Christendom with their noise and clamours of the dreadful Persecutions in England that Great man thought it not below him to write this Apology for the Execution of Justice here and to shew how reasonable just and moderate the Proceedings of the State were considering the height and insolence of the provocations and this was published in several Languages and dispersed in the Courts of Princes to undeceive them as to all the false reports of the Romish Emissaries who have taken upon them that publick Character of the Popes Ambassadors to lye abroad for his and their own advantage 2. But after that by the means of Cardinal Allen and others they had endeavoured to blast the reputation of that Apology and after the death of that great Minister of State the Secular Priests did publish their Important Considerations wherein they assert the Truth of what was said in the Apologie and vindicate the Honour and Justice of the Penal Laws which is the second Treatise here published and printed according to their own Copy and which hath been so much concealed or bought up by those of that Religion that it hath been heard of by sew and seen by fewer Protestants 3. And lest any should say that all those dangerous Principles to Government are since his Majesties happy Restauration utterly disowned by them I have added a third Treatise printed by one of their own Religion 1662. which charges the Jesuitical Party so deep with those Principles and Practices as to make them uncapable of any Favour If other persons will pursue the same method in retrieving such considerable Treatises as these are they may do more service to our Church and Nation than by writing Histories themselves and I shall desire the late Apologist to set these Authors of his own Church against the petty Historians he so punctually quotes on all occasions And we have so much the more reason to consider these things since in a very late Treatise called the Bleeding Iphigenia the Irish Rebellion is defended by one of the Titular Bishops to be a just and holy War and seeing they still think it lawful what can we imagine then that they want but another occasion to do the same things THE EXECVTION OF JUSTICE IN ENGLAND For maintenance of Publick and Christian Peace c. IT hath been in all Ages and in all Countries a common usage of all offenders for the most part both great and small to make defence of their lewd and unlawful facts by untruths and by colouring and covering their deeds were they never so vile with pretences of some other causes of contrary operations or effects to the intent not only to avoid punishment or shame but to continue uphold and prosecute their wicked attempts to the full satisfaction of their disordered and malicious appetites And though such hath been the use of all Offenders yet of none with more danger than of Rebels and Traytors to their lawful Princes Kings and Countries Of which sort of late years are specially to be noted certain persons naturally born Subjects in the Realm of England and Ireland who having for some good time professed outwardly their obedience to their Soveraign Lady Queen Elizabeth have nevertheless afterward been stirred up and seduced by wicked Spirits first in England sundry years past and secondly and of latter time in Ireland to enter into open Rebellion taking Arms and coming into the Field against her Majesty and her Lieutenants with their Forces under Banners displayed inducing by notable untruths many simple people to follow and assist them in their Traitorous actions And though it is very well known that both their intentions and manifest actions were bent to have deposed the Queens Majesty from her Crown and to have traiterously set in her place some other whom they liked whereby if they had not been speedily resisted they would have committed great bloodsheds and slaughters of her Majesties faithful Subjects and ruined their native Country Yet by Gods power given unto her Majesty they were so speedily vanquished as some few of them suffered by order of Law according to their deserts many and the greatest part upon Confession of their faults were pardoned the rest but they not many of the principal escaped into Foreign Countries and there because in none or few places Rebels and Traitors to their natural Princes and Countries dare for their Treasons challenge at their first muster open comfort or succour these notable Traitors and Rebels have falsly informed many Kings Princes and States and specially the Bishop of Rome commonly called the Pope from whom they all had secretly their first comfort to Rebell that the cause of their flying from their Countries was for the Religion of Rome and for maintenance of the said Popes Authority Whereas divers of them before their Rebellion lived so notoriously the most part of their lives out of all good rule either for honest manners or for any sense in Religion as they might have been rather familiar with Catalin or Favourers to Sardanapalus than accounted good Subjects under any Christian Princes As for some examples of the heads of these Rebellions out of England fled Charles Nevill Earl of Westmerland a person utterly wasted by looseness of life and by Gods punishment even in the time of his Rebellion bereaved of his Children that should have succeeded him in the Earldom and how his Body is now eaten with Ulcers of lewd causes all his Companions do see that no Enemy he had can wish him a viler punishment And out of Ireland ran away one Thomas Stukeley a defamed person almost through all Christendom and a faithless Beast rather than a Man fleeing first out of England for notable Piracies and out of Ireland for treacheries not pardonable which two were the first Ringleaders of the rest of the Rebels the one for England the other for Ireland But notwithstanding the notorious evil and wicked lives of these and others their Confederates void of all Christian Religion it liked the Bishop of Rome as in favour of their Treasons not to colour their offences as themselves openly pretend to do for avoiding of common shame of the World but flatly to animate them to continue their former wicked purposes that is to take Arms against their lawful Queen to invade her Realm with Foreign Forces to pursue all her good Subjects and their Native Countries with Fire and Sword for maintenance whereof there had some years before at sundry times proceeded in a thundring sort Bulls Excommunications and other publick Writings denouncing her Majesty being the lawful Queen and Gods anointed Servant not to be the Queen of the Realm charging and upon pains of Excommunication commanding all her Subjects to depart from their natural Allegiances whereto by birth and by Oath they were bound Provoking also and authorising all persons of all degrees within both the Realms to Rebell and upon this Antichristian Warrant being contrary to all
disloyalty be purged out My sixth To offer even your selves an advantage if your courage and cause will stretch to improve it For the following Doubts are many of them such as Protestants themselves urge against your Reasons and are communicated here to you partly on purpose that you may provide better satisfaction My last to satisfie even the passionate too is Because your unchristian spirit of Calumny is still as unquiet as ever having of late most unjustly aspersed Principal Persons of almost every Body but your own which comportment of yours makes it but fit if Truth and the Common Good favour you not neither should I. To think and declare thus much satisfies me if it do not others I cannot help it Only I wish your favourers to beware of doing any thing that may be interpreted an abetment of you till you approve your selves heartily loyal lest they discover themselves too deeply tainted with your Principles and temper The Jesuits Reasons Vnreasonable DOVBTS 1. TO begin then My first Doubt shall be Whether you Jesuits have ground to hope the same favour with others For if you by your unjust and wicked practices provoked the Magistrates to enact those Laws if the rest of Priests and Catholicks were by you plunged in such miseries upon discovery of your Negotiations which were imputed to the whole Body of them how can you be thought to deserve remission whose seditious Principles are too deeply guilty of the Blood of Priests and Catholicks shed in the Kingdom ever since you first came into it Those who know your practices in the Countries where you by the means ordinarily of deluded Wives govern the Great Ones know this to be your Maxime to manage Religion not by perswasion but by command and force This Principle did your chief Apostle of England Robert Parsons bring in with him His first endeavours were to make a List of Catholicks which under the conduct of the Duke of Guise should have changed the state of the Kingdom using for it the pretence of the Title of Queen Mary of Scotland But her Council at Paris which understood business better were so sensible of his boldness that they took from him the Queens Cypher which he had purloyned and commanded him never more to meddle in Her affairs Poor Edmund Campian who is generally accounted an innocent and learned man and others suffered for such practices of his Parson's endeavours being suppressed by this Queen he turned himself to the Spaniard and with all his might fostered the Invasion of Eighty eight which is known to have been another occasion of Sanguinary Laws He wrote on that occasion his Dolman to justifie the Spaniards Title to England degrading the Scottish succession and Title of our Soveraign He wrote also Leicester's Common-wealth at that time called commonly Blewcoat because it was sent into England bound in blew paper which extremely exasperated the State and augmented its indignation against Catholicks The same man at Queen Elizabeths death procured a Bull from the Pope to the Catholicks in England against King James to hinder his coming to the Crown unless he would give liberty of Conscience and as his friends gave out had twenty thousand men listed for that effect had not his Majesty prevented the danger with sweet words Next followed that detestable Machination of blowing up that Royal Race and the whole Nobility with the House of Commons which was the occasion of the Oath of Allegiance and all the Persecution of Catholicks following upon it King James professing not to persecute for Religion but for Treason This you alledge not to be originally your Invention but is it no guilt to follow another mans wickedness when it leads to so horrid a crime For without doubt both by prayers before-hand and by publick testifications after the Fact was discovered you were highly accessary to it nay many years after you did and peradventure to this very day still do pertinaciously adhere to it I could urge great and manifest instances of this were it not to lose time That monstrous Straw of which all Christendom rung so long and the Pictures of Garnet and Oldcorne cannot be denied nor want they evidence of your inward minds After these came out the ridiculous and satyrical Books against King James the Corona Regia and the Quaeries And yet your so well affected spirits could not be at rest till your Patriarch Parsons was shamefully turned out of Rome by Monsieur Bethunes the French Ambassador and order from the King of France being discovered to plot a new Treason against his Country to introduce the Duke of Parma Thus you followed King James to his death Direct Treason against King Charles of glorious memory before the Wars I cannot accuse you of but how refractory you were to the Queens desires and orders at Rome for his late Majesties assistance is well known and what you have done since the beginning of the Wars and how you have behaved your selves both in and out of England is fitter for me to remit to his Majesty and the Courts Informations than to eâ—gage my pen in far fewer and weaker which I could produce Only I shall add this word If Colonel Hutchinson were well examined and pressed he would perhaps discover â—â—â—ange secrets about your treating with Cromwel no doubt much to his Majesties advantage So that leaving you this Doubt to ruminate upon whether the condition of them who have guiltily provoked and deserved the Sanguinary Laws be the same with theirs who have suffered for being mistaken to be their Fellows I proceed to 2. My Second Doubt about your first Reason That the Jesuits are free-born Subjects as well as others In which methinks I find one of your usual sleights of Equivocation For a Jesuit may signifie the man who is a Jesuit and may signifie with the complexion of being a Jesuit In the former sense there is no difference between any other Priest Regular or Secular and a Jesuit as to free-born but in the second there 's a wide one For the others have nothing against them but such Laws as had their beginning from difference in Religion their degrees and communities having been accepted by the Laws of the Kingdom in virtue of which they are free-born Subjects and parts of the Common-wealth as far as difference of Religion permits Now it being the Law of England that no Ecclesiastical Community may settle here unless admitted by the Civil Power as we see in proportion practised in all Catholick Estates and Jesuits never having participated of this favour all your practices of usurping Jurisdiction making Colledges and Provinces in or for England possessing your selves of great sums of monies for such ends and the like actions have been hitherto all usurpations unlawful both in respect of the Donors and Acceptors 'T is unlawful for any man even according to the sense and practice of Catholick times by virtue of your priviledges to live or preach in England or any of his Majesties
the Laws of God and Man and nothing agreeable to a pastural Officer not only all the rabble of the foresaid Traitors that were before fled but also all other persons that had forsaken their Native Countries being of divers conditions and qualities some not able to live at home but in beggery some discontented for lack of preferments which they gaped for unworthily in Universities and other places some Bankrupt Merchants some in a sort learned to contentions being not contented to learn to obey the Laws of the Land have many years running up and down from Country to Country practised some in one Corner some in another some with seeking to gather Forces and money for Forces some with instigation of Princes by untruths to make War upon their natural Country some with inward practises to murder the Greatest some with seditious Writings and very many of late with publick infamous Libels full of despiteful vile terms and poisoned lies altogether to uphold the foresaid Antichristian and Tyrannous Warrant of the Popes Bull. And yet also by some other means to further these intentions because they could not readily prevail by way of Force finding Foreign Princes of better consideration and not readily inclined to their wicked purposes it was devised to erect up certain Schools which they called Seminaries to nourish and bring up persons disposed naturally to Sedition to continue their race and trade and to become Seedmen in their Tillage of Sedition and them to send secretly into these the Queens Majesties Realms of England and Ireland under secret Masks some of Priesthood some of other inferior Orders with Titles of Seminaries for some of the meaner sort and of Jesuits for the stagers and ranker sort and such like but yet so warily they crept into the Land as none brought the marks of their Priesthood with them but in divers Corners of her Majesties Dominions these Seminaries or Seedmen and Jesuits bringing with them certain Romish trash as of their hallowed Wax their Agnus Dei many kind of Beads and such like have as Tillage-men laboured secretly to perswade the people to allow of the Popes foresaid Bulls and Warrants and of his absolute Authority over all Princes and Countries and striking many with pricks of Conscience to obey the same whereby in Process of small time if this wicked and dangerous traitorous and crafty course had not been by Gods goodness espied and stayed there had followed imminent danger of horrible uprores in the Realms and a manifest bloody destruction of great multitudes of Christians For it cannot be denied but that so many as should have been induced and throughly perswaded to have obeyed that wicked Warrant of the Popes and the Contents thereof should have been forthwith in their hearts and Consciences secret Traitors and for to be indeed errant and open Traitors there should have wanted nothing but opportunity to feel their strength and to assemble themselves in such numbers with Armour and Weapons as they might have presumed to have been the greater part and so by open civil War to have come to their wicked purposes But Gods goodness by whom Kings do Rule and by whose blast Traitors are commonly wasted and confounded hath otherwise given to her Majesty as to his Handmaid and dear Servant ruling under him the spirit of Wisdom and Power whereby she hath caused some of these seditious Seedmen and Sowers of Rebellion to be discovered for all their secret lurkings and to be taken and charged with these former points of High Treason not being dealt withal upon questions of Religion but justly condemned as Traitors At which times notwithstanding all manner of gentle ways of perswasions used to move them to desist from such manifest traitorous courses and opinions yet was the Canker of their Rebellious humours so deeply entred and graven into the hearts of many of them as they would not be removed from their traiterous determinations And therefore as manifest Traitors in maintaining and adhearing to the capital Enemy of her Majesty and her Crown who hath not only been the cause of two Rebellions already passed in England and Ireland but in that of Ireland did manifestly wage and maintain his own people Captains and Souldiers under the Banner of Rome against her Majesty so as no Enemy could do more These I say have justly suffered Death not by force or form of any new Laws established either for Religion or against the Popes Supremacy as the slanderous Libellers would have it seem to be but by the antient temporal Laws of the Realm and namely by the Laws of Parliament made in King Edward the Thirds time about the year of our Lord 1330. which is above 200. years and more past when the Bishops of Rome and Popes were suffered to have their Authority Ecclesiastical in this Realm as they had in many other Countries But yet of this kind of Offenders as many of them as after their Condemnations were contented to renounce their former traiterous assertions so many were spared from Execution and do live still at this day such was the unwillingness in her Majesty to have any blood spilt without this very just and necessary cause proceeding from themselves And yet nevertheless such of the rest of the Traitors as remain in Foreign parts continuing still their Rebellious minds and craftily keeping themselves aloof off from dangers cease not to provoke sundry other inferiour seditious persons newly to steal secretly into the Realm to revive the former seditious practises to the Execution of the Popes foresaid Bulls against her Majesty and the Realm pretending when they are apprehended that they came only into the Realm by the commandment of their Superiours the Heads of the Jesuits to whom they are bound as they say by Oath against either King or Country and here to inform or reform Mens Consciences from errors in some points of Religion as they shall think meet but yet in very truth the whole scope of their secret labours is manifestly proved to be secretly to win all people with whom they dare deal so to allow of the Popes said Bulls and of his Authority without exception as in obeying thereof they take themselves fully discharged of their Allegiance and Obedience to their lawful Prince and Country yea and to be well warranted to take Arms to Rebell against her Majesty when they shall be thereunto called and to be ready secretly to join with any Foreign Force that can be procured to invade the Realm whereof also they have a long time given and yet do for their advantage no small comfort of success and so consequently the effect of their labours is to bring the Realm not only into a dangerous War against the Forces of Strangers from which it hath been free above 23. or 24. years a Case very memorable and hard to be matched with an example of the like but into a War Domestical and Civil wherein no blood is usually
of that which by their blood and death in the fire they did as true Martyrs testifie A matter of another sort to be lamented with simplicity of words and not with puffed Eloquence than the execution in this time of a very few Traytors who also in their time if they exceeded thirty years of Age had in their Baptism professed and in their youth had learned the same Religion which they now so bitterly oppugned And beside that in their opinions they differ much from the Martyrs of Queen Maries time for though they continued in the profession of the Religion wherein they were Christened yet they never at their death denied their lawful Queen nor maintained any of her open and Foreign Enemies nor procured any Rebellion or Civil War nor did sow any Sedition in secret Corners nor withdrew any Subjects from their Obedience as these sworn Servants of the Pope have continually done And therefore all these things well considered there is no doubt but all good Subjects within the Realm do manifestly see and all wavering persons not being led clean out of the way by the seditious will hereafter perceive how they have been abused to go astray And all strangers but especially all Christian Potentates as Emperours Kings Princes and such like having their Soveraign Estates either in succession hereditary or by consent of their people being acquainted with the very truth of these her Majesties late just and necessary actions only for defence of her Self her Crown and People against open Invaders and for eschewing of Civil Wars stirred up by Rebellion will allow in their own like Cases for a truth and rule as it is not to be doubted but they will that it belongeth not to a Bishop of Rome as Successor of Saint Peter and therein a Pastor spiritual or if he were the Bishop of all Christendom as by the name of Pope he claimeth first by his Bulls or Excommunications in this sort at his will in favour of Traytors and Rebels to depose any Soveraign Princes being lawfully invested in their Crowns by succession in blood or by lawful Election and then to Arm Subjects against their natural Lords to make Wars and to dispense with them for their Oaths in so doing or to excommunicate faithful Subjects for obeying of their natural Princes and lastly himself to make open War with his own Souldiers against Princes moving no Force against him For if these powers should be permitted to him to exercise then should no Empire no Kingdom no Country no City or Town be possessed by any lawful title longer than one such only an earthly man sitting as he saith in St. Peters Chair at Rome should for his will and appetite without Warrant from God or Man think meet and determine An Authority never challenged by the Lord of Lords the Son of God Jesus Christ our only Lord and Saviour and the only Head of his Church whilst he was in his Humanity upon the Earth nor yet delivered by any Writing or certain Tradition from Saint Peter from whom the Pope pretendeth to derive all his Authority nor yet from St. Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles but contrariwise by all Preachings Precepts and Writings contained in the Gospel and other Scriptures of the Apostles obedience is expresly commanded to all earthly Princes yea even to Kings by special name and that so generally as no person is exempted from such duty of obedience as by the sentence of St. Paul even to the Romans appeareth Omnis anima sublimioribus potestatibus sit subdita That is Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers within the compass of which Law or Precept St. Chrysostom being Bishop of Constantinople writeth that even Apostles Prophets Evangelists and Monks are comprehended And for proof of St. Peters mind herein from whom these Popes claim their Authority it cannot be plainlier expressed than when he writeth thus Proinde subjecti estote cuivis humanae ordinationi propter Dominum sive Regi ut qui superemineat sive Praesidibus ab eo missis That is Therefore be you subject to every humane ordinance or creature for the Lord whether it be to the King as to him that is supereminent or above the rest or to his Presidents sent by him By which two principal Apostles of Christ these Popes the pretended Successors but chiefly by that which Christ the Son of God the only Master of Truth said to Peter and his fellow-Apostles Reges gentium dominantur vos autem non sic That is The Kings of the Gentiles have rule over them but you not so may learn to forsake their arrogant and tyrannous Authorities in earthly and temporal causes over Kings and Princes and exercise their Pastoral Office as St. Peter was charged thrice at one time by his Lord and Master Pasce oves meas Feed my sheep and peremptorily forbidden to use a Sword in saying to him Converte gladium tuum in locum suum or mitte gladium tuum in vaginam That is Turn thy Sword into his place or Put thy Sword into the scabbard All which Precepts of Christ and his Apostles were duly followed and observed many hundred years after their death by the faithful and godly Bishops of Rome that duly followed the doctrine and humility of the Apostles and the doctrine of Christ and thereby dilated the limits of Christs Church and the Faith more in the compass of an hundred years than the latter Popes have done with their Swords and Curses these five hundred years and so continued untill the time of one Pope Hildebrand otherwise called Gregory the Seventh about the year of our Lord 1074. who first began to usurp that kind of Tyranny which of late the Pope called Pius Quintus and since that time Gregory now the Thirteenth hath followed for some example as it seemeth that is Where Gregory the Seventh in the year of our Lord 1074. or thereabout presumed to depose Henry the Fourth a noble Emperour then being Gregory the Thirteenth now at this time would attempt the like against King Henry the Eighth's Daughter and Heir Queen Elizabeth a Soveraign Queen holding her Crown immediately of God And to the end it may appear to Princes or to their good Counsellors in one example what was the fortunate success that God gave to this good Christian Emperour Henry against the proud Pope Hildebrand it is to be noted that when the Pope Gregory attempted to depose this noble Emperour Henry there was one Rodulph a Noble man by some named the Count of Reenfield that by the Popes procurement usurped the name of the Emperour who was overcome by the said Henry the lawful Emperour and in fight having lost his right hand he the said Rodulph lamented his case to certain Bishops who in the Popes name had erected him up and to them he said that the self-same right hand which he had lost was the hand wherewith he had before sworn obedience to his Lord and
for the Popes Supremacy or against her Majesties Regality but for the very Crimes of Sedition and Treason it shall suffice briefly in a manner of a repetition of the former reasons to remember these things following First it cannot be denied but that her Majesty did for many years suffer quietly the Popes Bulls and Excommunications without punishment of the Fautors thereof accounting of them but as of words or wind or of Writings in Parchment weighed down with lead or as of water-bubbles commonly called in Latine Bullae and such like but yet after some proof that courage was taken thereof by some bold and bad Subjects she could not but then esteem them to be very Preambles or as forerunners of greater danger and therefore with what reason could any mislike that her Majesty did for a bare defence against them without other action or force use the help of reviving of former Laws to prohibit the Publication or Execution of such kind of Bulls within her Realm Secondly when notwithstanding the prohibition by her Laws the same Bulls were plentifully but in secret sort brought into the Realm and at length arrogantly set upon the Gates of the Bishop of Londons Palace near to the Cathedral Church of Pauls the principal City of the Realm by a lewd person using the same like a Herald sent from the Pope who can in any common reason mislike that her Majesty finding this kind of denunciation of War as a defiance to be made in her principal City by one of her Subjects avowing and obstinately maintaining the same should according to justice cause the offender to have the reward due to such a fact and this was the first action of any capital punishment inflicted for matter sent from Rome to move Rebellion which was after her Majesty had reigned about the space of twelve years or more Thirdly when the Pope had risen up out of his Chair in his wrath from words and writings to actions and had contrary to the advice given by S. Barnard to his Predecessor that is when by his Messages he left Verbum and took Ferrum that is left to feed by the Word and began to strike with the Sword and stirred her Noble men and People directly to disobedience and to open Rebellion and that her lewd Subjects by his commandment had executed the same with all the Forces which they could make or bring into the field who with common reason can disallow that her Majesty used her principal Authority and by her Forces lawful subdued Rebels Forces unlawful and punished the Authors thereof no otherwise than the Pope himself useth to do with his own Rebellious Subjects in the Patrimony of his Church And if any Prince of People in the World would otherwise neglect his Office and suffer his Rebels to have their wills none ought to pity him if for want of resistance and courage he lost both his Crown his Head his Life and his Kingdom Fourthly when her Majesty beheld a further increase of the Popes malice notwithstanding that the first Rebellion was in her North parts vanquished in that he entertained abroad out of this Realm the Traiters and Rebels that fled for the Rebellion and all the Rabble of other the Fugitives of the Realm and that he sent a number of the same in sorts disguised into both the Realms of England and Ireland who there secretly allured her People to new Rebellions and at the same time spared not his charges to send also out of Italy by Sea certain Ships with Captains of his own with their Bands of Souldiers furnished with Treasure Munition Victuals Ensigns Banners and all other things requisite to the War into her Realm of Ireland where the same Forces with other auxiliar Companies out of Spain landed and fortified themselves very strongly in the Sea-side and proclaimed open War erecting the Popes Banner against her Majesty may it be now asked of these persons Favourers of the Romish Authority what in reason should have been done by her Majesty otherwise than first to apprehend all such Figitives for stollen into the Realm and dispersed in disguising habits to sow Sedition as some Priests in their secret Profession but all in their apparel as Roisters or Ruffins some Scholars like to the basest Common people and them to commit to Prisons and upon their examinations of their Trades and Haunts to convince them of their Conspiracies abroad by testimony of their own Companions and of sowing Sedition secretly at home in the Realm What may be reasonably thought was meet to be done with such seditious persons but by the Laws of the Realm to try condemn and execute them and especially having regard to the dangerous time when the Popes Forces were in the Realm of Ireland and more in preparation to follow as well into England as into Ireland to the resistance whereof her Majesty and her Realm was forced to be at greater charges than ever she had been since she was Queen thereof And so by Gods power which he gave to her on the one part she did by her Laws suppress the seditious stirrers of Rebellion in her Realm of England and by her Sword vanquished all the Popes Forces in her Realm of Ireland excepting certain Captains of mark that were saved from the Sword as persons that did renounce their quarrel and seemed to curse or to blame such as sent them to so unfortunate and desperate a Voyage But though these reasons grounded upon rules of natural reason shall satisfie a great number of the Adversaries who will yield that by good order of Civil and Christian Policy and Government her Majesty could nor can do no less than she hath done first to subdue with her Forces her Rebels and Traiters and next by order of her Laws to correct the Aiders and Abettors and lastly to put also to the Sword such Forces as the Pope sent into her Dominions yet there are certain other persons more nicely addicted to the Pope that will yet seem to be unsatisfied for that as they will term the matter a number of silly poor Wretches were put to death as Traiters being but in profession Scholars or Priests by the names of Seminaries Jesuits or simple School-masters that came not into the Realm with any Armor or Weapon by force to aid the Rebels and Traiters either in England or in Ireland in their Rebellions or Wars of which sort of Wretches the commiseration is made as though for their contrary opinions in Religion or for teaching of the people to disobey the Laws of the Realm they might have been otherwise punished and corrected and yet not with capital punishment These kinds of defences tend only to find fault rather with the severity of their punishments than to acquit them as Innocents or quiet Subjects But for answer to the better satisfaction of these nice and scrupulous Favourers of Traiters it must be with reason
Christendom would like or tolerate any such Subjects within their Dominions if possibly they could be rid of them The duty we owe to our Soveraigns doth not consist in taciturnity or keeping close within our selves such Allegiance as we think sufficient to afford them but we are especially when we are required thereunto to make open profession of it that we may appear unto them to be such Subjects as we ought to be and as they may rely upon if either their Kingdoms or safeties be in hazard or danger And we greatly marvel that any Jesuits should be so hard laced concerning the performance of their duties towards the Fathers and Kings of those Countries where they were born and whose Vassals they are considering unto what obedience they tye themselves toward their own general provincial and other Governors unto whom they were no way tied but by their own consents and for that it hath pleased them voluntarily to submit themselves unto them If a quarrel should fall out for example betwixt the Jesuits and the Dominicans it would seem a very strange matter to the Provincial or General of that Society to be driven to be demanded of a Jesuit which part he would take But therewith we have not to intermeddle only we wish that whilst they look for so great subjection at those mens hands that be under them they do not forget their own Allegiance towards their Soveraigns or at the least so demean themselves as we poor men every way their equals and as sound Catholicks as themselves that we go no further may not be brought into hatred with her Majesty unto whom we profess all duty and true allegiance let other men qualifie the same as they list About the time of the overthrow of the Popes Forces in Ireland his Holiness by the false instigations of the Jesuits plotted with the King of Spain for the assistance of the Duke of Guise to enterprise upon the sudden a very desperate designment against her Majesty and for the delivery and advancement to the Crown of the Queen of Scotland For the better effecting whereof Mendoza the Jesuit and Ledger for the King of Spain in England set on work a worthy Gentleman otherwise one Mr. Francis Throckmorton and divers others And whilst the same was in contriving as afterwards Mr. Throckmorton himself confessed 1584. the said Jesuitical humor had so possessed the hearts of sundry Catholicks as we do unfeignedly rue in our hearts the remembrance of it and are greatly ashamed that any person so intituled should ever have been so extremely bewitched Two Gentlemen about that time also viz. Anno 1583. Mr. Arden and Mr. Somervile were convicted by the Laws of the Realm to have purposed and contrived how they might have laid violent hands upon her Majesties sacred person Mr. Somerviles confession therein was so notorious as it may not be either qualified or denied And Doctor Parry the very same year was plotting with Jesuits beyond the Seas how he might have effected the like villany How the worthy Earl of Northumberland was about this time brought into the said Plot of the Duke of Guise then still in hand we will pretermit Mr. Parsons that was an Actor in it could tell the story very roundly at Rome It wrought the noble Earls overthrow 1585. which may justly be ascribed to the Jesuitical practices of the Jesuit Mendoza and others of that crew Hereunto we might add the notable Treasons of Mr. Anthony Babington and his Complices in the year 1586. which were so apparent as we were greatly abashed at the shameless boldness of a young Jesuit who to excuse the said Traiters and qualifie their offences presumed in a kind of supplication to her Majesty to ascribe the plotting of all that mischief to Mr. Secretary Walsingham The treachery also of Sir William Standley the year following 1587. in falsifying his faith to her Majesty and in betraying the trust committed unto him by the Earl of Leicester who had given him the honourable Title of Knighthood as it was greatly prejudicial to us that were Catholicks at home so was the defence of that disloyalty made by a worthy man but by the perswasions as they think of Parsons greatly disliked of many both wise and learned And especially it was wondred at a while until the drift thereof appeared more manifestly in the year 1588. that the said worthy person by the said lewd Jesuits laid down this for a ground in justifying of the said Standley viz. That in all Wars which may happen for Religion every Catholick man is bound in conscience to imploy his person and forces by the Popes direction viz. How far when and where either at home or abroad he may and must break with his temporal Soveraign These things we would not have touched had they not been known in effect to this part of the World and that we thought it our duties to shew our own dislike of them and to clear her Majesty so far as we may from such imputations of more than barbarous cruelty towards us as the Jesuits in their writings have cast by heaps upon her they themselves as we still think in our consciences and before God having been from time to time the very causes of all the calamities which any of us have endured in England since her Majesties reign Which we do not write simply to excuse her Highness although we must confess we can be contented to endure much rather than to seek her dishonour but for that we think few Princes living being perswaded in Religion as her Majesty is and so provoked as she hath been would have dealt more mildly with such their Subjects all circumstances considered than she hath done with us But now we are come to the year 1588. and to that most bloody attempt not only against her Majesty and our common Enemies but against our selves all Catholicks nay against this flourishing Kingdom and our own native Country The memory of which attempt will be as we trust an everlasting Monument of Jesuitical Treason and Cruelty For it is apparent in a Treatise penned by the advice of Father Parsons altogether as we do verily think that the King of Spain was especially moved and drawn to that intended mischief against us by the long and daily solicitations of the Jesuits and other English Catholicks beyond the Seas affected and altogether given to Jesuitism And whereas it is well known that the Duke of Medina Sidonia had given it out directly that if once he might land in England both Catholicks and Hereticks that came in his way should be all one to him his Sword could not discern them so he might make way for his Master all was one to him yet the said Father Parsons for so we will ever charge him though another man by his crafty perswasion took upon him to be the Author of that Book did labour with all the Rhetorick he had to have perswaded us upon the supposed arrival of the
a Book wherewith he acquainted the Students in those Seminaries in Spain and laboured nothing more than to have their subscriptions to the said Infantaes title therein promising unto her their present Allegiance as unto their lawful Soveraign and that when they should be sent into their Country they should perswade the Catholicks there to do the like without any further expectation of the Queen of England's death as Mr. Charles Paget affirmeth in his Book against Parsons We spake of the Seminaries in Spain before somewhat suspiciously and now you see the reason that moved us so to do Besides we do not doubt but that in the perusing of this our discourse you will be assaulted with many strange cogitations concerning our full intent and meaning therein Which although it cannot chuse but that it doth already in part appear unto you yet now we come to a more clear and plain declaration of our purpose You see into what hatred the wicked attempts of the Jesuits against her Majesty and the State hath brought not only all Catholicks in general but more especially us that are secular Priests although we did ever dislike and blame them nay detest and hate them no men more For any of us to have been brought up in the Seminaries beyond the Seas hath been and still is as you know a matter here very odious and to us full of danger But by Father Parsons courses with the Seminaries in Spain and now that he is Rector of the English Seminary in Rome and so taketh upon him by his favour there to direct and command all the rest what will the State here think of the Priests that shall come from any of those Seminaries hereafter where they must be brought up according to the Jesuitical humor and sent hither with such directions as shall be thereunto agreeable The said Book of Titles compiled by Parsons is here very well known almost to the whole Realm and Mr. Charles Paget hath not been silent as touching the Infanta and the bringing up of Students to be sent hither as Priests to promote her title Sundry sharp courses have been taken already with us and many Laws are made against us But now what may we expect but all the cruelty that ever was devised against any man if the State should think both us and all other Catholicks to be either addicted or any way inclined to the advancement of any foreign Title against her Majesty or her lawful Successors And it cannot chuse but that we should thereof be the rather suspected because at this time it is well known that the infection of Jesuitism doth bear great sway in England amongst us whilst our Archpriest who taketh upon him to rule all is himself over-ruled by Garnet the Jesuit who as a most base Vassal is in every thing at the beck and command of Father Parsons For the avoiding therefore of all the further mischiefs that may ensue we first profess as before we have often done that we do utterly dislike and condemn in our consciences all the said slanderous Writings and Pamphlets which have been published to the slander of her Majesty and this Realm protesting that the Jesuitical designments beyond the Seas together with certain rebellious and traiterous attempts of some Catholicks at home have been the causes of such calamities and troubles as have happened unto us great we confess in themselves but far less we think than any Prince living in her Majesties case and so provoked would have inflicted upon us Some of us have said many a time when we have read and heard speeches of her Majesties supposed cruelty Why my Masters what would you have her to do being resolved as she is in matters of Religion except she should willingly cast off the care not only of her State and Kingdom but of her life also and Princely estimation Yea there have been amongst us of our own calling who have likewise said That they themselves knowing what they do know how under pretence of Religion the life of her Majesty and the subversion of the Kingdom is aimed at if they had been of her Highnesses Council they would have given their consent for the making of very strait and rigorous Laws to the better suppressing and preventing of all such Jesuitical and wicked designments Secondly we do all of us acknowledge that by our Learning secluding all Machiavilian Maxims Ecclesiastical persons by virtue of their calling are only to meddle with praying preaching and administring the Sacraments and such other like spiritual Functions and not to study how to murder Princes nor to licitate Kingdoms nor to intrude themselves into matters of State Successions and Invasions as Fryer George did in Pannonia to the utter ruine of that beautiful Realm Thirdly we profess our selves with all godly courage and boldness to be as sound and true Catholick Priests as any Jesuits or men living in the world and that we do not desire to draw breath any longer upon the earth than that we shall so continue but yet therewith we being born her Majesties Subjects do plainly affirm and resolutely acknowledge it without all Jesuitical equivocation that if the Pope himself as some of the Apostles did do come into this Land or if he do send hither some Fugatius and Damianus as Eleutherus did or some Augustine Laurence or Justus as Saint Gregory did we will to do them service go unto them and lye down at their feet and defend with them the Catholick faith by the sacred Scriptures and authority of the Church though it cost us our lives But if he come or send hither an Army under pretence to establish the said Catholick Religion by force and with the Sword we will ever be most ready as native born and true Subjects to her Highness with the hazard of our lives and with all our might to withstand and oppose our selves against him and to spend the best blood in our bodies in defence of the Queen and our Country For we are throughly perswaded that Priests of what order soever ought not by force of Arms to plant or water the Catholick faith but in spiritu lenitatis mansuetudinis to propagate and defend it So it was planted in the Primitive Church over all the World crescit fructificat sicut in nobis est ex quo die recepimus The ancient godly Christians though they had sufficient forces did not oppose themselves in Arms against their Lords the Emperours though of another Religion But our purpose is not to dispute this point And now lastly we commend unto you all our very right dear and beloved Brethren this our most humble Suit First that you will interpret the whole premises no otherwise than we our selves have expounded our own meaning Secondly we intreat you to remember how dear we have been unto you and that we continue our unfeigned affection towards you still assuring you that howsoever you are changed we do affect you still with a