EPISCOPIS ET MAGNATIBVS associting the Bishops and Nobles to him magnificently advanced his Son Arthur a youth but sixteen yeares old to be King to which Solemnity CONVENERVNT EX DIVERSIS PROVINCIIS PROCERES BRITTANNORUM the Nobles of the Britons assembled out of divers Provinces to Caâ—rleon and there crowned King Arthur who having routed the Saxons in twelve severall Battles afterwards if we believe our British Fables as Malmesbury stiles them conquered all France and keeping his Court at Paris CONVOCATIS CLERO ET POPVLO STATVM REGNI PACE ET LEGE CONFIRMAVIT Whence returning into Britain in triumph about the year 536 Pentecost aproaching he resolved to keep that Solemnity at Caer-â—eon and there to be new Crowned Whereupon he sent Messengers into all the Kingdomes and Countries subject to him inviting ALL THE KINGS DUKES and NOBLES SUBJECT TO HIM TO COME TOGETHER TO THAT SOLEMNITY that he might renâ—e a most firm Peace between them Whereupon no lesse than thirteen Kings three Arch-Bishops with sundry PRINCES DUKES CONSULS EARLES and NOBLES there assembled whose names you may read at large in Geoffry Monmouth The King being solemnly crowned by Dâ—bricius Arch-Bishop of 〈◊〉 in the midst of the Feasts Sports and 〈…〉 at this Coronation behold twelve men of mature age of reverend countenance bringing Olive branches in their right hands in token of their Embassy with grave paces came to the King and having saluted him presented him with 〈…〉 Luciu Tiberius Procurator of the Roman Râ—publiâ—k to this effect I exceedingly admire the frowardnesse of thy Tyranny aâ—d the Injâ—ry thou hast done to Rome that going out of thy self thou refusest to acknowledge her neither dost thou consider what it is to offend the Senate by unjust actions to whom thou art not ignorant the whole 〈…〉 Service For thou hast presumed to detain THE TRIBUTE OF BRITAIN which THE SENATE COMMANDED THEE TO PAY because Caius Julius and other Romane Emperours have injoyed it for a long time neglecting the command of so great an Order Thou hast taken away from them the Province of the Switzers and all the Isles of the Ocean whose Kings whiles the Roman power pâ—evailed in those parts paiâ— Tribâ—te to our Ancestors Now because the Senate hath diverced to demand Justice concerning so great heapes of thy injuries I command thee to repâ—ir to Rome to answer them on the midst of August the year following the time prâ—fixed to thee that satisfying thy Lords thou maist submit to that sentence which their Justice shall pronounce But if thou refusest I my self will come in person into thy Quarters and will endeavour to restore by the Sword what ever thy frenzy hath taken away from the Republick This Letter being read in the presence of all the Kings and Nobles present King Arthur went apart with them to consult concerning this businesse where craving their unanimous advise and sense conceâ—ning these Mandates He said That he thought the inquietation of Lucius was not much to be feared since ex irrationabile causa from an unreasonable cause he exacted the Tribute which he desired to have out of Britain For he saith that it ought to be given to him because it was paid to Julius Caesar and the rest of his Successors who invited by the divisions of the old Britons arrived with an Army in Britain and BY FORCE and VIOLENCE SUBJECTED THE COUNTRY TO THEIR POWER SHAKEN WITH DOMESTICK COMMOTIONS Now because they obtained it is in this manner Vectigal ex ea INIVSTE RECEPERVNT They RECEIVED TRIBUTE CUT OF IT unjustly Nihil enimu od vi violentia acquiritur juste ab ullo prossidetur qui violentiam intulit Irrationabilem ergo causam pretendit qua nos jure sibi tributarios arbitratur c. FOR NOTHING WHICH IS ACQUIRED BY FORCE and VIOLENCE IS JUSTLY POSSESSED BY ANY MAN WHO HATH OFFERED THE VIOLENCE Therefore he pretends AN UNREASONABLE CAUSE whereby he supposeth us of right to he Tributaries to him Now because he presumes to exact from us id quod injustum est THAT WHICH IS UNJUST by the same reason let us demand Tribute of Rome from him and he which shall become strongest let him carry away that he desires to have For if because Julius Caesar and the rest of the Roman Emperours have in times past subdued Britain he determines that Tribute ought now to be rendred to him out of it in like manner I think that Rome ought now to render Tribute unto us because my Ancestors have in ancient times obtained it For Belinus that most noble King of the Britons using the assistance of his Brother Brennus Duke of the Allobroges having hanged up four and twenty of the most Noble Romans in the midst of the market place took the City and being taken possessed it a long time Moreover Constantine the sonne of Helen and Maximianus both of them my neer Kinsmen both of them Kings of Britain one after the other obtained the Throne of the Roman Empire Doe yee think therefore that Tribute is to be demanded by the Romans Concerning France or the Collaterall Islands of the Ocean I am not to answer to
decuplareddat ipsum Cericsceatum So one Coppy renders it out of the Saxon another thus Cyricsceata idest PRIMITIAE SEMINVM ad celebre divi Matini Festum redduntor qui tum non solverit qua raginta Solidis mulctator ipsas praeterea Primitias duodecies persolvito After which there is this second Law subjoyned Cap 62 De Cyricsceatis Primitias Seminum quisque ex eo dato domicilio in quo ipse natali die Domini câ—mmoratur These Duties were afterwards enjoyned to be paid by the Lawes of King Adelstan Anno 928. c. 2. Volo ut Cyricscâ—atha reddantur ad illum locum cuirecte pertinent c. By the Lawes of King Edmund made Anno 944. in a Great Synod at London AS WELL OF ECCLESIASTICAL AS SECULAR PERSONS summoned thither by the King c. 2. Decimas praecepimus omni Christiano super Christianitatem suam dare emendent Cyricsceattam id est Ecclesiae censum Si quis hoc dare noluerit excommunicatus sit By the Lawes of King Edgar Anno 965. c. 2 3. and the Lawes of King Aethelred made by him and his Wise-men apud Habam about the year of Christ 1012. Cap. 4. DE CONSVETVDINIBVS sanctae Dei Ecclesiae reddendis Praecipimus ut OMNIS HOMO super dilectionem Dei omnium sanctorum DET CYRISCEATTAM ET RECTAM DECIMAM SVAM sicut in DIEBVS ANTECESSORVM NOSTRORVM FECIT quando melius fecit hoc est sicut aratrum peragrabit DECIMAM ACRAM omnis consuetudo reddatur super amicitiam Dei ad Matrem Ecclesiam cui adjacet ET NEMO AVFERAT DEO QVOD AD DEVM PERTINET ET PRAEDECESSORES CONCESSERVNT By which Laws it seemes that these Cyricsceata or Church-Fees were of the same nature with Tythes if not Tythes in truth and the tenth acre or tenth part of all their Corn and arable Lands increase Tithes both in the Fathers Councils Writers of this and some former ages being usually stiled First-Fruits though most esteem them duties different from Tythes Which duty the people being backwards as it seems to pay King Knâ—te by the advise and consent of his Wise-men in a Great Council Anno 1032. quickned the payment of them by this additionall Law increasing the first penalty by a superadded fine to the King Cyricsceata which the Latine Translation renders Seminum primiciae ad festum Divi Matini penduntor Si quis dare distulerit eas Episcopo undecies praestato ac Regi ducenos viginti Solidos persolvito Et dat omnis Cyricsceot ad matrem Ecclestam per omnes Liberas domus I find by the Surveyes and Records of our late Bishops Revenues That these Churchets of later times were certain small portions of Corn Hens Eggs and other Provisions paid by each House or Tenement according to the several values of them for the Maintenance and Provisions of the Ministers which were constantly rendred to our Bishops by their Tenants under the name of Cyricsceata or Churchets in divers Mannors till they were lately voted down This was the first kind of publick Tax imposed on the people for the Maintenance of the Ministry and that onely by common grant and consent in Common Councils of that age as were their annuall Tributes for Lights Parish Almes and their Soul-shot or Mortuaries at every mans decease first granted by common Consent in Parliamentary Councils which I shall but name 2. The second principle annuall Charge or Tribute imposed on and paid by the people under the Saxon Kings was Tythes of the annuall increase of their Lands and Goods for the maintenance of Gods Worship Ministers and Religion which though due by Gods Law and a Divine Right to Ministers as the first Law made for their due and true payment recites and I have lately proved at large in my Gospel-Plea c. yet they could not be legally imposed nor exacted from the people by the Ministers in foro humano without publick consent and grant Whereupon in the Generall Councill of Calchuth held in the year of our Lord 787 Cap. 17. Vt Decimae solvantur this Law was made In paying tithes as it is written in the Law of God Thou shalt bring the tenth part of all thy Corn and First Fruits into the House of the Lord thy God c. Wherefore likewise WE COMMAND with an obtestation that all men be carefull to render Tithes of all things they possesse BECAUSE IT IS THE PECULIAR PORTION OF THE LORD GOD c. Which Law being read in that publick Council by Gregory Bishop of Ostia before King Alfwoldus Arch-Bishop Eanbald and all the Bishops Abbots Senators Dukes and PEOPLE OF THE LAND they all assented to it and with all devotion of mind according to the uttermost of their power bound themselves by vow that by Gods supernall assistance they would observe it in all things ratifying it with the Sign of the Crosse and Subscription of their Names thereto according to the Custome of that age After which it was read before King Offa in the Councill of the Merâ—ians and his Senators Jambertus Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the rest of the Bishops of the Realm with a loud voyce both in the Latine and Germane tongue that all might understand it who ALL WITH A UNANIMOUS VOYCE AND CHEARFUL MIND ASSENTED TO IT promised that they would by Gods Grace assisting them with A MOST READY WILL to the best of their power observe this and the rest of the Statutes there made in all things And then ratified them with the sign of the Crosse and subscription of their Names thereto It seemes very probable by this Clause in the Lawes of Edward the Confessor confirmed by William the Conquerour Cap. 9. Of Payment of Tithes of Cattel Bees and other things Haâ—c enim beatus Augustinus praedicavit docuit Et haec CONCESSA SVNT A REGE ET BARONIBVS ET POPVLO That upon the preaching of Augustine first Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Ethelbert King of Kent with his Barons and People assembled in a great Parliamentary Council after their Conversion by him to the Christian Faith granted Tithes of all things to him and their Ministers by a speciall Act or Law which if true must be about the year of our Lord 603. at least one hundred and eighty years before the Council of Calchuth But because I find no such speciall Law of his extant in any Author and this passage may be intended of Augustine Bishop of Hippo flourishing about the year of Christ 410. who hath sever all Homiles concerning the Due payment of Tithes as Hom. 48. inter Sermones 59. Sermo De Tempore 219 ad Fratres in Eremo Sermo 64. and in Psal 146. and because this clause may be as well intended of King Alfwold or King Offa and his Barons and People in the Council of Calchuth as of King Ethelbert and his Barons and People I have therefore begun with their Law for Tithes being
dissolved late Parliament too proceeded not from the Principles of our reformed Protestant Religion as this Monsieur in his printed pamphlet would make his Reader the young King to whom he dedicates it and all the world believe but from the Popes and Jesuites forecited Treasonable Opinions seconded with their clandestine Sollicitations and Practices and that they with some French Cardinals Jesuites as well as Spanish English then present in England were the chief original Contrivers Promoters of them whoever were the immediate visible Instruments as I have elsewhere more fully demonstrated for the wiping off this scandal from our reformed Religion and the sincere Professors of it who both abominated and protested against it in print 3. That the Jesuites ever since the Establishment of their Military Order under Ignatius their Martial General have been the principal Firebrands Bellows Instruments of kindling fomenting raising continuing all the publick commotions wars seditions and bloody fewdes that have hapened in or between any Kings Kindoms States Princes Soveraigns or Subjects throughout the Christian world and more particularly of all the Civil commotions wars in France Germany Transylvania Bohemia Hungary Russia Poland England Scotland and Ireland to the effusion of whole Oceans of Christian blood which one poetically thus expresseth Quicquid in Orbe mali passim PECCANTE GRADIVO EST Quicquid turbarum tempora nostra vident Cuncta Sodalitio mentito nomine JESU Accepta Historiâ teste referre licet Ite modò vestrae celebrate Encaenia Sectae MILITIS INVENTUM LOIOLANA COHORS Yea it is well worthy observation that Jacobus Crucius a Jesuite Rector of the Jesuites Novices at Landsberge presumed to publish in his Explication of the Rules of the Jesuites Anno 1584. in these words The Father of our Society OUGHT TO BE A SOULDIER because as it is the part of a SOULDIER to rush upon the Enemy with all his Forces and not to desist till he become a Conquerour so it is our duty to run violently upon all who resist the Pope of Rome AND TO DESTROY AND ABOLISH THEM not onely with COUNCELS WRITINGS AND WORDS Sed invocato etiam brachio seculari IGNE ET FERRO TOLLERE ET ABOLERE sicut PONTIFEX ET NOSTRA VOTA contra Lutheranos suscepta VOLUNT ET MANDANT But likewise by calling in to our assistance the secular Arm of an Army to take away and destroy them with FIRE AND SWORD as the POPE AND OUR OATHES taken against the Protestants WILL AND COMMAND And may we not then safely conclude they have been the Original Contrivers Fomentors Continuers of all our late intestine and forraign wars by Land and Sea with our Christian Protestant Brethren and Allyes as sundry Parliamentary Declarations of both Houses aver and attest 4. That they have endeavoured attempted the convulsion concussion subversion not onely of the Empires Realms and ancient setled Governments and States of Germany Russia Bohemia Hungaria France Poland but likewise of England Scotland and Ireland and to new model them into other Forms of Government What mould of Government they intended to cast England into is thus long since described by William Watson a Secular Priest in his Quodlibets Anno 1502. p. 309 310 330 331. England is the main chance of Christendome at this present by seditions factions tampering and aspiring Heads the onely But Mark White the Jesuites aim at as well in intention as execution of their pretended expedition exploit and action I am of opinion that no man on earth can tell what Government it is they intend to establish ratifie and confirm when they come to their preconceited Monarchy no not any of their Plot-casters No question it is but their Government sall be as uncertain as their New-conceited Monarchy their Monarchy as mutable as their Reign and their Reign as variable as the winde or Proteus in his Complements But no question is to be made of it but that the Government they do directly intend at this present is A MOST ABSOLUTE SOVERAIGNTY DOMINION AND STATE CLEARLY EXEMPTED from any Subordination TO ANY LAW or Legifer divine or humane and therefore it is rightly called DESPOTICON in the highest degree of exemplary immunity IMPERIALITY AND ABSOLUTE REIGN RULE AND AUTHORITY as convaining in it three sorts of Government Scil. Monarchical Aristocratical Democratical in matters of Counsel and managing of Commonwealths causes not in point OF REGALITY HONOUR AND INHERITANCE For there shall be neither Title nor Name nor Honour given taken or done to any Prince Duke Marquess Earl Viscount Lord Baron or the like all the Jesuitical Governours being Puritan-like Seniors Elders Provincials c. neither shall there be any succession by Birth or Blood TO ANY HONOUR OFFICE OR MAGISTRACY from the Monarch Pater General to the Minor Pater Minister but ALL SHALL GO BY ELECTION OR CHOICE Whether our late and present variable floating New-Moulded Governments have not been cast by this long since predicted Jesuitical Mould let wise men with all our late and present Governours now sadly consider and determine 5. That as the whole House of Commons in their Remonstrance of 15 December 1641. charge the Jesuites and late Jesuited Court-Counsellors with a Malignant and pernicious designe of SUBVERTING THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWES and Principles of Government upon which the Religion and Justice of the Kingdom are firmly established So William Watson a Secular Priest chargeth Father Parsons the English Jesuite and his Jesuited Companions in their Memorial for Reformation of England when it should be reduced under the power of the Jesuites as Parsons was confident it would be though he should not live to see it written at Sevil in Spain Anno Dom. 1590. that they intended to have Magna Charta with our Common Fundamental Laws and Liberties abrogated and suppressed thus expressed by William Watson in his Quodlibets p. 92 94 95. Father Parsons and the Jesuites in their deep Jesuitical Court of Parliament begun at Styx in Phlegeton have compiled their Acts in a compleat Volume intituled THE HIGH COURT OF REFORMATION FOR ENGLAND And to give you a taste of their intent by that base Court OF A TRIBE OF TRAYTORS sawcily like to Cade Jack Straw and Tom Tiler USURPING THE AUTHORITY OF BOTH STATES ECCLESIASTICAL AND TEMPORAL IN ALL THEIR REBELLIOUS ENTERPRISES these were principal points discussed set down and so decreed by them c. He first mentions three of them relating to Church-men Scholars and Church and Colledge-Lands which were to be put into Feoffees hands and they all to be reduced into arbitrary Pensions c. And then proceeds thus to the fourth The Fouth Statute was there made concerning THE COMMON LAWS OF THIS LAND and that consisted of this one principal point That ALL THE GREAT CHARTERS OF ENGLAND MUST BE BURNT the maner of holding Lands in Fee-simple Fee-tail Kings Service Soccage or Villanage brought into villany scoggery and popularity and in few THE
COMMON LAW MUST BE WHOLLY ANNIHILATED ABOLISHED AND TRODEN DOWN UNDER FOOT and Caesars civil Imperials brought amongst us and sway for a time in their places All whatsoever England yields being but base barbarous and void of all sence knowledge or discretion shewed in the first Founders and Legifers and on the other side ALL WHATSOEVER IS OR SHALL BE BROUGHT IN BY THESE Out-casts of Moses stain of Solon and refuse of Lycurgus must be reputed for METAPHYSICAL SEMI-DIVINE AND OF MORE EXCELLENCY THEN THE OTHER WERE Which he thus seconds Quodlibet 9. Artic. 2. p. 286. First it is plain that Father Parsons and his Company divide it amongst them how they list HAVE LAID A PLOT as being most consonant and fitting for their other Designments THAT THE COMMON LAWS OF THE REALM OF ENGLAND MUST BE forsooth EITHER ABOLISHED UTTERLY or else BEAR NO GREATER SWAY IN THE REALM THEN THE CIVIL LAW DOTH And THE CHIEF REASON IS FOR THAT THE STATE OF THE CROWN AND KINGDOM BY THE COMMON LAWS IS SO STRONGLY SETLED AS WHILST THEY CONTINUE THE JESUITES SEE NOT HOW THEY CAN WORK THEIR WILLS And on the other side in the civil Laws they think they have some shreds whereby they may patch a cloke together to cover a bloody shew of their Treasons for the present from the eyes of the vulgar people Secondly the said good Father hath set down a course how every Man MAY SHAKE OFF ALL AUTHORITY AT THEIR PLEASURES as if he would become A NEW ANABAPTIST or KING JOHN OF LEYDON to draw all the World into Mutiny Rebellion and Combustion And the Stratagem is how the Common people may be inveigled and seduced TO CONCEIT TO THEMSELVES SUCH A LIBERTY OR PREROGATIVE AS THAT IT MAY BE LAWFUL FOR THEM WHEN THEY THINK MEET TO PLACE AND DISPLACE KINGS AND PRINCES as men do their Tenants at will hirelings or ordinary Servants Which ANABAPTISTICAL AND ABOMINABLE DOCTRINE proceeded from a turbulent Tribe of Trayterous Puritanes and other Hereticks this TREACHEROUS JESUITE WOULD NOW FOIST INTO THE CATHOLICK CHURCH as a ground of his corrupt Divinity And p. 330 332. He intends TO ALTER AND CHANGE ALL LAWS CUSTOMES AND ORDERS of this noble Isle He hath prejudiced the Law of Property in instituting Government Governours and Hereditary Princes to be AD BENE-PLACITUM POPULI and all other private possessions AD BENE-PLACITUM SUI c. Whether any such new deep Jesuitical Court of Parliament and high Court of Reformation for England to carry on this old Design of the Jesuites against our Laws hath been of late yeers sitting amongst us in or neer Westminster or elsewhere in secret Counsel every week as divers intelligent Protestants have informed me Hugh Peters reported to divers on his own knowledge being well acquainted with their Persons and Practises of late yeers it concerns others neerer to them and more able then I to examine Sure I am a Greater man by far then Hugh Peters in an Assembly of Divines and others for reconciling all dissenting parties not long since averred to them on his own knowledge That during our late innovations distractions subversions in Church State and overturning of Laws and Government the Common adversary hath taken many advantages to effect his designs thereby IN CIVIL AND SPIRITUAL RESPECTS That HE KNEW VERY WELL that EMISSARIES OF THE JESUITES NEVER CAME OVER IN THOSE SWARMES AS THEY HAVE DONE SINCE THESE THINGS WERE SET ON FOOT That DIVERS GENTLEMEN COULD BEAR WITNESS WITH HIM That they had a CONSISTORY AND COUNCIL ABROAD THAT RULES ALL THE AFFAIRS OF THE THINGS IN ENGLAND That they had fixed in England in the limits of most Cathedrals of which he was able to produce the PARTICULAR INSTRUMENT an Episcopal power with Archdeacons and other persons to pervert and deceive the people And all this whiles we were in this sad and deplorable distracted condition Yea most certain it is that many hundreds if not some thousands of them within these few yeers have been sent over from Forraign Seminaries into England under the disguises of converted Jews Physitians Chirurgions Mechanicks of all sorts Merchants Factors Travellers Souldiers and some of them particularly into the Army as appears by the late printed Examination of Ramsey the Anabaptized New-dipped Jesuite under the mask of a Jewish convert taken at New-Castle in June 1653. and by sundry several instances I could name To pretermit all instances of particular Jesuites within these few yeers yea months come over and discovered in England by persons of credit I shall for brevity acquaint you onely with one discovering what swarms are now amongst us under other disguises An English Protestant Nobleman a person of honour whose Ancestors were Papists being courteously entertained within these two yeers in the Jesuites chief Colledge at Rome by some eminent Jesuites was brought by them into a Gallery having Chambers round about it with Titles written over every door for several Kingdoms and Provinces and amongst the rest one for ENGLAND Upon which he enquiring of the Jesuites what these titles signified was answered by them That they were the Chambers of the Provincial Jesuites of each kingdom and Province written over the respective doors wherein they had any members and Emissaries of their society now residing who received all Letters of intelligence from their Agents in those places every week and gave account of them to the General of their Order That the Provincial for England lodged in the Chamber over which the title ENGLAND was written who could shew him the last news from England if he desired to see it Upon which they knocked at the door which was presently opened the Provincial being informed who and what he was read the last news from England to them Hereupon the Nobleman demanded of them Whether any of their society were now in England how they could stay there with safety or support themselves seeing most of the English Nobility Gentry and Families that were Papists were ruined in their states or sequestred by the late wars and troubles so as they could neither harbour conceal or maintain them as they had done heretofore They answered It was true but the greater the dangers and difficulties of those of their society now in England were the greater was their merit And that THEY HAD THEN ABOVE FIFTEEN HUNDRED OF THEIR SOCIETY IN ENGLAND ABLE TO WORK IN SEVERAL PROFESSIONS AND TRADES which they HAD THERE TAKEN UPON THEM THE BETTER TO SUPPORT AND SECURE THEMSELVES FROM BEING DISCOVERED This Relation I have heard from the mouth of a Reverend Divine more then once to whom this Noble Lord upon his return into England not many Months since seriously related the Premises averring the truth of them upon his Honour Yet for all this since the stupendious pretended repeals and annihilations of the Oaths and Allegiance and that of Abjuration of Popery consented to by the late King in the Isle of Wihgt purposely made for the better