England's Fight With The Papacy - Walter Walsh

FROM-THE- LIBRARY-OF
TRINITYCOLLEGETORDNTO
ENGLAND S FIGHT WITH THE
PAPACY
ENGLAND S FIGHT
WITH THE PAPACY
A POLITICAL HISTORY
BY
WALTER WALSH, F.R.HisT.S.

AUTHOR OF SECRET HISTORY OF THE OXFORD MOVEMENT
"THE
"THE JESUITS IN GREAT BRITAIN: AN HISTORICAL INQUIRY

INTO THEIR POLITICAL INFLUENCE," ETC. ETC.
ilonDon
JAMES NTSBET 6? CO., LIMITED
22 BERNERS STREET, W.
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON &* Co.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
:>;
MAR 1 i 1983
PREFACE
IN the opinion of many, whose judgment I value, there is
need for such a book as this. At first sight it seems strange
that no other book exists which deals with the subject on
anything like an adequate scale. And yet it will not be
denied that it is a subject of national importance. Books
almost without number have been written on the doctrinal
conflict with Rome but not one, so far as I am aware,
;
which confines to the political conflict with the Papacy

itself
in this country during any lengthened period of time, and

with sufficient fullness. Commencing with the Reign of
William the Conqueror, have recorded England s stern
I
resistance to Papal extortions, and arrogant claims to
temporal power, down to the birth of the Reformation.
But few persons realise how widespread and stern that
resistance was, as revealed in the documents I cite. That
resistance was almost entirely political until the time of
Wycliffe, but from that time onward there was added a
stern opposition to many of the doctrines of the Church
of Rome. With doctrinal questions, however, I have
nothing to do in this book. The number of Acts of Parlia
ment passed before the Reformation, limiting the political
power of the Popes, will surprise some of my readers.
With the Reformation began a new phase of England s
Fight with the Papacy. The most desperate and pro
longed efforts were made by Rome to recover lost ground.
Her chief reliance was not on controversial arguments,
but on political weapons, as has been the case ever since.
Her many plots and conspiracies, down to the flight of
James II. in 1688, are here recorded. All the Penal Laws
passed during that period are discussed in these pages,
vi PREFACE
and the causes which produced them are traced to their
sources. In this portion of the book I have made use, so
far as possible, of the wealth of material which has come to
light during the past half-century. To a very large extent

my authorities are Roman Catholic. In the section de
voted to the Reign of Charles II., I have made use of my
book, The Jesuits in Great Britain, but with omissions and
additions. I do not, of course, justify all the Penal Laws
which were passed ; but, in justice to our forefathers, it mast
be pointed out that each Act was called for by some
fresh aggression ofRome s agents in the political sphere.
And all
through the period between the Reign of Henry
VIII. and the accession of James II., the Court of Rome
never made a serious effort for conciliation ; but, on the
contrary, did everything in its power to exasperate the
Government for the time being. If it takes two to make
a quarrel, takes two to make peace. Had the Vatican
it
wished, had many opportunities of lightening the burden

it
of English Roman Catholics but it refused them all. A

;
modern Roman Catholic biographer of Edmund Campion,

the Jesuit, forcibly remarks "As affairs were
:
managed,
they rendered simply impossible the coexistence of the
Government of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth with the
obedience of their subjects to the supreme authority of the
Pope and those Princes had no choice but either to
;
abdicate, with the hope of receiving back their Crowns,

like King John, from the Papal Legate, or to hold their own
in spite of the Popes, and in direct and avowed hostility
1
to them."
I have tried to write with moderation : it is for my

readers to decide whether I have succeeded or not. I
prefer strong facts to strong adjectives, though there are

times when the latter are justifiable. Though I am a
Protestant, not ashamed of my colours, I have not, I be
lieve, written anything in these pages to which old-fashioned
1
Edmund Campion, by Kichard Simpson, p. 63, edition 1867.
PEEFACE vii
Roman the Gallican School, would object.

Catholics, of
The Ultramontanes, who have become triumphant in the
Church of Rome since the Vatican Council, will not agree
with me at all, should they favour me by reading what I
have written. Rome s political work in the British
Dominions is not ended England has another political
;
fight with the Court of Rome before her. It is the dearest

ambition of the Papacy to place another Roman Catholic
King on the Throne of these Realms, and for this she is
now working. Slowly, but surely, she is gaining political
power out of all proportion to her numbers. Her object
just now is to lull men to sleep ;
to persuade them that
there no danger. While John Bull sleeps she hopes,
is
like Delilah with Samson, to shave ofT his locks, so that

his strength may go from him, and then she can have her
own way, and pull his Protestant house down over his
head. What that way is likely to be may be seen by the
history, recorded in these pages, of the Reign of James II.,
our last Roman Catholic King. His Reign is an object-
lesson for all time.
WALTER WALSH.
A SAD interest attaches to this book, which is the last to

come from the pen of its learned author.
Shortly after
completing the MS., and while the first few sheets were
passing through the hands of the printers, its author was
Home to receive his reward. On February 25, 1912,
called
Mr. Walter Walsh attended the morning service at St.
T
Mary Church, Spring Grove, Islew orth, and, shortly after
s
taking his seat, peacefully passed away. During the last

few clays before his death, Mr. Walsh was engaged in the
work of correcting the proofs, and he had commenced the
compilation of the index. After he had passed away, the
task of seeing his last book through the Press fell upon
viii PREFACE
his son, the writer of this note, who completed the revision
of the proofs and prepared the index.
England Fight with the Papacy is the result of many
s
years of patient toil and research ; and, although Mr.

Walsh s pen has been laid aside, his works will still remain
as a lasting memorial to one who faithfully and successfully
exposed the errors of Romanism and valiantly upheld the
banner of Protestant Truth.
ARTHUR WALSH.
March, 1912.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
WILLIAM I. HENRY II.
PAGE
Ante-Reformation Resistance to Papal Claims William I. resists Papal
Claims His Letter to the Pope His Control over the English
Church Places Bishoprics and Abbacies under Military Rule
William II. forbids Archbishop Anselm to go to Rome His Letter
to the Archbishop English Kings and Investiture Pope Paschal
II. complains of Papal Disabilities in England English Resis
tance to Papal Legates and Nuncios Gervase of Canterbury on
English Law as to Legates 1
CHAPTER II
HENRY II. JOHN

England the First Nation to resist Papal Extortions Henry II. and
Thomas a Becket Henry II. brings Clerical Criminals under
State Control One Hundred Murders by English Clergy
William of Newburgh on the Criminal Priests Henry II. s Speech
on the Crimes of the Clergy Becketresists the King s Reasonable
Demands The Five Articles The Constitutions of Clarendon
Phillimore on Appeals to the Pope Henry II. s anti-Papal
Orders The Catholic Dictionary on Clerical Immunity from Lay
Jurisdiction England a Gold Mine for the Pope Cardinal
Vivian sent as Papal Legate to Scotland a Papal Legate to
England extorts vast sums of Money King John and his Sub
jects John threatens to put out the eyes of the Clergy and slit
their noses Innocent III. places England under an Interdict
Pandulph sent as Papal Legate His Insolent Speeches to the
King John surrenders his Kingdoms to the Pope His Charter
of Submission to the Pope John s Oath of Fealty to the Pope
The Pope s Conditions for removing the Interdict ... 10
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER III
JOHN HENRY III.

PAGE
Matthew Pope The King of
Paris on the Detestable Extortions of the
Scotland s Strong Speech to a Papal Legate The Roman Court
a common Brazen-faced Strumpet The Nobles of "
termed
"
England protest against Papal Extortions English Ambassadors

at a General Council Their Complaints of the Oppressions of the
Papal Court The English Parliament s Statement of Papal
Oppressions The King s Interview with the Pope s Agent in
England English Bishops refuse the Demands of a Papal Envoy
The Bishops of London and Worcester refuse to submit to
Papal Slavery The Barons compel Foreign Ecclesiastics to flee
from England . 26
CHAPTER IV
EDWARD I. EDWARD III.
Dispute between Edward I. and the Bishops The Pope forbids all
Ecclesiastics toPay Taxes Text of the Papal Bull Clericis Laicos
Archbishop Winchelsey s Speech on the Subject The Lord
Chief -Justice sentences Bishops and Clergy to Outlawry Pope
Boniface VIII. claims the Kingdom of Scotland The Reply of
the English Peers Edward I. denies the Pope s Claims Pope
Urban V. claims the Suzerainty of England Parliament Re
pudiates his Claim Other occasions on which the Popes have
made the same Claim A new Law forbidding the Payment of
Taxes to the Pope Text of this Law Sir Edward Coke on
English Laws against Papal Claims 39
CHAPTER V
EDWARD III.
Papal Provisions and Reservations The Remonstrance of Parliament

Parliament asks Edward III. to forcibly Expel the Papal Power
"
from England The Letter of Protest from Parliament to the

"
Pope The Pope s Letter of Complaint Edward III. s Indignant

Letter to the Pope Parliament orders that during War, no
Person shall transmit Money to the Pope
"
House of Commons "
Petitions to the King The First Statute of Provisors An Act

against purchasing Church Dignities and Livings from the Pope
The First Statute of Prscmunire forbidding Appeals to Rome . 53
CONTENTS xi
CHAPTER VI
EDWARD III. RICHARD II.
PAGE
Another Conflict between Church and State The King forbids under
Pain of Death the Importation of Papal Letters, Citations, and
Excommunications An Act against receiving Citations from
Rome The Bishop of Chichester punished for Procuring a
Citation from thePope A List of Dignities and Livings held by
Foreigners appointed by the Pope The Parliament s Complaint
of Papal Taxations The King protects the Florentines against
the Pope s Wrath Legal Decisions on Papal Encroachments in
or occupy Livings in England .......

King Edward III. s Reign An Act forbidding Aliens to purchase
66
CHAPTER VII
RICHARD II. HENRY IV.
The Work of Wycliffe The Government and People at first on WycliftVs

Side The King asks WycliftVs Opinion on sending Treasure to
the Pope Wyclift e s Reply National Demands for Fresh Re
straints on the Papacy The Bishops demand a New LaAv to
suppress the Lollards How the Law was obtained by a Trick
Parliament summoned to consider the Injuries inflicted by the
Court of Rome The House of Commons petitions that First-fruits
of Livings be paid to the King instead of the Pope An Act
against going to Rome for Benefices Richard II. forbids the
Bishops to pay Tithes to the Pope Another Act against Pro-
visors The King s Proclamation against Papal Bulls Arch
bishop Courtenay s Declaration against Papal Excommunications
A Statute that mauled the Papal Power in England
" "
Why
Richard
Popes ............
II. was Deposed Richard II. on the Crimes of the
74
CHAPTER VIII
HENRY IV. HENRY VIII.
An Act against Abuses in Monasteries Other Acts relating to Monks

and Nuns Acts against Papal Extortions The Chief-Justice
cannot change the Law of the Land
"
says the Pope

"
Oxford
University sets up the Authority of the Pope against the King
The Court of Chancery condemns the University Great Wealth
of the Church in the Reign of Henry V. An Act which annoyed
xii CONTENTS
PAGE
the Abbots, Priors, Friars, and Nuns Another Act against
Papal Provisions The Duke of Gloucester burns the Pope s
Letters The King s Council refuse to recognise Cardinal Beaufort
as Papal Legate Twenty-one Articles against Cardinal Beaufort
Pope Martin V. claims the Right of Presentation to all Churches
and Bishoprics Makes his Nephew, aged fourteen, Archdeacon
of Canterbury Henry V. sends an Embassy to the Pope to
complain of his Extortions Archbishop Chicheley s Letter
protesting against the Papal Legate The Dean and Chapter of
York successfully resist the Pope s Nominee to the Archbishopric
The Pope s Legate sent to Prison Pope Martin V. denounces
the English anti-Papal Laws His Furious Letter to Archbishop
Chicheley The English Clergy refuse to obey the Pope s Com
mand The Archbishop of Canterbury refuses to collect Tenths
for the Pope Archbishop Bourchier orders Punishment of the
Clergy who had obtained Livings by Papal Letters The Judges
decide that a Papal Excommunication does not bind in England 87
CHAPTER IX
HENRY VIII. EDWARD VI.
Was the Reformation necessary ? Testimony of Dr. Dollinger Henry

VIII. was not a Protestant Testimony of Fathers Parsons, S.J.,
Tootle, and Oakeley Henry supported by the Laity The
Immunities of the Clergy The Supplication of Beggars Henry s
First Blow at the Papacy The Act against Annates The Pope s
Supremacy abolished The Submission of the Clergy The Act
against Appeals to Rome The Supremacy Act Henry s Penal
Laws The Suppression of the Monasteries Their Condition in
England, Scotland, and Rome Cardinal Pole s Disloyal Book
Execution of Priests in Henry s Reign The Pilgrimage of Grace
Pope Paul III. deposes Henry His Deposing Bull Two Jesuits
sent to Ireland to encourage a Rebellion The Exeter Conspiracy 104
CHAPTER X
EDWARD VI. MARY
Protestantism comes into Power Rome claims no Martyrs in Edward s
Reign The English Bible in every Parish Church Reforming
Acts in Edward s Reign Three Popish Rebellions in Edward s
Reign Accession of Mary Disabilities imposed on Protestants
These not condemned by Modern Romanists The Suffolk
Protestants support Mary Her promise to them broken Her
CONTENTS xiii
PAGE
bitter Persecution of Protestants Papists elected to Parliament
by Dishonourable Tactics Sir Thomas Wyatt s Rebellion Its
real Object Persecuting Laws revived Restoration of the Pope s
Supremacy Even in Mary s Reign some Disabilities were im
posed on the Papacy She refuses to receive Peto as Papal
Legate The Lambeth Synods renew Penalties for Heretics . 131
CHAPTER XI
ELIZABETH
Pope Paul IV. censures Elizabeth for assuming the Crown without his
Consent Pope Pius IV. offers to Establish and Confirm her in
her Princely Dignity Mary s Persecuting Laws repealed The
Oath of Supremacy and Allegiance Penalty for Maintaining
any Foreign Power The Book of Common Prayer legalised
Papists attending Protestant Services Testimony of Father
Parsons, S.J. Testimony of the Month Extreme Penalties not
inflicted Father Berington on the Conduct of the Romanists
Father Watson on the Disloyalty of Papists Father Camm on
"
the
"
comparative mildness of Elizabeth s early Years as

Queen The Testimony of the Secular Priests on this Point
Traitorous Efforts of Secular Romanists in 1560 They petition
the Pope to depose Elizabeth The Queen s Council s Reasons
for refusing a Papal Nuncio Woolfe, a Jesuit, sent as Papal
Legate to Ireland The Northern Rebellion The Pope s Letter
of Encouragement to the Rebels Pope Pius V. deposes Elizabeth
His Bull John Felton posts the Bull on the Bishop of London s
Palace Felton executed as a Traitor Pope Leo XIII. declares
him a Beatified Saint and Martyr . . . . . .147
CHAPTER XII
ELIZABETH (continued)
The Use of English Romanist Plot to make Mary, Queen of

Torture
Scots, Queen of England The Ridolfi Conspiracy Ridolfi sent
to the Pope and King of Spain Mary s Instructions to Ridolfi
The Duke of Norfolk s Instructions to Ridolfi The Duke s
Duplicity The Pope s Letter approving of the Conspiracy The
Conspirators propose to murder Elizabeth The Spanish Council
meet to consider the Murder Plot The Pope s Deposing Bull and
Ridolfi Conspiracy cause fresh Penal Laws John Storey s
Traitorous Conduct He is Executed Pope Leo XIII. declares
Storey a Beatified Saint 167
xiv CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIII
PAGE
The first England Proof of his Disloyalty Pope
Jesuit executed in
Leo XIII. declares him a Beatified Saint Thomas Sherwood
executed Proof of his Disloyalty Were Jesuits and other Priests
executed for Treason in Elizabeth s Reign ? Testimony of their
Disloyalty by Father Campion s Biographer, Lord Burleigh,
Father Watson, a priest in 1603, Father Thomas Bluet, Father
Nicholas Sanders, Father Robert Parsons, S.J., Father Joseph
Berington, Sir John Throckmorton, and Cardinal Allen The
Six Questions on Loyalty, and Answers of the Priests Text of
Oath of Loyalty refused by Campion and others Another Penal
Law passed Pope Gregory XIII. urges Philip II. to invade
England Stukeley s Expedition to invade Ireland Father
Nicholas Sanders sent as Papal Nuncio to the Irish Rebels The
Pope s Indulgence and Pardon of Sins for Irish Rebels Sanders
Violent Letter to the Irish Rebels The Jesuit Invasion of Eng
land Parsons, the Jesuit, the Centre of all Plots against Eliza
beth Campion s Biographer says that Parsons sowed the Seeds
of the Gunpowder Plot Parsons formed an Association from
which came the Men who tried to assassinate Elizabeth What
Priests have said of his Treasonable Conduct . . 182
CHAPTER XIV
The Treasonable Work of Popish Seminaries Testimony of Cardinal

D Ossat, a Secular Priest in 1603, and of Father Taunton An
Act declaring it High Treason to induce any one to Join the
Church of Rome A disgraceful Jesuit Plot in Scotland, worked
by Duplicity, Perjury, and Cunning Another Plot to murder
Elizabeth The Plot assisted by a Papal Nuncio The Pope
approves of the Plot Father Knox s Comment on the Pope s
Conduct Father Knox s Apology for the Attempted Murder
A new Jesuit Plot for the Invasion of England and Scotland
An Act against Jesuits arid Seminary Priests Plot of Philip II.
Mary, Queen of Scots Letter approving the Plot . . . 201
CHAPTER XV
Four English Papists propose to murder Elizabeth Lord Acton on

Popes and Murder Plots The Spanish Ambassador s Letter
describing the Babington Murder Plot He recommends other
CONTENTS xv
PAGE
Murders Philip II. says the Plot is much in God s Service
" "
A Jesuit Sodality and its Evil Influence Fourteen Gentlemen

executed for the Plot Their Confession of Guilt they Why
wished to murder Elizableth Mendoza believed that Mary, Queen
of Scots knew about the Plot Preparations for the Spanish
Armada The Pope promises large sums of Money to help it
Robert Parsons, S.J., and Dr. Allen s Negotiations in Rome
Allen appeals to Philip II. for help Sir William Stanley treacher
ously surrenders Deventer Cardinal Allen defends his Treachery
Allen s Admonition to the people of England to rebel Bull of
Sixtus V. deposing Elizabeth Defeat of the Spanish Armada
Extract from a Traitorous Book of Robert Parsons Why some
Romanists refused to help the Armada The Pope gives
Authority to Assassinate the Lord Chancellor of Scotland The
Pope and the King of Spain try to win the King of Scotland
The Jesuits try to stir up the Scottish Nobles to Rebellion A
Jesuit on the Value of the Evidence of Spies Murder Plots at
the Close of Elizabeth s Reign .218
CHAPTER XVI
ELIZABETH (concluded)
Another Penal Law in England Parsons tries to prevent King James

succeeding to the English Throne Another Irish Rebellion The
Archbishop of Tuam goes to Spain for Help What he said at the
Spanish Court Pope Clement VIII. sends an Envoy to the
Irish Rebels The Irish Viceroy offers full Freedom and Liberty
"
of Conscience to the Romanists

"
The Pope sends Jesuits to

England to help the Rebels The Rebellion a War of Religion
only Clement VIII. s Bull blessing the Irish Rebellion A
General sent to the Irish Rebels by the Pope His Proclamation
Two Popish Universities justify the Rebellion Defeat of the
Rebellion Its Leaders honoured by the Pope The Pope s
Briefs in favour of a Roman Catholic Successor to Elizabeth
Elizabeth s Treatment of her Roman Catholic Subjects The
Pope angry with four Priests who termed her The " "
Queen
Pope did not want Toleration for English Romanists An English
Papist writes against Toleration for Papists .... 243
CHAPTER XVII
JAMES I.
Hope of the Romanists on James Accession James deceives the

Romanists The Plot of Father William Watson Watson
infamously Betrayed by the Jesuits A Plot to secure Armed
xvi CONTENTS
PAGE
Assistance from Spain What Guy Fawkes revealed about it
Father Garnet, S.J., knew about the Plot Father Cresswell,
S.J., supports it enthusiastically James I. gives reasons for
banishing Jesuits Improved Condition of Romanists under King
James An Act against Jesuits, Seminary Priests, and Romanists
The Penal Laws not generally enforced The Papists provoke
the King to Severity The Gunpowder Plot The Lay Con
spirators were Spiritual Children of the Jesuits Father Strange,
S.J., on Lawfulness of killing the King Father Oldcorne, S.J.,
Commendable and Good Father John
"
was
"
said the Plot

Gerard, S.J., and the Plot Father Henry Garnet, S.J., and the
Gunpowder Plot Garnet s Acknowledgments of Guilt . . 257
CHAPTER XVIII
JAMES I. (continued)
The Results of the Gunpowder Plot Roman Catholic Penalties for

Heresy Acts against Traitors and Recusants The Oath of
Allegiance The Archpriest writes in Favour of the Oath Other
Roman Catholics on the Oath Pope Paul V. denounces the
Oath Urban VIII. condemns the Oath Father Peter Walsh
on the Cause of the Penal Laws Father Peter Walsh on the
Papal Claims 281
CHAPTER XIX
JAMES I. (concluded)
Papal Diplomacy and Intrigue Marriage Negotiations with Spain

The Pope Romanists to Loyalty
refuses to exhort English
Marriage Negotiations with France Evil Results of James
Reign 304
CHAPTER XX
CHARLES I.
Charles and his Roman Catholic

" "
Papists Dissembling their Religion

Queen Pope Urban VIII. urges Roman Catholic Kings to invade
England Charles I. helps the French King to fight the Huguenots
English Sailors refuse to fight against French Protestants
English Romanists present a Declaration of Loyalty The Irish
Loyal Remonstrance Three Loyal Propositions censured by the
pO p e Father George Gage s Suggestions to suppress the Scotch
CONTENTS xvii
PAGE
Covenanters The Pope
forbids English Romanists to help the
King The Irish Rebellion of 1641 Started in a Time of pro

found Peace The Object of the Rebels to exterminate the
Pope Urban VIII. sends the Rebels a Bull to encourage
Heretics
them Pope Innocent X. sends Rinuccini as Nuncio to the
Rebels Sends with him Money and Ammunition The Pope s
Instructions to Rinuccini The Nuncio urges the Irish to fight
for a Protestant King The Pope severely Censures him for
doing so A Jesuit s murderous Letter to the Irish Rebels The
Nuncio saves the Jesuit from Censure The Nuncio tries to
separate Ireland from the Crown of England Objects to the
Government of a Heretic . . .315. . . . .
CHAPTER XXI
CHARLES I. (concluded)
The Underground Work of English Romanists Disguised Romanists

in High Position Secretary Windebank assists the Papists
Becomes Publicly a Roman Catholic Sir Kenelm Digby s
Double-dealing Sir Tobie Matthew a Disguised Jesuit Bishop
Goodman s Duplicity Diplomatic Relations with Rome
Secret Mission of the Archbishop of Ambrun Secret Mission ot
Panzani His Interviews with Secretary Windebank The
want Popery by Force of Arms
"
Jesuits to restore Jesuits in
Masquerade An Emissary of the King sent to Rome A

"
Jesuit s Disloyal Book Panzani s Secret Interview with the

King Proposed Diplomatic Relations with Rome Panzani
acts as Spy on Church of England Bishops His Interview with
Bishop Montague Another Papal Agent arrives in England
He tells the King that he stands above Parliament
"
A Third "
Papal Agent arrives in England Parliament s Opposition to

Papal Nuncios 344
CHAPTER XXII
COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE
Severe Laws Against the Papists . 371
CHAPTER XXIII
CHARLES II.
His Accession welcomed by the Papists Charles Secret Negotiations

with the Pope in 1649 His Double-faced Hypocrisy Negotia
tions with Scotch Presbyterians Lands in Scotland, and swears
b
xviii CONTENTS
PAGE
to the Solemn League and Covenant His Dunfermline Declara
tion against Prelacy and Popery In 1651 Charles writes to the
Pope for Assistance Bishop Burnet on Charles Secret Reception
into the Church of Rome Father Peter Talbot, S.J. s, Letter to
Charles inviting him to become secretly a Romanist Dr. Rene-
han s Account of Charles Secret Reception as a Romanist
Carte Version of the Secret Reception Charles denies his
s
Reception His Protestant Letter from Breda to the Speaker

An Act to punish those who said that the King was a Papist
Charles marries a Popish Wife He asks Parliament for Conces
sions to Romanists Charles sends an Agent on a Secret Mission
to the Pope He boasts of his Services to the Papacy The
Agent carries Terms of Submission of the Three Kingdoms to the
Pope Charles Secret Correspondence with the General of the
Jesuits He tells the General that he abhors the Protestant
Religion Charles aims at establishing Popery in England His
Secret Conference in the Duke of York s House His Relations
with Louis XIV. What Charles told the French Ambassador
The Secret Treaty of Dover What Lord John Russell said about
the Treaty
forms an Army to establish Popery ......
Charles issues a Declaration of Indulgence Charles
377
CHAPTER XXIY
CHARLES II. (concluded)
Secret Romanists at Court The Duke of York favours Popery secretly

The Duke dissembles his Religion for many Years The House
of Commons and Increase of Popery Charles professes Zeal for
Protestantism He assumes Arbitrary Power Parliament passes
the Test Act Two Sham Bills for Defence of Protestantism
The Declaration against Transubstantiation The Popish Plot . 403
CHAPTER XXV
JAMES II.
His Reign an Object-lesson for Protestants He promises to Preserve

the Church of England Alterations in his Coronation Service
Secretly crowned by a Popish Priest Corrupt Means used at the
First General Election Popish Prisoners discharged from
Prison The Bloody Assizes
"
James and the Exiled Hugue

"
nots His Duplicity He suppresses a Protestant Pamphlet

He forms a Secret Council of Papists The Clergy preach against
Popery Dr. Sharp persecuted for preaching against Romanism
Bishop Compton and Sharp suspended Illegally James renews
Diplomatic Relations with Rome Protestant Faithfulness of the
CONTENTS xix
PAGE
Duke of Somerset James says that he is
"
above the Law "
He publicly kneels before the Papal Nuncio He

seeks to corrupt
the Courts of Law A Judge is a Disguised Romanist Protestants
dismissed from Office to make Room for Papists James fills the
Army and Navy with Papist Officers and Men Samuel Johnson s
Spirited Protestant Address to Soldiers and Sailors He is
imprisoned and Publicly Whipped Extraordinary Letter from a
Jesuit about the King The King s Illegal Attitude towards the
Universities The Master of University College, Oxford, for a
long while a Concealer Papist
1
A
Concealed Papist appointed
Dean of Christ Church, Oxford James issues two Declarations
of Indulgence His claims to be a friend of Religious Liberty
criticised by Macaulay Robert Parsons, S.J. s, Memorial for
the Reformation of England The Principles of this Book and
James Policy Identical Contains the Jesuits Plan for ruling
England under a Popish Sovereign Its Religious Intolerance
and Persecuting Spirit exposed The Policy of the Book ap
proved by the Modern English Jesuits Another Remarkable
Jesuit Book which influenced James Policy The Jesuit, Petrie,
appointed Privy Councillor The King s Declaration of Indulgence
ordered to be read in all Churches Bishops and Clergy refuse
to read it They plead that the Declaration is Illegal The
Seven Bishops sent to the Tower They are supported by the
Nonconformist Ministers The Bishops are tried and acquitted
Great Rejoicings Landing of William, Prince of Orange Flight
of James II. What might have happened had James continued
King much longer 421
INDEX 457
ENGLAND S FIGHT WITH THE
PAPACY
CHAPTER I
WILLIAM I. HENRY II.
Ante-Reformation Resistance to Papal Claims William I. resists Papal Claims

His Letter to the Pope His Control over the English Church Places
Bishoprics and Abbacies under Military Rule William II. forbids
Archbishop Anselm to go to Rome His Letter to the Archbishop
English Kings and Investiture Pope Paschal II. complains of Papal
Disabilities inEngland English Resistance to Papal Legates and
Nuncios Gervase of Canterbury on English Law as to Legates.
IT quite a mistake to suppose that laws, limiting the free

is
action of the Papacy in these Realms, were never made

before the time of This view of the question
Henry VIII.
is, there is reason to fear, widely spread through the efforts
of interested parties. On the contrary, opposition to

Papal usurpations and encroachments can be traced in
England back to the time when Pope Gregory sent
Augustine to this country, at the close of the sixth cen
tury. At that early period the extreme political claims of
the Church of Rome, as developed in the time of Pope
Gregory VII., were unknown, and consequently resistance to
them was necessarily unknown also. But from the end of
the sixth century resistance to the spiritual claims of that
communion may be said to have commenced. The Vener
able Bede, himself a Roman Catholic, in his Ecclesiastical
History, testifies to the opposition of the British Bishops
(members of a Church which had never submitted to the
Supremacy of the Pope) to the claims of Augustine, and,
through him, of his master, the Pope. But when, as the
centuries passed on, the Court of Rome sought to unlawfully
2 ENGLAND S FIGHT WITH THE PAPACY
interfere with the temporalities of the Church, and the action
of the State within its own domain, then those who acknow
ledged the Pope s Supremacy in the spiritual sphere alone,

united in resisting his poaching on other people s preserves,
which w ere not his property. And from the time of William
r
the Conqueror down to the Reformation, English Roman

Catholics, Kings, priests, and people, united from time to
time (but with some intervals) in placing legal disabilities
on the Papacy, many of them far more drastic than those
which exist in this country at the commencement of the
twentieth century. They understood Rome better then
than many of our modern statesmen and politicians do
now, and set necessary bounds on her arrogant pretensions.
The first instance of such resistance which I need to
record occurred in the reign of William the Conqueror.
This monarch appears to have been deeply attached to the
Church of Rome in doctrinal matters, and is said to have
attended Mass every day. But for all this he ruled the
Church of England with an iron hand, appointing and
deposing Bishops at his pleasure, disposing of the Church s

property as he thought fit, and would not even allow the
Archbishops of Canterbury to visit Rome without his
consent. In all these things William acted independently
of the Pope, and would not allow him to interfere with his
liberty and rights as King. It is true that he collected
Peter s Pence, and sent it yearly to Rome, but this he never
intended as an acknowledgment of the Pope s claims to
temporal power in his country. Subsequently King John,
after he had surrendered his crown to the Pope, agreed to
pay tribute in recognition of the feudal dependence of his
Kingdom, but this, says the Catholic Dictionary, "was of
course wholly distinct from the Peter s Pence." Originally
Peter s Pence was given
"
not as a tribute to the Pope, but

in Rome. 1
"
in sustentation of the English School or College

Pope Gregory VII., however, looked upon it as evidence of
the subjection to him of England even in temporal matters,
and as, at that time, the payment had been delayed, he sent
a Legate named Hubert to England to demand from its
1
Bowden s Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII., vol. ii.
p. 258, note.
WILLIAM REFUSES HOMAGE TO THE POPE 3
King not merely the payment of arrears, but also an Oath

of Fealty from him This arrogant claim was promptly and
!
sternly rejected. After receiving the Legate, King William

wrote to Gregory in these emphatic terms :
Thy Legate Hubert, Holy Father, hath called on me in

"
thy name, to take the Oath of Fealty to thee and to thy

successors, and to exert myself in enforcing the more regular
payment of the duties, paid of old by predecessors to my
the Church of Rome. The one request I have granted,
the other I refused. I have not chosen / do
Homage to thee
not choose to do. I owe it not on

nor do I my own account ;
find that it has been performed by those before me. The money
in question has, during the three years last past, while I
was in France, been negligently levied. That which has
been collected, Hubert will lay before thee and that which ;
we have yet to collect shall be sent thee, at a convenient

season, by the messengers of our trusty Archbishop
l
Lanfranc."
Although, as I have already stated, William acknow

ledged the authority of the Pope in deciding what a Christian
should believe for his soul s salvation, yet he placed many
barriers in the way of the exercise of his Supremacy in
matters connected with the outward organisation of the
Church. For instance, Eadmer says that William ap
pointed to be observed the following points :
"
1. He would
allow any one settled in all his
not
dominion to acknowledge as Apostolic the Pontiff of the
City of Rome, save at his own bidding, or by any means to
receive any letter from him if it had not first been shown
to himself.
"
2. The Primate also of his realm, I mean the Arch

bishop of
Canterbury or
Dorobernia, presiding over a
general Council assembled of Bishops, he did not permit to
ordain or forbid anything save what had first been ordained
by himself as agreeable to his own will.
"
3. He would
not suffer that any, even of his Bishops,
should be allowed to implead publicly, or excommunicate,
or constrain by any penalty of ecclesiastical rigour, any of
1
Bowden s Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII., vol. ii. p. 259.
his Barons or Ministers accused of incest, or adultery, or
l
any capital crime, save by his command."
In furtherance of what he believed, rightly or wrongly,
to be amongst his rights as King, William the Conqueror
placed under military rule all the Bishoprics and Abbacies
which held Baronies. These had hitherto been free from
secular authority, but about the year 1070 he ordered each
of them to be prepared to supply a stated number of
soldiers to aid him in times of war, together with horses,
armour, and money. Those ecclesiastics who refused to
submit to his Royal will in this respect he drove from the
2
Kingdom.
In the reign of William II., Archbishop Anselm wished
to go to Rome to take the opinion of the Pope as to the
state of England, and to receive Papal authority in dealing
with important subjects. But the King per
several
emptorily forbade him to leave the country. He said to
"
the Archbishop Since it is unheard of in the Kingdom,

:
and altogether contrary to its customs that any of the

nobility, and especially you, should proceed to Rome
without the Royal consent, I offer you one of two alter
natives. Either swear never to refer to the Papal Court
for any cause whatsoever, or leave the Kingdom at once."
But notwithstanding this prohibition Anselm went to Rome,
and told the Pope that the English Bishops and their
people were against his visit, and that they sided with the
both the flock and
"
he said,
"
King in the dispute. All,"
the Bishops who had professed their obedience to me,

endeavoured together to induce me to renounce my obedi
ence to the Blessed Peter, lest I should violate the allegiance
I owed an earthly monarch." 3
to
That the Popes in the exercise of their ecclesiasticalpatron-
age laboured under heavy disabilities in England before the
Reformation cannot be doubted. For centuries this subject
was a bone of contention between the Kings and Parliaments
1
Gee and Hardy s Documents Illustrative of English Church History, p. 59.
2
Koger of Wendover s Flmvers of History, vol. i. p. 338 Holinshed s;
Chronicles, vol. ii. p. 12, edition 1807.

3
Ingram s England and Rome, p. 31.
THE RIGHT OF INVESTITURE 5
of England on the one side, and the Popes on the other, as

may be proved by a reference to the various Statutes of
Pro visors and Prsemunire, passed to limit the Papal claims.
Those Statutes were absolutely necessary to suppress the
scandalous extortions and financial greed of the Papacy.
Our histories are filled with the bitter complaints on these
points of Kings, Parliaments, and people. Fullwood says of
patronage in England
ecclesiastical This flower of the :
Crown was derived from our ancient English and British

Kings to William the Conqueror, William Rufus, and Henry I .,
who enjoyed the right of placing in vacant Sees, by the

tradition of a ring and a Crozier Staff, without further appro
bation, ordination, or confirmation from Rome, for the first
eleven hundred Dean Hook states that the first
years."
l
English Bishop who denied to the King the right of In

vestiture was Anselm. "Investiture," writes Hook, "in
its legal signification, denoted the transfer, from a

first
superior to an inferior, of a fief or, more generally speaking,

;
of a property, a title, a power, a jurisdiction, through the
presentation of certain symbols. The presentation of the

symbols was the formal transfer of the beneficium, and an
investment with it. A handful of turf or a stick was the
sign of a transfer of lands a sword, a banner, a glove;
became the sign of collation to a military benefice. When

the Church was endowed by the munificence of Kings and
nobles, her temporal possessions were regarded as benefices,
and the Sovereign invested the ecclesiastic with his civil
rights. He conferred the beneficium, through the symbols
to a Canon of a book, to an Abbot of a Pastoral Staff,
Bishop of the staff and ring."

2
to a The new Papal law of
Gregory VII. against Investiture by laymen had, at this
period, only just come into operation. Its purpose was,
to make the civil authority subordinate to the
"
says Hook,
ecclesiastical. So long as the right of Investiture remained
in the State, this was impossible. The superior gave what
the inferior received. If the ecclesiastic received his benefice
from the Crown, the Church was inferior to the State, and
s Roma Ruit., edition 1847, p. 100.
1
Fullwood
2
Hook s Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. ii.
p. 239.
the beneficed ecclesiastic owed allegiance to the Sovereign."
l
Anselm s conduct greatly surprised everybody in England.

Never before/ says Hook, had it been known in England,
" "
that the ring and Pastoral Staff had been bestow ed by any r
one except the King. The King, a far-seeing politician,

declared that to concede the right of Investiture would be
tantamount to the concession of half his realm. If the
precedent were established, that the right of property could
be conferred by an}7 one except the King, the Barons would
become so many independent princes, and the whole feudal
sj^stem would be at an end. The Barons, brought up under
the feudal system, regarded Anselm s conduct as an insult
offered by a vassal to his suzerain, which they were sworn
to resent. The Bishops, and the clergy generally, of the
Church of England, still acting in a noble spirit of inde
pendence, were so indignant at the demand that, rather
than assent to it, they declared themselves prepared to
pronounce sentence of banishment again on Anselm, and to
break off all connexion with the Church of Rome." 2
Eventually, after negotiations with the Pope, the dispute
between the King and Anselm was settled by a compromise.
The King consented to give up the ancient custom of in
vesting by the bestowal of the Pastoral Staff and ring, on
the ground that these symbolised the conferring of spiritual
authority but he insisted on the continuance of the Oath
;
of Fealty, as an act of homage for the temporalities granted
by the King. In this contest Rome gained one point, but

she had to continue submitting to the other disabilities
which had been imposed on her for many years.
the twelfth century Pope Paschal II. com
Early in
plained bitterly that disabilities were placed on the exercise
of his powers in the Kingdom of England. Writing to
the King and the English Bishops he affirmed that :
From the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul the custom has
"
been handed down to us, that the more weighty affairs of the
Church should be managed or reviewed by our See. But you,
in despite of this long-established custom, settle among your-
1
p. 211.
2
Ibid., pp. 238, 239.
POPE PASCHAL S BITTER COMPLAINTS 7
selves the business relating to Bishops, without even consulting

us, notwithstanding that Victor, Pope and Martyr, declared that,
though provincial Bishops might examine an accusation against
one of their order, they were not allowed to come to a decision
without application to the Bishop of Rome. Zepherinus, also
Pope and Martyr, says the trial of Bishops and other affairs of
great consequence ought to be decided by the Papal Court. You
will not allow the oppressed to make their
appeal to the Apostolic
See, though it has been decreed by the holy Fathers in Council,
that all persons aggrieved should have the privilege of appealing
to the Papal Court. You venture, without our knowledge, to
celebrate Councils and Synods, though Athanasius told the
Church at Alexandria that in the great Council of 318 Bishops
at Nice, it was unanimously decided that no Councils ought to
be held without the knowledge of the Bishop of Rome. You
see, therefore, that you have encroached greatly on the authority
of the Papal See, and lessened its dignity. You even presume,
without our sanction and knowledge, to make translations of
Bishops, an unwarrantable liberty, as such affairs ought not to
be attempted except by our authority/ l
The Papacy at this period claimed the right of sending

her Legates and Nuncios into every professedly Christian
land. In this twentieth century, Pope Pius X. was allowed
to send Cardinal Vanutelli to England, as Legate during
the sitting of the Eucharistic Congress, in 1908, and that
without asking permission from the King or Government.
But even in the Dark Ages, Roman Catholic Englishmen
were wiser in their day and generation. No law or custom
of England was then ever more strictly observed than that
which prevented any Papal Legate being received into the
Kingdom until he had first obtained the permission of the
King, and taken an oath not to attempt anything against
the Royal will. Many times Legates have been refused
admission. In the year 1101, Pope Paschal II. sent Guido,
Archbishop of Vienne (afterwards Pope Calixtus II.), to
England as his Legate, without asking the consent of the
King. The whole nation was amazed at his audacity, as a
thing unheard of hitherto, with the result that the un
fortunate Archbishop had to return to the Pope without
1
Ingrara s England and Rome, pp. 61, 62.
having exercised any of his legatine functions, for not an
Englishman could be found who would recognise him as
Legate.
In the year 1116, the Pope selected Abbot Anselm,
nephew of Archbishop Anselm, and sent him as his Legate
to England. His appointment created no slight commotion
in England. The King refused him permission to enter
the country, and the English Bishops, who met specially to
consider the matter, unanimously declared that the office of
a Legate was contrary to the privileges of the Church of
England. Anselm, therefore, was unable to exercise the
Legate in England. The year before Anselm was
office of
nominated as Legate, Pope Paschal II. wrote to the King
of England We are astonished and grieved that so little
:
"
regard paid to St. Peter in your dominions. For neither

is
Nuncios nor letters of the Apostolic See can make their

way into your Kingdom, or receive any countenance there,
without the consent of your Majesty."
Again, in 1121, one Peter, a noble Roman, was sent as
Papal Legate to England. On his way thither he called
on the King, who was at that time in Normandy, and asked
his permission to enter his Kingdom. He was allowed to
do so, but when he attempted to exercise his legatine
functions, he was emphatically told by the King that this
could not be allowed without the consent of the Bishops,
Nobles, and the Parliament. The King further informed
him that he felt unable to give up any one of the privileges
of the Kingdom, and that one of the greatest of these was
that England should be free from the authority of a Papal
Legate. It would have been well for the peace of the
country, if the successors of Henry I. had followed his
example in this respect.
Pope Honorious II. sent, in the year 1124, John de

Crema as his Legate to England. More fortunate than his
predecessors, he was allowed not only to enter the country,
but to hold a Council at Westminster. But, as related by
Gervase of Canterbury (who died A.D. 1205), he received a
severe rebuff, and ended his days in England in disgrace.
Gervase writes :
ENGLAND AND PAPAL LEGATES 9
time there came into England a certain Legate

"
At this
named John, who was too pompously received by William,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Thurstan, Archbishop of York,
and the Bishops of England. Having gone through the whole
of England, this Legate presently held a Council at Westminster,
and put the whole country in no small state of indignation.
For there you might have seen a sight hitherto unknown in the
realm of England a clerk who had attained no higher dignity
than that of the priesthood, seated aloft on a throne, and presiding
over the whole assembly who had nocked thither, over Arch
bishops, Bishops, Abbots, and the whole of the nobility of the
Kingdom while they, occupying a lower position, composed
;
their countenances and bridled their lips, like men dependent
upon his nod. Upon Easter Day (which was the day on which he
first landed in England) he celebrated the office of that festival
in the Mother Church, instead of the Archbishop, sitting aloft
on an elevated throne, and using the insignia of an Archbishop,
although he was no Bishop, but simply a Priest Cardinal. This
occurrence deeply wounded and scandalised the minds of many
persons, and clearly indicates not only the novelty of the occur
rence, but also how much the liberty of the realm of England was
now violated. For it is a thing most notorious to all men within
the entire Kingdom of England, and to all the neighbouring
regions, that from the time of Augustine, that most holy man, who
was the first Metropolitan of Canterbury, until this William [then
Archbishop of Canterbury], all Augustine s successors were Monks,
and were styled and considered Primates and Patriarchs nor ;
were they at any time in subjection to the Roman Legate."

1
1
Ger vase s History of the Archbishops of Canterbury. Church Historians of
England Series, 1838, vol. v. part i. p. 322.
CHAPTER II
HENRY II. JOHN
England the First Nation to resist Papal Extortions Henry II. and Thomas
a Becket Henry II. brings Clerical Criminals under State Control One
Hundred Murders by English Clergy William of Newburgh on the
Criminal Priests Henry II. s Speech on the Crimes of the Clergy
Becket resists the King s Reasonable Demands The Five Articles The
Constitutions of Clarendon Phillimore on Appeals to the Pope Henry
II. s anti-Papal Orders The Catholic. Dictionary on Clerical Immunity
from Lay Jurisdiction England a Gold Mine for the Pope Cardinal
Vivian sent as Papal Legate to Scotland A Papal Legate to England
extorts vast sums of Money King John and his Subjects John
threatens to put out the eyes of the Clergy and slit their noses
Innocent III. places England under an Interdict Pandulph sent as
Papal Legate His Insolent Speeches to the King John Surrenders his
Kingdoms to the Pope His Charter of Submission to the Pope John s
Oath of Fealty to the Pope The Pope s Conditions for Removing the
Interdict.
ENGLAND was, says Bishop Creighton, the first county

which showed a spirit of resistance to Papal extortion.
The alliance of the Papacy with John and with Henry III.
had awakened a feeling of political antagonism amongst
the Barons, when they found the Pope supporting Royal
misgovernment. Under Edward I., successor to Henry III.,
the nation and the King were at one, and the claims of
Boniface VIII. were met by a dignified assertion of national
But, as Hallam points out, the first English
1
rights.
Sovereign who appeared openly against Papal tyranny was
Henry II., and he also asserts that England was the first
nation which, in the Middle Ages, was engaged in resistance
2
to Papal despotism. Every act of resistance, whether
undertaken by the State, by sections of the clergy, or by
private persons, was in reality an attempt to impose dis
abilities on the Papacy.
1
Creighton s History of the Papacy, vol. i. p. 53, edition 1901.
- Hallam s Middle Ages, vol. ii. pp. 222, 250, eleventh edition.
10
HENRY II. AND CLERICAL IMMUNITY 11
Henry s chief resistance to Papal claims was connected

with his famous controversy with Thomas a Becket,
Archbishop of Canterbury. It would be impossible in
these pages to find sufficient space to give my readers
anything like an adequate history of that celebrated dispute
ending in the tragic murder of the Archbishop in Canterbury
Cathedral. I must, therefore, restrict myself to some of
its more prominent features. It was, in brief, a contest
between the unjust aggressions of the Papacy and the just
rights of the State. Strictly speaking, religious doctrine
did not come into the controversy. What Becket con
tended for was the absolute freedom of the clergy from
State control. He wished the King to treat them as though
they were the subjects of a foreign Sovereign, owning
allegiance to him, before that of their lawful King. Of course
no King could submit to such a claim, without loss of
honour. Some years later King John tamely yielded every
thing to the Pope, including even his Kingship and by so
;
doing he brought his own name into perpetual infamy.

But Henry II. was made of sterner material. His indigna
tion was specially aroused by Becket s claim for the clergy,
that no matter how abominable their crimes, even when
including murder, robbery, incest, and rape, no secular
Court of Lawshould be allowed to punish them for their
iniquities. That privilege was reserved for the Ecclesi
astical* Courts, whose sentences for the most enormous
offences were outrageously inadequate. Clerical crime at
this period ofEnglish history was widespread, and frequently
of the most outrageous character. This exemption from
the jurisdiction of the temporal Courts of Law was claimed
not only for Bishops, priests, and deacons, but also for a
large body of persons whose claims were preposterous.
Hallam states that :
The Bishops gave the tonsure indiscriminately, in

order to swell the of their subjects.
list This sign of a
clerical state, thoughbelow the lowest of their seven degrees
of ordination, implying no spiritual office, conferred the
privileges and immunities of the profession on all who wore
an ecclesiastical habit and had only once been married.
Orphans and widows, the stranger and the poor, the pilgrim
and the leper, under the appellation of persons in distress,
came within the peculiar cognizance and protection of the
Church nor could they be sued before any lay tribunal.
;
And the whole body of Crusaders, or such as merely took

the vow of engaging in a Crusade, enjoyed the same clerical
1
privileges."
The immediate cause of Henry s opposition to the clerical
encroachments on his rights as King, was the wide extent
of criminality of the darkest dye amongst the clergy. This
is very clearly revealed by William of
Newburgh, who died
in 1208.
"
It was intimated by the Judges

to the King," he writes,
"
that crimes against public order, such as thefts, rapines,

many
and murders, were repeatedly committed by the clergy, to whom
the correction of lay jurisdiction could not be extended. Finally,
it was declared in his
presence, that during his reign more than
a hundred murders had been committed by the clergy in England
alone. Hereupon the King, waxing extremely indignant, en
acted laws, in the heat of his passion, against ecclesiastical
delinquents, wherein he gave evidence of his zeal for public
justice, though his severity rather exceeded the bounds of
moderation. Still, however, the blame and the origin of the
King s excess in this point attaches only to the Prelates of our
times, inasmuch as it proceeded entirely from them. For since
the Sacred Canons enjoin that not only flagitious clerks, that is,
such as are guilty of heinous crimes, but even such as are slightly
criminal shall be degraded and the Church of England contains
many thousands such, like the chaff innumerable amid the few
grains of corn what number of the clergy have there been deprived
of this office during many years in England ? The Bishops, how
ever, while anxious rather to maintain the liberties or rights of the
clergy than to correct and root out their vices, suppose that they
do God service, and the Church also, by defending against estab
lished law those abandoned clergy, whom
they either refuse or
neglect to restrain, as their office enjoins, by the vigour of ecclesi
astical censure. Hence the clergy, who, called into the in
heritance of the Lord, ought to shine on earth in their lives and
conversation, like stars placed in the firmament of heaven, yet
take licence and liberty to do what they please with impunity ;
and regard neither God, Whose vengeance seems to sleep, nor
1
Hallam s Middle Ages, vol. ii.
p. 219.
THE CRIMES OF THE CLERGY 13
men who more especially as Episcopal

are placed in authority ;
vigilance relaxed with respect to them, while the prerogative

is
l
of Holy Orders exempts them from all secular jurisdiction/
Rapin asserts that not even one of the clergy who com
mitted the one hundred murders mentioned by William of
Newburgh, was punished with degradation Just about !
the time when Henry took this urgent matter in hand, a

priest named Philip de Brock, Canon of Bedford, com
mitted a murder. The matter was brought before the
Archbishop s Court, which, acknowledging the guilt of the
priest, imposed as a penalty for his crime that he should be
deprived of his benefice, and confined to a monastery. The
King, when he heard of such a mild and inadequate sentence,
was justly angry. By the law of the land the penalty for
murder was death, and Henry could see no reason why a
man s priestly character should exempt him from such a
punishment. That character in reality made the crime so
much the worse, since the clergy should be the first to set
good examples before the people. Becket, in reply, had
the arrogance to declare that an ecclesiastic ought not to be
2
put to death for any crime whatever Among other !
similar cases, there Avas one in which a priest was accused

of debauching a gentleman s daughter, and of having, to
secure his enjoyment of her, murdered her father. The
King required him to be brought to justice before a civil
tribunal, that, if convicted, he might suffer a penalty adequate
to his guilt, which the ecclesiastical judicatures could not
inflict upon him but this also was resisted by Becket. 3
;
It was certainly high time that some disabilities should

be imposed upon the prerogatives of the Ecclesiastical
Courts, even though by so doing the King raised against
himself the bitter opposition of the Pope and Becket. He
had right and justice on his side, and he determined to
summon Parliament 4 to consider the matter. It met at
1
William of Newburgh s History, p. 4GG, edition 1856.
2 s History of England, vol. ii. pp. 290, 291, fourth edition, 1757.
Eapin
3
History of the Reign of Henry II., by Lord Lyttleton, vol. ii. p. 349.
4
Dean Hook terms it a Council
"
Milnian asserts that it was a

"
;
"
Parliament."
Westminster in October 1163. To it the King complained
bitterly of the disorderly and criminal conduct of the clergy,
who escaped with comparative impunity.
"
I am on maintaining peace and tran

bent," he said,
"
quillity throughout my dominions, and much annoyed I am

by the disturbances which are occasioned through the crimes
of the clergy. They do not hesitate to commit robbery of
all kinds, and sometimes even murder. I request, therefore,
the consent, my Lord of Canterbury, of yourself, and of
the other Bishops, that when clerics are detected in crimes
such as these, and convicted, either by the judgment of
the Court, or by their own confession, they shall be delivered
over to the officers of my Court, to receive corporal punish
ment, without any protection from the Church. It is also
my will and request that, while the ceremony of degradation
is going on, you should allow the presence of some of my
1
officials, to prevent the escape of the criminal."
The Bishops were quite willing to grant the request of
the King, but Becket stood out against it fiercely. At
last, he said he would agree to what the King desired, but
with the exception,
"
saving the rights of our Order," which

made his assent practically useless. Henry saw this at
once, and left the Parliament in great anger. What the
King asked for, which was approved by the temporal lords
present, was assent to the custom of his grandfather,
Henry I., and consisted of five articles, viz. :
"
1. None should appeal to Rome without the King s leave.

"
2. No Archbishop or Bishop should go to Rome, upon

the Pope s summons, without the King s consent.
"3. No tenant-in-chief, or any other of the King s
officers,should be excommunicated, or his lands put under

an Interdict, without the King s consent.
"
4. All clergymen charged with capital crimes, should
be tried in the King s Courts.

5. The laity, whether the King or others, should hold
"
pleas of Churches, and tithes, and the like."

2
1
p. 398.
2
Rapin s History of England, vol. ii. p. 293.
THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON 15
Not content with these customs, Henry II. went further,

and in 1164, w hat are known as the Constitutions of
r
Clarendon became the law of the land. To the non-legal

reader their purport (in relation to the subject before us)
may best be gathered from a summary written by Lord
Campbell, rather than by citing the text of the Constitutions
themselves : We Protestants," he writes, must approve
" "
of the whole of them, for they in a great measure anticipate

the measures which were taken when the yoke of the
Church of Rome was thrown off at the Reformation but ;
in justice to Becket, we must acknowledge that they were

in various particulars an innovation upon the principles
and practices which had long prevailed. Not only did they
provide that Clerks accused of any crime should be tried in
the King s Courts that all suits concerning advowsons
;
and presentations should be determined according to the

course of the common law and that the Clergy should no
;
longer pretend to the right of enforcing payment of debts

contracted by oath or promise, whereby they were drawing
all questions of contract and property before their tribunals ;
but that appeals in spiritual causes should be carried

all
from the Archdeacon to the Bishop, from the Bishop to the
Primate, and from the Primate to the King, without whose
consent it should go no farther ; that no clergyman should
leave the Realm without the King s licence that, on a ;
vacancy, the revenue of Episcopal Sees should belong to the

Crown that the members of each Chapter, or such of them
;
as the King might please to summon, should sit in the King s

Chapel till they made the new election with his consent and ;
that the Bishop Elect should do homage to the Crown." l

It must be admitted that these Constitutions of Clarendon
rather sharply cut the wings of the Papacy and the Church
of Rome, imposing disabilities which would be thought,
by many, over severe in our own times. Yet our Roman

Catholic forefathers, in the reign of Henry II., knew what
they were about, for, while willing to grant the Pope s
claims in spirituals (though greatly limiting his Supremacy),
when those claims went further, and clamoured for the right
1
Lord Campbell s Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. i. p. 83, third edition.
of disposing of property, it was high time to put a stop to
such demands. The King was determined that right should

be done, spite of any protest to the contrary. There was
nothing really novel in refusing permission to appeal to Rome
until the King s consent first had been obtained. That
learned Ecclesiastical Judge, the late Sir Robert Phillimore,
made some important comments on this subject. He wrote :
There were no Appeals to the Pope out of England

"
before the reign of King Stephen, when they were introduced

by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, the Pope s Legate.
Not but attempts had been made before that time to carry
appeals to Rome, which were vigorously withstood by the
nation, as appears by the complaint of the Pope in the reign
of Henry I., that the King would suffer no appeals to be
made to him and before that, in the reign of William
;
Rufus, the Bishops and Barons told Anselm (who was

attempting it) that it was a thing unheard of for any one to
go to Rome (that is, by way of appeal) without the King s
leave. And though this point was yielded in the reign of
King Stephen, yet his successor, Henry II., resumed and

maintained it, as appears by the Constitutions of Clarendon,
which provide for the course of appeals within the Realm,
so as that further process be not made, without the King s
assent. And afterwards, in the Parliament of Northampton,
the Constitutions of Clarendon were renewed ;
and in the
reigns of Richard I. and King John, we find new complaints

of the little regard paid to those appeals for which also ;
divers persons were imprisoned in the reigns of Edward I.,

Edward II., and Edward III. Nevertheless, appeals to
Rome still obtained until the reign of King Henry VIII.,
l
when they were finally abolished."
In connection with Becket s claim that the clergy should

be free from lay jurisdiction even in temporal matters, it is
important for politicians to know that this Papal claim for
the clergy is put forward by the Church of Rome at the
Divine right." In the Roman
"
present time, as a matter of

Catholic Dictionary, issued with the imprimatur of the late
Real immunity is
"
Cardinal Vaughan, it is taught that :
1
Philimore s Ecclesiastical Law, vol. ii.
p. 1265, edition 1873.
NEW PAPAL DISABILITIES IMPOSED 17
the right whereby it is claimed that the property of the

Church and the clergy are exempted from secular jurisdiction
and from all fiscal and other burdens imposed by secular
authority. Personal immunity is the right of the clergy to
be exempted from all lay jurisdiction. The real and personal
immunity of the clergy are generally held by Canonists to
be of divine right" 1
As a further proof of Henry II. s determination to impose
disabilities on the Papacy, it may be well to cite an order
which he issued in the year 1165. It was in these terms :
"
If any person shall be found carrying letters or a mandate

of our Lord the Pope, or of the Archbishop of Canterbury
[Becket], containing an interdict of Christian offices in England,
let him be arrested, and without delay let justice be done upon
him, as a traitor to the King and to the Realm. Moreover,
let no clerk, Monk, or Lay Brother of any Orders, be permitted
to cross the sea, or to return to England, unless he has a letter
from the Justiciaries permitting him to cross over, or a letter
from the King allowing his return. And if any such person
shall be found, let him be arrested and detained. It is also for
bidden that any person shall bring any mandate whatsoever of
our Lord the Pope, or of the Archbishop of Canterbury. And,
if
any such person shall be found, let him be arrested and de
tained. It is also universally forbidden that any person shall
appeal to our Lord the Pope, or to the Archbishop of Canterbury,

and that, in future, any mandate of theirs shall be received in
England and it is ordered that no pleas whatsoever shall be
;
held at their mandate. And if any person shall do anything

against this prohibition, let him be arrested and detained.
And further, any Bishop, priest, Abbot, Monk, clerk, or layman,
if
shall observeany sentence of interdict, without delay let him be

banished the Kingdom, and all his kindred, but they are to take
away none of their chattels with them, but let their chattels and
possessions be seized into the King s hand. Also, let all clerks,
who have benefices in England, be admonished throughout
every county, within three months after summons, to return to
their benefices, as they wish to retain those benefices, and to
return to England. And, if they shall not return within the
period before-mentioned, then let their chattels and possessions
be seized into the King s hand." 2
1
Catholic Dictionary, p. 474, edition 1893.
2
Koger de Hovenden s Annals, vol. i. p. 269, Bohn Library edition, 1853.
England, during this century, was an almost inexhaustible
gold mine for the Pope and the Papal Court, with their
followers and dependents. Holinshed tells us that about
the year 1132 the tenths of the Bishoprics of England
amounted yearly unto 21,111, all of which was trans
ported out of the country, and sent to Rome, which
was an enormous sum in those days. But this was not
the whole of the Pope s yearly golden harvest. Holinshed
estimates that the Pope got by elections, procurations,
appeals, dispensations, Peter s Pence, Bulls, &c., not less
than 1,200,000 a year from England alone. "Tell me,"
"
exclaims Holinshed, whether our Island was one of the

best pair of bellows or not, that blew in his [the Pope s]
kitchen, wherewith to make his pot seeth, besides all other
l
commodities."
Cardinal Vivian was sent, in 1176, as Papal Legate to
Scotland and Ireland. On his way thither he landed in
England. Roger de Hovenden, who probably wrote his
Annals about the close of the twelfth century, gives a brief
but interesting account of the arrival of this Legate. He
states that :
When
he arrived in England, our Lord the King sent
"
to him Richard, Bishop of Winchester, and Geoffrey, Bishop

of Ely, to ask him by whose authority he had presumed to
enter his Kingdom without his permission. Upon this
question being put to him, the above-named Cardinal was

greatly alarmed, and, to give satisfaction to the King,
made oath that he would do nothing connected with his
Legateship against his wishes upon which, liberty was ;
2
given to pass through the Kingdom into Scotland."
It will be observed that Cardinal Vivian was not sent as
Legate to England, but the indignation aroused by his

daring to land in England without the King s leave, and the
oath he was compelled to take, proves how jealous the
English people were of Papal interference with their internal
1
Holinsbed s Chronicles, vol. i.
p. 245.
2
Rodger de Hovenden s Annals, vol. i.
p. 417, Bohn Library edition. For
the facts relating to the Papal Legates, I am mainly indebted to Ingram s
England and Rornr, pp. 15-23.
EXTORTIONS BY PAPAL LEGATES 19
affairs,and also how much they dreaded and, no doubt,

with good reasons the operations of any Papal Legate
in England.
The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Monks of Christ
Church, Dover, had a dispute between them in 1189. The
Pope sent Cardinal John of Anagni as his Legate to England,
with orders to hear both sides, and then settle the dispute
finally. No doubt he was very much surprised, on his
was forbidden to do anything without
arrival, to find that he
the King s permission. But the dispute was settled without
his help, and then it was decided that the Legate was to
be courteously treated, but that he should at once be sent
back to his master, the Pope.
Matthew of Westminster tells us that in 1207, John of
Ferentum came into England as Papal Legate, and travelled
extorting a vast sum of money, and

"
through the country

at last, that he might not seem to have done nothing else,
he held a Council at Reading, on the day after the Feast of
St. Luke the Evangelist. And when he had done this,
having filled and carefully carried off all his baggage, he
returned to his own country." l One more Papal leech the
less in England. We may be quite sure the English were
heartily glad to get rid of him.
Of all the Papal Legates sent to England, from time to
time, none struck a heavier blow at her independence than
Pandulph, who was sent to this country by Innocent III.
in the reign of King John. No monarch has made a name
for himself in history for tyranny and cowardice more
markedly than the man who surrendered the Crown of

England and Ireland to the Pope, and received it back again
as his vassal. It is not at all necessary to give here a detailed
history of the quarrels between John and his subjects,

which led up to the interference of the Pope. He was the
oppressor of everybody under his rule, clergy and laity
alike having cause to hate him with a deadly hatred. If
the Pope had interfered in the interests of either the clergy
or the laity, something might be said in his defence but ;
1
Matthew of Westminster s Flowers of History, vol. ii. p. 105, Bohn
Library edition.
he cared for nothing but his own aggrandisement, and how
best to extort money to be spent at his own will and pleasure.
Everybody admits that Innocent III. was an able man, who
raised the Papacy to its highest worldly glory but he ;
could tolerate nothing which came in the way of his proud

ambition. King John had been a tyrant, hated by his
people, and in this the Pope thought he saw his chance to
grasp the Crown of England, and make himself its real
Sovereign. Pandulph was his tool in this ambitious scheme.
Stephen Langton had been consecrated Archbishop of
Canterbury by the Pope, in the city of Viterbo, on June 17,
1207, contrary to the wishes of King John, and in con
travention of the customs of England
O from time imme-
morial. Afterwards the Pope wrote to the King, asking
him to receive Langton in a friendly manner, and put him
into possession Archbishopric. The King, very
of the
properly, point-blank refused to do anything of the kind,
and even threatened the Pope that, if he persisted in forcing
on the country a man who had been a familiar friend of
his declared enemies in France, he would prevent anybody
in his dominions from going to Rome for anything. The
first result of this dispute was that Innocent placed an
Interdict on England. When certain English Bishops

went to see the King him the Pope s intention to
to tell
place an Interdict on the country, John swore, says Roger
"
of Wendover, that if
they, or any other priests soever
presumptuously dared to lay his dominions under an
Interdict, he would immediately send all the Prelates of
England, clerks as well as ordained persons, to the Pope,
and confiscate all their property. He added, moreover,
that all the clerks of Rome, or of the Pope himself, who could
be found in England or in his other territories, he would
send to Rome with their eyes plucked out, and their noses
slit, that by these marks they might be known there from
l
other But, notwithstanding the threats of the
people."
King, the Interdict was placed on the country, with the

"
result, saysRoger of Wendover, that all Church Services
ceased to be performed in England, with the exception only

1
Koger of Wendover s Flowers of History, vol. ii.
p. 246, Bohn Library edition.
PANDULPH THREATENS KING JOHN 21
of Confession, and the viaticum in cases of extremity, and

the Baptism of children the bodies of the dead, too, were ;
carried out of cities and towns, and buried in roads and

l
ditches, without prayers or the attendance of priests."
About two years after the infliction of the Interdict, the

Pope, finding the King still in opposition to his wishes,
sent Pandulph, who was accompanied by Durand, to England,
with a view to persuading him to yield to the Pontiff s
wishes. They met the King at Northampton, and treated
him with outrageous insolence and insult. Foxe gives us
an interesting report of their interview.
We admonish you," they said to the King, in the
" "
Pope s behalf, that ye make full restitution of the goods,

and of the lands, which ye have ravished from Holy Church ;
and that ye receive Stephen [Lang ton], the Archbishop of

Canterbury, into his dignity and the Prior of Canterbury ;
and his Monks and that ye yield again unto the Arch
;
bishop all his lands and rents without any withholding.

And, Sir, yet moreover, that ye shall make such restitution
to them as the Church shall think sufficient."
The King meekly replied :
All that ye have said I would gladly do, and all things
"
else that you would ordain but as touching the Archbishop, ;
I shall tell my heart. Let the Archbishop

you as it lieth in
leave his Bishopric the Pope shall then entreat for ;
and if
him, peradventure I may like to give him some other

Bishopric in England and upon this condition I will ;
receive and admit him."
An answer like this did not please the proud Legate,

who replied in language which no King of England ought
ever to listen to, without driving the speaker from his
presence,and in the case of a foreigner, from his dominions.
"
Holy Church," replied Pandulph, was wont never to

"
degrade an Archbishop without reasonable cause but she ;
was ever wont to correct Princes that were disobedient to her."
An insolent threat like this naturally made the King

angry.
"
What ? How now," he exclaimed,

"
threaten ye
me ?
"
The Legate answered by still more insolent threats.

1
Roger of "VVendover s Flowers of History, vol. ii.
p. 246.
"
All the Kings, Princes, and great Dukes christened," he

said, have laboured to the Pope to have licence to cross them
selves, and to war against thee, as upon God s great enemy,
and to win thy land, and to make King whom it pleaseth
the Pope. And we here now
absolve] those of
assoil [i.e. all
their sins that will rise against thee here in thine own land." l
After Pandulph and his companion had returned to
Rome, and given in a report of their mission to England,
the Pope, in 1212, excommunicated King John, declared
him deposed from his throne, and absolved his subjects
from their oaths of allegiance. Moreover, he called upon
Philip, King of France, to enforce his deposing Bull by
invading England, and promised that, if he succeeded, he
and his successors should hold possession of the Kingdom
for ever. On this Philip collected a great army for the
purpose of hurling John from his throne but no sooner ;
had John heard about these preparations than all the

courage he possessed left him, and he decided to act a
cowardly and contemptible part. He had very properly
brought together an army at Dover to defend the country
against the French King, but in fear and dread, instead of
waiting his arrival with English courage, he sent messages
to the Continent, asking Pandulph to come over again to
England for the purpose of making peace with the Pope.

Pandulph came readily enough, and met John at Dover.
There he renewed the insolent and threatening language
he had used at Northampton but this time the frightened
;
King listened with meek submission :
" "
Behold," said Pandulph, the most potent King of the

French is at the mouth of the Seine with a countless fleet, and
a large army of horse and foot, waiting till he is strengthened with
a larger force to come upon you and your Kingdom, and to expel
you from it with force, as an enemy to the Lord and the Supreme
Pontiff, and afterwards, by authority of the Apostolic See, to
take possession of the Kingdom for ever. There are also coming
with him all the Bishops who have for a long while been banished
from England, with the exiled clergy and laity, by his assistance ,
to recover by force their Episcopal Sees and other property,

and to fulfil to him for the future the obedience formerly shown
1
Foxe s Acts and Monuments, vol. ii.
pp. 327, i>28.
KING JOHN S BASE SURRENDER 23
to you and your ancestors. The said King, moreover, says that
he holds papers of fealty and subjection from almost all the
nobles of England, on which account he feels secure of bringing
the business he has undertaken to a most successful termination.
Consult, therefore, your own advantage, and become penitent
as if you were in your last moments, and delay not to appease
that God whom you have provoked to a heavy vengeance. If
you are willing to give sufficient security that you will submit
to the judgment of the Church, and to humble yourself before
Him Who humbled Himself for you, you may, through the com
passion of the Apostolic See, recover the Sovereignty, from which
you have been abjudicated at Rome on account of your con
*
tumacy/
The result of the Royal interview with the Papal Legate
was that, on May 15, 1213, at the house of the Knights
Templar, near Dover, King John basely surrendered the
Kingdoms of England and Ireland to the Pope, and con
firmed it by the following Charter :
"
John, by the grace of God King of England, to all the faith <&c.,
ful servants who shall behold this Charter, health in the Lord,
"
We wish it, by this our Charter signed with our seal, to be

known to you, that we, having things offended God
in many
and our Mother the Holy Church, and being in great need of
the divine mercy for our sins, and not having wherewithal to
make a worthy offering as an atonement to God, and to pay the
just demands of the Church, unless we humiliate ourselves before
Him who humiliated Himself for us even to death we, impelled ;
by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and not by force or from

fear of the Interdict, but of our own free will and consent, and by
the general advice of our Barons, assign and grant to God, and
His holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and to the Holy Church of
Rome, our Mother, and to our Lord Pope Innocent and his
Catholic successors, the whole Kingdom of England, and the
whole Kingdom of Ireland with all their rights and appur
;
tenances, in remission of the sins of us and our whole race, as

well for those living as for the dead and henceforth we retain;
and hold those countries from him and the Church of Rome as
Vicegerent, and this we declare in the presence of this learned
man Pandulph, Subdeacon and Familiar of our Lord the Pope.
And we have made our homage and sworn allegiance to our Lord
the Pope and his Catholic successors, and the Church of Rome
in manner hereunder written and we will make our homage
;
1
Koger of Wendover s Floivers of History, vol. ii.
pp. 263, 261.
and allegiance for the same in presence of our Lord the Pope
himself, if we are able to go before him and we bind our ;
successors and heirs by our wife for ever, in like manner, to do

homage and render allegiance, without opposition, to the Supreme
Pontiff for the time being, and the Church of Kome. And in
token of this lasting bond and grant, we will and determine that,
from our own income, and from our special revenues arising from
the aforesaid Kingdoms, the Church of Rome shall, for all service
and custom which we owe to them, saving always the St. Peter s
Pence, receive annually 1000 marks sterling money that is ;
to say, 500 marks at Michaelmas, and 500 at Easter that is, ;
700 for the Kingdom of England, and 300 for Ireland saving to ;
us and our heirs all our rights, privileges, and Royal customs.
And as we wish to ratify and confirm all that has been above
written, we bind ourselves and our successors not to contravene
it;
and if we, or any one of our successors, shall dare to oppose this,
l
let him, whoever he be, be deprived of his right in the Kingdom."
The King personally handed over this disgraceful

Charter to Pandulph, and immediately afterwards he took
the subjoined Oath of Fealty to the Pope :
"I, John, by God King

the grace of England and Lord of
of
Ireland, from hour forward will be faithful to God, and the
this
Blessed Peter, and the Roman Church, and my Lord the Pope
Innocent and his successors, following in Catholic manner. I
will not be party in deed, word, consent, or counsel, to their
losing life or limb, or being unjustly imprisoned. Their damage,

if I am aware of it, I will
prevent, and will have removed if I
can or else, as soon as I can, I will signify it, or will tell such
;
persons as I shall believe will tell them certainly. Any counsel

they entrust to me, immediately or by their messengers or their
keep secret, and will consciously disclose to no one
letter, I will
to theirdamage. The Patrimony of Blessed Peter, and specially
the realm of England and the realm of Ireland, I will aid to hold
and defend against all men to my ability. So help me God,
and these Holy Gospels/ 2
But though the King had thus ignominiously humbled
himself before the Pope, he could not at once get the removal
of the Papal excommunication. He had to wait until the
Prelates whom he had banished returned to England about
the middle of the following July. John met them at
1
Wendovor s Flowers of Hi-story, vol. ii. pp. 2(58, 2(59.
lloger of
-
Gee and Hardy s Document Illustrative of English Church History,
1
?
p. 76.
THE POPE DEMANDS MONEY 25
Winchester. Roger of Wendover says that when he saw "
the Archbishop [Langton] and Bishops, he prostrated him

self and besought them in tears to have com
at their feet,
passion on him and the Kingdom of England. The said
Archbishop and Bishops, seeing the King s great humility,
raised him from the ground, and taking him by the hand
on each side, they led him to the door of the Cathedral
Church, where they chanted the fiftieth Psalm, and, in
the presence of all the Nobles, who wept with joy, they ab
solved him according to the custom of the Church." l But
even this was not enough humiliation for the miserable
King, who was also compelled, for a second time, to swear
to the Oath of Fealty to the Pope. At the end of the
following September, King John was, in St. Paul s Cathedral,
London, for a third time compelled to swear, as his vassal,
allegiance to the Pope. On this occasion the Charter by

which the Crown had been transferred to the Pope, which
had been sealed with wax, was stamped with gold, and
delivered to the new Legate, Nicholas, Bishop of Tusculum,
by whom it was taken to the Pope. Probably it is still
retained at Rome amongst the Papal Archives. But even yet
the Interdict on England was not removed. Something more
than grovelling humiliation was required from John, before it
was taken off the Kingdom. That something was money. In
a letter the Pope wrote thus to his Legate on this subject :
"
Let the aforesaid King," wrote Innocent,

"
pay to
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishops of London
and Ely, or to others whom they may appoint to receive
it, so much money as, when added to what the King has
already paid to us, shall amount to the sum of 40,000

marks on the payment of which l)y him, and his giving the
;
undermentioned security, do you immediately withdraw the

sentence of Interdict, doing away with all appeal or gain
saying. And after this he must pay 12,000 marks yearly, at

two fixed periods, namely, 6000 marks on the commemora
tion of All Saints, and the same number at the feast of our
Lord s Ascension, until the whole amount be paid." 2
1
Roger of Wemlover s Flowers of History, vol. ii.
p. 273.
2
Ibid., vol. ii.
p. 295.
CHAPTER III
JOHN HENRY III.
Matthew Paris on the Detestable Extortions of the Pope The King of Scot
land Strong Speech to a Papal Legate The Roman Court termed
s a "
common Brazen-faced Strumpet The Nobles of England protest

"
against Papal Extortions English Ambassadors at a General Council

Their Complaints of the Oppressions of the Papal Court The English
Parliament s Statement of Papal Oppressions The King s Interview
with the Pope s Agent in England English Bishops refuse the demands
of a Papal Envoy The Bishops of London and Worcester refuse to
submit to Papal Slavery The Barons compel Foreign Ecclesiastics to
flee from England.
THE English people had good reasons for their dread of

Papal Legates. When the power of these emissaries of the
Pope was at its height, in the reigns of King John and
Henry III., the country had cause for many bitter com
plaints. At his Coronation Henry III. did homage to the
Pope for the Kingdoms of England and Ireland, and swore
that so long as he held those Kingdoms, lie would faithfully
pay the 1000 marks of tribute money, which his father,
King John, had promised. Matthew Paris has many a
sorrowful tale to the extortions of Popes, by means
tell of
of their Legates. One of these was Cardinal Otto. He
arrived in England in 1225, and finally left the country in
1240. During his residence England groaned under his
extortions. To help him in his evil work, Otto had with him
one Peter le Rouge, whom Matthew Paris terms
"
his ally."
Of him the historian, in a section headed The Detestable :
"
Extortion of Money by the Pope," writes :
A novel and execrable method of extortion, hitherto

"
unheard of, sprung up at this time in England for our ;
Holy Father, the Pope, sent an extortioner named Peter le
Rouge, into England, who was skilled to extort money by

the most exquisite devices from the wretched English.
He went to the Chapters of the Religious men, compelling
26
THE ABBOTS AND PAPAL EXTORTION 27
and seducing them money, and to pay it when

to promise
promised, who he lyingly asserted
like the other Prelates,
had paid it willingly. For, said he, such and such a
Bishop, and such and such an Abbot, has already willingly
satisfied my demands, and why do you thus icily delay, so as
to lose your thanks and recompense. This said impostor
also made them swear that they would not make known to
any person, within the period of half a year, the method of
extorting money which he had practised. In doing this

he followed the plan of robbers of houses, who extort a
promise from the plundered partj^ not to reveal the names
of their plunderers to any one but although men should be
;
silent, the stones of the Churches would raise a cry against

their despoilers, nor could this wicked action be kept in
darkness for how could the Prelates exact money from
;
those subject to them, unless the reason of the demand were

told ? The Abbots therefore went to the King, with
mournful and dejected countenances, saying :
Your Majesty
"
We are beaten, and are not allowed

!
to exclaim against it our throats are cut, and we cannot

;
cry out impossibilities are enjoined on us by the Pope,

;
and a detestable extortion is practised on the whole world.

We hold our Baronies from you, and cannot impoverish
them without prejudice to you, and we cannot answer
to you for what is incumbent upon us for them, and at the
same time satisfy the unceasing extortions of the Pope.
For in this way some new and reiterated oppression devised
by the Romans is always unexpectedly rising against us,
which does not allow us to breathe freely even for a little
time. We, therefore, run to the
asylum of your counsels,
and to your protecting bosom, and demand your advice and
"
l
assistance in this state of desolation.
Alas
they appealed to their King (Henry III.) in vain
! !
He only scowled on them for their pains. But what else

could be expected from one who had submitted to the
degradation of holding his Crown as the fief of the Pope ?
A very bond-slave of the Papacy, he had no care for the
1
Matthew Paris English History, vol. i.
pp. 280, :2SJ, Bohn Library
edition.
miseries of his people, whether they were Bishops, priests,
or laymen, so long as the interests of his superior Lord and
Master, the Pope, were at stake.
In the year 1237 the Legate Otto was present at a meet
ing of the Peers in York, at which also the King of Scotland
was present, for the purpose of taking part in a discussion
on Scottish affairs. While there Otto told him that he
intended paying a visit to Scotland, for the purpose of
arranging ecclesiastical affairs there, as he had done in
England. He must have been very much surprised at the
King of Scotland s answer. He said that :
He never remembered a Legate called into his Kingdom,

"
and he thanked God there was no need for any now for ;
neither his father nor any of his ancestors had suffered any
to enter, and as long as he was in his senses he should also
hinder it. Nevertheless, because you have the character
of a very holy man, I will give you this advice. If ever
you enter my Kingdom do it very cautiously, lest any

misfortune happen to you. A great many fierce and savage
men inhabit there, that thirst after human blood, which I
myself cannot tame, and if they set once upon you I cannot
prevent them from doing you a mischief. It is not long
since, as you may have heard, that they invaded me, and
had like to have drove me from my native Kingdom." l
Otto very wisely took the King s advice, and, through
fear of what might follow, abstained from entering Scotland.
In describing the departure of this Papal Legate from the
shores of England, Matthew Paris writes :
On the day after the Epiphany, the Legate [Otto],

"
after receiving an embrace and kisses from the King, took
ship at Dover, and, laying aside the insigna of his Legate-

ship, turned his back on England, leaving no one except the
King, and those whom he had fattened on the property of
the Kingdom, to lament his departure. And at that time
(as was truly stated) there was not left in England so much
money (with the exception of the vessels and ornaments of
the holy Churches) as he, the said Legate, had extorted
from the Kingdom. He had, moreover, given away at his
1
The Parliamentary History of England, vol. i.
pp. 35, 36 (London, 1751).
ROME "A BRAZEN-FACED STRUMPET 29
own will, or at that of the Pope, Prebends, Churches, and

more than three hundred rich revenues, owing to which the
Kingdom was like a vineyard exposed to every passer-by,
and which the wild boar of the woods had laid waste, and
languished in a miserable state of desolation. He left the
Church of Canterbury, which was the most noble of all the
English Churches, in a state of inquietude and languishing
in widowhood, as well as many other Cathedral and Con
ventual Churches destitute of all comfort and consolation.
And he had not strengthened any of the weaker parts of
the country, as was proved by clear evidence, because he
was sent, not to protect the sheep which were lost, but to
gather in the harvest of money which he had found."
l
About this time, either with the permission or by the

"
instrumentality of Pope Gregory, the insatiable cupidity of

the Roman Court grew to such an extent, confounding right
with wrong, that, like a common brazen-faced strumpet,
exposed for hire to every one, it considered usury as but a
trivial offence, and simony as no crime at all so that it
;
infected other neighbouring States, and even the purity of

2
England, by its contagion."
The Nobles of England were at this time justly indignant
at the extortions and aggressions of the Papacy, mainly
through their Legates. They, in 1231, made known (under
the leadership of Simon Montfort, Earl of Leicester) to the
Bishops and other ecclesiastical dignities of England, their
views on the subject. And this was their complaint, as
reported by Foxe :
To such and such a Bishop, and such a Chapter, all the

university and company of them, that would rather die than be
confounded of the Romans, wisheth health.
How the Romans and their Legates have hitherto behaved
"
themselves towards you and other ecclesiastical persons of this

realm of England, it is not unknown to your discretions, in dis
posing and giving away the benefices of the realm after their own
lust, to the intolerable prejudice and grievance both of you and
all other
Englishmen. For whereas, the collation of benefices
should and doth properly belong to you and other your fellow
Bishops (ecclesiastical persons), they, thundering against you
1
Matthew Paris English History, vol. i. p. 319. 2
Ibid., p. 332.
the sentence of excommunication, ordain that you should not
bestow them upon any person of this realm, until in every diocese
and Cathedral Church within the realm, five Romans (such as
the Pope shall name) be provided for, to the value of, every man,
100 a year. Besides these, many other grievances the said
Romanists do inflict and infer, both to the laity and nobles
of the realm, for the patronages and alms bestowed by them
and their ancestors, for the sustentation of the poor of the realm,
and also to the clergy and ecclesiastical persons of the realm,
touching their livings and benefices. And yet the said Romanists,
not contented with the premises, do also take from the clergy of
this realm the benefices which they have, to bestow them on
men own country.
of their
"
Wherefore, we, considering the rigorous austerity of these

aforesaid Romanists, who, once coming in but as strangers
hither, now take upon them not only to judge, but also to con
demn us, laying upon us unsupportable burdens, whereunto
they will not put one of their own fingers to move. And laying
our heads together upon a general and full advice had among
ourselves concerning the same have thought good (although
;
very late) to resist or withstand them, rather than to be subject

to their intolerable oppressions, and to the still greater slavery
hereafter to be looked for. For which cause we straitly charge
and command you, as your friends going about to deliver you,
the Church, the King, and the Kingdom, from that miserable
yoke of servitude, that you do not intermeddle or take any
part concerning such exactions or rents to be required or given to
the said Romans. Letting you understand for truth, that in
case you shall (which God forbid) be found culpable herein, not
only your goods and possessions shall be in danger of burning,
but you, also, in your persons, shall incur the same peril arid
punishment as shall the said Romish oppressors themselves.
l
Thus fare ye well."
About four years after the departure from England of

the Legate Otto, the Pope sent another Legate, one Master
Martin, who seems to have been even a greater curse than
his predecessor. Matthew Paris has a great deal to say
about this man s extortions. I think I cannot do better
than to tell the story of his misdoings in his words. He
writes, under date 1244 :
"
About the same time, the newly elected Pope sent a

new extortioner of money into England, namely Master
1
Foxe s Acts and Monuments, vol. ii. pp. 363, 3G4.
ENGLISH PROTEST AT COUNCIL OF LYONS 31
Martin, carrying a letter of authority from the Pope, and

empowered to excommunicate, suspend, and in many ways
to punish those who opposed his wishes. Strengthened
with which power, he suspended the English Prelates, so
that they could not derive any benefit from their benefices
till they had satisfied the cravings of the Pope, who extorted
their revenues for his clerks or relations. But he deemed it

unworthy to receive any sum unless it amounted to thirty
marks or more, lest so great a man might seem to be careful
about trifles. The said Master Martin therefore began
imperiously to demand of, and extort from, Prelates, and
expecially the Religious, gifts, chiefly magnificent palfreys,
strictly enjoining in his letters such an Abbot, or such a
Prior, to send him horses as would be fit for a special clerk
of the Pope Those who opposed and made
to ride on.
excuses, and put forth causes for non-compliance, even
reasonable causes (as, for example, the Abbot of Malmsbury
and the Prior of Merton) were suspended and heavily
punished to his full satisfaction. For this careful Inquisitor
turned his eyes upon all the vacant Churches and Prebendal
stalls, that he might with them supply the open demands of
l
the Papal wants."
About two years after the arrival of Master Martin a

General Council was held, by Pope Innocent IV., at Lyons,
at which the English uttered loud complaints against his
extortions. At this Council three English Ambassadors,
viz. Hugo Bigod, William de Chanteloup, and Philip Basset,
were present, and in the name of the whole community
of the protested against Papal extortions by means
Kingdom
of Legatesand other agents of the Pope. They stated that
by these means more than 60,000 silver marks had been
carried out of the Kingdom of England, that even this large
sum had not satisfied the greed of the Legate, Master Martin ;
and that,
generally, The most insupportable exactions
"
were made by the Legates, Nuncios, and other Ministers,

whom the Pope sent into England." To this complaint
the Pope refused to give any answer whatever. Then one
1
Matthew Paris English History, vol. i.
p. 479.
2
Landon s Manual of Councils, vol. i. pp. 350, 351.
Master William de Poweric, on behalf of the whole community
of England, gave to the Pope a written and lengthy account
of the manifold extortions of the Roman Court in England.
It stated that the people of England loved the Roman Church
with their whole hearts, and had shown that love by the
payment of Peter s Pence, and in many other ways but it ;
then went on to describe the evils which had been inflicted

on the people of England.
" "
It is not/
proceeded, without great annoyance and in
it
tolerable injury to us, that the aforesaid Religious men should

be in any way defrauded of their rights of patronage and colla
tion to Churches. But now by you [the Pope] and your pre
decessors, having no consideration, besides the aforesaid supplies,
Italians (of whom there is an almost endless number) are now
enriched on the Churches belonging to the patronage of those
very Religious men, who are called the Rectors of Churches,
thus leaving those whom they ought to defend entirely unpro
tected, giving no care to the souls of the people, but allowing
these most rapacious wolves to disperse the flock, and carry off
the sheep. Hence they can say with truth, that these persons
are not good shepherds, as they do not know their sheep, neither
have the sheep any knowledge of the shepherd. They do not
of alms enjoined on the
practice hospitality or the bestowal
Church, but they only receive the fruits to carry them out of
the Kingdom, impoverishing it in no slight degree, by possessing
themselves of its revenues, by which our brothers, nephews,
and other relations, well-deserving men of the said Kingdom,
ought to be benefited. But in order that the truth may
. . .
be known to you, these Italians, receiving 60,000 marks and

more annually in England, besides divers other receipts, carry
of! more clear gain in revenues from the Kingdom than the King
himself, who is the Protector of the Church, and holds the reins
of government in the Kingdom.
We cannot, however, pass over in silence our own oppres
"
sions ;
for we are not only injured, bat oppressed
beyond measure.
In the Master Martin, who lately came into the
first place,
Kingdom, without the King s permission, invested with greater
powers than we ever remember any Legate asked for by the King
to have had before (although not possessed of the insignia of
the Legateship, yet performing the manifold duties of that
office), is daily putting
forth new and hitherto unheard-of powers
and, in his excess of power, is continually making encroachments.
He has bestowed some vacant benefices, with thirty marks and
PAPAL EXTORTIONS IN ENGLAND 33
more, annually, on some Italians and when they die, otherg

;
will be appointed in their places, without the knowledge of the

Patrons and thus are the latter cheated of their right of gift.
;
Even more, also, does the said Master Martin attempt to assign
similar benefices, when they happen to be vacant, to divers
persons and reserves to the Apostolic See the right of gift of
;
some ; and, moreover, extorts immoderate pensions from

Keligious men, pronouncing sentences of excommunication and
interdict in all directions against gainsayers and opposers, to
the great risk and peril of their souls. Inasmuch, therefore, as
the said Master Martin, to the great disturbance of the whole
Kingdom, exercises the said jurisdiction, which we cannot believe
to have emanated from you knowingly, because he discharges
higher duties than we ever remember a Legate to have dis
charged before, which greatly detracts from the privilege especially
granted to his Majesty the King, by the Apostolic See, by which
it is decreed that no one shall fill the office of
Legate in England,
unless especially asked for by the King we therefore, with all
;
possible humility and devotion, beg of Your Holiness, inasmuch

as the affectionate father is bound to extend the hand of com
passion to relieve the oppression of the children, by an effectual
and seasonable assistance, soon to relieve us, in your paternal
kindness, from the above-mentioned injuries and oppressions/
l
But those who protested got neither paternal kindness

nor assistance from the Pope, who was too busy preparing
to excommunicate the Emperor to attend to complaints
from Englishmen. Yet these complaints may serve to
show us, in this twentieth century, how greatly our Roman
Catholic forefathers suffered from Papal extortions, and the
reasons they had for, from time to time, passing laws im
posing disabilities upon the exercise of Papal Supremacy.
Papal Legates were never popular in England but the ;
complaints of the people to the Pope only led to his imposing

additional burdens. Later on, in the year 1246, a statement
of grievances was presented to, and adopted by, the
English
Parliament, in which it was affirmed that :
The Kingdom oppressed, because the Pope is not

is
content with the supply, which is called Peter s Pence, but

extorts a heavy contribution from the whole of the clergy
of England, and is still
endeavouring to practise still
1
Matthew Paris English History, vol. ii. pp. 7-4-7G.
C
greater extortions, and this he does without the assent or
consent of the King, contrary to the ancient customs,
and rights of the Kingdom, and in
liberties, spite of the
appeal and opposition made by the proctors of the King
and Kingdom at the General Council.
"
Item, the Church, as well as the Kingdom, is oppressed

because the patrons of the Churches have not the power to
present fitting Clerks to them when vacant, which the Pope,
by his letters, granted to them but the Churches are ;
given to the Romans, who are entirely ignorant of the proper

language of the Kingdom, to the peril of the people s souls,
and who carry money out of the Kingdom, thereby im
poverishing it beyond measure.
Item, it is oppressed by the provisions made by the
:
Pope in exacting pensions contrary to the tenor of his

letters, in which is contained a statement that, out of all
the reservations made in England, he only intended to confer
twelve, benefices, after the writing of the said letters but ;
we believe that a great many more benefices were given

away, and provisions made by him afterwards.
:
oppressed, because Italian succeeds Italian,

Item, it is
and because the English are, by the Apostolic authority,

dragged out of the Kingdom in their causes, contrary to the
customs of the Kingdom, contra-ry to the written laws." 1
Soon after the Council of Lyons, a number of Knights
and other influential laymen entered into a conspiracy to
force Master Martin, the Legate, to leave the country. In
this, to the great joy of the nation, they succeeded. Matthew
Paris tells the interesting story of how it was done, under
date 1245 :
About this time, the King having prohibited some

"
tournaments from being held by some persons assembled

at Luton and Duns table, whose designs were malicious, on
account, as he said, of their danger, Fulk Fitz Warren, on
behalf of the community of the Kingdom, was sent, on the
morrow of the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, to Master
Martin, the oft-mentioned Pope s clerk, who was staying
at the New Temple at London. On coming into his presence,
1
Matthew Paris English History, vol. ii.
p. 149.
the said Fulk, eyeing the clerk with a frowning brow, thus
addressed him :
Depart, and leave England immediately.

Master Martin then asked him
"
" *
Who orders me to do so ? Do you do this on your
own authority ?
"
To which Fulk replied

"
You are ordered to do so, through me, by the com

munity of armed Knights, who lately met at Luton and
Dunstable and if you listen to prudent counsel, you will
;
not stay here till the third day from this time, lest you and
all your companions be cut in pieces.
On the said Fulk s departing in anger, after heaping

"
threat upon threat with a terrible oath, Master Martin

immediately went, breathless with alarm, to the King, and
said to him
*
lord, I have just heard such and such things

"
My is ;
this done by your authority, or is it by the audacity of your

subjects ?
"
To this the King replied

"
am
not the author of this proceeding
I declare that I ;
but my Barons can scarcely restrain themselves from rising

against me, because I have hitherto tolerated the depreda
tions and injuries committed by you in this Kingdom on
them, and which exceed all measure and justice and with ;
difficulty have I hitherto prevented them in their fury from

attacking you, and tearing you limb from limb.
"With a trembling and low voice Master Martin then said
" *
I, therefore, ask your Majesty, out of your love to

God and reverence for the Pope, to allow me a free exit,
and to permit me to depart in safety under your conduct.
"
To which request the King, who was much excited,

and provoked to anger, replied
May the Devil take you, and carry you to Hell, and
through it.
"
When the Nobles, who sat round, had appeased the

King anger, he ordered Robert Norris, Seneschal of his
s
Palace, to conduct Master Martin in safety to the sea coast."

l
1
Matthew Paris English History, vol. ii.
p. 50.
In this same year the Pope issued a decree that the
property of every English priest who died intestate, should
be sent to him for his own. use He also ordered that
!
every beneficed priest should give one- third of his property

to the Pope, and if he were non-resident he should give him
one-half of it No wonder the priests were indignant at
!
what was, in reality, nothing better than downright robbery.

Of course the Popes found their Legates very useful in
collecting the money out of which the people of England
were swindled.
Two
years after the Council of Lyons, even greater
Papal extortions were practised on the English. Matthew
Paris tells us that The oppressions devised in manifold
:
"
ways, which flowed forth from the Roman Court on wretched

England, were daily increased and multiplied. Besides the
oppression and unusual slavery, owing to the suspension of
Prelates from the collation of benefices until the Roman
avarice was satisfied, and against which their petty King
in his pusillanimity did not cry out, detestable swarms of
new oppressions daily shot
forth."
l
Holinshed says that :
"
By enquiry taken about this time by the diligence of the

Bishop of Lincoln, it was found that the yearly profits and
revenues of spiritual promotions and livings resting in
strangers [i.e. foreigners] hands, preferred by the Pope s
Provisions, amounted to the sum of threescore and ten
thousand Marks, which was more by two third parts than the
2
King s revenues belonging to his Crown."
The next Papal Legate, or Nuncio, sent to England,
with whose proceedings we need to trouble ourselves, was
Master Rustand, a Gascon by birth, who arrived in 1255.
Like so many of his predecessors, he came for the special pur
pose of extorting more money for the use of the Pope. He was
by no means welcome to either Bishops, priests, or laymen ;
but he cared very little for this, so long as the King of Eng
land,Henry III., took his part. He was authorised by the
Pope to borrow large sums of money from moneylenders,
and to pledge the property of the Church of England as
1
Matthew Paris English History, vol. ii. p. 280.
2
Holinshed s Chronicles, vol. ii.
p. 427.
security, well knowing, of course, that this property was not

his to pledge. The money so borrowed was to be sent to
the Pope, to pay the expenses of a war which he had on
hand against Manfred, the son of the excommunicated
Emperor Frederick. At first but little success rewarded
the efforts of Rustand to collect money for the Papal
Treasury. At last he summoned all the Prelates of the
Church of England to meet him in London, on October 13,
1255. A modern Roman Catholic writer thus relates the
results of this meeting :
In the assembly, after the reading and examination of

"
his powers, the Nuncio told them what he desired, which

was in fact so large a sum of money, that for ever after the
English Church, and for that matter the whole Kingdom,
would have been hopelessly impoverished. As an example
of these desired impositions, the chronicler mentions that
the Monks of St. Albans alone were to furnish 600 marks
for the Pope s use, which they could do only by borrowing on
usurious conditions, especially as Rustand and the Bishop
of Hereford desired to shorten the term allowed for payment.
Against this, some of the Bishops stood firmly opposed it ;
was a subversion of the liberty of the Church, they declared,

and rather than contribute, they would prefer to die like
St. Thomas
protect the interests of their Sees. The
to
Archbishop of Canterbury was away, the Archbishop of
York had given in, the elect of Winchester was suspect in
his intentions, and the Bishop of Hereford was plainly
and openly for Rustand and his exactions. After some days
discussion, the majority of the Prelates followed the lead of
the Bishop of London, and refusing the demands of the
1
Papal Envoy, appealed for protection to the Pope himself."
Matthew Paris states that at this meeting of Prelates,
the Bishop of London said
"
Before I will give my consent:
for the Church to be subjected to such an injurious state of
slavery, I will cut off my head and free myself from this
and the Bishop of Worcester
"
intolerable oppression ;
loudly exclaimed "As for me, before the Holy Church

:
shall submit to such a ruinous imposition, I will condemn

1
Henry the Third and the Church, by Abbot Gasquet, D.D., p. 357.
myself to be Lung."
1
Rustand left England in 1257.
Two years later the English nobles got sick and tired of
In those days," writes Matthew Paris,
"
Papal Legates.
the Romans and their Legates lorded it in England,
"
causing much injury to laymen as well as ecclesiastics in

the matter of the advowsons of Churches, providing their
own friends with rich vacant benefices at pleasure, setting
themselves up in opposition to Bishops, Abbots, and other
religious men, and involving them in the sentence of ex
communication. The Nobles, in consequence, indignant at
such acts of pride, bestirred themselves, late though it was,
to apply a remedy, and compelled the foreigners to fly the
Kingdom. They did not, indeed, drive them all away, but
took especial care to banish the Poitevins." 2 By this action
of the Barons England was undisturbed by Roman ex
tortioners for some jêars.
There can be no doubt that on the whole the Barons
War was in defence of the rights of Englishmen.
"
We are
indebted to the Barons of Henry III.," writes Mr. Green
"
wood, for a virtual, if not a legislative, recognition of

that popular element, which, if it did not wholly repress, at
least imposed some check upon the irregularities of Govern
ments, and in particular upon the extortions of Papal
agents and collectors which rendered the reign of Henry III.
3
a byword of contempt and reprobation to all ages."
1
Matthew Paris English History, vol. iii. p. 146.
2
Ibid., vol. iii. p. 332.
3
Greenwood s Cathedra Petri, book xiv. p. 194.
CHAPTER IV
EDWARD I. EDWARD III.
Dispute between Edward I. and the Bishops The Pope forbids all Ecclesi
Pay Taxes Text of the Papal Bull Clcricis Laicos Archbishop
astics to
Winchelsey s Speech on the Subject The Lord Chief Justice sentences

Bishops and Clergy to Outlawry Pope Boniface VIII. claims the King
dom of Scotland The Reply of the English Peers Edward I. denies
the Pope s Claims Pope Urban V. claims the Suzerainty of England
Parliament Repudiates his Claim Other occasions on which the Popes
have made the same Claim A newLaw forbidding the Payment of Taxes
to the Pope Text of this Law Sir Edward Coke on English Laws
against Papal Claims.
IN the year 1296 a heated dispute arose between the King

and the Bishops and clergy of England. The King was
greatly in need of money to carry on his war against his
enemies. The laity of all classes gladly contributed a
proportion of their incomes to supply his wants, but the
Bishops and clergy point-blank refused to contribute any
thing, on the plea that Church property and ecclesiastics
could not be taxed by the King for any purpose whatever.
The Archbishop of Canterbury was the leader of this modified
form of rebellion, to which, of course, the King very properly
refused to submit, considering that all property whether
ecclesiastical or lay should contribute its just proportion
towards the expenses of the Kingdom. But the Arch
bishop and clergy pleaded that they had just received a
Bull from the Pope, Boniface VIII., forbidding them to do
anything of the kind. The Bull had been published in
England by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is known by
its title Clericis Laicos, and was addressed to the Church of
Rome at large, and not to England only. As the principles

enunciated in this Bull are still those of the Church of Rome
in the present day, I quote it here in full, as a proof of the
need there is to place disabilities on Papal claims :
"
Boniface, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, for the

perpetual memory of the matter. That laymen have been very
hostile to clerks antiquity relates, which too the experiences of
the present times manifestly declare, whilst not content with
their own bounds they strive for the forbidden and loose the
reins for things unlawful. Nor do they prudently consider how
power over clerks or ecclesiastical persons or goods is forbidden,
them : they impose heavy burdens on the Prelates of the Churches
and ecclesiastical persons Regular and Secular, and tax them,
and impose collections they exact and demand from the same
:
the half, tithe, or twentieth, or other portion or proportion

any
of their revenues or goods and in many ways they essay to
;
bringthem under slavery, and subject them to their authority.

And, as we sadly relate, some Prelates of the Churches and
ecclesiastical persons, alarmed where there should be no alarm,
seeking transient peace, fearing more to offend the temporal
Majesty than the eternal, acquiesce in such abuses, not so much
rashly as improvidently, authority or licence of the Apostolic
See not having been obtained. We therefore, desirous of pre
venting such wicked actions, do, with Apostolic authority,
decree, with the advice of our brethren, that whatsoever Pre
lates and ecclesiastical persons, Religious or Secular, of whatso
ever orders, condition or standing, shall pay or promise or agree
to pay to lay persons collections or taxes for the tithe, twentieth,
or hundredth of their own rents, or goods, or those of the Churches,
or any other portion, proportion, or quantity of the same rents,
or goods, at their own estimate or value, under the name of aid,
loan, relief, subsidy, or gift, or by any other title, manner, or
pretext demanded, without the authority of the same See.
And also whatsoever Emperors, Kings, or Princes, Dukes,
"
Earls, or Barons, powers, captains, or officials, or rectors, by what

soever names they are reputed, of cities, castles, or any places
whatsoever, wheresoever situate, and all others of whatsoever
rank, pre-eminence or state, who shall impose, exact, or receive
the things aforesaid, or arrest, seize, or presume to occupy
things anywhere deposited in holy buildings, or to command
them to be arrested, seized, or occupied, or receive them when
occupied, seized, or arrested, and also all who knowingly give
aid, counsel, or favour openly or secretly, in the things afore
said, by this same should incur sentence of excommunication.
Universities, too, which may have been to blame in these matters,
we subject to ecclesiastical interdict.
The Prelates and ecclesiastical persons above-mentioned
"
we strictly command, in virtue of their obedience, and under

pain of deposition, that they in no wise acquiesce in such things
CLERICAL IMMUNITY 41
without express licence of the said See, and that they pay nothing
under pretext of any obligation, promise, and acknowledgment
whatsoever, made so far, or in progress heretofore, and before
such constitution, prohibition, or order come to their notice,
and that the Seculars aforesaid do not in any wise receive it,
and if they do pay, or the aforesaid receive, let them fall under
sentence of excommunication by the very deed.
"
Moreover, let no one be absolved from the aforesaid sentences

of excommunications and interdict, save at the moment of
death, without authority and special licence of the Apostolic See,
inasmuch as it is part of our intention that such a terrible abuse
of secular powers should not in anywise pass under dissimula
tion, any privileges whatsoever notwithstanding, in whatsoever
tenors, forms, or modes, or arrangement of words, conceded to
Emperors, Kings, and the others aforesaid; against which premises
aforesaid we will that aid be given by no one, and by no persons
in any respect.
"
it then be lawful to none at all to

Let infringe this page of
our constitution, prohibition, or order, or to gainsay it by any
rash attempt and if any one presume to attempt this, let him
;
know that he will incur the indignation of Almighty God, and

of His blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
Given at Rome in St. Peter s on the 24th of February in
"
the second year of our Pontificate/ 1
Whether King Edward I. had, in this particular instance,

a just cause for demanding aid from his people is now but a
matter of secondary importance but it is certain that he ;
had as good a right to aid from the clergy as from the

laity. The Church at that time was immensely rich, and
could well afford financial assistance. But the principles
laid down by the Bull of Boniface VIII. were far-reaching,
and forbade the laity, whether Kings or Parliaments, to
impose any tax whatever on either the clergy or Church
property, without the consent of the Pope being first had
and obtained. It would have been very foolish of the King
to tamely submit to such Papal demands. He brought
the subject forward at a Parliament, which met at Bury
St. Edmund s, on November
3, 1296, at which the laity
agreed to tax themselves for the expenses of the King s

war with France, but the clergy refused to pay a penny.
1
Gee and Hardy s Documents Illustrative of English Church History,
pp. 87-89.
The answer they returned That they to the King was :
"
could neither give nor grant, neither could the King receive
any subsidy from them, without both incurring a sentence
of excommunication, which was included in the Pope s
Bull to that purpose." l Such an answer as this naturally
displeased the King, who, however, before resorting to
extreme measures, gave the clergy another chance. They
met again at St. Paul s, London, on the 14th of the following
January, and were addressed by Archbishop Winchelsey
in the following terms :
very well known to you and all the

"
My
Lords, It is
world, that under the Almighty God we have both a spiritual

Lord and a temporal one. The spiritual Lord is our Holy
Father, the Pope, and the temporal Lord, the King. And
though we owe them both obedience, yet we are under more
subjection to the spiritual. But to do all that is in our power
to please both, we are willing to send special messengers to
our Holy Father the Pope, at our own expense, to desire
that he would grant us leave to oblige the King in this
matter or, at least, we shall have an answer from him what
;
we ought to 2
do."
The clergy agreed with the Archbishop s view of their

duty in this matter ; but, of course, their decision added to
the indignation of the King. He determined, thereupon,
to appeal to the judges, and with the result that the Lord
Chief Justice of the King s Bench sentenced to outlawry
all the Bishops and clergy who refused to pay the subsidy,
in these terms You that are the proctors or attornies for
:
*
the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, and Priors, with the

rest of the clergy, take notice to acquaint all your masters
that, for the future, no manner of justice shall be done
them in any of the King s Courts, on any cause whatsoever ;
but justice shall be had against them to every one that will
complain and require it of
3
The result of such a us."
sentence soon brought the clergy to make a compromise

with the King, by which some of them gave to the King
the value of one-fifth of their goods, while the Archbishop
1
Parliamentary History, "
vol. i. p. 102, edition 1751.
2 3
Ibid., vol. i.
p. 108. Ibid.
THE POPE CLAIMS SCOTLAND 43
recovered the King s favour by agreeing to give him one-

Thus," remarks Rapin,
"
fourth of the value of his goods.

the clergy when they meet with vigorous Princes, are as
"
submissive, as they are haughty, when they have to deal

with those that are scrupulous and weak." l
In the year 1301, Pope Boniface VIII. again attempted
to interfere with the temporal affairs of the King of England.
At that time Edward I. had asserted in an emphatic manner
his claims as suzerain of the Kingdom of Scotland, and tried
to enforce the claim by an invasion of the latter Kingdom.
When this came to the knowledge of the Pope his pride and
anger were both aroused. Boniface asserted that he was
the real ruler of Scotland, in temporals as well as spirituals,
and not either the King of England or anybody else. So
for the purpose of enforcing his claim the Pope wrote to
Edward I. a long letter, which is printed in full by Matthew
of Westminster. 2
In this document he asserted that from ancient times
"
the Kingdom of Scotland has of full right belonged, and is

still well known to belong, to the aforesaid Church [of Rome] ;
and that as we have received it, it has never been under any
feudal subjection to your ancestors, the Kings of England,
nor is it so now." The Pope sent this letter to the King
through the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to
whom he also wrote a letter, commanding him to en
"
courage and persuade

"
the King to submit to the Papal

demands. The Archbishop was willing enough to do as
the Pope wished. At that time the King was in Scotland,
and the Archbishop found it necessary to make a long and
dangerous journey thither, for the purpose of personally
delivering the Pontifical letter. It is said that on reading
it the of burst into furious wrath, and with
King England
a great oath exclaimed not be silent or at rest,
: "I will
either for Mount Jerusalem but as long as
Zioii or for ;
there is breath in my nostrils, will defend what all the

world knows to be my right." 3 But calmer thoughts pre-
1
Rapines History of England, vol. iii. p. 2 .)(J.
2
Matthew of Westminster s Flowers of History, vol. ii.
pp. 539-S43, Bohn
Library edition.
3
Tytler s History of Scotland, vol. i.
p. 71, edition 1864.
vailed before he gave his reply to the Archbishop, to whom
he said that before answering the Pope he must first of all
consult with the Nobles and other leading men in England.
Shortly afterwards a Parliament met at Lincoln, and con
sidered, by request of the King, the demands of the Pope.
As a result, 100 Earls and Barons signed a united remon
strance against the Papal claim, and sent it to the Pope,
refusing utterly to submit to his demands, not only as to

Scotland, but as to the other possessions of the King of
England :
"
We
know, most holy Father/ they said,
"
and it is
notorious in the parts of England, and not unknown in some
others, that, from the first foundation of the Realm of England,
the Kings of that Realm, as well in the times of the Britons as
of the English, have had the superior and direct overlordship
of the Realm of Scotland, and have been, at successive times,
in possession even as it were of the Suzerainty and direct
Lordship of the said Realm of Scotland. Neither at any times

did the said Realm, in its temporalities, pertain, nor does it
pertain by any manner of right, to the Church abovesaid [of
Rome]. Yea, more, the said Realm of Scotland pertained to
the progenitors of our aforesaid Lord, Kings of England, and
was their fief of old time. Neither also were the Kings of the
Scots, and the Realm, subordinate nor wont to be subject to
others, but to the Kings of England.
"
Neither did the Kings of England answer, nor ought they

to answer, concerning their rights in the aforesaid Kingdom,
or other their temporalities, before any judge, ecclesiastical or
secular,by reason of the pre-eminence of the estate of their Royal
dignity and custom, unbrokenly preserved at all times. Where
fore, having held discourse, and diligent deliberation being had
concerning the things in your said letters contained, the common
consenting and unanimous agreement of all and singular has
been, is, and for the future, God willing, will be steadfastly
observed that our aforesaid Lord the King, for the rights of
:
his Kingdom of Scotland, or other his temporalities, shall in no

wise answer judicially before you, nor undergo judgment in any
matter whatsoever, nor bring into doubtful questioning his
rights aforesaid. Neither shall he send into your presence
Proctors or Nuncios for that purpose, especially where the pre
mises should manifestly tend to the disherison of the right of
the Crown of the Kingdom of England, and of the Royal dignity,
THE BARONS REPUDIATE PAPAL CLAIMS 45
and the subversion of the estate of the same Kingdom, and also
to the prejudice of liberties, customs, and paternal laws, to the
observance and defence whereof we are bound by the due per
formance of our oath taken, and which we will maintain with
all our power, and will defend with all our strength, by God s
help.
Neither do we permit, nor in any way will we permit, as
"
we neither can nor ought, that our aforementioned Lord, the King,
even if he should wish it, should do, or in anywise attempt the
premises so unusual, undutiful, prejudicial, and otherwise
l
unheard of."
It was thus that the English Nobles, on behalf of the

English nation, rejected Papal temporal the claim to
dominion, and in courteous yet decided terms told the Pope
to mind his own and to refrain from trying to
business,
dishonestly obtain possession of other people s rights.
Edward I. was as firm in dealing with the question as were
his Nobles. A few months after the Parliament at Lincoln,
he wrote to the Pope, on May 15, 1301, a very long letter
reiterating his own claims, and repudiating those of the
It is evidently plain and notorious," he wrote,
"
Pope.
"
that the aforesaid Kingdom of Scotland belongs to us,

in full right both of occupation and ownership, and we have
never done or allowed anything by either writing or deed,
which could in any w ay derogate from our rights over, or
T
2
possession of, the aforesaid Kingdom." As to the justice
of the claim to the Kingdom of Scotland put forth by
Edward I., I need not discuss it here. He had at least
something to say for himself, while the Pope s claim had
nothing at all in its favour.
Once more, in the reign of Edward III., the Pope put
forward a claim to the suzerainty of England and Ireland.
On the opening of the Parliament which met at West
minster on March 30, 1366, the Lord Chancellor informed
the Lords and Commons that His Majesty had lately
"
received notice that the Pope [Urban V.], in consideration

1
Gee and Hardy s Documents Illustrative of Englith Church History,
pp. 90, 91.
2
Matthew of Westminster s Flowers of History, vol. ii. p. 557, where the
King s letter is printed in full.
of the homage which King John of England had formerly
paid to the See of Rome, for his Realm of England, and
Dominion of Ireland, and of the tribute by him granted to
the said See, intended by process to cite his Majesty to
appear at his Court, at Avignon, to answer for his defaults in
not performing what the said King, his predecessor, had so
undertaken for him and his heirs, Kings of England. Where
upon the King required the advice of his Parliament, what
course he had best take if any such process should come out
him."
against
The Lords(including the Bishops) and Commons begged
for time to deliberate on such an important question. But
they were not long in coming to a decision. On the follow
ing day they gave in their advice to the King, after a full
That neither
"
deliberation. They declared emphatically :
King John, nor any other King, could bring himself, his
Realm and people, under such subjection, without their
assent and if it was done, it was without consent of Parlia
;
ment, and contrary to his Coronation Oath. That he was

notoriously compelled to it by the necessity of his affairs,
and the iniquity of the times wherefore the said Estates
;
enacted, that in case the Pope should attempt anything by

process, or any other way, to constrain the King and his
subjects, to perform what he says he lays claim to, in this
respect, they would resist and withstand him to the utmost
l
of their power." After such a decision as this, the Pope
wisely allowed his claim to drop.
But the Papal claim to the Temporal Sovereignty of
England, Ireland, and Scotland has never since been with
drawn by the Court of Rome. As to England and Ire -and,
it was put forth anew in the sixteenth century, in the reign
of Queen Elizabeth.
"
given by him to
"
Cardinal Pole, in the Instructions

the Father Confessor of the Emperor, in October 1553,
referring to the then expected return of the people of
England to obedience to the Pope, remarks concerning the
title of Mary to the Crown of England : "It must be con
sidered that she is not only called to it [the restitution of
1
Parliamentary History, vol. i.
p. 298.
PAPAL CLAIMS TO THRONE OF ENGLAND 47
her Kingdom to the obedience of the Pope] by the rewards

of a future life, but also by those of the present world, in
asmuch as, failing the support of the Holy See, she would
not be legitimate heir to the Crown, for the marriage of her
mother was not valid but by a dispensation of his Holiness ;
so that obedience to the Holy See is necessary to secure

her power, since upon it depends her very claim to the
l
crown."
A learned Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. Charles

O Conor, D.D., who wrote early in the nineteenth century,
Though Queen Mary was a Catholic, and a
"
states that :
gloomy and persecuting bigot she was, whom every Irishman

must abhor, yet Paul IV. menaced to depose her, because
she had dared to assume the title of Queen of Ireland
without his consent He said that it belonged to him
!
alone to erect new Kingdoms, or abolish the old that ;
Ireland was, by human and Divine right, the property of the

Holy See that he was the successor of those who deposed
;
Kings and Emperors and that no Monarch should pretend

;
to an equality with him With his feeble limbs, for now

!
he was about eighty years old, he stamped the boards of

the Vatican,
*
And
Olympus trembled at his nod
all !
The Queen s Ambassadors threw themselves at his feet, and

he admitted her title, on condition only that it should be
assumed from his concession, and that Peter s Pence, and all
the ancient emoluments of Rome, should be restored." 2
On the afternoon of July 13, 1556, the Venetian Am
bassador at Rome had an interview with Pope Paul IV.
The Pope then said to him "If compelled to wage war,
:
as we suspect, owing to the deceitful nature of these Im

perialists, wê, without the slightest scruple, by a legitimate
process, and by a sentence so tremendous that it will darken
the sun, shall deprive the Emperor and the King of England,
as our vassals who have perpetrated felony and rebellion,
of all their realms, releasing the inhabitants from their oath
of allegiance,
giving part of their territories to those who
1
Calendar of Foreign State Papers, 1553-1558, p. 21.
2
An Historical Address, by the Rev. C. O Conor, D.D. (1812), part ii.
pp. 196, 197.

shall occupy
x
A few months later the Pope again
them."
spoke to the same Ambassador on the same subject, when

he once more put forth his claim to the temporal dominion,
not only of England and Ireland, but also of the Kingdoms
of Naples and Sardinia. And this is what the Pope said
on this occasion The truce was : made for ten days and
then prolonged for forty, although the Duke of Alva wished
to have it for a longer term (as our Cardinal will have told
you in detail) to enable him to advise Philip his King

about these things, and to receive his reply and decision,
which we pray the Lord God (who can do what to us seems
them to form according to their duty,
impossible) to inspire
grantingthem such repentance of their very grievous error,
and causing them to make such amends as to put it in our
power, without detracting from our dignity, to pardon and
absolve them from the censures they have incurred, restor
ing them in integrum what they have forfeited, for they are
deprived, not only of the fiefs of the Church, which are the
Kingdoms of Naples, Sardinia, England, Ireland, and of so
many privileges in Spain, conceded to them by the pro

digality of our predecessors (God forgive them for it), and
which yield more than the Kingdom (of Naples), but, more
over, of all that they have and possess in the world and ;
2
moreover, they are unworthy to remain on the earth."
This utterly unjust claim was again put forward in 1580
by Pope Gregory XIII., in the treaty into which he then
entered with the King of Spain and the Grand Duke of
Tuscany against England, the third article of which was as
That His Holiness, as Sovereign Lord of the
"
follows :
Island (England), will grant to the Catholic Nobles of the

Kingdom to elect a Catholic Lord of the Island, who, under
the authority of the Apostolic See, will be declared King,
and who will render obedience and fealty to the Apostolic
See, as other Catholic Kings have done before the time of
3
the last Henry."
Pope Sixtus V. renewed the claim in 1587. The Venetian

Ambassador in Rome, writing on June 27, 1587, stated
1
Calendar of Venetian State Papirs, vol. vi. part i. p. 521.
2 3
Ibid., vol. vi. part ii.
p. 838. Ibid., vol. viii. p. Gf>0.
KING OF FRANCE S REPLY TO THE POPE 49
that :
"
The Pope has taken occasion

to say that if the King
of Spain undertake the enterprise against England, he
will
will furnish him, on the landing of troops in that Kingdom,
600,000 crowns, and 70,000 a month as long as the war lasts,

but on condition that the nomination to the Crown of
England should rest with the Pope, and that the Kingdom
of England be recognised as a fief of the Church." 1
Sir John Throckmorton, a Roman Catholic Baronet,
Mr. Milner cannot have for
"
writing in 1791, remarks :
gotten that ever since the schism of Henry VIII., the

ambition of Rome has claimed the Imperial Crown of
2
England, as one of her feudatory dependencies."
It may be useful here to mention that on December 5,
1301, Pope Boniface VIII. wrote to the French King,

claiming that country also as subject to him in temporals as
well as spirituals. The King, Philip IV. in reply sent the Pope ,
a severe and just snubbing. This was the Pope s letter :
Boniface, Bishop, and servant to God s service, to Philip,

"
King of the French. Fear God, and observe His commandments.

We will thee to understand, that thou art subject to us both in
spiritual things and temporal, and that the giving of benefices
or prebends belongeth not unto thee and if thou have the keep :
ing of any being vacant, thou must reserve the fruits thereof
for the successors. But if thou have given any away, we judge
the gift to be void, and revoke, so far as thou hast proceeded.
And whosoever believeth otherwise, we judge them heretics."
This Pontifical letter brought forth the subjoined crushing
:
reply
Philip, by the grace of God King of France, to Boniface,
"
bearing himself for Chief Pontiff, little health or none. Let thy
extreme foolishness know, that in temporal things we are subject
to no man that it belongeth to us by Royal prerogative to
;
give vacant churches and prebends, and to make the fruits

thereof our own during the vacancy and that the gifts of pre ;
bends and benefices, made and to be made by us, were and shall
be good, for the past and future and that we shall defend man;
fully the possessors of the said benefices against all men. And
them that believe otherwise we think fools and mad men." 3
Calendar of Venetian State Papers, vol. viii. p. 288.
1
2
A
Second Letter to the Catholic Clergy of England, by John Throckmorton,
Esq. (afterwards Sir John), London, 1791, p. 42.
3
Foxe s Acts and Monuments, vol. ii. pp. 590, 591, /edition 1854.
D
?
Great complaints were, in the year 1307, heard from the

Nobles of England, protesting against the extortions of an
Italian priest named William Testa, who had come into
England with Bulls from the Pope, in which he reserved to
himself the first fruits of the first year of all Churches being
vacant at any time or by any man, and also demanded
large sums of money from the Monasteries. Naturally
enough, the Nobles looked upon such extortions as nothing
better than robbery, and the King was evidently of the
same opinion. It was high time that some disabilities
should be imposed on the Pope as to such claims, and there
fore, at a Parliament held in Carlisle the same year, Testa
was forbidden to continue his evil work. A Statute was
also passed (35 Edward I., stat. 1, cap. 2) by this Parliament
forbidding the rulers of any Monastery or Priory in England

sending any taxes across the seas to the Pope. It was,
however, provided, that the heads of any of the Religious
Orders located in England, who might happen to reside
abroad, should have permission to visit the English
Monasteries, and hold visitations of them but these ;
foreign visitors were expressly forbidden, when they re

turned to the Continent, to take any of the goods or property
of those Monasteries with them out of England. It was
enacted :
That no Abbot, Prior, Master, Warden, or other

"
Religious person, of whatsoever condition, state, or re

ligion he be, being under the King s power or jurisdiction,
shall by himself, or by merchants or others, secretly or
openly, by any device or means, carry or send, or by any
means cause to be sent, any tax imposed by the Abbots,
Priors, Masters, or Wardens of Religious Houses, their
Superiors, or assessed amongst themselves, out of his
Kingdom or his Dominion, under the name of rent, tallage,
or any kind of imposition, or otherwise by way of exchange,
mutual sale, or other contract howsoever it may be termed ;
neither shall they depart into any other country for visita
tion, or upon any other colour, by that means, carry the
goods of their Monasteries and Houses out of the Kingdom
and Dominion aforesaid. And if
any shall presume to
TAXES TO THE POPE FORBIDDEN 51
offend this present Statute, he shall be grievously punished

according to the quality of his offence, and according to his
contempt of the King s prohibition.
Moreover, our aforesaid Lord the King inhibits all and
"
singular Abbots, Priors, Masters and Governors of Religious

Houses and places, being aliens, to whose authority, sub
jection, and obedience the Houses of the same Orders in
his Kingdom and Dominion be subject, that they do not at
any time hereafter impose, or by any means assess, any

taliages, payments, charges, or other burdens whatsoever,
upon the Monasteries, Priories, or other Religious Houses,
in subjection to them, as is aforesaid, and that under for
feiture of all that they have or can forfeit. . . .
But it is not the meaning of our Lord the King to

"
exclude the Abbots, Priors, and other Religious aliens, by

the ordinances and Statutes aforesaid, from executing their
office of visitation in his Kingdom and Dominion but ;
they may visit at their pleasure, by themselves or others,

the Monasteries or other places in his Kingdom and Do
minion in subjection unto them, according to the duty of
their office, in those things only that belong to regular
observance, and the discipline of their Order.
Provided, that they which shall execute this office of
"
visitation, shall carry, or cause to be carried, out of his

Kingdom or Dominion, none of the goods or things of such
Monasteries, Priories, and Houses, saving only their reason
l
able and competent charges."
Lingard, the Roman Catholic historian, states that, in

addition to passing this Act of Parliament, writs were
directed to the sheriffs, to arrest all persons who had been
employed by Testa, and to bring them before the King on
such a date, to answer the complaints of the aggrieved.
He adds that in the whole of this transaction the King acted
a double part, for after all that had been done, he gave
Testa and his associates, solely on his own Royal authority,
permission to go on with their work of collecting money for
the Pope but that, shortly afterwards, the law officers took
;
1
pp. 93-95.
up the question. They said it was not in the King s power
to surrender the rights of the Crown, and that consequently
the King s protection of such illegal conduct was of no force.
The Papal agents appealed against this decision to the King
himself, who now, hoAvever, turned against them, and
ordered them to obey the Act of Parliament quoted
above. l Sir Edward Coke states that, during the reign of
Edward I. (1272-1307), an English subject brought into
Court against another subject a Bull of Excommunication,
and published it. "This," writes Coke, "was by the
ancient common law of England adjudged High Treason
against the King, his Crown and dignity, for the which the
offender should have been drawn and hanged but at the ;
great instance of the Chancellor and Treasurer, he was only

abjured the realm for ever." The same learned authority
reports that Edward I. presented a clergyman to a benefice
in the Province of York, but the Archbishop of York refused
to admit him to the living. An action was, thereupon,
brought by the King against the Archbishop, who pleaded
that the Pope, by his supreme authority, had previously, by
a Bull, appointed another clergyman to the benefice, who
For which high contempt of
"
was already in possession.

the King," says Coke,
"
Crown and dignity, in refusing

his
to execute his Sovereign commandment, fearing to do it
s
against the Pope s Provision, by judgment of the common

law, the lands of his whole Bishopric were seized into the
King s hands, and lost during his life which judgment ;
was also before any Statute or Act of Parliament was made

in that case. And there it is said, that for the like offence,
the Archbishop of Canterbury had been in worse case by
the judgment of the sages of the law, than to be punished
for a contempt, if the King had not extended grace and
3
favour to him."
1
Lingard s History of England, vol. iv. pp. 152. 153, edition 1837.
2 3
Coke s Reports, vol. iii. p. xxxiii., edition 1826. Ibid., p. xxxiv.
CHAPTER V
EDWARD III.
Papal Provisions and Reservations The Remonstrance of Parliament Par

liament asks Edward III. to forcibly Expel the Papal Power from
"
England" The Letter of Protest from Parliament to the Pope The

Pope s Letter of Complaint Edward III. s Indignant Letter to the
Pope Parliament orders that during War, no Person shall transmit
"
House of Commons Petitions to the King The

"
Money to the Pope

An Act against Purchasing Church Dig
First Statute of Provisors
nitiesand Livings from the Pope The First Statute of Prsemunire
Forbidding Appeals to Rome.
As the years went on, Papal encroachments and extortions

continually increased until, in the year 1343, it was found
necessary to bring the subject once more before Parliament,
which met Westminster on the 23rd of April. At this
in
Parliament Commons complained bitterly of the
the
Provisions and Reservations coming from the Court of
Rome, whereby the Pope took up beforehand the future
vacancies of ecclesiastical dignities for aliens, and such as
had nothing to do with the Realm of England.
""
"A writes Mr. Greenwood,

Provision, technical "in
acceptation, was an annuity or rent-charge out of any ecclesi

astical estate for the benefit of any dignitary or client of the
Holy See. A Reservation was a similar invasion of public

or private right without a specific designatio personce, so as
to keep the benefice open until it suited the Pope to appoint
l
to it ;
the latter taking the revenue during vacancy."
The Commons remonstrated with the King on the mani

fold inconveniences which ensued thereby, and mentioned
especially the decay of hospitality, the transporting abroad
of the treasure of the Realm to the maintenance of the
King s mortal enemies; the discovery of the secrets of the

Kingdom, and the utter discouragement, disabling and
impoverishment of scholars, natives of England. They
1
Cathedra Petri, book xiv. p. 546, note.
53
Pope had secretly granted unto
asserted, further, that the
two new foreign Cardinals sundry livings within the Realm
of England, and, particularly, that he had given to the
Cardinal of Perigort, above 10,000 marks jêarly. In con
clusion, they humbly required the King and Lords to
find a remedy for these intolerable encroachments ; they
"
boldly asserted that they neither could nor would any

longer bear these heavy oppressions," and they desired
that the Pope did not cease his extortions,
"
if that his
Majesty and the Lords would help them forcibly to expel the
Papal power out of the Realm" The King, in reply, assured
them of his willingness to consent to any reasonable remedy,
and he requested them to deliberate with the Lords and
Commons as to what was best to be done. 1 As a result of
these deliberations a letter was addressed to the Pope, Clement
VI., in the name of
"
the Princes, Dukes, Earls, Barons,

Knights, Citizens, Burgesses, and all the Commonalty of the
Realm of England," complaining bitterly of the conduct of
the Court of Rome towards England. They mentioned that
the Kings of England had established, founded, and endowed
Cathedrals, Colleges, Abbeys, Priories, and Religious Houses,
whereby the service of God might be honoured, and Hospitals,
Alrnshouses, and Colleges were maintained, and the poor
aided and nourished. The letter proceeded to tell the
Pope :
"
And
forasmuch, most Holy Father, as you cannot
well attain the knowledge of divers such errors and abuses
as are crept in among us nor yet be able to understand the
;
conditions and customs of places, being yourself so far distant,

unless your Holiness be of others duly informed and in
structed therefore, having full and perfect notice and
:
We,
intelligence of all the errors and abuses of the said places
within the said Realm, have thought fit to signify the same
unto your Holiness, namely, that divers Reservations,
Provisions, and Collations by your Apostolic predecessors
of the Church of Rome, and by you also in your time, most
Holy Father, have been granted, and now more illegally

than heretofore, unto divers persons, as well strangers and
1
Parliamentary History, vol. i.
p. 253.
THE REMONSTRANCE OF PARLIAMENT 55
of other nations, as unto some who are our professed enemies,

and who have little or no understanding at all of our lan
guage, and of the conditions and customs of those of whom
they have the government and cure whereby a great :
number of souls are in peril, many of the parishioners are

in danger, the service of God neglected, the alms and de
votion of all men diminished, the Hospitals brought to
decay, the Churches with their appurtenances ruined and

dilapidated Charity waxeth cold, the good and honest
;
natives of our own country unadvanced, the charge and cure

of souls unregarded, the pious zeal of the people restrained,
many poor scholars of our own unpref erred, and the treasure
of the Realm exported, against the mind and intention of
the Founders.
errors, abuses, and slanders, most Holy
"
All which
Father, neither we
can nor ought any longer to suffer or
endure. Wherefore, we must humbly require your Holiness,
that the slanders, abuses, and errors which we have declared
unto you, may of your own great prudence be thoroughly
considered and that it may please you that such Reserva
;
tions, Provisions, and Collations may be utterly repealed ;
that the same from henceforth be no more used among us ;
and that such order and remedy be forthwith taken therein,

that the said Benefices, Edifices, Offices, and rights, with
their appurtenances, may by our countrymen, to the honour
of God, be supplied, occupied, and governed. And that it
may further please your Holiness, by your letters, to signify
unto us without delay, or further protracting of time, what
your pleasure is touching this lawful request and demand ;
that we may diligently do our duty herein, for the remedy,

correction, and amendment of the enormities above specified.
In witness whereof unto these Letters Patent we have
"
set our hands and seals.

"
Given in full Parliament at Westminster the 18th day

May, Anno Domini,
l
of 1343."
be observed that this important letter was not

It will
addressed to the Pope as unto one who had a legal right to
dispose of the property of the Church of England. It was,
1
Parliamentary History, pp. 255, 256.
rather, an appeal to his sense of common justice and honesty,
asking him to voluntarily put an end to the evils which he
and his predecessors had perpetrated. Unfortunately it
failed to move the Pope to give up his outrageous claims.
After waiting some months the Pope sent a reply addressed
to the King, in which he conceded nothing, but bitterly
complained of the way two of his Cardinals had been treated,

to whom he had given valuable ecclesiastical offices in
England. One of them was the Cardinal of St. Anastasia,
and the other the Cardinal of St. Sabina. These Cardinals
had sent their officers to England to collect for their em
ployers the money alleged to be due to them for their
benefices, given to them by the Pope. "When," wrote the
"
Pope, they began there [in England] to pursue the business

of their said Lords, (they) were not only hindered in their
said business by the King s subjects and officers, but also
confined and after that in a very disgraceful manner
;
ejected the said Kingdom whereby they have, to the

. . .
great hazard of their souls, rendered themselves liable to

excommunication, and other punishments and sentences
promulgated against such persons by the Canons." In
conclusion, the Pope requested the King to put a stop in
the future to such treatment of the Cardinals agents in
England. On the same day the Pope wrote a similar letter
to the Privy Councillors of the King, urging them to put
pressure on his Majesty in favour of the said Cardinals.
But not a word did the Pope say, in either letter, about the
remonstrance he had received from the Parliament of
England against Papal encroachments and extortions. It
does not appear that the King s Council replied to the
Pope s audacious letter but the King replied at once, in
;
an outspoken and brave letter, which does him great honour.

"
We nothing doubt/ wrote Edward

but that it is
III.,
"
now publicly known, how from

the very first use of Christianity
in our Kingdom of England, our progenitors, the Kings of Eng
land, and the Lords and other subjects of the said Realm have,
for the augmentation of Divine worship, built Churches, enriched
them with ample possessions, and endowed them with large
privileges, placing fit Ministers therein,
who have (not without
THE KING S BRAVE REPLY TO THE POPE 57
success) preached the Catholic faith to the people in their mother

tongues by whose care and diligence the vineyard of the Lord
;
of Sabaoth hath wonderfully prospered both in culture and fruit.

But now, which is to be lamented, the slips of this very vine are
degenerated into wild-vine, and the boar out of the wood doth
waste it, and the wild-beast of the field doth devour it. While
by the impositions and Provisions of the Holy See (which now
1
grow more insupportable than ever) its own proper goods, against
the pious intent and appointment of the donors, are held in the
hands of the unworthy, and especially of foreigners and its ;
dignities and chief benefices are conferred upon strangers, who

for the most are
persons, at least, suspected unto us, and who
neither reside on the said benefices, nor know the face, nor under
stand the voice of the flock committed unto them but wholly ;
neglecting the cure of souls, like hirelings, only seek their own
profit And so the worship of Christ
and temporal advantage.
is
impaired, the cure of souls neglected, hospitality withdrawn,
the rights of the Churches lost, the houses of the clergy dilapi
dated, the devotion of the people extinguished, the clergy of the
said Kingdom, who are men of great learning and honest con
versation, and are both able and willing effectually to perform
the work of Ministers,and would also be very fit for our and the
public service, forsake their studies, because the hope of a reason
able preferment is thus taken away.
"
Which things, we know, can be no ways acceptable to the

Divine pleasure, but will most certainly prove a mighty pre-
1
Tyrrell, in his History of England, vol. iii. p. 811 (London, 1704), prints
the actual text of a Papal Provision and Reservation. After reading it we
need not wonder that our Roman Catholic forefathers found it necessary to
pass many Acts of Parliament against such Provisions and Reservations.
Here is the document :
Bishop, &c., Servant of the Servants of God, to the perpetual

"John,
memory Whereas we have understood that the Church of Rochester,

hereof.
by the death of Thomas, Bishop thereof, is at present become void We, for :
the good estate of the Church, intending the Provision of it, for this turn,
for certain causes that have persuaded us so to do, have, by the authority
of these presents, fully Reserved it to the ordinance and disposition of the
Apostolic See, decreeing that whatsoever shall be done, and by whomsoever,

knowingly or ignorantly, contrary to this Reservation, it shall be void. It
may not, therefore, any way be lawful for any man to infringe this our
Reservation and Constitution, or rashly attempt to do anything against it.
And if any one shall presume to
attempt any such thing, he shall know that
he incurs the indignation of Almighty God, and of his Apostles St. Peter and
St. Paul.
"
Dated at Avignon, the 18th day of March, in the first year of our
Pontificate [i.e. 1316]."
judice and unspeakable calamity both to us and our subjects,
unless we take more sound and speedy care in this matter. For
the right of Patronage, which we and our subjects have in these
benefices, is thereby infringed our Court, in which only cases
;
concerning the right of Patronage to the said benefices ought to

be discussed, is deluded and so the rights of our very Crown
;
are both shamefully, and to our great detriment, invaded the ;
treasure of our Kingdom exported to foreigners, not to say our

enemies, perhaps with this subtle intent that thus the priest
;
hood of the Kingdom being depressed, and its wealth exhausted,

the realm itself may be rendered more weak against the storms
of adversity. All which incommodities. together with others,
which follow from the premises, were lately manifest unto us
in our Parliament, by the community of the said Realm, together
with their unanimous and earnest petition subjoined, that we
would speedily prevent the foresaid miseries, which seem utterly
insupportable to our said community.
"
We, therefore, by this their representation plainly behold

ing the depression of the Church of England, and the disherison
of our Crown, with all the foresaid evils which, if longer dis
sembled, would probably very much increase, do now refer them
unto you, who are the successor of the Prince of the Apostles,
who received command from Christ to feed, and not to shear
the Lord s sheep, and to confirm, and not depress his brethren ;
heartily requesting that, duly weighing and considering the

premises how of right magistrates are to be created from among
;
the people, and that, according to the saying of the Prophet,

*
They shall make vine-dressers of the people from the same

place which we read to have been the practice of the blessed
;
Apostles, when they set over the converted heathen persons

who had knowledge of their tongues. And also remembering
the exuberance of devotion wherewith our Royal Family, and
the clergy and the people of our said Kingdom, have hitherto
continued in the obedience of the said See. Wherefore your
paternal affection ought not to heap burdens and grievances
upon them but rather, as a father who lays up for his children,
;
to alleviate the weight of the said impositions and Provisions

and burdens, which thus arise from the Apostolic See per
:
mitting further, that Patrons may not lose their right of Patronage,
and that the Cathedral and other Churches of the said Kingdom
may have their free elections, and the effects thereof. Which
Churches our said progenitors have long since, upon each of their
vacations, freely, of their Royal prerogative conferred on fit
persons and afterward, at the request and instance of the
;
said See, have under certain forms and conditions granted, that
THE POPE REFUSES TO GIVE WAY 59
the elections should be made in the said Churches by the Chapters

of the same ;
which grant was also on due deliberation confirmed
by the Apostolic See.
of the concession and con
"
But yet now, against the form

firmation of the said Churches, the said See, by these her Reser
vations and Provisions, doth take away the said elections from
the said Chapters, and from us also our right and prerogative
which, according to the form of the said concession, belong
unto us in this part wherefore by the law of our said Kingdom,
:
since the conditions of our grant are not observed, the concession
itself is resolved unto us again, and the whole state of the matter
reverts to its original.
"
Upon the premises, therefore, we pray that your goodness

would vouchsafe, to the honour of God and the salvation of souls,
and also to take away the foresaid scandals and prejudices, to
provide a speedy and wholesome remedy that we and our sub ;
jects who desire, as we ought, to revere your most holy person,

and the Holy Roman Church (these intolerable evils being once
removed) may rest in the sweetness of your fatherly love, and
that our devotion may flourish again, being refreshed by the
clemency of your pious moderation extended unto us. The
Most High preserve you in the government of His Church many
and happy days.
"
Given at Westminster, the 26th of September, in the fourth

l
year of our reign of France, and of England the seventeenth/
But the Pope would not give way, and selfishly persisted
in what must be termed his dishonest course of action.
But Edward III. was equally firm on the side of justice,
and of the interests of his country. He waited a time,
however but at last he called a Parliament, which met at
;
Westminster in 1346, at which he took into his own hands

(no doubt thus making the Pope very angry) all the profits,
revenues, and other emoluments which the foreign Cardinals
and other foreign clergy held within England, for he
it unreasonable that those who favoured the
thought Pope
and the French King, his enemy, should enjoy any such
promotion or advantage in his Realm. In the following
"
year Parliament enacted that during the wars no person

do send or transmit money to the Pope, or to any Bishop
and
"
or other alien whatsoever, for any duty whatsoever ;
1
The History of King Edward the Third, by Joshua Barnes, pp. 275-278.
no person bring into the Realm to any Bishop,
"
also that
or other,any Bull, or other Letters from the Court of Rome,
or from any alien unless he first show the same to the
;
Lord Chancellor, or to the Warden of the Cinque Ports, on

loss of all thathe hath." l
In the Parliament held at Westminster in 1347, the
House of Commons presented several petitions to the Prince
Regent (the King being abroad), and by him they were
answered in the King s name. Of these the following
related to the subject before us :
"
That all alien Monks do avoid the Realm

Petition.
by Michaelmas, and that their livings be disposed of to young

English scholars. And that such aliens, enemies, as are
advanced to livings (they being in their own countries but
shoemakers, tailors, or chamberlains of Cardinals), may
depart the Realm before Michaelmas, and their livings
bestowed on poor English scholars.
Answer. That the persons being spiritual were not
"
to be tried by Parliament and that their livings being in

;
the King s hands, were not without him to be disposed of."
Petition. That the King may take the profits of all other
"
and others, during their lives,

strangers livings, as Cardinals,
Answer. The King doth take their profits, and the
"
Council have sent their petition to his Majesty."

Petition. That foreign Pro visors, or aliens buying
"
Provisions, do quit the Realm by Michaelmas, on peril of

being outlawed.
"
made shall be ob
Answer. The Statute heretofore
served and the King shall signify the same to the Pope."
;
Petition. That all Friars, aliens, should depart from

"
the Realm, never to return hither again.

Ansiver. Order shall be taken with every General of
"
allthe Houses of Friars, so to look to all Friars, aliens, under

their several charges, as that they shall not be able to
2
disclose the secrets of the Realm."
But, notwithstanding all the efforts of King and Parlia

ment, the evils complained of continued. Though checked
1
Parliamentary history, vol. i.
p. 266.
2
Ibid., pp. 265, 266.
THE FIRST STATUTE OF PROVISOES 61
here and there, something more effectual was needed to

disable the Pontifical encroachments on the rights and
property of the Church of England. The laity of England
was unanimous in demanding redress of their
practically
grievances, and all parties united, in 1350, in passing the
first Statute of Pro visors, from which I now proceed to give
the following lengthy extracts :
"
Whereas the Holy Church of England was founded

in the
estate of Prelacy, within the Realm the said
of England,
by
grandfather [of the King] and his progenitors, and the Earls,
Barons, and other nobles of the said Realm, and their ancestors,
to inform them and the people of the law of God, and to make
hospitalities, alms, and other works of charity, in the places

where the Churches were founded, for the souls of the founders,
their heirs, and all Christians and certain possessions, as well
;
in fees, lands, rents, as in advowsons, which do extend to a great

value, were assigned by the said founders to the prelates and other
people of the Holy Church of the said Realm, to sustain the
same charge, and especially of the possessions which were assigned
the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Religious, and all other
people of Holy Church, by the Kings of the said Realm, Earls,
Barons, and other great men of his Realm the same Kings,
;
Earls, Barons, and other nobles, as lords, and advowees, have

had and ought to have the custody of such voidances, and the
presentments, and the collations of the benefices being of such
prelacies.
And
"
the said Kings in time past were wont to have the

greatest part of their Council, for the safeguard of the Realm
when they had need, of such prelates and clerks so advanced ;
the Bishop of Rome, accroching to him the seigniories of such

possessions and benefices, doth give and grant the same benefices
to aliens, which did never dwell in England, and to Cardinals,
which might not dwell here, and to other as well aliens as
denizens, as if he had been patron or advowee of the said dignities
and benefices, as he was not of right by the law of England ;
whereby if they should be suffered, there should scarcely be any

benefice within a short time in the said Realm, but that it should be
in the hands of aliens and denizens by virtue of such Provisions,
against the goodwill and disposition of the founders of the
same benefices. . . .
And now
"
showed to our Lord the King in this present

it is
Parliament holden at Westminster, at the utas of the Purifica

tion of our Lady, the five and twentieth year of his reign of
England, and of France the twelfth, by the grievous complaints of
all the Commons of his Realm, that the
grievances and mischiefs
aforesaid do daily abound, to the greater damage and destruc
tion of all his Realm of England, more than ever were before,
viz : now or late the Bishop of Rome, by procurement of
that
clerks and otherwise, hath Reserved, and doth daily Reserve to
his collation, generally and especially, as well
Archbishopricks,
Bishopricks, Abbeys, and Priories, as all other dignities and other
benefices of England, which be of the advowry of people of Holy
Church, and give the same as well to aliens as to denizens,
and taketh of all such benefices the first-fruits, and many other
profits, and a great part of the treasure of the said Realm is carried
away and dispended out of the Realm, bij the purchasers of such
benefices and graces aforesaid and also by such privy Reserva
;
tions many clerks advanced in this Realm by their true patrons,

which have peaceably holden their advancements by long time,
be suddenly put out. . . .
"
And in case that Reservation, Collation, or Provision be

made by the Court of Rome, of any Archbishopric!:, Bishoprick,
dignity, or other benefice, in disturbance of the free elections,
Collations, or presentations aforenamed, that at the same time
of the voidance, that such Reservations, Collations, and Pro
visions ought to take effect, our Lord the King and his heirs
shall have and enjoy for the same time the Collations to the
Archbishopricks, and other dignities elective, which be of his

advowry, such as his progenitors had before that free election
was granted, since that election was first granted by the King s
progenitors upon a certain form and condition, as to demand
licence of the King to choose, and after the election to have his
Royal assent, and not in other manner which conditions not
;
kept, the thing ought by reason to resort to his first nature.

And if any such Reservation, Provision, or Collation be made
"
of any House of Religion of the King s advowry, in disturbance

of free election, our Sovereign Lord the King, and his heirs,
shall have for that time the Collation to give this dignity to a
convenient person. And in case that Collation, Reservation, or
Provision be made by the Court of Rome, of any Church,
Prebend, or other benefices, which be of the advowry of people
of Holy Church, whereof the King is advowee paramount
immediate, that at the same time of the voidance, at which time
the Collation, Reservation, or Provision ought to take effect as
afore is said, the King and his heirs thereof shall have the pre
sentment or Collation for that time. . . .
And in case that the presentees of the King, or the presentees

"
of other patrons of Holy Church, or of their advowees, or they to

THE FIRST STATUTE OF PROVISORS 63
whom the King, or such patrons or advowees aforesaid, have given

benefices pertaining to their presentments or Collations be dis
turbed by such Pro visors [i.e. from the Court of Rome], so that
they may not have possession of such benefices by virtue of the
presentments or Collations to them made, or that they which be
in possession of such benefices, be impeached upon their said
possessions by such Provisors ; then the said Provisors,

their
Procurators, Executors, and Notaries, shall be attached by their
body, and brought in to answer and if they be convict, they shall
;
abide in prison without being let to mainprise or bail, or otherwise

delivered, till that they have made fine and ransom to the King
at his will, and gree to the party that shall feel himself grieved.
And nevertheless, before that they be delivered, they shall make
full renunciation and find sufficient surety that they shall
not attempt such things in time to come, nor sue any process
by them, nor by other, against any man in the Court of Rome,
nor in any part elsewhere, for any such imprisonments or re
nunciations, nor any other thing depending of them."
As a supplement to this important Statute of Provisors

it was found necessary, in the same Parliament, to pass the
following brief but powerful Act (25 Edward III., stat. 5,

cap. 22), against purchasing Church dignities and livings
from the Court of Rome :
Because that some do purchase in the Court of Rome

:;
Provisions to have Abbeys and Priories in England, in de

struction of the Realm, and of holy religion It is accorded :
that every man that purchaseth such Provisions of Abbeys

and Priories, that he and his executors and procurators,
which do sue and make execution of such Provisions, shall
be out of the King s protection. And that a man may do
with them, as of enemies of our Sovereign Lord, the King,
and his Realm. And he that offendeth against such Pro
visors in body or in goods, or in other possessions, shall be
excused against all people, and shall never be impeached nor
grieved for the same at any man s suit."
Sir Edward Coke states that law every man

by this
"
might lawfully kill such an offender as a common enemy

against the King and his country, so heinous were such
offences then holden." l
1
Coke s Reports, vol. iii. p. xli.
It was not, however, enough to pass this Statute of
Pro visors. By it the Pope was forbidden to perpetrate
injustice within the Realm of England ;
but by the first
Statute of Praemunire, which was passed in 1353, the subjects

of the King residing in England were forbidden to appeal to
Rome for justice, under severe penalties, and were ordered to
be content with justice as administered by the King s Courts
at home. By this Act (27 Edward III., stat. 1, cap. 1) it
is provided that :
is shown to our Lord the

Because it
"
King, by the
grievous and clamorous complaints of the great men and
Commons, how that divers of the people be. and have been
drawn out of the Realm to answer for things, whereof the
cognisance pertains to the King s Court and also that ;
judgments given in the same Court be impeached in another

Court, in prejudice and disherison of our Lord the King,
and of his Crown, and of all the people of his said Realm,
and to the undoing and destruction of the common law of
the said Realm at all times used.
Whereupon, good deliberation being had with the

"
greatmen and others of his said Council, it is assented and

accorded by our Lord the King, and the great men and
Commons aforesaid, that all the people of the King s
allegiance, of what condition that they be, which shall draw

any out of the Realm in plea, whereof the cognisance per-
taineth to theKing s Court, or of things whereof judgments
be given in the King s Court, or which do sue in any other
Court, to defeat or impeach the judgments given in the
King s Court, shall have a day, containing the space of two
months, by warning to be made to them ... to appear before
the King and his Council, or in his Chancery, or before the
King s Justices in his places of the one Bench or the other
... to answer in their proper persons to the King, of the
contempt done in this behalf. And if they come not at the
said day in their proper persons to be at the law, they, their
procurators, attornies, executors, notaries, and maintainers

shall from that day forth be put out of the King s protection,
APPEALS TO ROME FORBIDDEN 65
and their lands, goods, and chattels forfeit to the King, and
their bodies, wheresoever they may be found, shall be taken
and imprisoned, and raneomed at the King s will And upon:
the same a writ shall be made to take them by their bodies,

and to seize their lands, goods, and possessions, into the
King s hands and if it be returned that they be not found,
;
they shall be put in exigent and outlawed."

CHAPTER VI
EDWARD III. RICHARD II.
Another Conflict between Church and State The King forbids under Pain
of Death the Importation of Papal Letters, Citations, and Excommuni
cations An Act against Receiving Citations from Rome The Bishop
of Chichester punished for Procuring a Citation from the Pope A
List of Dignities and Livings held by Foreigners appointed by the
Pope The Parliament s Complaint of Papal Taxations The King
protects the Florentines against the Pope s Wrath Legal Decisions
on Papal Encroachments in King Edward III. s Reign An Act
forbidding Aliens to Purchase or Occupy Livings in England.
IN the year 1358 occurred another conflict between the

State and the Church, in which the latter was defeated and
humiliated. It originated in a great quarrel between
Thomas de Lisle, Bishop of Ely, and Lady Blanche Planta-
genet, sister to Henry, Duke of Lancaster. It seems that
the Bishop s men-servants burnt a Manor House belonging
to this widow, and murdered one of her men. Very
naturally and properly she appealed to the King for justice
against the Bishop. The King sent two of his Judges, Sir
Henry Green and Sharesbull, and others to make inquisi
tion intothe case. They summoned the Bishop before
them, and in the end declared that he was altogether culpable
in the matter, and that he had even knowingly harboured
the murderer, thus shielding him from justice. As a punish
ment the Judges declared that the Bishop s temporalities
should be seized for the use of the King, and he was compelled
to give securities for his appearance when called upon. But
instead of obeying the judgment, the Bishop hurried off to
Avignon, where the Pope then resided, to whom he bitterly
complained that the King had usurped the rights of the
Church, by seizing the temporalities of the See. The Pope
listened to his complaints readily enough, and then issued
a Bull requiring the King s Judges to appear at the Papal
66
A PAPAL OUTRAGE 67
Court as culprits to answer for their alleged misdeeds in

giving such a judgment. Of course they refused to appear,
whereupon the proud Pope declared them excommunicated.
He sent the excommunication to the Bishop of Lincoln,
with orders to publish it, and if he found that any of those
excommunicated were dead, he should see to it that they
were dug out of their graves, and cast out of the churchyard.
It so happened that two cf them were dead, namely, Sir
Simon Dray ton and the Lord John Engain. The Bishop
succeeded in getting the former thrown out of his grave,
but the son of the latter used force, and thus prevented the
outrage on his father s body. The King was very angry,
and because some of the excommunicated were members
of his Privy Council, he issued a proclamation to the effect
that thereafter no man should presume, under pain of death,
to bring into the Realm, or to procure, or to publish any
Papal letters, citations, excommunications, or censures.
Some of the Bishop of Ely s servants were imprisoned in
the Tower of London, and others of them in Newgate, for
presuming, contrary to the King s prohibition, to deliver to
the Bishop of Rochester letters from the Pope, and it is
said they remained in prison until their deaths. 1 Holinshed
says that some of the Bishop s servants suffered death on
"
2
the gallows."
Once more, in the
thirty-eighth year of his reign,
Edward III.
complained to his Parliament of the extortions
of the Papacy. He protested against appeals to the Pope
on matters which ought to be finally settled in his Courts
within the Realm of England. These had led to the spoiling
of his Crown, the daily conveying away to Rome of the
treasures of England, to the withdrawing of Divine service,
alms, hospitality, and other good works, and to the daily
increase of all mischiefs. 3 This complaint of the King led
to the passing of the Act 38 Edward III., stat. 2,
cap. 1, against receiving Citations from Rome in causes

pertaining to the King, and imposing for such offences the
penalties provided by 25 Edward III., stat. 6.
1
Barnes History of King Edward the Third, p. 551.
2 3
He lin shed s Chronicles, vol. ii. p. 671. Cotton s Records, p. 100.
William de Lenne, Bishop of Chichester from 1362 to
1369, had a quarrel with the Earl of Arundel, which led to
a contest between the State and the Church, in which the
State gained a noteworthy victory. The Bishop, in open
violation of the laws, procured a citation from the Pope
ordering the Earl to answer in the Roman Court certain
charges brought against him by the Bishop. When this
came to the knowledge of the King he was highly indignant,
and cited the Bishop to appear in his Court for his pre
sumption attempting to introduce a foreign tribunal into
in
England. The Bishop was convicted the temporalities ;
of the Bishopric of Chichester were seized, and his personal
goods and chattels were confiscated to the Crown.

1
In the year 1374 King Edward III. directed writs to all

the Bishops of England, requiring them to send him returns
showing the number of dignities and benefices held in the
Church of England by
"
Italians and other strangers,"
together with their yearly value. When the returns came

in they showed that foreign Cardinals, who never resided
in England, held the Deaneries of York, Lichfield, and
Salisbury the Archdeaconries of Suffolk, York, Dorset,
;
Berks, Taunton, Canterbury, and Sarum, together with a

large number of Prebendaries and parochial charges. These
the Cardinals seem to have farmed out to those who would
give them the most for them, pocketing the money for their
own private use, and without doing a day s work for it.
Surely it was time that disabilities were imposed against
the perpetration of such scandalous abuses and wholesale
robbery of the Church of England. If Englishmen had
waited until the Papal Court put an end to such scandals,
they would never have been stopped at all. The following
list of dignities and livings held by these Cardinals is compiled
from the official returns sent in to the King :
500 marks
Cardinal of St. Sabine, Deanery
Prebend
of Lichfield
Brewood
of ...
. .
80 marks
,,
Parsonage of A dbaston
Prebend of Stransal
Cardinal of St. Angelo, Archdeaconry of Suffolk
....
.
.
. .
.
20
100 marks
6613 4
1
Hook s Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury vol. ,
iv. pp. 405, 40* .
FOREIGNERS APPOINTED BY THE POPE 69
Cardinal of St. Adrian, Parsonage of Godalming . 40

Deanery of Salisbury 254 12 4
Cardinal of St. Peter ad Vincula, Deanery of York 400
Cardinal of St. Mary in Portion, Prebend of Driffield . 100
Cardinal of St. Sixt, Prebend of Wistow 100
Cardinal of St. Praxed, Archdeaconry of York 100
Prebend of Gillingbam 80
Cardinal of St. Mark, Treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral 136 13 4
Cardinal of the Twelve Apostles, Archdeaconry of Dorset . 103 marks
,, ,, ,,
Prebend of Woodford 40 marks
Cardinal of Agrifolio, Archdeaconry of Berks 120 marks
Prebend of Worth 100
Prebend of Hey worth
,, 80
,, Archdeaconry of Taunton . 80
,, Prebend of Corringham 165
Cardinal of St. Mary in Cosmedin, Archdeaconry of Canter-
bury 700 florins

Cardinal Albauum, Prebend of Sutton 400 marks
Cardinal Glandaven, Prebend of Nassington 300 marks
Cardinal Nonmacen, Parsonage of Adderbury 100
Cardinal de Yeverino, Prebend of Aylesbury 80 marks
Cardinal Neminacem, Archdeaconry of Sarum (not named)
,, Parsonage of Alwardbury (not named)
,,
Prebend of Calne 100
Cardinal Gebanen, Parsonage of Weymouth 200 marks
On June
25, 1376, Parliament met, when a long com
against Papal usurpations was presented by the
plaint
Commons to the King, who declared that they were the
cause of all the plagues, injuries, famine, and poverty of the
Realm. They asserted therein :
*
That the tax paid to the Pope of Rome for ecclesiastical
dignities, doth amount to five fold as much as the tax of all the
profits, as appertain to the King by the year, of this whole Realm ;
and forsome one Bishopric or other dignity, the Pope by trans

lation and death hath three, four, or five several taxes. That
the brokers of that sinful city for money promote many caitiffs,
being altogether unlearned and unworthy, to a thousand Marks
living yearly whereas the learned and worthy can hardly
;
obtain twenty Marks, whereby learning decayeth. That aliens,

enemies to this land, who never saw nor care to see their parish
ioners, have those livings, whereby they despise God s service,
and convey away the treasure of the Realm, and are worse than
Jews or Saracens. It is, therefore, to be considered that the law
of the Church would have such livings bestowed for charity
only, without praying or paying. That reason would that
livings, given
of devotion, should be bestowed in hospitality.
That God hath given his sheep to the Pope to be pastured, and
not shorn or shaven. That there is none so rich a Prince in
Christendom who hath the fourth part of so much treasure, as
the Pope hath out of this Kealm for Churches, most sinfully/
As a remedy for these evils the Commons suggested :
That no money be carried out of the Realm, by letters of

"
Lombardy or otherwise, on pain of forfeiture and imprisonment,

and to enact the articles hereinunder ensuing : The King hath
heretofore by Statute provided sufficient remedy, and otherwise
pursueth the same with the Holy Father,
the Pope ;
and so
mindeth to do from time to time, until he hath obtained the
same, as well for the matters before, as for the articles ensuing,
they being in a manner all one. Then it was remonstrated that
the Pope s Collector, and other strangers, the King s enemies,
and only leiger-spies for English dignities, and disclosing the
secrets of the Realm, ought to be discharged. That the same
Collector, being also receiver of the Pope s Pence, keepeth an
house in London, with clerks and officers thereunto belonging,
as if it were one of the King s solemn Courts, transporting
yearly to the Pope 20,000 Marks, and most commonly more.
That Cardinals and other aliens remaining at the Court of Rome,
whereof one Cardinal is Dean of York, another of Salisbury,
another of Lincoln, another Archdeacon of Canterbury, another
Archdeacon of Durham, another of Suffolk, and another Arch
deacon of York, in the Diocese of York, have divers others the
best dignities of England, and have sent over yearly to them
20,000 Marks, over and above that which English brokers lying
here have. That the Pope to ransom Frenchmen, the King s
enemies, who defend Lombardy for him, doth always at his
pleasure levy a subsidy of the whole clergy of England. That
the Pope for more gain maketh sundry translations of all the
Bishoprics and other dignities within the Realm. That the Pope s
Collector hath this year taken to his use the First Fruits of all
benefices. That therefore it would be good to renew all the
Statutes against Provisions from Rome, since the Pope reserve th
all the benefices of the world for his own
proper gift, and haih
within this year created twelve new Cardinals, so that now there
are thirty, whereas there were wont to be but twelve in all ;
and all the said thirty Cardinals, except two or three, are the
King s enemies. Tha; the Pope in time will give the temporal
manors of dignities to the King s enemies, since he daily usurpeth
THE KING PROTECTS THE FLORENTINES 71
upon the Realm and the King s Regality. That all Houses
and Corporations of Religion, which from the King ought to have
free elections of their Heads, the Pope hath now encroached the
same unto himself. That in all Legations from the Pope what
soever, the English clergy beareth the charge of the Legates,
and all for the goodness of our money. It also appeareth that,
if the Realm were as
plentiful as ever, the Collector aforesaid,
with the Cardinals Proctors, would soon convey away the same.
For remedy whereof it m^y be provided, that no such Collector
or Proctor do remain in England, upon pain of life and limb ;
and that on the like pain no Englishman become any such

Collector or Proctor/ l
In the year 1376 occurred a brief struggle between the

Church (as represented by Courtenay, Bishop of London)
and the State, in which the latter obtained a just victory.
Pope Gregory XL issued a Bull of Interdict against the
Florentines, wherever they happened to reside in any part
of the world. He was at that time at war with Florence.
Now it so happened that a number of Florentine merchants
were residing in England, doing extensive business, the
King himself having considerable dealings with them. He,
therefore, determined to protect them from the Pope s
wrath. But although he issued a Royal mandate on the
subject, Courtenay had the audacity to publish the Pope s
Interdict at St. Paul s Cross, and to excommunicate every
Florentine living in England ! The King s Chancellor,
therefore, determined on maintaining the just rights of the
King, summoned the Bishop before him, and demanded
from him to explain why he had published the Pope s Bull
without the knowledge of the King and Council ? Because
:
the Pope ordered was the blunt answer of the Bishop.

it,"
But the Chancellor was not to be put down as easily as the

Bishop seems to have expected. Then choose," replied
the Chancellor,
"
between suffering the confiscation of your

temporalities, and recalling your words with your own
mouth." The Bishop does not appear to have directly and
formally recalled his words, though through a deputy he
tried to explain them, but he recalled the Papal Interdict
1
Barnes History of King Edward the Third, pp. 887, 888 ;
Cotton s
Records, pp. 128-130.

and his excommunication, thus leaving the victory to the
1
State.
Sir reports that during
Edward Coke the reign of
Edward III. it was decided that An excommunication
:
the Pope or
by the Archbishop, albeit it be disannuled by
his is to be allowed neither ought the Judges give
:
Legates,
the Pope, or his
any allowance of any such sentence of
The King presented
"
to a Benefice, and his

Legate."
one that had Bulls from Rome,
presentee was disturbed by
for which offence he was condemned to perpetual imprison
ment." It was also decided that "An excommunication
:
under the Pope s Bull, is of no force to disable any man within

the Realm of England. And the Judges said that he that
pleaded such Bulls, though they concern the excommunica
tion of a subject, were in a hard case, if the King would
In an attachment upon
"
extend his justice against him."

a prohibition, the defendant pleaded the Pope s Bull of
Excommunication of the plaintiff. The Judges demanded
of the defendant if he had not the certificate of some
Bishop within the Realm, testifying to the excommuni

cation ? To whom the counsel of the defendant answered
that he had not, neither was it, as he supposed, necessary ;
for that the Bulls of the Pope under lead were notorious
enough. But it was adjudged that they were not sufficient,

for that the Court ought not to have regard to any excom
munication out of the Realm. And therefore by the rule
of the Court the plaintiff was not thereby disabled." The
Abbot of Waltham died in the 45th year of Edward III.,
and one Nicholas Morris was elected Abbot, who, for that
the Abbey was exempt from ordinary jurisdiction, sent to
Rome to be confirmed by the Pope. And because the Pope
by his Constitutions had reserved all such collations to
himself, he did recite by his Bull that he, having no regard
to the election of the said Nicholas, gave to him the said
Abbey, and the spiritualities and temporalities belonging
to the same, of his spiritual
grace, and at the request (as
he feigned) of the King of England. This Bull was read and
considered of in Council, that is, before all the Judges of
1
England in the Age of Wycliffe, by G. M. Trevelyan, edition 1900, p. 79.
LEGAL DECISIONS ON PAPAL EXTORTIONS 73
England, and it was resolved by them all, that this Bull

was against the laws of England, and that the Abbot for
obtaining the same was fallen into the King s mercy, where
upon all his possessions were seized into the King s hand, as
more at large by the said case appeareth." 1
It seems as though the authorities of the Realm must have
been very neglectful of their duty in enforcing the laws
against Papal extortions and encroachments, or there would
have been no need for legislating so frequently on this sore
grievance. Probably one reason for the continuance of
these abuses is to be seen in those laws which, although they
forbade Provisors and the introduction of Papal Bulls, and
Papal Legates, yet gave permission to the King to give his
consent to a continuance of the evils complained of, when
ever he thought it desirable to do so. As a consequence
several Kings made unworthy bargains with the Popes, to
their own aggrandisement, but to the serious injury of the
Church and people of England. In 1379 another lengthy
Act (3 Richard II., cap. 3) was passed forbidding that any
one should take any Benefice from an alien, or convey
money to him. The Act did not mention the Pope by name,
but it was certainly aimed against him, since it made it
illegal for him, as an alien, to issue his Provisors, by which he
bestowed English livings on foreigners. Four years later,
another Act (7 Richard II., cap. 12) was passed making it
illegal for any alien to either purchase or occupy a Benefice
without the especial grace and express licence
"
in England
of the King."
1
Coke s Reports, vol. iii.
pp. xxxvii.-xli.
CHAPTER VII
RICHARD II. HENRY IV.
The Work of Wycliffe The Government and People at first on Wycliffe s

Side The King asks Wycliffe s Opinion on Sending Treasure to the
Pope Wycliffe s Reply National Demands for Fresh Restraints on
the Papacy The Bishops demand a New Law to Suppress the Lollards
How the Law was obtained by a Trick Parliament summoned to
consider the Injuries inflicted by the Court of Rome The House of
Commons petitions that First-fruits of Livings be paid to the King
instead of the Pope An Act against going to Rome for Benefices
Richard II. forbids the Bishops to pay Tithes to the Pope Another
Act against Provisors The King s Proclamation against Papal Bulls
Archbishop Courtenay s Declaration against Papal Excommunica
tions A Statute that mauled the Papal Power in England
"
Why
"
Richard II. was Deposed Richard II. on the Crimes of the Popes.
THE great associated with the name of Wycliffe

movement
undoubtedly tended to increase English opposition to Papal
extortions, as well as to certain doctrines of the Church of
Rome. Wycliffe had widespread support amongst the laity,
and his influence was felt, both politically and religiously,
down to the Reformation. Mr. Trevelyan states that in
the year 1377 The Government and people of England
:
"
were both on his (Wycliffe s) side. He was never in his

life so strong as he was in this
year, when he stood as the
National champion against the Papacy, and spoke the
National feeling against the abuses of the Church at home." 3
This was, however, before Wycliffe s religious teaching was

widely known. Soon after the accession of Richard II.,
Wycliffe was asked by the young King to give, in writing,
an answer to the question Whether the Realm of
"
England can legitimately, when the necessity of repelling

invasion imminent, withhold the treasure of the Realm
is
that it be not sent to foreign parts, although the Pope

demand it under pain of censure and in virtue of obedience
1
England in the Age of Wycliffe, p. 81.
74
THE POPES AND THE TEMPORAL POWER 75
due to him ? It is remarkable that at the moment when

"
Wycliffe was thus consulted he was under the ban of a

Papal Bull. He wrote a pamphlet in reply to the Royal
The he affirmed, cannot demand this
" "
question. Pope,"
treasure except by way of alms and by the rule of charity.

But this claim of alms, and all demand for the treasure of
the Realm, ought to cease in this case of our present need.
Since all charity begins at home, it would not be the work
of charity, but of fatuity, to direct the alms of the Realm
abroad, when the Realm itself lies in need of them."
*
Of the attitude of England towards the Papacy at this

period, Rapin has some remarks which may usefully be
Certainly it was time," he writes,
" "
cited here. for the
English nation, as well as the rest of Europe, to use their

utmost endeavours to stop the growth of the Papal power.
They must have voluntarily shut their eyes, not to see that
allthe proceedings of the Popes tended to render them
Temporal Sovereigns of Europe. Of this the Decretal
Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII., which shows that the Pope
thought himself invested with the Temporal as well as the
Spiritual Power, is a clear evidence but since it might be ;
said, it isnot reasonable to ascribe the ambitious designs

of Boniface to all the Popes, this evidence may be supported
by another, which demonstrates that Boniface did but

tread in the steps of his predecessors. I mean John XXII.,
who by his sole authority published a truce between England
and Scotland, against the consent of one of the parties,
and empowered his Legate to conclude a peace between
the two Kingdoms, upon what terms they pleased, with
orders to compel the two Kings and their subjects punctually
to observe the same, under pain of excommunication.
Does not this proceeding show that the Popes all acted with
the same spirit and if their ambition had been indulged,
;
would have considered Christian Princes but as subjects,

or, at least, as vassals to the See of Rome ?
"
2
The National demand for fresh restraints on the Papacy

continued throughout the reign of Richard II. They did
1
England in the Age of Wycliffe, p. 82.
2
Rapin s History of England, vol. iv. p. 98, edition 1757.
much towards stopping the evils complained of, but they
would have been far more effectual had those to whom was
entrusted the administration of the law acted with greater
firmness. But all through this reign a reactionary spirit
was at work, emanating from the Bishops and clergy, and
frequently aided by the King himself. There was the same
fear of giving offence then as in the present time, and, in
certain quarters, a desire for peace at any price. Yet all
through this period, and down to the Reformation, the
laity hailed with approval the imposition of Papal dis
abilities. The lay opposition, though not always successful
was always more or less powerful, and found expression not
only in the Acts passed by Parliament, but also, occasionally,

in decisions pronounced by the Judges, and in petitions
presented to the King.

At this time the Bishops were alarmed at the great in
crease in the number of Wycliffe s followers. Rapin quotes
two men could not be found
"
Knighton as saying that

and one not a Lollard or disciple of Wycliffe. 1
"
together,
Not being able to arrest the progress of what they termed
heresy by argument, they determined on resorting to
Parliament for pow ers to put it down by force. But this
r
could only be done by means of a trick practised on the

House of Commons, which is thus exposed by Lord Chan
cellor Campbell. In the year 1382 Robert de Braybroke,
Bishop of London, was Lord Chancellor of England The :
"
Chancellor is celebrated for having resorted to a pious fraud

for what he considered the
good of the Church. In the
Parliament held in the 5 Richard II., he introduced a Bill
authorising the Lord Chancellor to issue commissions to
sheriffs to arrest and
imprison such as should be certified
into Chancery to be heretics. This was approved of by the
Lords, but thrown out by the Commons. Nevertheless
the Chancellor at the end of the Session caused it to be
inscribed on the Parliament Roll, and it was vigorously
acted upon to the great vexation of the subject. When
Parliament again met, the Commons in a fury passed a Bill,
to which the Lords
agreed, declaring the former Act to be
1
Rapin s History of England, vol. iv. p. 104, edition 1757.
THE CRAFT OF THE PRELATES" 77
And Lord Campbell quotes the celebrated Lord

null."
Coke as stating But in the Parliamentary proclamation

:
"
of the Acts passed in Anno 6 Richard II., whereby the said

supposed Act of 5 Richard II. was declared to be null,
is omitted, and afterwards the said supposed Act of
5 Richard II. was continually printed, and the said Act of
6 Richard II. hath, by the craft of the Prelates, been ever
from time to time kept from the print."
The history thus related by Lord Campbell affords us a
clear proof of the anti-Roman feeling of the House of
Commons in the years referred to. The persecuting and
fraudulent Act was passed to please the Pope, who had
demanded the punishment of Wy cliff e s followers, the
Lollards. But in this matter the Commons cared nothing
about the Pope s wishes, and, for a time, effectually clipped
his wings. Writing in 1845, Lord Campbell stated that the
sham Act was still on the Statute Book. Since then it has
been repealed.
In the third year of Richard II. the Lord Chancellor,
in opening Parliament, stated that one of the objects for
which it had been summoned was to call attention to the
injury done to the Crown of England by the Court of Rome.
2
In the following year the Commons petitioned that action

might be taken against the Pope s Collectors, because they
collected the first-fruits of ecclesiastical Benefices within
the Realm, and the King promised that he would prohibit
them from so acting. The Commons also asked that all
foreign Priors shoiild be sent out of the country, never to
return, and that Englishmen should be placed in their
livings. On this point the King replied that he would
take advice. 3 In the fifth year (1382) the Commons prayed
for a remedy against those who purchased Abbeys, Priories,
and other ecclesiastical dignities from the Court of Rome,
and the King promised to enforce the laws on this subject.
They also asked that no alien should enjoy any ecclesiastical
living within the Realm, and to this the King gave the same
answer. 4 In the year 1383 the Commons again complained
1
Campbell s Lives of the Lord CJiancellors, vol. i.
pp. 285, 28 f>.
2 3 4
Cotton s Records, p. 182. Ibid., p. 191. Ibid., p. 203.
of the action of the Pope s Collectors of first fruits of livings,
and the young King once more promised to prohibit the
Collectors. In the ninth year of this King s reign the
Commons petitioned that all of the clergy advanced to any
living, or ecclesiastical dignity, should pay
the first-fruits
to the King, instead of to the Pope. The King granted
their request, thus touching the Pope on a very sore point.
The Commons were evidently bent on imposing disabilities
"
on the Papacy, for once more, in 1386, they petitioned that

no Cardinal, nor other alien, do enjoy within this Realm
any Prebend or other benefice," and the King promised
2
that the Statutes relating thereto should be observed.
Itwas found necessary, in 1388, to pass another dis
abling Act of Parliament. By the 12 Richard II., cap. 15, it
was provided that :
No liege man of the King, of what estate or condition

"
that he be, great or little, shall pass over the sea, nor send
out of the Realm of England, by licence nor without licence,
without special leave of the King himself, to provide or
purchase him benefice of Holy Church, with cure or
fo"
without cure in the said Realm and if any do, and by

;
virtue of such Provision, accept by him, or by any other,

any benefice of the same Realm, that at that time the same
Provisor shall be out of the King s protection, and the
same benefice void, so that it shall be lawful to the patron
of the same benefice, as well spiritual as temporal, to present
to the same an able Clerk at his pleasure."
Richard II. caused James Dardain, the Pope s Collector
in England, in 1388, to swear that he would not put into
execution any Papal Letters or mandates that were pre
judicial to the King, his laws and rights that he would not
;
receive or publish any of the Pope s Letters, but would

deliver them up to the King as soon as he had received
them nor send any money out of the Kingdom without
;
special licence from the King or his Council. His Majesty

also wrote,on October 10, 1388, to the Archbishops of
Canterbury and York, and to all the Bishops of England,
informing them that the Pope had dared to impose a new
1 2
Cotton s Records, p. 313. Ibid., p. 317.
BENEFICES FROM ROME FORBIDDEN 70
tax on the English clergy of a tenth of their incomes, to be

paid to the Pope. The King commanded them, by the
faith in which they were bound to him and under forfeit "
of all they could forfeit, to revoke all that had been done
for the levying and exacting of this imposition, and to
return what had been paid and levied, enjoining them not to
l
pay or contribute anything to this subsidy or imposition."
Only one year after the passing of the last cited Act it
was found necessary to pass another of a severe character.
It re-enacted the Act of 25 Edward III., stat. 6, against
Provisors, and as to that Act it ordered :
"
And if
any do accept of a benefice of Holy Church contrary
to this Statute, and that duly proved, and be beyond the sea,
he shall abide exiled and banished out of the Realm for ever,
his lands and tenements, goods and chattels, shall be forfeit to
the and if he be within the Realm, he shall be also exiled
King ;
and banished, as afore is said, and shall incur the same forfeiture
and take his way, so that he be out of the Realm within six
weeks next after such acceptation. And if any receive any
such person banished coming from beyond the sea, or being
within the Realm after the said six weeks, knowing thereof, he
shall also be exiled and banished, and incur such forfeiture as
afore is said. And that their procurators, notaries, executors,
and summoners have the pain and forfeiture aforesaid ...
is ordained and established, that if any man bring or
"It
send within the Realm, or the King s power, any summons,

sentences, or excommunications against any person, of what
condition that he be, for the cause of making motion, assent or
execution of the said Statute of Provisors, he shall be taken,
arrested, and put in prison, and forfeit all his lands and tenements,
goods and chattels for ever, and incur the pain of life and of
member. And if any Prelate make execution of such summons,
sentences, or excommunications, that his temporalities be taken
and abide in the King s hands, till true redress and correction
be thereof made. And if any person of less estate than a Prelate,
of what condition that he be, make such execution, he shall be
taken, arrested, and put in prison, and have imprisonment,
and make fine and ransom by the discretion of the King s
Council.
And
"
if the King send by letter, or in other manner, to the

1
A Continuation of the Complete History of England, by Robert Brady
(1700), p. 448.
Court of Rome, at the intreaty of any person, or if any other
send or sue to the fame Court, whereby anything is done contrary
to this Statute, touching any Archbishopric, Bishopric, dignity
or other benefice of Holy Church within the said Realm, if he
that maketh such motion or suit be a Prelate of Holy Church,
he shall pay to the King the value of his temporalities of one year ;
and if he be a temporal lord, he shall pay to the King the value

of his lands and possessions not moveable of one year and if ;
he be another person of a more mean estate, he shall pay to the

King the value of the benefice for which suit is made and shall
be imprisoned one year/
Soon after the passing of this Act, Richard II. issued

the subjoined Royal prohibition against Papal exactions :
Whereas in our Parliament lately held at Westminster

"
[1389], the Commons of our said Kingdom entreated us to

provide a remedy against the subsidies exacted from the
Clergy of our Realm by the Supreme Pontiff and that ;
whosoever of our liege subjects should from that time forth

bring to England any Papal Bulls for the levying of such
impositions, hitherto unknown, which may be prejudicial
to ourselves and our Kingdom and whosoever shall ;
presume to publish or collect such imposition or innovation

without our consent, should be esteemed a traitor to ourselves,
and executed. And whereas, notwithstanding we granted
their request, a new subsidy, in behalf of the Supreme
Pontiff, is about to be exacted without our will and consent,
we command you, by the fidelity which you owe to our
person, and on pain of forfeiture of all things which can be
forfeited to us, to desist altogether from levying such, exac
tions from our clergy." 1
This Royal prohibition seems to have given very great
offence to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and
they declared in Parliament, on behalf of themselves and
the clergy of their Provinces, that "
they neither intended or

would assent to any Statute or Law to be made against the
Pope s authority." But only three years later this same
Archbishop of Canterbury (Courtenay) made a declaration
in Parliament giving his approval to a limitation on the
1
Hart s Ecclesiastical Records, p. 53.
2
Parliamentary History, vol. i. p. 443.
ARCHBISHOP COURTENAY S DECLARATION 81
Pope s authority in England, and this declaration was, by

his special request, entered on the Parliament Roll. It was
as follows :
To our dread Sovereign Lord the King, in this present

"
Parliament assembled His humble Chaplain, William, Arch

bishop of Canterbury, gives in his answer to the Petition
brought into the Parliament by the Commons of the Realm,
in which Petition are contained certain articles that is to ;
say, first :
Whereas our Sovereign Lord the King, and all his

"
liege subjects, ought of right, and had been always ac

customed to sue in the King s Court, to recover their pre
sentations to Churches, to maintain their titles to Prebends,
and other benefices of Holy Church, to which they have a
right to present the cognisance of which plea belongs solely

;
to the Court of our Sovereign Lord the King, by virtue of

his ancient prerogative, maintained and practised in the
Reigns of all his predecessors Kings of England. And when

judgment is given in His Highness said Court upon any
such plea, the Archbishops, Bishops, and other spiritual
persons, who have the right of giving institution within their
jurisdiction, are bound to execute such judgments, and used
always to make execution of them at the King s command
(since no lay person can make any such execution) and are ;
also bound to make execution of many other commands of

our Lord the King of which right the Crown of England
;
has been all along peaceably possessed but now of late ;
divers processes have been made by the Holy Father the

Pope, and excommunications published against several
English Bishops for making such executions, and acting in
pursuance to the King s commands in the cases above-
mentioned and that such censures of His Holiness are
inflicted in open disherison of the Crown, and subversive
of the prerogative Royal of the King s laws and his whole
Realm unless prevented by proper remedies.
In reply to this article the Archbishop first of all referred
to his protestation in favour of the Pope s prerogative, and
then added any executions of processes are made,
: "If
or shall be made by any person if

any censures of ex-
;
communication shall be published and served upon any
English Bishops or any other of the King s subjects [i.e.
by the Pope] for their having made execution of any such
commands, he maintains such censures to be prejudicial
to the King s prerogative, as it is set forth in the Commons
petition and that so far forth he is resolved to stand with

;
our Lord the King, and support his Crown in the matters
above-mentioned, to his power.
And likewise, whereas it is said in the petition, that
"
complaint has been made, that the said Holy Father the
Pope had designed to translate some English Prelates to
Sees out of the Realm, and some from one Bishopric to
another, without the knowledge or consent of our Lord
the King, and without the assent of the Prelates so trans
lated (which Prelates are very serviceable and necessary to
our Lord the King and his whole Realm), which translations,
if they should be suffered, the Statutes of the Realm would
be defeated, and made, in a great measure, insignificant,

and the said lieges of His Highness Council would be re
moved out of his Kingdom without their assent and against
their inclination, and the treasure of the said Realm would
be exported, by which means the country would become
destitute, both of wealth and council, to the utter destruc
tion of the said Realm and thus the Crown of England,
;
which has always been so free and independent as not to

have any earthly Sovereign, but to be immediately subject
to God in all things touching the prerogatives and Royalty
of the said Crown, should be made subject to the Pope, and
the laws and Statutes of the Realm defeated and set aside
by him at pleasure, to the utter destruction of the Sovereignty
of our Lord the King, his Crown and Royalty, and his whole
Kingdom, which God forbid.

The said Archbishop, first protesting that it is not his
intention to affirm that our Holy Father aforesaid cannot
make translations of Prelates according to the laws of Holy
Church, answers and declares that if any English Prelates,
who, by their capacity and qualification, were very serviceable
and necessary to our Lord the King, and his Realm, if any
such Prelates were translated to any Sees in foreign dominions,
STATUTE WHICH "MAULED PAPAL POWER" 83
or the sage lieges of his Council were forced out of the

Kingdom against their will, and that by this means the
wealth and treasure of the Kingdom should be exported ;
in this case the Archbishop declares that such translations

would be prejudicial to the King and his Crown for which ;
reason, if anything of this should happen, he resolves to
adhere loyally to the King, and endeavour, and he is bound by

his allegiance, to support His Highness in this and all other
instances in which the rights of his Crown are concerned." l
In 1392 a law was made which is thus quaintly described
For now came the Parliament wherein the
"
by Fuller :
Statute was enacted which mauled the Papal power in

England. Some former laws had pared the Pope s nails to
the quick, but this cut off his ringers, in effect, so that
hereafter his hands could not grasp and hold such vast sums
of money as before. This is called the Statute of Pree-
munire and let not the reader grudge the reading thereof,
;
which gave such a blow to the Church of Rome that it

never recovered itself in this land, but daily decayed till its
final destruction." 2 The first portion of the Act referred
to by Fuller is the same as that which is described as a
Petition brought into the Parliament by the Commons of
"
the Realm" in the declaration of Archbishop Courtenay

cited on page The Act (16 Richard II., cap. 5) com
81.
plains that the Pope had excommunicated English Bishops

for obeying the commandments of their King, and had
translated Bishops from one diocese to another, without
the consent and against the will of the King and so the
"
Crown of England, which has been so free at all times, that

ithas been in no earthly subjection, but immediately subject
to God in all things touching the Royalty of the same
Crown, and to none other, should be submitted to the Pope."
The Act proceeds to state that the Lords Temporal had been
separately questioned, and had each promised to defend
the Crown from all attempts made against its rights. The
Archbishops, Bishops, and other Prelates had been severally
examined, and they had promised that if the Pope should
1
Hook s Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. iv. pp. 384-387.
2
Fuller s Church History of Britain, vol. ii. p. 368 (Oxford, 1845).
excommunicate any of the Bishops, or any of the King s
subjects for obeying the decisions of the King s Courts,

they will and ought to be with the King in these cases in
"
lawfully maintaining his Crown, and in all other cases

touching his Crown and his Royalty, as they are bound by
their allegiance." The Act concludes by imposing severe
penalties, in the following terms :
Whereupon our said Lord, the King, by the assent

"
aforesaid, and at the request of his said Commons, has

ordained and established, that if any purchase or pursue,
or cause to be purchased or pursued, in the Court of Rome,
or elsewhere, any such translations, processes, and sentences
of excommunication, Bulls, instruments, or any other things
whatsoever, v/hich touch our Lord the King, against him,
his Crown, his Royalty, or his Realm, as is aforesaid, and
they which bring the same within the Realm, or receive

them, or make thereof notification, or any other execution
whatsoever within the same Realm or without, that they,
their notaries, procurators, maintainers, abettors, favourers,
and counsellors, shall be put out of the King s protection,
and and tenements, goods and chattels, forfeited
their lands
to our Lord the King and that they be attached by their
;
bodies, if they may be found, and brought before the King

and his Council, there to answer to the cases aforesaid, or
that process may be made against them by Prcemunire
facias, in manner as it is ordained in other Statutes con
cerning Provisors, and others who sue, in any other Court,
in derogation of the Royalty of our Lord the King." l
Unfortunately the Parliament was induced to grant

the King a power to dispense from the observance of the
law against Provisors, so as to grant permission to accept
dignities and benefices at the gift of the Pope. But although
this could only be done by permission of the King, it led in
time to abuses, very much to the discontent of the laity.
In 1394 an Act was passed enabling Tideman de Winchcomb,
Abbot of Beaulieu, to accept the Bishopric of Llandaff, to
which he had been presented by the Pope, notwithstanding
the law against Provisors but it was expressly provided
;
1
Gee and Hardy s Documents Illustrative of English Church History, p. 125.
RICHARD II. ON CRIMES OF THE POPES 85
that it "so
always as this be laken for no
was done
1
was enacted that no begging
"
example 1396 it In
Friars should pass over the seas without the King s licence,
under penalty of being put out of the King s protection. 2
King Richard II. was deposed in 1399. One of the articles
charged against him by Parliament, under which he lost
his Crown, was that of giving the Pope too much power in
the Realm, a practice which gave great offence to the people
of England. Article X. of these accusations was as
Although the Crown of the Kingdom of Eng
"
follows :
land, and the rights of the said Crown, and the Kingdom
itself, have in all time past been so free, that our Lord the
Pope, nor any other without the Kingdom, ought to concern

himself about the same yet the aforesaid King (Richard
;
II.), for the corroboration of such his erroneous Statutes,

did make supplication to our Lord the Pope, that he would
confirm the Statutes ordained in his last Parliament,
whereupon our Lord the Pope granted his Apostolic Letters,
in which grievous censures are denounced against any that
should presume in anything to act contrary to the said
Statutes all which are well known to tend against the
;
Crown, and Royal dignity, and against the Statutes and

liberties of the said Kingdom." 3
But although, as stated in this article, Richard gave too
much power to the Pope in England, yet on one occasion,
in 1398, only the year before he was deposed, he exalted
the general power of Kings over Popes in very decided
terms. Foxe prints a lengthy letter which, in that year,
Richard addressed to Boniface IX. In it he wrote :
"
But peradventure it would be thought by some men, that

it
belongeth not to secular Princes to bridle outrages of the Pope.
To whom we answer, that naturally the members put themselves
in jeopardy to save the head, and the
parts labour to save the
whole. Christ so decked His spouse, that her sides should cleave
together, and should uphold themselves, and by course of time
and occasion of things they should correct one another, and cleave
together tuneably. Did not Moses put down Aaron, because
he was unfaithful ? Solomon put down Abiathar, who came by
1 2
Cotton s Records, p. 354. Ibid., p. :>G3.
3
Parliamentary History, vol. ii. p. 16.
lineal descent from Anathoth, and removed his priesthood from
his kindred to the stock of Eleazar in the person of Zadock, who
had his beginning from Eli the priest ? Otho the Emperor
deposed John XII., because he was lecherous. Henry the
Emperor put down Gratian, because he used simony in buying
and selling spiritual livings and Otho deposed Pope Benedick
;
V., because he thrust in himself. Therefore, by like reason,

why may not Kings and Princes bridle the Romish Pope in
default of the Church, if the quality of his fault require it,
or the necessity of the Church, by this means, compel to
help the Church oppressed by tyranny ? In old times Schisms,
which rose about making the Pope, were determined by
the power of secular Princes as the Schism between Sym-
;
machus and Laurence was ended in a Council before Theodoric,

King of Italy. Henry the Emperor, when two did strive to be
Pope, deposed them both, and received the third, being chosen
at Rome, to be Pope, that is to say, Clement II., who crowned
him with the Imperial Crown and the Romans promised him
;
that from thenceforth they would promote none to be Pope

without his consent. Alexander also overcame four Popes,
schismatics, all of whom Frederic the Emperor corrected.
Thus, look on the register of Popes and their deeds, and ye
shall find that Schisms most.commonly have been decided by the
power of secular Princes, the schismatics cast out, and some

times new Popes made ;
and sometimes the old ones cast out
of their dignities, and restored to their old dignities again/ l
Even Henry VIII. could not have written more strongly

on this important subject.
1
Foxe s Ads and Monuments, vol. iii.
pp. 211, 212.
CHAPTER VIII
HENRY IV. HENRY VIII.
An Act against Abuses in Monasteries Other Acts relating to Monks and

Nuns Acts against Papal Extortions The Chief Justice says the
Pope "cannot change the Law of the Land" Oxford University sets
up the Authority
of the Pope against the King The Court of Chancery
Condemns the University Great Wealth of the Church in the Reign
of Henry V. An Act which annoyed the Abbots, Priors, Friars, and
Nuns Another Act against Papal Provisions The Duke of Gloucester
burns the Pope s Letters The King s Council refuse to recognise
Cardinal Beaufort as Papal Legate Twenty-one Articles against
Cardinal Beaufort Pope Martin V. claims the Right of Presentation
to all Churches and Bishoprics Makes his Nephew, aged fourteen,
Archdeacon of Canterbury Henry V. sends an Embassy to the Pope to
complain of his Extortions Archbishop Cbicheley s Letter protesting
against the Papal Legate The Dean and Chapter of York successfully
resist the Pope s Nominee to the Archbishopric The Pope s Legate
sent to Prison Pope Martin V. denounces the English anti-Papal
Laws His Furious Letter to Archbishop Chicheley The English
Clergy refuse to obey the Pope s Command The Archbishop of
Canterbury refuses to collect Tenths for the Pope Archbishop
Bourchier orders Punishment of the Clergy who had obtained Livings
by Papal Letters The Judges decide that a Papal Excommunication
does not bind in England.
DURING the reign of Henry IV., successor to Richard II.,

the Court of Rome continued to give great displeasure to
the laity, by its exactions and extortions, whenever an
opportunity occurred. The Popes were then far more
anxious to collect money for themselves and their de
pendents, than to promote the spiritual interests of the
English. But the attention of Parliament was not confined
to the misconduct and greed of the Papacy. Practical
abuses by the Friars soon after Henry s accession, also
required a remedy. These gentlemen were very zealous
in entrapping young boys into their Orders at a very early
age, long before they could understand the meaning of the
vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, which Friars were
required to take. With the boys the Monasteries secured
the wealth w hich the lads possessed, and also any property
r
to which they might be subsequently entitled on the death

of relatives. Herein was a powerful motive for entrapping
the lads into the Monastic net. Early in this reign Parlia
ment dealt with this subject by passing a new law.
By 4 Henry IV., cap. 17, it was enacted that : "No
Friar of the four Orders, that say Friars Minors,

is to
Augustines, Preachers, and Carmelites, from henceforth

shall take or receive any infant into the said Order, unless
he be entered into the age of fourteen years, without the
assent of his father and mother, or other his next friends of
blood, or other his frier ds or tutors." And if any infant
is so taken, then his parents or nearest relatives or friends
shall make request for his return to the Warden or Prior of

the Order which had received him but if their request be ;
"
refused, then the}^ shall sue to the Chancellor of England

for the time being, and the same Chancellor shall have
power by authority of Parliament, to send for the Ministers

or Provincials of the said four Orders, Warden or Prior of
the place where such infant shall be so taken, received, or
withholden from time to time, and them to punish after the
discretion of the said Chancellor, and according as the case
requireth in this behalf." The Act records that Friar John
Zouch, Minister of the Order of Friars Minors in England ;
Friar William Pike worth, Provincial of the Order of Friars

Preachers in England Friar William de Wellie, Provincial
;
of the Order of Friars Augustines in England and Friar ;
Stephen of Paddington, Provincial of the Order of Friars

Carmelites in England, appeared in person before the King
in Parliament, and these laying their right hands on their
"
breasts, made an oath, and promised in the same Parliament,

to hold, keep, observe, and perform the Statute and ordi
nance aforesaid, for them and their successors for ever." 1
Even in modern times Roman Catholic States have found
it
necessary to pass a similar law, limiting the age at which
young men and women shall join Religious Orders. But in
1
Statutes at Large, vol. ii.
pp. 437, 4o8 (Cambridge, 17(J2).
MORE PAPAL EXTORTIONS 89
England no such law now exists, though certainly I believe

that if it existed it would tend to lessen abuses.
The other Penal Laws against Papal injustice passed
during the reign of Henry IV. were as follows. By
2 Henry IV., cap. 3:
It was ordained and

"
established, that if any Provision

be made bythe Bishop of Rome to any person of Religion,
or to any other person, 10 be exempt of obedience regular,
or of obedience ordinary, or to have airy office perpetual
within Houses of Religion, or as much as one regular person
of religion, or two or more, have in the same that if such
;
Provisors from henceforth do accept or enjoy any such

Provision, they shall incur the pains provided in the Statute
of Provisors, made in the 13th year of King Richard II."
The penalties imposed by 13 Richard II. were, for a
Prelate or Peer, the value of his temporalities for one year ;
for all others imprisonment for one year.
By 2 Henry IV., cap. 4, the same punishment was

awarded to those Monks and Friars who purchased Bulls
from Rome, freeing them from paying tithes for lands in
their possession.
By 6 Henry IV., 1404, itwas enacted that For

:
"
the grievous complaints made to our Sovereign Lord the

King by his Commons of this Parliament, held at Coventry,
the 6th day of October, the sixth year of our reign, of the
horrible mischiefs and damnable custom, which is introduced
of new in the Court of Rome, that no Parson, Abbot, nor
other, should have provision of any Archbishopic or
Bishopric, which shall be void, till that he hath compounded
of the Pope s Chamber, to pay great and excessive sums of
money, as well for the first fruits of the same Archbishopric

or Bishopric, as for other less services in the same Court,
and that the same sums, or the greater part thereof, be
paid beforehand, which sums pass the treble, or the double
at the least, of that that was accustomed of old time to be
paid to the same Chamber and otherwise, by the occasions
of such provisions, whereby a great part of the treasure of
this Realm hath been brought and carried to the said
Court, and also shall be in time to come, to the great im-
poverishing of the Archbishops and Bishops within the same
Realm, and elsewhere within the King s dominions, if
convenient remedy be not for the same provided. Our
Sovereign Lord, the King, to the honour of God, as well to
eschew the damage of his Realm, as the perils of their
souls, which own to be advanced to any Archbishoprics
or Bishoprics within the Realm of England, and elsewhere
within the King s dominions out of the same Realm, by
the advice and assent of the great men of his Realm, in the
Parliament hath ordained and established : That they and
every of them that shall pay to the said Chamber, or other
wise, for such fruits and services, greater sums of money
than hath been accustomed to be paid in old time passed,
they and every of them shall incur the pain of the forfeiture
of as much as they may forfeit towards the same our
Sovereign Lord, the King."
By 9 Henry IV. (1407), cap. 8, it was declared that :
Our Lord the King, considering how that the money of the
"
Realm of England is in divers ways conveyed out of the

same Realm to the Court of Rome in exchange, by Provisoes
or Provisions purchased of the Pope, and translations of
Archbishoprics and Bishoprics, to the great impoverishing
of the same Realm hath ordained and established, that
;
all the Statutes and ordinances made

against Pro visors,
translations of Archbishoprics and Bishoprics, their exe
cutors, procurators, notaries, fautors, maintainers and re
ceivers, as well in the times of King Edward III. and
Richard II., as in the time of our said Sovereign Lord that
now is, with all the pains and additions to the same, shall
be from henceforth firmly holden and kept in all points."
During this reign the State gained victories over the
Pope in two noteworthy legal cases. In the year 1408
Henry Chicheley was appointed Bishop of St. David s. Soon
after his consecration question arose whether the
the
Prebend in Salisbury Cathedral which he had held until lie-
became a Bishop was ipso facto void by his consecration,
Chicheley claimed the right to hold the Prebend with his
Bishopric, while the King claimed that he had the right to
present to the stall as vacant. The case came before Lord
POPE "CANNOT CHANGE LAW OF LAND" 91
Chief Justice Thirning in Michaelmas term, 1409. Chicheley,

through his counsel, pleaded that after his election as Bishop
of St. David s the Pope
"
granted us licence to enjoy all

other benefices." To this the Chief Justice replied :
"
The
Pope] cannot change the law
grant of the Apostle [i.e. the
of the land." Bishop thereupon exclaimed
Counsel for the :
The Pope has all power

"
but this the Chief Justice

"
Neither," he ex
"
indignantly refused even to consider :
upon an abstract question upon the

"
claimed, will I enter
power of the Apostle [the Pope] all I can say is, that I ;
cannot see how he, by any Bull of his, can change the law
of The Court was divided in opinion as to the
England."
case, but the Chief Justice was determined to uphold the

common law of England against the encroachments of the
Pope. After much discussion the Bishop gave way, and
1
judgment was given for the King.
The other case referred to the privileges
of the University
of Oxford, conferred by the Pope. During the reign of
Richard II. the University of Oxford bought from the Pope
how much was paid for it is not stated a Bull exempting
it from the Visitation
of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
In 1411then Archbishop (Arundel) determined on
the
holding a Visitation but on arriving near the City of
;
Oxford, he was met by the Chancellor and Proctors of the

University, and a crowd of Undergraduates, armed with
swords, bows and arrows, who told him he would not be
permitted to enter the University as Visitor, though he
would be welcome as a private visitor. The Archbishop
withdrew, returned to London, and complained to the
King. Henry was very angry with the University for
infringingon the Royal prerogative by setting up against
itthe authority of the Pope. As a result the University
humbly submitted itself to the King, and in the Court of
Chancery it was decreed that it should be in future subject
to the Archbishop s Visitation, and that for every infringe
ment of this decree they should pay to the King a fine of
1000. The decision of the Court of Chancery was subse
quently confirmed by assent of Parliament.
"
By this,"
1
Hook s Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. v. p. 23.
it most manifestly appeareth,
"
says Sir Robert Cotton,

that even in those days the Prince s prerogatives were
to the s
Pope Primacy for then would
nothing subject ;
not this Archbishop, the Pope and adopted son, s fosterer
have so neglected the Pope Bulls, which he (as by this

s
l
may appear) took to be mere bulls and bubbles."
There is but little, which needs notice here, in the short

reign of Henry V., from 1413 to
1422. In the first year it
was enacted by Parliament that all the previous Statutes
against Provisors from Rome should be observed and that ;
all the Church livings in England held by aliens, except those

specially named, should be seized into the King s hands. 2
In the second year of this reign Parliament endeavoured,
but in vain, to reduce the enormous wealth of the clergy.
Its efforts were defeated by a voluntary offer of pecuniary
help to the King, made by the Archbishop of Canterbury,

on their behalf. The story of this unsuccessful attempt, as
recorded by Hall, is interesting. He reports that, in 1414 :
King Henry, continually studying for the honour of

"
himself and advancement of his people, called his High

Court of Parliament, the last day of April, in the town of
Leicester. In the which Parliament many profitable laws
were concluded, and many petitions moved, were for that
time deferred. Amongst which requests, one was that a
Bill exhibited in the
Parliament held at Westminster, in the
eleventh year of King Henry IV. (which by reason that the
King was then vexed and troubled with civil division and
domestic dissension came to none effect) might now be
well studied, pondered, regarded, and brought to some good
conclusion. The effect of which was that the temporal
lands devoutly given, and disordinately spent by Religious
and other spiritual persons, might suffice to maintain, to
the honour of the King, and defence of the Realm, 15 Earls,
1500 Knights, 6200 Esquires, and 100 Alms Houses, for
the relief only of the poor, impotent, and need}^ persons,
and the King to have clearly to his coffers 20,000, with
1
Cotton s Records, p. 480 ;
Hook s Lives of the ArcKbishops of Canterbury
vol. iv. pp. 494-4i)().
2
Cotton s Records, pp. 536, 537.
A BILL WHICH ANGERED THE FRIARS 93
man} other provisions and values of Religious Houses

7
which I overpass. This before-mentioned Bill was much

noted and feared amongst the Religious sort whom in effect it
much touched, insomuch that the fat Abbots sweat, the proud
Priors frowned, the poor Friars cursed, the silly Nuns wept,
and altogether were nothing pleased, nor yet content." *
The practical evils resulting from the unjustifiable
interference of the Papal Court with English Church affairs,
once more needed to be dealt with early in the reign of
Henry V. A new Act of Parliament which had to be passed
in 1415, namely, that of 3 Henry V., stat. 2, recited that,
notwithstanding previous laws parsed against Provisors

from Rome, the evil still continued.
" "
Several persons having Provisions," says the Act, of

the Pope of divers Benefices in England, and elsewhere,
and licences Royal to execute the said Provisions, have, by
colour of the same Provisions, licences, and acceptations
of the said Benefices, subtilly excluded divers persons of
their Benefices, in which they have been Incumbents by a
long season, of the collations of the Patrons spiritual, to

them duly made to their intent, to the utter destruction
and subversion Incumbents the
of the estates of the said :
King remove such mischief, hath ordained and

willing to
established, that all the Incumbents of every Benefice of
Holy Church of the Patronage, collation, or presentation
of spiritual Patrons, may peaceably and quietly enjoy, and
shall without being inquieted,
enjoy their said Benefices
molested, or any wise grieved of such Pro
by any colour
visions, licences, and acceptations whatsoever and that :
all the licences and pardons upon and

by such Provisions
made, in any manner, shall be void and of no value. And if
any feel himself grieved, molested, or inquieted in any wise
from henceforth by any, by colour of such Provisions, licences,
pardons or acceptations, that the same molesters, grievers,
and inquieters, and every of them, shall suffer and incur
the pain and punishments contained in the Statutes of
Provisors before this time made, and that by process
prcemunire facias formed upon the case and that the ;
1
Hall s Chronicles, p. 49.
party which shall sue by the same writ, shall recover his
treble damages, if the defendants named in the same writ,
or any of them, be convict in that behalf."
Under the Protectorship of Humphrey, Duke of Glou
cester,during the minority of Henry VI., England was ruled
by one who was a decided enemy of Papal encroachments,
and would not permit the laws of England to be broken. Sir
Edward Coke reports that
"
In the reign of Henry VI., the

:
Pope writ letters in derogation of the King and his Regality,

and the Churchmen durst not speak against them but ;
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, for their safe keeping put

them into the fire." 1 On the same page Coke also reports
that in this Reign it was decided that :
"
Excommunica
tion made and certified by the Pope, is of no force to
any man within England. And this is by the ancient
disable
common laws before any Statute was made concerning
foreign The Duke s great enemy was his
jurisdiction."
own nephew, Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, a
selfish, proud, and ambitious man, altogether devoted to
the interests of the Pope. When Beaufort was made a
Cardinal, the Pope sent him into England as his Legate,
without of all asking the consent of the King.
first This
was contrary to the law, and led to a remarkable remon
strance by his Majesty s Council, in the name of the King,
and also of the Duke of Gloucester. The document is an
important one, and may well be carefully studied by those
who, in this twentieth century, see no harm in Papal
Legates. It was written by Richard Caudry, Clerk of the
Council, and is dated 1428 :
In the name of God, Amen. By the present public in

"
strument let it clearly appear to all that, in the year of our Lord
1428-9, in the seventh indiction, in the Pontificate of our Holy
Father in Christ, and Lord, the Lord Martin, &c., I, Richard
Caudry, Proctor, and under Proctorial commission of the most
Christian Prince the Lord Henry, by the grace of God King of
England and France, and Lord of Ireland, my supreme Lord,
with the assent also and advice of the illustrious and puissant
Prince Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Earl of Pembroke,
1
Coke s Reports, vol. iii. p. lv., edition 1826.
REMONSTRANCE AGAINST A PAPAL LEGATE 95
Protector and Defender of the Kingdom of England and the

English Church, and the rest, my Lords of His Highness" Royal
Council, and doing his Council and representing him in his behalf,
do declare, allege, and set forth in these writings, that the said
most Christian Prince, my supreme Lord, and his most renowned
ancestors, Kings of the said Kingdom of England, as well as by
special privilege as by laudable and lawfully prescribed custom,
peacefully and without let observed from time to time, of which
the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, were and are
sufficiently endowed and lawfully protected that no Legate of
the Apostolic See ought to come into their Kingdom of Eng
land or other their lands and dominions, save at the bidding,
asking, request, invitation or entreaty of the King of England for
the time being. And the said most Christian Prince, my supreme
Lord, and his renowned ancestors, Kings of England, have been
and are in possession of the right and privilege and custom
aforesaid without any interruption through all the whole time
aforesaid, peacefully and quietly, the Roman Pontiffs through
out all the time aforesaid knowing all and singular the premises,
suffering and consenting to the same as well silently as expressly,
and without any manner of possession as of right or fact of
sending such Legate, as is aforesaid, into the Kingdom of Eng
land, or any other his lands and dominions, save at the bidding,
asking, request, and entreaty of the King of England for the
time being ;
and because the most reverend Father in Christ
and Doctor of Divinity, Henry [Beaufort], by the grace of God,
priest of St. Eusebius, Cardinal of the Holy Roman See, assert
ing that he is a Legate, has, after the manner of a Legate, using
the insignia of Apostolic Dignity, without bidding, asking, request,
invitation or entreaty of the most Christian Lord our King
aforesaid, actually entered the renowned Kingdom of England
therefore I openly protest, and by public commission in these
writings and on behalf of the above and all the subjects of the
same our Lord the King, that it has not been, and is not the
intention of the afore-named most Christian Prince, my supreme
Lord, and the said my Lords of the Council, to ratify by authority
or approve, to the derogation of the laws, rights, customs, liberties,
and privileges of the said our Lord the King and the Kingdom,
the entrance of such the said most reverend Father as Legate into
England, or in any wise at all to admit or recognise the same as
Legate of the Apostolic See in England, contrary to the laws,
rights, customs, liberties, and privileges aforesaid, or any wise to
consent to the exercise of his Legation or any other or anything
done or to be done, attempted or to be attempted, by the same
as Legate of the Apostolic See, contrary to the premises, the laws,
rights, customs, liberties, and privileges, but rather
to dissent, and
the said our Lord the King does so dissent, and the said Lords my
l
of the Council dissent by the presents, &c."
Thirteen years later, in 1441, the Duke of Gloucester,

who is known in history as the Good Duke," "
brought a
series of twenty-one articles against Cardinal
Beaufort.
The facts recorded were not denied, but, from
therein
motives of policy, it was deemed undesirable to take action
against the Cardinal, who was of the Royal blood. The
second of these articles was as follows Whereas he,
"
being made a Cardinal, was voided of his Bishopric of

Winchester, he procured from Rome the Pope s Bull, un
known to the King, whereby he took again his Bishopric,
contrary to the common law of this Realm, incurring thereby
the case of Provision, and forfeiting all his goods to the
King, by the law of Prcemunire facias. The twenty-
Furthermore, when the said
:
first article was as follows :
Cardinal had forfeited all his goods by the Statute of Pro

vision, he, having the rule of the King, and of other matters
of the Realm, purchased from the Pope a Charter of pardon,
not only to the defeating of the laws of the Realm, but also
to the defrauding of the King, who, otherwise, might and
should have had wherewith to sustain his wars, without
2
any tallage of his poor people." It is but right to mention
here that in 1433 the King, by the common assent of all
the Estates of Parliament, gave a pardon to Cardinal Beau
punishments, and pains incurred by
"
fort for all offences,
him against the Statutes of Pro visors."

Duck, the biographer of Archbishop Chicheley, tells us
that Pope Martin V., after his election, was, for a time,
more audacious in infringing the rights and liberties of the
Church England, than any of his predecessors. He
of
Pope Martin having now got quiet possession of

"
writes :
the See of Rome, became far more insolent than his pre
decessors for in the beginning of his Pontificate, he claimed
;
1
pp. 13;i-141.
2
Foxe s Acts and Monuments, vol. iii. pp. 710, 711.
CHICHELEY AND BEAUFORT 97
a right of presentation to all Churches whatsoever, reserved

to himself the donation of all Bishoprics, by Provision, dis-
annuled all the Elections of Bishops made by the Chapters,
and within two years time made thirteen Bishops in the
Province of Canterbury, taking his opportunity, while the
King was engaged in the war with France, to venture upon
an action which Edward III. and Richard II. had pro
hibited by most severe laws. He also made his nephew,
Prospero Colonna, a youth of fourteen years of age, Arch
deacon of Canterbury by Provision."
In the year 1418, Henry V. sent an Embassy to the
Pope for the purpose of complaining of his encroachments.
The members were instructed to request the Pope,
"
not
to intermeddle in the disposing of those livings in England.
the presentation of which belonged to him [the King], as
well by agreement made between the Kings of England
and the Popes, as by his Royal prerogative." At first the
Pope ignored the requests of this Embassy, but he altered
his attitude when they told him that the King of England
would make use of his right, whether the Pope liked it or
not. He
had, through them, made his request, not of
necessity, but because of his personal respect for the Pope. 2
In 1427, Archbishop Chicheley wrote a remarkable letter
to the King, Henry VI., protesting against the appoint
ment of Cardinal Beaufort as Papal Legate in England.
like it to remember you that
" "
Gracious Lord," he wrote,

by your most worthy letters written at your town of Caen,
on the 25th day of September, you charged me that by
the advice of Lord, your Brother of Bedford, arid of
my
your Chancellor, should be ordained that all manner of
it
men, your subjects, of what state or condition that they

were, should abstain from letters of writ or pursuit making
to the Pope after his election, till the time that he has
written to you. ... I have heard privily, but now it is
more opened, and in such wise that credence should be
given to it by reason, that my brother of Winchester [Beau
fort] should be made a Cardinal, if you would give your
1
Duck s Life of Archbishop Chichele, p. 90.
2
Hid., p. 92.
G
assent thereto, and that he should have his Bishopric in
Commendam term of his life, and sent to your Kingdom
for
of England as Legate a Latere. But what this office
. . .
of Legate, to be occupied in the form aforesaid, and such

Comm.endam of Bishoprics, not used in your holy ancestors
time, would extend to, or gender against the good govern
ment of your subjects, in your high wisdom, I trust to God
you will consider. And by inspection of laws and
. . .
Chronicles was there never a Legate a Latere sent into any

land, and specially into your Kingdom of England, without
great and notable cause. And they, when they came, after
they had done their legacy, abided but a little while, not
over a year, and sometimes a quarter, or two months, as
the need required. Wherefore, most Christian Prince
. . .
and Sovereign Lord, as your true priest, whom it hath

liked you to set in so high an estate, which without your
gracious Lordship s support I know myself insufficient to
occupy, I beseech you in the most humble wise that I can
devise or think, that you will take this matter tenderly to
heart, and see the state of the Church maintained and sus
tained, so that the Ministers thereof shall hold themselves
content with their own part for truly he that hath least
;
hath enough to reckon for. And that your poor people

be not spoiled, nor oppressed with divers unaccustomed
exactions, through which they should be the more feeble
to refresh you, our own Liege Lord, in time of need." 1
Duck some years before the year 1429,
states that,
translated Richard Fleming,
"
Martin V. having by Provision

Bishop of Lincoln, to the See of York, which was then
vacant by the death of the Archbishop, the Dean and
Chapter of York opposed his entrance into their Church, so
that the Pope was forced by a contrary Bull to transfer
him back again to the See of Lincoln. The year after,
John Opizanus, the Pope s Legate, was imprisoned for pre
suming, by virtue of his office, to gather the money due
to the Pope s Treasury, contrary to the King s command." -
Pope Martin V. is himself a witness to the strength of

1
Duck s Life of Archbishop Chichcle, pp. 125-131.
2
Ibid., p. 140.
POPE MARTIN S LETTER TO CHICHELEY 99
the Papal disabilities in force in England during the Reign

of Henry VI. Being a proud, domineering, and arrogant
man, this Pope was made exceedingly angry by those laws
which crippled, if they did not destroy, his power and
influence. So he set to work to upset the laws which he
hated. He thought that in the person of Chicheley, Arch
bishop of Canterbury, he had a tool who could be frightened
into action on behalf of the Papal claims. So he wrote to
him, in 1426, a furious letter, blaming him in severe terms
for not resisting the anti-Papal laws of England, and especi
ally the recently passed Statute of Praemunire. Of this

Statute he wrote :
"
In the place, under colour

first of this execrable Statute,
the King of England reaches into the spiritual jurisdiction, and
governs so fully in Ecclesiastical matters as if our Saviour had
constituted him His Vicar. He makes laws for the Church,
and order of the clergy draws the cognisance of Ecclesiastical
;
causes to his temporal Courts and, in short, makes so many

;
provisions about Clerks, Benefices, and the concerns of the

Hierarchy, as if the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven were put
into his hands, and the superintendency of these affairs had
been entrusted with His Highness, and not with St. Peter.
"
Besides this hideous encroachment, he has enacted several

terrible penalties against the clergy. So unaccountable a rigour
is this, that the
English Constitution does not treat Jews nor
Turks with this severe usage. People of all persuasions and
countries have the liberty of coming into England and only :
those who have Cures bestowed upon them by the Supreme

Bishop, by the Vicar of Christ Jesus, only those, I say, are
banished, seized, imprisoned, and stripped of their fortunes.
And if any Proctors, Notaries, or others, charged with the exe
cution of the mandates and censures of the Apostolic See if
any of these happen to set foot upon English ground, and pro
ceed in the business of their commission, they are treated like
enemies, thrown out of the King s protection, and exposed to
extremities of hardship. Was ever such iniquity as this passed
into law ? I desire you would consider whether such Statutes
as these are for the honour of the Kingdom consider whether :
it becomes you to be silent under Is this an

all this
outrage.
instance of filial^reverence ?|F Is J this the people of England s
way of showing their regards to their Mother Church and the
Apostolic See ? Can that be styled a Catholic Kingdom where
such profane laws are made and practised, where application
to the Vicar of Christ is prohibited, where St. Peter s successor
is not allowed to execute our Saviour s Commission ? Christ
3
said to Peter, and, in him, to his successors, Feed my sheep :
but this Statute [of Prsemunire] will not sutler him to feed them,
but transfers this office upon the King, and pretends to give
him Apostolical authority in several cases. Christ built His
Church upon St. Peter but this Act of Parliament hinders the
;
effect of this disposition for it will not allow St. Peter s See to
:
proceed in the functions of government, nor make provisions

suitable to the necessities of the Church. Our Saviour has
ordered, that whatever his High Priest shall bind or loose
upon earth, shall be bound or loosed in Heaven but this ;
Statute ventures to overrule the Divine pleasure for if the :
immediate representative of our Saviour thinks fit to delegate

any priest to execute the power of the keys against the in-
tendment of the Statute, this Act not only refuses to admit
them, but forces them out of the Kingdom, seizes their effects,
and makes them liable to further penalties and if any discipline :
and Apostolic censure appears against this usage, it is punished

l
as a capital offence."
The Pope concluded his letter by ordering the Arch

bishop to go to the Privy Council, and also to Parliament,
and demand the repeal of the Statute of Prêmunire, telling
them that, so long as they obeyed it, they were under ex
communication. Martin followed up this letter with letters
addressed to the King, the Parliament, and the Duke of
Bedford, all in the same strain, and with the same object.
He actually told the Parliament that their souls could not
be saved, until they had voted for the repeal of the hated
Statute But the roaring of the Papal Bull did not frighten
!
any of them. They did nothing in response, and as a con

sequence the Pope had to eat humble pie. Three years
later he sent a Nuncio to England, who produced a letter
in the Convocation House, written by the Pope, containing
positive orders to the clergy to contribute a tenth for the

expenses of a war he had on hand in Bohemia. The clergy
were so disgusted with the demand, that even they posi
tively refused to obey it, though, as a concession, they
1
Collier s Ecclesiastical History, vol. iii. pp. 341, 342, edition 1845.
EUGENIUS IV. AND COLLECTION OF TENTHS 101
voted him eightpence in the Mark on their rents, but only

on condition that it should be proved that such a grant
did not entrench on the King s prerogative and the laws of
1
the Realm.
In a Synod held
London, in 1438, Archbishop
in
Chicheley complained heavily of an injury which, he said,

had lately been offered to him by Pope Eugenius, who, by
his sole authority, had given the Bishopric of Ely in Com-
mendam, to Lewis, Archbishop of Rouen, and by a Bull had
confirmed him in the government of that See. The Arch
bishop ordered the Synod to put an end to this affair, which
had never before been attempted by any Pope. Fortu
nately, Bishop Philip Morgan, who held the See when the
Pope issued his Bull granting it to the foreign Prelate,
managed to continue to live on in possession, until the
Pope nominee was dead, and
s in this way a serious con
2
troversy was ended.
When the Popes failed to extort money from the King
and people of
England by threats, they occasionally re
sorted to coaxing and flattery. Thus Pope Eugenius IV.
acted, when, in 1446, he was in want of cash. He sent to
Henry VI. the Golden Rose, a bauble which has been very
much valued down to our own day. But with this mark
of his Pontifical favour he sent, in a letter full of
flattery,
a request that he would send him the tenths imposed the
year before. Thereupon Stafford, Archbishop of Canter
bury, fearful that in this matter the Pope might charge
him with a neglect of duty, in not collecting the tenths,
felt itnecessary to write an explanation of his conduct to
most Blessed Father," he wrote,
"
him. But, since

"
the laws and Statutes of this Realm are opposed to things

of this nature, threatening the loss of goods and life, it was
necessary to obtain the King s licence. But his Majesty

replied, in the presence of your orator, that he would send
his orators to Rome, to inform your Holiness of his inten-
1
Collier s Ecclesiastical History, vol. iii.
pp. ;)4(5, 847, ,->ol.
2
The Life of Archbishop Chichele, by Arthur Duck, 161)9, p. 161.
tions upon this subject ; and he commanded me not to
attempt to take any steps in this collection, either per

*
sonally or by deputy."
In 1455, Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, issued a

commission for the reformation of the moral character of
his clergy. Of these he gives a bad pre-eminence to those
Monks who had unlawfully obtained, by Apostolic Letters
from Rome, possession of certain English benefices and
Vicarages The constant and noisy clamour of many,"
:
"
he wrote,
"
and public
and the notoriety of the fact
report,
spreading it, it lately reached now
our ears, not without
has
grievous bitterness of heart, that there are some within
our Diocese of Canterbury, under the profession of Monastic
observance, who have
got possession of parish churches and
their Perpetual Vicarages, under pretext of certain pre
tended Apostolic Letters." The Archbishop concludes by
giving to David Blodwell, his Commissary General, orders
to punish the guilty. 2
From this period down to the abolition of Papal Supre
macy in England, in the Reign of Henry VIII., there is but
very little to record in these pages. During this period the
attention of the country was mainly taken up with the
Wars of the Roses, and we can therefore easily understand
why it was that so little attention was given to the ex
orbitant claims of the Court of Rome. Sir Edward Coke
mentions that "In the Reign of King Edward IV., a
:
Legate from the Pope came to Calais, to have come into

England, but the King and his Council would not suffer
him to come within England, until he had taken an oath
that he should attempt nothing against the King or his
Crown. And so the like was done in his Reign to another
of the 3
Pope Coke adds that in the Reign of
s Legates."
Richard was "
resolved by the Judges, that a judg

III. it
ment or excommunication in the Court of Rome should not
1
Hart s Ecclesiastical Records,
p. 57.
2
Gee and Hardy s Documents of English Church History, pp. 142-14-4.
3
Coke s Reports, vol. iii. p. Ivii.
PAPAL EXCOMMUNICATION NULLIFIED 103
bind or prejudice any man within England at the common

and that
"
law
"
;
In the Reign of Henry VII. the Pope
:
had excommunicated all such persons, whatsoever, as had

bought alum of the Florentines and it was resolved by
;
all the Judges of England, that the Pope s excommunica

tion ought not to be obeyed, or to be put in execution
within the Realm of England !
"
1
Coke s Reports, vol. iii.
p. Ivii.
CHAPTER IX
HENRY VIII. EDWARD VI.
Was the Reformation necessary ? Testimony of Dr. Dollinger Henry VIII.

was not a Protestant Testimony of Fathers Parsons, S.J., Tootle, and
Oakeley Henry supported by the Laity The Immunities of the
Clergy The Supplication of Beggars Henry s First blow at the Papacy
The Act against Annates The Pope s Supremacy abolished The
Submission of the Clergy The Act against Appeals to Home The
Supremacy Act Henry s Penal Laws The Suppression of the Monas
teries Their Condition in England, Scotland, and Rome Cardinal
Pole s Disloyal Book Execution of Priests in Henry s Reign The
Pilgrimage of Grace Pope Paul III. deposes Henry His Deposing
Bull Two Jesuits sent to Ireland to encourage a Rebellion The
Exeter Conspiracy.
HAVING thus proved the common mistake of those who

believe that Roman Catholic Disabilities were first imposed
at the Reformation, I next proceed to consider the political
opposition to the Papacy at and since that period down to
the end of the Reign of James II. Our opinion of that
opposition, of the laws which it produced, and of their
necessity, must necessarily be influenced by the attitude we
adopt towards the Reformation itself. Was it a necessary
thing ? Many Roman Catholic writers have maintained
that a Reformation was necessary, owing to the evil lives
of somany Popes, Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, and clergy
and the general corruption in Church government though ;
they will not admit that there was any need for a Refor
mation in doctrine. It is not my intention to enter here
into the question of doctrine, not because I do not hold
very decided views on this subject, but simply that I have

not space available for the purpose. Countless volumes
have been written on this subject alone, on both sides of
the question, and to these I must, of necessity, refer my
readers. The opposition to Papal claims and extortions
104
MISCONDUCT OF PRELATES AND PRIESTS 105
had, as we have seen, existed in England for centuries before

the Reign of Henry VIII., but in his Reign it took the addi
tional form of opposition to the misconduct of English
Prelates and priests, and to Papal Supremacy in the Church.
To this was now added the controversies relating to doc
trine. It was the purely spiritual doctrines taught by the
Protestant Reformers which gave backbone to the anti-
Papal contests of the sixteenth century, and eventually
led to an effective Reformation, and the destruction of
the Church of Rome in England as the National religion.
Without the propagation of the Protestant religion no
effectual reform in the morals of the Church could have
taken place. What the learned Dr. Dollinger wrote on this
subject (before he left the Church of Rome), as to the need
for a Reformation in Germany, may with truth be applied
to England. We must," he wrote, admit that the
" "
anxiety of the German nation to see the intolerable abuses

and scandals in the Church [at the birth of the Reforma
tion] removed was fully justified ;
and that it sprang from
the better qualities of our people, and from their moral
indignation at the desecration and corruption of holy
things, which were degraded to selfish and hypocritical pur
poses. We do not refuse to admit that the great separa
tion, and the storms and sufferings connected with it, were
an awful judgment upon Catholic Christendom, which clergy
and laity had but too well deserved a judgment which has
had an improving and salutary effect." l It is remarkable
that the man who was the chief instrument in separating
the Church of England from the Church of Rome was not
himself a Protestant. He put Romanists to death who
denied his Supremacy over the Church of England, but he
also burnt Protestants alive because they refused to believe
in Transubstantiation and the Mass. The well-known
Jesuit, Robert Parsons, writing in 1606, after quoting the
Six Articles Act, 31 Henry VIII., cap. 14 (1539), adds :
"
And with this we shall leave King Henry VIII., who,

1
Bellinger s The Church and the Churches, p. 17.
in all the rest of hisReign (which, as hath been said, was
but the third part after his Spiritual Headship, of that he
had reigned before, in acknowledgment of the Pope s Supre
macy), his decrees, ordinances, and actions, though they
were inconstant and variable, yet were they all (except this
only controversy of the Pope s authority) against Protestants
Tootle, the Roman Catholic author

"
1
and their religion
of Dodd s Church History, writing in 1737, supplements the
information given by Parsons, by showing us the state of

Henry s mind with reference to religion in the last year of
his life. He writes :
"
As to his (Henry s) last will, which

bears date December runs altogether in strain of
30, 1546, it
the old religion, excepting the title that he gives himself,

of being the Supreme Head of the Church of England im
mediately under God. He professes his belief in the Real

Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar he ;
instantly desires the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary,

and of all the holy company of heaven he directs Altars ;
to be erected, and Masses to be offered, for the repose of

his soul, while the world shall endure ;
and he assigns a
sum of 1000 Marks to be distributed in alms on the day of
his burial, ordering his executors to move the poor people
to pray heartily unto God for remission of his offences, and
The late Rev. F. Oakeley, a
"
2
the wealth of his soul.
well-known Roman Catholic priest, wrote Henry VIII. :
"
refuted Luther, and maintained Catholic doctrine to the end

3
of his These facts are important as showing that
life."
the Romanists put to death by Henry VIII., after he had

been proclaimed Supreme Head of the Church of England,
were not put to death by the Protestants, who are
therefore not to be held responsible for those executions.
This remark, of course, only applies to the Reign of
Henry VIII.
Powerful and able as Henry VIII. was, it is certain he
1
An Answere to the fifth Part of the Reporter Sir l>y
J^lii ard Cooler, by ;i
Catholicke Devyne Robert Parsons), 1606, p. 350.

(i.e.
2
Dodd s Church History, Tierney s edition, vol. i. p. 320.
3
Essays on Religion, edited by Cardinal Manning, second series, p. 155.
IMMUNITIES CLAIMED BY THE CLERGY 107
would never have dared to separate England from Rome

had he not been supported by a large proportion of the laity.
As Mr. Pollard, a recent historian, remarks, it was
"
the
hostility of the laity to the clergy," which was in fact the
"
lever with which Henry overthrew the Papal authority, and

the basis upon which he built his own Supremacy over the
Church. This anti-ecclesiastical bias on the part of the
laity was the dominant factor in the Reformation under
Henry VIII."
1
It was the immunities claimed by the
clergy which specially exasperated the laity at that time.

As early as the seventh year of Henry s Reign public atten
tion was drawn to this important subject, in consequence
of a sermon preached at St. Paul s Cross by the Abbot of
Winchcombe, in which he referred to a recent Act of Parlia

ment, which had ordered that the benefit of clergy should
be denied to certain murderers and felons. At that time
any man able to read might claim this Benefit of Clergy,"
"
by which, no matter what crime he committed, excepting

treason or arson, he was tried in the Bishop s Court, instead
of in the King s Court. In this way the Church was allowed
to trespass on what was properly a function of the State.
The Abbot declared that the new Act of Parliament, which
was passed on January 26, 1513, was contrary to the law
"
of God, and to the liberties of Holy Church, and that all

who assented to it, as well spiritual as temporal persons,
had by so doing incurred the censures of the Church." In

support of his sermon the Abbot published a book. He
was impeached for his sermon, and a commission met at
Blackfriars to try the case, at which the Judges were present.
Dr. Stand! sh, Guardian of the Mendicant Friars in London,
and afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, was the leading counsel
against the Abbot. He
affirmed that clergymen had been
judged in the King Court for civil crimes
s that there was ;
nothing either in the laws of God or the Church inconsistent

with it ;
and that the public good of society, which ought
to be preferred to all other things, required that crimes
1
Henry VIII., by A. F. Pollard, p. 267, edition 1905.
should be punished. This case led to a prolonged and
heated controversy. The Convocation, to show its dis
pleasure, charged Standish with holding heterodox

Dr.
opinions, upon which the King took up the affair, and
summoned the Privy Council and the Judges to hear the
case at Bay raid s Castle. There the Judges decided that
Convocation had incurred the guilt of Prsemunire and at ;
a later date Chief Justice Fineux told the Bishops : "If
a clerk be arrested by the secular authority for murder or

felony, and the temporal Judge commits him to you accord
ing to your desire, you have no authority by your law to
try him."
3
The King took the side of Standish in the
dispute, and, although at that time he was a warm sup
porter of the Papacy, declared that he would maintain
the rights of the Crown against the Bishops and clergy.
The whole case w as hushed up, as a matter of policy but
r
;
it shows us clearly how strong, even at that early portion
of Henry s Reign, was the resentment of the laity against

the claims of the Bishops and clergy, and at the same time
reveals how
arrogant and extreme those claims were.
The indignation
felt by the laity against the clergy
found expression, in 1528, in the celebrated Supplication of

Beggars, writtenby Simon Fish, of whom Froude says that
though we may make some allowance for angry rhetoric,
"
his words have the clear ring of honesty in them and he ;
spoke of what he had seen and known." The whole of

Fish s pamphlet is reprinted in Foxe s Acts and Monuments,
vol. iv. pp. 659-664, edition 1857. It reveals a fearful
condition of affairs in the Church, which loudly called for
a Reformation. Nothing less than a total separation from
the fountain-head of the corruption which existed could be
expected to remove the evils complained of. It was useless
to expect a remedy from the Bishops, and therefore, only
four years later, the House of Commons voiced the feelings
of the laity, in their Petition to the King, in 1532. It is
said that this Petition emanated from the Court but ;
1
Hook s Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. vi. p. 3(57.
THE MOTIVES OF HENRY VIII. 100
however this may have been, it made known, in temperate
yet severe terms, the grinding tyranny of the Church, under

which the laity suffered. The Bishops published a reply, in
which they promised an improvement on a few points, but
justified most of the evils complained of.
]
Bishop Fisher
made a separate protest against the Commons Petition, in
a speech he delivered in Parliament, in which he did not ac
knowledge that there was any evil in the Church which needed
to be removed, but on the other hand he did not dare to deny
had he done so, there were those
the existence of abuses, for,
listening to him who would soon have made the truth known. 2
These public exposures, no doubt, greatly strengthened
the hands of the King, who was by this time contemplating
the suppression of the Monasteries, and the abolition of the
Papal Supremacy in England. I do not suppose that Henry
was, in these affairs, moved by any high and noble motives.
Self was ever with him a paramount consideration. But
let us not forget that many excellent deeds in the world s
history have been done from unworthy motives. The man

who, in our own day, gives 5000 to some public charity,
does a good deed, and yet his motive may be mere vanity,
a desire to be talked about and praised. And so, although
it were admitted that Henry abolished the Papal Supremacy
out of revenge on the Pope for refusing him a Divorce and ;
suppressed the Monasteries out of a greedy desire to appro

priate their vast wealth, still both these acts were good in
themselves, and have led to great and lasting benefit to the
nation. And
yet I do not think that Henry was consciously
a hypocrite inwhat he did but he found it very easy to
;
persuade himself of the justice of doing what he liked.

What he did was certainly not the outcome of his love for
Protestantism, for he hated its peculiar doctrines just as
much as did the Romish Bishops and priests.
The first great blow against the Pope s power in Henry s
1
The Petition and the Bishop s Reply are printed in Gee and Hardy s
Documents Illustrative of English Church History, pp. 145176.

2
Parliamentary History, vol. iii. pp. 57, 58.
Reign was the passing, in 1529, of the Act 21 Henry VIII.,
cap. 13. This Act provided that if any person procured
from the Court of Rome any dispensation to hold more
benefices with cure than two, he should for each offence
incur the penalty of 70, and lose the profits of any benefice
he took by force, by virtue of such dispensation.
It also pro
vided that if any person obtained from the Court of Rome
a dispensation for non-residence at his dignity, Prebend, or
benefices, he should, for each offence, incur the penalty of 20.
first blow to the Pope s
"
gave the
"
This clause," says Collier,

l
Supremacy in England." It was followed, in 1532, by the
Act for the Restraint of Annates. These Annates, or First-
fruits, consisted of the first year s profit of spiritual livings
paid to the Pope by the Archbishop or Bishop. The Act (23

Henry VIII., cap. 20) loudly complains of the exto r tions of
the Papacy in this matter. It states that :
"
Forasmuch
is well
perceived, by long approved ex
as it
perience, that great and inestimable sums of money have been

daily conveyed out of this Realm, to the impoverishment of the
same and especially such sums of money as the Pope s Holi
;
ness, his predecessors and the Court of Rome, by long time have
heretofore taken of all and singular those spiritual persons which
have been named, elected, presented, or postulated to be Arch
bishops or Bishops within this Realm of England, under the
title ofAnnates, otherwise called First-fruits. Which Annates,
or First-fruits, have been taken of every Archbishoprick, or
Bishoprick, within this Realm by restraint of the Pope s Bulls,
for confirmations, elections, admissions, postulations, provisions,
collations, dispositions, institutions, investitures, orders, holy
benedictions, palls, or other things requisite and necessary to
the attaining of those their promotions and have been com ;
pelled to pay, before they could attain the same, great sums
of money, before they might receive any part of the fruits of
the said Archbishoprick, or Bishoprick, whereunto they were
named, elected, presented, or postulated by occasion whereof, ;
not only the treasure of this Realm hath been greatly conveyed
out of the same, but also it hath happened many times, by occa
sion of death, unto such Archbishops, and Bishops, so newly
promoted, within two or three years after his or their consecra-
1
Collier sÊcclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 132.
ACT FOR THE RESTRAINT OF ANNATES 111
tion, that his or their friends, by whom he or the} have been

"
holpen to advance and make payment of the said Annates, or

First-fruits, have been thereby utterly undone and impoverished.
. . Insomuch that it is evidently known, that there hath passed
.
out of this Realm unto the Court of Rome, since the second
year of the Reign of the most noble Prince, of famous memory,
King Henry VII., unto this present time, under the name of
Annates, or First-fruits, paid for the expedition of Bulls of
Archbishopricks, and Bishopricks, the sum of 800,000 ducats,
amounting in sterling money, at the least, to 160,000, besides
other great and intolerable sums which have yearly been con
veyed to the said Court of Rome, by many other ways and
means, to the great impoverishment of this Realm. . . .
And because that divers Prelates of this Realm, being now

"
in extreme age, and in other debilities of their bodies, so that

of likelihood, bodily death in short time shall or may succeed
unto them by reason whereof great sums of money shall
;
shortly after their deaths be convejêd unto the Court of Rome,

for the unreasonable and uncharitable causes abovesaid, to
the universal damage, prejudice, and impoverishment of this
Realm, if speedy remedy be not in due time provided :
-
"
It is therefore ordained, established, and enacted, by
authority of this present Parliament, that the unlawful pay

ment of Annates, or First-fruits, and all manner contributions
for the same, for any Archbishoprick, or Bishoprick, or for any
Bulls hereafter to be obtained from the Court of Rome, to or
for the aforesaid purpose or intent, shall from henceforth utterly
cease, and no such hereafter to be paid for any Archbishoprick,
or Bishoprick, within this Realm, other or otherwise than here
after in this present Act is declared : and that no manner
person, nor persons hereafter to be named, elected, presented,
or postulated to any Archbishoprick, or Bishoprick, within this
Realm shall pay the said Annates or First-fruits, for the said
Archbishoprick, or Bishoprick, nor any other manner of sum or
sums of money, pensions or Annates for the same, or for any
other like exaction, or cause, upon pain to forfeit to our said
Sovereign Lord the King, his heirs and successors, all manner his
goods and chattels for ever, and all the temporal lands and pos
sessions of the same Archbishoprick, or Bishoprick, during the time
that he or they which shall offend, contrary to this present Act,
shall have, possess, or enjoy, the Archbishoprick or Bishoprick,
wherefore he shall so offend contrary to the form aforesaid. . . .
"
And to the intent our said Holy Father the Pope, and the
Court of Rome, shall not think that the pains and labours taken,
and hereafter to be taken, about the writing, sealing, obtaining,
and other businesses sustained, and hereaiter to be sustained,
by the offices of the said Court of Rome, for and about the ex
pedition of any Bulls hereafter to be obtained or had for any
such Archbishoprick, or Bishoprick, shall be irremunerated,
or shall not be sufficiently and condignly recompensed in that
behalf ;
and for their more ready expedition to be had therein.
It is therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, that every
spiritual person of this Realm, hereafter to be named, presented,

or postulated, to any Archbishoprick, or Bishoprick, of this Realm,
shall and may lawfully pay for the writing and obtaining of his
or their said Bulls, at the Court of Rome, and ensealing the same
with lead, to be had without payment of any Annates, or First-
fruits, or other charge or exaction by him or them to be made,
yielded, or payed for the same, 5 sterling, for and after the rate
of the clear and whole yearly value of every 100 sterling, above
all charges of any such Archbishoprick or Bishoprick, or other
money, to the value of the said 5, for the clear yearly value
of every hundreth pounds of every such Archbishoprick, or
Bishoprick, and not above, nor in any otherwise, anything in
this present Act before written notwithstanding/
In this way one of the most unjust extortions of the

Court of Rome was for ever removed while a reasonable
;
sum was permitted to be paid for the then necessary Bulls.

The country was willing to pay an honest price for Papal
Bulls, but declined to be any longer swindled out of large
sums of money by the Papacy. It was a fair and reason
able arrangement at the time. I do not know how the
Archbishops and Bishops voted on the passing of this Act,
but I should imagine that in their hearts they approved of
it. The Act also provided that if, after application, the
Court of Rome should refuse to issue the usual Bulls on
these terms, then the Archbishops and Bishops should be
consecrated in England without them, and exercise their
offices just as though they had been issued. The disabilities
imposed by thisAct were just and praiseworthy.

The King himself, in the following year, complained of
the conduct of the clergy to the Speaker of the House of
Commons. He said that He had found that the clergy
:
"
of the Realm were but half his subjects, or scarce so much ;

SUPREMACY OF THE POPE ABOLISHED 113
every Bishop or Abbot, at the entering in to his dignity,

taking an oath to the Pope, derogatory to that of their
and he requested that Parliament
"
fidelity to the King ;
should consider this, and take steps to remove the evil. 1

This request led to a final renunciation of the Pope s Supre
macy. That Supremacy was finally abolished by the Act
for the Restraint of Appeals, 24 Henry VIII., cap. 12.
By this Act it is declared that :
"
Where by
divers sundry old authentick Histories and Chron
icles, it ismanifestly declared and expressed that this Realm of
England is an Empire, and so hath been accepted in the world,
governed by one Supreme Head and King ... he being also in
stitute and furnished by the goodness and sufferance of Almighty
God, with plenary, whole, and entire power, pre-eminence, autho
rity, prerogative, and jurisdiction, to render and yield justice, and
final determination to all manner of folk, residents or subjects with
in this his Realm, in all causes, matters, debates, and contentions
happening to occur, insurge, or begin within the limits thereof,
without restraint, or provocation to any foreign Princes or
Potentates of the world the body spiritual whereof having
;
power, when any cause of the law Divine happened to come in

question, or of spiritual learning, then it was declared, interpreted,
and showed by that part of the said body politic called the spiritu
ality, now being usually called the English Church, which always
hath been reputed, and also found of that sort, that both for
knowledge, integrity, and sufficiency of number, it hath always
been thought, and is also at this hour, sufficient and meet of
itself, without the intermeddling of any exterior person or persons,
to declare and to determine all such doubts, and to administer
all such offices and duties, as to their rooms spiritual doth
appertain. . . .
And whereas the King, his most noble progenitors, and the
"
Nobility and Commons of this said Realm, at divers and sundry

Parliaments, as well in the time of King Edward I., Edward III.,
Richard II., Henry IV., and other noble Kings of this Realm,
made sundry ordinances, laws, Statutes, and provisions, for the
entire and sure conservation of the prerogatives, liberties, and
pre-eminences of the said Imperial Crown of this Realm, and of
the Jurisdiction spiritual and temporal of the same, to keep it
from the annoyance, as well of the See of Rome, as from the
authority of other foreign potentates . . .
yet, nevertheless,
1
Parliamentary History, vol. iii. p. 92.
H
since the making of the said good Statutes and ordinances,
divers and sundry inconveniences and dangers, not provided
for plainly by the said former Acts, Statutes, and ordinances,
have arisen and sprung by reason of Appeals sued out of this
Kealm to the See of Rome, in causes testamentary, causes of
matrimony and divorces, right of tithes, oblations and obventions,
not only to the great inquietation, vexation, trouble, costs, and
charges of the King s Highness, and many of his subjects and
residents of this his Realm, but also to the great delay and let
to the true and speedy determination of the said causes, for so
much as the parties appealing to the said Court of Rome most
commonly do the same for the delay of Justice in con ...
sideration whereof [such appeals] shall be from henceforth
. . .
heard, examined, discussed, clearly, finally, and definitively ad

judged and determined within the King s jurisdiction and
authority, and not elsewhere/
This Act also provided that if any spiritual persons

refused to minister the Sacraments and Sacramentals, or to
conduct Divine Service, on the plea of any foreign inhibi
tion or excommunication, they should for each offence be
imprisoned for one year, and make fine and ransom at "
the King s pleasure." It was further provided that if any

of what estate, condition, or degree
" "
person or persons,
evidently including laymen should purchase, or attempt
to purchase from the See of Rome any foreign excommuni
cation, restraint, inhibition ;
or should hinder any sentence
or judgment
"
made in any Courts of this Realm," he should

incur the pains of Praemunire, as provided by 16 Richard II.,
cap. 5.
This Act was soon after followed by the Statute 25,

Henry VIII., cap. 19, known as The Submission of the
"
Clergy and Restraint of Appeals," in which it is mentioned

that the clergy of the Realm had, in Convocation not only
acknowledged that the Convocation of the same clergy is,
"
always hath been, and ought to be assembled only by the

King s writ, but also submitting themselves to the King s
Majesty, have promised in verbo sacerdotii, that they will
never from henceforth presume to attempt, alledge, claim,
or put in use, or enact, promulge, or execute any new
THE PENAL LAWS OF HENRY VIII 115
Canons, Constitutions, Ordinance Provincial, or other, or

by whatsoever other name they shall be called, in the Con
vocation, unless the King s most Royal assent and licence
may to them be had." It is then provided that if any of
the clergy shall enact or do anything contrary to their
imprisonment, and make fine
"
promises, they shall suffer

This Act also forbade appeals to
at the King s will."
Rome for any cause whatever, under penalty of Prsemunire.
Another Act passed this year (25 Henry VIII., cap. 20)
ordered that no person should henceforth be presented to
the Pope for the office of Archbishop or Bishop, or pay to
the See of Rome any money whatever for Bulls, Palls, or
First Fruits. Yet another
passed this year (25 Act
Henry VIII., cap. 21) forbidding the payment of Peter s
Pence, as also the payment to the See of Rome for any
licences or dispensations whatever. Abbots, Priors, and all
rulers of Monasteries were forbidden to pay any pensions or
taxes to the See of or to permit any Visitation of
Rome,
their Houses from the See of Rome, or to take
"
any cor
poral oath to the Bishop of Rome." In 1534 was passed
the Supremacy Act (26 Henry VIII., cap. 1) by which the
Supreme Head on earth of the Church of Eng
"
title of
land was conferred on the King

"
and in the same year ;
the Convocations of Canterbury and York abjured the

Pope s Supremacy.
The Penal Laws of Henry VIII., which we have men
tioned, do not agree with our modern notions of religious
liberty but they were certainly in full agreement with
;
the principles of the Penal Laws against the Protestants

passed in 1539, and known as the Six Articles Act and ;
with the general teaching of the Church of Rome at that

period. I fail to see that the Roman Catholic Bishops at
that period had any reason for surprise at finding Henry
using against them a weapon which
they, throughout his
reign, used against the Protestants, whom they burnt alive
without remorse or regret. Mr. Pollard s remarks on this
point are wise, and worth reprinting. He writes :
"
With-
out him [Henry VIII.], the storm of the Reformation would
still have burst over England without him it might have
;
been far more terrible. Every drop of blood shed under

Henry VIII. might have been a river under a feebler King.
Instead of a stray execution here and there, conducted
always with a scrupulous regard for legal forms, wars of
religion might have desolated the land, and swept away
thousands of lives. London saw many a hideous sight in
Henry s Reign, but it had no cause to envy the Catholic
capitals which witnessed the Sack of Rome and the Mass
acre of St. Bartholomew for all Henry s iniquities, multi
;
plied manifold, would not equal the volume of murder and

sacrilege wrought at Rome in May, 1527, or at Paris in
August, 1572. From such orgies of violence and crime.
England was saved by the strong right arm and the iron
will of her Tudor King."
l
And here I may be permitted
to note that, in our own day, those Roman Catholic writers
who are fiercest in denouncing Henry for what he did in
enforcement of his Ecclesiastical Supremacy, have not one
word of regret for what he did in burning innocent Pro
testants, solely because they refused to profess faith in the
Mass and Transubstantiation.
And now we come to consider, as briefly as possible, the
Suppression of the Monasteries and Convents in Henry s

Reign. Many volumes have been written, on either side,
on this subject alone. The suppression of Monasteries was
nothing new in the history of the Church of Rome. It
had often been done with Papal sanction, not only in Eng
land but in many other lands. The ostensible reason pub
lished at the time for their suppression in England was the
infamous wickedness perpetrated in many Monasteries and
Convents. That such a state of things should exist is not
at all extraordinary. Any one who will read the late Mr.
H. C. Lea s History of Sacerdotal Celibacy will find abundant
Roman Catholic evidence to prove that from time to time,
Roman Catholic Monasteries and Nunneries in foreign lands
1
Pollard s Henry VIIL, p. 439.
CONDITION OF MONASTERIES AND CONVENTS 117
have not seldom been hotbeds of vice, though of course not

without many notable exceptions. Even in Italy, under the
eyes of the Popes, their condition seems to have been worse
than anywhere else. A Jesuit writer of the nineteenth
century, Father Genelli, S.J., made a most remarkable
acknowledgment on this subject. He states that "In the :
year 1538 Paul III. had appointed a Commission to inquire

into and reform the abuses which had grown up among
the Clergy. This Commission declared in its Report that
the Professors in the Universities taught publicly errors
contrary to the Faith, and that great scandals existed in
Monastic Houses. It proposed to suppress all the Monasteries
by forbidding them to receive Novices, so that, the present
race of religions being extinct, a new generation might
possibly be formed according to the spirit of the primitive
rule although the Pope rejected this proposal, it shows
. . .
how he would be disposed to favour the multiplying

little
of Religious Orders." l It may be well to cite the actual

words of this Report, which the Jesuit admits to be genuine.
It says "In the Orders of the
:
Religious, there is another
abuse to be corrected, that many of them are so degenerate
that they are grown scandalous, and their examples per
nicious to the seculars. We think the Conventual Orders are
to by doing to any man that injury of dis
be abolished, not
possessing him, but by forbidding them to admit any more ;
for thus, without wronging any one, they would soon be

worn out, and good Religious might be substituted instead of
them but at present it were best that all children, who are
;
not yet professed, should be taken from their Monasteries.

. .Christian people are disturbed by another abuse, which
.
concerns Nuns that are under the care of the Conventual

Friars, wherein most Monasteries, public sacrileges are com
mitted to the intolerable scandal of the citizens." 2 If these
things occurred almost under the eye of the Pope, is it at
all improbable that they occurred in England also ? If we
1
The Life of St. Ignatius of Loyola, by Father Genelli, S. J., p. 159, English
2
edition. Lord Soraers Tracts, vol. iii. p. 121, edition 1751.
look into Scotland in the sixteenth century a fearful state
of things is revealed in the Convents. Cardinal Sermoneta
wrote to Pope Paul IV., in 1556, about Scottish affairs,
forwarding petitions from the Queen of Scots, the Cardinal
of Sabina, and the Cardinal d Armagnac, the French Am
bassador, in which occurs the following statement concern
ing Scottish Nunneries :
Moreover, on behalf of the said

"
Queen [of Scots] it had

been declared how all Nunneries of every kind of Religious
women, and especially those of the Cistercian Order,
Abbesses, Prioresses, and Sisters included, have come to such
a pass of boldness, that they utterly contemn the safeguards
of chastity. For not only do they wander outside Monastic
enclosures in shameless fashion through the houses of secu
lars,but they even admit all sorts of worthless and wicked
men within their Convents, and hold with them unchaste
intercourse. They thus defile the sacred precincts with the
birth of children, and bring up their progeny about them,
go forth abroad surrounded by their numerous sons, and

give their daughters in marriage dowered with the ample
revenues of the Church. For this scandal there is no possible
hope of a remedy except it be applied by your Holiness,
as they allege their exemptions, and will consent to no
admonition or visitation of the ordinaries." l
There is nothing in the revelations of Nunnery life in
England in the Reign of Henry VIII. equal in enormity to
the wickedness made known in thisdocument, sent to the
Pope by his the request of the Roman
own Cardinals, at
Catholic Queen of the Scots. I mention Italy and Scotland,
not that it necessarily follows that things were as bad in
England, but as affording evidence of the possibility, or,
rather, of the probability, that the plague had also entered
English Monasteries and Convents. After making every

possible discount, and carefully considering what has been
written in their defence, there is more than enough evil
Mary, Queen of Scots, edited by John H. Pollen.

1
Papal Negotiations with.
S.J., p. 529, Scottish History Society, 1901.

TESTIMONY OF ERASMUS 119
leftto justify England in doing what the Cardinals sug
gested to Paul III. It was high time that disabilities were

imposed upon these institutions. Let any candid person
read the Letters on the Suppression of Monasteries, published
by the Camden Society, and written by those sent out to
visit those and then supplement his reading
Institutions,
"
by a careful study of the Compendium compertorum per

Doctorem Layton et Doctorem Legh, in visitatione regia
in provincia Eboracensi ac episcopatu Coven et Lichfelden,"
published by the Government, for the first time, in 1887,

in Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII., vol. x.
pp. 137-143, and he will find a record of wickedness which
could scarcely have been exceeded by Sodom and Gomorrah.
The names of guilty persons and of places are given and ;
I am not aware that more than a few unimportant errors

have been discovered in these revelations. The learned
Erasmus lived and died a faithful son of the Church of
Rome. He knew England, and the leaders of public opinion
in the country, well. His testimony has a special value.
Writing in 1528 to an English Bishop, he tells him some
necessary truths would be wrong to say that there

: "It
are no exceptions. But I beseech you you who are a pure

good man go round the Religious Houses in your own
[English] Diocese how much will you find of Christian
;
piety ? The Mendicant Orders are the worst and are ;
they to be allowed to tyrannise over us ? I do not say this

to injure any individual. I say it of those who disgrace
their calling. They are hated, and they know why ; but
they will not mend their lives, and think to bear down
opposition with insolence and force. Augustine says that
there are nowhere better men than in Monasteries, and
nowhere worse. What would he now if he was to
say
see so many of these Houses, both of men and women, public
brothels ? I speak of these places as they exist now among
ourselves. Immortal gods ! how small is the number where
l
kind
"
you will find Christianity of my !
1
Fronde s Life and Letters of Erasmus, p. 361, edition 1895.
The testimony Act for the Suppression of the
of the
Lesser Monasteries (27 Henry VIII., cap. 28) may here be
cited. It states that :
"
Forasmuch as manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abomi

nable living is daily used and committed among the little
and small Abbeys, Priories, and other Religious Houses of
Monks, Canons, and Nuns, where the congregation of such
religious persons is under the number of twelve persons,
whereby the governors of such Religious Houses, and their
Convent, spoil, destroy, consume, and utterly waste, as well
their Churches, Monasteries, Priories, principal houses,
farms, granges, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, as the
ornaments of their Churches, and their goods and chattels,
to the high displeasure of Almighty God, slander of good
religion, and to the great infamy of the King s Highness
and the Realm, if redress should not be had thereof. And
albeit that many continual Visitations have been hitherto
had, by the space of two hundred years and more, for an
honest and charitable reformation of such unthrifty, carnal,
and abominable living, yet nevertheless little or none amend
ment is hitherto had, but their vicious living shamelessly
increases and augments, and by a cursed custom so rooted
and infested, that a great multitude of the Religious persons
in such small Houses do rather choose to rove abroad in
apostasy than to conform themselves to the observation of
good religion so that without such small houses be utterly
;
suppressed, and the Religious persons therein committed

to great and honourable Monasteries of religion in this
Realm, where they may be compelled to live religiously,
for reformation of their lives, there cannot else be no refor
mation in this behalf."
Many a good deed has been done from imperfect or even

unworthy motives, and I do not for one moment suppose
that the motives of Henry VIII. in suppressing the Lesser
and Greater Monasteries and Convents were specially worthy
of praise. His chief object seems to have been the grasping
of their great wealth for his own use and that of the courtiers
CARDINAL POLE EXASPERATES THE KING 121
around him. And, when it was grasped, it was spent, too

often, neither wisely nor well. should have been spent
It
in promoting education, and furthering the true interests of
religion in the country. But the country was no worse off

for the Suppression of the Monasteries.
It cannot be said that the Papacy, and the adherents of
the Papal Supremacy in England acted wisely in their oppo
sition to the measures adopted by Henry and his Parlia
ment. Indeed, they seem to have done everything in their
power to exasperate him. The attitude of Cardinal Pole
was so exceptionally unwise that even the Abbot Gasquet,
writing specially on this subject, is compelled to declare
that :
One event must have had

"
at this time [1536] its influ
ence in checking the growth of the better feelings in Henry s

heart. From the best of intentions, when not coupled with
discretion, and when zeal gives full play to angry feelings,
the worst consequences often spring. Such must have been
the result of the book De Unitate Ecclesiastica, which Pole
published at this time and addressed to the King. Henry
was the last man to be driven along the right path by
whips, or coerced into doing his duty by denunciations or
strong language. And Poles book, however true its facts
and cogent its arguments, was couched in language suffi
ciently vehement, for the time at least, to turn the King

from his purpose. Too often, unfortunately, in the world s
history has solid good been sacrificed to the vainglory of
style, and to the power of penning a caustic sentence, and
turning with a bitter remark an elegant or striking period,
and the work De Unitate Ecclesiastica is overflowing with
a rhetoric which would have stung many a milder man
than Henry Tudor into rebellion, or turned him from
purposes of amendment.
"To be told that he, the
English King, was worse than
the Turk, and to be reminded that, while Charles V. was
engaged in his glorious expedition to Africa, he, bearing
most untruly the name of Defender of the Faith, did not
merely kill, but tore to pieces all the true defenders of the
old religion in a more inhuman fashion than the Turk, was
hardly the kind of argument to convince him of the errors
of his ways. The unmistakable hints, moreover, which the
author throws out as to a probable rebellion of his subjects,
were quite sufficient to determine the imperious will of
old l
Henry to follow in its course."
another quotation from Pole s book, which shows

Here is
him clearly to have been a traitor to his King Do you :

"
seriously think that the King of France will refuse obedience

when the Pope bids him make peace with the Emperor, and
undertake your chastisement ? He will obey, doubt it not ;
and when you are trampled down under their feet there will
be more joy in Christendom than if the Turks were driven
from Constantinople. What will you do ? What will be
come of your subjects when the ports of the Continent are
closed, as closed they will be, against them and their com
merce ? How will they loathe you then How will you !
be cast out among the curses of mankind When you die !
you shall have no lawful burial, and what will happen to

your soul I forbear to say. Man is against you God is ;
against you. What can you look for but destruction ?

"
Cardinal Pole was not the only man who said things
calculated to exasperate the King. The indictment of John
Hale, Vicar of Isleworth, on April 29, 1535, states that at
various times between the 2nd and 20th of May, at Isle-
worth and Syon, he said to the clerk of Teddington
"
Since :
the Realm of England was first a Realm was there never

in it so great a robber and pyller of the commonwealth
read of nor heard of as our King. Whose death I . . .
beseech God may be like to the death of the most wicked

King John, sometime King of this Realm, or rather to be
called a great tyrant than a King, and that his death may
not be much unlike that manqueller Richard, sometime
1
Henry V11I. and the English Monasteries, by Francis A. Gasquet, D.D.,
pp. 178, 179. Popular edition, 1899.
2
Fronde s History of England, vol. ii. p. 462.
EXECUTION OF VICAR OF ISLE WORTH 123
usurper of this Imperial Realm. And if thou wilt deeply

look upon his life, thou shalt find it more foul and more
stinking than a sow." The indictment further states that
on March 10th, Hale said to Feron Until the King and
"
the rulers of this Realm be plucked by the pates, and

brought, as we say, to the pot, shall we never live merrily
in England ;
which I pray God may chance and now
shortly come to pass. Ireland is set against him, which
willnever shrink in their quarrel, to die in it. And what
think ye of Wales ? Their noble and gentle Ap Rice so
cruelly put to death, as they say, in the cause. I think
not contrary but they will join and take part with the Irish,
and so invade our Realm. If they do so, doubt ye not but
they shall have aid and strength enough in England ;
for
this is truth, three parts of England is against the King,
as he shall find if he need for of a truth they go about to
;
bring this Realm into such miserable condition as is France,

which the Commons see and perceive well enough as a
sufficient cause of rebellion and insurrection in this Realm.
And truly we of the Church shall never live merrily until
that day However much we may pity the fate
come."
l
of Hale, who was brought in his old age to an untimely

end, there can be no doubt that the proceedings of the King
had made him thoroughly disloyal, and had the country
been invaded for the purpose of dethroning Henry, he
would have given his approval and support to the invaders.
John Hale was executed 011 May 4, 1535. In 1886 Pope
Leo XIII. honoured him b}^ Beatification.
Four Carthusian Monks were executed at the same time
and place as John Hale, viz. John Houghton, Robert
Lawrence, Augustine Webster, and Richard Reynolds. The
only charge brought against these Monks was that they
refused to accept Henry as Supreme Head of the Church.
Unlike John Hale, they were not also charged with uttering
seditious language against the King such as he had used.
These Carthusian Monks were clearly Martyrs to their
1
Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII., vol. viii. pp. 229, 230.
religion,and however much we may regret the attitude they
adopted, and the fearful penalty they suffered, they deserve
that measure of honour which is always due to sincere men,
who have the courage of their convictions, and are prepared
to suffer for them. And, I think, the same remark may
equally apply to the execution of Sir Thomas More, who,
though a persecutor of Protestants, had been a useful and
faithful servant to Henry, and had not encouraged any
rebellious action against him. But Bishop Fisher cannot
be said to have been free from blame in this latter direction,
though in some respects his case was one which we may
well pity. That learned Roman Catholic historian, the late
Lord Acton, tells us that Fisher put himself in communi
"
cation with the Imperialists with a view to effective inter

1
vention." Fisher was urgent that the Emperor Charles V.
should prepare an invasion of England. 2 Writing from
England to the Emperor, on September 27, 1533, Chapuys,
his Ambassador to England, stated that The good Bishop
:
"
of Rochester [Fisher] has sent to me to notify that the arms

of the Pope against these obstinate men [i.e. Henry and
his supporters] are softer than lead, and that your Majesty
must set your hand to it, in which you will do a work as
agreeable to God as a war against the Turk." There
can, therefore, be no doubt that Fisher was a traitor, in
the strict sense of that term. Lord Acton remarks :
Death for the sake of conscience has surrounded the

"
memory of Fisher with imperishable praise but at that ;
time he was the one writer among our countrymen who

had crudely avowed the conviction that there is no remedy
for religious error but fire and steel and the sanction of
;
his fame [? name] was already given to the Bloody Statute,

and to a century of persecution and of suffering more cruel
than his own." 3
The adherents of the Pope s Supremacy in England
again acted unwisely and disloyally when they promoted
1
Lectures on Modern History, by Lord Acton, p. 141.
2
Pollard Henry VIII. p. 305.
s ,
3
Historical Essays and Studies, by Lord Acton, p. j>l.
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE 125
open rebellion by the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. It

would have been better for them if they had consented
to suffer rather than appeal to the sword. The principal
object the rebels had in view was the restoration of the
Monasteries and the Papal Supremacy over the Church of
England, and also the punishment of the Bishops who were
suspected of Protestantism, and of all who adopted what
they considered religious errors. The oath taken by the
them the restitution of God s
"
rebels pledged to fight for

Church, and the suppression of erroneous opinions." l It
would have been a bad day for the Protestants had the
rebellion succeeded. Robert Aske, the leader, in a written
"
statement declared that the suppression of Abbeys was

the greatest cause of the insurrection." - When the news
of the rebellion reached Rome there were great rejoicings.
On Christmas Eve, at midnight, Pope Paul III. solemnly
blessed, in St. Peter s, a sword and cap as they lay on
the altar. They were intended as a present to James V.,
King of Scotland, who, it was expected, would support
the insurgents with his arms the sword, that he might
smite therewith the enemies of the Roman faith and the ;
cap, that it might guard the King s life while wearing it

in his sacred enterprise." 3 The Pilgrimage of Grace was
"
a very formidable rising. It is not necessary for my pur

pose to describe it in detail. It will suffice if I state that
it was eventually suppressed, and that the ringleaders
were brought to trial, and condemned to death. In
addition to Robert Aske, they included Lord Darcy, Sir
Thomas Darcy, Sir Robert Constable, Sir Stephen Hamilton,
and several Abbots and priests. They were all indicted
"
together, for that they as false traitors did conspire to

deprive the King of his Royal dignity, viz. of being on
earth the Supreme Head of the Church of England, and
to compel the King to hold a Parliament, and did commit
1
Dodd s Church History, vol. i. p. 430, Tierney s edition.
2
Gasquet s Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, p. 226.
3
Froude s History of England, vol. iii. p. 1.
various rebellions and insurrections at Pontefract, divers
days and times before the said 10th day of October. And
furthermore that at Doncaster, 20th October, 28 Hen. VIII.,
they assembled and conspired to levy war against the
King. And that, although the King had graciously
pardoned them, the conspirators, all offences committed
by them from the beginning of the Rebellion to 10th
December, 28 Hen. VIII., nevertheless they, persevering
and continuing in their treasons, did subsequently to such
pardon, viz., the 17th January, 28 Hen. VIII., at Sedryngton,
Tempyle Hyrst, Flamborough, and Beverley, [did] com
pass and imagine to deprive the King of his Royal dignity,
and to compel the King to hold a Parliament and Con
vocation of the clergy of the Kingdom, and to annul divers
good laws made for the commonwealth of the people of
England, and to depose and deprive the King of his Royal
power, liberty, state, and dignity, by force and danger of
l
death."
Probably nothing exasperated Henry more, or did the

Papal cause in England more injury than the conduct of
Pope Paul III. at this time. He prepared a Bull excom
municating the King of England in 1535, but he thought
it well not to publish it until 1538. It was written in a
most offensive style. The Pope not only excommunicated
Henry, but also declared that he was no longer King. He
forbade his subjects to keep towards him their Oaths of
Allegiance, and invited Roman Catholic Sovereigns to
invade his Kingdom, depose him from his Throne, and
make slaves of his adherents.
"
We said the Papal Bull,

pronounce," that Henry himself
"
has incurred the penalty of deprivation of his Kingdom and afore

said Dominions and that both he and also all arid every other the
;
aforesaid admonished parties have incurred all and every other

of the aforesaid penalties and they and their effects are for ever
;
to be severed from all the faithful servants of Christ. And if

in the meantime he shall die, we by our authority and plenary
1
Annals of the House of Percy, by Edward B. De Fonblanque, vol. i.
pp. 569-571, privately printed.

PAUL III EXCOMMUNICATES HENRY 127
power do declare and decree that lie be deprived of ecclesiastical

sepulture and we strike them with the sword anathema, male
;
diction, and eternal damnation.

And we absolve and altogether set free from the aforesaid
"
King or his accomplices, abettors, adherents, advisers, and

followers aforesaid, and from the Oath of Allegiance, vassalage
and all obedience to the King and other the parties aforesaid,
the magistrates, judges, constables, guardians, and officers of
King Henry himself, and of his Kingdom, and all other his
dominions, cities, lands, castles, villages, fortresses, citadels,
towns, and palaces, even though in fact by him holden and,;
moreover, all communities, Universities, Colleges, feudatories,

vassals, subjects, citizens, inhabitants, and also foreigners in
fact obeying the said King, as well seculars as ecclesiastics, if
any by reason of any temporality recognise King Henry as
their superior. These, nevertheless, we command, under the
penalty of excommunication, entirely and altogether to abstain
from obeying the same King Henry and his officers, judges,
and magistrates whomsoever, and not to acknowledge them as
superiors or submit to their commands.
And in order that others, frightened by their example,
"
may learn to abstain from excesses of this kind, we by the same

authority, knowledge, and plenary power, do will and decree,
that King Henry and his accomplices, abettors, adherents,
advisers, followers, and other parties guilty in the premises
(after they have respectively incurred the other beforementioned
penalties, as aforesaid), and moreover, their aforesaid descen
dants, be from that time infamous and not permitted to give
evidence that they be incapacitated from making or granting
;
wills and codicils or other dispositions, even amongst the living ;
and that they be incapacitated from succession by will or in

testacy and also from any jurisdiction or power of judging, or
;
from the office of notary, and from all other legal acts whatso
ever so that their processes or instruments, and other acts
;
whatsoever, be of no force or validity and that no persons be

;
held responsible to them in law, and that they be held respon

sible to others upon every debt and matter, both civil and
criminal.
"
And, nevertheless, under the penalty of excommunication,

and other the after-written penalties, we warn all the faithful
in Christ to shun, and so far as possible, to cause others to shun,
the aforesaid excommunicated, re-excommunicated, interdicted,
deprived, accursed and condemned persons and not to have
;
any commerce, conversation, or communion with the same per-

sons, with the citizens, inhabitants, either sojourners or
or
subjects, and vassals
of the aforesaid King, cities, dominions,
lands, castles, counties, villages, fortresses, towns and places
aforesaid by buying, selling, exchanging, or transacting any
;
kind of merchandise or business or to convey or contract for, or

;
cause to be conveyed or contracted for, wine, corn, salt, or other

victuals, arms, clothes, wares, or other merchandise, or any
goods by sea in their ships, galleys, or other vessels, or by land
with mules and other animals or to receive goods bought by
;
them publicly or privately or to presume in any manner to

;
give to persons doing such things, aid, counsel, or favour, publicly

or privately, directly or indirectly, under any pretence, by them
selves or by any other person or persons but if they do so,
;
let them manner by the very act incur in addition to the

in like
penalty of excommunication the loss of their wares, victuals,

and all conveyed goods, which shall become the
property of the
captors.
"
Besides if (notwithstanding the premises) King Henry,

his accomplices, abettors, adherents, advisers, and followers
aforesaid, shall persevere in their obstinacy, and the stings of
conscience shall not restore them to a right state of mind, trust
ing, perhaps, in their power of arms, We require and warn all
and every Dukes, Marquises, Earls, and others whomsoever, both
secular and ecclesiastical, even foreigners (etiam forenses) de facto,
obeying the said King Henry, under pain of the same excommuni
cation, and loss of their goods (which, as aforesaid, shall become
the property of the captors), that, laying aside every delay and
excuse, they do expel those persons and every of them and their
soldiers and stipendiaries, both horsemen and footmen, and
others whomsoever, who shall support them with arms, from
the Kingdom and dominions aforesaid, even by force of arms, if
necessary."
For We, by the same authority, knowledge, and plenary

power, grant to them [i.e. the invaders of England] the full
licence, power and authority of converting to their own use the
goods, merchandise ships, effects, and animals, aforesaid so
taken, and decree that all those things do plenarily appertain,
and belong to the same captors and that all natives of the King
;
dom and dominions aforesaid, or persons domiciled, or in any

manner dwelling within them, and not obeying our aforesaid
commands, (wheresoever they may happen to be taken), shall
become the slaves of the captors/ l
1
Henry VIII. : An Historical Sketch, by Charles Hastings Collette,
pp. 223-236.
THE EXETER CONSPIRACY 129
After reading these extracts from the Papal Bull CSMI

anybody wonder that, thereafter, Henry looked on all, who
subsequently maintained the Pope Supremacy, as traitors ?
s
The Bull did the Pope s friends in England more harm
than it did to Henry himself. One result was that an

army and navy was collected on the Continent to give
effect to the Pope s wishes, by an invasion of England ;
but happily these efforts came to naught. Froude says

"
that Paul III. actually issued a promise of indulgence

to all pious Catholics who would kill an English heretic." l
The Pope also sent two Jesuits to Ireland, named Salmeron
and Broet, purpose of encouraging the natives in a
for the
rebellion against Henry VIII. They brought with them
to Con O Neill, the leader of the Northern Irish, a letter
from the Pope praising him for his rebellion. Allen, Lord
Chancellor of Ireland, writing to Cromwell at this time,
remarked The Bishop of Rome is the only author of
:
"
their [rebels ] detestable purpose, and the King of Scots a
special comforter and abettor. There passeth daily mes

sengers from them to Scotland, and from thence to
2
is satisfactory to learn that the
Rome." It Pope s Bull
was met England by a declaration, signed by nineteen
in
Bishops and twenty-five Doctors of Divinity and Law, in

which they asserted that The people ought to be in :
"
structed, that Christ did expressly forbid His Apostles or

their successors to take to themselves the power of the
sword, or the authority of Kings. And that, if the Bishop
of Rome, or any other Bishop, assumed an}^ such power,
he was a tyrant and usurper of other men s rights, and a
subverter of the Kingdom of Christ." 3 It was well for
these Bishops that Henry was powerful enough to protect
them from any punishment the Pope would have inflicted on
them for their declaration, had their King been a weaker man.
What is known as the Exeter Conspiracy, of 1538, also
1
Froude s History of fine/land, vol. iii. p. 245.
2
Ibid., vol. iii. p. 433, note.
3
Burnet s History of the .Reformation, vol. i.
p. 394, Oxford edition.
I
tended to increase the anger of Henry VIII., and especi
ally against the Pole family. There can be no doubt that
Cardinal Pole was a traitor, who travelled through the
Continent seeking to raise a foreign army for the invasion
of England, with a view to dethroning Henry, in accord
ance with the deposing Bull of the Pope. There can be no
doubt that the conspiracy existed, and that the Marquis
of Exeter and Lord Montague, Pole s brothers, deserved
the death of traitors for the part they took in it. But,
unfortunately, Henry was not content with shedding their
blood. Their mother also, the Countess of Salisbury, was
arrested, and after remaining in prison about two years,
she also was executed, being at the time seventy years
old. Pity for his enemies seems to have never entered
the heart of the King. Probably the Countess did sym
pathise with the conspiracy, but it was not proved that
she actively assisted it. However this may be, she cer
tainly was not executed for religion, nor for denying the
spiritual Supremacy of the King. And it is on this account
that the conduct of Cardinal Manning and the English
Roman Catholic Bishops is worthy of special censure for
having induced Pope Leo XIII. to raise her to the rank
of a Beatified Saint in 1886. Probably it was because
she was believed guilty of treason that she was thus
honoured, as so many other traitors were at the same
time.
CHAPTER X
EDWARD VI. MARY
Protestantism comes into Power Rome claims no Martyrs in Edward s Reign
The English Bible in every Parish Church Reforming Acts in
Edward s Reign Three Popish Rebellions in Edward s Reign Ac
cessionof Mary Disabilities imposed on Protestants These not
condemned by Modern Romanists The Suffolk Protestants support
Mary Her Promise to them broken Pier bitter Persecution of
Protestants Papists elected to Parliament by Dishonourable Tactics
Sir Thomas Wyatt s Rebellion Its real Object Persecuting Laws
revived Restoration of the Pope
s Supremacy Even in Mary s Reign
some were imposed on the Papacy She refuses to receive
Disabilities
Peto as Papal Legate The Lambeth Synods renew Penalties for
Heretics.
WITH Edward VI., in 1547, Protestantism

the accession of
for the first time came into power. In the reign of
Henry VIII. the political power of the Pope was destroyed ;
in that of his son Protestantism was built up. Adminis

trative changes were numerous and important under
Edward VI., but there was no need for much anti-Papal
legislation.It was, however, thought necessary to re-
enact the law affirming that the King was the Supreme
Head of the Church of England, and punishing those who
maintained the Supremacy of the Pope. This was done
by the Act 1 Edward VI., cap. 12, sections 6, 7, 8, which
provided that he, who by
"
open preaching, express words

or sayings," affirmed that the King was not the Supreme
Head of the Church, should suffer, for the first offence, the
loss of all his goods and chattels, and imprisonment at
the King s pleasure for the second offence, the loss for
;
life of all the profits from his lands, benefice, and goods,
and imprisonment for life ; and for the third offence, in
addition, the loss of life. It is remarkable that in all the
131
modern lists of Roman Catholic
"
Martyrs in England
"
not even one of the names is taken from the reign of the
firstProtestant King of England. A spirit of liberty had
arisen in the land, and though it was not as powerful as
in our own day, it was a great step in advance of the times
of Henry VIII., and affords a startling contrast with the
intolerance which prevailed during the succeeding reign of
his sister, Queen Mary. Dodd, the Roman Catholic his
"
torian, acknowledges that he [Edward VI.]

: It is true,
seemed not inclined to shed blood on that account [i.e. of
religion] and, therefore, no sanguinary, but only penal,
;
laws were executed upon such as stood off." l

The work Reformation began early in this Reign.
of
In 1547 Injunctions were issued in the King s name,
ordering that ecclesiastical persons observe the laws
all
for abolishing the usurped authority of the Bishop of

Rome, and once a quarter, at least, they should declare
the Word of God, and dissuade the people from pilgrimages
and praying to images. That images, abused with pil
grimages and offerings, be taken down and destroyed ;
and that the Bible in English, with the Paraphrase of

Erasmus on the Gospel, be conveniently placed in every
Church, for the people to read therein and that all shrines, ;
covering of shrines, pictures and paintings of pretended

2
miracles, be taken away and destroyed.
In the same year, by Statute 1 Edward VI., cap. 1,
it was ordered, as more agreeable to the institution of
Christ, that the Sacrament of the Lord s Supper be given

to the people in both kinds, and that
"
the people being

present should receive the same with the priest, than that
the priest should receive it alone." By 1 Edward VI.,
cap. 12, the infamous Six Articles Act was repealed,
much to the joy of the Protestants, against whom it had
been passed. The Acts of Henry IV. and Henry V. against
the Lollards were also repealed. By Statute 1 Edward VI.,
1
Dodd s Church History, vol. ii. p. 49, Tierney s edition.
2
Fuller s Church History, vol. iv. pp. 10-16.
CHURCH REFORMS 133
cap. 14, the Chantry lands, which had been set apart
to pay for Prayers and Masses for the Dead, were granted
good and godly uses, in erecting Grammar

"
to the King, for

Schools, in further augmenting the Universities, and better
provision for the poor and needy." Unfortunately a large
proportion of these lands were seized by the courtiers.
By the first Act of Uniformity, 2 and 3 Edward VI. cap. 1,
the First Book of Common Prayer was legalised, and it
was ordered that any clergyman who should refuse to use
the book, or who should speak against it, should, for the
first offence, one year s profit of his benefice, and be
lose
imprisoned for six months. For a second offence, the

penalty was one year s imprisonment, and the deprivation
of all his spiritual promotions and for a third offence,
;
he should suffer imprisonment for life. By 2 and 3

Edward VI., cap. 21, the marriage of priests was legalised.
In the year 1549, an Act was passed (3 and 4 Edward VI.,
cap. 10), for and putting away certain Popish
abolishing
Liturgical books, Missals, &c., and ordering that all images
should be destroyed. Any person willingly retaining such
books or images were, for the first offence, to be fined
twenty shillings for the second offence,
; 4, and for the
third, suffer imprisonment at the King s will. When these

Popish books had been delivered up to the Archbishops
and Bishops, should they neglect to have them burnt or
destroyed, then each Episcopal offender should pay a fine
of 40 for each offence. By the second Act of UniformhYy,
5 and 6 Edward VI., cap. 6, the Revised Book of Common
Prayer, of 1552, was legalised, and it was provided that

if
any person were wittingly present at any manner or
form of Common Prayer, excepting that provided by this
book, he should be liable to imprisonment for six months ;
for a second offence, to one year s imprisonment and ;
for a third offence, imprisonment for life. Those who

refused to attend the provided services regularly were
to be punished with
"
the censures of the Church." Of

course, all who, after the passing of the last-named Act,
attended Mass according to the Roman Catholic form,
were liable to the penalties provided.
During the brief reign of Edward VI. no fewer than
three Rebellions were raised against him by the Romanists,
one in the Eastern Counties, a second in Yorkshire, and
a third the most formidable of all in Cornwall and ;
all for the restoration of Roman Catholic doctrines. Under

such circumstances it was very much to the credit of his
Government that no Roman Catholic was put to death
for his religion during this period. It was a reign for
which England had every reason to thank God.
With the accession of Queen Mary, in 1553, began the
History of Disabilities imposed upon Protestants. Those
Roman who now cry out so loudly against Papal
Catholics
Disabilitieshave nothing to say, even in this enlightened
age, against the persecutions and burnings of Protestants
in Mary s reign, though these were not for political offences,
but solely on account of religion. Mary began her reign
by an act of shameful deception. During the brief reign
of the unfortunate Queen Jane, Mary, while in Suffolk,
was in considerabledanger of
losing the The
Throne.
Suffolk Protestants, in her distress, promised her help and
aid, provided she would first of all promise that, when
she became Queen, she would make no attempt to alter
the laws relating to religion passed in the time of her
brother, Edward VI. She promised that she would make
110innovation in religion, though we now know that she
never meant to keep it for she was barely seated on her
;
Throne before she commenced those persecutions which

have made her reign such a dark spot in the history of
England. Rapin says that on August 12th, 1553 The
:
Queen in Council declared shewould use no force upon

conscience in affairs of religion. Great care was taken to
disperse this declaration, and to magnify it as a great
instance of the Queen s generosity. But the Protestants
easily saw the difference betwixt her declaration in Council
and her promises to the Suffolk men. She had told these,
QUEEN MARY S DUPLICITY 135
that religion should be left in the same state as at Edward s

death ;
but in the declaration thought it sufficient to give
a general assurance that Protestants should not be forced
to embrace the Romish religion ;
for this was the most
natural meaning of her expressions. This restriction to
1
her promise greatly alarmed them."
first In acting thus,
Mary was, towards the close of the seventeenth century,
imitated by our last Roman Catholic King, James II. He
faithfully promised to maintain the religion of the Church
of England, and then set to work to upset it, and bring
in Romanism in its place. From these two instances we
may learn how little the promises of Roman Catholic
Princes, in matters of religion, can be trusted by their
Protestant Though England has long since
subjects.
repealed the persecuting Penal Laws passed in Mary s
reign, the Church of Rome until this day retains and teaches
her Penal Laws under whose sanction our Protestant
Martyrs were put to death. Mary was, indeed, ungrateful
to those without whose help she would never have ascended
the Throne. As Strype remarks
"
It is notorious to the
:
world that they were Protestants chiefly that placed her

in her Kingdom." 2
It is not a little remarkable that the very first clause
of the first Act of Parliament of Mary s reign contained
a statement in favour of ruling by love rather than fear !
The state of
"
It rather hypocritically declared that :
every King, Ruler and Governor of any Realm, Dominion,

or Commonalty, standeth and consisteth more assured by
the love and favour of the subject toward their Sovereign
Ruler and Governor, than in the dread and fear of laws
made with rigorous pains and extreme punishment for not
obeying of their Sovereign, Ruler and Governor." It
would have been well for England, and well for Mary s
memory, had she acted on the charitable lines laid down
in this statement. Unfortunately the whole history of
1
Rapin s History of England, vol. vii. p. 110.

2
Stvype s Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. iii. part i.
p. 17.
her attitude towards the Protestants was in flat contra
diction to its charitable principles. Probably it was in
serted in the Act for the special purpose of putting the
Protestants to sleep, until the Queen was strong enough
to adopt rigorous measures for their repression.
Writing to the Father Confessor of Charles V., in
November, 1553, about the expected restoration of Papal

With
:
Supremacy in England, Cardinal Pole remarked :
regard to the expediency of the restitution of that obedi

ence [to the Pope] at the present time, or the necessity
of waiting for a more sure establishment of the power of
the Queen, it must be considered that she is not only called
to it by the rewards of a future life, but also by those of
the present world, inasmuch as, failing the support of the
Holy See, she would not be the legitimate heir to the
Crown, for the marriage of her mother was not valid but
by a dispensation from his Holiness so that obedience ;
to the Holy See is necessary to secure her power, since

1
Crown
"
upon it depends her very claim to the i.e. of
England.
not within the province of this work to give a
It is
detailed history of the bitter persecutions suffered by the
Protestants in Mary s unhappy reign. It will suffice for
my purpose to mention a few political events, and some

of the laws passed in support of Papal authority against
the professors of the Evangelical Gospel. And even this
only indirectly comes in the have undertaken, task I
viz. a history of Disabilities imposed on the Papacy,
rather than the Disabilities imposed upon Protestants in
Lest we forget
"
is the title of a well-known

"
this Reign.
modern poem. There is reason to fear that many English
men in these days are apt to forget, and need their memories
refreshed.
Mary knew that she could not legally re-establish the

Supremacy of the Pope until a new Parliament had been
elected, composed of men likely to accede to her wishes.
1
Calendar of Foreign State Paper*, 1553-1558, p. 20.
DISHONOURABLE TACTICS 137
There were too maity who favoured Protestantism in

Parliament when she came to the Throne these must :
be removed and others of a more compliant spirit

elected in their stead. To bring this about, dishonour
able tactics were adopted which are thus described by
Rapin :
The Court had resolved to abrogate all the laws made

"
in favour of the Reformation, and to restore the ancient

religion. This was not to be done without the concurrence
of the Parliament. But
elections had been left free,
if
it would have been

difficult, not to say impossible, for the
Queen to succeed in her design. The number of the Re
formed was without comparison greater than that of the
Roman Catholics, and consequently the Elections would
not probably be favourable to her. But besides the ordi
nary ways made use of by Kings to have Parliaments at
their all sorts of artifices, frauds, and even
devotion,
violences, were practised in this. And care was taken
beforehand to change the Magistrates in the cities and
counties, and there was hardly one but who was a Catholic,
or had promised to be so everything tending to the elec
;
tion of Catholic representatives was countenanced. On

the contrary, those who were suspected of an inclination
to choose Protestants, were discouraged by menaces, actions,
imprisonments, on the most frivolous pretences. In several

places things were carried with such violence, that Protestants
were not allowed to assist in the assemblies where the
Elections were to be made. In short, in places where it
was not possible to use these direct means, by reason of
the superiority of the Reformed, the Sheriffs, devoted to
the Court, made false returns. By these methods the . . .
Court secured a House of Commons ready to comply with

their suggestions, and whose members had an interest in
the change of religion, or were indifferent to all religious
l
establishments."
We thus learn that the progress of the Reformation

1
Rapin s History of England, vol. vii. pp. 118, 119.
was stopped by frauds, threats, violence, and deception,
at the commencement of Mary s Reign ; and, subsequently,
by imprisonments, and burnings.
tortures,
Already negotiations had been entered into for the
marriage of Mary with Philip, son of the Emperor Charles V.
The proposed marriage was most unpopular in England,
where there was a widespread dread lest it should lead
eventually to the subjection of England to Spanish domi
nation. This was the cause of Sir Thomas Wyatt s re
bellion, which was not undertaken with the object of
restoring the Protestant religion, but of keeping out foreign

power and rule. At that time the danger seemed a very
formidable one, and, as a result, Wyatt s rebellion had wide
spread sympathy throughout the country, even amongst
some who had no love for Protestantism, but had a very
sincere regard for national independence. Had Wyatt suc
ceeded there can be but little reason to doubt that the
Princess Elizabeth would have been proclaimed Queen at
once, and as a consequence Popery would not have been
restored. The persecutions of Protestants came later, and
therefore could not have been the cause of the outbreak.
As the French King wrote at the time to his Ambassador
at Venice, describing the rising in England was held : "It
certain that all England would rise in like manner at the

same time, all preferring to die in battle rather than to
become subject to a foreign Prince. It is most certain
that the whole people are embittered against the marriage." l
But Wyatt s attempt failed, and those who took a leading
part in it paid the penalty of their action on the scaffold.
So farwere the leading Reformers from sanctioning re

bellion that, on 8th May 1554, the Protestant Bishops,
Hooper, Ferrar, Philpot, Taylor, Rogers, and Coverdale,

signed a united declaration they being at the time in
prison in Avhich they stated that : "As obedient subjects
we shall behave ourselves towards all that be in autho
rity, and not cease to pray God for them, that He would
1
Calendar of Foreign State Papers, 1553-1558, p. 59.
PERSECUTION OF PROTESTANTS 139
govern them all, generally and particularly, with the spirit

of wisdom and grace. heartily desire, and pray And so we
all men to do, in no point consenting to any kind of re
bellion or sedition against our Sovereign Lady, the Queen s
Highness but where they cannot obey, but they must

:
disobey God, then to submit themselves with all patience

and humility to suffer as the will and pleasure of the higher
powers shall adjudge."

When Parliament assembled it readily undertook the
work planned it by the Queen and other adherents of
for
the Papacy. The first thing required was power to per
secute the Protestants. This was done by reviving three
persecuting Acts of Parliament, passed for the purpose of
suppressing the followers of Wycliffe. These Acts were
those of 5 Richard II., statute 2, cap. 5 ;
2 Henry IV.,
cap. 15 ; and cap. 2 Henry of these
V., 7. The first
three had been fraudulently inserted on the Statute Book,

aswe have already seen. This time, however, it was passed
by both Houses. This revived Act of Richard II. stated
that divers persons were "going from County to County,
and from town to town in certain habits under dissimu
lation of great holiness, licence of the and without the
ordinaries," preaching daily not only in Churches and
but also in markets, fairs, and other open
"
Churchyards,
sermons containing heresies and notorious
"
places,"
"
errors and, consequently

;
:
"
ordained and assented in this present Parlia

It is
ment, that the King s commissions be made and directed

to the Sheriffs and other ministers of our Sovereign Lord
the King, or other sufficient persons learned, and according
to the certifications of the Prelates thereof, to be made
in the Chancery from time to time, to arrest all such
preachers, and also their fautors, maintainers, and abettors,

and them in arrest and strong prison, till they
to hold
will justify them according to the law and reason of Holy
Church. And the King will and commandeth, that the
Chancellor make such commissions at all times, that he
by the Prelates, or any of them, shall be certified and
thereof required, as is aforesaid."
Strictly speaking, this Act was not revived, since it
had never been legally passed, but from this time it was
a strictly legal enactment. The second Act to be revived,
2 Henry IV., cap. 15, had, before this, been twice re
pealed first by 25 Henry VIII., cap. 14

; and, secondly, ;
by Edward VI., cap. 12. This revived law is commonly

1
known as the Act De Hceretico Comburendo. It stated

false and perverse people of a new
"
that meaning sect,"
the Lollards :
"
Usurping the office of preaching, do perversely and mali

ciously in divers places within the said Realm, under the cover
of dissembled holiness, preach and teach in these days openly and
privily, divers new doctrines, and wicked, heretical, and errone
ous opinions, contrary to the same faith and blessed determina
tions of the Holy Church. And of such sect and wicked doctrine
and opinions they make unlawful Conventicles and confederacies ;
they hold and exercise schools, they make and write books,
they do wickedly instruct and inform people, and, as much as
they may, excite and stir them to sedition and insurrection,
and make great strife and the people, and other
division among
enormities horrible to be heard, daily do perpetrate and commit,
in subversion of the said Catholic faith, and doctrine of the
Holy Church."
And
"
that this wicked sect, preachings, doctrines, and

opinions, should from henceforth cease and be utterly destroyed,
by the assent of the States and other discreet men of the Realm,
being in the said Parliament, hath granted, established, and
ordained from henceforth firmly to be observed That none :
within the said Realm, or any other Dominions, subject to his

Royal Majesty, presume to preach openly or privily, without
the licence of the Diocesan of the same place first required and
obtained, Curates in their own Churches, and persons hitherto
privileged, and other of the Canon Law granted, only except.
Nor that none from henceforth anything preach, hold, teach,
or instruct, openly, or privily, or make or write any book contrary
to the Catholic faith, or determination of the Holy Church, nor
of such sect and wicked doctrines and opinions shall make any
Conventicles, or in anywise hold or exercise Schools. And also
that none from henceforth in anywise favour such preacher, or
THE ACT DE HMEET1CO COMBURENDO .141
maker of any such and like Conventicles, or holding or exercis

ing Schools, or making or writing such books, or so teaching,
informing, or exciting the people, nor any of them maintain or
anywise sustain. And that all and singular having such books,
or any writings of such wicked doctrine and opinions, shall
really, with effect, deliver, or cause to be delivered, all such books
and writings to the Diocesan of the same place within forty
days from the time of the proclamation of this ordinance and
Statute. And if any person or persons, of whatsoever kind,
estate, or condition that he or they be, from henceforth do, or
attempt, against the Koyal ordinance and Statute aforesaid,
in the premises or in any of them, or such books in the form
aforesaid, do not deliver, then the Diocesan of the same place
in his Diocese, such person or persons in this behalf defamed or
evidently suspected, and every of them, may by the authority

of the said ordinance and Statute, cause to be arrested ;
and
under safe custody in his prisons to be detained till he, or they,
of the articles laid to him. or them, in this behalf, do canonically
purge him, or themselves. . . And if any person in any case

.
above expressed, be before the Diocesan of the place, or his

Commissaries, canonically convict, then the same Diocesan may
cause to be kept in his prison the said person so convict for the
matter of his default, and after the quality of the offence accord
ing and so long as to his discretion shall seem expedient, and
moreover to put the same person to the secular Court (except
in cases where he, according to the Canonical Decree, ought to
be left) to pay to our Sovereign Lord the King his pecuniary
fine, according as the same fine shall seem competent to the
Diocesan. . . And if any person within the said Kealm and
.
Dominions, upon the said wicked preachings, doctrines, opinions,

Schools, and heretical informations, or any of them, be before
the Diocesan of the same place, or his Commissaries sententially
convict, and the same wicked sect, preachings, doctrines, and
opinions, Schools and informations, do refuse duly to abjure, or
by the Diocesan of the same place, or his Commissaries, after
the abjuration made by the same person pronounced, fall into
relapse, so that according to the holy Canons he ought to be
left to the secular Court, whereupon credence shall be given to
the Diocesan of the same place, or to his Commissaries in this
behalf ;
then the Sheriff of the County of the same place, and
Mayor and Sheriff, or Sheriffs, or Mayor and Bailiffs of the city,
town, and borough of the same County next to the same County
next to the said Diocesan, or the said Commissaries, shall be
presently present in preferring of such sentences, when they by
the same Diocesan, or his Commissaries, will be required and ;
they the same persons and every of them, after such sentence pro
mulgate, shall receive, and them before the people in an high place
do TO BE BURNT, that said punishment may strike in fear to the
minds of other, whereby no such wicked doctrine, and heretical
and erroneous opinions, nor their authors and fautors in the said
Realm and Dominions, against the Catholic faith, Christian law,
and determination of the Holy Church (which God prohibit) be
sustained or in anywise suffered. In which all and singular the
premises concerning the said ordinance and Statute, the Sheriffs,
Mayors, and Bailiffs, of the said Counties, cities, boroughs, and
towns, shall be attending, aiding and supporting to the said
Diocesans and their Commissaries/
The third Act revived at this time, viz. that of

2 Henry V., cap. 7, ordered the Chancellor, Treasurer,
Justices, Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs, Mayors, Bailiffs,
"
and all other officers," shall make an oath to destroy

all
"
Lollardies power and that they

"
with all their ;
assist the Ordinaries and their Commissaries, and

"
shall
them favour and maintain as often as they, or any of
them, to that shall be required by the same Ordinaries
or their Commissaries." All persons that shall be con
victed of heresy, and "
by the said Ordinaries or other

Commissaries, left to the secular power, according to the
laws of Holy Church, shall lose and forfeit all their lands
and tenements." And forasmuch as the conifance of "
heresy, errors, and Lollardies belongeth to the judgment

of Holy Church, and not to secular judges, such persons
indicted shall be delivered to the Ordinaries of the places,
or their Commissaries the Ordinaries commence their . . .
process against such persons indicted in the same manner

as though no indictment were, having no regard to such
"
indictments that is, before the secular powers.

Of course, Act was not so severe as that
this last cited
passed by Henry IV. But in each case no Protestant

could be punished without the active assistance and sen
"
tence of Holy Church," acting through her Bishops or

other representatives. If the Marian Bishops had abstained
PAPAL SUPREMACY RESTORED 143
from initiating prosecutions, there was no provision made

to punish them for neglect of duty. Without the Church s
active assistance, therefore, not one of our Protestant
Martyrs in Mary s Reign could have been put to death.

It was the influence of the Church of Rome which caused
these persecuting laws to be revived, and through her
officers alone were they enforced.
The celebrated Act, 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 8,
restoring the Papal Supremacy, and abolishing all laws

against it, retained for the Crown certain powers which
placed a limit on Papal claims. As Dr. T. Dunbar Ingram
remarks The Statute by which England was recon
:
"
ciled to thePapacy was by no means the general surrender

it iscommonly represented to be. Important rights of the
nation, and of the Crown, were declared in it, and were
secured anew. The 35th Section, relating to the assurance
of ecclesiastical property to the new possessors, while it
recites that the Pope by his dispensation had removed all
c
impeachment arising from the Canon Law, asserts that

the title of all lands, possessions, and hereditaments in
this your Majesty s Realm and Dominions grounded in
is
the laws, statutes, and customs of the same, and by your

high jurisdiction, authority Royal, and Crown Imperial,
and in your Courts only to be impleaded, ordered, tried,
and judged, and none otherwise. The admission of Papal
Bulls, dispensations, and privileges was guarded,
strictly
all Bulls, dispensations, and privileges obtained before
the said twentieth year [of Henry VIII.] or at any time
since, or which shall hereafter be obtained from the See
of Rome, not containing matter contrary or prejudicial to
the authority, dignity, or pre-eminence Royal and Imperial
of these Realms, or to the laws of this Realm now being in
force and not in this Parliament repealed, may be put in
i
So that, as we thus see, even in the Reign
"
execution.
of the Roman Catholic Queen Mary, some disabilities and
restrictions had to be placed on the Papal authority. The
England and Rome, pp. 208,
1
Ingram s 2051.
Pope was not even then allowed to do just what he liked
in every respect.
Queen Mary showed a spirit of national independence

towards Rome in another respect. She enforced the old
laws against permitting the presence of Papal Legates in
England, without the sanction of the Sovereign being first
had and obtained. For a short time she would not allow
even her kinsman, Cardinal Pole, to land in England as
Papal Legate, and until she consented he dared not enter
the country. Some years later the Pope gave her great
offence by withdrawing from Pole his Legative powers,
and summoning him to Rome to answer charges of heresy.
Not only did the Pontiff act thus, but he, in 1557, made
one William Peto, a Franciscan Friar, one of the Queen s
subjects, and her Father Confessor, Cardinal, and appointed
him Papal Legate in the room of Pole. This made the
Queen very angry, and she, by her personal letters ad
dressed to the Pope, and by communications addressed
to him by her Ambassador at Rome, Sir E. Carne, let him
know in very plain language what she thought of his con
duct. She positively refused to receive Peto as Legate,
or to allow Pole to go to Rome. The Pope sent a Nuncio
to Peto to convey to him the Cardinal s hat, but the
Queen, in the exercise of her legal rights, refused to allow
him to enter England, and therefore he had to carry the
hat back with him to Rome. The Pope, in turn, was
very much annoyed, because he could not have everything
his own way in England but as Peto very conveniently
;
died soon after, the storm blew over. Pole did not go to
Rome, and he was allowed to continue his office as Legate
until his death. In this struggle Mary gained a victory
over the Pope. Pole is said, at times, to have shown
some leniency towards the Protestants but however ;
this be it is certain that in the Lambeth Synod in

may
1556, he caused to be passed a decree, renewing all the
"
against heretics enacted by the Church of

"
penalties
Rome, and these, as is well known, included imprison-
QUEEN MARY RESISTS THE POPE 145
merit, tortures, and death. The third of these decrees was

as follows :
We prohibit and forbid any opinion which is at vari

"
ance or does not agree with the same [Roman Catholic]

faith, to be believed, practised, or taught. We damn and
anathematise all heretics of whatsoever description or kind,
who believe, hold, and teach otherwise than the same
Church of Rome believes, holds, and teaches. We also
renew, and in every point command to carry into execu

tion, all censures and penalties enacted against heretics and
their supporters, as also against Ordinaries and all others
to whom this relates, who are remiss in extirpating
A
heresies."
With reference to Mary s opposition to the Pope in

the matter of Peto and Pole, Lord Burleigh makes these
pertinent remarks, in his Execution of Treason, published
Neither was Queen Mary, the Queen s Majesty s
"
in 1583 :
late sister, devoted to the Roman

a person not a little
religion, so afraid of the

Pope but that she and s cursings,
her whole Council, and that with the assent of all the
Judges of the Realm, according to the ancient laws, in
favour of Cardinal Pole, her kinsman, did forbid the entry
of his Bulls, and of a Cardinal s hat at Calais, that was
sent from the Pope for one Friar Peto, whom the Pope
had assigned to be a Cardinal in disgrace of Cardinal Pole ;
neither did Cardinal Pole himself at the same time obey

the commandments, nor showed himself afraid,
Pope s
being assisted by the Queen, when the Pope did threaten

him with pain of excommunication, but did still oppose
himself against the Pope s commandment for the said
pretended Cardinal Peto who, notwithstanding all the
;
threatenings of the Pope, was forced to go up and down

in the streets of London like a begging Friar a stout :
resistance in a Queen for a poor Cardinal s hat wherein ;
1
The Reform of England by the Decrees of Cardinal Pole, translated by
Henry Raikes, M.A., Registrar of the Diocese of Chester (privately printed,
1839), p. 10.
K
she followed the example of her grandfather, Henry VII.,
for a matter of allum. So as, however, the Christian Kings
for some respects in policy can endure the Pope to com
mand, where no harm nor disadvantage groweth to them
selves, yet sure it is, and the Popes are not ignorant, but
when they shall in any sort attempt to take from Christian
Princes any part of their Dominions, or shall give aid to
their enemies, or to any other their rebels, in those cases,
their Bulls, their curses, their excommunications, their
sentences, and most solemn anathemas, no nor their cross-
keys, or double-edged sword, will serve their turns to com
l
pass their intentions."
1
Burleigh s Execution for Treason, pp. 20, 21, edition 1688.
CHAPTER XI
ELIZABETH
Pope Paul IV. censures Elizabeth for assuming the Crown without his
Consent Pope Pius IV. offers to Establish and Confirm her in her
Princely Dignity Mary s persecuting Laws repealed The Oath of
Supremacy and Allegiance Penalty for Maintaining any Foreign
Power The Book of Common Prayer legalised Papists attending
Protestant Services Testimony of Father Parsons, S.J. Testimony
of the MonthExtreme Penalties not Inflicted Father Berington on
the Conduct of the Romanists Father Watson on the Disloyalty of
Papists Father Camm on the comparative mildness" of Elizabeth s
"
early Years as Queen The Testimony of the Secular Priests on this

Point Traitorous Efforts of Secular Romanists in 1560 They Petition
the Pope to depose Elizabeth The Queen s Council s Reasons for
refusing a Papal Nuncio Woolfe, a Jesuit, sent as Papal Legate to
Ireland The Northern Rebellion The Pope s Letter of Encourage
ment to the Rebels Pope Pius V. deposes Elizabeth His Bull John
Felton posts the Bull on the Bishop of London s Palace Felton
executed as a Traitor Pope Leo XIII. declares him a Beatified Saint
and Martyr.
ON the accession of Queen Elizabeth to the Throne, in

1558, the spiritual power of the Pope was speedily brought
to an end. For her this was necessary, if she were to
remain Queen. In the opinion of the Pope she was the
illegitimate daughter of Anne Boleyn, and as such in
capable to sit on the Throne vacated by the death of her
sister Mary. It is true the Pope would have given her a
dispensation had she humbly applied for it, but that was
a humiliation which she very properly refused to submit to,
since by the very act of accepting it she would have acknow
ledged her own illegitimacy. With a politeness which de

served a more courteous answer, she requested Sir Edward
Carne, then residing at Rome (where he had acted as
Queen Mary s Ambassador), to acquaint the Pope, Paul IV.,
147
of her accession. But Father Paul Sarpi, of Venice, in
forms us that :
The Pope, proceeding according to his usual

"
rigour,
answered that that Kingdom [England] was held in Fee
of the Apostolic See that she [Elizabeth] could not suc
;
ceed, being illegitimate that he could not contradict the ;
declarations of Clement VII. and Paul III. that it was ;
a great boldness to assume the name [of Queen] and govern

ment without him ; that for this she deserved not to be
heard in anything. Yet being desirous to show a fatherly
affection, if she will renounce her pretensions, and refer
herself wholly to his free disposition, he will do whatso
ever may be done with the honour of the Apostolic See. . . .
But the new Queen understanding the Pope s answer, and

wondering at the man s hasty disposition, thought it not
profitable, either for her, or the Kingdom, to treat any
more with him."
1
Pope Pius IV., the successor of Paul IV., made, on

May 6, 1560, a similar insulting offer, in a letter he ad
dressed to Elizabeth, in which he exhorted her thus :
"
Show
yourself obedient to our fatherly persuasions and
wholesome counsels, and promise to yourself from us all
things that may make not only to the salvation of your
soul, but also whatsoever you shall desire from us, for the
establishing and confirming of your Princely dignity, accord
ing to the authority, place, and office, committed unto us
by God."
2
It was not likely that Elizabeth would con
sent acknowledge the Pope s right to confirm and
to
strengthen her in her Royal dignity. The "princely

of an English Sovereign does not depend on the
"
dignity
"
authority of a Pope. But the attitude of these two

"
Popes towards her made it plain that Papal power in Eng
land (always an inseparable mixture of the spiritual and

temporal) could not, under the circumstances, be abolished
except by the use of political weapons ;
and for the simple
1
Father Paul s History of the Council of Trent, p. 385, edition 1676.
2 Dodd s Church History, vol. ii., Appendix, p. cccxxi., Tierney s edition.
MARY S PERSECUTING LAWS REPEALED 149
reason that without them the Reformers could not obtain

liberty to preach the Gospel. It was the political influ
ence of the Church of Rome that really stood in their way,
not the controversial arguments of her priests.
No time was lost in repealing the laws passed in the
Reign of Mary which revived the persecuting laws I have
already cited, and also those reviving the power of the
Pope. This was done in Elizabeth s first Parliament by
1 Elizabeth, cap. 1. By this Act also several of the laws

passed by Henry VIII. abolishing the Papal Supremacy
were revived. These revived laws were the Acts of
23 Henry VIII., cap. 9; 24 Henry VIII., cap. 12;
25 Henry VIII., caps. 19, 20 26 Henry VIII., cap. 14 ; ;
28 Henry VIII., cap. 16. And by this first Act of Eliza

beth, Sections 17 and 18, ecclesiastical jurisdiction was
restored to the Crown. By the 19th Section it was ordered
that Ecclesiastical persons, and their officers, Judges,
all
and other lay or temporal officer and minister,

"
Mayors,
and every other person having your Highness fee or wages,"
shall take the Oath of Supremacy, in the following terms :
A. B., do utterly testily and declare in my conscience,

"I,
that the Queen s Highness is the only Supreme Governor of this

Realm, and of all other her Highness Dominions and countries,
as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes, as
temporal. And that no foreign Prince, person, Prelate, State,
or Potentate, hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power,
superiority, pre-eminence, or authority ecclesiastical or spiritual,
within this Kealm. And, therefore, I do utterly renounce and
forsake all foreign jurisdictions, powers, superiorities, and
authorities and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear
;
faith and true allegiance to the Queen s Highness, her heirs

and lawful successors, and to my power shall assist and defend
all jurisdictions, pre-eminences, privileges, and authorities
granted or belonging to the Queen s Highness, her heirs and
successors, or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this
Realm."
It was also provided that any Archbishop, Bishop, or

other ecclesiastical officer, or temporal judge, "or other lay
officer or minister," who refused to take this oath should
forfeit his office during life ;
and that every person who
"
thereafter should be preferred, promoted, or collated to

any Archbishopric, Bishopric, or to any other spiritual or
ecclesiastical benefice," shall take the oath before occupying
his new office in the Church.
"
Every person promoted or

"
preferred to any degree of learning in any University

must also take the oath. By the 27th Section it was
any person within the Realm should
"
enacted that if by
writing, printing, teaching, preaching, express words, deed
or act," maintain any foreign spiritual or ecclesiastical
power or jurisdiction, he shall forfeit his goods and chattels,
real and personal, to the Queen, and if
they be worth no
more than 20 in addition be imprisoned for one year.
For a second offence, he shall incur the penalties provided
by the Statute of Provisions and Prsemunire, 16 Richard
II., cap. 5 and for a third offence the penalties provided
;
for High Treason.

By Elizabeth, cap. 2, the Second Book of Common
1
Prayer, issued by Edward VI., was, subject to certain

alterations, adopted for use in all places of worship. It
enacted that if any Minister refused to use it in public
worship, or use any rite, ceremony, or form except what
was contained in the book, or should preach or speak
against anything in it, he shall, for the first offence, lose
the profit of his benefice for one year, and suffer imprison
ment for six months. For a second offence, the penalty
was deprivation of his benefice, and imprisonment for one
year ; and, for a third offence, deprivation of his benefice,
and imprisonment for life. The laity who, by
"
plays,
songs, rhymes, or by other open words," should speak
against the Book of Common Prayer, or anything in it,
or encourage any Minister to use in Divine Service any
other book, should, for the first offence, be fined one hun
dred marks for the second offence, four hundred marks
; ;
and, for a third offence, should forfeit goods and all his
chattels, and be imprisoned for life. It was further provided

that every person residing in the Realm, should resort to
PAPISTS AT PROTESTANT SERVICES 151
his parish church every Sunday, and other days ordained "
and used to be kept Holy Days," and there be present

during Divine Service. Every person offending against
shall forfeit for every such offence twelve
"
this section
the money to be applied to the use of the poor.
pence,"
In addition to this the offenders were to be held liable to

"
the censures of the Church."
A modern Jesuit writer, the Rev. J. H. Pollen, S.J.,
commenting on the Acts of Parliament just cited, candidly

admits that :
"
If we look closely at this legislation, we shall

discover that a great deal more than might have been ex
pected was made to turn upon attendance at Protestant
service. If a Catholic could avoid prosecution on that score,
if he kept studiously quiet and forewent every post under
the Government, or in the Universities, or in the Church, or

other professions, he might, it seems, never have the Oath pro
posed to him at all"
l
It is, therefore, very clear that the
Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy only directly affected a
small percentage of the whole population. And as to the
penalty for non-attendance at Church, the greater number
of the Roman Catholic laity for many years escaped these
finesby going regularly to their parish church services. The
testimony of the Jesuit Father, Robert Parsons, is clear
on this point. He wrote "In the
beginning also of this:
Queen [Elizabeth s] days, the little affection which the

s
laity did bear unto the clergy, procured by some unquiet

spirits, as also the small union of divers clergymen amongst
themselves, some holding with the heretics and politics by
heat of faction, was a great occasion of the total overthrow
of religion, whereupon also the same devil brought in the
division of opinions about going to the heretical Churches
and service, which most part of Catholics did follow for many
years."
2
The Jesuit writer in the Month, whom I have just
cited, tells us, with reference to the penalties incurred by
both clergy and laity by these Acts, that : "A
very consider-
1
The Month, November 1904, p. 505.
2
A Briefe Apologic, by Robert Parsons, S.J., 1602, ff. 1, 2.
able number thousand
of the inferior clergy (two or three
seems a moderate estimate) went bodily over to the enemy
on the first application of force, and the majority of their
bad example of their pastors.
flocks reluctantly followed the
There were honourable and indeed numerous exceptions
both among clergy and laity. But when we compare
them with the whole nation, their numbers are most dis
appointingly few." He adds, as to the penalties inflicted
by the new legislation, that The extreme penalties of
"
the new laws were not inflicted, though their lighter punish
ments were systematically enforced." l Many of the priests
went abroad, and of these, a well-known Roman Catholic
author says that Had these men remained at home,
:
"
patient of present evils, and submissive, as far as might

be, to the laws had they continued the practice of their
;
religion in retirement, and distributed, without clamour,

instruction to those that claimed it, the rigour of the Legis
lature would soon have relaxed no jealous} would have
;
7
been excited, and no penal statutes, we may now pro

nounce, would have entailed misfortunes upon them and their
successors. The
entire series of these evils they could not, I
will admit, then foresee but no uncommon share of pene
;
have taught them that the measures

tration might certainly
they were pursuing must accelerate the ruin, not support

the religion of their friends, or the interest of their cause." -
The author here certainly points out a serious blot on the
policy of the Church of Rome in England during the Reign
of Elizabeth. No serious attempt at conciliation with the
State was made by her priests during that period but, ;
on the contrary, as years went on everything was done

to provoke the State to severe measures. It is true that
towards the close of her Reign some of the Secular Priests
made an effort towards conciliation, by professions of loyalty
to the Throne but for thus doing their duty as subjects,
;
they were bitterly persecuted by those who were their

1
The Month, November 1904, p. 505.
~
Memoirs of Panzani, by the Rev. Joseph Beringtoii, p. 20.
HOW QUEEN ELIZABETH WAS PROVOKED 153
spiritual rulers. These Secular Priests put forth a state

ment, in 1601, to the same effect. It is said to have been
written by Father Watson on their behalf. They give it
as their opinion that :
the Popes from time to time had sought her Majesty

"
If
[Elizabeth] by kind offices and gentle persuasions, never

ceasing the prosecution of those and such like courses of
humanity and gentleness if the Catholics and Priests
;
beyond the seas had laboured continually the furtherance

of those most Priest-like and Divine allurements, and had
framed their own proceedings in a]l their works and writings
if we at home, all of us, both Priests and
accordingly ;
people, had possessed our souls in meekness and humility,

honoured her Majesty, borne with the infirmities of the
State, suffered all things, and dealt as true Catholic Priests ;
if all of us (we
say) had thus done, most assuredly the
State would have loved us, or at least borne with us.
Where there is one Catholic there would have been ten ;
there would have been no speeches amongst us of racks

and tortures, nor any cause to have used them for none ;
were ever vexed that way simply for that he was either
Priest or Catholic, but because they were suspected to have
had their hands in some of the said most traitorous de-
signments none of her Majesty s enemies durst so readily
;
have attempted her State and Kingdom we had been ;
in better friendship with those that reek now most to

l
oppose themselves against us."
The Act of 5 Elizabeth, cap. 1 (1562), commences by
stating that those who favour the usurped power and

jurisdiction of the See of Rome have
"
at this time grown

to marvellous outrage and licentious boldness, and now
requiring more sharp restraint and correction of law^ than
hitherto in the time of the Queen s Majesty most mild
and merciful reign have been had, used, or established "
and therefore it is enacted that all who shall maintain

"
1
Important Considerations, published by Sundry of us the Secular Priests,
second edition, 1688, p. 20.
or defend the authority, jurisdiction, or power of the
Bishop of Rome, or his See," shall, for the first offence,
incur the penalty provided by the Statute of Prsemunire ;
and, for the second offence, the penalty awarded to High

Treason the last-named punishment to be incurred by
;
those who, for the second time, refuse to take the Oath
of Allegiance and Supremacy.
A modern Roman Catholic writer acknowledges
"
the
what he terms
"
comparative mildness with which

"
the
persecuting laws, were administered at the beginning of
Elizabeth s reign." This lasted about ten years" he writes,
"
"until the
flight of Mary, Queen of Scots into England, on
the 16th of May, 1568." l But with the Northern Rebellion
of 1569, and the Deposing Bull of Pope Pius V. in 1570, a
great political opposition to Elizabeth, aiming at her Throne,

came into powerful operation, which needed to be dealt
with sternly.
That notorious book, Leicester s Commonwealth, was
certainly written towards the close ol Elizabeth s reign.
It was asserted, in 1603, by a Roman Catholic writer, that
it was written by Father Robert Parsons, the Jesuit. 2
This has been denied, and I do not feel competent to decide
this question. Yet it was certainly written by a Roman
Catholic, as its contents prove. It is written in the form
of a dialogue, in which one of the characters, without re
buke from the others, says I do well remember the
"
first dozen years of her Highness [Elizabeth s] Reign,

how happy, pleasant, and quiet 1hey were, with all manner
of comfort and consolation. There was no mention then
of factions in religion, neither was any man much noted
or rejected for that cause : so otherwise his conversation
3
was civil and courteous." This seems somewhat exag
gerated, yet it is to a considerable extent corroborated by
the Secular Priests, whose name the Important Con-
in
Martyrs, edited by Dom Bede Carnm, O.S.B.,

1
Lives of the English
vol. ii. p. xiv.
2
A Replie Unto a Certaine Libell Latelie Set Foorth by Fa. Parsons, p. 71.
3
Leicester s Commonwealth, p. 162.
EXTREME PENALTIES SELDOM INFLICTED 155
siderations was written. We there read that : "It cannot

be denied but that for the first ten years of her Majesty s
Reign, the state of Catholics in England was tolerable,

and after a sort in some good quietness." l And even the
Rev. J. H. Pollen, S.J., writing in 1904, admits that :
"
The persecution, as we shall see, was not uniformly severe

throughout her [Elizabeth s] Reign. It would not be just
to take the stories of our Martyrs as examples of the treat
ment which Catholics invariably met with at the hands
of Elizabeth s Government for they are admittedly ex
;
treme and rarer cases. During many years there were no

and he adds that, Upon the whole
" "
martyrdoms at all ;
the history of the persecution shows that neither she nor

her Government were seriously influenced by the desire of
retaliation."
2
As a matter of undisputed fact, Roman
"
Catholics admit that their

"
first Martyr in Elizabeth s
Reign was not executed until 1570 eleven years after her
accession to the Throne.
Instead of trying to conciliate the Queen and obtain
her favour, with a consequent mitigation of their condition,
it is
very clear, from the correspondence published in the
firstvolume of the Calendar of Spanish State Papers (and
from other sources) that the Romanists traitorously sought
assistance from foreign powers, for the purpose of having
her excommunicated and deposed. It was, probably, a
knowledge of this fact that induced Parliament to pass
the Act last cited. The Romanists tried to get help from
France and Spain, in the hope that those countries would
bring pressure to bear on the Pope, for the purpose of
inducing him to excommunicate and depose their Queen.
The Spanish Ambassador in London, writing to the King
of Spain, as early as
February 3, 1560, says The Catholics :
"
here cannot believe that your Majesty will renew the League
with this country, unless the religion is restored, and I
think Viscount Montague will try on his part to effect
1
Important Considerations, second edition, 1088, p. 34.
The Month, November, 1904, pp. 502, 503.
this. Dr. Cole [Dean of St. Paul s in Mary s Reign] sent
two days since to tell me that if your Majesty abandoned
them they would appeal to the French, or even to the
Turks, rather than put up with these heretics."
l
The
Venetian Ambassador in France, writing to the Doge and
Senate, on June 30, 1560, states that Sir Nicholas Throck-
Ambassador
"
morton, the English in Paris, told my

Secretary, what your Serenity will have already heard,
that the Queen, having discovered a great conspiracy
formed against her by the Catholics, she had imprisoned
upwards of twenty of the ringleaders."
2
The Spanish
Ambassador in London, on July 25, 1560, wrote to the
I am compelled by my conscience, and
"
King of Spain :
in order not to fail in my duty to your Majesty, to say

that the Catholics here [England] complain that your
Majesty should sustain this Queen [Elizabeth] in her
dominions, and so cause heresy to strike its roots in the
3
Realm." But at that time Philip II. was not at all
inclined to help the English Romanists in the direction
they specially desired. He had not given up hopes of

marrying Queen Elizabeth, on condition that she became
a Roman and to get her excommunicated and
Catholic,
deprived would, at that period, have seriously interfered
with his plans. Indeed he, on the contrary, used his
influence with the Pope to prevent him taking action
4
against her.
Writing of events in this same year, the Rev. J. H.
Pollen, S.J., supplies the following important information
about the disloyalty of the English Romanists who by
this time had gone to reside on the Continent I have
"
also found in the Vatican several contemporary petitions

from Englishmen in Rome, exiles for religion s sake, as
suring the Pope that the time for excommunication had
now arrived, and begging him to pass sentence on the
1
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, 1558-1567, p. 124.
2
Calendar of Venetian State Papers, 1558-1580, p. 233.
3
4
The Month, October 1900, p. 400.
POPE PETITIONED TO DEPOSE THE QUEEN 157
Queen [Elizabeth] and her Councillors."

1
The men who
signed these disloyal petitions knew very well that the
the Pope must pass on her, when he declared
" "
sentence
her excommunicated, was that of being deposed from her
Throne, and her subjects absolved from their oaths of
allegiance. But it was not these exiles only who thus
petitioned the Pope. A modern Roman Catholic writer,
the Rev. G. E. Phillips, Professor at St. Cuthbert s College,
Ushaw, states that in this same year, 1561, the Roman
Catholic Bishops then in prison in England, also sent a
Memorial to the Pope, "by which they implored the Holy
Father, without considering the consequences to them
selves, to proceed, if necessary, even to the excommuni
cation of the Queen." 2 He adds that in June, 1563, in
"
the Council of Trent the question of excommunicating

Elizabeth by a decree of the General Council had been
raised, the desire of the imprisoned English Bishops for
some decisive action having been communicated to the
3
Fathers." I have no doubt that the Memorial of these
Bishops is identical with that printed
by Mr. Pollen, in
his Papal Negotiations with Queen Mary. He says that
"as to the authorship of the following anonymous paper,
it may have been sent by some English exile in Flanders,"
4
have been written by Nicholas But
"
or may Sanders."
it is not at that a document from any private

all likely
individual would have been so solemnly considered by the

Council as this was ;
nor would the Emperor have taken
the trouble to order his Ambassadors to secure its sup
pression.The Pope was excommunicate the willing to

Queen, but the Emperor s action frightened him, and
therefore he allowed the matter to drop. But this does

not free the Bishops who signed the Memorial from the
1
The Month, October, 1900, p. 394.
2
The Extinction of the Ancient Hierarchy, by the Eev. G-. E. Phillips,
p. 222.
3
Ibid., p. 228.
4
Papal Negotiations with Queen Mary, edited by the Rev. J. H. Pollen, S.J.,
p. 174 (Scottish History Society).

guilt of treason. The following is the text of this remark
able document :
"
by chance the Pope and the Princes of Christendom think

If
it
expedient that the Queen [Elizabeth] should be excommuni
cated by the Council, and also deprived, that measure, undertaken
be very popular with the [English]
in the cause of religion only, will
people. Especially the Council

if
by its public authority (which
is
respected in that Kingdom far more than any one dares show
openly) should, with the consent of the Pope and Christian Kings,
confer the title to the Kingdom on some Prince who shall marry
the Queen of Scots, the true heir to that Kealm. If she were
a man she would, perhaps, need no other aid than that of her
party in that Kingdom.
It is believed that if this were made public judiciously, it
"
would so draw to her the hearts of the people, that with the aid
of a small foreign Army she would gain possession of the Kealm,
even though the heretics may perhaps resist as well as they can.
The number both of Nobles and Commoners is infinite, who
resent the miserable slavery of their souls under the tyranny
of Nicholas Bacon and William Cecil, more than the Israelites ever
hated the yoke of Pharaoh, and they have long awaited a Moses
to free them from this captivity.
"
Special attention must be paid to this, that it is not every

Prince who will be able to effect this with the same ease. That
one is to be preferred who is thought best able to win and retain
peacefully the supreme power with the least effusion of blood.
Beyond a doubt, too, that Prince will be more popular and eli
gible who does not possess a dominion larger than the Realm
of England, for the English are a people who will never quietly
submit to the yoke of a Regent or Viceroy. Hence we take it
for certain that the son of the King of Spain, albeit more powerful
than the other competitors, will nevertheless experience more
difficulties than they in making his way to that Throne, and this
both because of external and internal obstacles. He would
also findmore difficulties in retaining the Kingdom when won,
and would have to shed more blood in ruling it than the son of
the Emperor would have to do/ r
The official organ of the English Jesuits says that :
In June, 1563, there was much debate among the Fathers

"
[at the Council of Trent] as to whether it w ould not be

r
advisable for the Council to pronounce a solemn sentence

1
Papal Negotiations with Queen Mary, p. 176.
PAPAL NUNCIO REFUSED ENTRY 159
of excommunication against Queen Elizabeth of England.

For two days the matter was greatly discussed, and at
length it was resolved to refer the decision of it to the
Sovereign Pontiff. Bishop Goldwell [the deprived Bishop
of St. Asaph] did his best to induce the Council to ex
communicate the Queen, and he also wrote to the Cardinal
of him to use all his influence with the
Trani, begging
Pope same object.
for the Pius IV. was personally in
favour of what had been proposed in deference, however,
:
to the express wishes of the Emperor Maximilian II., he

l
judged it more prudent to let the matter drop."
Very early in Elizabeth s Reign the Pope showed him
self most anxious to send a Nuncio to England, hoping
thus to persuade her and her Government to submit once

more to Papal Supremacy. It was fortunate for the peace
of the country that these Papal overtures were rejected.
The Pope made many professions of friendship, but they
were all conditional on submission to his authority. But
Elizabeth knew very well that the Papal Court never
could feel any real friendship for a Protestant Sovereign,
and she therefore wisely decided that the less she had to
do with Rome the better for herself and her country.
When the Pope, for a second time, proposed to send a
Nuncio, her Majesty s Council met at Greenwich, on May 1,
1561, and after a careful discussion decided to advise her
not to allow him to enter the country. The document
in which they stated their unanimous opinions is lengthy,
but very important, and therefore I cite from it the fol
lowing portions, which I specially commend to those who,
in our own day, wish to renew Diplomatic Relations with
Rome. They stated that :
is against both the ancient laws, and the late laws of

"It
this Realm, that lie [the Nuncio] should come into the same, or
into any of the Queen s Majesty s Dominions for by the ancient
;
laws, even when the Popes had most credit in this Realm, no
1
The Month, vol. for 1876, pp. 133, 134.
Legate or Nuncio might come into the same, but both he should
have licence before, and should also make a solemn oath, on
the other side the seas, that he should bring nothing with him
nor attempt anything in this Kealm to the derogation of the
Kings of Realm, the Crown and liberties thereof. And of
this
this there many examples of ancient times remaining on
be
record, as well of the denial and refusal of the Pope s Nuncios
to come into this Realm, and also, at the same time, of burning
of the Pope s letters, and imprisoning his messengers, as of
licensing them to come, upon their oaths given. And herein
the latest example was in the reign of Philip and Queen Mary,
when she was Queen, and the nobility of the Realm determined
that his Nuncio should not come into this Realm and besides ;
their determination and plain writing therein, it is well known

how the Nuncio, with a certain hat meant for Friar Peto, named
then to be a Cardinal, was long stayed at Calais, and was pro
hibited to come over, and never came into this Realm.
"
As for the laws lately made, it is manifest that by Parlia

ment it is enacted that no foreign Prelate, or person spiritual or
temporal, shall use any power or authority, spiritual or ecclesi
astical, within this Realm and therefore it is not only against
;
the laws of this Realm that any such Nuncio should come hither,
but also that any person should, by word or deed, allow of his
coming.
"
. . .
It may be said that the Nuncio will swear that he will do
nothing prejudicial to the Crown and State of this Realm.

Indeed it may be doubted whether he will swear for, ;
howso
ever he may be induced to swear, for his advantage, he either
cannot observe his oath, except he will come into the Realm,
and neither speak, nor deliver any letter from the Pope or else ;
may presume that it is no perjury to break his promise with

such as he is taught to repute as heretics. But if he should swear,
and afterwards break it, then in what danger shall all they be
that should give assent to his coming, is evidently seen. . . .
What an abuse is this, to bear us in hand, that no hurt is

"
meant by the Pope, when it is evidently (as much as in him

lieth) already done. The Pope hath, even at this instant time,
in Ireland a Legate, who is publicly joined already with certain
traitors, and
is occupied in stirring a Rebellion,
having already
by open acts deprived the Queen s Majesty of her right and
title there, as much as in him lieth, although the power which
her Majesty hath there, as well of public Ministers, as of multi
tudes of good subjects, do little esteem such attempts, as things
whereof avenge shall be shortly made and why should we
;
THE PAPAL LEGATE IN IRELAND 161
believe that this man would not do as much as in him might lie,
to do the like here in this Realm
Yea, it cannot be denied ?
but, the last year, when the Abbot de Sancta Salute was sent
from the same Pope of the like errand, and came even to Brussels,
where this Nuncio now is, about this time also of the year, it
was purposed that he should have done his best to have stirred
a Rebellion in this Realm, by colour of religion. And why this
Abbot hath not the like secret errand, there is no reason to be
shewed ; but, contrariwise, more reasons now to prove it likely
in this man than was Specially, such preparatives
in the other.
being used beforehand this present year to prepare the hearts

of discontented subjects, as hath now by divers means been
used, and as it is notoriously known and discovered otherwise,
"
1
than any was the last year.
The Papal
" "
Legate in Ireland, referred to in this
document, was David Woolfe, a Jesuit. Every Irish Re

bellion in Ireland was encouraged and aided by the Popes.
In 1569 the Northern Rebellion in England received his
encouragement and benediction, thus affording Elizabeth
an additional reason for severe measures, and justifying
her throughout her Reign in looking on the Popes as her
chief enemies. In the spring of 1569, Pope Pius V. sent
Dr. Nicholas Morton, a priest, on a mission to the North
of England with a view to stirring up the Romanists in
that part of the country to open rebellion. That he suc
ceeded is admitted by Mr. Gillow, who writes :
"
He
landed in Lincolnshire, and the result of his intrigues was
the ill-starred Northern Rising of 1569, under the Earls
of Northumberland and Westmoreland." 2
Brother Henry
"
Foley, S.J., tells us that : Father Grene observes that

it is asserted that Nicholas Morton was sent to
England
in that year (1569) by Pope St. Pius V., in order by Apos
tolical authority to denounce Elizabeth, then in power,
as a heretic, to certain Catholic nobles, and on that ac
count de jure deprived of all power she had usurped against
3
Catholics."
1
Dodd s Church History, vol. ii., Appendix, pp. cccxxiii.-cccxxv., Tierney s
edition.
2
Gillow s Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, vol. v. p. 136.
3
Ifoley s Pccords of the English Province, S.J., vol. vii. p. 1385, note.
The object the rebels had in view was the deliverance
of Mary, Queen of Scots, from captivity, in the hope, no
doubt, that this would lead to her becoming the Roman
Catholic Queen of England but, says Dom Bede Camm ;
:
It was understood on all sides that the desire to restore

"
the Catholic religion was the actuating motive of the

Rising."
l
When certain persons urged the leader of the
Rebellion, the Earl of Northumberland, to put forward
some other pretext than religion for the Rebellion, he
replied : neither know of nor acknowledge any other,
"I
for we are seeking, I imagine, the glory, not of men, but

of God."
2
The Rebels were greatly encouraged, no doubt,
to go on with their work, by the liberal supply of money
sent them by the Pope for that purpose. This fact was
made known by the Bishop of Ross, on November 29,
1571, when he was examined in the Tower of London.
He said The 12,000 Crowns which were sent by the
:
"
Pope to the relief of the English Rebels, were procured
principally by the letters of the Rebels sent unto Rome,

and by the means of a Doctor called Morton, or some
such like name, who, the summer before the Rebellion,
had been in the North parts." 3
Before actually commencing violent proceedings, the
conspirators, on November 8, 1569, wrote to the Pope to

tellhim of their intentions. Their letter seems to have
been delayed in transmission, for it did not reach its desti
nation until the 16th of February, by which time the
Rebellion had been suppressed. But the Pope, not having
heard of their defeat, wrote, on the 20th of February, 1570,
to the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland a
letter of approval and encouragement.
For behold now," wrote Pius V., "He, who of old makes
"
new, and of new old, our Lord Jesus Christ, by you, who are
most dear to us, no less by nobility of birth than by the prose
cution of Catholic piety, has perhaps determined to restore and
1
Lives of the English Martyrs, by Dom Bede Camm, vol. ii.
p. 135.
2 3
Ibid., p. 134. Murden s State Papers, p. 60.
PIUS V. BLESSES THE NORTHERN RISING 163
confirm the ancient union of the Roman Church and the Kingdom
[of England] and has therefore inspired you with a mind so
;
worthy of the zeal of your Christian faith, as to urge you to the

attempt, to deliver yourselves and that Kingdom from the basest
servitude of a woman s lust, and to recover them to the primitive
obedience of this holy Roman See. Which pious and religious
endeavour of your minds we commend with due praises in the
Lord and bestowing upon it that benediction of ours which
;
you seek, with the benignity which becomes us, we receive your
honourable persons fleeing to the power and protection of us
and of this See, to whose authority they subject them
Holy
selves exhorting
; you in the Lord, and with the greatest possible
earnestness of our mind entreating you to persevere constantly
in this your exceedingly good will and laudable purpose being ;
assured that the Omnipotent God, whose works are perfect,

and who has excited you to deserve well of the Catholic faith in
that Kingdom, will be present to your assistance. But if in
asserting the Catholic faith, and the authority of this Holy See,
you should hazard death and spill your blood, far better is it,
for the confession of God, to fly by a compendious and glorious
death, to eternal life, than, living basely and ignominiously, to
serve the will of an impotent woman, with the injury of your
1
souls."
As we have seen, the Rebellion was a failure. Thomas

Percy, Earl of Northumberland, one of its two leaders,
escaped to Scotland, but was eventually betrayed into
Elizabeth s hands, and executed for high treason. There
could be no doubt about his guilt. Several Roman Catholic
writers have asserted that the Earl died as a martyr to
his religion, because he was offered his life if he would
conform to the Reformed Church of England but Father ;
"
Tierney declares that the story rests on no probable

authority."
2
The Earl died as a traitor, and as such
deserved the death penalty. Yet, on May 13, 1895, Pope
Leo XIII. issued a Decree enrolling him as one of the
of the Church of Rome, and declaring him
" "
Martyrs
to be one of the Beatified Saints in heaven This modern !
act in honour of disloyalty to a Protestant Sovereign shows
1
Mondham s Life of Saint Pius 7., pp. 130, 131.
2
Dodd s Church History, vol. iii. p. 13, note.
how the Church of Rome still approves of the practice of
rebellion, when thought necessary in her interests.
was another person active in this Northern
There
Rebellion who was similarly honoured by Leo XIII. This
was Thomas Plumtree, who acted as Chaplain to the rebels,
and publicly celebrated Mass for them in the Chapel of
Durham College. In an old ballad of the time he is called
"
The Preacher of the Rebels."

1
He also is now declared
to be a Beatified Saint.
The encouraging letter of Pope Pius V. to the Northern
Rebels was soon followed by his famous Bull deposing
Elizabeth from her Throne, and absolving her subjects
from their Oaths of Allegiance. Bishop Jewell rightly
thought that it was instigated by Romanists residing in
England. The coals," he said, were kindled here but
" "
the bellows which gave the wind lay at Rome and there ;
sat he which made the fire." And now let us listen to the
roaring of this wild Bull, dated April 27, 1570 :
The number
"
of the ungodly has obtained such power,

that now there is no place in the world which they have not en
deavoured to corrupt with their most wicked doctrines. Amongst
others, Elizabeth, the pretended Queen of England, a slave of
wickedness, lending to it her assistance with whom, as in a ;
sanctuary, the most pernicious of all men have found a refuge.

This very woman having seized on the Kingdom, and mon
strously usurping the place of the Supreme Head of the Church
in allEngland, and the chief authority and jurisdiction of it,
has reduced the said Kingdom to miserable destruction, which
was then newly restored to the Catholic faith, and a good con
dition. . . .
"
seeing that impieties and wickednesses are multiplied

We,
upon one another, and, moreover, that the persecution of the
faithful, and affliction for religion, increase every day in weight,
through, the instigation and means of the said Elizabeth (because
we understand her mind to be so stubborn and hardened, that
she has not only contemned the godly requests and admonition
of Catholic Princes for her healing and conversion, but has not
even permitted the Nuncios of this See to cross the seas into
1
Stanton s Menology, p. 3 ; Camm s Lives of the English Martyrs, vol. ii.
pp. 152-159.
PIUS V. DEPOSES ELIZABETH 165
England) are of necessity constrained to betake ourselves to

the weapons of justice against her, not being able to assuage
our sorrow that we are induced to inflict punishment upon one
to whose ancestors the whole state of Christendom has been so
bounden. Supported therefore by His authority whose pleasure
it was to place us, although unequal to so great a burthen, in
this supreme throne of justice, we do, out of the fulness of our
Apostolic power, declare the aforesaid Elizabeth, being a heretic,
and a favourer of heretics, and her adherents in the matters
aforesaid, to have incurred the sentence of anathema, and to be
cut off from the unity of the body of Christ.
"
And, moreover, we do declare her to be deprived of her

pretended title to the Kingdom aforesaid, and of all dominion,
dignity, and privilege whatsoever.
And also the nobility, subjects, and people of the said
"
Kingdom, and all others who have in any manner sworn to her,
to be forever absolved from any such oath and all kind of duty,
fidelity, and obedience, as we do by authority of these presents
absolve them, and do deprive the same Elizabeth of her pretended
title to the Kingdom, and all other things abovesaid. And we do
command and interdict all and every the noblemen, subjects,
people, and others aforesaid, that they presume not to obey her,
or her monitions, mandates, and laws and those who shall do
;
the contrary we do involve in the same sentence of anathema/ l
This outrageous Bull was naturally looked upon, both

in England and on the Continent, as equivalent to a de
claration of war. Had Elizabeth met it by sending a
fleet to bombard the Papal States, as a punishment for
the Pope s audacious impudence, she would have been
perfectly justified in doing so. Of course the Pope knew
very well that the Romanists residing in England were
not powerful enough to put it into execution, without aid
from one or more Roman Catholic nations but he quite ;
expected that foreign assistance would be forthcoming.

The Bull was dated February 25, 1570 (modern style),
and on the 25th of the following May, between two and
three o clock in the morning, a zealous and wealthy lay
man named John Felton, accompanied by a priest named
Dr. Webb, posted it on the gate of the Bishop of London s
1
Mendham s Life of Saint Pius V., pp. 141-147.
Palace, then close to St. Paul s Cathedral. The proba
bility is that they would never have been discovered were
it not that Felton gave a copy of the Bull to a legal friend,
on whose premises it was found by the officers of justice,
who searched the houses of known Romanists in order to
find out the guilty parties. This gentleman was arrested,
and while under torture confessed that Felton had given
him the copy of the Bull. When Felton was arrested he
made no attempt to deny his offence, but rather gloried
in his traitorous deed. It is said that he also w as tor T
tured, with a view to finding out, if possible, the names

of other guilty persons. His accomplice, Webb, escaped
to the Continent, and for the rest of his life wisely kept
away from England. Felton, in due course, was put upon

his trial for alone, and not for his religion.
High Treason
He was justly found guilty, and executed close to the
place where he had posted up the Pope s Deposing Bull.
Just as he was about to die, he pointed to the Bishop s
gate, and exclaimed The Sovereign Pontiff s letters
:
"
against the pretended Queen were duly exhibited there,

and now I am
prepared to die for the Catholic faith."
l
If the Pope s deposing power is an article of the Roman

"
Catholic faith," Felton did die for that yet since that ;
time large numbers of Roman Catholic Divines, at home

and abroad, have solemnly sworn that it is no part of their
faith. Felton deserved to die, and it is very much to the
discredit of Leo XIII. that he proclaimed John Felton a
Beatified Martyr, thus holding up to the admiration of
English Romanists in our generation traitorous acts against
a Protestant Sovereign.
1
Camm s Lives of the English Martyrs, vol. ii. p. 10.
CHAPTER XII
The Use of Torture English Komanist Plot to make Mary, Queen of Scots,
Queen of England The Ridolfi Conspiracy Ridolfi sent to the
Pope and King of Spain Mary s Instructions to Ridolfi The Duke
of Norfolk s Instructions to Ridolfi The Duke s Duplicity The
Pope s Letter approving of the Conspiracy The Conspirators propose
to murder Elizabeth The Spanish Council meet to consider the
Murder Plot The Pope s Deposing Bull and Ridolfi Conspiracy cause
fresh Penal Laws John Storey s Traitorous Conduct He is Executed
Pope Leo XIII. declares Storey a Beatified Saint.
MENTION has just been made of the use of torture. No one

can abhor it more than I do, and I cannot for one moment
justify its use in Elizabeth s Reign. Yet I would remind
Jesuit and Roman Catholic writers that they have no right
to find fault on this subject, who are the children of a
Church responsible for the horrible tortures of the Inquisi
tion for more than two centuries after this period. This
subject has been very fully and ably dealt with in the late
Mr. David Jardine s treatise On the Use of Torture in the
Criminal Law
of England previously to the Commonwealth.
He proves that, although the use of torture was frequent
in England before the Commonwealth, yet it was decided
"
no such punish
" "
by all the Judges of England that

ment is known or allowed by our laws." He adds :
"
Here, then, is a practice repugnant to reason, justice,

and humanity censured and condemned upon principle
by philosophers and statesmen denounced by the most
eminent authorities on municipal law, and finally declared
by the twelve judges, not only to be illegal, but to be
altogether unknown as a punishment to the law of Eng
land. As far as authority goes, therefore, the crimes of
murder and robbery are not more distinctly forbidden by
our criminal code than the application of the torture to
witnesses or accused persons is condemned by the oracles
of the Common Law."
Mr. Jardine asserts that when torture was actually used
England, it was done at the mere discretion of the
"
in
King and the Privy Council, and uncontrolled by any law

besides the prerogative of the Sovereign." l The last re
corded instance of the use of torture in Protestant Eng
land is dated May 22, 1640 ;
but in Roman Catholic France
it was not abolished until 1789, and in Roman Catholic
Austria it continued until the middle of the eighteenth
century. The late learned Dr. Lea states that torture was
used by the Inquisition in Spain until the beginning of
the nineteenth century, and was abolished in that country,
by the King, in 1813 ;
and that it was not until 1816 that
the Pope forbade the use of torture in all tribunals of the
2
Inquisition.
I have no doubt that a large proportion of Romanists
residing in England, in 1570, deeply deplored the publi
cation of the Papal Bull against Elizabeth but on the ;
other hand I believe that nearly all approved of it in theory,

though they naturally feared the results on their own peace
and comfort. This is shown by a letter of the Spanish
Ambassador in London, dated September 2, 1570, addressed
to the King of Spain. He wrote :
It is well your Majesty should know that since the publica

"
tion of the Bull of his Holiness, the Catholic gentlemen here,

feeling themselves absolved from their Oath of Allegiance, are
trying with more earnestness to shake of! the yoke of the
heretics, and the Bishop of Ross has come to me twice, with
letters of credence from his mistress [Mary, Queen of Scots],
to say that the sons of the Earl of Derby, and particularly
Thomas Stanley, the second son, with the gentry of Lancashire,
who are Catholics, have determined to rise and seize the person
of the Queen of Scots. They tell me that this would be connived
at by one of the sons of the Earl of Shrewsbury who guards her,
1
Jardine On the Use of Torture, pp. 10-13.
2
History of the Inquisition in Spain, by Henry Charles Lea, LL.D.,
vol. iii. pp. 34, 35.
THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY 169
and they can raise 10,000 foot, and 1000 horse, the only thing
wanting being a supply of harquebusses and some money for
the horses, not a large sum. They are, however, against the
marriage [of Mary] with the Duke of Norfolk, as he belongs to
the Augsburg Confession, and they only wish to have to do with
a real Catholic. The Bishop of Ross tells me that the Duke, either
out of timidity or some other reason, does not wish to leave the
prison, where he is only guarded by a single gentleman but ;
Montague, and Arundel, and many

Southampton, Lumley,
others, the moment the Lancastrians take up arms, will join
them or act independently, as may be advised, against this city.
The Earl of Worcester and his country will also rise, and it is
decided that the thing will be to obtain possession of the
first
Queen of Scots, and a fleet might approach Lancashire or the

Isle of Man, and take her off whilst the matter was being settled
l
by arms/
We have in this letter our first glimpse of what has
become famous in history as the Ridolfi Conspiracy, which
had for its object the release of Mary, Queen of Scots from
captivity, the placing her on the English, as well as the
Scottish, Throne, and the re-establishing of the Roman
Catholic religion in both countries by force of arms. It
was also intended that, should it become successful, Mary
would marry the Duke of Norfolk, who, though at that
time publicly professing himself to be a Protestant, in
secret pledged himself to become a Roman Catholic and
help on the general conspiracy. There was a vast amount

of duplicity connected with the plot. Only six weeks after
sending the Bishop of Ross to the Spanish Ambassador
to tell him that she had consented to the execution of the
plot, Mary wrote a most hypocritical and deceptive letter

to Elizabeth, dated October 16, 1570, professing the utmost
affection for her, and promising dutiful obedience to her
wishes in all things, provided she were admitted to the
presence of the Queen of England. 2 It seems to me that

her real object in writing this letter was to enable her
followers in the North of England to arrange her capture
1
2
Turnbull s Letters of Mary Stuart, pp. 176-178.
by them while she was on the way to visit Elizabeth. She
would then have been taken by them to the nearest sea
port, and from there to France or Spain, until the Con
spiracy had ended in a successful civil war. Happily,
Elizabeth did not grant her request, and therefore it was
necessary to push the plot forward. There was living in
London at this time an Italian Banker, named Robert
Ridolfi. While ostensibly engaged in financial concerns,
his real business was to act as the secret agent of the Pope,
stirring up the English Romanists to disloyalty. It was

through his hands the Pope sent a large sum of money
to help the Northern Rebels in 1569, in their disastrous
Rebellion. He now became the secret agent of Mary and
the Duke of Norfolk to the Duke of Alva, the Pope, and
the King of Spain. He left England with two sets of
written instructions, one from Mary, and the other from
the Duke of Norfolk the latter, however, refusing, through
fear, to sign his name to his own instructions. Both docu
ments are printed in full, from the Secret Archives of the
Vatican, in Turnbull edition of the Letters of Mary Stuart.

s
Mary requested Ridolfi to tell those to whom he was sent

the hope which the said Catholics at present have
"
that
of seeing their religion restored, and themselves freed from
captivity, is not founded upon other human aid than from
those who
advance my just claim of Queen of Scot
will
land, which I have to both these Kingdoms ; because the

Earls of Hertford and Huntingdon and others, that else
could pretend to this Crown of England . . . are all
Protestants."
when
"
My friends are ready to appear I can procure the

assistance of all the Christian Sovereigns, and first of all of his
Holiness and the Catholic King, with the assistance and favour
of whom they concur, and are resolved to devote their wealth,
their lives, and all they possess in this world to the advancement
of myright, and the restoration of the Catholic religion. The
Duke of Norfolk, the chief of the English nobility, constitutes
himself the leader of this enterprise, who, although from other
considerations and respects, he has always hitherto shown him-
MARY STUART S LETTER TO RIDOLFI 171
selfthe most obedient subject of the Queen of England, yet, in

what concerns the exercise of the religion pretended to be by
her established, has always maintained the Catholics, opposing
himself with all his might to the oppressions to which they have
been subjected. The said Duke being at all times loved,
. . .
favoured, and followed by many of the noble Protestants, who,

by chance, might draw back from him, if at first sight he directly
indicated to them his wish to change the religion, the principal
Catholics of this enterprise are to make it appear that he tem
porises, and thus unite with the said Protestants to serve him
in it. ...
"
for the assistance which I desire from his Holiness and

As
the Catholic King, and in what manner and time it ought to be
offered, together with the aid of the Catholic friends in this
Kingdom, I remit me to the particular instructions which
Ridolfi will bring from the Duke of Norfolk and the other
friends only Ridolfi can in my name say to his Holiness,
;
or his Catholic Majesty, that in case they should approve of

putting into execution the enterprise by way of Scotland, on
the side of Dumbarton, or on the side towards Edinburgh, my
principal strongholds, to further assure the descent of the assist
ance, I will put into the hands of their ministers the one of the
two castles which shall be most fitting for the execution and
good success of the whole enterprise. . . .
All the preceding articles we have committed to your

"
[Ridolfi s] discretion and prudence, together with the other

instructions which have been given to you on the part of the
Duke of Norfolk, and the other noblemen of this country, our
good friends, to the end that you may use them as a fitting
opportunity presents itself, adding thereto as much more on our
part, and that of the nobility of this Kingdom, as has been really,
at greater length, communicated to you, as well from the Bishop
of Ross, by us, as by the same Duke and other noblemen, to
1
yourself/
The instructions given to Ridolfi by the Duke of Nor

folk in writing, mention others of an
" "
oral character,
as did also those of Mary. There can, I think, be little
reason to doubt that these referred to the death of Eliza
beth, which would certainly have followed the success of
the general conspiracy, whether by judicial sentence, or
by assassination. If the Protestant Lady Jane Grey were
1
Turnbull s Letters of Mary Stuart, pp. 190-198.
sent to the block for claiming to be Queen, what chance
would Elizabeth have had of her life, if she had fallen into
the hands of her enemies ? As to death by assassination,
we shall learn more about it directly. The Duke pro
fessed, in his instructions, that he spoke
"
in the name of the

majority of the Peers of this Kingdom." The list of those
favourable to the enterprise contained the names
of forty
They were the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis of

1
Peers. :
Winchester, the Earls of Arundel, Oxford, Northumber

land, Westmoreland, Shrewsbury, Derby, Worcester, Cumber
land, Pembroke, and Southampton Viscount Ferrers, Lords ;
Howard, Abergavenny, Audley, Morley, Cobham, Clinton,

Dudley, Ogle, Latimer, Scrope, Monteagle, Sandys, Vaux,
Windsor, Saint-John, Burgh, Mordaunt, Paget, Warthon,
Rich, Stafford, Dacre, Darcy of Theworth, Hastings,
Berkeley, Cromwell, and Lumley. Some Roman Catholic
writers have asserted that the Ridolfi Conspiracy had very
support in the country, but this list of names is alone

little
such an assertion, especially if we bear

sufficient to refute
in mind that each of these noblemen had retainers under
them, ready to take up arms at their bidding. In these

instructions the Duke of Norfolk clearly revealed his own
double-dealing and duplicity.
And whereas," he said, his Holiness and the Catholic
" "
King may have some doubts of me, for my not being

declared, nay, rather from having feigned myself a Pro
testant, you will explain that it was not from evil inclina
tion that I have been adverse to the Holy See, but that
I might be able when time and opportunity presented,
as at this time there is, to do such important service to
this Island and Christendom. . . . And because many of
the Protestant faction follow me, and are favourable to
promoting the said title of the Queen of Scotland, his
Holiness and the Catholic King need not wonder if I delay
to declare myself [i.e. as a Roman Catholic] to any one.
Therefore, kiss the feet of his Holiness in my name, and,
1
Turnbull s Letters of Mary Stuart, pp. 208, 209.
THE DUKE OF NORFOLK S DUPLICITY 173
thereafter, on behalf of all the Catholic nobility, and who

will expose themselves in this undertaking, and then I
bind myself always to observe whatever his Holiness, and
the Catholic King, and the Queen of Scotland shall com
mand in this matter."
l
The Duke s duplicity, herein revealed by himself, is
still further explained in a letter written to the King of

Spain by his Ambassador in London, in March, 1571, the
month in which Ridolfi s instructions were dated. This
"
Duke of Norfolk," he wrote, is the leader of a section of "
the heretics who might perhaps abandon him were he to be
openly reconciled to the Church [of Rome]. It is in con

sequence considered expedient that he should temporise,
the better to use their assistance, and bring them under
the yoke of the Church when occasion shall serve." 2 This
looks as though the Duke intended, after making use of
these confiding and foolish Protestants, to turn round and
compel them to submit to

" "
the yoke of the Church of

Rome Where the interests of religion are concerned,
!
it isnever safe for Protestants to trust to the base assur

ances of the Papacy. In his instructions to Ridolfi the
Duke further said :
We
have recourse to his Majesty that, with his usual
kindness, he may condescend to assist us quickly, as well
with money as with such a number of men, arms and
ammunition, as he may afterwards be told, and chiefly
with a person skilful in conducting an army, to whom
shall be so secured the descent upon this Island, with a
place for fortifying himself on the sea-coast for the retreat
of his people, and for the preservation of his ammunition
and artillery, and the assistance of 20,000 Infantry, and
3000 Cavalry. Entreat his Holiness and his Majesty
. . .
in my name and that of all the rest, that the assistance

shall consist of 6000 Musketeers, and 4000 muskets for
arming our men like them, and 2000 corslets, and 25 field-
1
Turnbnll s Lettersof Mary Stuart, pp. 199, 200.
2
Froude s History of Enyland, vol. ix. p. 396.
pieces of artillery, and such quantity of ammunition as
for the said artillery and muskets may be requisite and ;
it will also be necessary to send 3000 horses across the

l
sea."
Ridolfi left London with his instructions on March 25,

1571, and had an interview at Brussels with the Duke of
Alva, whose cruel butcheries of Protestants have been so
faithfully described by Motley, in his Rise of the Dutch
Republic. He does not appear to have received very great
encouragement from Alva, who wrote to the King of
Spain No one can think of advising your Majesty to
:
"
furnish the assistance sought of you, under the form in

which it is requested. But if the Queen of England should
die,either a natural or any other death, or if her person
should be seized without your Majesty s concurrence, then
I should perceive no further difficulty." 2 Ridolfi pro
ceeded to Rome, where he had an interview with Pius V.,
who gave him a letter to Philip II. fully approving of the
proposed invasion of England.
" "
Our dear son, Robert Ridolfi," wrote the Pope, by the

help of God, will lay before your Majesty certain things which
interest not a little the honour of Almighty God, and the ad
vantage of the Christian Commonwealth. We require and be
seech your Majesty to grant him on this account, and without
hesitation, }ôur most entire confidence, and we conjure you
especially by your fervent piety towards God, to take to heart
the matters on which he will treat with your Majesty, and to
furnish him with all the means which }ôu may judge most
suitable for the execution of his plans. Meanwhile we beseech
your Majesty to do this, submitting the affair to the judgment
and prudence of your Majesty, and from the bottom of our
heart praying our Redeemer, in His mercy, to grant success to
3
that which is
projected for His honour and glory."
Early in July Ridolfi arrived in Spain. On July 13,
Philip II., writing to his Ambassador in London, tells

him Robert Ridolfi arrived here, and gave me your
"
1
TurnbulPs Letters of Mary Stuart, pp. 202, 203.
2
Mignet s History of Mary, Queen of Scots, p. 307.
3
Ibid., p. 309.
PROPOSED MURDER OF ELIZABETH 175
letter of the 25th of March, and those of the Queen of

Scotland, the Duke of Norfolk, and a Brief from his Holi
ness, exhorting me to embrace the business with which
he is entrusted." l Part of that business, we now know,
was the murder, or judicial execution, of Elizabeth. Did
"
Ridolfi acquaint the Pope with this part of the busi

ness in hand ?
"
I cannot find any direct evidence on

this question but I think it extremely probable that he
;
did do so, and there is no reason to suppose that, if he knew

he would have expressed disapproval.
"
it, Pius V.,"
wrote the late learned Lord Acton, himself a Roman

held that it was sound Catholic doctrine that
"
Catholic,
any man may stab a heretic condemned by Rome, and
that every man is a heretic who attacks the Papal pre
rogatives."
2
In a letter to the Times, of November 9,
1874, Lord Acton declared that Pius V. justified the assas

sination of Elizabeth. At this point I cannot do better
than quote the facts which Mignet found recorded in the
Simancas MSS. He writes :
On the 7th of July, Ridolfi was questioned at the

"
Escurial, regarding the enterprise which he had come to

propose, by the Duke of Feria, whom Philip II. had de
puted to hear his statements. His answers were written
down in the handwriting of Zayas, Secretary of State.
It was proposed to murder Queen Elizabeth. Ridolfi said
that the blow would not be struck at London, because
that city was the stronghold of heresy but while she ;
was travelling, and that a person named James Graffs

had undertaken the office. On the same day the Council
of State commenced its deliberations upon the proposed
assassination of Elizabeth, and conquest of England. The
subject of the discussion was, whether it behoved the King
of Spain to agree with the conspirators, to kill or capture
the Queen of England, in order to prevent her from marry
ing the Duke of Angou, and putting to death the Queen
1
2
Letters of Lord Acton, p. 135.
of Scotland ; whether the blow should be struck while
she was travelling, or, which would be easier still, when
she was at the country house of one of the conspirators,
who had surrounded her with persons on whom they could
depend. The Counsellors
. . . of State severally gave their
opinion, which were committed to writing, and have been

preserved to this day."
does not appear that any formal resolution was
It
passed, though, with one exception (and that solely as a

matter of policy, not of principle) the Councillors were in
favour of the whole scheme, and Philip II. said he would
willingly undertake it. But, in the Providence of God,
the Government of Elizabeth discovered the plot, and
although they did not know then as much as we do now,
they knew enough to put the Duke of Norfolk on his trial.
He was executed, and richly deserved his fate as a traitor.
And with his death the whole of the Ridolfi Conspiracy
came an end.to
was but natural that the Northern Rebellion, the
It
Deposing Bull of Pius V., and the discovery of the Ridolfi

Conspiracy, should lead to stern measures being adopted
by Parliament for the purpose of imposing disabilities on
the adherents of the Pope. We are therefore not at all
surprised that in the Parliament which met in the thirteenth
year of Elizabeth, fresh laws were passed of a penal char
acter. If they were severe the disloyal had only them
selves to thank for it, as being themselves the primary
cause of these new restrictions. By 13 Elizabeth, cap. 2,
it was enacted that any person should use any Papal

if
"
Bull, writing, or instrument, written or printed, of abso

lution or reconciliation"; or if any person by virtue of
" "
such Bull should absolve or reconcile any person within

the Realm ;
or if
"
any should willingly take or receive

"
such absolution or reconciliation or if any person should ;
obtain or get from the Bishop or See of Rome any manner

"
of Bull, writing, or instrument, written or printed, con-

1
Mignet s History of Mary, Queen of Scots, pp. 309, 310.
DISABILITIES IMPOSED ON THE PAPISTS 177
taining any thing, matter, or cause whatsoever," and pub

eveiy such act and acts, offence and
"
lish them, then

offences shall be deemed and adjudged by the authority
and the guilty,
" "
of this Act to be High Treason being ;
lawfully indicted and attainted according to the course

of the laws of this Realm, shall suffer pains of death."
It was further enacted that

"
all and every aiders, com

forters, any the said offenders," shall
or maintainers of
incur the pains and penalties of the Statute of Prsernunire.
By Sections 5 and 7 it was provided that if any person
should receive any such Bulls or documents, and conceal the
offer, and not disclose it, within six weeks after receiving
penalty and forfeiture of misprison
"
it, he shall suffer the

of High Treason." Any person bringing into the Realm
by the name
"
anything of Agnus Dei, or any crosses,
pictures, beads, or such like vain and superstitious things,

from the Bishop or See of Rome or any person who
"
same
"
shall receive the to the intent to use or wear the

same," shall suffer the pains of Prsemunire.
new laws were severe the Romanists had to
If these
thank their leaders and the Pope for them. If Pius V.

had not issued his Deposing Bull, given active assistance
to the Northern Rebellion, and promised assistance to the
Ridolfi Conspiracy, they would not have been passed. I
do not believe that either Elizabeth or the Parliament
had any pleasure in passing these new enactments, and
they would not have done so were they not fully con
vinced that there was no other way to secure Elizabeth
on the Throne, and prevent the capture of the country
by foreign arms, to the destruction of the religious liberty
of English Protestants. They no doubt realised that, if
the Pope could have had his way, the Martyr fires of Smith-
field would again have been lit, and burnt with increased
fury. As the Roman Catholic biographer of the Jesuit
As affairs were managed,
"
Campion forcibly remarks :
they rendered simply impossible the coexistence of the

Government of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth with the obedi-
M
ence of their subjects to the supreme authority of the
Pope and those Princes had no choice but either to
;
abdicate, with the hope of receiving back their Crowns,

like King John, from the Papal Legate, or to hold their
own spite of the Popes, and in direct and avowed
in
hostility to them/ l
The case of John Storey raised a question of Inter
national Law. He was an Englishman by birth, and there
fore a subject of Queen Elizabeth, by whom he was
imprisoned. He escaped from prison in 1563, and fled to
Belgium, where he renounced his allegiance to England,
and became a naturalised subject of Philip II. of Spain.
At his trial he pleaded that he was, as a Spanish subject, no
longer under the laws of Elizabeth. If this be now con
ceded, it must be admitted that his condemnation was
illegal. But however this may be in our own peaceful
times, it cannot be supposed that Elizabeth would recognise
the right of any subject of hers to transfer his allegiance to
a foreign Sovereign, and therefore Storey s speeches on his
trial and at his execution were considered as ample evidence
of his treason, quite apart from religion. Dr. Storey was
Principal of Broadgate Hall, Oxford, and was made Vicar-
General of Bonner, Bishop of London, in 1553. As such he
was one of the fiercest of the persecutors of the Protestants
during Mary s Reign. When Elizabeth came to the Throne

he was a Member of Parliament. During the debate in the
House of on the Bill for restoring the
Commons, in 1558,
Royal Supremacy, he was reminded of the cruelties he had

perpetrated against the Protestants. Instead of being
ashamed he gloried in what he had done, and was only
sorry he had not done more of the same kind of work.
but am
" "
he declared,
I nothing to be sorry for
see," ;
rather sorry that I have done no more, and that I had not
more earnestly given my advice to spare the little twigs
and shoots, but to strike more boldly at the roots and great
branches. If this had been done we should not have seen
1
Edmund Campion, by Richard Simpson, p. 63, first edition.
THE TREASON OF JOHN STOREY 179
so many weeds of wickedness taking root everywhere and

l
flourishing so abundantly."
Storey was charged at the time with referring, in his
speech, to Elizabeth, and saying that he was sorry that
she had not been burnt with the other Protestant Martyrs.
The Jesuit Parsons denies that he had Elizabeth in his
mind but, if not, who could he have referred to ?
; By
"
he could not have included Arch

"
the great branches

bishop Cranmer, who was a great personage in the Realm
at the time, butwas certainly not spared or to the other ;
Martyred Bishops it must therefore have been some person

:
or persons in a higher social position, of whom the Princess

Elizabeth was the greatest of the Protestants.
After Storey had resided abroad for some time, where
he was appointed an assistant Inspector of English ships
arriving at Antwerp, with a view to preventing the impor
tation of Protestant books. One day while executing the
work of his office, he was made a prisoner on one of the
English ships he visited, which at once set sail with him
for England, where he was put upon his trial for treason.
While in prison awaiting his trial, he made some remark
able confessions, which he signed with his own hand, in
which he admitted that he had endeavoured to secure the
aid of Spanish and French arms for the purpose of over
throwing the Protestant religion in England, which, of course,
must necessarily have led to the deposing of Elizabeth,
and possibly to her execution. This confession was made
on December 20, 1570, and was as follows :
The said John Storey, this twentieth day of December,

"
being examined, saith. That about two years since he did

deal by writing with Courtenile, 2 showing unto him that
the Catholics of England did daily decay, and the schis
matics did there daily increase and therefore if the King ;
of Spain had any meaning to write to the Queen of England,

or otherwise to help to restore religion in England, he
1
Camm s Lives of the English Martyrs, vol. ii. p. 42.
2
Courtenile was Secretary to Philip II.
should do betime, or else it would be too late. And
it
either he did write further, or said by mouth to the said

Courtenile, that if the King of Spain did but come into the
Low Countries out of Spain, with a number of ships, the
Catholics of England would think, as this exanimate thought,
that he were come to restore religion, and would take the
King of Spain s part. And the* said Storey confesseth

that he wrote to Courtenile that, if about the Realm of
England there might go a number of ships, as men went

about Jericho, then the Catholics of England would take
courage to prepare entry for them that went so about
with the said ships. To which end of entry by the King
of Spain power into England, the said Storey did write
s
to Courtenile many times by his letters and persuasions

therein, hoping thereby that either the King of Spain
would write to the Queen of England to restore the Catholic
religion, or else would make some entry into England,
and reform religion, according as he was bound by his title
l
of Catholic King, as the said Storey thought."
There can be no doubt that a man who admitted that
he acted in this way was a very dangerous enemy of the
English State. I cannot find that religion had anything
to do with his indictment, which related to treasonable
actions only. Amongst other things he was accused of
assisting and comforting the Northern Rebels in 1569.
He refused to plead, and gave as his reason that he had
not been the Queen s subject for the previous seven years,
having been naturalised as a Spaniard, and was therefore
the subject of Philip of Spain. Of course such a plea
was not accepted by the judges, and he was consequently
condemned to the usual death of traitors. It is said that
while in the Tower he was several times invited to swear
to the Oath of Supremacy, but refused. On the scaffold
he delivered a lengthy and disloyal speech, in which he
said : am sworn to the noble King, defender of the
"I
ancient Catholic Faith, King Philip of Spain . . . and there-
1
Harleian Miscellany, vol. viii. p. 587, edition 1746.
THE BEATIFICATION OF STOREY 181
fore no subject Realm, nor yet subject to any laws

of this
thereof."
l
He he had not been so cruel
also pleaded that
to the Protestant Martyrs as had been represented, and
enumerated a few cases in which he asserted that he had
shown a friendly spirit towards them but, unfortunately, ;
a speech like this could not blot out the facts of the case,
as recorded by Foxe, Strype, and others. In connection
with the case of John Storey, and as illustrating the present
spirit of English Roman Catholics, it rnay be mentioned
that his latest Roman Catholic biographer, after record
ing that Storey was declared by Leo XIII. a Beatified
few more illustrious martyrs have
"
Saint, declares that

suffered in England for the defence of the Supremac}^ of
the Holy See and that we need more than ever in
"
;
"
these days the lessons of such a life as that of Blessed John

2
Storey."
1
Carum s Lives of the English Martyrs, vol. ii.
p. 88.
2
Ibid., pp. 98, 101.
CHAPTER XIII
The firstJesuit executed in England Proof of his Disloyalty Pope

Leo XIII. declares him a Beatified Saint Thomas Sherwood executed
Proof of his Disloyalty Were Jesuits and other Priests executed
for Treason in Elizabeth s Reign ? Testimony of their Disloyalty by
Father Campion s Biographer, Lord Burleigh, Father Watson, a priest
in 1603, Father Thomas Bluet, Father Nicholas Sanders, Father
Robert Parsons, S.J., Father Joseph Berington, Sir John Throckmorton,
and Cardinal Allen The Six Questions on Loyalty, and Answers of
the Priests Text of Oath of Loyalty refused by Campion and others
Another Penal Law passed Pope Gregory XIII. urges Philip II. to
Invade England Stukeley s Expedition to Invade Ireland Father
Nicholas Sanders sent as Papal Nuncio to the Irish Rebels The
Pope s Indulgence and Pardon of Sins for Irish Rebels Sanders violent
Letter to the Irish Rebels The Jesuit Invasion of England Parsons,
the Jesuit, the Centre of all Plots against Elizabeth Campion s
Biographer says that Parsons sowed the Seeds of the Gunpowder
Plot Parsons formed an Association from which came the Men who
tried to assassinate Elizabeth What Priests have said of his Treason
able Conduct.
THE first Jesuit put to death in Elizabeth s Reign was

Thomas Woodhouse. He was also the first priest exe
cuted, and have been admitted into the Society
is said to
of Jesus shortly before his death. There can be no question
that he was a thoroughly disloyal man. He even paraded
his disloyalty in a most defiant manner. He had been in
prison for some time, where he was allowed a good deal
of liberty. It is the English Jesuit, Foley, who tells us
his keeper allowed him to make secret excursions
"
that
to his friends by day, and gave him the freedom of the
prison. He made the best use of this privilege, saying

Mass daily inWoodhouse would probably
his cell."
]
have never been brought to trial for High Treason, and

thereby lost his life, had it not been that he wrote a most
1
Foley s Records of the English Province, >S.
/., vol. vii. p. 1257.
182
THE DISLOYALTY OF THOMAS WOODHOUSE 183
impudent and traitorous letter to Lord Burleigh, in which

he not only urged his Lordship to submit to the Pope,
"
but also added these words Likewise that ye earnestly :
persuade the Lady Elizabeth, who for her own great dis
obedience is most justly deposed, to submit herself unto
her spiritual Prince and father, the Pope s Holiness." 1
Father Henry Garnet, of Gunpowder Plot notoriety, wrote
a lengthy account of the trial and death of Woodhouse.
He relates that :
The
"
writing the above

"
third or fourth
day after
Mr. Woodhouse was carried to the Treasurer
"
letter,
[Lord Burleigh] in a priest s gown and cornered cap. The

Treasurer called him unto audience, where he sat in a chamber
alone, and seeing him, such a silly little body as he was,
seemed to despise him, saying, Sirra, was it you that
wrote me
a letter the other day ? Yes, sir (saith Mr.
Woodhouse, approaching as near his nose as he could,
and casting up his head to look him in the face), that it
it was even I, if your name be Mr. Cecil. Whereat the

Treasurer, staying awhile, saidmore coldly than before,
Why, ye acknowledge me none other name nor
sir, will
title than Mr. Cecil ? No, sir, saith Mr. Woodhouse.
And why so ? saith the Treasurer. Because, saith
Mr. Woodhouse, she that gave you those names and
titles had no authority so to do. And why so ? saith
the Treasurer.
Because, saith Woodhouse, our Holy
Father, the Pope, hath deposed her. Thou art a traitor,
saith the Treasurer."
And there can be no doubt that Burleigh was right.
Subsequently Woodhouse was brought before the Council,
who examined him, in the hope that they would, as Garnet
prove him out of his wits than guilty of treason,
"
writes,
thinking it better to whip him in Bridewell, to his utter
3
discredit, than to hang him for a traitor." But they
soon found that he was as sane as any of them.
;<
When
1
Camm s Lives of the English Martyrs, vol. ii.
p. 192.
"
Foley s Records of the English Province, S.J., vol. vii. p. 1203.

3
Ibid., p. 1264.
they could not prove him mad," says Garnet,
"
they dis
missed him for that time, and another day made him be
called before the Recorder of London and other Com
missioners, when he denied the Queen to be Queen." At
length Woodhouse was brought to his trial. Garnet ex
pressly states that The indictment, which was of High
:
"
Treason, for denying her Majesty to be Queen of England ;

to which he said, they were not his judges, nor for his judges
would he ever take them, being heretics, and pretending
authority from her that could not give it to them."
x
We
need not be surprised that a traitor like Woodhouse was
sentenced to death. He was executed on June 13, 1573.
The he was raised to the ranks of the
fact that Blessed
" "
by Leo XIII. does not inspire us with confidence in Papal

friendliness to a Protestant Government at the present
time.
On February 7, 1578, Thomas Sherwood, a young lay
man, who had been a student at Douay, was executed for
High Treason. He was indicted for denying the Queen s,
and asserting the Pope s, Supremacy. The indictment
further charged him with having uttered the following
words The Pope hath power and authority to depose
:
"
any Christian Prince or King if he mislike with him, and

further, that Queen Elizabeth (meaning the said Elizabeth
now our Queen) doth expressly dissent in faith from the
Catholic faith and also saith that if the Pope had pro
;
nounced our Queen (meaning the said Elizabeth now our

Queen) to be deposed for any matter of religion, then she
deposed, and that then she is an usurper." Sherwood
-
is
was, therefore, clearly disloyal. He was raised to the rank

of a Beatified Saint by Leo XIII.
This be a suitable place to discuss the general
may
question execution of Jesuits and other priests
of the
during Elizabeth s Reign. No one who now impartially
studies the history of that period can doubt that the Jesuits
Foley s Records of the English Province, $ .,/., vol. vii.

:
p. 1265.
2
Acts of English Martyrs, by J. II. Pollen, S.J., p. 17.
WHY PRIESTS WERE EXECUTED 185
were dangerous enemies of the State, nor that they were

continually plotting at home and abroad for the dethrone
ment of Elizabeth, with a view to the re-establishment of
Popery in the country. There were a few of the Secular
Priests who were loyal, but what were they amongst so
many of an opposite opinion ? Elizabeth s Government

knew very well what was going on underneath the surface.
She had her spies in every Court in Europe, and in all
the Seminaries for the education of the priests destined
to labour in England. As Mr. Simpson, the biographer
of Father Campion, the Jesuit, forcibl}7 remarks The :
"
aim of the Pope, the Jesuits, and the Spaniards was not
to have them [English Roman Catholics] believe a salu
tary doctrine, and to make them partakers of life-giving

Sacraments, but to make them traitors to their Queen
and country, and to induce them to take up arms in favour
of a foreign pretender. But when both sides, both
. . .
Philip and Cecil, were equally convinced that every fresh

convert [to Romanism], however peaceful now, was a
future soldier of the King of Spain against Elizabeth,
toleration was scarcely possible.
T
It is very well known that both Elizabeth and Lord

Burleigh frequently asserted that no priest had been put
to death merely for his religion in their time. Writing in
1583, with reference to those priests who had been exe
cuted down to that date, Lord Burleigh said These, :
"
I say, have justly suffered death, not by force or form of
any new laws established, either for religion, or against

the Pope s Supremacy, as the slanderous libellers would
have it seem to be, but by the ancient temporal laws of
the Realm, and, namely, by the laws of Parliament made
in King Edward III. s 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."
-
And these
1
Simpson s Edmund Campion, p. 199, edition 1867.
-
Burleigh s Execution for Treason, p. 5, edition 1G8.S.
further statements of Burleigh, written at the same time,
are worthy of the consideration of all who are desirous of
knowing the truth on this important subject And :

"
though there are many subjects known in the Realm,

that differ in some opinions of religion from the Church of
England, and that do also not forbear to profess the same,
yet in that they do also profess loyalty and obedience to
her Majesty, and offer readily in her Majesty s defence
to impugn and resist any foreign force, though it should
come or be procured from the Pope himself, none
of these sort are for their contrary opinions in religion,
1
prosecuted or charged with any crimes or pains of treason."
:
It is not, nor hath been, for contrarious opinions in re

ligion, or for the Pope s authority, as the adversaries do
boldly and falsely publish, that any persons have suffered
death since her Majestj^ s Reign." 2 Burleigh also directed
attention to the fact that while, during the twenty-five
years of Elizabeth s Reign, that is, down to 1583, about
threescore priests had been executed, yet in the time of
"
Queen Mary, which little exceeded the space of five years,

the Queen s Majesty s Reign being five times as many, there
were by imprisonment, torments, famine, and fire, of men,
women, maidens, and children, almost the number of four
hundred," who had been put to death. The Romanists
executed, added Burleigh, differ much from the Martyrs
"
of Queen Mary s time for though they continued in the

;
profession of their religion wherein they were christened,

yet they [Protestants] 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 sub
jects from their obedience, as these sworn servants of the
3
Pope have continually done."
It is quite a mistake to suppose that only Protestant
writers have agreed with Lord Burleigh on this important
1
Burleigh s Execution for Treason, p. G, edition 1688.
2 3
//;/(?., p. 8. Ibid., pp. 14, 15.
ROMAN CATHOLIC TESTIMONY 187
subject. Roman Catholic writers have been equally em

phatic. Towards the close of Elizabeth s Reign several
Roman Catholic Secular Priests made similar assertions.
One of these, in 1603, just before the death of Elizabeth,
published a volume, mainly devoted to an exposure of the
traitorous conduct of the English Jesuits, in which he even
justified the passing of severe laws against them.
" "
And
would/ heI writes, but ask Father Parsons this
one question. Whether in his conscience lie do think there be
any Prince in the world, be he never so Catholic, that should have

within his dominions a kind of people, amongst whom divers
times he should discover matters of treason, and practices
against his person, and State whether he would permit those
;
kind of people to live within his dominions, if he could be other

wise rid of them ? And whether lie would not make strait
laws, and execute them severely against such offenders, yea,
and all of that company, and quality, rather than lie would
remain in any danger of such secret practices and plots ? ... If
these things proceeded from Catholic Princes, juslty against
whole -Communities, or Orders of Religion upon just causes, we
cannot much blame our Prince and State, being of a different
religion, to make sharp laws against us, and execute the same,
finding no less occasion thereof in some of our profession, than
the foresaid Princes did in other Religious persons, whom they
l
punished, as you see/
Father Watson, in his Important Considerations, pub

wonders that, under the circumstances, the
lished in 1601,
State had not been even more severe than it had been.
He writes For when we consider on the one side, what
:
"
we know concerning the laws made of later

ourselves,
years, with the occasions of them, and likewise as touching
the proceedings of the State here [in England], since the
beginning of her Majesty s Reign, as well against us that
are priests, as also agamst other Catholics of the laity and ;
do find on the other side what practices, under the pretence

of religion, have been set on foot, for the utter subversion
1
A Iteplie Unto a Certain? Libell Lateite &tt Fourth lij Fa. Parsons, ff. 31, 32,
1603.
both of the Queen and of her Kingdom and therewith ;
further call to mind what sundry Jesuits and men (wholly

for the time or altogether) addicted to Jesuitism, have
written and published to the world in sundry treatises,
not only against the said laws and course of justice, but
in like sort against her chief Councillors (and which ex-
ceedeth all the rest) against the Royal person of her Majesty,
her honour, Crown, and most princely Sceptre it may, ;
in our opinions, be rather wondered that so many Catholics

of both sorts are left alive to speak of the Catholic faith,
than that the State hath proceeded with us as it hath done." l
Father Thomas Bluet was a secular priest who, in 1602,
presented to Cardinals Borghese and Aragon a lengthy state
ment relating to the conduct of Elizabeth towards the
Roman Catholic priests living in England. Gillow states
" "
the whole body of the priests at that time

"
that held
him in great respect for his learning and experience."
2
The statement of such a man is, therefore, of considerable

value to the student of the question before us. After
in England a priest, even in danger of his
"
stating that
often released on his word
"
life, is by the Government,

he proceeds to relate what took place during an interview
which he had with Dr. Bancroft, the Bishop of London :
The Bishop of London, in whose power I was by the

"
Queen s command, showed me many letters and books of Parsons,

Holt, and other English Jesuits, inviting the King of Spain to
invade England, as due of right to him, and urging private men
Queen, by poison or sword. He asked me if the Seculars
to kill the
were of the same mind, and said that Queen and Council had
grave reasons for promulgating such severe laws against Jesuits,
Seminaries, and Catholics, because they thought all guilty of
these devices, and all disciples of the Jesuits, being educated
under them in Seminaries.
li
declared the innocence of the Secular Priests, proving it
I
by our intended appeal to the Pope, and showed that we had been
troubled for years, not for our religion, but for treasons of this sort.
This being- told the Queen, she bade the judges, who before
1
Watson sImportant Considerations, p. 38, edition 1G88.
p. 243.
-
Gillow s Bibliographical Dictto/utr// of English Catholics, vol. i.
DECLARATION OF FATHER BLUET 189
they go into their circuits, ask what is to be done about Catholics,

not to take the life of any priests, unless found guilty in these
matters.
"
Thereupon a petition was offered to the Queen for some

liberty of conscience, protesting the fidelity of the priests and
laity in all temporal things, requesting also the suppression of
the Book of Succession, and all similar writings. This suppli
cation being read and re-read, she exclaimed These men, :
perceiving my lenity and clemency towards them, are not con

tent, but want everything, and at once. The King of France
truly may, without peril of honour, life, or Kingdom, grant liberty
of religion to the Huguenots, but it is not so with me, for if I
grant this liberty to Catholics, by that deed I lay at their feet
myself, my honour, my Crown, and my life. For their Chief
Pastor pronounced sentence against me whilst yet I was in my
mother s womb (she alluded to the sentence of Clement VI.
about the marriage of Henry with her mother). Moreover,
Pius V. has excommunicated me, and absolved my subjects
from their oath of fidelity, and Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V.
have renewed the same, at the instance of the King of Spain,
that he may enlarge his own borders, and so to my peril it
remains/
."They make," continues Bluet, "a difference between the
old priests, who became such in the times of Henry and Mary,
and the more recent ones, or Seminaries. This difference,
. . .
they say, is because the old priests have always lived quietly,
acknowledged the Queen on Queen Mary s death, and although she
removed them from their livings, and introduced others, whether
in prison or out, they have always lived peacefully towards the
Crown, whilst Jesuits or Seminaries, entering the Kingdom on
pretext of religion, have conspired the death of the Prince, and
l
ruin of the country."
About the year 1585, there was first published Dr.

Nicholas Sanders well-known book, The Rise and Growth
of the Anglican Schism, edited by a priest named Edward
Rishton. In this work the author, after describing the
punishment inflicted in England, in Elizabeth s time, on
Roman Catholics, remarks :
"
It is said that this cruelty

is inflicted on all ranks of men for the safety of the Queen
and the State, more and more say- endangered so they
by the Catholics every day becoming more numerous and
1
Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1601-1603, pp. 167-169.
attached to the Queen of Scotland, and not at all on account
of their religion. Certainly we all think so, and all sensible
men think so too." In 1592 Robert Parsons published
his Eesponsio ad Elizabethce Regince Edictum contra Catho-
under the assumed name of Andreas Philopatrum."
"
licos,
In the same year a portion of this work was translated
into English by Henry Walpole, S.J., and published with
the title of An Advertisement Written to a Secretarie of my
L. Treasurer of England. The following assertion of
Parsons, found in this book, substantially confirms the
truth of Lord Burleigh s main contention in his Execution
for Treason, cited above.
"
He (Philopatrum) saith that our governours of Ingland

have not pursued matters of religion, as points of religion
in this Queenes governmente, according as the Catholique
Church doth use to doe with heresies, but rather have
chosen to punish them as forged matters of estate, which
this answerer showeth to be true by diverse former Pro
2
clamations."
Coming down to more recent times, we find the Rev.

Joseph Berington, a learned and greatly respected Roman
Catholic priest, writing thus on the subject I am now
discussing This then I infer (and I have ample grounds
:
for the inference) that as none of the old [priests] suffered
[in Elizabeth s Reign], and none of the new who roundly

renounced the assumed prerogative of Papal despotism,
it was not for any tenet of the Catholic faith that they
were exposed to prosecution." 3

The Government of Queen Elizabeth had no wish to
put any Roman Catholic to death of whose loyalty to
the Queen they were assured. There were laws on the
Statute Book under which the death penalty might have
been inflicted for purely religious offences, but they were
not enforced in that way. I do not say there was no
persecution of Romanists for their religion. No one who
1
Sanders Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism, p. 323, edition 1877.
2 An Advertisement Written, p. 23.
3
Berington s Memoirs of Panzani, p. 34, edition 1813.
THE SIX QUESTIONS ON LOYALTY 191
has candidly studied the history of the period could

honestly say so. The
ruling powers showed their anxiety
to save Roman Catholics from the death penalty by asking
them a series of questions relating to civil allegiance, apart
from religion. Sir John Throckmorton, an English Roman
These
"
Catholic Baronet, writing in 1792, says that :
questions continued to be put to the missionary priests

throughout the whole of this Reign, and of the one hundred
and twenty-four priests who suffered death, I believe few, if
any, will be found who answered them in such a manner

as to clear their allegiance from merited suspicion. They
were Martyrs to the Deposing power, not to their religion." l
Probably there were a few exceptions to this rule, but
I have not been able to discover them. My readers will
be interested in reading these questions. They were as
follows :
Whether the Bull

"
1. of Pius V. against the Queen s

Majesty, be a lawful sentence, and ought to be obeyed
by the subjects of England ?
2. Whether the Queen
"
s Majesty be a lawful Queen,

and ought to be
obeyed by the subjects of England, not
withstanding the Bull of Pius V., or any Bull or sentence
that the Pope hath pronounced, or may pronounce against
Her Majesty ?
3. Whether the Pope have, or had the power to
"
authorise the Earls of Northumberland and Westmore

land, and other Her Majesty s subjects, to rebel, or take
arms against Her Majesty, or to authorise Doctor Sanders,
or others, to invade Ireland, or any other her dominions,
and to bear arms against her ;
and whether they did
therein lawfully or not ?
4. Whether the Pope have
"
power to discharge any

of Her Highness subjects, or the subjects of any Christian
Prince, from their allegiance, or oath of obedience, to Her
Majesty, or to their Prince for any cause ?
"5. Whether the said Doctor Sanders, in his book
1
Letter to the Catholic Clergy, by Sir John Throckmorton, p. 103.
Of the Visible Monarchy of the Church, and Dr. Bristow
in his Book of Motives (written in allowance, commenda
tion, and confirmation of the said Bull of Pius V.), have
therein taught, testified, or maintained a truth or false
hood ?
the Pope do by his Bull, or sentence, pronounce

"6. If
Her Majesty to be deprived, and no lawful Queen, and
her subjects to be discharged of their allegiance, and
obedience, unto her and after the Pope, or any other
;
by his
appointment and authority, do invade this Realm,
which part would you take ? or which part ought a good
1 "
subject of England to take ?

The first priests, to whom these questions were put,
were Edmund Campion, Alexander Briant, Robert Sherwin,
Luke Kirby, Thomas Cottom, Lawrence Richardson, Thomas
Forde, John Shert, Robert Johnson, John Hart, William
Filbee, James Bosgrave, and Henry Orton. Their answers
to the six questions are given by Mr. Charles Butler,
2
who
remarks that : The pardon of the three priests who
answered the six questions satisfactorily, seems to show
that a general and explicit disclaimer, by the English
Catholics, in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, of the Pope s
Deposing power, would have both lessened and abridged
the term of their sufferings. That the replies made by
the priests to the six questions were unsatisfactory, is too
clear. They are either refusals to answer, or evasive
answers, or such answers as expressed their belief of the
Deposing doctrine, or at least a hesitation of opinion re
specting it. We may add, that among the six questions,
there is not one which the Catholics of the present times
have not fully and unexceptional y answered, in the oaths
which they have taken, in compliance with the Acts of
the 18th, 31st, and 33rd years of the Reign of his late
3
Majesty."
1
Butler s Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics, vol. i.
pp. 425, 426,
third edition.
pp. 506-514.
2
Ibid., vol. i.
3
Ibid., p. 429.
OATH TENDERED TO THE REBEL PRIESTS 193
Cardinal Allen, Agazarius, the

writing, in 1582, to
Jesuit Rector of the English College in Rome, sent him
a copy of the six questions, in which he said of the priests,
named above, that "If they had answered, so as to give
:
satisfaction to the same Queen, she would have remitted

their sentence of death, although in everything else they
should profess the Catholic faith." l
Modern Roman Catholic writers have severely censured
Elizabeth Government for putting such questions to the
s
priests. The objection comes with a bad grace from the

advocates of a Church which for centuries, by means of
the Inquisition, made inquiries of its victims, by means
of torture, with a view to convicting them of heresy. Dom
Camm asserts that the six with a questions were put
"
2
murderous he affords no evidence
intent." But of this
whatever. It is more reasonable to assume that they were
put with a view to saving the prisoners, if possible, from
the death penalty, who had only to answer satisfactorily
to secure the continuance of their lives. The Government
could have legally executed them, if that had been their
desire, without asking them any questions about their
temporal loyalty to the Queen. The custom of asking

prisoners questions is still common in some Continental
countries.
The following is the oath tendered to Campion and
others, and refused by the most of them at this time :
"
acknowledge that our Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth,

I
now reigning in England, is the true and lawful Queen of this
Realm, and, while she liveth, ought to possess and enjoy the Crown
and Kingly governance thereof, and I and all others of the nation
are her liege subjects, and owe and shall owe to bear to her the
allegiance and obedience of subjects, notwithstanding any act
or sentence that any Pope, or other person, Church, or body
hath done or given, or can do or give. And that the pretended
excommunication, sentence, or Bull of Pius V., declaring her
Majesty an heretic and deprived of her Crown, and her subjects
1
Throckmorton s Letter to the Catholic Clcryy, p. 100 (London. 1792).
2
Camm s Lives of the English Martyrs, vol. ii. p. xxxv.
N
discharged of their allegiance to her, and every like judgment or
sentence that hath been, shall, or may be had by any Pope, or
other, is and shall be false and erroneous, and of no validity
toward her Majesty or her subjects, and that all risings and
taking of arms, and persuasions thereunto, against her Majesty
by the late rebels in the North, or Sanders, and any other in
Ireland, or any other her subjects, were and be unlawful and
ungodly doings, and damnable treasons, notwithstanding any
warrant, excommunication, Bull, commandment, absolution,
or other matter whatsoever, had or pretended, or that may be
had from or by any Pope or other body or person or any regard ;
or pretence of any Church called Catholic, or any other matter

whatsoever/ x
If Campion and his fellows had taken this oath of

temporal loyalty to Elizabeth, their lives would have
been saved.
The Northern Rebellion, the Ridolfi Conspiracy, and
the Deposing Bull of Pius V. had naturally led to the
passing of new penal laws for the protection of the Queen
and the safety of the State. By 13 Elizabeth, cap. 1, it
"
was declared to be High Treason to intend destruction

or bodily harm to the Queen, or to levy war, or to move
others to war against her, or to affirm that the Queen
ought not to enjoy the Crown, but some other person ;
or to publish that the Queen is an heretic, schismatic,

tyrant, infidel, or usurper of the Crown or to claim right
;
to the Crown, or to usurp the same during the Queen s

life. In the preamble to 13 Elizabeth, cap. 2, it is stated
that certain persons, owing to Bulls received from Rome,
had thought themselves discharged of and from all
"
obedience, duty, and allegiance to her Majesty, whereby

most wicked and unnatural rebellion hath ensued, and to
the further danger of this Realm is hereafter very like
to be renewed, if the ungodly and wicked attempts in that
behalf be not by severity of laws in time restrained and
bridled." It was therefore enacted that if
any person should
1
The Reconstruction of the English Church, by Roland Of. Usher, Ph.D.,
vol. pp. 310, 311, quoted from Lansdowne MSS. 155, f. 87.
ii.
A PAPAL EXPEDITION TO IRELAND 105
put into use any Bull of absolution or reconciliation from

the Bishop of Rome or, if any person or persons should
;
from the said Bishop of Rome, or any his suc

"
get
cessors or See of Rome, any manner of Bull, writing, or
instrument, written or printed, containing any thing,
matter, or cause, whatsoever, or shall publish, or by any
ways or means put in use, any such Bull, writing, or instru
he shall be deemed guilty of High Treason, and
ment,"
Any one receiving such Bulls and

"
suffer pains of
death."
documents, who the same," and not signify

"
shall conceal
it within six weeks to some of her Majesty
s Privy Council,
danger, penalty, and forfeiture, of

"
shall incur the loss,
misprison of High Treason." Any one bringing into the

Realm, from the Bishop or See of Rome, an Agnus Dei, or
"
or such like superstitious things

"
Crosses, pictures, beads, ;
claiming authority by or from the

"
or for any person

said Bishop or See of Rome, to consecrate or hallow the
same," he shall incur the pains of the Statute of Prsemunire.
Pope Gregory XIII., who succeeded Pius V. in 1572,

did his utmost to make
the Deposing Bull of his prede
cessor a practical success. The late Father Knox, of the
left nothing un
"
Brompton Oratory, states that Gregory

done to impel Philip II. of Spain to overthrow Elizabeth
by force of arms. Thus in 1577, when it had been arranged
that Don John of Austria, after pacifying Flanders, should
undertake the conquest of England, and place Mary, Queen
of Scots, on the English Throne, Gregory XIII. sent Mgr.
Sega as his Nuncio to Don John, with 50,000 ducats in
aid of the proposed expedition. A few months later in
the same year he appointed Mgr. Sega Nuncio at Madrid,
with special instructions to urge upon the King the ex
pedition against Elizabeth, and to offer on the Pope s part
an auxiliary force of 4000 to 5000 men. The ill-fated
expedition under Sir Thomas Stukely, which was equipped
by Gregory XIII. and sent by him to Ireland, but which,
by the treachery of its commander, was diverted from its
destination, and perished with Sebastian, King of Portugal,
at Alcazar in Morocco, August 4, 1578, is a further proof
of the Pope s zeal in the same cause." ]
With reference
to Stukely s proposed expedition to Ireland, it must be
admitted that the Pope was not very particular in the
choice of his instruments. Don Philip O Sullivan Bear,
who wrote a History of Ireland in Elizabeth s Reign, in
the interests of the rebel party, says that just before this
expedition :
"
Some bands of brigands grievously pestered
Italy ; sallying from the woods and mountains in which
they hid, they destroyed villages in midnight robberies

and raids, and blocking the roads despoiled travellers.
James [Fitzmaurice] besought Pope Gregory XIII. to assist
the Catholic Church in Ireland, then almost overwhelmed,
and at length obtained from him pardon for these robbers,
on condition of their accompanying him to Ireland, and
from these and others he got together about one thousand
soldiers. The Pope appointed them Generals." 2 Notwith
standing the defection of Stukeley the expedition started
for Ireland, under the command of Fitzmaurice, who was
accompanied by Nicholas Sanders (or Sander as his name

is sometimes spelt), as Papal Nuncio, and two Irish Bishops.
They landed at Dingle, on July 17, 1579. Fitzmaurice
was slain in battle the following September, and was suc
ceeded, as leader of the Rebellion, by Sir John of Desmond,
on whose behalf Gregory XIII. issued a Bull, addressed
to the Archbishops, Bishops, noblemen, and people of
Ireland, granting to all who took part in the Rebellion
pardon and remission
" "
of their sins, after having con
fessed, and an Indulgence identical with that

"
imparted
to those who fought against the Turks for the ransom of
the Holy Land." 3 The Bull was dated May 13, 1580.
This had been preceded by a remarkable letter, written by
Sanders, the Papal Nuncio, and addressed to the nobility
and gentry of Ireland. It was as follows :
1
Knox
s Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen, p. xxix.
Ireland Under Elizabeth, translated by Matthew J. Byrne, p. 20, from

2
the History of Catholic Ireland, by O Snllivan Bear.

a
Meehari s History of the Geraldines, pp. SO, 81, second edition.
SANDERS LETTER TO IRISH NOBILITY 197
"
To the Right Honourable and Catholic Lords and Worshipful

gentlemen of Irelamd, N. Sanders, Doctor of Divinity, wisheth all
felicity.
"
Pardon me, I beseech you, if upon just cause I use the

same words to your honours and worships which St. Paul wrote
sometime to the Galatians Who hath enchanted you, not to
:
obey the truth ? for if you be not bewitched, what mean you
;
to fight for heresy against the true faith of Christ, for the devil
against God, for tyrants that rob you of your goods, lands,
lives, and everlasting salvation, against your own brethren, who
daily spend their goods and shed their blood to deliver you from
these miseries ? What mean you, I say, to be at so great
charges, to take so great pains, and to put yourselves in so
horrible danger of body and soul, for a wicked woman [Queen
Elizabeth] not begotten in true wedlock, nor esteeming her
Christendom, and therefore deprived by the Vicar of Christ,
her and your lawful Judge forsaken of God who justifieth the
;
sentence of His Vicar, forsaken of all Catholic Princes whom she

hath injured intolerably ;
forsaken of divers Lords, Knights,
and gentlemen of England, who ten years past took the sword
against her, and yet stand in the same quarrel ? See you not
that she is without a lawful heir of her own body, who may either
reward her friends or revenge her enemies ? See you not that
she is such a shameful reproach to the Royal Crown, that whoso
is indeed a friend to the Crown should so much the more hasten
to dispossess her of the same ? See you not that the next
Catholic heir to the Crown (for the Pope will take order by God s
grace that it shall rest in none but Catholics), must account all
them for traitors that spend their goods in maintaining an heretic
against his true title and right ? What will ye answer to the
Pope s Lieutenant when he, bringing us the Pope s, and other
Catholic Princes aid (as shortly he will), shall charge you with
the crime and pain of heretics, for maintaining an heretical
pretended Queen against the public sentence of Christ s Vicar ?
Can she, with her feigned supremacy (which the devil instituted
in Paradise, when he made Eve Adam s mistress in God s
matters), absolve and acquit you from the Pope s excommuni
cation and curse ? Shall ye not, rather, stain yourselves and
your noble houses with the suspicion of heresy and treason ?
In which case, if the Catholic heir to the Royal Crown
call upon the execution of the laws of the Church, you
shall the maintenance of heresy lose your goods, your
for
lands,your honour, and undo your wives, your children,
and your houses for ever. God is not mocked. The longer
it is before He punish, the more hard and severe shall His
punishment be.
Do you not see before your eyes that because King Henry
"
the Eighth brake the unity of Christ s Church his house is now
cut off, and ended ? And think you that, maintaining the heresy
which he began, you shall not bring your own houses to a like
end that his hath ? Mark, likewise, Sir William Drury s end,
who was the General against the Pope s army, and think not
our part too weak, seeing God fighteth for us. And, surely,
whereas we had once both money, men, and armour to begin
this battle withal God by His most strange means (which to
;
recite in this place it were too tedious) took them all from us,
and sent us hither in manner naked, to the end it should be
evident to all the world that this war is not the war of man
(which is always most puissant in the beginning as most armies,
begun with greater power than afterward it is maintained), but
the War of God, who of small beginnings worketh wonderful
end. Whom I beseech to open your eyes, that while time is,
you may openly confess and honour Him more than heretics.
The 21st of February, 1580." l
The Irish Rebellion was at length suppressed, but we
may be quite sure that it, together with the Pope s aid,
and Sanders letter, tended only to make Elizabeth and
her Council all the more determined to resist Papal encroach
ments in England as well as in Ireland.
It was at this time that the Jesuit Invasion began, by
the arrival in England, in the summer of 1580, of Edmund
Campion and Robert Parsons, accompanied by Ralph
Emerson, a Jesuit Lay Brother. Campion was executed
in 1581, having refused to answer the questions, relating
to his civil loyalty, to the satisfaction of the Government.
But Parsons lived on until the seventeenth century. He
remained in England for some short time after Campion s
death, and then left England, never to return. He spent
the remainder of his life on the Continent, where, in safety,
he plotted for the overthrow of Elizabeth, and the restoration
of Romanism, by means of foreign soldiers, principally
those of Philip Spain, the bitter enemy of England.
II. of
Father Taunton, a secular Roman Catholic priest, writing

Original Letters, second series, vol. pp. 94-97.
1
Ellis iii.
THE JESUIT INVASION 199
1901, says of him But that he was the centre of

"
in :
all the plots against her [Elizabeth s] Crown is incontest

l
Campion s latest biographer, Mr. Richard Simpson,
able."
says of Parsons, that, before he left England, he had

"
planted at Lapworth Park, and other places round Stratford-

on-Avon, the seeds of a political Popery that was destined
in some twenty-five years to bring forth the Gunpowder
Plot."
2
He also, before his departure, formed, says
Simpson, an Association of young Roman Catholic noble

men and gentlemen of the highest rank, and he adds that
"
this Association (or Sodality) furnished the principals of

many of the real or pretended plots of the last twenty
3
years of Elizabeth, and the first few years of James I."
Mr. Froude gives the names of eight members, and says

that they were men implicated, all of them, afterwards
"
in plots for the assassination of the Queen. The subse

quent history of all these persons is a sufficient indication
of the effect of Jesuit teaching,and of the true object of
the Jesuit 4
A
Secular Priest, writing in 1603,
Mission."
In the tail of this catalogue of our made enemies,

"
says :
Father Parsons placeth himself, as the chief of all the

rest,and I believe him to be chiefest, and only, as the spring
and head from whom all our miseries, and mischiefs, both
temporal and spiritual, in part or whole, for many years
did, and still do, proceed." The Secular Priests living in
5
England had to suffer for Parsons treasonable plots abroad.

Dean Colleton, a secular priest, writing in 1602, thus
addresses Father Parsons :
"
We assure ourselves, Father

Parsons, that your restless spirit and pen, your enterpris
ing and busy actions, have turned heretofore our Catholic
professants to infinite prejudice, for to no known cause
can we impute so much the making of the severe laws of
6
our country, as to your edging attempts and provocations."
1
History of the Jesuits in England, by the Eev. E. L. Taunton, p. 1-18.
-
Simpson s Edmund Campion,
3
p. 178. Ibid., p. 158.
4
Fronde s History of England, vol. xi. p. 63.
5
A Eeplie Unto a Certaine Libell Latelie Set Foorth by Fa. Parson*, f. 56.
6
A Just Defence of the /Slandered Priestes, by John Colleton, p. 17U.
And Father Tootle, author of Dodd
Church History, was
s
of the same opinion, for he declared that Parsons

"
politics
and virulent pen had occasioned those laws which all their
posterity would smart under." This was also the opinion
1
of Father Joseph Berington, who, writing at the close of

the eighteenth century, declares that : "To the intriguing
spirit of this man (whose whole life was a series of machina
tions against the sovereignty of his country, the succession
of its Crown, and the interests of the Secular Clergy of his
own faith), were I to ascribe more than half the odium,
under which the English Catholics laboured through the
heavy lapse of two centuries, I should only say what has
often been said, and what has often been said with truth." 2
1
Dodd s Secret Policy of the English Society of Jesus, p. 109 (London, 1715).
2
Berington s Memoirs of Panzani, p. 20.
CHAPTER XIV
The Treasonable Work of Popish Seminaries Testimony of Cardinal D Ossat,

a Secular Priest in 1603, and of Father Taunton An Act declaring
it High Treason to induce any one to Join the Church of Rome A
disgraceful Jesuit Plot in Scotland, worked by Duplicity, Perjury and
Cunning Another Plot to murder Elizabeth The Plot assisted by a
Papal Nuncio The Pope Approves of the Plot Father Knox s Com
ment on the Pope s Conduct Father Knox s Apology for the Attempted
Murder A new Jesuit Plot for the Invasion of England and Scotland
An Act against Jesuits and Seminary Priests Plot of Ph.ilip II.
Mary, Queen of Scots Letter approving the Plot.
IN carrying on his work, Parsons, of course, needed

political
agents residing in England. These he mainly secured by
means of the Seminaries he established on the Continent
for the education
of English priests. These were un
doubtedly hotbeds of sedition. Elizabeth s Government
thought so at the time, and so also did many Roman

Catholics. The well-known statement of Cardinal D Ossat,
in a letter dated November 26, 1601, addressed to Henry IV.
of France, supports opinion. He wrote, concerning
this
two of these Seminaries, viz. those at Douay and St.
Omers :
The
"
principal care which these Colleges and Seminaries

have, is to catechise and bring up these young English
gentlemen in this Faith and firm belief, that the late King
of Spain had, and that his children now have, the true
right of succession to the Crown of England, and that this

is advantageous and expedient for the Catholic faith, not
only in England, but wherever Christianity is.

And when these young gentlemen have finished their
"
humanity studies, and are come to such an age. then to

make them thoroughly Spaniards, they are carried out of
the Low
Countries into Spain, where there are other Colleges
for them, wherein they are instructed in philosophy and
Divinity, and confirmed in the same belief and holy faith,

that the Kingdom of England did belong to the late King
of Spain, and does now to his children. After that these
young English gentlemen have finished their courses, those
of them that are found to be most Hispaniolised, and most
courageous and firm to this Spanish creed, are sent into

England to sow this faith among them, to be spies, and give
advice to the Spaniards of what is doing in England, and
what must and ought to be done to bring England into the
Spaniards hands and, if need be, to undergo Martyrdom
;
as soon, or rather sooner, for this Spanish faith, than for the
Catholic religion. 1
A
Secular Priest, writing in 1603, remarks concerning
these Seminaries :
"
And touching the Colleges and pensions that are main

tained and given by the Spaniards, which he [Parsons] so often
inculcateth, we no whit thank him for them, as things are
handled and occasions thereby ministered of our greater perse
cution at home, by reason of Father Parsons treacherous prac
tices, thereby to promote the Spaniards title for our country ;
and his hateful stratagems with such scholars as are there brought
up enforcing them to subscribe to blanks, and, by public orations,
;
to fortify the said wrested title of the Infanta which courses ;
cannot but repay us with double injuries and wrongs, for the
benefits received. 2
"
After this he (Parsons) reckoned his Seminaries in Spain and

Flanders. goodly brood A He gave us a reward to break our
!
heads, by his good deeds to bring men into treasons against their
Prince and country, as is declared before, and more appeared by his
soliciting some of the priests brought up there to come in hostile
manner against their country. So lie dealt with Master Thomas
Leake and others ; and such as refused, he fell out with them. 3
"
For the proof of the second objection, of the scholars (in

the Seminaries) being urged to subscribe to blanks, and to con
firm the Infanta s title to the Crown of England, is a matter
1
Lettres Card. D Ossat, part ii. 1. 7, quoted in Gee s Jesuit s Memorial, p. xlvi.
2
A jReplie Unto a Certain? Lib ell Latelie Set Foorth by Fa. Parsons, f. 52.
3
Ibid., f. 56.
FURTHER DISABILITIES ON PAPISTS 203
very notorious and evident. We have divers priests yet alive

in England to confirm the same by oath, as well of them that were
enforced to subscribe against their wills, as others that openly
refused the same. I do therefore wonder to see the man s
unshamefast denial of so manifest and apparent a truth/ l
Father Taunton Besides the immense

tells us that :
"
advantage and influence such Colleges would give the

English Jesuits, they would be useful in another way.
The one hope of regaining England was, in Parsons eyes,
not the patient toil and blood of missionaries, but the
armed intervention of Spain. The zealous young men
who offered themselves to the Seminaries as soldiers of
Christ, found that they were also required to be soldiers

of Philip."
Remembering these need not create surprise

facts, it
that Elizabeth found it necessary to impose special dis
abilities on the priests educated in these foreign countries,

as well as upon all Jesuits. Their loyalty certainly could
not be trusted. The first of these Seminaries was that
established at Douay, in 1568, and another was founded
in Rome, early in 1579. England was soon flooded with
priests educated in these institutions, and fresh penal laws
were passed to resist the invasion. The Act 23 Elizabeth,
For Retaining the Queen s Majesty s Subjects in
"
cap. 1,
their Due Obedience," was exceptionally severe. The
penalties imposed by it seem to us, now, out of all propor
tion to the offences dealt with, but it is some satisfaction
to know that the death penalty for such offences was not
imposed unless the accused was
proved guilty of dis
also
tinctly disloyal practices. Somewere in of its penalties
excusably severe, but its administration was more merciful.

I do not say that in Elizabeth s Reign no one was put to
death for being reconciled to the Church of Rome only,
but I believe such cases were very few indeed. At any
rate that Church, which still justifies, as in itself morally
1
A Replit Unto a Certaine Libell Latelie 8tt Foortk by Fa. Parsons, f. t>,S.
2
Taunton s History of the Jesuit* in England, p. 133.
right, the infliction of the death penalty for rejection of
the Mass, and denial of the Pope s Supremacy, has no
right to throw stones at Elizabeth s Parliament for passing
this That Church needs to wash its own hands,
Act.
before it finds fault with the deeds of Elizabeth. At the
same time let us never forget that those who are willing
to suffer for their convictions, even though they may be
erroneous, deserve that measure of respect which is always
due to sincerity. It was not for pleasure, we may be sure,
that the priests came over from the Continent, but from
a mistaken sense of duty. Yet neither sincerity nor per
sonal virtue is any excuse for the crime of treason, nor
yet a sufficient reason why those who are guilty should
escape its allotted punishment.
By named it was declared to be High

the Act just
Treason to withdraw any one from the Church of England
to the Church of Rome and those who were willingly
;
reconciled to that Church were declared guilty of the same

offence, the punishment of which was death. The aiders
and maintainers of such persons, and those who concealed
their offences for twenty days, without revealing them
to a Justice of the Peace, were declared liable to suffer the
penalties of misprison of treason. Any person saying Mass
must forfeit the sum
two hundred marks, and suffer
of
imprisonment for one year and every person who should

;
willingly hear Mass," should forfeit the sum of one hun

"
dred marks, and suffer imprisonment for one year. Any

one above the age of sixteen years
"
who did not attend

"
his Parish Church, was rendered liable to a fine of 20

per month. Any one maintaining a Schoolmaster who
did not attend his Parish Church had to pay a fine of 10
a month.
If this Act had been extensively enforced with regard
to its death penalties, as it easily might have been by the

Government, thousands of Roman Catholics would have
been executed but, as a matter of fact, modern Roman
;
Catholic writers claim only 184 Martyrs during Eliza-

THE GREAT JESUIT PLOT 205
beth s Reign, including both priests and laity. That is
the number given by one of the Brompton Oratorians

1876, and I have clear proof that a very large pro
1
in
portion of these were disloyal to the temporal Govern

ment of Elizabeth.
At about the time when the Irish Rebellion was being
aided by Gregory XIII., and the Jesuit invasion of Eng
land had commenced, a Jesuit plot was being developed
in Scotland, having for its object the restoration of Mary,
Queen of Scots, to the Throne of that country, as a step

towards making her Queen of England also. Of the plots
of this kind, during the life of Mary, the late Father Tierney
"
asserted that During the life of the Scottish Queen,

these were all directed to the ulterior purpose of placing
that Princess on the Throne of England."
2
The weapons
used for the promotion of this Jesuit Plot were of the
most dishonourable kind. Lying, deception, perjury, and
double dealing were its chief characteristics. The whole
discreditable story is given in detail, and mainly on Roman
Catholic and Jesuit authorities, in my Jesuits in Great
Britain* It may suffice here to mention that at the close
of 1579, the Lord Aubigny, who had been educated in
France by the Jesuits, left that country for Scotland,
ostensibly for the purpose of paying a brief visit to
James VI., who happened to be his cousin. He was
accompanied to the coast by the Duke of Guise, wlio had
taken a leading part in the horrible St. Bartholomew
Massacre, and who personally led the party w^hich then
murdered the noble Admiral Coligny. Instead of paying
merely a brief visit to Edinburgh, Aubigny took up his
was announced that he
residence there, and, soon after, it
had, in March 17, 1580, renounced Popery, and joined

the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland. The Ministers had
1
A Calendar of the English Martyrs, by Thomas Graves Law, Priest of
the Oratory. Several years later Mr. Law left the Church of Rome.
2
Dodd s Church History, Tierney s edition, vol. iii. p. 29, note..
3
The. Jesuits in Great Britain, by Walter Walsh, pp. 30-00.
their doubts as to the genuineness of his conversion, which
we now know was nothing To remove
better than a sham.
their doubts, the Second Confession o Faith, commonly
called The King s Confession," was drawn up. The
"
first to swear to it was the young King ;

the second was
Aubigny. This took place at Edinburgh on January 28,
1580-81. In it he, with others, denounced the "Roman
;
Antichrist/ Transubstantiation, and the Devilish Mass,"

Purgatory, Invocation of Saints, Auricular Confession,
Holy Water, and the bloody Decrees made at Trent
" "
swearing by the great name of the Lord our God

" "
to
obey the doctrine and discipline of the Kirk of Scotland ;
and calling
"
the Searcher of all hearts to witness that

our minds and hearts do fully agree with this our Con
fession, promise, Oath, and subscription ... as we shall
answer to Him in the Day when all hearts shall be dis
There were several other Romanists in disguise
closed."
who also swore to this Confession, solely with a view to
blinding the eyes of the Protestants, and sending them

to sleep in fancied security, lest their opposition should
bring to ruin the great Jesuit Plot for the destruction of

Protestantism in Scotland by means of foreign soldiers.
The Pope knew all about it, and so also did Mary, Queen
of Scots, then a prisoner in England. Aubigny, who was
a man manners, rapidly gained an ascend
of fascinating
ancy over the young King, James VI., and with the result
that he soon acquired considerable political power and
influence in Scotland.He was first of all created Earl of
Lennox, and on August 27, 1581, he was proclaimed Duke
of Lennox. Through his great influence over the King,
he secured the execution, on June 2, 1581, of the Earl
of Morton, the leader of the Protestants. Within about
two years from his arrival in Scotland, Lennox had pos
session, as commandant, of the principal military forts
of Scotland, including Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle,
and Dumbarton Castle. Jesuit priests were sent to him
secretly, from time to time, to help the Plot, whose reports
THE POPE ASSISTS THE PLOTTERS 207
I quote in Jesuits in Great Britain.

my One of these secret
emissaries was the well-known Jesuit, Father Creighton ;
the other was the equally well-known Jesuit, Father Holt.

On his return to France, Creighton communicated the
results of his visit to Scotland to Dr. Allen (subsequently
Cardinal), the Archbishop of Glasgow, and Father Robert

Parsons, S.J. The late Father Knox, of Brompton Oratory,
says that :
"
The greater part of April and May was spent in dis
cussing this design [against Scotland, and England through

it], and finally, at a meeting held in Paris,
at which, be
sides those already mentioned, F. Claude Mathieu, Pro
and Confessor to the Duke
vincial of the Jesuits in France,
of Guise, was present, a plan was definitely decided upon,
and F. Creighton was deputed to take it to the Pope at
Rome, and F. Parsons to Philip II. at Lisbon, where the
l
King was then residing."
WhenParsons revealed the design to the Pope, he took
itup warmly, at once subscribed 4000 gold crowns towards
the cost, and wrote to Philip II. for his aid. The latter
promised to give at least 12,000 gold crowns yearly. The
Papal Nuncio at Paris wrote to the Pope about the affair,
telling him that Father Parsons wanted 6000 foot-men for
Scotland, who, after their work was done in that country,
could pass over to England, so as to bring back two King
doms to the Church of Rome. At the proper time," "
wrote the Nuncio,

"
the principal Catholics in England

will receive information of the affair by means of the priests.
But this will not be done until just before the commence
ment of the enterprise, for fear of its becoming known ;
since the soul of this affair is its secrecy." 2

To Mary, Queen
of Scots, the Duke of Lennox wrote
"
: Since my last
letters a Jesuit named William Creighton has come to me
with letters of credence from your Ambassador. He in
forms me that the Pope and the Catholic King had decided
1
Knox s Life and Letters of Cardinal Allen, p. xliii.
2
Ibid., pp. xli., xliii.
to with an army, for the purpose of re
succour you
establishing religion in this island, your deliverance from
captivity, and the preservation of your right to the Crown of
England. ... I will deliver you out of your captivity,
or lose my life in the attempt. ... As soon as I receive
your reply I will go to France with all diligence for the

purpose of raising some French infantry, and receiving the
foreign troops,and leading them to Scotland." l All this
double dealing and deception was possible only through
Lennox falsely professing the Protestant religion, which
he never really believed in. His residence in Scotland
from first to last was a living lie, and that with the know
ledge, and at least the tacit consent of the Pope, the English,
Scotch, and French Jesuits, and Mary, Queen of Scots. It
forms a very black spot in the history of the Jesuit Order.
Fortunately, the suspicions of the Protestant Ministers,
noblemen, and gentry of Scotland were at length aroused.
They did not know all that was going on underneath the
surface, but they knew enough to prove to them that
the Duke of Lennox was
sympathy v/ith Rome, and could
in
not be trusted by them. At length they devised a plan
for rescuing the King from the control and evil influence
of Lennox (who had instructed his Majesty in all manner
of vice), and effectually checking the schemes of the Pope,
Jesuits, and the Duke of Guise. On August 28, 1582,

several of the Protestant noblemen came to the King at
Perth, and invited him to pay a visit to Ruthven Castle.
He accepted the invitation, and w as made a captive there
r
by the Protestant lords. On this Lennox fled to Edin

burgh, where he issued a Declaration, in which he said :
I protest before God it never entered my mind to subvert

"
the religion, as it is falsely alleged against me." 2 At

the very time he issued this lying Declaration, Lennox was
secretly negotiating with Scottish Romanists, with a view
to raising troops strong enough to rescue the King from
1
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iii. p. 38o.
Calderwood s History of the Kirk of Scotland, vol.
2 iii.
p. Gt>6,
Wodrow
Society edition.
DEATH OF THE DUKE OF LENNOX 209
the Protestants, and restore himself power. Fortu to
nately he failed, and eventually had to from the country. flee
On his way to France he passed through London, where

he had an interview with Queen Elizabeth, to whom he
swore that he was a true Protestant, and had never spoken
to a Jesuit On the very day he saw the Queen, he sent
!
his private Secretary to Mendoza, Spanish Ambassador

in London, who was an active helper on of the great Plot.
On same day, also, Mendoza wrote to his master,
this
the King of Spain, reporting the interview with the
Secretary.
I asked the Duke s Secretary,"
"
wrote Mendoza,
whether his master would profess Protestantism in
"
France ? And he answered that he had been specially

instructed to tell me that he would, in order that I might
signify the same to His Holiness, your Majesty, and the Queen
of Scotland assuring them that he acted thus in dissimulation,
;
in order to be able to return to Scotland, as otherwise the
King would not recall him, and the Queen of England

would prevent his return, by means of the Ministers, on
the ground that he was a Catholic, as in his heart he was.
He said that he would make this known also to the King
l
of France."
Lennox at length arrived in France, and from there he

wrote to Mary, Queen of Scots, to tell her that he intended
to return to Scotland with a foreign army, which would
be received into Dumbarton Castle, by an arrangement he
had made with the Captain in charge of the Castle. But
soon after Lennox arrived in France (where he professed
Protestantism) he took ill with a fever, and died. Belles-
heim, the modern Roman Catholic historian of the Roman
Catholic Church in Scotland, says that There can be
"
little doubt that Lennox was throughout Catholic at heart ;
he received the last Sacraments [of the Church of Rome]

with apparent devotion ; promised, if he recovered, to
make open profession of his faith ;
and died in excellent
1
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iii. pp. 438, 439.
O
dispositions, attended by and in the presence of the good
Archbishop of Glasgow."
Thus ended this great Jesuit Plot. There are many,
even now, who believe that the Jesuits have never taken
part in political affairs because their Constitutions forbid
it but the story I have just related proves that facts
;
contradict the theory.

A particularly villainous conspiracy to murder Queen
Elizabeth was hatched in Paris early in 1583. Nothing
definiteseems to have been known about it until 1882,
when Father Knox, of the Brompton Oratory, revealed
the plot in his Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen.
The Papal Nuncio at Paris sent full particulars of the design
to the Pope in advance, feeling assured to judge by the
tone of his letter that the Pontiff would fully approve
of this way of getting rid of the Queen. The Nuncio s
letter was addressed to the Cardinal Secretary of State, for
the information of the Pope. He wrote on May 2, 1583 :
The Duke of Guise and the Duke of Mayenne have told

me that they liave a plan for kitting the Queen of England &?/ the
hand of a Catholic, though not one outwardly, who is near her
person and is ill-affected towards her for having put to death
some of his Catholic relations. This man, it seems, sent word
of this to the Queen of Scotland, but she refused to attend to
it. He was, however, sent hither, and they have agreed to givo
him, he escapes, or else his sons, 100,000 francs, as to which ho
if
is have the security of the Duke of Guise for 50,000,

satisfied to
and to see the rest deposited with the Archbishop of Glasgow
in a box, of which he will keep a key, so that he or his sons may
receive the money, should the plan succeed, and the Duke thinks
it may. The Duke asks for no assistance from our Lord [the
Pope] for this affair but when the time comes he will go to a
:
place of his near the sea to await the event, and then cross over
on a sudden into England. As to putting to death that wicked
woman, I said to him that I will not write about it to our Lord
the Pope, nor do I, 2 nor tell your most illustrious Lordship to
1
s History of the Catholic Church of Scotland, vol. iii. p. 272.
Bellesheim
But in writing to the Cardinal Secretary of State he knew very we ll
2
there was no need to write direct to the Pope, who would be sure to hear
about it.
ANOTHER PLOT TO MURDER ELIZABETH 211
inform him of it because though I believe our Lord the Pope

;
would be glad that God should punish in any way whatever that
enemy of His, still it would be unfitting that His Vicar should
procure it by these means. The Duke was satisfied but later ;
on he added that for the enterprise of England, which in this

case would be much more easy, it will be necessary to have here
in readiness money to enlist some troops to follow him, as he
intends to enter England immediately, in order that the
Catholics may have a head. He asks for no assistance for his
passage across but as the Duke of Mayenne must remain on the
;
Continent to collect some soldiers to follow him (it being probable

that the heretics who hold the treasure, the fleet, and the ports,
will not be wanting to themselves, so that it will be necessary to
resist them), he wishes that for this purpose 100,000 or at least
80,000 crowns should be ready here. I let him know the agree
ment which there is between our Lord the Pope and the Catholic
King with regard to the contribution, and I told him that on our
Lord the Pope s part he may count on every possible assistance,
when the Catholic King does his part. The Agent of Spain
believes that his King will willingly give this aid, and therefore it
will be well, in conformity with the promises so often made, to
consider how to provide this sum, which will amount to 20,000
crowns from our Lord the Pope, if the Catholic King gives
60,000. God grant that with this small sum that great Kingdom
*
may be gained/
The Cardinal Secretary of State at once made known

the whole plot to the Pope, who appears to have made no
objection. Of course he could have stopped the villainous
scheme at once, if he had wished, but instead of that
his attitude thus explained by the Secretary, who, on
is
May 23, wrote thus to the Papal Nuncio at Paris :
"
I have reported to our Lord the Pope what your

Lordship
has written to me in cipher about the affairs of England, and
since his Holiness cannot but think it good that this Kingdom
should be in some way or other relieved from oppression and
restored to God and our holy religion, His Holiness says that
in the event of the matter being effected, there is no doubt that
the 80,000 crowns will be, as your Lordship says, very well em
ployed. His Holiness will therefore make no difficulty in paying

his fourth, when the time comes, if the Agents of the Catholic
1
Knox s Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen, pp. xlvi., xlvii.
King do the same with their three-fourths and as to this point ;
the Princes of Guise should make a good and firm agreement

with the Catholic Agent on the spot." x
It is evident that the fulfilment of the Pope s promise

was conditional on
"
to give financial aid the matter being

"
can doubt
"
effected"
nor there be any that the matter
referred to was the murder of Elizabeth. When she was put
out of the way, but not before, the Pope would be willing
" "
to pay his towards the invasion of England by

fourth
the Duke of Guise. As Father Knox writes The Dukes "
of Guise and Mayenne agreed to secure the payment of a
large sum of money to a person who engaged in return

to kill Queen Elizabeth. The Archbishop of Glasgow,
the Nuncio to the French Court, himself a Bishop, the
Cardinal of Como, the Spanish Agent, J. B. Tassis, Philip II.
of Spain, himself, when they were
and perhaps the Pope
made aware the project, did not express the slightest
of
disapprobation of it, but spoke only of the manifest ad

vantage it would be to religion, if in some way or other
the wicked woman were removed by death."
2
Some of
the Popes of the sixteenth century seem to have
had very lax notions about murder. The Pope who ap
proved of this particular murder plot was Gregory XIII. Of
his predecessor, Pius V., the late Lord Acton wrote :
"
Pius V.
held that was sound Catholic doctrine that any man may
it
stab a heretic condemned by Rome, and that every man is

a heretic who attacks the Papal prerogatives."
3
Gregory
XIII. himself had publicly thanked God for the infamous
Massacre of St. Bartholomew, and was therefore not
the sort of man to have any objection to the murder of
an heretical, excommunicated, and deposed Queen. But
the wonder is that towards the close of the nineteenth
century, Father Knox should write an elaborate article,
whitewashing this murder plot which he was the first to
1
Knox s Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen, p. xlvii.
2
Ibid., p. xlix.
3
Letters of Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone, p. 135.
FATHER KNOX ON THE MURDER PLOT 213
publish in England !
"If, he argues,
then," be no "it
sin in the captive to kill the bandit chief and so escape,
why was it a sin to kill Elizabeth, and by doing so to save from

a lifelong prison and impending death her helpless victim,
the Queen of Scots ? If the one act is a laudable measure
of self-defence, why is the other branded with the names

of murder and assassination ? In a word, if there is no
real disparity between the cases, why should not we use the
same weights and measures in judging of them both ?
Such may have been the reasoning of the Duke of Guise
and his approvers, and on such grounds they may have
maintained, not without plausibility, the lawfulness of an
act which, under other circumstances than those which have
been described, would merit the deepest reprobation." l
Apparently, Father Knox leaned to the opinion that, under
"
of this murder plot, the scheme did

"
the circumstances
" "
not merit the deepest reprobation but rather that ;
was
"
it a laudable measure of self-defence." Happily,

the proposed murder was not executed. It was not the only
plot to murder Elizabeth, which brought upon the Roman

Catholics (including those who did not approve of murder)
such severe measures of repression.
But though efforts at assassination failed, the plot to
conquer England and Scotland by the aid of foreign soldiers
was continued, with the object of making Mary, Queen of
Scots, Sovereign of both countries. The death of the
Duke of Lennox made it necessary to draw up a new plan
for the simultaneous invasion of both countries. A con
ference was held in the house of the Papal Nuncio in Paris,
at which there were present Father Claude Mathieu, Pro
vincial of the French Jesuits, and also Father Robert
Parsons. Knox prints the whole of the plan
Father
2
adopted. Spain was to send 3000 Spanish soldiers, 4000
Germans, and 4000 Italians. The Commander of these
forces was to be chosen by the Pope and the King of Spain,
1
Letters and Memorials of Cardinal Allen, p, li.
2
Ibid., pp. liii., Iv.
and they were to land in England. A second expedition
was to consist of French soldiers, and commanded either
by the Duke of Guise or his brother, the Duke of Mayenne ;
and they also were to land in England on the Sussex coast,

while 2000 soldiers were to be sent from Spain to Ireland
to give support to the rebels in that country.
Before the time came for these expeditions to start
for England, Father Parsons was sent to the Pope with
written instructions what to say when he met him. The
Spanish expedition was to land in England, at the Pile of
Fouldrey, near the borders of Scotland. For this purpose
10,000 soldiers should be sent, with corslets, pikes, and
arquebuses, sufficient to arm 5000 more soldiers, taken from
amongst the inhabitants of the North of England. The
Pope was to be asked by Parsons to send more money,
and to send it at once, so that the enterprise might be
carried out, if possible, that year (1583). The Pope should
also be asked to issue a Bull renewing the Bull of Deposition
issued by Pius V., and granting an Indulgence to the
soldiers engaged.
While these negotiations were going on abroad, Eliza
beth s Council discovered the plot through the arrest of
Francis Throckmorton, in November 1583. He was a
trusted adherent of Mary, Queen of Scots, and knew all
that was going on abroad as well as at home, in preparation
for the invasion of England. Under the rack he confessed
everything. Another plot to murder Elizabeth was dis
covered at about this time, for which Edward Arden and
John Somerville were sentenced to death. The former was
executed ;
the latter committed suicide after his sentence.
Evil work of this kind could not be tolerated. Throck
morton, of course, was Major Martin Hume
also executed.
thinks he was probably the person who promised the Duke
of Guise to murder Elizabeth for 100,000 francs.
This plot fell to the ground, owing to the mutual jealousy
of France and Spain. Philip II. dreaded lest its success
should prevent him obtaining the Sovereignty of England
MORE POPISH PLOTS 215
for himself or one of his family, and that it would strengthen

the influence of France in the internal affairs of England ;
while, on the other hand, France was jealous of Spain lest

itspolicy should lead to the weakening of French influence
both in England and Scotland. At about this period the
Protestant Henry of Navarre was heir to the Throne of
France, and this led to the formation of the Catholic League
between the Duke of Guise and Philip II., having for its
object the crushing of the Huguenots, and the placing of
a Romanist on the Throne of France after the death of
Henry III. A treaty was signed between them at Join-
ville in December 1584. The Duke had been the leader
of the great plot againstEngland which had fallen through.
He was now anxious to get up a civil war against Henry
of Navarre, with the hope of himself, or some member of
his family, becoming King, instead of the Protestant heir.
Philip promised him his support for the expected struggle

in France while Guise promised to give Philip a free hand
;
in conducting another plot of his own against England.

The Jesuits had given their hearty support to the plot of
the Duke of Guise, but when they saw that the hopes of
its success had vanished through the revelations of Throck-
morton, they transferred their allegiance to the plot of the
King of Spain, which now went forward until, in 1588, the
defeat of the Spanish Armada put an end to it also.
The various political plots against the Queen, and
attempts at her assassination, for which the Jesuits were
held by Elizabeth as mainly responsible, made it necessary
to pass further penal laws for the protection of the Queen
and the State. The chief of these, passed in 1585, was
the well-known Act 27 Elizabeth, cap. 2, passed "Against
Jesuits, Seminary Priests, and other such like disobedient
The preamble of this Act stated that Jesuits,
persons."
Seminary, and other priests had come into the land from
"
beyond the seas to withdraw her Highness subjects from

their due obedience to her Majesty," and to stir up and
"
move sedition, rebellion, and open hostility." It was

therefore enacted that any such Jesuits and priests, who
had been ordained since the first year of the Queen s reign,
should within forty days depart out of the Realm, or as
the wind, weather, and passage shall so
"
soon after as
serve." If any such persons afterwards came into the
Realm, or were found residing therein, they should be ad

judged traitors, and suffer the penalty of high treason.
Any person who should wittingly and willingly receive,
"
"
relieve, comfort, aid, or maintain such persons, should

suffer death, lose and forfeit, as in case of one attainted
"
of felony." It was further enacted that any person who

at the time of the passing of the Act should be residing in
any Jesuit College, or Romish Seminary in parts beyond
the sea, should return into the Realm within six months,
or in default be liable to the penalty awarded to high
treason. Any person residing in England who should send
money or other relief to any Jesuit or Seminary priest
residing abroad, should incur the penalty of Prsemunire.
If any person should send his or her child, or other person
abroad, without a special licence, he or she should be fined

100 for each offence. Any person knowing that a Jesuit
or Seminary priest was residing within the Realm, and did
not discover him to some Justice of the Peace within twelve
days, but willingly concealed his knowledge, should suffer
imprisonment at the Queen s pleasure.
The plot of the King of Spain had for its ostensible object
the placing of the captive Mary Stuart on the Throne of

England, but in reality its object was to make Philip
master of the country. Philip was willing that Mary
should be made Queen, but he insisted that she should
not be succeeded, on her death, by her son James, King
of Scotland, since it was believed that his adherence to the
Roman faith could not be depended on. This being the
case, Philip demanded that he should have the choice of
the next Sovereign of England after Mary and the Pope ;
consented to this. I have no doubt that, if the plot had

succeeded in Philip s lifetime, his choice would have fallen
MARY STUART S LETTER TO MENDOZA 217
on himself or his heir to the Throne of Spain. Mary herself

was willing that Philip s ambition in this direction should
be satisfied. On May 20, 1586, she wrote to Mendoza,
then Spanish Ambassador in Paris :
:(
another point, however, upon which I have pre
There is
ferred to write to you privately, in order, if possible, that you

may communicate it to the King [of Spain] without any other
person learning of it. Considering the great obstinacy of my son
in his heresy, for which, I can assure you, I weep and lament
day and night, more even than for my own calamity, and fore
seeing how difficult it will be for the Catholic Church to triumph
if he succeeds to the Throne of
England, I have resolved that,
in case my son should not submit before my death to the Catholic
religion (of which I may say I see but small nope, whilst he remains
in Scotland), I will cede and make over, by will, to the King your
master, my right to the succession to this (i.e. the English) Crown,
and beg him consequently to take me in future entirely under
his protection, and also the affairs of this country. For the
discharge of my own conscience, I could not hope to place them
in the hands of a Prince more zealous in our Catholic faith, or
more capable, in all respects, of re-establishing it in this country,
as the interests of all Christendom demands. I am obliged in
this matter to consider the public welfare of the Church before
the private aggrandisement of my posterity/ l
1
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iii. p. 581.
CHAPTER XV
Four English Papists propose to murder Elizabeth Lord Acton on Popes

and Murder Plots The Spanish Ambassador s Letter describing the
Eabingtou Murder Plot He recommends other Murders Philip II.
says the Plot is much in God s Service
"
A Jesuit Sodality and its

"
Evil Influence Fourteen Gentlemen executed for the Plot Their

Confession of Guilt Why they wished to murder Elizabeth Mendoza
believed that Mary, Queen of Scots, knew about the Plot Preparations
for the Spanish Armada The Pope promises large Sums of Money
to help it Kobert Parsons, S.J., and Dr. Allen s Negotiations in
Home Allen appeals to Philip II. for help Sir William Stanley
treacherously surrenders Deventer Cardinal Allen defends his Trea
chery Allen s Admonition to the People of England to Rebel Bull
of Sixtus V. deposing Elizabeth Defeat of the Spanish Armada
Extract from a Traitorous Book of Robert Parsons Why some
Romanists refused to help the Armada The Pope gives Authority
to Assassinate the Lord Chancellor of Scotland The Pope and the
King of Spain try to win the King of Scotland The Jesuits try to
stir up the Scottish Nobles to Rebellion A Jesuit on the Value of the
Evidence of Spies Murder Plots at the close of Elizabeth s Reign.
AT this period Philipwas actively engaged in the forma

tion of his Armada. News
of what was going on in Spain
soon came to the knowledge of the Romanists residing in
England, filling them with gladness and hope. They were
anxious to give Spain all the assistance in their power ;
but they thought success was not likely to a/ttend his in

vasion of England unless Elizabeth was murdered before
his arrival. They made their offers of help, and desires
for the assassination of Elizabeth, known to the King of
Spain, by means Mendoza, then Spanish Ambassador
of
in Paris. He we have seen, been Ambassador to
had, as
England ;
but two years before this he had been ejected
from the country in disgrace, owing to the discovery that
he was using his position as Ambassador to aid schemes
218
POPES AND MURDER PLOTS 219
for the overthrow of Elizabeth. For this affront Mendoza

vowed vengeance. On May 12, 1586, he wrote to Idia-
quez : "I amEngland by four men of
advised from
position, who have the run
the Queen s house, thatof
they have discussed for the last three months the intention
of killing her. They have at last agreed, and the four have
mutually sworn to do it. They will, on the first opportunity,

advise with me when it is to be done, and whether by
poison or steel, in order that I may send the intelligence
to your Majesty, supplicating you to be pleased to help
them after the business is effected."
l
Writing again to
Idiaquez, on the following 24th of June, Mendoza informed
him that :
"
The four men who had taken the resolution,

about which wrote to you on the llth ultimo, have again
I
assured me that they are agreed that it shall be done by
steel when opportunity occurs. One of them is confessed
and absolved every day." 2
To those who live in our own day this mixture of piety
and plots for murder must seem extraordinary. But to
those who lived at the close of the sixteenth century it
was not at all surprising. Lord Acton states that :
"
In the religious struggle [against the Protestant Reforma

tion] a frenzy had been kindled which made weakness violent,
and turned good men into prodigies of ferocity and at Rome, ;
where every loss inflicted on Catholicism and every wound was

felt, the belief that, in dealing with heretics, murder is better
than toleration, prevailed for half a century. The predecessor
of [Pope] Gregory had been Inquisitor-General. In his eyes
Protestants were worse than Pagans, and Lutherans more
dangerous than other Protestants. The Capuchin preacher,
Pistoja, bore witness that men were hanged and quartered
almost daily at Rome and Pius declared that he would release
;
a culprit guilty of a hundred murders rather than one obstinate

heretic. He seriously contemplated razing the town of Faenza
because it was infested with religious error, and he recommended
a similar expedient to the King of France. He adjured him to
hold no intercourse with the Huguenots, to make no terms with
1
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iii. p. 579.
2
Ibid., p. 585.
them, and not to observe the terms he had made. He required
that they should be pursued to the death, that no one should
be spared under any pretence, that all prisoners should sutler
death. He threatened Charles with the punishment of Saul
when he forebore to exterminate the Amalekites. He told him
that it was his mission to avenge the injuries of the Lord, and
that nothing is more cruel than mercy to the impious. When
he sanctioned the murder of Elizabeth, he proposed tJiat it should be
done in execution of his sentence against her. It became usual
with those who meditated assassination or regicide on the plea
of religion, to look upon the representatives of Rome as their
natural advisers. . . .
:(
The theory which was framed to justify these practices has
done more than plots and massacres to cast discredit on the
Catholics. This theory was as follows Confirmed heretics
:
must be rigorously punished whenever it can be done without

the probability of greater evil to religion. Where that is feared,
the penalty may be suspended or delayed for a season, provided
it be inflicted whenever the
danger is past. Treaties made with
heretics, and promises given to them, must not be kept, because
sinful promises do not bind, and no agreement is lawful which
may injure religion or ecclesiastical authority. No civil power

may enter into engagements which impede the free scope of the
Church s law. It is part of the punishment of heretics that
faith shall not be kept with them. It is even mercy to kill them
1
that they may sin no more."
Judged by these historical facts, there is nothing at

all improbable in the various attempts made by Roman
Catholics to murder Queen Elizabeth. The wonder would
be if they had not taken place. Meiidoza frequently
wrote to his master about these assassination plots. I
have already cited two of such letters. On August 13,
1586, he wrote again to Philip. He said that leading
English Roman Catholics had sent to him a gentleman
"
of good family called Master Gifford with proper credentials."

These Romanists were most anxious that Philip should
"
hurry his preparations for invading England. If your
Majesty did not send a fleet this year to England, you

must do so next year, or the year after." They sent with
Gifford the names of twenty-two persons of influence who
1
History of Freedom, by Lord Acton, pp. 138-141.
ANOTHER PLOT TO MURDER ELIZABETH 221
had sworn to raise forces, and co-operate with the King

of Spain. These were allmembers of the nobility, each
with a large following. Mendoza continued :
"
Considering the willingness with which those above-named,

and many others, have offered to take up arms immediately
they are assured of the period when your Majesty s fleet will
arrive to help them in case of the Queen s death they would
;
probably do so even more readily, seeing the many evils which

may result from the Queen s intimacy with the French. This,
and the desire that your Majesty might promptly send them
aid in their oppression, in order to take advantage of the present
favourable opportunity, now that all France is in turmoil, and
so many English heretic soldiers and sailors are in Holland
and absent with the pirates with discontent ripe, not only
;
amongst Catholic schismatics, but also amongst heretics them

selves, owing to the oppressive new taxes for the war, and the
stoppage of trade, and with the whole country anxious for a
change of government, led Babington, who is a strong Catholic,
a youth of great spirit and good family, to try to find some secret
means of killing the Queen. Six gentlemen, servants of the Queen,
who have access to her house, have promised to do this, as I reported
to Don Juan de Idiaquez on the llth l of May for your Majesty s
information. This gentleman (Gifford) tells me that no person
knows of this but Babington, and two of the principal leaders,
and it would already have been effected if they had not had
their suspicion aroused by seeing the Earl of Leicester armed
and with a force in Zeeland, which they feared he might bring
over to England quickly enough to attack them before they could
gather their own forces or obtain help from your Majesty. This
has caused them to delay laying hands upon the Queen, until
they had reported matters to me, and received assurance that
they would be succoured with troops from the Netherlands the
moment they might desire it.
"
As, moreover, they are most of them young men, and none
of them soldiers, they desired that the Earl of Westmoreland
should be ready to embark with some other experienced Captains,
of any nationality, to help them immediately it might be neces
sary. The Earl, they say, is so influential a personage that his

mere presence will suffice to raise all the north country, as he
has the greatest following of any man in England. They will
not ask for troops to be sent, unless they are urgently needed,
This letter was dated May 12th, not May llth, and mentioned only four
1
men, not six, as willing to kill the Queen.

and I will give them my word that they shall at once have
if
help from the Netherlands in case they want it, and that your
Majesty will succour them from Spain, if required, they say they
will immediately put into execution their plan to kill the Queen.
They beg me not to doubt this, as those who are to carry it out are
resolved to doit, and not to await for a favourable opportunity,
but to kill her, even on her Throne and under her canopy of State,
if I tell them that the time has arrived to
x
put an end to her/
Such an abominable murder plot as this ought to have

been abhorrent to every right-minded man. But in the
opinion of Mendoza it was pious and holy to murder any
body if the interests of his Church required it. Instead
of trying to dissuade these gentlemen from their wicked
purposes, he urged them to extend their criminal opera

tions by assassinating five other prominent English Pro
testants ! With a sickening affectation of piety, Mendoza,
in the letter just cited, tells his Master :
the im
"
I received the gentleman in a way which

portance of his proposal deserved, as it ivas so Christian,
just, and advantageous to the holy Catholic faith, and your
Majesty wrote them two letters by different

s service, and I
routes, one in Italian and the other in Latin, encouraging

them in the enterprise, which I said was worthy of spirits
so Catholic, and of the ancient valour of Englishmen.
If they succeeded in killing the Queen, they should have
the assistance they required from the Netherlands, and

assurance that your Majesty would succour them. This
I promised them, in accordance with their request, upon
my faith and word. I urged them with arguments to
hasten the execution. They should either kill or
. . .
seize Walsingham, Lord Hunsdon, Knollys, and

Cecil,
Beal, of the Council, who have great influence with the
heretics, as they are terrible heretics themselves, and I
gave them other advice of the same sort. Up to the . . .
present your Majesty had in no way been pledged in the

business, except the risk of the 100,000 crowns, which
have been given to the priests who have been going hither,
1
Calendar of Spanish Stale Papers, vol. iii.
pp. 603-606.
PHILIP APPROVES OF THE PLOT 223
and if secrecy be kept there will be no risk in looking

on and watching what comes of it. If the Queen falls,
the country will submit without the effusion of blood. . . .
I send herewith a statement of the English Counties and

their condition. I have drawn this up afresh, both from
my own information and from the intelligence given to

me by a priest whom I sent round the country."
When Mendoza s letter reached Philip he was delighted
with the news, and at once sent Mendoza his hearty ap
proval of the foul deeds proposed, mixing his approba
tion of murder with pious sentiments. As the affair," "
he wrote on September 5th, so much in God s service

"is
it certainly deserves to be supported." He seems to have

specially rejoiced at the proposal to murder certain members
of Queen Elizabeth s Council. The warnings you sent "
thither [to England] as to certain other executions which
you thought should follow the principal one, were well ad

"
vised." I recollect," continued the King, "some of those

whom you mention as being in the plot, and in other cases
their fathers. A
business in which such persons are con
cerned certainly looks serious and in the service of God,;
the freedom of Catholics, and the welfare of that Realm,

I will not fail to help them. I therefore at once order
the necessary force to be prepared for the purpose, both
in Flanders and here in Spain. It is true that as the
whole thing depends upon secrecy, and our preparations
will have to be made without noise, the extent of the
force must not be large enough to arouse an outcry, and
so do more harm than good, but it shall be brought to
bear from both directions with the utmost promptness,
as soon as we learn from England that the principal execu
tion planned by Babington and his friends has been effected.
The matter has been deeply considered here, with a view
to avoiding, if possible, the ruin of those who have under
taken so holy a task." 2
1
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iii. pp. 606-608,
2
Ibid., pp. 614, 615.
important to mention here that there existed in
It is
England at this period an Association of young Roman

Catholic gentlemen, which had been
"
solemnly blessed
1
by Gregory XIII., April 14, was the first
1580." It
of those Jesuit Sodalities, for laymen and women, which
have played such an important part in the operations
of the Jesuit Order, and which still exist in, probably,
every Jesuit Church in the United Kingdom. The sym

pathetic biographer of Father Campion, S.J., tells us that
"
this Association furnished the principals of many of

the real or pretended plots of the last twenty years of
Elizabeth and the first few years of James 2
He I."
mentions the names of several of the members of this

"secret
organisation" as he terms it. They include six
of the men executed for the Babington Plot to murder Queen
Elizabeth. It is noteworthy that six was the number of
those who were the first to take part in the Plot. The
half-a-dozen principal men in the Papal blessed Associa
tion, who were probably the identical six mentioned by
Mendoza in his despatches, were all spiritual children of
the Jesuits. Their names were Anthony Babington,
Chideock Titchbourne, Thomas Salisbury, Charles Tilney,
Edward Abingdon, and Jerome Bellamy.
Fourteen gentlemen were put on their trial for the Plot.
Of these, seven pleaded guilty, viz. Babington, Ballard,
Barnwell, Savage, Dunn, Salisbury, and Titchbourne. Seven
pleaded not guilty, viz. Abingdon, Tilney, Jones, Travers,
Charnock, Bellamy, and Gage. They were all sentenced
to death, and executed. Ballard was a priest, and was
evidently the most guilty of them all. At his trial, and
"
in the presence of Ballard, Babington exclaimed Yea, :
I protest, before I met with this Ballard, I never meant

nor intended for to kill the Queen but by his persuasions ;
I was induced to believe that she was excommunicated, and

3
therefore lawful to murder her." The confession of
1
Simpson s Edmund Campion, p. 157, edition 1867.
2
Ibid., p. 158,
3
State Trials, vol. i.
p. 125, edition 1730.
THE CONFESSION OF SAVAGE 225
Sava e was read atf

his trial. He was asked by one of the
Judges,
"
Was not all this willingly and voluntarily con

fessed by thyself, without menacing, without torture, or
To which Savage replied,
"
without offer of any torture ?

1
This confession implicated another priest as
"
Yes."
an inciter to assassination. This was Dr. Gifford, who

afterwards became Archbishop of Bheims. The confession
of Savage cannot be rejected on the ground that he was
a spy in the pay of the Government. What he said was,
I believe, the truth. He said that :
He served in the camp of the Prince of Parma, and from

"
thence he departed towards Rheims, where falling acquainted

with one Hodgson, and talking with him about exploits of services,
it chanced Dr. Gifford overheard them, and coming to them
said, But a better service could I tell you than all this (moving
the murder of the Queen of England). But Savage seemed to
object how dangerous and difficult it was. So they went to
supper ;
and after supper ended, Gifford declaring unto them,
how how
just and meritorious the committing of the
necessary,
murder should be, said that peradventure he sticked to do the
fact, forasmuch as he, percase, was not resolved whether the
killing of a Princewere lawful or not. Whereupon he desired
him to advise himself, and to ask opinions of others. And
Savage having heard others affirm that the murder was lawful,
forasmuch as was an heretic, an enemy to
in their pretence she
true religion, and a schismatic person. At last, after three
weeks, wherein he had not seen Gifford, he answered that he
was contented to do anything for his country s good. Then
said Gifford Assure yourself you cannot do a greater good
:
unto your country, nor whereby the country should be more

beholden, especially all the Throckmortons and Giffords/
"
At last Savage, overcome with their persuasions, gave his

assent and Oath, that he would put the same in practice. When
he had given his oath to murder her, Gifford declared unto him
how, and in what place, her Majesty might be slain. And,
therefore, Gifford charged him to forbear no time nor place, but
to murder her ; and, therefore, as her Majesty should go into
Chapel to hear Divine Service, Savage might lurk in the gallery,
and stab her with his dagger. Or, if her Majesty should walk in
her garden, he might then shoot her through with his dagg. Or,
if her
Majesty did walk abroad to take the air, as she would
1
State Trials, vol. i. p. 122.
often do, rather (as Gifford said) accompanied with women
than men, and those few men but slenderly weaponed, Savage
might then assault her with his arming sword, and so make
short work albeit in all these cases Savage should be in extreme
;
hazard of his own life, forasmuch as the thing itself was so lawful,
honourable, and meritorious, and he sure to gain Heaven thereby.
Thereupon came Savage over into England with this intent and
purpose, for to kill the Queen. But not doing the same as soon
as was looked for, he received letters from Morgan and Gifford
from beyond the seas, persuading him to execute the same.
But then he fell acquainted with the most notorious conspiracy
of Babington, whereby was another Plot devised, that there
should be six which should kill the Queen. Savage would not
assent thereto, forasmuch as he thought except he did it himself
his conscience could not be satisfied. But Babington told him
he should be one." *
A
Benedictine Monk, writing in the Month (the official
organ of the English Jesuits) for March 1904, pleads that
Dr. Gilford could not have been guilty of the offences
charged against him, because on April 18, 1586, he wrote
from Rheims to Walsingham, offering his services to the
Government purpose of making known, from time
for the
to time, any disloyal practices against the State with which
he might become acquainted. At first sight this seemed to
me conclusive. But after an interval I discovered that
Gifford s offer was a hypocritical one, and utterly in
sincere ;
and made
for the purpose of blinding the eyes of
Walsingham, with a view to obtain permission to visit

England, where he might have greater facilities of communi
cating with Mary, Queen of Scots, and assisting her cause.
The proof of his insincerity is found in a letter written by
Thomas Morgan to Mary, Queen of Scots, from France, on
April 26, 1586. Morgan was her most trusted agent on

the Continent, and served her faithfully to the end of her
life. He wrote to her :
Under colour of some service to be done to that

"
State [England], some priests, now abroad in banishment,

are entered into conference by writing with Secretary
1
pp. 121, 122.
DR. GIFFORD AND THE BABINGTON PLOT 227
Walsingham, for the desire they have indeed to profit

their country, and not to serve Secretary Walsingham s turn,
whatsoever they may promise him. This practice is new

and but yet imparted to me
secret, by the priests them
selves, who have been with me of late days. The suspicious
heads of England, not knoiving the inward hearts and mean
ings of these priests, will soon call their integrity in question,
if they be found to have any practice with Secretary
Walsingham. But if your Majesty hear otherwise than
well of these priests, you may retain such conceit of them
as Catholic devout priests deserve to have, and that travel
by the effusion of their innocent blood to appease the ire

of God for the sins of that Realm. Of these priests I
know no more but two that is yet entered into this practice,
who without all doubt will overtake the Secretary, if the
purpose go forwards, and do your Majesty and that Realm
signal service.
These two priests that I speak of be named Gifford,
Doctor of Divinity, and a gentleman of good house, and
well qualified. did recommend him to your Majesty
I
upon my knowledge of his worthiness, and zealous affec

tion towards your Majesty for whose release he is
. . .
likely to be a very profitable member, and to that end will

adventure his life. If he goes to that Realm, I will address
him to have intelligence with your Majesty. The . . .
other priest s name is Gratley, a sweet soul of God."

l
The Rev. J. H. Pollen, S.J., evidently thinks that

Dr. Gifford was mixed up with the Babington Plot. After
quoting Morgan s letter to Mary, Queen of Scots, which I
have just cited, he remarks "But so far as his [Morgan s]
:
words go, Dr. William [Gifford] had already joined in the

intrigue, which with us goes under the name of Babington s
Plot. Or, if it be said that this plot was still vague and
unsettled, and that the Doctor could not possibly have
travailed much therein already
7
(the attempt against the

Queen s life had most probably not yet been included in
1
Murden s State Papers, pp. 511, 512.
the conspiracy), at least we must say that the Doctor was
participant in some of the schemes for Mary s relief by
the intervention of France or Spain, or both." 1
The whole of the conspirators executed for the Babing-
ton Plot entered into it in the interests of the Roman
Catholic religion solely. In their opinion, to murder
Elizabeth was an act which would do God service. It was
a matter of conscience with them to do the foul deed, and
had they succeeded they would not have thought that they
had committed any sin whatever. At his trial Dunn said :
"
When
was moved, and made privy to these treasons,
I
I always said that I prayed unto God, that that might be
done which was to His honour and glory." 2 And, later
on, Dunn further said What I have done herein was
"
for my religion and conscience sake." 3 Barn well said :
What I did was only for my conscience sake, and not for
"
4
any malice or hatred to her Majesty s person." At the
priest, John Ballard,
"
place of execution, the confessed

that he was guilty of those things for which he was con
demned, but protested they were never enterprised by him
upon any hope of preferment, but only for the advance
ment of true religion." 5 Babington confessed that he
"
was come to die, as he deserved howbeit he protested ;
that he was not led into those actions upon hope of pre
ferment, or for any temporal respect nor had ever ;
attempted them, but that he was persuaded by reasons

*
alleged to this effect, that it was a deed lawful and meri

"
6 "
torious. Savage said that he did attempt it, for that in

conscience he thought it a deed meritorious, and a common
7
good to the weal-public, and for no private preferment."
When the news of the execution of the conspirators
reached Paris, Mendoza wrote to the King of Spain :
They have executed fourteen of the English Catholic

"
prisoners in England, the names of whom I enclose. They

all died as Catholics, confessing thai they died for religion s
1 2
The Month, April, 1904, p. 362. State Trials, vol. i.
p. 124.
4 s
3
Ibid., p. 126. Ibid., p. 125. Ibid, p. 133.
7
6
Ibid., p. 133. Ibid., p. 133.
EXECUTION OF MARY STUART 229
sake, and saying that if they had as many lives as they

had on their heads, they would spend them all in
hairs
the same cause." x
The discovery of the Babington Plot, and the part
which Mary, Queen of Scots, took in it, naturally made
the English Government more vigilant than ever in en
forcing the Penal La we against Romanists. This is by
no means to be wondered at. What else could have been
expected ? The danger to the Queen and the State was
very real at that time, and it would have been folly to
have remained inactive. The Jesuits and their followers
were doing everything possible to exasperate the Queen
and her Council but did nothing whatever to allay the
;
natural irritation their treasonable conduct provoked.

If it had not been for the priests the Babington Plot would
never, I believe, have been hatched. We may shudder

at the fate which awaited Mary, but it cannot be truthfully
asserted that she was innocent of complicity in the Plot.
She knew all about it from the letters sent her by Babington,
and her guilt is evident quite apart from the postscript to
her letter to Babington, as to the genuineness of which so
much controversy has arisen. This was also the opinion
of Mendoza, who judged of her guilt from what she herself
had written to him. In his letter to the King of Spain,
on September 10, 1586, about the murder Plot, he wrote :
/ am of opinion that the Queen of Scotland must be well

"
acquainted with the whole affair, to judge from the contents

2
of a letter which she has written to me."
The failure of the Babington Plot, and the execution

of Mary, Queen of Scots, did not put an end to the King of
Spain s preparations to invade England. On the contrary,
they seem to have stimulated him to prompt action. While
the Armada was being prepared in Spain, negotiations went
on with Rome, with a view to obtaining not only the Pope s
blessing on the undertaking, but also substantial money
help from the Papal treasury. He was not long waiting
1 2
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iii. p. 641. Ibid., p. 024.
to receive promises of Pontifical help. At the end of the
year, Cardinal Carrafa handed to Count de Olivares,
Spanish Ambassador in Rome, the following official docu
ment, dated December 22, 1586, in the name of the
Pope :
"
His Holiness, desirous of aiding with all his strength

this holy enterprise [i.e. the Spanish Armada], to which
God has stimulated his Catholic Majesty, is willing to em
ploy in it a sum not exceeding one million in gold that ;
is to say, he will give five hundred thousand crowns in one
sum as soon as the Armada shall have arrived in England,

in accordance with the document signed with my hand,
of 8th September of this year, and subsequently, at the end
of each four months, he willpay one hundred thousand
crowns until the full sum of a million shall have been
i
paid."
The death of Mary made it necessary to decide who

should be the next Sovereign of England, should the
Armada prove successful, and Elizabeth be either dethroned
or put to death. That notorious Jesuit firebrand, Robert
Parsons, was in Rome
at this time, and so also was Dr.
Allen, who, the next year, was made a Cardinal. They
both wished the King of Spain to become King of England.
The Count de Olivares wrote to Philip from Rome, on
December 23, 1586 This Father Robert [Parsons] and
"
Allen are not only of opinion that the Pope should give
the investure to the person who should be nominated by
your Majesty, but say that the succession rightly belongs
to your Majesty yourself, by reason of the heresy of the
King of Scotland, and even, apart from this, through your

descent from the house of Lancaster." 2 But old Pope
Sixtus V. had other views he wished to have the disposal:
of the Crown of England in his own gift, as its Superior

Lord. He said that he was willing to furnish the King of
"
Spain with money towards the expenses of the war, but

on condition that the nomination to the Crown of England
1 2
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iii. p. 659. Ibid., p. 660.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE ARMADA 231
Pope, and that the Kingdom of England

shall rest tvith the
a Fief of the Church l thus reviving the
"
be recognised as
Papal claim which King John acknowledged when he

received the Crown of England back from the Papal Legate.
While Allen and Parsons were labouring in Rome on behalf
of the King of Spain s claim to the Throne, Allen was in
correspondence with the King, urging him, on behalf of

the English Romanists, to assert his claim, and to punish
Elizabeth. The death of the Queen of Scots," he wrote,
"
makes them redouble their entreaties that he will take

"
pity upon them and help them, punishing the impious

shedders of the innocent blood of a crowned Queen, and
violaters of the rights of nations. Urges him to assert
his claim as next heir in blood, heretics being disqualified
to succeed, and denounces the Queen of England in violent
2
language as an impious traitress and usurper." Parsons,
however, with true Jesuit cunning, drew up a document,
which he forwarded to the Spanish Ambassador in Rome,
urging that the King of Spain s claim to the Throne should
be kept in the background, lest the Pope s enthusiasm for
the enterprise should cool down, if he thought it was under
taken merely for the aggrandisement of Philip, rather than
for the interests of the Church of Rome
and the jealousy ;
of other Princes should would be better

be aroused. It
to decide when the Armada arrived in England and
had been victorious, who should succeed Elizabeth. It
would then be seen that there will be no other Catholic
"
Prince alive whose claims will clash with those of his

3
Majesty "Philip II.
While these events were taking place, and the pre
parations for the Armada were being rapidly pushed
forward, all England was roused to indignation at the
treacherous surrender of De venter by Sir William Stanley,
a Roman Catholic. At this time England was at war with
Spain in the Netherlands, in defence of the Protestants,
1
Calendar of Venetian State Papers, vol. viii. p. 289.
2 3
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iv. p. 54. Ibid., p. 43.
whose awful sufferings at the hands of the Spanish In
quisition are eloquently describedby Motley in his Rise of
the Dutch Republic, and History of the United Netherlands.
Deventer was then the most important mercantile place
in all the Netherland Provinces, and the great centre of
the internal trade of the country with the Baltic nations.
Sir William Pelham had captured the town for the English,
and was then unwise enough to place over it, as Governor,
Sir William Stanley, and station in it as a garrison a regi
ment of 1200 Irish Roman Catholics, all soldiers in the
service of Queen Elizabeth. On the evening of January 28,
1588, Stanley entertained the magistrates of Deventer
at a splendid banquet, at which he assured his guests that
the Queen of England had not a more loyal subject than
himself, nor the Protestant Netherlands a more devoted
friend. At three o clock the following morning he left
Deventer on the plea that he was going to bring in more
soldiers into the town to strengthen it against the Spaniards.
He returned in an hour or two, bringing with him, not
soldiers to defend Elizabeth s cause, but a thousand Spanish
musketeers, and three or four hundred Spanish troopers.
With these and his Irish soldiers Stanley at once captured
the town on behalf of the King of Spain. When asked by the
Protestants of Deventer why he acted so, hisreply was :
have not done Not the hope of

"
I this for power or pelf.

reward, but the love of God hath moved me."
l
The disloyalty of Cardinal Allen is markedly seen in

the way he commented on the treachery of Sir William
Stanley, which he defended in a book bearing the title of
The Copie of a Letter written by M. Doctor Allen, Concerning
Yeelding of the Citie of Daventrie unto his Gatholike
up
Majestie, by Sir William Stanley. This book was reprinted,
with an historical Introduction by Mr. Thomas Heywood,
by the Chetham Society in 1851. In it Allen accurately
defined the teaching of the Church of Rome as to allegiance
to a Protestant Sovereign excommunicated by the Pope.
1
Motley s History of the Netherlands, vol. ii.
pp. 160-163, edition 1869.
DR. ALLEN AND SIR W. STANLEY 233
" "
As all acts of Justice within the Realm/ he wrote, done

by the Queen s authority, ever since she [Elizabeth] was, by
public sentence of the Church and See Apostolic, declared an

heretic, and an enemy of God s Church, and for the same by name
excommunicated, and deposed from all Regal dignity as, I ;
say, ever since the publication thereof, all is void by the law of
God and man so likewise no war can be lawfully denounced,
:
or waged by her, though otherwise it were in itself most just.

Because that is the first condition that is required in just war,
that it be by one denounced that hath lawful and supreme
power to do the same, as no excommunicate person hath, especi

ally if he be withal deposed from his Regal dignity, by Christ s
own Vicar, which is the Supreme Power in earth. And all
subjects are not only absolved, and discharged of their service,
Oath, homage, and obedience, but specially forbidden to serve,
or obey any such canonically condemned person. Saith Gregory
VII. We, according to our predecessors decrees, do assoil
:
and discharge all them that by obligation of Oath, or fidelity,

are bound to persons excommunicate and that they do not ;
obey such, we do expressly forbid. And for their discharge,
especially that serve in such wars, there is an express Canon of

Urban II. Give order that the sworn soldiers of Count Hugh,
:
serve him not so long as he standeth excommunicate and if ;
they pretend their former Oath made unto him, admonish them
that God is to be served before men. For that Oath which they
made to him then, when he was a Christian Prince, is not now
to be kept towards him, being an enemy to God and His Saints,
and a breaker and contemner of their commandments. . . .
And therewith perceive, that those that break with God, cannot claim
any bond of Oath, or fidelity of them that were their subjects." 1
When we remember that the man who wrote this traitor

ous book was, from that time until the end of his life, the
real leader of the English Roman Catholics, can any one
wonder at the increased vigilance against Roman Catholic
priests and laity at this period ? To treat Allen s utter
ances with silent contempt would have been an act of folly.
On the 10th of July 1587, Count de Olivares wrote to Juan
de Idiaquez to inform him that Allen and Robert Parsons
were
"
writing books to be spread in England," insisting

on the right of Philip II. to the Crown of England. 2 The
1
Chetham Society edition, pp. 22-24.
2
Calendar of Spanish Stale Papers, vol. iv. p. 122.
result of their combined labours was seen in the publica
tion of a scandalous and traitorous book issued at the time
of the Spanish Armada, with a view to obtaining a welcome
for it from English Romanists. It bore the title of An
Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and
by the Cardinal of England." It was reprinted,
"
Ireland,
with an introductory preface by "Eupator" (i.e. the Rev.
Joseph Mendham), in 1842. This reprint is so scarce that
I have only seen one copy of it offered for sale by second
hand booksellers during the past thirty years. In this
work Allen put forth the Papal claim to the Sovereignty
of England, a claim which Rome has never withdrawn.
He declared that :
Over and besides that she [Elizabeth] never had consent

"
nor any approbation of the See Apostolic, without which, she,

nor any other, can be lawful King or Queen of England, by reason
of the ancient accord made between Alexander III., the year
1171, and Henry II. then King, when he was absolved for the
,
death of St. Thomas of Canterbury, that no man might lawfully

take that Crown, nor be accounted as King, till he ivas confirmed by
the Sovereign Pastor of our souls, which for the time should be.
This accord afterwards being renewed, about the year 1210, by
King John, who confirmed the same by oath to Pandulph, the
Pope s Legate.
"
Elizeus caused Jehu to be consecrated King, and the house

of Achab to lose their right to the Kingdom, and his son Joram
to be slain by whose commandment cursed Jezebel was after
;
wards thrown out of her chamber window into the court, and
after eaten of dogs, in the very same place where she had committed
cruelty and wickedness before. This Jezebel, for sacrilege,
contempt of holy priests, rebellion against God, and cruelty,
doth so much resemble our Elizabeth, that in most foreign
countries and writings of strangers she is commonly called by
the name of Jezebel. I know not whether God have appointed her
to a or a better end.
like,
There is no war in the world so just or honourable, as that
"
which is waged for religion, whether it be foreign or civil nor ;
crime in the world deserving more sharp and zealous pursuit of

extreme revenge, than falling from the faith to strange religions,
whether it be in the superior or subjects.
"It is clear that what people or person soever be declared
DR. ALLEN S ADMONITION 235
to be rebellious against God s Church, by what obligation soever,

either of kindred, friendship, loyalty, or subjection I be bound
to them, I may, or, rather, must take arms against them no ;
thing doubting but when King or Prince hath broken with

my
Christ, by whom, and
for defence of whose honour he reigneth,
that then I most, lawfully break with him.
may
"
And for your better information his Holiness confirmeth,

reneweth, and reviveth, the Sentence Declaratory of Pius Quintus
. . and dischargeth all men from all
oath, obedience, loyalty,
and fidelity requiring and desiring in the bowels
towards her ;
of Christ, and commanding under pain of excommunication and

other penalties of the law, and as they look for the favour and
protection to them and theirs, afore promised, and will avoid the
Pope s, King s, and the other Princes high indignation, that no
man, of what degree or condition soever, obey, abet, aid, defend,
or acknowledge her for their Prince, or superior but that all ;
and every one, according to their quality, calling, and

ability, immediately upon intelligence of his Holiness will, by
these my letters, or otherwise, or at the arrival of his Catholic
Majesty s forces, be ready to join to the said army, with all the
powers and aids they can make, of men, munition, and victuals,
to help towards the restoring of the Catholic faith, and actual
deposing of the usurper.
"
Fight not, for God s love, fight not in that quarrel in which,
if
you you are sure to be damned. ... If you win, you
die,
save your whole Realm from subversion, and innumerable souls,
present and to come, from damnation. If you die, you be sure
to be saved, the blessing of Christ and His Church, the pardon
of his Holiness, given to all in most ample sort, that either take
"
arms, die, or any way duly endeavour in this quarrel.
It was
however, thought sufficient for Allen to
not,
thus address the English Romanists. What he had to say
would carry but little weight, unless it were seen that it
was supported by the Pope. That support was granted
by Sixtus V. in his Bull deposing her from her throne.
I subjoin some extracts from this document, which is printed
entire in Tierney s edition of Dodd s Church History, vol. iii.,
Appendix, pp. xliv.-xlviii :
"
And to notify to the world the justice of this act, and give
full satisfaction to the subjects of those Kingdoms and others
whosoever, and finally to manifest God s judgments upon sin,
his Holiness hath thought good, together with the Declaratory
Sentence of this woman s [Elizabeth] chastisement to publish
also the causes which have moved him to proceed against her
in this sort.
First, for that she is an heretic and schismatic, excommuni
"
cated by two of his Holiness predecessors obstinate in dis ;
obedience to God and the See Apostolic presuming to take upon;
her, contrary to nature, reason, and all laws both of God and
man, supreme jurisdiction and spiritual authority over men s
souls.
"
Secondly, for that she is a bastard, conceived and born by

incestuous adultery, and therefore incapable of the Kingdom,
as well by the several sentences of Clement VII. and Paul III.
of blessed memory, as by the public declaration of King Henry
himself.
"
Crown without right, having the

Thirdly, for usurping the
impediments mentioned, and contrary to the ancient accord
made between the See Apostolic and the Kealm of England,
upon reconciliation of the same after the death of St. Thomas
of Canterbury, in the time of Henry II. that none might be lawful,
King or Queen thereof, without the approbation and consent of the

Supreme Bishop ; which afterwards was renewed by King John
and confirmed by oath, as a thing most beneficial to the Kingdom,
at request and instance of the Lords and Commons of the same.
"
Wherefore, these things being of such nature and quality

that some of them make her unable to reign, others declare her
unworthy to live; his Holiness, in the Almighty power of God,
and by Apostolical authority to him committed, doth renew
the sentence of his predecessors Pius V. and Gregory XIII.,
touching the excommunication and deposition of the said Eliza
beth and further anew doth excommunicate, and deprive her
;
of all authority and Princely dignity, and of all title and pre
tension to the said Crown and Kingdoms of England and Ireland,
declaring her to be illegitimate, and an unjust usurper of the
same. And absolving the people of those States, and other persons
whatsoever, from all obedience, oath, and other bond of subjec
tion unto her, or to any other in her name. And further, doth
straightly of Almighty God
command, under the indignation
and pain excommunication, and the corporal punishment
of
appointed by the laws, that none, of whatsoever condition or

estate, after notice of these presents, presume to yield unto her
obedience, favour, or other succours but that they and every
;
of them concur by all means possible to her chastisement.

"
Our said Holy Father, of his benignity and favour to this

SIXTHS V. DEPOSES ELIZABETH 237
enterprise, out of the spiritual treasures of the Church, committed

to his custody and dispensation, granteth most liberally to all
such as assist, concur, or help in any wise to the deposition and
punishment of the above-named persons, and the reformation
of these two countries, Plenary Indulgence and pardon of all
their sins, being duly penitent, contrite, and confessed."
The terrible disaster which awaited the Spanish Armada

is known to every student of English history, and therefore
I need not describe it here. The thought of possible failure
never seems to have entered the minds of either Philip,
or the officers in command of the Armada. In their
opinion victory was assured before they had struck a blow.
Probably the Pope and Philip would never have com
menced preparing for the enterprise were it not for the
assurances of Allen and the Jesuit Parsons, who represented
that almost all England was ready to welcome the Spanish
and assist them in getting rid of Elizabeth and the
soldiers,
Protestant religion. As a specimen of these assurances,
by which the King of Spain was misled, I may quote A
Brief Note on the Present Condition of England, which
Parsons wrote in 1585, when the preparations for the
Armada had commenced. He
gave a long list of English
Roman Catholic Peers and
gentlemen who, he
influential
declared, were ready to rise in arms as soon as the Spanish
soldiers had landed in England. He then gave his reasons
for this hopeful view of the situation.
1. Because some of the principals
among them have
given me
their promise.
Because, on hearing that Pope Pius intended to
"
2.
excommunicate and depose the Queen sixteen years ago,

many did rise. They only
Catholics failed because no
support was sent them, and the Pope s sentence had not
at that time been actually published. Now, when the
Pope has spoken, and help is certain, there is not a doubt
how they will act.
Because the Catholics are now much more numer
"3.
ous, and have received daily instruction in their religion

from our priests. There is now no orthodox Catholic in
the whole Realm who supposes that he is any longer bound
in conscience to obey the Queen. Books for the occasion
have been written and published by us, in which we prove
that it is not only lawful for Catholics, but their positive
duty to fight against the Queen and heresy when the Pope
bids them; and these books are so greedily read among
them that when the time comes they are certain to take
arms.
"4. The Catholics in these late years have shown their
real feeling in the martyrdoms of priests and laymen, and
in attempts made by several of them against the person
and State of the Queen. Various Catholics have tried to
kill her at the risk of their own lives, and are still
trying.
We have three hundred priests dispersed among the
"
houses of the nobles and honest gentry. Every day we

add to their number ;
and these priests will direct the
consciences and actions of the Catholics at the great
1
crisis."
While there can be no doubt that Parsons took altogether

too hopeful a view of the situation, his letter affords irre
futable evidence of the disloyal work of the Jesuits and many
other priests in England at that time. Their very presence
in England constituted a grave danger to the State. Tierney
states that in the army which was conveyed by the Armada
there
"
was a body of seven hundred English exiles, com

manded by Sir William Stanley."
2
But when the Armada
was off the English coast, it was soon known to Elizabeth
and her Council that it would not receive much assistance
from the resident Roman Catholics in England. There
were various reasons for this. Fear, no doubt, operated
in many cases. It was soon seen that it was impossible
to resist the patriotic feeling of the nation, devoted to the
1
Fronde s English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 150, 151, edition
1895.
2
Tierney s Dodd s Church History, vol. iii. p. 27.
THE SPANISH ARMADA 239
protection of the Queen. Then there was a section of

Roman Catholics who, though quite willing to engage in
a war having for its object the destruction of Protestantism,
were not at all favourable to a war which would subject
England to a Spanish ruler. They favoured the plot for

the perversion to Popery of the young King of Scotland,
which at that time seemed very likely to succeed. And
as he was the legal heir to Elizabeth, they were quite willing
to assist this Scottish plot, which at that time was in pro
gress, to throw a foreign army into Scotland, which would

then march into England, dethrone Elizabeth, and place
James on the throne. There was a third class of Roman
Catholics in England at the time, who were quite willing
to receive their religion from Rome, but refused to concede
to the Pope the right to interfere with the political govern
ment of England. Since the Reformation there has always
been a small minority of Roman Catholics opposed to the
political pretensions of the Papacy, and these, when the
Spanish Armada was expected, rallied to the side of the
Queen, and showed themselves willing to fight for her.
What they would have done if victory had been granted
to the Spaniards is a matter for conjecture. It can hardly
be supposed that they would have grieved very much.
It has been stated that Lord Howard of Effingham, who
was Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet which destroyed
the Armada, was a Roman Catholic. But there is no
evidence to prove this. Had he been one his name would
certainly have appeared in Gillow s Bibliographical Dic
tionary of English Catholics. Its absence from that work
may be taken as, in itself, sufficient proof that he was not

a member of the Church of Rome. Further, and irrefut
able evidence on this point, is contained in the Monthly
Letter of the Protestant Alliance, for May 1888.
Great efforts were put forth to induce the young King
of Scotland to join the Spanish party, and give aid to the
Spanish Armada. Maitland, who was then Lord Chancellor
of Scotland, was a strong supporter of the Protestant
cause, and used his influence to defeat these efforts. As
he stood in the way, the Pope gave authority to have
him assassinated. Early in 1589, John Arnold, a Car
thusian Prior, wrote to Philip II. about this bloodthirsty
business :
The Bishop of Cassano [Dr. Lewis], desirous to recover

the lost Kingdoms of England and Scotland, sent, about
two years ago, at his own cost, to Scotland, a Scotsman,
the Bishop of Dunblane, a Monk of the Carthusian Order,
to gain over the King or some of the nobles to aid the
Spanish Armada. . . . On the evil fate of the Armada being

known, his Chancellor [Maitland], who is maintained by
English tyranny, and is a pestilent heretic most fatal to
his country, dissuaded him, and induced him rather to
ally with the murderess of his sainted mother.
himself
Notwithstanding this, the Bishop [of Cassano] sends me
to you, in his name, to say that if you wish to have the
King in your power he will deliver him to you, although
against the King s own will and that of all his people. But
in order to bring this about, the first thing to do is to kill
the Chancellor, who is so bound up with the Englishwoman
[Elizabeth] and is so powerful in Scotland. The Bishop

promises to have this done, although he is a priest, AS HE HAS
1
HIS HOLINESS AUTHORITY FOR IT."
For several years after the Armada, the King of Scot

land wavered between the Pope and the Protestant cause,
waiting, no doubt, to see which would win in Scotland ;
and anxious, above all, that he should not lose his chance
of becoming King of England. The Pope and the King
of Spain offered liberal financial and other aid if James
would only take their side. His wife (Anne of Denmark)
was secretly a Roman Catholic, using all her influence on
the side of the Pope and Spain. And the Jesuits were
particularly active in stirring up the Roman Catholic-
nobles of Scotland to take up arms, with a view to crush
Protestantism in that country, and afterwards in England.
1
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iv. p. 542.
OTHER PLOTS TO MURDER ELIZABETH 241
Several of these noblemen were really Romanists, though

making an outward profession of Protestantism, and at
tending the services of the Kirk of Scotland. For par
ticulars of these intrigues, I must refer my readers to my
Jesuits in Great Britain, where will also be found the principal
facts relating to various other assassination plots to murder
Elizabeth during the remainder of her life. Those who
were executed for these attempts at rebellion in England
and Scotland were mainly convicted on the evidence of
spies, whose testimony must always be received with great
caution. But, as a modern Jesuit, the late Rev. H. J.
Coleridge, remarks :
The words of the apostate spies, so much employed

"
by the Government of Elizabeth and James, who retailed

evil concerning the Catholics, and invented where they
could not collect any, are sometimes of use in history.
For, feigning themselves true children of the Church, they
gained access where otherwise they would have been shut
out. When
truth was convenient they used it, so that by
their means information has come down to us, especially
in matters of personal history, which, but for them, would
1
often have been lost."
Major Martin Hume, commenting on the various plots

to murder Elizabeth, between the failure of the Armada
and her death, after asserting that some of them were bogus
plots, adds :
There were undoubtedly several that were in some

degree dangerous and real. They all emanated from the
same small group of extremists in Flanders, with the more
or less open connivance of the Spanish Ministers there
though probably at this juncture without the aid of
Philip himself. The proposed perpetrators were usually
some of the wild, reckless swashbucklers, English or Irish,
who swaggered, drank, and diced in the Flemish cities.
There seems to have been no attempt at concealment.
We are told that these plots were regularly discussed at
1
Coleridge s Life of Mary Ward, vo], i. p. 398.
Q
a council table at which sat such men as Stanley, Owen,
Jacques Francis (Stanley s Burgundian lieutenant), and
even some of the leading Jesuit priests, such as Holt,
Sherwood, and Walpole, are said to have given their
]
approval."
1
Hume s Treason and Plot, pp. 100, 101.
CHAPTER XVI
ELIZABETH (concluded)
Another Penal Law in England Parsons tries to prevent King Jaines
succeeding to the English Throne Another Irish Rebellion The
Archbishop of Tuam goes to Spain for help What he said at the
Spanish Court Pope Clement VIII. sends an Envoy to the Irish
Rebels The Irish Viceroy offers full freedom and liberty of con
"
science" to the Romanists The Pope sends Jesuits to Ireland who

help the Rebels The Rebellion a War for Religion only Clement VIII. s
Bull blessing the Irish Rebellion A General sent to the Irish Rebels
by the Pope His Proclamation Two Popish Universities justify the
Rebellion Defeat of the Rebellion Its Leaders honoured by the
Pope The Pope s Briefs in favour of a Roman Catholic Successor to
Elizabeth Elizabeth s Treatment of her Roman Catholic Subjects
The Pope angry with four Priests who termed her "Queen" The
Pope did not want Toleration for English Romanists An English
Papist writes against Toleration for Papists.
ONE result of the assassination plots, and the Spanish

Armada, was seen in the passing of a new penal law, in
1593. The preamble of the 34 Elizabeth, cap. 2, states
the reasons for further repressive measures For the :
"
better discovering and avoiding of such traitorous and

most dangerous conspiracies and attempts, as are daily
devised and practised against our most gracious Sovereign,
the Queen s Majesty, and the happy estate of this common
weal, by sundry wicked and seditious persons, who, terming
themselves Catholics, and being indeed spies and intelli
gences, not only for her Majesty s foreign enemies, but also
for rebellious and traitorous subjects born within her
Highness Realms and dominions, and hiding their most

detestable and devilish purposes under a false pretence of
religion and conscience, do secretly wander and shift from
place to place within this Realm, to corrupt and seduce her
Majesty s subjects, and to stir them to sedition and
rebellion."
243
By this Act it was provided that every person above
sixteen years of age, born within the Realm, and being a
Popish Recusant, shall, within forty days, repair to his
place of dwelling, and not at any time pass or remove from
it to any place above five miles distant. Every Popish
Recusant, convicted of not attending his parish church,
shall not remove to any place above five miles from his
residence, under penalty of forfeiting all his goods and

chattels, together with their rents, during his life. Any "
person, being a Popish Recusant, not having any certain

and abode
"
place of dwelling within the Realm, shall

repair to the place where such person was born, or where
"
the father or mother of such person shall then be dwelling,

and shall not at any time after remove or pass above five
miles from thence," under penalty of losing all his goods
and chattels, together with any rents or annuities belonging
to him, during his life. It was further provided that all
Popish Recusants should notify their names in writing to

the Minister or Curate of the parishes in which they resided.
"
Popish Recusants, not having lands, tenements, rents,

or annuities, of the clear yearly value of twenty marks,"
were more severely dealt with. It was not sufficient to
comply with the provisions already cited but it was further ;
enacted that if any of this class broke the law as to the five
miles limit, then, unless they should conform themselves
to the law requiring their attendance at Divine Service in
their parish church, they should be required to take an
abjure this Realm of England, and all other her
"
oath to
Majesty dominions
s for ever, and thereupon depart out of
"
this Realm at such haven or port as shall have been selected

for them. If, however, they refused to make the abjura
in every such case the person so offending
"
tion, then
shall be adjudged a felon, and shall suffer and lose as in
If any person which shall be suspected
"
case of felony."
to be a Jesuit, Seminary, or Massing priest, being examined
by any person having lawful authority in that behalf to
examine such person which shall be so suspected, shall
ANOTHER PENAL LAW 245
refuse to answer directly whether he be a Jesuit or a

Seminary or Massing priest," he shall be committed to
prison, and kept there until he answers the questions.
Provision was made for granting Popish Recusants licences
shall have
"
to travel beyond the five miles limit, if they
necessary occasion or business."

This law was severe and }êt can scarcely be termed
it
unjust, except as regards its penalties for non-attendance at

the parish church services. In this, however, they were no
worse off than the Puritans, who were similarly penalised
by the Act 34 Elizabeth, cap. 1. The whole object of
this Act against Popish Recusants was, as its preamble
shows, to put an end to treasonable practices, and to
maintain peace in the State, which had been very seriously
disturbed by dangerous conspirators. The Act was mild
ness itself when compared with the laws at the very time
being enforced against Protestants by the Spanish Inquisition.
During the remainder of Queen Elizabeth s life, Robert
Parsons, the Jesuit, devoted most of his energies to securing
a Roman Catholic successor to the Queen. He no longer
had any expectation that the legal heir, the King of
Scotland, would become a Roman Catholic, nor did he
think it judicious for the
King of Spain to reign in England,
and therefore he set to work with all his might to secure
the Throne of England for the Infanta, the daughter of
Philip II. In furtherance of this scheme he published, in
1596, under the name of
"
R. Dcleman," his well-known

book, entitled A Conference About the Next Succession to
theThrone of England, in which he very strongly advocated

I affirm and hold," he wrote,
"
the claims of the Infanta.

that for any man to give his help, consent, or assistance
towards the making of a King [of England], whom lie
judgeth or beiieveth to be faulty in religion, and conse
quently would advance either no religion, or the wrong, if
lie were in
authority, is a most grievous and damnable sin
to him that doeth it."
]
On September 8, 1595, Parsons

1
Parsons Conference, &c., part i.
p. 172, edition 1(581.
wrote to a friend on the same subject
"
enough for a : It is
Catholic sober man to have any Prince, admitted by the
body of his Realm, and allowed by the, authority of God s
Catholic Church, and that will defend the religion of his old
noble ancestors and without this nothing is sufficient,
;
nor should any reason in this world move us to yield him

favour or obedience, though he were our father, son, or
1
brother."
The Court of Rome has ever been the enemy of all

Protestant Governments. She may from time to time try
to conceal her real sentiments under a mask of friend
ship, but ever deep down in her heart is a spirit of deadly
hatred. This spirit was markedty seen in Ireland during
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At about the
period we are now considering, her Bishops and priests in
Ireland were actively engaged in fomenting rebellion against
English rule with the benediction of the Pope, and with
the aid of the money and arms of the King of Spain.
In 1593, the titular Archbishop of Tuam (Dr. James
O Hely), arrived in Spain, where he stated that the most
powerful chiefs in the North of Ireland had sent him to
acquaint the King that they had determined to take up
arms against the Queen and the English heretics, and to
request his Majesty to send troops and arms to assist
them. The Archbishop added that it would be of great
importance to the success of the rebellion, if the King were
write very affectionately to the Earl of Tyrone, whose
"
to
name is O Neill, to induce him to enter into the confederacy
openly. He already belongs to it secretly." An account 2
of what the Archbishop said while at the Spanish Court

was presented to the King of Spain. It stated that The :
"
Archbishop of Tuam in Ireland says that for years past

he has been anxious, and has laboured much both in public
and in private, to unite and combine in a League and in
friendship the Catholics of Ireland, for the purpose of
1
Taunton s History of the Jesuits in England, p. 150, note.
2
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iv. p. (511.
O NEILL S IRISH REBELLION 247
making them take up arms on behalf of the Catholic faith,

and of your Majesty s service against the English heretics.
In this he has been successful, for the most powerful Lords
of the Catholic party in the northern part of the Kingdom
have united and risen against the Queen with great
unanimity, and many other Catholics mean to do the
The Roman Catholic Bishop of Killaloe also wrote
like."
l
to the King of Spain, on September 3, 1593, in support

of the Archbishop of Tuam s appeal for arms and soldiers.
"
I beg you, most mighty King," he pleaded,

"
by the
Blood of Jesus, to enter on this task with a lively faith and
courageous mind. By sending this force to Ireland your
Majesty will acquire everlasting renown, and a vast and
2
fertile Kingdom."
The Archbishop returned to Ireland, with promises of

help from Philip, which, however, were not fulfilled until
several years later. On the way home the ship in which
the Archbishop sailed was wrecked, and he was drowned.
The Pope was also anxious to help the rebels to the utmost
of his power. Dr. Renehan states that in 1594, Pope
Clement VIII. sent Dr. M Gauran titular Archbishop of
Armagh, as his Envoy to the Irish nation. 3 And Sullivan
records that About this time
:
"
Edmund M Gauran,
Primate of Ireland, Archbishop of Armagh, was conveyed
from Spain by James Fleming, a merchant of Drogheda,
bearing a message to the Irish from the King of Spain,
to declare war on the Protestants in defence of the Catholic
faith, and informing them that he would very speedily
send them aid. The Primate going to Maguire, who was
already at war, and a man of warlike propensities, had no
difficulty in persuading him to continue the struggle on the
faith of his Catholic Majesty s assurances, and reliance on
his sending assistance." 4 Soon after, in a battle between
the troops of Maguire and those of the Queen, Archbishop
1
Life of Hugh Roe O Donndl. Edited, with Historical Introduction, by
the Rev. Denis Murphy, S.J., 2
p. lii. Ibid., p. lii.
3
Renehan s Collections on Irish Church Hilton/, p. 18.
4
O Sullivan s Hivtory of Catholic Ireland, p. 70, edition 1903 (Dublin).
M Gauran was killed on the battle-field. It was not long
after hisdeath that Hugh O Neill, Earl of Tyrone, started
the Rebellion with which his name is so closely connected.
He was a double-faced hypocrite for years before this,
even attending Protestant Church services occasionally, for
the purpose of furthering his selfish and ambitious plans.
But now, as leader of the Rebellion, he showed himself in
his true colours. Philip sent an emissary to Ireland, a
Captain Alonso Cobos, with instructions to ascertain what
were the prospects of the war. He reported to his master
that he arrived in Ireland at the time when the Irish "
chiefs had almost concluded peace with the Queen, on

"
terms satisfactory to themselves but that they, o wing- ;
to his persuasions, desisted from making peace, and had

*
decided upon taking up arms against the Queen of
England, and sincerely turning their hearts to God and the
King, in whose services as faithful vassals they remain."
i
O Neill himself admitted, in a letter to Philip, dated May 25,

"
1596, that before the arrival of the

King messenger, s
very favourable offers of peace had been made to them

on behalf of the Viceroy, giving to Catholics full freedom
and liberty of conscience." 2 But O Neill was not satis
fied with mere freedom and liberty of conscience. What
he wanted was absolute supremacy for the Church of
Rome, and if that had been secured, after a successful
war, I believe almost every Protestant who had not been
killed would have been banished out of Ireland. In this
year, 1596, letters appealing for help were sent to Philip
by the titular Bishops of Raphoe and Killaloe and the ;
Jesuit Parsons wrote to Idiaquez, on September 2nd, that

"
he thought this Irish way might be adopted advantage
ously, with God s blessing."

3
But the patience of the
rebels was well-nigh exhausted before Spain sent any sub
stantial assistance. Before it arrived, in response to a
petition from O Neill, the Pope sent a number of Jesuits to
1
Calendar of Spanish State Paper*, vol. iv. p. 619.
2 3
Ibid., p. 620. Ibid., p. 634.
THE EXTIRPATION OF HERESY 249
Ireland, whose activity was certainly not confined to the

spiritual sphere. Prominent amongst these were James
Archer, S.J., Henry Fitzsimon, S.J., and a lay Jesuit,
named Dominic Collins, who was sent as companion to
Archer. These landed in Waterford in October, 1596.
But it was not until the autumn of 1599 that two Spanish
vessels, bringing not only promises of future help, but
also 22,000 gold pieces to pay Neill s O army, arrived in
Ireland. On board one of these vessels was Matthew do
"
Oviedo. titular
Archbishop Dublin, bringing," says of
O Sullivan, from the Pope Indulgences and remission of
"
sins to all who would take arms against the English in

defence of the Faith." l It is clear that the war was for
religion, and the personal aggrandisement of O Neill, and
only indirectly, and as quite a secondary matter, for the
remedying of any merely worldly grievances under which
"
the Irish suffered. In his Address to the Catholics of

the Towns of Ireland," which he signed on November 15,
1599, O Neill clearly explains the main objects of the Re

" "
bellion. Upon my salvation," he declared, that chiefly

and principally I fight for the Catholic faith," and for
2
extirpation of heresy."
"the
King, in his Church History
of Ireland., states that this Address also contained the
following statement :
"
Some Catholics do think them

selves bound
obey the Queen as their lawful Prince,
to
which denied, in respect that she was deprived of all
is
such Kingdoms, dominions, and possessions, which other

wise, perhaps, should have been due unto her, inasmuch
as she is left a private person, and no man bound to give
her obedience and beyond all this, such as were sworn
;
to be faithful unto her, were by his Holiness absolved from
performance thereof, seeing she is, by a declaration of

excommunication, pronounced a heretic neither is there ;
any revocation of the excommunication, as some Catholics

do most falsely, for particular affection, surmise for the ;
1
O Sullivan s Catholic History, p. 130, edition 11)0:}.
-
Median s Fulc arA Fortunes of Hugh O Neill, p. 22, third edition.
sentence was from the beginning given for heresy, and
for continued heresy the same was continued." Meehan,
who professes to give the whole of O Neill s Address, omits
this section, without any explanation. O Neill s object
was the
" "
extirpation of heresy by the sword, not by

preaching or books, and that was the same as the extirpa
tion of heretics.
To aid on the Rebellion, Pope Clement VIII., on
April 18, issued a Bull,1600, addressed to "the Arch
bishops, Bishops, and Prelates ;
also to our beloved chil
dren, the Princes, Earls, Barons, and people of the Kingdom
of Ireland." He tells them that :
(
Whereas we have learned, that in pursuance of exhorta
tions addressed toyou some while past, by the Popes of Rome,
this
our predecessors, and by ourselves and the Apostolic See, for
the recovery of your liberty, and the defence and preservation
of the same against the attacks of heretics, you have with united
hearts and efforts, followed, and supplied with aid and assistance,
first, James Geraldine of worthy memory after that John . . .
Geraldine, kinsman of the said James and most recently our ;
beloved son, the noble Lord Hugh, Prince O Neill, styled Earl
Tyrone, Baron of Dungannon, and Captain General of the Catholic
army in Ireland. And, whereas, further, the Generals themselves
and their soldiers have in progress of time, the hand of the Lord
of Hosts assisting them, achieved very many noble exploits in
valiant combat with the enemy, and are still ready for the like
hereafter :
We, therefore (to encourage you, and the General and

soldiers aforesaid, to exert yourselves with the more alacrity for
the time to come also, in giving your existence to this expedition
against the heretics aforesaid), having a desire to confer upon
you spiritual graces and favours, after the example set us by
our predecessors aforesaid, and in dependence on the mercy of
Almighty God, and the authority of Blessed Peter and Paul,
His Apostles, do mercifully grant in the Lord to you all and
singular (if truly penitent and confessing, and likewise refreshed,
if itbe possible, with the Holy Communion) who shall follow the
said General Hugh and his army, the champions and asserters
of the Catholic faith, and who shall join yourselves to their
King s Church History of Ireland, vol. ii. pp. 830, 831. Sec also Pbelan
1
s
Policy of the Church of Home in Ireland, p. 231, third edition.

CLEMENT VIII. AIDS O NEILL 251
number, or give them help in this expedition by your counsel,

countenance, arms, and other implements of
military stores,
war, or in any mode whatsoever and also to the said General
;
Hugh and the soldiers of his army, all and singular, a plenary
indulgence and remission of all their sins, and the same privileges
as have been usually conceded by the Popes of Rome to those
who set out for the war against the Turks, and for the recovery
l
of the Holy Land."
li
Cardinal Moran amongst the Royal pre
states that
sents which the Irish chieftain [O Neill] received ... is
specially mentioned the gift by his Holiness of a costly
2
Crown, adorned with a rich plumage of phoenix feathers."
On September 23, 1601, Don Juan de Aquila, General
of the sent by the King of Spain to aid the Irish
Army
rebels, landed at Kinsale with his troops. Any one who
reads the concluding portion of the fourth volume of Mr.
Martin Hume s Calendar of Spanish State Papers will find
abundant evidence that he was sent, with the blessing of
the Pope, to make Philip III. of Spain, King of Ireland.
Soon after his arrival Aquila issued a proclamation, stating
that he had come to Ireland to enforce the Deposing Bulls
of the Popes.
But ye know full well," he said,
" "
that many years

since, Elizabeth was deprived of her Kingdom, and all
her subjects absolved from their fidelity by the Pope, unto
whom He that reigneth in the Heavens, the King of Kings,
hath committed all power, that he should root up, destroy,
plant, and build in such sort, that he may punish temporal
Kings (if it be good for the temporal building), even
shall
to their deposing, which thing hath been done in the
Kingdoms of England and Ireland, by many Popes, viz.
by Pius V., Gregory XIII., and now by Clement VIII., as
it is well known. Which Bulls are extant amongst us. I
speak to Catholics, not to fro ward heretics, who have fallen
from the faith of the Roman Church, seeing they are blind
leaders of the blind, and such as know not the grounds of
1
"
King s Church History of Ireland, vol. iii. pp. 12SG, 1287.
DC Rcgno Ilibcrnicc, edited by Cardinal Moran, p. xii. (Dublin, 1868).
the truth, it is no marvel that they do also disagree from
us in this thing but our brethren the Catholics, walking
;
in the pureness of the faith, and yielding to the Catholic

Church (which is the very pillar of the truth) will easily
understand those things. Therefore it remaineth that

all
the Irish, which adhere to us, do work with us nothing

that is against God s laws, or their due obedience, nay
that which they do is according to God s word, and the
obedience which they owe to the Pope. . . .
most beloved, seeing that which you

"
Therefore, my
have for so many years before desired and begged for,
with prayers and tears and that now, even now, the
;
Pope, Vicar on earth, doth command you to take

Christ s
arms for the defence of your faith, I admonish, exhort,
and beseech you all all, I say, unto whom these letters
;
shall come, that as soon as possibly you can, you come to

us, with } our friends and weapons.
7
Whosoever shall do
this shall find us prepared, and we will communicate unto
them those things which we possess. And whosoever shall
(despising our wholesome counsel) do otherwise, and remain
in the obedience of the English, we will persecute him as
an heretic, and a hateful enemy of the Church even unto
1
death."
The Roman Catholic Universities of Salamanca and

Valladolid were appealed to by the Irish rebels, to give
an opinion as to the lawfulness of their war against Eliza
beth. need scarcely be added that that opinion was
It
" "
favourable to the rebels. It they said, beyond is,"
doubt that any Catholics may give their countenance to the

said Prince, Hugh O war aforesaid, and that
Neill, in the
with great merit and hope of an eternal recompense.
fullest
For as the aforesaid Prince makes war by authority of the

Supreme Pontiff, in defence of the Catholic religion, and
the Pontiff, in his letter, exhorts him and all the faithful
servants of Christ to adopt that course, as is evident from
his letter and confers many graces on those who give
;
1
Pacata llibcrnia, pp. 201, 202, edition I(j33.
O NEILL HONOURED BY THE POPE 253
their countenance to the Prince in that war, as though
they were engaged in war against the Turks, no person can

reasonably doubt but that the war engaged in is a just
one, and that to fight for the defence of the Catholic re
ligion, the greatest of all blessings, a proceeding highly

is
meritorious in its character. As touching the second

that all those Catholics
question also, it is quite certain,
are guilty of mortal sin who follow the camp of the English
against the said Prince and that they cannot obtain eternal
;
salvation, nor be absolved of their sins by any priest, unless

they first repent and desert from the camp of the English. And
the same sentence must be passed on those who support
the English with aid of arms or provisions in that war." l
O Neill and his Spanish helpers gained several victories
over the English. The news of these successes greatly
cheered Pope Clement VIII., who, on January 20, 1601,
addressed to O Neill a letter of hearty congratulation,
praising him and his helpers for their courage in carry
ing on the war against the Protestant heretics. And "
when there shall be occasion," wrote the Pope, we will "
write effective letters to the Catholic Kings and Princes,

our children, that they support you and your cause with
2
all the aid in their power." But all in vain were the
Papal blessings and promises. Disaster after disaster befell
the rebels, until at early in 1603, Hugh O Neill, Earl
last,
of Tyrone, gave up the contest, and, after an interval,
fled to the Continent. Eventually he arrived in Rome,
where a right Royal welcome was given him by the Pope.
Rome was then," says Father Meehan, crowded with
" "
distinguished strangers from all parts of the world, each

vieing with the other to secure fitting places to witness the
grand ceremonial [of Canonisation]. But, of them all,
none were so honoured as O Neill, O Donnell, their ladies,
and retinue. By the Pope s orders, tribunes were especi
ally erected for them right under the dome. This, indeed,
1
King s Church History of Ireland, vol. iii.
pp. 1301-1305.
2
Ibid., vol. iii. pp. 1289-1291.
was a signal mark of his Holiness respect for his guests,
1
greater than which he could not exhibit."
Towards the close of Elizabeth s life, the selection of

her successor to the Throne was a matter of anxious con
sideration, not only to the English Jesuits and other English
Romanists, but to the Pope also. The Pope took active
steps to secure a Roman Catholic successor. He issued
two Briefs, both dated July 6, 1600, and addressed one
to the English Roman Catholic laity, and the other to the
English priests, as also a letter to the Nuncio in Flanders.

The contents of these Briefs were thus described by the
Jesuit, Henry Garnet, in his voluntary confession, dated
March One of the Briefs," he said, was to
;
"
13, 1605.
all lay Catholics, the other to all the clergy. The effect of
both was that none should consent to any successor (being
never so near in blood) except he were not only such as
would give toleration to Catholics, but also would with
all his might set forward the Catholic religion and, ;
according to the custom of other Catholic Princes, submit

himself to the See Apostolical. The effect of the letter to
the Nuncio was that he should be very vigilant, and when
he heard the Queen to be dead, he should in the Pope s
name intimate this commandment to all the Catholics
2
in England." It is noteworthy that one of the chief of
the conspirators used these very Briefs as a
Gunpowder
justification of the Plot they hatched. know this on We
the testimony of Garnet, who, in his examination of
March 14, 1608, signed by his own hand, said :
"
He confesseth that about midsummer was twelve

month, Catesby and Winter, or Catesby alone, came to him
at White Webbs, and told this examinate that there was a
plot in hand for the Catholic cause against the King and
the State, which would work good effect. From the which
when this examinate (as he saith) dissuaded him, Catesby
said that he was sure it was lawful and used this argu- ;
1
Meehan s Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, p. 170,
third edition.
2
Jardine s Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, p. 339.
JESUITS DID NOT WISH FOR TOLERATION 255
c
ment, That it being lawful by the force of the said Briefs

of the Pope to have kept the King out, it was as lawful
now him
"
l
to put out.
Throughout the greater portion of Elizabeth s reign,

and down to her death, the Popes and the Jesuits had done
all in their Crown. Their
power to deprive her of her
attitude compelled her to adopt severe measures to prevent
them succeeding in their plots. Liberty of conscience,
as understood in our was unknownown yet the
time, ;
wonder is that she was not more severe. Her treatment

of the Romanists was mildness itself when compared with the
treatment at that time meted out to Protestants by Roman
Catholic Sovereigns. All through her reign she showed
no thirst for blood, as her sister Mary had done. She was
even anxious to spare the death penalty whenever a priest,
or Roman Catholic layman, gave unequivocal proof of his
loyalty to the Throne apart from religion. The adminis
tration of her penal laws was frequently milder than the
laws themselves. All through her reign, Popes and Jesuits
never made the slightest attempt towards a mutual under
standing. Every olive branch held out by Elizabeth and
her Government was contemptuously and defiantly rejected
by Rome s emissaries. It came at last to this pass that
neither Pope nor Jesuits wished for toleration or liberty
of conscience for their co-religionists. Toleration was the
very thing they dreaded. No wonder, therefore, that they
did not get it. Towards the close of Elizabeth s reign,
several secular priests endeavoured to secure toleration
on the basis of loyalty to the Queen in temporals. These
efforts were encouraged by the Government but, un ;
fortunately, their numbers were too small to justify them

claiming to be the representatives of the majority of
English Roman Catholics. When four of these secular

priests went to Rome on a mission to the Pope, in 1602,
one of them, Father Mush, in his Diary, tells us that the
Pope
"
was offended that we named her Queen whom the

1
Jardine*s Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, p. .341.
See Apostolic had deposed and excommunicated." x The
Pope, says Mush, also told them that, "for a toleration or
liberty of conscience in England, it would do harm and
make Catholics become heretics ;
that persecution was
profitable to the Church, and therefore not to be so much
laboured for to be averted or stayed by toleration." 2
What
the English Jesuits thought of toleration to the
English Romanists, may be understood by the perusal of
a letter written on February 2, 1598, by Henry Tichborne,
S.J., and addressed to Thomas Darby shire. S.J. Referring
to a proposed alteration of English laws so as to favour
liberty and toleration to Romanists, he declared that

this means was so dangerous that what rigour of laws
"
could not compass in so many years, this liberty and lenity

will effectuate in twenty days, to wit, the disfurnishing of
the seminaries, the disanimating of men to come and others
to return, the expulsion of the Society [of Jesus], a con
fusion as in Germany, extinction of zeal and fervour, a
disanimation of Princes from the hot pursuit of the enter
prise. This discourse of liberty is but an invention
. . .
of busy heads, and neither for to be allowed, nor accepted

3
if it might be procured."
1 -
Tlie Arch-priest Controversy, vol. ii. p. G. Ibid,, p. 6.
3
Law s Jesuits and Seculars, pp. 141, 142.
CHAPTER XVII
JAMES I.
Hope of theEomanists on James Accession James deceives the Romanists

The Plot of Father William Watson Watson infamously Betrayed
by the Jesuits A Plot to secure Armed Assistance from Spain What
Guy Favvkes revealed about it Father Garnet, S.J., knew about the
Plot Father Creswell, S.J., supports it enthusiastically James I.
gives reasons for banishing Jesuits Improved Condition of Romanists
under King James An Act against Jesuits, Seminary Priests, and
Romanists The Penal Laws not generally enforced The Papists
provoke the King to Severity The Gunpowder Plot The Lay Con
spirators were Spiritual Children of the Jesuits Father Strange, S.J.,
on Lawfulness of killing the King Father Oldcorne, S.J., said the Plot
was "Commendable and Good" Father John Gerard, S.J., and the
Plot Father Henry Garnet, S.J., and the Gunpowder Plot Garnet s
Acknowledgments of Guilt.
WITH the accession of James Throne of England,

I. to the
the hopes of the Roman Catholics revived. While in Scot
land he had shown himself willing to do many things in
favour of the Romanists rather than risk his Crown. But
all through his
reign in Scotland his dearest ambition was
to ascend the Throne of England on the death of Elizabeth,
and, for the sake of that, he was quite willing to sacrifice
principle for profit. He thought it to his interests to have
the Romanists of England on his side, and to gain their
support I have no doubt he privately made promises of
toleration to them which he never meant to keep. His
real sentiments on this subject are clearly revealed in the
letter which, in 1600, he addressed to one of his Scottish
subjects, Lord Hambleton, who was at the time on a visit
to England. He urged him to assure all whom he met
that, when he became King of England, he was determined
not only to maintain and continue the profession of the
"
Gospel there, but withal not suffer or permit any other

- 57
R
religion to be professed and avowed within the bounds of
that Kingdom." 1 One of those who were deceived by
James promise of toleration to Romanists was William
Watson, the well-known Secular priest, and a prominent
enemy of the Jesuits, whose disloyalty to the Throne he
was never tired of denouncing. He was arrested on a
charge of High Treason, having conspired with others to
secure the person of the King, intending to keep him in
custody until he promised to grant toleration to the
Romanists. It was a very foolish plot, which never had
a serious prospect of success. But it was very dastardly
of the Jesuits to be the first to reveal it to the Government,
because they did not make it known out of any love for
James, or through any loyalty to his Throne, but for the sole
purpose of having their revenge on their old enemy Watson.
Father Gerard, who was implicated in the Gunpowder Plot,
but made his escape to the Continent, frankly admitted (what
under ordinary circumstances would have been to the credit
of their loyalty) that the plot of Watson was revealed to him
for the purpose of obtaining his advice, and that he, to prevent
its success, made it known to Father Garnet, the Arch-priest
Blackwell, and to a gentleman in the Royal Court.
2
Brother
Foley, S.J., says that Garnet
"
immediately took steps to

make it 3
The hypocrisy of this Jesuit pretence
known."
at loyalty ably exposed by Father Taunt on, who writes

is :
Poor William Watson was betrayed by the man [Garnet]

"
who, two years after, would not betray his friend Catesby ;
and the virulent opponent of the Jesuits expiated his

treason on the scaffold. To put this matter of Watson s
fate in its true light, we must remember that almost at
the very time Garnet informed against Watson, the Jesuits
were participating in Wright s and Fawkes attempt to
induce Philip to invade England." 4 With regard to this
Strype s Annals of the Reformation, vol. iv.

1
p. 499, edition 1824.
2
The Condition of Catholics under James I., edited by John Morris,
S. J., p. 74.
3
Foley s Records of the English Province, S.J., vol. iv. p. 60, note.
4
Taunton s History of the Jesuits in England, p. 284.
THE SPANISH PLOT 259
last-named attempt, which, strictly speaking, comes under

the reign of Elizabeth, Guy Fawkes, in his examination
on November 25, 1605, confessed that Thomas Winter
"
told him that, the year before the late Queen died, he was
sent by Catesby and others into Spain, with a certain Jesuit
named Tesimond, but commonly called Greenwell, in order
to propose to the Spanish King to send an army to Milford
Haven at which time the Catholics were endeavouring
;
to collect 2000 or 1500 horse to join with the Spanish army.

That the King of Spain promised to place 100,OQO crowns
l
at their disposal."
Further light is thrown on this plot to secure the

armed assistance of Spain, for the purpose of placing a
Roman Catholic on the Throne, by a further confession of
Guy Fawkes, on November 30, 1605, and by a declaration
made and signed by Garnet on March 23, 1606. We therein
see how extensively the Jesuits were helping on this political
scheme. Fawkes said :
"
Father Baldwin [a Jesuit] told this exanimate that

about 2000 horses would be provided by the Catholics of
England, to join with the Spanish forces (horses being, of
all other things, those necessaries that the Spanish force
should stand in greatest need) and wished this examinate ;
to intimate so much to Father Creswell [a Jesuit], which

this examinate did and saith that Father Baldwin did
;
write to Father Creswell which letter this examinate ;
delivered. He saith that one Anthony Chambers, dwelling

at Brussels, and Chaplain to the Archduke, told him that
there was a catalogue made of the names of such Catholics
as would assist in the business. He saith, moreover, that
Creswell told him that Christopher Wright was come upon
the same business and also that Creswell wished to in
;
form the King of Spain with the matter, which was done ;
and that he was then sent to the Duke of Lerma, to signify

his message to him and saith that, when he left Spain,
;
he had letters of commendation from Creswell to the Mar-

1
Criminal Trials, vol. ii. :
"
The Gunpowder Plot," pp. 138, 139.

quess Spinola and that, after he had remained two months
;
at Brussels, he returned into England with Thomas Winter." l

That Garnet knew about these visits to Spain "was ac
knowledged by himself in his declaration dated March 23,
1600. He wrote:
"As I remember, the first motion of the matter of
Spain
was between Christmas and Candlemass, the year before
the Queen died and the parties named before, that is,
;
Catesby and Francis Tresham, came some twice or thrice

to me about the matter. He [Tresham] was also with
. . .
me at White Webbs once or twice in the time of the late

Queen, about a year before her decease ;
when he, Catesby,
and Winter, dealt with me about the sending into Spain ;
and I wrote of the business by another way, as usually I

2
did, to Father Creswell."
On his trial, also, Garnet admitted his knowledge of

the traitorous mission to Spain, though he vainly tried to
wriggle out of any personal responsibility. The negotia
tion into Spain/ lie said, was indeed propounded unto "
me, and I was also acquainted with the negotiation for

money, but ever intended that it should be bestowed for
the relief of But when they Avere there,
poor Catholics.
they moved which, when they afterwards
for an army ;
acquainted me withal, I misliked it, and said it would be
much disliked at Rome only I must needs confess I did

:
conceal it after the of Christ, who commands us,

example
when our brother offends, to reprove him, for if he do amend
we have gained him. 3 Yet I must needs confess that the
laws against such concealing are very good and just." 4
Garnet s plea that he thought, at first, that the pro
posed emissaries to Spain were simply going to beg alms
for poor Roman Catholics in England, will not hold water.
As Father Taunton remarks : "In the face of the fact
that the envoys, one of them, too, a Jesuit and subject to
1
Tierney s Dodd s Church History, vol. iv. p. liv.
2
Ibid., p. liii.
3
But why did he not act so in the case of William Watson ?
4
p. 250, edition 1730.
FATHER ORES WELL SUPPORTS THE PLOT 261
Garnet, did come to an arrangement with Philip, it is difficult
to see how the letter of credit could have been in reality so

l
inoffensive as Garnet pleads."
When the English emissaries arrived in Spain, they

found in Father Creswell an enthusiastic and energetic
friend. He did everything in his power to secure the
success of their mission. As far back as 1588, he had
given active assistance to the Spanish Armada. On
1596, he wrote to the
"
September 12, King of Spain :

My
Superiors having sent me from Rome to Flanders at the
instance of Cardinal Allen and Count de Olivares, to serve
the DukeParma in the English undertaking in 1588,
of
his Highness ordered me to write out the edict that was
then printed in English. ... I find myself, by His Divine
grace, so freefrom personal or national bias in the matter
[of another proposed attack on England] that, if I heard
that the entire destruction of England was for the greater
glory of God and the welfare of Christianity, I should be
2
glad of its being done."
Creswell lost no time in bringing the requests of the
English emissaries before the King of Spain, who referred
the matter to his Council of State. What those requests
were is seen in a report of the Council to Philip III., dated
December 5, 1602.
In accordance with your Majesty s orders, the Council
"
has considered the papers sent by Father Creswell on the

29th November, tie points out the great age of the Queen
of England, and the advisability of your Majesty taking
the country before a male heir with new connections and
friends succeeds. He recommends that as many galleys as
possible should be sent to Flanders, to transport all the
troops that can be got together to England when the
Queen dies, so that your Majesty
T
\v ill be ready to succour
the Catholics. He recommends
that stores, &c., should
at once be collected, under cover of a war with the Turk.
1
2
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iv. pp. G35, GP,(>.
and that the Spanish fleet should be mustered in Italy,
foreign ships being freighted. He says as there are many
claimants to the Crown [of England], with varying
chances, and the question should be well deliberated in
time in all its bearings, and the eligibility of the various
candidates considered so that in any eventuality the
;
Catholics may know whom to support."

l
In thus urging the King of Spain to nominate a Roman

Catholic successor to the Throne when Elizabeth should
die, Creswell was but endeavouring to carry out the Papal
Briefs of 1600. 2
After a prolonged consideration the
Spanish Council of State forwarded, on February 1, 1603,
a very long report on the succession, from which I give
the subjoined extracts :
The Council had before

"
it letters and advices received
by Father Creswell from the persons through whom he

corresponds with the English Catholics, begging him to
urge your Majesty to arrive at a decision in the matter,
and either to make due
preparations for aiding them in
the event of the Queen death, which may happen at any
s
hour, or to relieve them from their pledge to take up the

cause of the Infanta, or other nominee of your
Majesty. . . .
"
On no account will it be advisable for your Majesty

to abandon the cause of the Catholics, which you have
upheld many years, at such heavy cost to your Royal
for so
patrimon}^ and to the Spanish nation. The perseverance of

the English Catholics in the faith has deserved the help
which has fittingly come from one so devout as your
Majesty. The Council is, therefore, of opinion that they
should be informed that, as your Majesty s main object
is, and always has been, to bring England to submit to
the Apostolic See, and regain its ancient standing and

prosperity, your Majesty does not regard your own interests
or those of your kin and although at the request of the
;
1
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iv. p. 717.
2
See supra, p. 254.
JAMES I. s PROCLAMATION 263
English Catholics your Majesty had at first approved of

the nomination of the Infanta, you are willing, if they
think it better for the end in view, for them to propose a
person from amongst themselves, being a Catholic, and
possessing the necessary parts, your Majesty will cede your
rights to him on fair terms of reciprocity, and will aid him
with your forces to obtain and hold the Crown of England
all
against all pretenders. For this purpose your Majesty will

at once begin to make preparations and in due time will ;
exert your influence with his Holiness to induce him to aid

l
so holy a cause."
The death of Queen Elizabeth, soon after this Council

was held, and the unopposed accession of James, brought
this Jesuit conspiracy to an end. It was the discovery of
this conspiracy which led James to issue his proclamation,
on February 22, 1604, ordering all Jesuits, Seminary and
other priests to leave the Realm. Father Tierney says
was professedly issued in consequence of the
"
that it
late conspiracy And certainly the reasons
"
with Spain. 2
given by the King for issuing this proclamation were very
strong.
Yet doubt we but that, when it shall
" "
not," he said,
be considered with indifferent judgment, what causes have
moved us to use this providence against the said Jesuits,
Seminaries, and priests, all men will justify us therein.
For to whom is it unknown, into what peril our person
was like to be drawn, and our Realm into confusion, not
many months since, by a conspiracy
conceived by first
persons that sort, who, having prevailed with some,

of
had undertaken to draw multitudes of others to assist the
same, by the authority of their persuasions and motives,
grounded chiefly upon matters of conscience and religion ?
which when other Princes shall duly observe, we assure
ourselves they will in no way conceive that this altera
tion groweth from any change of disposition, HOAV more
1
Calendar of Spanish State Papers, vol. iv. pp. 720, 722.
2
Tierney s Dodd s Church History, vol. iv. p. 9.
exasperate than heretofore, but out of necessary providence,
to prevent perils otherwise inevitable considering that their ;
absolute submission to foreign jurisdiction, at their first

taking of orders, doth leave so conditional an authority to
Kings over their subjects, as the same power, by which
they were made, may dispense at pleasure with the
straitest band of loyalty and love between a King and
1
his people."
It would be folly to deny that James held views as to
religious toleration differing from those held by twentieth-

century Protestants. Yet they were far more tolerant than
those advocated by the Church of Koine, either in his own
day or ours. In this proclamation he reminds his subjects
that at his coronation he had granted a general pardon
for all offences against the laws perpetrated during Eliza
which pardon many of the said priests have
"
beth s reign,
procured under the Great Seal." Father Joseph Berington,
writing at the close of the eighteenth century, after citing
a protestation of civil allegiance signed by fourteen priests,
on January 31, 1602, proceeds to remark that :
"
Had the Catholics in a body, on the accession of
King James, waited on him with the Protestation of
Allegiance, I have just stated, as containing their true and

loyal sentiments, we should, probably, have heard no more
of recusancy or penal prosecution. His good will to the
professors of that religion, from the earliest impressions,
was deeply marked on his heart he could look, he had ;
reason to think, for political support from them, if the

exigencies of events might require it but in the creed of ;
the majority, at least of the majority of their ministers,

he knew there was a principle admitted, that of the Papal
prerogative over the Crowns of Princes, which could ill
accord, truly, with the exalted opinion lie himself enter
tained of Royal dignity and independence. This . . .
rooted opinion of James, thus strongly expressed, is the

clue that unfolds some transactions of his reign, and
Tiemoy s D odd* ft Church fJ-iftiory, vol. iv. p. lix.

KING JAMES AND THE ROMANISTS 265
particularly accounts for many acts of severity against a

society of men whom naturally he loved."
1
Ranke asserts that the Roman Catholics found them

"
selves far better off under James than they had been under
Elizabeth. Far greater scope was allowed to the local
influence Catholic magnates in protecting their co
of
religionists. The Penal Laws, which as regards pecuniary

payments were virtually abolished, were, moreover, no longer
vigorously enforced in any other respect. Not only were
the Chapels of the Catholic Ambassadors in the Capital
numerously attended, but in some provinces, especially in
Wales, Catholic sermons were known to be delivered in the
open air, and attended by thousands of hearers."
2
Ranke s
remarks apply to the reign of James I. until the discovery
of the Spanish Treasons.
The opinions of King James as
to the right attitude to
adopt towards his Roman Catholic subjects, were, soon

after his proclamation, just referred to, explained in his
speech at the opening of Parliament, on March 19, 1604.

He drew a distinction between the Roman Catholic laity
and their priests. As to the laity there were, he said,
two classes one class consisting of
; quiet and well-
"
m nded men, peaceable subjects," of whom he said I :

:;
would be sorry to punish their bodies for the error of their

minds, the reformation whereof must only come of God,
and the true spirit." Of the other class of the laity, and
of the priests, the King said :
"
But tlic other rank of laics, who, either through curiosity,

affectation of novelty, or discontentment in their private humours,
have changed their coats, only to be factious stirrers of sedition,
and perturbers of the commonwealth their backwardness in
;
religion giveth a ground to me, the magistrate, to take the better

heed to their proceedings, and to correct their obstinacy. But
[ must directly
for the part of the clerics, say and affirm, that
as long as they maintain one special point of. their doctrine,
and another point of their practice, they are no way sufFerablc
Ueviugtori s Memoirs of Panzani, pp. 7o, 74.

-
Ranke s History of England vol. i. p. 40o.
t
to remain
in this Kingdom. Their point of doctrine is that
arrogant and ambitious supremacy of their head, the Pope ;
whereby he not only claims to be spiritual head of all Christians,

but also to have an Imperial civil power over all Kings and
Emperors dethroning and decrowning Princes with his foot,
;
as pleaseth him, and dispensing and disposing of all Kingdoms

and Empires at his appetite. The other point which they
observe in continual practice, is the assassinations and murders
of Kings thinking it no sin, but rather a matter of salvation,
;
to do all acts of rebellion and hostility against their natural

Sovereign Lord, he be once cursed, his subjects discharged of
if
their fidelity, and

his Kingdom given a prey by that three-
crowned Monarch, or rather monster, their head/ 1
To the Jesuit conspiracy with Spain may be attributed,

not only the banishing proclamation of James, but also
Act for the due execution of the Statutes against
"
the
Seminary priests, and Recusants (2 James I.,
"
Jesuits,
cap. 4.), passed by the Parliament which commenced its
sittings on March 19, 1604. By this Act it was provided

that all the laws against Jesuits, priests, and recusants,
shall be put in
"
passed in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth,

due and exact execution." Any recusant, however, who
shall submit or reform him or herself, and become obedient
"
to the laws and ordinances of the Church of England,"

shall be free from all the penalties to which they had made
themselves liable. If any recusant should die, then, if his
heir should not be a recusant, the said heir shall be free
from all penalties and charges incurred by the man whose
heir he was. If the heir of any recusant shall be within

the age of sixteen at the time of his ancestor s death, and
afterwards became a recusant, he shall be liable for the
penalties incurred by his ancestor. By Section 6 it was
"
provided that if any person shall send any child, or

other person under their government," out of the country,
to the intent to enter into, or to be resident in an}
"
College, Seminary, or house of Jesuits, priests, or any other

Popish Order," there to be instructed in the Popish re
ligion, he shall forfeit for each offence the sum of 100.
1
Cobbett s Parliamentary History, vol. i. p. 983.
AN ACT AGAINST JESUITS 267
be disabled, and made

"
Every person so sent abroad shall
incapable to inherit, purchase, take, have or enjoy any

manors, lands, tenements, annuities, or profits within the
Realm of England, or any other of his Majesty s dominions."
It was further enacted that
if
any person born within his
Majesty dominions, being at that time beyond the seas
s
in any College, Seminary, or place, for the purpose of being

instructed in the Popish religion, should not return to
England within one year, and submit himself, he shall, in
respect of himself only, and not in respect of any of his
heirs or posterity, be utterly disabled, and incapable to
inherit within his Majesty s dominions. But if he should
become conformable and obedient to the laws of the
"
Church of England, and shall repair to Church

"
then, ;
for so long as he continued in such conformity and obedi
ence, he shall be freed and discharged of all and every

"
such disability and incapacity as is before mentioned."

James was not at all anxious to enforce either his pro
clamation against the Jesuits or priests, or the Act of
Parliament just cited. Writing after both these events (the
exact date is not given by Foley, who prints the letter)
"
Father Rivers stated that Since the time limited in

:
the late proclamation expired (March 19, 1604), little hath

been yet done against priests or Papists, and I think very
few or none departed upon the same, nor an} certainty is
yet known when the priests in prison shall be sent to
exile. You heard by your brother Richard what Cecil
gave out of the Bishop of London s words and intentions
against Jesuits. I am well assured the Bishop denieth all,
saying that however those courses were approved in Wal-

singham s time, yet now he disliked them altogether, viz.
to drive men to impatience, and to draw men into danger ;
and being asked what he would do by virtue of the pro

clamation, he said that it was principally procured by the
late Archbishop of Canterbury, who should have provided
that it might have been executed now, he being dead, ;
it was yet uncertain what course therein should be

taken."
1
As to the Act against the Jesuits and priests, James
told the French in July, 1604, that he had no
Ambassador
present intention of putting the Act in force, but that he
wished to have the power of repression if any necessity
should arise. As an assurance of the sincerity of his in
tentions, he remitted to the sixteen gentlemen who were liable
to the 20 fine, the whole sum which had fallen due since
the Queen s death, as a guarantee that he would never
call upon them for arrears. 2
And here I think I may cite the opinion of a Professor
in Washington University, who has made a careful and
impartial study of the treatment of Roman Catholics at
this periodfrom MS., as well as printed, sources. He states
Whatever James said, they [Romanists] knew well
"
that :
that there had rarely been a year, since the accession of

Elizabeth, when so few men had been detained in prison,
when so few fines had been collected (many, however, were
imposed), and when so little attempt had been made to
check the performance of the ordinary rites of their re
ligion. At various times, the judges or Bishop* had indeed
been ordered to inquire diligently into the number of
recusants, number indicted
and to but, as
return the ;
comparatively few convictions had resulted, the whole

proceeding was regarded more as a census of recusants
than as a really vigorous attempt to enforce the law. The
degree enforcement is an academic question, whose
of
solution, one way or the other, will not alter the fact that
the Penal Laws hampered Catholic movements very little
days of James I. Both clergy and laity pro
in the early
ceeded with their plots and plans, their meetings and
discussions, their appeals to Rome and their intestinal
quarrels, precisely as if no laws existed at all. After all, the
was more valuable than the name
"
"
substance of toleration
Folcy s Record* of the tinglixh Pi-ouiiirr, S .-/., vol. i. p. tiO.

1
-
Gardiner s History of England, vol. i. p. 203, edition 1887.
;!
The Reconstruction of the English Church, by Roland G. Usher, Ph.D..
Instructor in History, Washing-ton University, vol. ii. pp. 92, 93 (London and
New York, 1910).
THE GUNPOWDER PLOT 269
It seems as though the English Roman Catholic leaders

at this period were blinded with folly. Instead of meeting
James friendly spirit with gratitude, they determined to
provoke him to the uttermost. The conspiracy with Spain
had scarcely ended, before they were again brewing mis
chief for themselves and followers, as well as for the King
and his Parliament. The Gunpowder Plot need not be
here described at any great length, but it may be well to
emphasise the part taken in it by the Jesuits. All the
lay whose guilt is not denied by modern
conspirators,
Romanists, were spiritual children of the Jesuits. Father
John Gerard, who was himself implicated in the plot, gives
a very flattering account of the religious condition of most
of the conspirators. Robert Catesby was the first to plan
the Gunpowder Plot, and if ever villain deserved to die,
he was the man. Yet Gerard, who knew him well, tells
he was a continual means of helping others to
"
us that
often frequentation of the Sacraments, to which end he
kept and maintained priests in several places. And for
himself he duly received the Blessed Sacrament every
Sunday and Festival Day. ... So that it might plainly
appear he had the fear of God joined with an earnest desire
l
Catesby was a penitent of Father Green-
"
to serve Him."
way,"
a Jesuit, whose real name was Tesimond. 2
What was the religious character of the notorious Guy
Fawkes himself ? This same Father Tesirnond, who knew
him personally, testifies that he was a man of great
"
piety, of exemplary temperance, of mild and cheerful

demeanour, an enemy of broils and disputes, a faithful
friend, and remarkable for his punctual attendance upon
religious observances."
3
Father Gerard tells of Guy Fawkes
at his apprehension, he had a shirt of hair found
"
that
4
upon his back."
1
The Condition of Catholics under James 1.. edited by John Morris, S.J. ,
pp. 5(5, 57.

2
The Life of a Conspirator, by one of his Descendants, p. 203 (London,
3
1895). Jardinc s Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, p. 38.
*
The Condition of Catholics under James /., p. 117.
Thomas Percy, another plotter, whose guilt is not de
nied by any Roman Catholic, was, says Father Gerard,
one who by " "
often frequentation of the Sacraments

came to live a very staid and sober life, and for a year
"
or two before his death kept a priest continually in the

1
country to do good unto his family and neighbours."
Thomas Winter, relates the same Father Gerard, "was
very devout and zealous in his faith, and careful to come
2
often to the Sacraments."
John Wright, the same Jesuit authority declares, grew

"
to be staid and of good, sober carriage after he was a

Catholic, and kept house in Lincolnshire, where he had
priests come often, both for his spiritual comfort and their
own in corporal helps."
3
Christopher another conspirator, was, says

Wright,
a zealous Catholic, and trusty and secret
"
Father Gerard,
in any business as could be wished, in respect whereof
they (the other conspirators) esteemed him very fit to be

of their company, and so caused him to take the oaths of
secrecy, and he received the Blessed Sacrament thereupon
4
(as they had also done) and so admitted him."
^
Robert Winter was also an earnest Catholic." 5
Of other conspirators, we are informed by Father
Gerard that Ambrose Rookewood was brought up in
"
Catholic religion from his infancy, and was ever very de

vout," and that he was known to be of great virtue." 6
"
John Grant must have been a very pious Roman

"
Catholic, for he kept a priest in his house, which he did

with great fruit unto his neighbours and comfort to
himself."
Of Robert Keys, it is recorded, by the same Jesuit

he had great measure of virtue." 8
" "
priest, that
"
Sir Everard Digby was also put to death as one of the
conspirators, and no modern Jesuit attempts to deny that

he was guilty. Of Digby and his wife, Father Gerard
1
The Condition of Catholics under James I., p. 58.
- :! 4 5
Ibid., p. 59. Ibid., p. 59. Ibid., p. 70. Ibid., p. 71.
6 7 8
Ibid., pp. 85, 86. Ibid., p. 87. Ibid., p. 87.
RELIGIOUS PLOTTERS 271
writes :
"
Certainly they were a favoured Both

pair.
gave themselves wholly to God s service, and the husband
afterwards sacrificed all his property, his liberty nay,
even his life, for God s Church 1
I should think it would have been more accurate to
life for God s
" " "
have said, not that Digby sacrificed his
Church," but that he sacrificed it in a wicked attempt to

commit wholesale murder. This Jesuit further relates that
used prayers daily, both mental and vocal,
"
Digby his
and daily and diligent examination of his conscience the :
Sacraments he frequented devoutly every week." And,

further, Gerard declares of Digby He was a most de :
"
voted friend to me, just as if he had been my twin-brother." 3

Now here we have the religious character of eleven
out of thirteen Gunpowder Plot conspirators, executed for
their crimes, and of whose guilt there is no question. The
Jesuit priests and Jesuit Lay Brothers implicated in the
plot are not included amongst the thirteen. All of these
eleven were then, as we learn solely on Jesuit authority,
what is now termed good
"
Catholics," who attended

regularly to their religious duties. All \ve can say now
about the quality of their religion is that, if they were
we may be
"
good Catholics," quite certain that they were

very bad Christians.
Naturally, the Jesuits implicated in the Gunpowder
Treason did all in their power to save their personal re
putation. Yet they were unable to prevent facts coming
to light which revealed their complicity in the foul deed.
Soon after the discovery of the Plot, a Jesuit priest named
Father Thomas Strange was examined by Cecil as to his
views about the lawfulness of King-killing. His answers
are recorded by the modern English Jesuits themselves
from contemporary MSS. "
He (Cecil) wished to know

his mind upon the authority of the Pope to depose his
1
During the Persecution :
Autobiography of Father John Gerard of the
Society of Jesus, edited by G. E. Kingdom, S.J., p. 212.
-
The Condition of Catholics under James I., p. 89.
3
During the Persecution, p. 214.
Majesty, and if it was lawful to kill a deposed King. . . .
The Father replied that the subjects of a deposed King

were no longer subjects, and that when a deposed King
came to do violence, the subject in self-defence might kill
the King. Then, says Cecil, if it is defined in
. . .
such a case by the Church that the subject can kill his
King, you also hold it lawful ? Yes, says the Father."
l
Father Oldcorne, alias Hall, was one of the Jesuit

priests who were executed for the part they took in the
Gunpowder Plot. He was Father Confessor to Catesby
and Robert Winter, of whose guilt there can be no doubt.
Humphrey Littleton gave assistance to the conspirators
after the discovery of the Plot, and for this offence he was
executed. Before his death he wrote out a confession of
which he affirmed that he had consulted Father
his guilt, in
Oldcorne about the Plot, arid had been advised by him that
the action was good and that he was of the opinion
" "
action, had not good success,

"
that although the said
yet it was commendable and good, and not to be measured
by the event but by the goodness of the cause when it was

2
first undertaken." Later on, Littleton expressed his
regret for having betrayed the Jesuits, but I cannot find
that he ever charged himself with telling falsehoods about
them. Father Oldcorne himself acknowledged that he
had been consulted by Littleton about the Plot, and that
he told him that the Powder action is not to be approved
"
or condemned by the event, but by the proper object or

end, and means which were to be used in it and because ;
I know nothing of these, I will neither approve it nor con

demn it, but leave it to God and their own consciences." 3
80 that we have here Oldcorne s own acknowledgment that
condemn an abominable attempt at whole
"
he refused to
"
sale murder ! In this he acted differently from the Arch-

priest Blackwell, who publicly denounced the Plot as
"
intolerable, scandalous, and desperate." But Father
1
Foley s Records of the English Province, 8.J., vol. iv. p. 6.
2 3
Ibid., p. 219. Ibid, p. 227.
FATHER JOHN GERARD AND THE PLOT 273
Oldcorne has not suffered in the estimation of the Church

of Rome, for, in 1886, Pope Leo XIII. raised him to the
rank of Venerable," as a preliminary to his expected
;
and Canonisation
Beatification !
Father John Gerard was another Jesuit priest implicated

in the Gunpowder Plot. The Government issued a pro
clamation for his apprehension, and he would certainly
have been put on trial for his life had he not escaped to the
Continent. He wrote a Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot,
which was published by the Jesuits in 1871. Some time
before the discovery of the Plot, Catesby, Thomas Winter,
John Wright, Guy Fawkes, and Thomas Percy met to
gether in a house near the Strand, and there they all took
an oath to carry out the Plot to a successful issue to observe ;
secrecy about it and not to reveal the names of their

;
accomplices. Directly after taking the oath, in another

room in the same house, Father Gerard said Mass for them,
and afterwards gave them the Sacrament. Father John
Morris, S.J., states :
"
We have little doubt that the house
in which the oath of secrecy was taken and Holy Com

munion received, was
really Father Gerard s house."
l
In a long letter addressed to the Lords Commissioners on

November 25, 1605, Thomas Winter stated :
"
We met
behind St. Clement s, Mr. Catesby, Mr. Percy, Mr. Wright,
Mr. Guy Fawkes, and myself and having upon a primer ;
given each other the oath of secrecy, in a chamber where

no other person was, we went into the next room and heard
Mass, and received the Blessed Sacrament upon the same."
In his examination on November 9, 1605, Guy Fawkes
said that he, with the other four named by Winter, met
"
in a house in the fields beyond St. Clement s Inn, where

they did confer and agree upon the Plot they meant to
undertake and put in execution, and there they took a
solemn oath and vow, by all their force and power to exe
cute the same, and of secrecy, not to reveal any of their
1
The Condition of Catholics under James /., edited by John Morris, S.J.,
j>.
ccxxiii.
2
Criminal Trials, vol. ii.
p. 150 (London, 1835).
but to such as should be thought fit persons to enter
fellows,
into that action. And in the same house they did receive
the Sacrament of Gerard the Jesuit, to perform their vow
and of secrecy as is aforesaid." Tierney states that in
the original manuscript of this examination of Fawkes,
there follows these words
"
but he saith that Gerard :
was not acquainted with their purpose." But that Fawkes

should mention Father Gerard by name is a clear proof
that he was the priest who offered this particular Mass.
Yet Gerard, some years later, writing in the third person,
Yet who that priest was [who said this Mass]
"
declared :
I have heard Father Gerard protest, upon his soul and

2
salvation, that he doth not know." Commenting on
"
this denial, Tierney remarks Very little reliance can be :
placed on the asservations of Gerard, when employed in

his own vindication." 3
Lingard quotes from a MS. copy,
dated April 17, 1631, of an affidavit made by Anthony Smith,
a secular priest, before the titular Bishop of Chalcedon,
in his hearing, Gerard had said in the
"
stating that
Novitiate at Liege, that he worked in the mine with the
lay conspirators were as wet with perspira
till his clothes
tion as if they had been dipped in water and that the ;
general condemnation of the Plot was chiefly owing to its

bad success, as had often happened to the attempts of
unfortunate generals in war." 4 Lingard rejects the story,
and declares his belief in Gerard s innocence. Father
John Morris, S.J., prints, in his Life of Father John Gerard,
(pp. 426-430), a letter of that Jesuit in which he, writing
to the Bishop of Chalcedon, states that he has seen a written
statement to the effect that he (Gerard) had worked in the
was
"
mine with the Gunpowder plotters, until his shirt

"
wet through and dripping with sweat in answer to which ;
Now, with all due reverence, I call God to

"
he declares :
witness that I had no more knowledge of the conspiracy

1
Criminal Trials, vol. ii. pp. 158, 159.
2
Tierney s Dodds Church History, vol. iv. p. 44.
3
Ibid., note.
4
Lingard s History of England, vol. ix. p. 39G, edition 1844.
FATHER HENRY GARNET, S,J. 275
than a new-born infant might have that I never heard ;
one mention it that I had not even a suspicion of the

any ;
provision of gunpowder for the mine, excepting only when

the Plot was detected, made public, and known to every
one." The curious thing about this denial is that it is
dated September 1, 1630, while the document which it
professes to refute is dated April 17, 1631 seven months
after the reply was penned !
On
the whole I do not think the evidence against Gerard
was strong enough to justify his conviction in a Court of
Law but he is certainly open to well-merited suspicion.
;
Father Henry Garnet, at that time Provincial of the

English Jesuits, occupied the thoughts of Englishmen more
than any other of the Gunpowder conspirators, with the
exception of Guy Fawkes. Sir Everard Digby, who gave
large sums of money for the expenses of the Plot, and of
whose guilt no modern Jesuit expresses any doubt, was
clearly of the opinion that Garnet thought the Plot lawful
and justifiable. Digby s secret letters to his wife, while
in prison, were discovered in 1675, and published by
Bishop Barlow of Lincoln in 1679. In the first of these

" "
letters Digby expresses his certain belief in the justice

those who were best
"
of the Plot, on the authority of

able to judge of the lawfulness of Digby was a disciple
it."
of the Jesuits, and Father Gerard was his Chaplain. In

the opinion of such a man those who were "
best able
"
to
give an opinion must have been priests. He tells his wife :
Let me tell you that if I had thought there had been the
"
least sin in the Plot, I would not have been of it for all
the world and no other cause drew me to hazard my
;
fortune and life, but zeal to God s religion. For my keeping-

it secret, it was caused by certain belief, that those who
were best able to judge of the lawfulness of it, had been

acquainted with it, and given way unto it. More reasons
I had to persuade me to this belief than I dare utter, which
I will never, to the suspicion of any, though I should to the
rack for it, and as I did not know it directly that it was
approved by such, so did I hold it in my conscience the best
not to know any more if I might."
l
Digby added Lords he had "cleared

that, before all the
all the priests in it for anything that I know" but as he ;
denied any personal acquaintance with his own Chaplain,

Father Gerard an evident falsehood w e may be quite sure r
that he did not fail to use equivocation and mental reserva

tion when he thought them likely to be useful. Writing again
to his wife, Digby remarked :-
I did ask Mr. Farmer [an alias of Garnet] what the

"
meaning of the Pope s Brief was ? He told me that they

were not (meaning priests) to undertake or procure stirs ;
but yet they would not fiinder any, neither was it the Pope s
mind that they should, that should be undertaken for Catholic
good. I did never utter thus much, nor would not but to
you and this answer, with Mr. Catesby s proceedings with
;
him [Garnet] and me, gave me absolute belief that the matter
in general was approved, though every particular was not
2
known."
None of the friends of Garnet deny that he learned about

the Plot in the Confessional, and in time to have prevented
it had he chosen to make his knowledge known to the
Government. But it is pleaded on his behalf that the rules

of hisChurch forbid that the Seal of the Confessional should
be broken on any consideration whatever, not even to save
any number of lives. In his Declaration of March 9, 1606,
Garnet admitted that he had been informed of the Plot by
Catesby. In a letter to Mrs. Vaux, one of his penitents,
Garnet stated :
acknowledged that Mr. Green well [i.e. Green way,

"
I
alias Tesimond] only told me in confession, yet so that I
might reveal it if after I should be brought in question

for it. I also said that I thought he had it in confession,
so that he could reveal it to none but to me, and so neither
of us was bound or could reveal 3
it."
1
The Gunpowder-Treason, with Preface by the Bishop of Lincoln,
2
pp. 241, 242 (London, 1679). Ibid., pp. 250, 251.
3
Foley s Records of the English Province, S.J., vol. iv. p. 104.
GARNET ACKNOWLEDGES HIS GUILT 277
Garnet himself seems to have a doubt whether or not

this information was received from Greeiiway in Confession.
"
In his examination on April 25, 1606, Garnet, being

demanded upon his priesthood to affirm sincerely, not
withstanding anything heretofore said, whether Green-
well s [Greenway s] discovery to be in Confession or not 1
He answered that it was not in Confession, but by way of
Confession."
l
On April 4, Garnet wrote out the following
remarkable confession addressed to the King the original ;
MS. is still in the Record Office. The italics are mine :
"
I, Henry Garnet, of the Society of Jesus, priest, do here

freely protest before God that I hold the late intention of the
Powder action to have been altogether unlawful and most
horrible as well in respect of the injury and treason to his
;
Majesty, the Prince, and others that should have been sinfully
murdered at that time as also in respect of infinite other inno
;
cents which should have been present. I also protest that I

was ever of opinion that it was unlawful to attempt any violence
against the King s Majesty and the Estate, after he was once
received by the Realm. Also I acknowledge that I was bound
to reveal all knowledge that I had of this or any other treason
out of the Sacrament of Confession. And whereas, partly upon
hope of prevention, partly for that I would not betray a friend,
I did not reveal the general knowledge of Mr. Catesby s inten
tion, which I had of him. / do acknowledge myself highly guilty,

to have offended God, the King s Majesty and Estate, and
humbly
ask of all forgiveness ; exhorting all Catholics whatsoever, that
they in no way build on my example but by prayer and other ;
wise seek the peace of the Realm, hoping in his Majesty s merciful
disposition that they shall enjoy their wonted quietness, and
not bear the burden of mine or others defaults and crimes.
"
In testimony hereof I have written this with my own hand,

4th April. HENRY GARNET." "
The Jesuit Foley gives the following explanation of

"
the expression in this letter, I did not reveal the general
knowledge of Mr. Catesby s intention, which I had of him

"
That K
that some treasonable plot was in agitation,
which was the cause of Father Garnet s communications
1
Criminal TrluU, vol. ii.
p. IJ33.
-
Jiirdine s Narrative of the Gunpou\lir PlA, \\ 242.
to Rome to procure the intervention of the Sovereign
Pontiff for the prevention of any unlawful attempts, as
we have seen above. But the knowledge of the Plot itself
he only received from Father Tesimond under the Seal of
Confession."
1
This, of course, is an attempt to make
out that Garnet s confession of guilt, by which he had
"
offended God," related only to his knowledge obtained

from Catesby about the Spanish Treasons, and had nothing
to do with the Gunpowder Plot. But it so happens that
Garnet himself gave an explanation of what he meant, on
the following day, in a letter to Father Tesimond, alias
Green way, alias Green well. In this communication he
entirely upsets the pleading of Foley. He states :
I wrote yesterday a letter to the King, in which I

"
avowed, as I do now, that I always condemned that in

tention of the Powder Plot ; and I admitted that I might
have revealed the general knowledge I had of it from Catesby
out of confession and in this I confessed that I had
. . .
sinned both against God and the King, and prayed for pardon
2
from both"
There can therefore be no doubt of Garnet s guilt to

this extent, for he acknowledged it with his own hand.
His suppression of this gravely important knowledge was
in itself an offence for which he justly deserved to die.
At his trial Garnet said am well assured that Catholics : "I
in general did never like of this action of Powder, for it

was prejudicial to them all and it was a particular crime ;
of mine, that when I knew of the action, I did not disclose

3
it."In that speech he pleaded that he did not know
the particulars of the Plot, yet he admitted that he might
have known them all if he had wished, and that the in
formation was offered to him by Catesby, but he refused
to listen to it. These are Garnet s words :
At which time Catesby said he would inform the

"
Pope, and tell me also in particular what attempt he had

1
Foley s Records of the English Province, /S.,/., vol. iv. p. 10").
-
Jardine s Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, p. 244.
3
Criminal Trial*, vol. ii. p. 2-S9.
GARNET AND THE CONFESSIONAL 279
in hand, if he could get leave to disclose it. And after

wards he came and told me he had leave to disclose it to
me, and offered to do so but I refused to hear him." l
;
In his Declaration on March 9, 1606, Garnet repeated

this statement. Now it is very evident that those con
spirators must have had very strong confidence that Garnet
would not betray them when he learnt the particulars of
the Plot, or they would never have offered to tell him all
about it, outside of the Confessional. But anyhow Garnet
had an opportunity of learning everything, and thus placing
himself in a position to divulge everything to the Govern
ment, without breaking the Seal of Confession and he ;
refused it. Is such a refusal consistent with a p]ea of

innocence ?
A few days before his execution, Garnet made one more

confession of guilt in suppressing the knowledge of the
Plot which he obtained outside of the Confessional. He
was by the Deans of St. Paul s, Westminster, and
visited
of the Chapel Royal. One of them asked him, Whether
"
he conceived that the Church of Rome, after his death,

would declare him a Martyr ? and whether, as a matter
of opinion and doctrine, he thought the Church would be
right in doing so, and that he should in that case really

become a true Martyr ? To these questions Garnet, with
"
a deep sigh, answered :
Martyr
"la ? Oh, what a Martyr should I be God !
forbid !
If, indeed, I were really about to suffer death
for the sake of the Catholic religion, and if I had never
known of this project except by the means of Sacramental
Confession, I might perhaps be accounted worthy of the
honour of Martyrdom, and might deservedly be glorified
in the opinion of the Church as it is, I acknowledge myself
;
to have sinned in this respect, and deny not the justice of

the sentence passed Would to God that I could
upon me.
recall that which has
been done Would to God that !
anything had happened rather than this stain of treason
1
Criminal Trials, vol. ii.
p. 21);-].
should attach to my name ! I know that my offence is
most grievous, though I have confidence in Christ to pardon

me on my hearty penitence ;
but I would give the whole
world, if I possessed it, to be able to die without the weight
l
of this sin upon my soul."
Notwithstanding Garnet s own opinion of himself, the

modern English Jesuits include his name in a list of the
Martyrs of the English Province, First Class," to which
"
they add the names of Ralph Ashley, Father Oldcorne, S.J.,

and Nicholas Owen, all of whom lost their lives in con
nection with the Gunpowder Plot. 2 Of these, Ralph
Ashley, Father Oldcorne, S.J., and Nicholas Owen, S.J.,
"
rank
"
were, in 1886, raised to the of Venerable b}^ Pope

Leo XIII., with a view to their future Canonisation, while
the name of Henry Garnet is down on the Vatican list for
further consideration. Now, not one of these four men
were put to death for their religion, and consequently have
no just claim to be termed Martyrs. They were charged
with being accessories, before or after the fact, in an
abominable attempt to commit wholesale murder. Their
memories should, therefore, be held in abhorrence, not in
honour. Father Taunt on formed a just estimate of Garnet s
case, when he wrote That Garnet was tried upon the
"
general knowledge he had from Catesby, and upon this

alone was condemned, is clear to the reader therefore, in :
no sense of the word is he a Martyr for his religion, nor a

3
Martyr for the Seal of Confession."
1
Jardines Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, p. 251.
2
Foley Records of the English Province, 8.J., vol. vii. pp.
s Ixiii., Lxiv.
3
Taunton s History of the Jen nils in England, p. 3oO.
CHAPTER XVIII
JAMES i. (continued)
The Results of the Gunpowder Plot Roman Catholic Penalties for Heresy
Acts against Traitors and Recusants The Oath of Allegiance The
Arch-priest writes in favour of the Oath Other Roman Catholics on
the Oath Pope Paul V. denounces the Oath Urban VIII. condemns
the Oath Father Peter Walsh on the Cause of the Penal Laws-
Father Peter Walsh on the Papal Claims.
THE natural result of the Gunpowder Plot was to raise a

storm of fierce indignation throughout the length and
breadth of the land. It would have been surprising had
any other result followed. The Plot did more harm to
the Church of Rome in England than any event which
has happened since the Spanish Armada. It gave the
people a horror of Jesuits and Popery which has not ceased
even in this twentieth century. We have still good reasons
for thanking God for that great national deliverance. Of
course there at once arose a demand for stricter penal
laws. The wonder is that they were not made more severe
than they were. Had a Protestant Plot of the same kind
been then discovered in Spain or France, the vengeance
of the Church of Rome would have been tenfold more
severe. People who now talk so much against the Penal
Laws, forget that the Church of Rome had at that time
far more cruel Penal Laws of her own than any passed in
the Reign of James I. The late Canon Robert C. Jenkins,
a learned writer, in 1885, published a pamphlet on The
Law and Practice of the Church of Rome in Cases of Heresy.
It consisted of a brief summary of Farinacci s Treatise of
Heresy, published first in the time of Paul V., who was

Pope in the year of the Gunpowder Plot. Canon Jenkins,
in his Preface, states that this work
"
has been ever since

its publication the chief authority of the Pontifical lawyers.
Dedicated to Pope Paul V. and to all the Sacred College,
it has the
special authorisation and protection of the Pope
and of the Master of the Apostolic Palace. Its authority
was indeed European." In Chapter IV. of his pamphlet
Canon Jenkins describes The Consequents of a Con
"
demnation for Heresy," as laid down in this work of
Farinacci, issued with such high approbation. They are

as follows :
"LA heretic is declared to be diffidatus et bannitus (p. 441),

which means that he is removed from all protection of every
human law, and has become, in the fullest sense, an outlaw
(p. 442).
"II. As such, he may be attacked and killed with impunity/
"
III. He can be seized and captured by any private person

without judicial sanction (p. 442).
IV. He can be spoiled of his goods, according to a decree
"
of Pope Clement IV., in 1265.

V. Even if a cleric, he can be attacked and slain without
the penalty of irregularity being incurred.
VI. War may be proclaimed against him, if he is incapable
"
of persecution in any other way (p. 443).

VII. He incurs further the penalties of infamy, bringing
"
with it other kinds of disgrace and disability (p. 445).

"
VIII. Every act done by a heretic is null and void. (Why

may not, then, his heresy itself be nullified ?)
"
IX. All the debtors to a heretic are freed from their debts
and obligations to him (p. 451).
"
X. His goods are to be confiscated (p. 458), and those also

of apostates, schismatics, a,ndfautors of heretics.
"XL Their houses and meeting-places are to be destroyed
and never rebuilt. Also the houses of those who refuse admit
tance to Inquisitors searching for heretics (p. 469). The houses
belonging to such persons are equally to be destroyed, and the
goods contained in them confiscated and assigned to those who
capture the heretic.
XII. The dowry of a wife marrying a heretic knowingly
"
is to be confiscated, find herself suspected of heresy (p. 473).
XIII. A heretic is incapacitated from making a will a

"
law which is extended to apostates &ndfautors of heretics. Nor

is Iris will invalidated even if he should be reconciled to the
Church (p. 487).
POPISH PENALTIES FOR HERETICS 283
XIV. A heretic is incapable of succession, or of taking any

"
inheritance or gift from a living person (p. 488).

XV. The children of heretics are by their father s act de
"
prived of their inheritance (p. 527), nor of this alone, but of every
kind of support (sed etiam alimentis, p. 527). This is the result
of the terrible law of Paul IV., Cum ex Apostolatus qfficio, in
which heretics are to be deprived of every last office of humanity
(omni consolatione Immanitolis destituantur). This law extends
to schismatics and the descendants of heretics to the second
generation.
"
XVI. All such persons are declared infamous and incapable

of inheriting any property whatever."
All these penalties are in addition to the fearful tortures,
imprisonments, and burning alive to which all Protestants

are liable, quite apart from any political opinion they may
hold. When Roman Catholics now denounce the Penal
Laws of England they should remember the old proverb,
Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones."
In writing thus, I must not be understood as giving my
approval to every Penal Law against Romanists which
from time to time has been placed on the Statute Book.
But I will add that, with a few exceptions, they were
provoked by the political misconduct of the Roman Catho
lics. This was markedly the case with the Gunpowder
Plot. The first Parliamentary action taken after the dis
covery of the Plot, took the form of an Act (3 James I.,
cap. 1), ordering a public Service of Thanksgiving to God
to be offered every year. The preamble stated that "
to
the end this unfeigned thankfulness may never be forgotten,
but be had in perpetual remembrance, that all ages to
come may yield praise to His Divine Majesty for the
same, and have in memory this Joyful Day of Deliver
ance," it was ordered that on the Fifth of November each
year a special Service should be held in every Cathedral

and Parish Church, to give unto Almighty God thanks
"
for this most happy deliverance." In accordance with

this Act a special form of Prayer for November 5th was
inserted in the Book of Common Prayer, and there
remained until, in 1859, the Act ordering the Service was
most unwisely repealed by 22 Victoria, cap. 2. The next
Act resulting from the Gunpowder Plot (3 James I., cap. 2)
was An Act for the Attainder of divers offenders in the
"
late most barbarous, monstrous, detestable and damnable

Treasons." These treasons included the attempts made
shortly before the death of Elizabeth to obtain armed
assistance from Spain, with a view to placing a Roman
Catholic on the Throne. The names of most of the con
spirators are given in the Act. It was followed by another
Act of great severity, in which the anxiety of Parliament

not to resort to extreme measures (in cases where undivided
loyalty to the King was proved) was clearly manifested.
It was entitled, An Act for the better discovering and
"
(3 James I., cap. 4).

"
repressing of Popish Recusants

The preamble stated that is found by daily experi
: "It
ence that many, his Majesty s subjects, that adhere in their

hearts to the Popish religion, by the infection drawn from
thence, and by the wicked and devilish counsel of Jesuits,
Seminaries, and other like persons dangerous to the Church
and State, are so far perverted in the point of their loyalties
and due allegiance unto the King s Majesty, and the Crown
of England, as they are ready to entertain and execute
any treasonable conspiracies and practices, as evidently
appears by that more than barbarous and horrible attempt
to have blown up with gunpowder the King, Queen, Prince,
Lords and Commons in the House of Parliament assembled."
Therefore, in order that their evil purposes should be the
better prevented, it was enacted that every Popish Recusant
who had hitherto repaired to Church during Divine Service,
should also receive the Lord s Supper once a year in his, or
her, Parish Church under a penalty, for the first year,
;
of 20 ;
for the second year, of 40 and for every year ;
after such not receiving, 00. And if, after receiving the
Sacrament, any Recusant should abstain from doing so for
one year, lie or she should for every such offence forfeit
the sum of 00. the fourth section, Churchwardens and
l>y
RECUSANTS PENALISED 285
constables of every town and parish were ordered to "once
in every year present the monthly absence from Church of

all and all manner of Popish Recusants within such towns
and names of their children, being nine

parishes, with the
years old and upwards, as also the names of their servants,
at the General or Quarter Sessions." Those constables and
Churchwardens who failed to so present the list of Popish
Recusants were, for every such offence, to be fined twenty
shillings. For every Recusant so presented, and afterwards
indicted and convicted, the Churchwardens or Constables
respectively shall have a reward of forty shillings. By
Section 8 it was provided that every Recusant not repairing
to Divine Service, who shall have been once convicted for
that offence, shall pay a fine of 20 each month after his
conviction, until he shall conform himself and come to
Church. And if default be made in any part of any pay
ment of these fines into the Court of Exchequer, then the
and enjoy
"
King may all the goods, and two

take, seize
parts as well of the lands liable to such seizure, or
. . .
to the penalties aforesaid, leaving the third part only of

the same lands leases and farms, to and for the main
. . .
tenance and relief of the said offender, his wife, children,

and family."
The eleventh section allowed the King to
refuse to take the Recusant s fine of 20 a month, and
instead thereof to seize and take to his own use two-thirds
of the Recusant s landed property.
It is remember that these laws were passed
well to
rather to alarm than from any desire to enforce them
generally throughout the country. The Government could
have so enforced them had they wished but if they had ;
done so every Romanist in the country would soon have

been ruined. A distinction must always be made between
the enacting and administration of a law. The law may
be severe, yet it may be administered in a very mild and
limited manner. The great anxiety of the King and
Government at this time was to obtain some reliable assur
ances of loyalty from the Romanists, and for that purpose
thisAct gave permission to all Bishops and Justices of the
Peace to administer an Oath of Allegiance to any suspected
person over eighteen years of age, not being a nobleman
or noblewoman. Those who refused to take it were to be
committed to prison without bail until the next Assizes or
Quarter Sessions, where the Oath would be again offered
to them.
"
Should they again refuse to take it, every person

so refusing shall incur the danger and penalty of prce-
munire,"
"
except women covert," who shall be committed

to the common
gaol, there to remain without bail or main-
prise, they will take the said oath."
till
I think these last provisions of this Act, though very

severe, were perfectly just. The Oath of Allegiance did
not require them to repudiate any article of religion, and,
if the Romanists refused to thus prove their
loyalty to
the State at a time when it was in danger from Papal
machinations and Jesuit intrigues, they had only them
selves to blame if they felt the heavy hand of the State
on them. In order that my readers may be able to form
a just opinion of this important Oath of Allegiance, I quote
it entire :
"
I, A. B., do truly and sincerely acknowledge, profess,

testify, and declare
in my conscience before God and the world,
that our Sovereign Lord King James is lawful and rightful
King of this Realm, and of all other his Majesty s Dominions
and countries and that the Pope neither of himself nor by any
;
authority of the Church or See of Rome, or by any other means

with any other, hath any power or authority to depose the
King, or to dispose any of his Majesty s Kingdoms or Dominions,
or to authorise any foreign Prince to invade or annoy him or
his countries, or to discharge any of his subjects of their allegiance
and obedience to his Majesty, or to give licence or leave to any
of them to bear arms, raise tumults, or to offer any violence or
hurt to his Majesty s Royal person, State or Government, or
to any of his Majesty s subjects within his Majesty s Dominions.
"
Also I do swear from my heart, that notwithstanding any

declaration or sentence of excommunication or deprivation made
or granted, or to be made or granted, by the Pope or his successors,
or by any authority derived, or pretended to be derived, from him
or his See against the said King, his heirs or successors, or any
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 287
absolution of the said subjects from their obedience, I will bear

faith and true allegiance to his Majesty, his heirs and successors,
and him and them will defend to the uttermost of my power,
against all conspiracies and attempts whatsoever which shall be
made against his or their persons, their Crown and dignity, by
reason or colour of any such sentence or declaration, or otherwise,
and will do my best endeavour to disclose and make known unto
his Majesty, his heirs and successors, all treasons and traitorous
conspiracies which I shall know or hear of to be against him or

any of them.
"
And
I do further swear, that I do from my heart abhor,
detest, and abjure, as impious and heretical, this damnable
doctrine and position, that Princes which be excommunicated
or deprived by the Pope, may be deposed or murdered by their
subjects, or any other whatsoever.
And am
"
I do believe, and in my conscience resolved, that

neither the Pope nor any other person whatsoever, hath power
to absolve me of this oath or any part thereof, which I acknow
ledge by good and full authority to be lawfully ministered unto
me, and do renounce all pardons and dispensations to the contrary.
And all these things I do plainly and sincerely acknowledge
"
and swear, according to these express words by me spoken, and

according to the plain and common sense and understanding
of the same words, without any equivocation or mental evasion,
or secret reservation whatsoever and I do make this recog
:
nition and acknowledgment heartily, willingly, and truly, upon

the true faith of a Christian.
"
So help me God."
This same Act provided, by its eighteenth section, that

any one passing over the seas, for the purpose of serving
any foreign Prince or State, without having first taken
the Oath of Allegiance, The twenty-
"
shall be a felon."
second section enacted that any person who should en
deavour to "persuade or withdraw any of the subjects
of the King s Majesty, or of his heirs and successors of this
Realm of England, from their natural obedience to his
Majesty, his heirs and successors, or to reconcile them to
"
the Pope or See of Rome," shall, on conviction, suffer

and forfeit as in cases of
High Treason." Any person so
"
reconciled beyond the seas shall be adjudged traitors,"

and suffer the penalties of High Treason but any person, ;
so reconciled, who shall, within six days after their return
to England, take the Oath of Supremacy, and the Oath of
Allegiance, shall not be liable to the punishment of High

Treason. Section 27 provided that those who did not
attend their parish church should pay a fine of twelve
pence for each default but it was added that no one ;
should be impeached for this latter offence, unless the

impeachment took place within one month after the offence.
By Section 32, it w as enacted
r
that any person or persons
who should "
willingly maintain, retain, relieve, keep, or

harbour in his or their house, any servant, sojourner,
or stranger,"
who did not attend the Divine Services of
Church of England, should forfeit 10 for every month in
which they so acted but that this Act shall not in any
"
wise extend to punish or impeach any person or persons

for maintaining, relieving, keeping, or harbouring his or
their father or mother."
Another important Act (3 James I., cap. 5) was passed

in the same Session as that which passed the last-cited Act.
It contained many severe provisions. It was entitled
"
An Act and avoid dangers which grow by

to prevent
Popish enacted, amongst other matters,

Recusants." It
that if any person should discover to any Justice of the
Peace any Recusant who had entertained
"
any Jesuit,
Seminary, or Popish priest, or shall discover any Mass to
have been said, and the persons that were present at such
Mass, and the priest that said the same, or any of them,
within three days next after the offence committed
"
then, on the conviction of such person or persons, the in

former should be entitled to one-third part of the money
and goods which the Recusant forfeited for his offence.
By Section 2 it was provided that no Popish Recusant
convicted, or to be convicted, "shall come into the Court
"
or house where the King s Majesty, or his heir, should be

(unless commanded in writing to be present), under a penalty
of 100. All Popish Recusants were ordered to depart from
the City of London, and not reside within ten miles of it,
LAWS AGAINST THE RECUSANTS 289
under a penalty of 100. But those who had resided in

the City of London for three months before the opening
of that Session of "Parliament, and had there carried on
trade, mystery, or manual occupation," were allowed
"
any
to continue their residence, notwithstanding the fine im
posed on others. By Section 6 it was ordered that any

Popish Recusant who had been
convicted of not attending
"
the services in his Parish Church, should repair to the

place where such person was born, or where the father or
mother of such person should be dwelling, and not at any
time remove or pass above five miles from thence," under
the penalties provided by 35 Elizabeth, cap. 2. But per
mission was given to any three or more of the Privy Council
to grant licences to such Recusants to travel beyond the
five miles limit and a similar power of granting licences
;
was given to any four Justices of the Peace, with the written
assent of the Bishop of the Diocese.
By Section 8 it was enacted that no Recusant convict
" "
could
"
practice the common law of this realm as a coun
sellor, clerk, attorney, or solicitor in the same, nor shall
practice the civil law as advocate or proctor, nor use or

exercise the trade or art of an apothecary nor shall be ;
judge, minister, clerk, or steward of or in any Court, nor

keep any Court, nor shall be registrar or town-clerk, or
other minister or officer in either the Army or Navy.
Every person offending against these provisions should, for
every offence, forfeit 100. no Section 9 enacts that

"
Popish Recusant convict, nor any having a wife being a

"
Popish Recusant convict." shall exercise any public

charge in the commonwealth." Section 10 ordered
office or
"
that every widow, being a Popish Recusant convict,"

whose husband had not been a Popish Recusant convict,
shall,if, after the death of her husband, she abstained
from attendance at Divine Service in the Parish Church,
and had abstained from taking the Lord s Supper for
forfeit and lose to the King s Majesty, his
"
one year,
heirs and successors, the issues and profits of two parts
T
of her jointure, and two parts of her dower," and be dis
abled from acting as executrix or administratrix of her
husband. By Section 13 it was provided that any Popish
Recusant convict who should bo married otherwise than
in the Church of England, shall be utterly disabled and
"
excluded to have any estate of freehold

"
of his wife. If
an} woman, being

r
a Popish Recusant convict, be married
otherwise than in the Church of England, she shall not be
entitled to claim any dower of the inheritance of her hus
band. Section 14 ordered children to be baptized in the
all
Parish Church
"
by a lawful minister, according to the laws

of this Realm," under a penalty of 100. The Act also
inflicted certain penalties on those who, without licence,
sent their children abroad to be educated as Roman
Catholics. By Section 18, Roman Catholics were forbidden
to act as Patrons to livings in the Church of England. By
Section 22 it is affirmed that it is not meet that Popish
Recusants shall have the education of their own children."

"
Penalties were also imposed by this Act on all who printed,

sold, orbought any Popish books.
A
modern American Professor, who, as I have already
stated, has made a special and impartial study of English
Roman Catholic history at this period, after giving an
account of these two Acts of Parliament, justly remarks :
These exceedingly harsh provisions were probably never

"
put into full execution and it is probable, though not

;
certain, that the Government never expected or intended

that they should be. It was well to enact them to satisfy
and silence the Protestant fanatics by a pious show of zeal.
It was equally well to have them on the Statute Books, to
use if the situation should, at any time, demand rigorous
measures. In fact, during the whole reign of James, the
Penal Laws were used to threaten and coerce the refractory,
who refused to take the Oath of Allegiance, and were not
amenable to persuasion. Those Catholics who would take
the Oath of Allegiance and accept the leadership of the
Secular Priests, need not be troubled with fines or penalties,
ARCH-PRIEST BLACK WELL AND THE OATH 291
but all the Jesuits and their supporters, all foreign plotters
and their books and letters, all those who stiffly refused
the Governmental overtures, these might Avell feel the weight
of the law, from time to time, not so much to exterminate
them, as to coerce them into the acceptance of the new

compromise. The existence of the Penal Laws, not
. . .
their execution, was the guarantee for the loyalty of the

secular Catholics to the State. The new settlement of 1606
was, therefore, James-like the Judges would go down ;
to the Assizes, bearing in one hand the Oath of Allegiance,

and in the other the sword of the new penalties, and the
1
Catholics should choose."
The chief controversy created by these Acts centred

round the Oath of Allegiance. Large numbers of Roman
Catholics, with the advice and consent of the secular priests,
took it without hesitation, and were afterwards treated
by the Government with extraordinary leniency. What
the Government wanted was a reliable assurance of loyalty
from the Romanists, and when this was given they were
content to wink at the evasion of many of the laws against
Recusants. Even the Arch-priest Blackwell publicly ex
pressed his belief that it was lawful for Romanists to take
the Oath, and he set them an example by taking it himself.
He expected great gain and comfort for his co-religionists if
they followed his example. In a letter to his clergy, dated
July 7, 1607, he said :
"
Not knowing whether ever I shall have opportunity

again to write to you, I have thus at large discharged
my conscience in this matter persuading myself that ;
you, my assistants, and dear brethren,

will take the oath
as I have done, when unto you, and that
it shall be offered
you Avill instruct the lay Catholics that they may so do,
when it is tendered to them. So shall we shake off the false
and grievous imputations of treasons and treacheries : so
shall lay Catholics not overthrow their estates ;
so shall we
1
The Reconstruction of the English Church, by Roland G. Usher, Ph.D.,
vol. ii. pp. Ill, 112.
effect that which his Holiness desireth, that is, to exhibit
our duties to God and our Prince. Surely this will bring
us gain and increase of comforts."
l
It would have been well for English Romanists had

they all followed Blackwell s advice. It would, indeed,
have brought them gain and increase of many comforts,"
"
as it
actually did to those who took the Oath. Every
Roman Catholic Peer in the House of Lords frequently
took the Oath, excepting only one. But the Jesuits, backed
by the Pope, were the bitter enemies of the Oath, and for
bade their subjects to take it. The result was that those
who refused to clear themselves on the question of allegiance
soon found the Recusant laws enforced against them while ;
those who took the Oath were at once relieved from many
grievous inflictions.This was acknowledged at the time
by no less an authority than Father Richard Holby, S.J.,
who was appointed Superior of the English Jesuits after
the execution of Father Garnet. In his Annual Letter
to the General of the Jesuits for the year 1607. Holby
stated On all hands we hear of nothing but the violence
:
"
and rigour of the authorities, and repeated and cruel seizures

of property, so that we can truly say, Without are fight
ings, within fears. By taking the Oath one is spared these
outrages, the rage of the persecutors is softened, and gentler
treatment is experienced from the Government and its officers."
There was really no valid excuse, on the score of religion,
for refusing the Oath, and thus gaining many advantages.
Father Taunton justly points out
"
It may be noticed :
that in this form of Oath the spiritual power of the Pope

is noways denied only the temporal claims."
;
3
And yet
Henry Foley, S.J., had the daring to tell this untruth about
In this Oath the} were made to swear (1) allegiance
"
it :
to James I., not only as their lawful King, but as Supreme

Head of the Church of England (2) an open and formal ;
Tierney s I)odd s Church History, vol. iv. p. cxlviii.

1
2
Foley s Records of the English Province, S.J., vol. vii. p. 981.
3
PAUL V. ISSUES TWO BRIEFS 293
denial of the Headship of the Sovereign Pontiff in all matters

l
ecclesiastical."
The Pope (Paul V.) lost no time in denouncing the new

Oath of Allegiance. issued two Briefs against it the He :
first, dated September 22, 1606; and the second, dated

October 1607. It was with reference to the first of these
Papal Briefs that James L, in his Apology for the Oath of
Allegiance, wrote But the Devil could not have de
:
"
vised a more malicious trick for interrupting this so calm

and clement a course, than fell out by the sending hither,
and publishing a Brief of the Pope, countermanding all
them of his profession to take this Oath thereby sowing ;
new seeds of jealousy between me and my Popish subjects,

by stirring them up to disobey that lawful commandment
of their Sovereign, which was ordained to be taken of them
as a pledge of their fidelity."
A learned Roman Catholic
preist, the Rev. Charles O
Conor, D.D., writing in 1812,
remarks I do not admire the character of James but
"
:
;
it is impossible for any honest man to read his Triplici

nodo triplex Cuneus, or Apology for the fair Oath which he
proposed to the Catholics after the Gunpowder Plot, without
acknowledging that he was very far from meaning to per
secute their Charles Butler, the leading
religion."
2
And
lay champion of the English Romanists at the beginning
"
of the nineteenth century, admits that Nothing, in :
the opinion of the writer, could be more wise or humane

than the motives of James in framing the Oath." 3 And
Lord Acton says of James: "He
regarded the Penal Laws
as defensible on the ground of political danger only, not
4
on the ground of religion."
In his first Brief the Pope declared that :
"
An Oath of the kind cannot be taken with safety to

the Catholic faith and to the welfare of your own souls,
1
Foloy s Record* of the English Province, S.J., vol. ii. p. 475.
2
O Conor s Historical Address, part ii. p. 201.
:1
Butler s Historical Memoirs of the. English Catholics, vol. ii.
p. 1.X5,
edition 1822.
4
Acton s Lectures on Modern History, p. 197.
containing, as it does, much that is openly opposed to the
faith and to salvation. Wherefore we admonish you care
fully to abstain from this or other such Oaths a caution ;
which we are the more strict in urging upon you, because

that having had experience of the constancy of your faith,
which has been tried, as gold, in the furnace of unremitting
tribulation, we assured that you will be ready cheer
feel
fully to submit to any still more atrocious tortures, and even

to feel an earnest longing for death itself, rather than to
do ought which might be injurious to the majesty of God." l
In his second Brief, Paul V. referred to rumours which
had reached him to the effect that his first Brief was not
written of his own natural accord and proper will, but at
the instance, and in pursuance of the designs of others,
and that therefore his commands, forbidding the taking
of the Oath, need not be attended to. On this account
he had determined to write to the English Roman Catholics
was written
"
again, to assure them that his first Brief after
long and grave deliberation on all matters therein con

tained and that you are therefore bound strictly to ob
;
2
serve its injunctions."
The Pope Avas careful not to specify which portions of

the Oath of Allegiance were objectionable. Thirteen
priests, who were suffering imprisonment for refusing to
take the Oath, wrote to him begging him most earnestly
to inform them what those things in the Oath were which
he had pronounced to be adverse to faith and salvation,
but he did not condescend to send them an answer. In
a letter which Pope Urban VIII. wrote to the French King
on May 30, 1626, he thus referred to the same Oath :
"There is exacted from the English Catholics the Oath
of Allegiance, which the censure of Paul V. hath condemned,

and the Church s piety doth detest. They are resolved
rather to lose their life in the midst of torments, than to
fall away, by that kind of Oath, from Christ that reigneth
1
King s Church History of Ireland, vol. iii. p. 131G.
2
Ibid., p. 1319.
THE DEPOSING POWER OF THE POPE 295
in the The real objection to the Oath was that

Popes."
1
it denied the right of the Pope to depose Princes, and ab

solve their subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance in ;
short, it repudiated his Temporal PoAver over Princes. This

isadmitted by Mr. Charles Butler, the lay champion of the
English Romanists in their demands for Catholic Emanci
pation, in the nineteenth century.
early He writes :
The
great objection, however, to the Oath, was its ab
solute denial of the Pope s deposing Power." 2
Sir John
Throckmorton, a Roman Catholic Baronet, writing in 1792,
remarks :
"
has been asserted that the only difficulty, to which

It
this Oath was liable, was in applying the word heretical
to the doctrine of the Deposing Power ;
but this assertion
is contradicted by the uniform conduct and declarations
of the Court of Rome, and the writings of those who com
bated the lawfulness of the Oath. From these it will appear
that the objection it, and the ground of its repeatedmade to
condemnation, w as the r
explicit denial of any power in the

Pope, on any occasion, to depose Kings and that the word ;
heretical could only be objectionable to those who main

3
tain the Deposing Power."
In a letter which Father Robert Parsons, S.J., wrote

from Rome at this period, he frankly stated what was the
real objection to the Oath of Allegiance. He wrote :
About four
or five months past, a consultation was held
"
of seven or eight of the most learned divines, who could be
chosen, to give their judgment on it [the Oath] their ;
reasons are many, but all reduced to this : that it is of faith

that the Pope hath authority to chastise Princes on just grounds,
and, consequently, when it is called in question, it cannot

be denied, without renouncing our faith." 4
1
Clarendon State Papers, vol. i.
p. edition 17G7, 8vo.
(>4,
2
Butler s Historical Memoirs of English Catholics, vol. ii.
p. 191, edition
1822.
3
A Letter to the Catholic Clergy of England, by Sir John Throckmorton,
Bart,, p. 1-J7.
4
Ibid., p. !::;>.
Not only were many Roman Catholics sent to prison
for refusing the Oath,but several priests actually suffered
death rather than submit. We may and must admire
their courage, though we disapprove of their conduct ;
but we can only feel contempt and loathing for the Papal
authorities for being the primary cause of sending men
to prison and death rather than allow them to renounce
the Papal claims to mere worldly honour and power. They
were Martyrs to the Deposing Power of the Popes ;
riot
to their religion. We
cannot but agree with Father Joseph
Berington, when he wrote of these men :
I venerate the virtues and the firmness of these men

"
but truly it is pitiable to see such virtues and such firmness

expended on a cause, at the name of which reason recoiled,
and religion blushed. The} died, because when called on
7
by the they would not

legal authority of their country,
declare that the Roman
Bishop, styled the Vicar of Him
whose Kingdom is not of this world, had no right to
dethrone Princes. Their foreign education had inspired
this conception of the Papal prerogative. And
strange
[Pope] Paul himself could sit undisturbed in the Vatican,
hearing that men were imprisoned, and that blood was
poured out in support of a claim, which had no better
origin, surely he knew, than the ambition of his prede
cessors, and the weak concessions of mortals he could ;
sit and view the scene, and not, in pity at least, wish to
redress their sufferings, by releasing them from the in

l
junctions of his Decree."
And the Rev. Charles O Conor, D.D., is even more
indignant at the conduct of the Pope, although he himself
was a Romish priest. He writes :
My heart swells with mingled emotions of pity on one

"
side, and horror and indignation on another, when I con
template the dilemma in which those wretched men were

thus placed, by the pride and ambition of their Superiors !
Before them was Tyburn, behind them stood, armed with
1
Memoirs of Paiizani, pp. 85, 8G.
DR. O CONOR ON PAPAL VICTIMS 297
fulminating thunders and terrors, that grim disgrace, in

the opinion of their flocks, by which they would be over
whelmed as apostates, if they opposed the mandates of
Rome ! .
Religion indignantly wraps herself up in her
. .
shroud of deepest mourning, before the idol of ecclesiastical

domination, when she observes the Roman Court sacri
ficing to its insatiable ambition the lives of so many heroes
who were worthy of a better fate." 1
Dr. O Conor adds that
"
in consequence of this hor

" "
rible decision nine priests suffered as victims to the

domination of Vicars Apostolic, and the fatal influence of
the Court of They were the Revs. Roger Cad-
Rome."
walador, George Gervase, Latham (whose real name was

John Almond), George Napier, Nicholas Atkinson, Robert
Drury, Matthew Flather, Thomas Maxfield, and Thomas
Garnet. Each of these men could have saved his life by
taking the Oath of Allegiance, and therefore cannot be said
to have died for his religion. But Pope Leo XIII., in 1886,
raised all of these priests to the rank of Venerable," as a
"
step towards their eventual Canonisation. Disloyalty to

a Protestant Government is no hindrance to Canonisation.
Paul V. would not raise a hand to make English Romanists
more loyal to their King. It is stated by the historian
Gardiner that before the end of October, 1607, Lord
Salisbury, probably at James instigation, begged Zuriiga,
Spanish Ambassador
"
in England, to urge the Pope to

write a kind letter to James, offering to excommunicate
those Catholics who rebelled against their Sovereign, and
to direct them to take arms, if necessary, to defend him
against invasion. If Paul would do this, all the fines im
posed upon Catholics would be at once remitted, and they

would be allowed to keep priests in their houses without
hindrance from the Government
"
but as late as the ;
following February this important proposal "had met with

no response." 2 The Pope would not assist a Protestant
1
Columltanufi, No. vi., by the Rev. Chark* O Conor, D.D., pp. 12, 11. !.
J
2
Gardiner s History of England, vol. ii. pp. 23, 27, second edition.
King against his enemies, even though, by so doing, he
would deliver his own spiritual children in England from
many pains and penalties. It w as brutally selfish yet it
r
;
was in accordance with the general principles of the Papacy,

as expressed, nearly thirty years later, by the Papal Secre
tary of State, who, on Ma}^ 20, 1646, wrote as follows to

Rinuccini, Papal Nuncio to the Irish Rebels, who had
boasted of his fidelity to the Royal cause :
"
The Holy See never

can, by any positive act, approve
of the civil allegiance of Catholic subjects to an heretical

Prince. From this maxim of the Holy See have arisen
many difficulties and disputes in England about Oaths of
Allegiance ;
and his Holiness displeasure is the greater,
because you have left the original of this your speech in
the hands of the Catholic Confederates, which, if published,
will furnish heretics with arguments against the Pope s
power over heretical Princes, seeing that his Minister

exhorts the Catholics of Ireland to allegiance to an heretical
King. You must, therefore, withdraw the original, and
suppress all copies of the said speech, and never indulge
x
in such speeches again."
Again, when Rinuccini, in 1646, made the Irish Roman

Catholic Bishops subscribe to a declaration, refusing to sign
a Peace Treaty, unless ample conditions were made for the
support of religion, the King, and the country, he brought
once more on himself the censure of the Cardinal Secretary
of State, who, on December 10, 1646, wrote to him :
has been the constant and uninterrupted practice of

"
It
the Holy See never to allow its Ministers to make or to consent
to any public edict of Catholic subjects, for the defence of the
Crown and person of an heretical Prince ; that this conduct

of his furnished pretences to the enemies of the Holy See
to reflect upon her, as deviating from the maxims of sound
policy, towhich she had ever yet adhered and that the ;
Pope desired that he would not, by any public act, show

that he knew, or consented to, any declaration of allegiance
1
O Conor s Historical Address, part ii.
p. 415.
FATHER PETER WALSH ON PAPAL CLAIMS 299
which Irish Catholics might, for political reasons, be com
willing to make to the King."

1
pelled or
The fact is that if the Popes had been willing that
English Roman Catholics should be genuinely loyal to
their Sovereigns, after Henry VIII. s severance from Rome
(and excluding the short reign of Queen Mary), but very
few Penal Laws would ever have been passed. It was
mainly a reasonable dread of Papal interference with the
temporal affairs of the Realm that made it seem to the
authorities necessary to erect such safeguards. But very
few in these times are aware how extreme and audacious
the claims of the Papacy were in the sixteenth and seven
teenth centuries claims which have never been with
drawn, though not often obtruded on the public gaze.
And here it may be appropriate to cite the opinion of a
learned and loyal Roman Catholic priest living in England
in the middle of the seventeenth century, who gives his
candid, and, I believe, well-founded opinion, as to the real

cause of the Penal Laws of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. He was the author of the well-known History
and Vindication of the Loyal Formulary, or Irish Remon
strance, published in a large folio volume, in 1674. He is
described by Father Tootle, alias Dodd

"
thus : Peter
Walsh; a learned Irish Franciscan; born, 1610. He was a
great stickler for the of Allegiance Oathbut at the same ;
time, a zealous champion for the Catholic Faith." In 1674,

Father Peter Walsh published, in a small volume, his Letter
to the Catholics of England, Ireland, and Scotland, from which
I give the following extract, which, though long, is still
of great importance, for it accurately describes the intoler
able temporal claims of the Papacy, and that by one who,
as we have just seen, was
"
a zealous champion for the

Catholic faith." The numbering of the paragraphs is mine.
He writes :
"
I must now tell you that, if we please to examine
]
a
Dodd s Church History, vol. iii. p. o23, edition 1742.
things calmly, with unprejudiced reading, and unbiased
reason, we may find without any perad venture, that the rigour
of so many laws, the severity of so many edicts, and the
cruel execution of both, many times against even harmless
people of the Roman Communion, have not intentionally
or designedly from the beginning aimed, nor do at present
aim, so much at the renunciation of any avowed or un-
controverted articles of that Christian or Catholic religion
you profess, as at the suppression of those doctrines which
many of yourselves condemn as Anti-Catholic, and for the
prevention of those practices which you all say you abhor as

Anti-Christian. ... I say, it is not any of all these articles
or practices, nor all together (not even joined with some
others, whether of lesser or greater note) that is the grand
rock of scandal, or that hath been these last hundred years,
the cause of so many penalties, mulcts, incapacities, of
shameful deaths inflicted, and more ignominious charac
ters given us. That of our side, the original source of all
those evils, and perpetual spring of all other misfortunes
and miseries whatsoever, of the Roman Catholics in
England, Ireland, Scotland, at any time since the first
change under Henry VIII., hath been a system of doctrines

and practices, not only quite other than yourselves do
believe to have been either revealed in Holy Scripture, or
delivered by Catholic tradition, or evidenced by natural
reason, or so much as defined b}^ the Tridentine Fathers,
but also quite contrary to those doctrines and practices
which are manifestly recommended in the letter, sense, and
whole design of the Gospel of Christ. That of those
. . .
quite other and quite contrary doctrines, in the most general

terms,without descending to particular applications of
them to any one Kingdom or people, are as followeth,
viz,. :
That by Divine right, and immediate institution of

"
1.
Christ, the Bishop of Rome is universal Monarch and Governor

of the world, even with Sovereign, independent, both spiritual
and temporal authority over all Churches, nations, Empires,
FATHER WALSH S LETTER 301
Kingdoms, States, Principalities and over all persons, Emperors,

;
Kings, Princes, Prelates, Governors, priests and people, both

orthodox and heterodox, Christian and Infidel, and in all things
and causes whatsoever, as well temporal and civil, as ecclesi
astical or spiritual.
"
2. That he hath the absolute power of both swords given

him.
"
3.That he is the fountain of all jurisdiction of either kind

on earth, and that whoever derives not from him hath none at
all, not even any the least civil or temporal jurisdiction.
That he is the only Supreme Judge of all persons and
"
4.
powers, even collectively taken, and in all manner of things

Divine and human.
That all human creatures are bound, under forfeiture
"
5.
of eternal salvation, to be subject to him, i.e. to both his
swords.
"
6.That he is empowered with lawful authority, not only

to excommunicate, but to deprive, depose, and dethrone (both
sententially and effectually), all Princes, Kings, and Emperors ;
to translate their Royal rights, and dispose of their Kingdoms

to others, when and how he shall think fit, especially in case
either of apostacy, or heresy, or schism, or breach of ecclesias
tical immunity, or any public oppression of the Church or people
in their respective civil or religious rights, or even in case of any
other enormous public sins, nay, in case of only unfitriess to
govern. "
7.That to this purpose he hath full authority, and pleni

tude of Apostolic power, to dispense with subjects in, and absolve
them from all Oaths of Allegiance, and from the antecedent ties
also of the laws of God or man, and to set them at full liberty ;
nay, to command them, under excommunication and what

other penalties he please, to raise arms against their so deposed,
or so excommunicated, or otherwise ill-meriting Princes, and to
pursue them with fire and sword to death, if they resist, or con
tinue their administration, or their claim thereunto against his
will.
"
8. That he hath likewise power to dispense, not only in

all Vows whatsoever, made either immediately or mediately
to God Himself, not only (as hath been now said) in the Oath
of Allegiancesworn to the King, but in all other Oaths or promises
under Oath made even to any other man, whatsoever the subject
or thing sworn be.
"
9. That besides Oaths and Vows, he can dispense in other

matters also, even against the Apostles, against the old Testa-
ment, against the Four Evangelists, and (consequently) against
the law of God.
That whoever kills any Prince deposed or excommuni
"
10.
cated by him, or by others deriving powers from him, kills not
a lawful Prince, but an usurping tyrant a tyrant at least by title
;
if not
by administration too and therefore cannot be said to
;
murder the Lord s anointed, or even to kill his own Prince.

That whosoever, out of pure zeal to the Roman Church,
"
11.
ventures himself, and dies in a war against such a tyrant (i.e.
against such a deposed or excommunicated Prince) dies a true
Martyr of Christ, and his soul flies to heaven immediately.
"
That his Holiness may give, and doth well to give,

12.
Plenary Indulgence of all their sins (a culpa and pcena) to all

subjects rebelling and righting against their Princes, when he
approves of the war.
"
That antecedently to any special judgment, Declara

13.
tion, or Declaratory Sentence pronounced by the Pope, or any

other subordinate Judge, against any particular person, heresy
does, ipso jure, both incapacitate to and deprive of the Crown,
and all other, not only Royal, but real and personal rights
whatsoever.
"
14. is a manifest
usurper, and a
That an heretic possessor
tyrant the
also,
possession be
if a Kingdom, State, or Princi
pality and therfore is, ipso jure, outlawed
;
and that all his ;
people (i.e. all otherwise reputed vassals, tenants, or subjects)

are likewise, ipso jure, absolved from all Oaths, and all other
ties whatsoever of fidelity or obedience to him.
That all ecclesiastics whatsoever, both men and women,
"
15.
secularand regular, Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops,
Abbots, Abbesses, Priests, Friars, Monks, Nuns, to the very
Porter or Porteress of a cloisture inclusively, nay, to the very
scullion of the kitchen, and all their Churches, houses, lands,
revenues, goods, and much more all their persons, are exempt
by the law of nature, and laws of nations, and those of God
. . are indeed universally, perpetually, and irrevocably, so
.
exempt from all secular, civil, and temporal authority on earth,

whether of States or of Princes, of Kings or of Emperors and ;
from all their laws, and all their commands.

"
16. That, consequently, if any Churchman should murder

his lawful and rightful King, blow up the Parliament, fire, burn,
and lay waste all the Kingdom yet he could not be therefore
;
guilty of treason, or truly called a traitor against the King,

or against the Kingdom, or people, or laws thereof no, nor could ;
be justly punished at all by the secular Magistrate, or laws of

FATHER WALSH S LETTER 303
the land, without special permission from the Pope, or those

deriving authority from him.
17. "That he [the Pope] can suspend, correct, alter, and utterly
abolish any Imperial, Royal, or Municipal Constitution, custom,
or law whatsoever, in any State or Kingdom of the world, as
i
he shall think expedient/
1
A Letter to the Catholicks of England, Ireland, Scotland, by Father Peter
Walsh, of the Order of St. Francis, and Professor of Divinity (printed Anno
1674), pp. 13-1.
CHAPTER XIX
JAMES i. (concluded)
Papal Diplomacy and Intrigue Marriage Negotiations with Spain Tho

Pope refuses to exhort English Romanists to Loyalty Marriage
Negotiations with France Evil Results of James Reign.
WITH the negotiations for the marriage of the eldest son

of James I. with a Spanish Princess began the period of
Papal diplomacy and intrigue, mainly of a secret character,

by which it was hoped to accomplish that which attempts
to obtain foreign armed intervention had failed to secure.
The object both lines of policy was the same
in but the ;
methods used were different. If Papal Supremacy,

political and religious, could not be obtained by one plan,
another might be more successful. These marriage negotia
tions were commenced by Queen Anne, wife of James I.
This lady, when in Scotland, had been secretly received
into the Church of Rome by Father Abercrombie, S.J.,
and remained in full, but secret, communion with that
Church until her death in 1619 yet, throughout all these
;
years she was outwardly a Protestant, attending, after her

arrival in England, the services of the Church of England,
though she refused to receive Holy Communion at the

hands of its Ministers. 1 During the whole of this period
she was passionately devoted to Spanish interests, and
furthered them to the utmost of her power, and at the
same time she used her influence with the King to secure
the appointment of Romanists to positions of influence in
the State. I have no doubt that it was at the instigation
of her Jesuit Father Confessors that, as early as 1604, she
had set her heart on a marriage between her eldest son,
1
For the full story of her secret reception and double life, see my Jesuits
in Great Britain, pp. 204-217.
304
MARRIAGE NEGOTIATIONS WITH SPAIN 305
Prince Henry, then heir to the Throne, and the Infanta

of Spain, who, at that time, was heiress to the Spanish
Throne. It was at once seen that such a marriage would,
if a son were born to it, result in the Crowns of England
and Spain being eventually placed on one head, and that

a Roman Catholic head, thoroughly devoted to the inte
rests of Spain. The marriage would have rung the death-
knell of Protestant liberties in the British dominions ;
and
the establishment once more of Papal Supremacy in these
Realms. The negotiations, owing to the extreme youth
of Prince Henry, were postponed until 1611, when the
King of Spain made it known that he could only consent
to such a marriage on the condition that the Prince should
join the Church of Rome, after being instructed in that

faith while residing for a time in Spain. But these negotia
tions were brought to an end by the death of the Prince,
in 1612.
Ever since the issuing of the Papal Briefs against the
Oath of Allegiance, those who suffered through obedience to
them were very naturally urgent with the Pope to devise
some means whereby they could render satisfaction to the
King and his Government, consistently with obedience to
Papal authority. But the Pope turned a deaf ear to all
their appeals. The fact is he did not wish the English
Romanists to be loyal, or to give any public proof of their
loyalty to a Protestant Sovereign. The Arch-priest Birk-
head, who took an active part in opposition to the Oath,
was yet anxious that the Pope should do something to
relieve the Romanists from the difficult position in which
they were placed. In a letter which he wrote, on July 26,

1610, to Dr. Richard Smith, then agent in Rome for the
English priests (and, subsequently, titular Bishop of Chal-
cedon), he tells him that he thought no Catholic would
"
be sorry such a Brief were obtained

from the Pope, in
"
if
which he would expressly and most strictly command

"
all Catholics of the Realm, both laics and ecclesiastics,
under censure of excommunication, ipso facto, to be in-

u
curred, neither to confederate, plot, consent to, or execute
any violence, hurt, or prejudice, against his Majesty s
person ;
but they all should carry themselves in all tem
poral and civil becometh good and obedient
affairs as it
subjects, to their lawful and undoubted Sovereign." Birk-

head added that if such a Brief could be obtained from the
there is great hope, and not ungrounded, con
"
Pope,
ceived of much ease and mitigation of pressures to follow
to the body of Catholics thereby." l He urged Dr. Smith
to do his utmost to obtain such a Brief but it was all in ;
vain. Papal pride and Papal Temporal Power were thought

by the Pope to be of more consequence than the cries
and miseries of his own spiritual children. Father Mush,
writing on August 19, 1611, to Father More, who was then
agent in Rome for the English priests, remarks The "
Jesuits report that [Pope] Paul hath prohibited all here [in
England] to give the King any Oath of Temporal Allegiance,

unless it be approved at Rome. This scandalises all
first
sorts of Catholics exceedingly, that he should so little regard

our affections ;
for they looked rather his Holiness should
have sent them a lawful Oath of Allegiance, which every
one might have had in readiness at all assays, and whereb} 7
there might have been conformity amongst us, than to

forbid a lawful thing, we being in so great extremities,
and our means of sending to Rome so little and so difficult,
or rather impossible, till all be undone. The axe is over
our heads, to fall if we refuse and we must send to
;
Rome !
Oh ! howgreat care whether we perish or be safe

2
!
"
Soon after the death of Prince Henry, James commenced

negotiations with the King of Spain for a marriage between
Charles, Prince of Wales (who had become heir to the Throne
on the death and the Infanta Maria of Spain.
of his brother),
To further his objects James began to show favours to
Roman Catholics, and to relax the Penal Laws. The
Parliament of 1614 begged his Majesty to inquire into the
Tierncy s Dodcl s Church History,

1
vol. iv. pp. clxvi., clxvii.
2
Hid., p. clxxix.
THE REMONSTRANCE OF PARLIAMENT 307
causes of the unexpected increase of Popish Recusants,

which they attributed to the admission of the Popish
nobility into his Councils. They also complained of the
effortswhich had been made to marry the late Prince Henry
to a Popish Princess, and which were then being renewed
which dishearteneth the
"
on behalf of Prince Charles,

Protestant and encourageth the Recusant." l The marriage
negotiations were prolonged, so much so, indeed, that the
marriage contract was not signed until 1623. Meanwhile,
the Protestant discontent grew throughout the country,
and once more found expression in a Petition and Re
monstrance from the House of Commons addressed to the
King in December 1621, in which they call attention to the
increase of Popery, and in a list of these great and growing
"
" "
mischiefs they specify the expectation of the Popish

Recusants of the Match with Spain, and feeding themselves
with great hopes of the consequences thereof. The inter
posing of foreign Princes and their agents, in behalf of
Popish Recusants, for connivance and favour unto them
"
the swarms of priests and Jesuits, the common

"
as also
incendiaries of all Christendom, dispersed in all parts of your
Kingdom."Popery, the Commons reminded the King,

hath a restless spirit, and will strive by these gradations.
"
If it once get but a connivance, it will press for a tolera

tion if
;
that should be obtained, they must have an
equality from thence they will aspire to superiority, and
;
will never rest till they get a subversion of the true religion."
They suggest several remedies for these mischiefs, including

the enforcement of the Penal Laws against the Romanists :
and they express a hope that to frustrate their [Romanists ]

"
hopes for a future age our most noble Prince may be timely
and happily married to one of our own religion." 2 It
would have been well for the country, and saved it from
many years of trouble, if the advice of the House of Commons,
that Prince Charles should marry a Protestant, had been
1
Parliamentary History, vol. v. p. 305, edition 1751.
2
487-490.
Ibid., pp.
acted on. To promote the Spanish marriage, and please
the King of Spain, James ventured, on his own responsi
bility, to dispense, as far as possible, his subordinate officers
from enforcing the laws against Popish Recusants. When
writing about the events of the year 1621, Collier remarks :
And now to give a smoother course to the Treaty of the

"
Spanish Match, and procure better quarter for the Protestants

in Roman
Catholic countries, 1 the King thought fit not to
insist on the rigour of the laws, but discharged some Popish
Recusants upon their giving sufficient securities for appear
ance and good behaviour." The Lord Keeper, Williams,
was ordered to write to the Judges to this effect :
That the King having upon deep reasons of State, and in

"
expectation of the like correspondence from foreign Princes

to the professors of our religion, resolved to grant some grace
to the imprisoned Papists, had commanded him to pass
some writs under the Broad Seal for that purpose. Where
fore it is his Majesty s pleasure, that they make no niceness
or difficulty to extend his Princely favour to all such as
they shall find prisoners in the gaols of their circuits, for
any Church recusancy, or refusing the Oath of Supremacy,
or dispersing of Popish books, or any other point of re
cusancy that shall concern religion only, and not matters of

2
State."
James was willing to do far more than this in the in

terests of the Church of Rome, if
by so doing he could
secure a rich Spanish wife for his son.On July 20, 1623,
he solemnly swore to support a series of articles, as con
tained within the Treaty of Marriage, in the following
terms :
"
It is agreed that we, by our Oath, shall approve the articles

under expressed to a word.
1. That particular laws made against Roman
"
Catholics,
under which other vassals of our Realms are not comprehended,
and to whose observation all generally are not obliged as like- ;
1
In which he signally failed. The Protestants in Spain gained nothing.
2
Collier s Ecclesiastical History, vol. vii. pp. 426, 427, edition 1846.
THE SPANISH MARRIAGE TREATY 309
wise general laws under which all are equally comprised, if so

be the} are such which are repugnant to the Romish religion,
7
shall not at any time hereafter, by any means or chance what

soever, directly or indirectly, be commanded to be put in exe
cution against the said Roman Catholics and we will cause that ;
our Council shall take the same Oath, as far as it pertains to them,
and belongs to the execution, which by the hands of them and
their Ministers is to be exercised.
"
2. That no other laws shall hereafter be made anew against

the said Roman Catholics, but that there shall be a perpetual
toleration of the Roman Catholic religion within private houses
throughout all our Realms and Dominions, which we will have
to be understood as well of our Kingdom of Scotland and Ireland,
as in England, which shall be granted to them in manner and
form as is capitulated, decreed, and granted in the Articles of
Treaty concerning the marriage. . . .
That we will interpose our authority, and will do as

"3.
much as in us shall lie, that the Parliament shall approve,

conform, and ratify all and singular articles in favour of
the Roman Catholics, capitulated between the most renowned
Kings, by reason of this marriage and that the said Parliament
;
shall revoke and abrogate the particular laws made against the
said Roman Catholics, to whose observance also the rest of our
subjects and vassals are not obliged as likewise the general laws
;
under which all are equally comprehended, to wit, as to the

Roman Catholics, if they be such as is aforesaid, which are re
pugnant to the Roman Catholic religion and that hereafter we :
will not consent that the said Parliament should ever at any time
enact or write any other new laws against Roman Catholics/ l
In this way James I. was willing, from merely selfish
motives, to remove every barrier which the laws had erected

to keep back the inroads of the Papal power, both political
and spiritual. It is fortunate for us, who live in the
twentieth century, that the exercise of the Royal Pre
rogative, for the purpose of dispensing with the laws, was
annihilated by the Bill of Rights. We may be quite sure
that English Protestants rejoiced when they heard that
the marriage negotiations were broken off though, as it ;
unfortunately happened, only to lead on to other and similar

negotiations in France, which ended in the marriage of
1
Prynne s Hidden Works of Darkness, pp. 44, 45.
Prince Charles to the Roman Catholic Princess Henrietta
Maria, daughter of Henry IV., King of France. What
would in probability have happened had diplomacy
all
succeeded and the Spanish marriage taken place is thus

described by Gardiner "A
Spanish Infanta was to be
:
come the future Queen of England, and the mother of a

stock of English Kings. In the course of nature her child
would, within forty or fifty years, be seated on the Throne
of Henry and Elizabeth. A Roman Catholic Sovereign
for what else could he be ? would have the power of loosing
the tongues of the Jesuits, of stopping the mouths of the
defenders of the faith. All Court favour, all power of
lulling men s consciences to sleep by the soporific potion
of place or pension, would be in his hands. It was he who
would make the Judges it was he who would make the
;
Bishops and who might, therefore, in the language which

;
has sometimes been attributed to James, make both law

and Gospel. If all other means failed, he would have at
his disposal the arms of his Spanish kinsman the Lord,
it might be feared, by right of England s cowardice, of
half of Germany, and of the territory that had once been
held by the Dutch Republic." Many of the evil results
here anticipated actually came to pass when Charles married
Henrietta Maria of France. It would be impossible to
overestimate the assistance given to Popery, and the injury
to Protestantism which may be attributed to the Roman
Catholic wives of the Stuart Sovereigns James I., Charles I.,
Charles II., and James II. And it was the knowledge of
this which induced the Parliament, soon after the Revolu
tion, to passa law making it illegal for the Sovereign to
many a Roman Catholic wife, under penalty of losing
the Crown.
The Parliament of 1624 sent a petition to the King,
asking him to enforce the laws against Popish Recusants ;
to banish all Jesuits and That upon no occasion of

;
marriage, or Treaty, or other requisite in that behalf, from

-
Gardiner s History of England, vol. iv. p. 246.
MARRIAGE TREATY WITH FRANCE 311
any foreign Prince or State whatsoever, you will take away

or slacken the execution of your laws against Jesuits, priests,
and Popish Recusants." In his reply James promised to
grant all that the petition asked for, and as to marriage
he added
"
Treaties specially, : Therefore assure

your
selves that, by the grace of God, I will be careful that no
such conditions be foisted in upon any other Treaty what
soever ;
for it is fit my subjects should stand or fall by their
own laws." l Those who thought they could rely on the
word and solemn promises of their King soon found out
their error. Later on, in 1624, the House of Commons
sent another petition to the King against Popish Recusants
holding public offices, and requesting that they might be
deprived of their positions. With the petition they for

warded a lengthy list, containing The names of all such "
persons as are certified to have places of charge or trust

in their several Counties, and are themselves Popish
-
Recusants, or non-Communicants."
Notwithstanding his promises to Parliament the King
was bent on negotiating a Marriage Treaty between Prince
Charles and Princess Henrietta of France, even though
concessions to English Romanists should be part of the
price he gave to obtain it. When news of what was going
on became known in England it was found that the pro
posed marriage was very unpopular. But James persevered,
and had the satisfaction of swearing, on December 12,
1624, to observe a fresh set of marriage articles. It was
agreed that Charles "shall be affianced and contracted after

the manner accustomed in the Catholic and Romish
that the Princess should have a Chapel in each
"
Church ;
of the King s Palaces and Houses, suitably adorned and
decked, where the Mass should be offered. One Church

yard should be allotted in the City of London, for the burial
of any in her household who should die while serving her.
All her household servants should be Romanists and French ;
1
Parliamentary History, vol. vi. pp. 128-132.
2
I bid., p. 322.
she should have a Roman Catholic Bishop as her Great
Almoner ;
and no fewer than twenty-eight priests to
"
attend to the spiritual requirements of her household. If

it shall at any time happen that any secular Court shall
take any of the foresaid priests into their power, by reason

of any crime or offence against the State by him committed
or done, and do find him to be guilty thereof, yet shall the
said Court send him back to the said Bishop [her Almoner],
with the informations which they find by him, because
the said priest is privileged from their power and the said ;
Bishop, when he shall understand and know so much,

shall degrade the said priest, and afterwards send him back
unto the foresaid secular Court to do justice upon him."
It was further agreed that all Roman Catholics, both
priests and laymen, imprisoned in England since the last

Royal Proclamation, should be set at liberty that English ;
Romanists should be no more searched after or molested

for their religion and that the goods of all Romanists
;
seized since the last Proclamation should be restored to

them. 1 Bellesheim adds that it was also agreed that :
The
"
children who may be the issue of the marriage shall be
brought up in the Catholic religion until their thirteenth year." 2

This section relating to the children of the marriage was
secret. Had it been made public at that time, a storm of
indignation would have arisen, which would probably have
prevented the marriage taking place. Father Cyprien of
Gamache, one of Henrietta s Chaplains in England, states
"
one of the most important articles

"
that of the marriage

was
"
that the children born of it should be brought up

and instructed in the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman
religion the age of fourteen or fifteen years." 3
till
On the eve of her marriage Henrietta Maria wrote to

Pope Urban VIII. Following the good training and
"
instructions of the Queen, my mother, I have thought it

1
Panne s Hidden Works of Darkness, pp. 70. 71.
2
Bellesheim s History of the Catholic Church in Scotland, vol. iii.
p. 431.
The. Court and Times of Charles the First, vol. ii. p. 306.
EVIL RESULTS OF JAMES REIGN 313
my duty to render, as I do, very humble thanks to your

Holiness, that you have been pleased, on your part, to
contribute hereto [i.e. the safety of conscience and
"
my
the good of religion giving you my faith and word of
"] ;
honour, and in conformity with that which I have given

to his Majesty [the King of France], that if it please God
to bless this marriage, grant me the favour to give
and if He
me progeny, I will not chose any but Catholics to nurse
or educate the children who shall be born, or do any other
service for them, and will take care that the officers who
choose them be only Catholics, obliging them only to take
others of the same religion." 1
King James did not live to see the realisation of his
wishes for his son. He
died on March 27, 1625. It cannot
be said that his subjects had any cause to mourn his loss.
He had been largely influenced, since his accession to the
Throne of England, by his wife, who was, as I have already
stated, secretly a member of the Church of Rome, while
publicly attending the services of the Church of England.
The people of England thought they had a Protestant
Queen, and but very few knew the real facts. Under the
disguise of a Protestant she was able to help on the cause
of the Church of Rome in England, both doctrinally and
politically, far more efficiently than if she had publicly

professed herself a Romanist. The miseries which the
Stuart Kings and their wives brought upon the country
may be traced back to Queen Anne of Denmark as their
Well wood truthfully says of James I. that from
"
source.
his first accession to the Crown, the reputation of England
began sensibly to sink and two Kingdoms which, disunited,
;
had made each of them apart a considerable figure in

the world, now, when united under one King, fell short
of the reputation which the least of them had in former
ages. The latter jêars of King James filled our Annals

with little else but misfortune at home and abroad . . .
1
Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria, edited by Mary Everett Green,
p. 9.
and lie left in legacy to his son a discontented people ;
an unnecessary, expensive war an incumbered revenue,

;
and an exhausted Treasury. ... In fine, he entailed upon

his son all the miseries that befell him and left in the minds
;
of his subjects those sparks of discontent that broke out

some years after into a flame of Civil War, which ended in
*
the ruin of King Charles, and of the Monarchy with him."
by James Wellwood, M.D., pp. 19-

1
Memoirs of Transactions in England,
20, third edition, 1700.
CHAPTER XX
CHARLES I.
Papists "Dissembling their Religion" Roman Catholic

Charles and his
Queen Pope Urban VIII. urges Roman
Catholic Kings to invade
England Charles I. helps the French King to fight the Huguenots
English Sailors refuse to fight against French Protestants English
Romanists present a Declaration of Loyalty The Irish Loyal Re
monstrance Three Loyal Propositions censured by the Pope Father
George Gage s Suggestions to suppress the Scotch Covenanters The
Pope forbids English Romanists to help the King The Irish Rebellion
of 1641 Started in a Time of profound Peace The Object of the
Rebels to exterminate the Heretics Pope Urban VIII. sends the
Rebels a Bull to encourage them Pope Innocent X. sends Rinuccirii
as Nuncio to the Rebels Sends with him Money and Ammunition
The Pope s Instructions to Rinuccirii The Nuncio urges the Irish
to fight for a Protestant King The Pope severely Censures him for
doing so A Jesuit s murderous Letter to the Irish Rebels The
Nuncio saves the Jesuit from Censure The Nuncio tries to separate
Ireland from the Crown of England Objects to the Government of
a Heretic.
CHARLES had sworn to observe all the articles of his

I.
Marriage Treaty, but he had not been long on the Throne

ere he violated several of them. In 1625 both Houses of
Parliament united in a petition to the King calling atten
tion to the growth of Popery, and requesting him to enforce
the existing laws against the Jesuits and Popish Recusants.
They complained that those laws had not been executed,
partly by the connivancy of the State, partly by defects
"
in the laws themselves, and partly by the manifold abuse

of officers," and also by
"
the interposing of foreign Princes

agents in favour of them
"
by their Ambassadors and ;
"
and, further, that sundry Popish scholars, dissembling

their religion, have craftily crept in, and obtained the places
of teaching in divers Counties." They requested that
none your natural-born subjects, not professing the
"
of
315
true religion by law established, be admitted into the service
and that no man,
" "
of your Royal Consort, the Queen ;
that shall be suspected of Popery, be suffered to be a Keeper

of any of his Majesty s Prisons." All these requests Charles
promised to faithfully grant and observe.

1
It will be ob
served that Parliament did not request the King to remove
French priests, laymen, or ladies from the Queen s service ;
but only his natural-born subjects." The King further

"
promised that none of his subjects would be permitted to

attend Mass in any of the Chapels attached to the residences
of Foreign Ambassadors.
Charles gave very great pleasure to his subjects, soon
after this Petition was presented to him, by going hurriedly
down to Somerset House, his Queen s residence, and order
ing her Bishop, nearly all her priests, and her lay attendants
to leave the house at once, and go back to France. Cer
tainly they were far more numerous than necessary but ;
this ought to have been prevented when the Marriage
Treaty was drawn up. Their presence gave just alarm in

London, where such a large body of foreigners, who, though
in the service of the Queen of England, owed 110 obedience
to the laws of the country in which they resided, and in
which the priests were actively engaged in promoting
political work in the interests of Rome, and in proselytis
ing amongst the upper classes, were a very real danger.
Father Tierney says that this dismissal of the Queen s
servants was not
"
caused immediately by the remonstrance

and petition of the two Houses.
They proceeded from
the private bickerings between Charles and his Queen,
and were accelerated probably by the imprudent conduct
of Henrietta s foreign attendants." 2 Whatever [may be
said about Charles breach of faith on this occasion, it
cannot be denied that he compensated the expelled servants
of the Queen on a very liberal scale. He distributed no
less than 22,602 amongst them, which, at the value of
1
Parliamentary History, vol. vi. p. 378.

Tierney s Dodd s Church History, vol.
2
v. p. 162.
URBAN VIII. S PLOT TO CONQUER ENGLAND 317
money at that time, must be considered a very large sum. 1

The Pope, Urban VIII., was furious when he heard about
the expulsion. "No sooner," writes Father
Tierney, "had
intelligence arrived in Rome that the Queen s servants
had been dismissed, than Urban resolved to employ the
whole weight of his influence in the vindication of her
cause. With this view, he wrote to Louis and the King of
Spain, exhorting them to arm in the defence of God, and
to unite in chastising the insolence of a nation whose im
piety called to heaven for vengeance. At the same time,
also, he addressed letters to the Queen Mother, to Richelieu,
and to the other Ministers of France he ordered his Nuncio :
Spada to open a communication with the Spanish Cabinet,

through the intervention of the Ambassador and he en ;
joined him to use every means at his disposal to induce

the two Powers to lay aside all feelings of jealousy, and to
act in concert with each other and with the Court of Rome,
in punishing the perfidy of the English King. In con
sequence of these exhortations, a negotiation for an offen
sive alliance was secretly opened." 2 In this way did this
"
Peace seek to
"
so-called Vicar of the Prince of stir up a

European war the purpose of injuring a Protestant
for
nation, in the hope, no doubt, that in this way Papal

Supremacy might be once more established in England.
Ranke gives details of this Papal conspiracy against the
Throne and independence of England. He states that :
"
Urban, intoxicated by his present prosperity, aspired

to a yet more daring project an attack upon England.
This plan from time to time reappeared, by a sort of
necessity, in the grand Catholic schemes. The Pope now
hoped to avail himself of the renewed good understanding
between England and France for that purpose.
He first represented to the French Ambassador, how
"
offensive it was to France, that the English by no means

adhered to the promises made at the marriage. Either
1
The Court and Times of Charles I., vol. i. p. 120 (London, 1848).
2
Tierney s Dodd s Church History, vol. v. p. 1G3.
Louis XIII. ought to compel the English to fulfil their
engagements, or to wrest the Crown from a Prince who
showed himself, as a heretic before God, and a violator of
his word before men, unworthy to wear it.
"
He
next addressed himself to the Spanish Ambassador,
Onate. The Pope said that, were it merely from his duty
as a Knight, Philip IV. was bound to succour the Queen
of England, his near kinswoman, who was now suffering
oppression on account of her religion.

As soon as the Pope perceived that he might indulge
"
any hope of a favourable result, he committed the negotia

tion to Spada, the Nuncio at Paris. Among the influential
men of France, Cardinal Berulle, who had conducted the
negotiations concerning the marriage, embraced this idea
with the greatest eagerness. He calculated how the English
trading vessels might be captured on the French coasts,
and the English fleets burnt in their own harbours.
Olivarez adopted the plan, and took immediate measures
for its execution. Former perfidies of France might indeed
have made him pause and doubt, and another great states
man, Cardinal Bedmar, opposed it on that ground but the ;
idea was too grand and comprehensive to be rejected by

Olivarez, who in all things loved the dazzling and magnificent.
The negotiation was carried on with the utmost secrecy ;
"
even the French ambassador in Rome, to whom the first

disclosures had been made, learned nothing of its further
progress. The articles of the treaty were drawn up by

Richelieu, corrected by Olivarez, and adopted, with his
amendments, by Richelieu. On the 20th April, 1627, they
were ratified. The French engaged immediately to begin
their armament, and to put their ports in a state of defence.
The Spaniards were ready that same year to commence
the attack, and it was agreed that the French should come
to their aid with all their forces in the following spring.
not appear very clearly, from our accounts,
"
It does
how Spain and France intended to divide the spoil but
;
this much is evident, that even in this matter the Pope

CHARLES I. AND THE HUGUENOTS 319
was not Berulle disclosed to the Nuncio, in the

forgotten.
profoundest secrecy, that if they were successful, Ireland
was to fall to the share of the Holy See ; in which case the
Pope would probably govern it by a Viceroy. The Nuncio
received this communication with extreme satisfaction he, ;
however, recommended his Holiness not to allow the least

rumour of it to get wind lest it should appear as if their
;
schemes for the advancement of religion were in any degree

T
mixed with worldly considerations."
At about this period a great deal of public indignation
was directed against the young King, owing to the assist
ance he had promised to give to the King of France, to
enable him to fight against the Huguenots, for the purpose
of destroying their religious liberty.In this, however, he
was only fulfilling a promise which his father had made
to France. Its King was unable to capture Rochelle, a
stronghold of the Huguenots on the coast, without a more

powerful navy than he possessed. His Prime Minister,
Cardinal Richelieu, thereupon asked King James to lend
him some ships to fight his Protestant subjects. The Duke
of Buckingham, in James name, promised to lend them.
When James heard about it he quite approved of the
promise, adding "If those rascally Huguenots mean to
:
make a rebellion, I will go in person to exterminate them." 2

A few days before the death of James, contracts were signed
which temporally made over to the King of France the
Vanguard, a ship of the Royal Navy, together with seven
merchant vessels which had been hired from their owners
for the purpose. These were to be lent to France for
any period up to eighteen months. Pennington, who was
in command of these eight ships, received contradictory
commands from those in authority, some urging him to
help Louis, the French King, at once ;
while others told
him he must on no account against their French
fight
Protestant brethren. It is certain that Charles favoured
1
Ranke s History of the Popes, vol. ii. pp. 535-538, edition 1840.
"
Gardiner s History of England, vol. v. pp. 305, 30G.

the policy of fighting the Huguenots, though for a time he
dissembled his wishes. On June 9, 1625, the English ships
sailed for Dieppe. Pennington s difficulty then was, says
Gardiner, to know
"
what his instructions were. He knew

that by the contract he was bound to serve against the
Huguenots if the French Government ordered him to do
so. He knew that by Coke s letter he was prohibited from
doing anything of the sort. When he arrived at Dieppe
he found that every Frenchman whom he met told him
that his ships were wanted for an attack upon Rochelle." l
Pennington soon found, however, that, whatever he was
willing to do, his crews refused to fight against their
Protestant brethren in France ;
and this attitude compelled
him, on June 27, to leave Dieppe and sail with his eight
ships to Stokes Bay. When Charles heard of their return
was to assert
"
to England his first impulse, says Gardiner,

that Pennington had been in the right, and even to suggest
that the ships were not bound to fight against Bochelle ;
but it was impossible for him to maintain this view of the

case in the face of the French Ambassadors, who knew
perfectly well that, whatever the letter of the contract
might be, there had been a full understanding that the
ships were originally offered with the object of overcoming
the resistance of the Huguenots."
2
The attitude of the
sailorsunder Pennington added to the difficulties of the
King. If they had been willing to fight the Huguenots,
the eight ships would already have been handed over to
the French King but now there seemed to be no hope
;
that they would change their attitude. The Captains and

owners of the borrowed ships sent in a protest on July 11,
for serving against them of
"
in which they declared that

our religion, very well known that our seamen generally
it is
are most resolute in our profession and these men have ;
expressed it by their common petition that they would

rather be killed or thrown overboard than be forced to shed
1
Gardiner s History of England, vol. v. p. 379.
2
Ibid., p. 381.
CHARLES ORDERS TO PENNINGTON 321
the innocent blood of any Protestants in the quarrels of

Papists, so as they will account any commandment to
that end to be in a kind an imposition of martyrdom."
The next move was made by the Duke of Buckingham,
who wrote to Pennington, ordering him to take the ships
back to Dieppe, and there to give them up to the French.
But the Captains of these ships were then away at Rochester
holding a conference, and their crews point-blank refused
to take them to France until their Captains returned to
their ships. Pennington wrote to Buckingham have : "I
a strange uproar in my ship amongst my own company

upon this news of going over again, I having much ado to
bring them to it, though I keep all from them, and make
them believe we go over on better terms than formerly."
In this way he managed, by deception, to remove the
difficulties in the minds of the Protestant seamen, whose
conduct throughout is worthy of high praise and with ;
the result that towards the end of July they were all back
in Dieppe once more. 1
At last definite and positive orders were received direct
from Charles himself, telling Pennington what to do. It
was a most disgraceful letter for any Protestant King to
write, and, apparently, it was written throughout in his
own handwriting. It was as follows :
"CHARLES R.
"
Pennington.
These are to charge and require you, immediately upon

sight hereof, that without all difficulty and delay, you put
Our former commandment in execution, for the consigning of
the ship under your charge, called the Vanguard, into the hands
of the Marquess de Effiat, with all her equipage, artillery,
and ammunition, assuring the officers of the said ship whom it
may concern, that we will provide for their indemnity. And we

further charge and command you, that you also require the
seven merchant ships in Our name, to put themselves into the
service of Our dear brother the French King, according to the
1
Gardiner s History of England, vol. v. pp. 382-387.
X
promise made unto him ;
and in case of backwardness or re
fusal, We command you to use all forcible means in your power,
to compel them thereunto, even to their sinking ; and in these
several charges sec you fail not, as you will answer the contrary
at your utmost peril. And this shall be your sufficient warrant.
"
Given at our Court at Richmond, July 28, 1625."

*
The result of this scandalous order is described by

Prynne, who wrote in 1645
"
:
Upon receipt of this warrant,
Captain Pennington (as I have been certainly informed
from very credible persons of note, privy to the trans
actions of this business) threatened to shoot and sink the
ships, and hang up the mariners that refused to yield
obedience, and serve against Rochelle. But they all
unanimously declined the service, bidding him do his
pleasure with them for go against the Rochellers they
;
would never but if

they were commanded upon any other
;
service not against the Protestants, they would obey.
Whereupon those who refused to serve in this expedition,

were commanded to quit the ships and return to England ;
which all did but two (who soon after came to desperate
ends, the one being blown up with gunpowder, the other
drowned or slain). Upon this the English ships were, ac
cording to this direction, delivered to the French, manned
with Frenchmen and other foreigners, and joining with
some more vessels of the French King, destroyed the
Rochelle Fleet, blocked up their haven, and ruined that
famous Protestant City, with most of the Protestants
*
in it."
In 1627, the Act 3 Charles I., cap. 2, was passed,

"
having for its object to restrain the passing or sending

of any to be Popishly bred beyond the Seas." It provided
that if any person sent a child or other person abroad
"
to
the intent and purpose to enter into, or be resident or
trained up in, any Priory, Abbey, Nunnery, Popish Uni
versity, College, or School, or House of Jesuits, priests, or
1
Prynne s Plidden Works of Darkness, p. 85.
2
Ibid., p. 85.
THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 323
"
in any private Popish family then, if lawfully con ;
victed, he be disabled from thenceforth to sue or

"
shall
use any action, bill, plaint or information in course of
law ... or [to be] executor or administrator to any
person, or capable of any legacy or deed of gift, or to bear
any within the Realm
office and shall lose and forfeit
;
goods and chattels, and shall forfeit all his lands."

all his
Whatever may be thought of the severity of the penalty,

the Government had good reasons for preventing, as far
as possible, the education of young Roman Catholics in
foreign Seminaries and Colleges, where, it was feared, they

would be trained in disloyalty to a Protestant Sovereign.
The Act could not affect poor Romanists, who certainly
could not afford to send their children abroad while the ;
wealthy Romanists could in most cases educate their own

children in private, both in secular and religious knowledge.
During the reign of Charles I. the laws against Romanists

were not enforced to the full. Through the influence of
the Queen many favours were granted her co-religionists,
and, if she could have had her way, the penal laws would
probably have been removed from the Statute Book. And,
assuredly, the leaders of the Romanists did but little or
nothing to remove the distrust of their proceedings through
out the country, a few flattering and meaningless words
excepted. The efforts of the Papal agents who secretly
worked in the English Court, and amongst the influential
classes, I will relate in another chapter. They did nothing

to benefit the King, though they materially assisted the
cause of the Pope. The letter of Pope Urban VIII. to the
French King, dated May 30, 1626, already cited (page 294),
was well fitted to exasperate English Protestants in which ;
he told him that the English Romanists, rather than take

the Oath of Allegiance,
"
to lose their lives in the midst of

torments, than to fall away, by that kind of Oath, from
Christ that reigneth in the Popes." L
English Roman Catholics would at this time have taken

1
Clarendon State Papers, vol. i. p. G4, 8vo edition, 17G7.
the Oath of Allegiance in large numbers were it not for
these Papal prohibitions. They could gain no comfort
from the Pope, and therefore, about the year 1640, a num
ber of them united in a Declaration of loyalty, which was
drawn up by Father Cressy. The concluding portion of this
Declaration was as follows :-
"
And that odious suspicion and unworthy

to wipe away
aspersion of
diskâlty, which the factious practices of some
few particular and ungodly Catholics have drawn upon all your
petitioners heads in general (especially among the vulgar),
and which some think must needs follow from their tenets, and
dependence of the Pope s authority, give them leave here pros
trate at your feet to offer unto you with all humility this public
and solemn protestation of their true and faithful allegiance
to their King and country, as a sacred testimony of their con
science, which I (sic) doubt not but they are ready to sign with
their hands and hearts, and seal with their blood. The Catholics
of England do acknowledge and profess King Charles, now
reigning, to be their true and lawful King, Supreme Lord, and

rightful Sovereign of this Realm, and of all other his Majesty s
Dominions. And therefore they acknowledge themselves to
be obliged under pain of sin to obey his Majesty in all civil and
temporal affairs, as much as any other of his Majesty s subjects,
and the laws and rules of government in this Kingdom
as
do require at their hands. And that notwithstanding any
power or pretension of the Pope, or See of Rome, or any sentence
or declaration of what kind or quality soever, given or to be
given by the Pope, his predecessors or successors, or by any
authority, spiritual or temporal, proceeding or derived from
him, or Iris
King or country.
See, against their said
And they do
"
openly disclaim and renounce all foreign

power, be it either Papal or Princely, spiritual or temporal,
inasmuch as it may seem able, or shall pretend to free, discharge,
or absolve them from this obligation or shall any way give
;
them leave or licence to raise tumults, bear arms, or offer any

violence to his Majesty s Royal person, to the High Court of
Parliament, to the State or Government. Being all of them
ready not only to discover and make known to his Majesty,
and the High Court of Parliament, all the treasons and con
spiracies made against him, or it, which shall come to their hear
ing but also to lose their lives in the defence of their King
;
and country, and to resist with their best endeavours all con-
THE DECLARATION OF LOYALTY 325
and attempts made against their said King and country

spiracles
be they framed or sent under what pretence, or patronised by
what foreign authority soever.
And
further, they profess that all absolute Princes and
"
Supreme Governors, of what religion soever they be, are God s

Lieutenants upon earth, and that obedience is due unto them
according to the laws of each Commonwealth respectively in
all civil and temporal affairs and therefore they do here pro
;
test against all doctrine and authority to the contrary. And

they do hold it
impious and against the Word of God to maintain
that any private subject may kill and murder the anointed of
God, his Prince, though of a different belief and religion from
his. And they abhor and detest the practice thereof as damnable
and wicked. And, lastly, they offer themselves most willingly
to accept and embrace the last Protestation of union made
by the High Court of Parliament, excepting only the clause of
religion. Protesting that they cannot without sin infringe or
violate any contract, or break their words and promises made
or given to any man, though of a different faith and belief from
the Church of Rome. All which they do freely and sincerely
acknowledge and protest, as in the presence of God, without
1
any equivocation, or mental reservation whatsoever/
The disturbances which ultimately led to the Civil War

had at about this time commenced, and this may have
been the cause why the Court of Rome took no notice of
this but when, in 1660, the portion of it
Declaration ;
which have cited was bodily incorporated in the cele

I
brated Irish Remonstrance, of 1660, it was at once con
demned by Rome. The Rev. Charles O Conor, D.D., says
that the Declaration of 1640 was signed
O bv7 seven English
O
Roman Catholic Peers, and twentj^-seven Roman Catholic
Esquires.
2
When the Irish Remonstrance was made known
to the Papal authorities it excited the utmost indignation.
De Vecchis, Papal Nuncio at Brussels, who had the super
intendence of Irish and English Romanists, summoned the
ecclesiastics who had signed it, says O Conor,
"
to appear
before him as such heretics in Flanders, and to be
[" "]
1
Exomologesis ; or, A Faithful Narration, by Hugh-Paulin de Cressy
(Paris, 1647), pp. 76-79.
2
sent into exile to Spain and
where they should be Italy,
tried by the Inquisition. He
(De Vecchis) added that the
Remonstrance contained damnable doctrines, which were
condemned by two successive Pontiffs, Paul V. and Inno
cent X., when King James proposed his Oath of Allegiance
in 1606 ;
he ... exhorted the Irish to martrydom rather
than, by signing such a damnable document, to aposta
tise."
l
The Nuncio closed his letter on this subject with
these remarkable words His Holiness does not mean b}
"
this censure to prevent the Irish from professing loyalty

to their King sincerely and with all their hearts on the
contrary, he exhorts them so to do, provided it be tJiat sort
of allegiance which is consistent with their religion."
This meant,
"
You may
give a devoted allegiance to your
Sovereign, subject to the superior power by the Pope to
impossible," says Dr. O Conor,
"
depose him." It is to "
account for the opposition of the Court of Rome to the

Loyal Remonstrance, upon any other principles than those
which I have already mentioned. First, the Pope s claim
to the Dominion of Ireland ; secondly, his claim to a Divine
right of crowning and uncrowning Kings, which the Re
monstrance abjures thirdly, the unwillingness of that
;
Court to retract any principle it had ever asserted. ... I

envy no man his honesty, if he affects not to see or his ;
talents, if he is such a block as not to perceive, that down

from the defection of Henry VIII., the grand object of
Roman intrigues in Ireland was to assert the claims of
the Roman Court to the supreme Dominion of our
3
The history of the English Declaration of
country."
1640, and the Irish Remonstrance of 1660, may serve to

show how little value should be attached to professions
made by Roman Catholic Bishops, priests, or people, to
which the Court of Rome has not given assent. The action
of the Court ofRome on this occasion is all the more to
be deplored because, says Sir John Throckmorton,
"
a
1
("/Conor s Historical Address, part ii.
pp. 159-161.
2 3
Ibid., p. 178. Ibid., pp. 193, 194.
THE THREE PROPOSITIONS 327
prospect was held out to the Catholics of Ireland, that, by

signing the Remonstrance, they might obtain the free exer
l
cise of their religion."
The hatred of the Papacy towards professions of full

allegiance to a Protestant Sovereign was again seen in 1647,
when proposals of toleration were made to English Roman
Catholics, provided they would agree to and sign the nega
tive of the three following propositions :
"
1. That the Pope, or the Church, have power to absolve

persons, of whatever quality they may be, from the obedience
fill
due to the civi) Government, established in the Kingdom of

England. "
2. That it is lawful in itself, or by the dispensation of the
Pope, to violate a promise, or oath, made to a heretic.

3. That it is lawful, by the dispensation, or by the command
"
ment of the Pope, or of the Church, to kill, destroy, or outrage,

and offend, in any other matter, any person whatever, or several
persons, of what condition soever they be, for this reason, that
they are accused, condemned, censured, or excommunicated
for error or heresy/
Fifty-nine Roman Catholic English gentlemen signed

the negative of these propositions, as also several priests. 2
Throckrnorton says that the denial of these affirmations
was, in the following year, condemned "
by Innocent X.,
and the subscribers of them censured by a particular
Decree." Butler does not deny that the Pope condemned
them, and published his condemnation, but he thinks it
" "
very doubtful yet he adds that ; appears likely : "It
that, being unwilling to permit an express denial of his

deposing power, but afraid of formally asserting it, the Pope
signed a condemnation of the document in question, but
withheld the publication of the instrument of condemna
4
tion." I agree with the comment oil the Pope s conduct
a modern author, who writes It is to be remarked
"
by :
1
Letter to the Catholic Clergy of England, by Sir John Throckrnorton, Bart.,
1792, p. 155.
2
Butler s Memoirs of English Catholics, vol. ii. pp. 414, 415.
3
Throckrnorton s Letter to the Catholic Clergy of England, p. 145.
4
Butler s Memoirs of English Catholics, vol. ii. pp. 415, 416.
that the condemnation did not specify any particular article
to which the Pope and Congregation objected. All were
condemned without distinction, and the English
alike
people were under the impression that the three pro

left
positions, taken affirmatively, were articles of the Roman

Catholic faith namely, that the Pope or his Church had
power to absolve subjects from their civil obedience to their
Government ;
that it was lawful, at the command or
dispensation of the Pope, or the Church, to kill and destroy

persons accused, censured, or excommunicated for error,
schism, or heresy and that it was lawful in itself, or
;
by the Pope s dispensation, to break faith pledged to

1
heretics."
pleaded on behalf of the English Romanists at

It is
this period that they showed their loyalty to the King by
assisting him in his Scotch wars with the Covenanters.

It is certain that his Roman Catholic Queen was very
active in this direction. Father George Gage wrote out,
in 1638, what he termed Design to extricate his Majesty
"A
out of these present troubles with the Scots." It is in the

Clarendon State Papers, endorsed by Windebank, Secre
tary of State. Gage proposed draw an army of 10,000 "to
men from Flanders, with such cautionary conditions as

his Majesty need not fear, and yet his ill-affected subjects
should not dare to budge. Nor would a far greater army
of our own men awe the subject half so much as a few
foreign forces." Of course these foreign soldiers would

be Roman Catholics.
"
Now, for the maintaining this

army, questionless the Catholics of England would contri
bute far but it is most probable his Holiness might be
;
drawn to contribute as much as might maintain them for

six months at least in which time they would force the
;
Scots to lay down their arms, and submit to his Majesty s

pleasure," which,
we know, was the forcing of Episcopacy
and a Liturgy on the unwilling Scots. This foreign army
was not only to subdue the Scots, but also to frighten the
1
England and Rome, by T. Dunbar Ingram, LL.D., p. 402.
THE SCOTCH COVENANTERS 329
Puritan Parliament in England. As Charles pleaded

"
V.,"
Gage, an army ready to attend the Diet, upon

"having
pretence to secure the electors assembled about the choice

of an Emperor, did so awe that Diet, as thereby himself
was chosen Emperor, albeit the electors had no inclination
that way of themselves even so might the King, having a
:
foreign army on foot, subdue the Scots therewith, and at

the same instant keep the Parliament in awe, that his
Majesty might easily make them come to what conditions
he pleased." 1 The King seems to have approved of the
design, and took steps to make it successful. He sent
instructions on the subject to Father Gage s brother,
Colonel Henry Gage, then in the service of the Infant
Cardinal in Flanders, in which he promised that if the
Spanish authorities would send over 6400 soldiers to help
him in his difficulties, he would engage to send over to
Flanders a sufficient number of English and Irish soldiers
to recruit and complete such English and Irish regiments
"
and companies in the King of Spain s service in Flanders."

You must use great secrecy in the business, Charles told
"
"
the Colonel. The King could not trust his own subjects
to fight for him, and therefore relied on the soldiers of a
Roman Catholic Sovereign. If he had sent any of his
English subjects to Flanders in exchange, I have no doubt
he would have selected Puritan soldiers, so as to weaken
the hands of a Puritan Parliament. Secretary Windebank
took an active part in the negotiations to carry out Father
The failure
"
Gage s design," but, happily, it failed.

greatly disappointed Windebank, whose sympathies were
Popish. When he heard of the refusal to help the King,
he wrote to Sir Arthur Hopton, English Agent at Madrid,
on March 15, 1638 was such an occasion slipt of
: "It
putting an immense obligation upon his Majesty, as a

like in all probability will not be presented again in a
whole age. For the business was so laid, as those forces
should have been transported into Scotland, and have
1
Clarendon State. Papers, vol. ii. pp. 19-21, folio edition, 1773.
surprised the Castle of Edinburgh, which would have given
l
the Covenant a deadly blow."
But however Queen and English Romanists

willing the
might be to help the King to fight the hated Scotch
Covenanters, the proposal was not received with favour
by the Pope, who wrote to Father George Conn, his
agent at the English Court : You are to command the
Catholics of England in general, that they suddenly desist
from making such offers of men towards this Northern
expedition, as we hear they have
dorse, little to the ad
vantage of their discretion. And likewise it is requisite,

considering the penalty already imposed, that they be not
too forward with money more than what law and duty
enjoins them to pay." The secret cause which made
the Pope unwilling that Romanists should help the King,
came out in the following year when the Queen, through
Cardinal Barberini, Papal Secretary of State, requested
from the Pope the loan of 50,000 crowns for the payment
of the soldiers fighting against the Covenanters. This
was refused by the Cardinal, except on the condition that
Charles should become a Romanist but if he would only ;
Church
"
secede to the of Rome, then, said Barberini, the

treasury of England should be found in the Castle of St.
Angelo, where it remained enchained till it might serve
the necessities of the Apostolic See, and the cause of the
Faith ;
but thai never had the See given succour to heretics
. . .
or schismatics ; nor could it open a door to such an example,

above in the case of a Kingdom where liberty of con
all,
science was established, or, rather, where it was dependent

on a Parliament." 3 It would be well if statesmen of
the twentieth century pondered over this candid state
ment of a Papal Secretary of State. It is still true
that the Papac}^ never gives succour to so-called heretics,
1
Clarendon State Papers, vol. ii. p. oO.
3 These Instructions of the Pope are stated to have been
Ibid., p. 44.
by Windebank."
"endorsed
3
Memorials of John liampden. by Lord Nugent, vol. ii.
pp. 451, 452 3
second edition.
THE IRISH REBELLION OF 1641 331
except when it gains more than an equivalent for what

it gives.
I have no intention to give even a brief outline of the
history of the terrible Irish Rebellion of 1641, which was,

of course, an attempt to alter the laws by physical force ;
I only wish to direct attention to a few matters connected

with it, and must therefore refer my readers to the numer
ous books which deal fully with that uprising. It was
essentially a war of religion. The Rev. C. O Conor, D.D.,
declares that the Rebellion was started at
"
a time of pro
found peace, [and] great goodwill on the part of the King s
Government."
1
Down to that moment, he says, Ireland "
had never experienced, since the twelfth century, such a

calm never was there less provocation to rebellion." 2
;
We must be content to lay the Rebellion, and all the

"
violations of faith and perjuries which attended it, to the

conduct and principles of the foreign-influenced intriguers,
who argued that Ireland was in temporals the property of
the Holy See." 3 Dr. O Conor also cites the statement of
Lord Castlehaven, a prominent Irish Peer of that time,
who in his Memoirs declares that there was forty years
"
continual and flourishing peace, in all obedience to the

English laws there [in Ireland], from the last of Queen
4
Elizabeth to 1641." Dr. Killen, a modern learned Presby
"
terian Irishman, states that in the year 1641 Ireland

appeared to be singularly tranquil. Romish lawyers . . .
were permitted to practice at the bar Romish magistrates ;
were admitted to the bench Romish senators sat in the ;
Upper as well as in the Lower House of Parliament and, ;
in most parts of the country, the Romish worship was

5
The cause of the war," says Petty,
"
freely tolerated."
was a desire of the Romanists to recover the Church revenue,

worth about 110,000 per annum, and of the common Irish
1
2 3
Ibid., p. 254. Hid., p. 291.
4
Ibid., part i.
p. 31.
5
Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, by the Eev. W. D. Killen, D.D., vol. ii.
p. 32.
to get all the Englishmen s estates, and of the ten or twelve
l
grandees of Ireland to get the empire of the whole."
Some further light is thrown on the objects of the

rebels by the letters of Father Hugh Bourke, at that time
Commissary of the Irish Friars Minors in Germany and
Belgium. They are printed in the Report on Franciscan
Manuscripts, issued by the Historical MSS. Commission.
The editor of this Report says that
"
Hugh Bourke, as :
intermediary in the Netherlands between Rome and Ireland,

was exceptionally well-informed of the state of affairs." 2
Writing on December 7, 1641, Bourke affirms that the war
was begun solely in the interest of the Catholic and Roman
"
religion." On December 29, after mentioning that it was

intended to send 20,000 English and 10,000 Scots to Ireland,
to destroy all that was Catholic, he adds that
"
the in
surgents will be able to make ready the slaughter and de
struction, not only of them, but of all that are of that nation
throughout the country" On February 22, 1642, Bourke

a war merely of religion, as pertaining to
"
asserted It : is
his Holiness, especially as the realm of Ireland is a fief of

the Church, and being liberated can requite his Holiness
with the Peter-Pence." On April 12, 1642, he wrote to
Father Luke Wadding :
"
The end in view is the augmen

tation of the temporalities of the Church, and indeed of
the Apostolic See, and is well worth the travail and expense
that involve.
it St. Peter s Penny, his Holiness
will
feudal was paid in Ireland, and is a substantial interest,
toll,
and that more particularly in regard of the dignity belong
ing to the feudal Lordship of a Realm so ancient, potent,
and The
"
extensive." first thing is to purge the land of

A nephew of this same Father Luke Wadding
heretics."
wrote a letter to him, on July 17, 1642, in which he prays

that God shall favour our cause, so far as the expulsion
"
3
of all the Protestants"
Another matter connected with this Rebellion, to which
1
Cited in Bagwell s Ireland under the Stuarts, vol. i.
p. 385.
2 3
Report on Franciscan Manuscripts, p. viii. Ibid., pp. 111-163.
URBAN VIII. BLESSES THE REBELS 333
I wish to call attention, is the encouragement given to the

rebels by Popes Urban VIII. and Innocent X. On the
25th of May, 1643, Urban VIII. gave his Pontifical blessing
to the rebels by a special Bull, in which he declared that :
"
Having taken into our serious consideration the great

zeal of the Irish towards the propagating of the Catholic faith,
and the piety of the Catholic warriors in the several armies of
that Kingdom (which was for that singular fervency in the true
worship of God, and notable care had formerly in the like case,
by the inhabitants thereof, for the maintenance and preserva
tion of the same orthodox faith, called of old the land of Saints),
and having got certain notice how, in imitation of their godly and
worthy ancestors, they endeavour by force of arms to deliver
their thralled nation from the oppressions and grievous injuries
of the heretics, wherewith this long time it hath been afflicted,
and heavily burdened, and gallantly do in them what lieth to
extirpate, and totally root out those workers of iniquity, who in the
Kingdom of Ireland had infected, and always striving to infect
the mass of Catholic purity, with the pestiferous leaven of their
heretical contagion. We, therefore, being willing to cherish them
with the gifts of those spiritual graces, whereof by God we are
ordained the only disposers on earth, by the mercy of the same
Almighty God, trusting in the authority of the blessed Apostles
Peter and Paul, and by virtue of that power of binding and
loosing of souls, which God was pleased (without our deserving)
to confer upon us to all and every one of the faithful Christians
:
in the foresaid Kingdom of Ireland now, and for the time militat
ing against the heretics, and other enemies of the Catholic faith,
they being truly and sincerely penitent, after confession, and the
spiritual refreshing of themselves with the Sacred Communion of
the Body and Blood of Christ, do grant a full and plenary in
dulgence, and absolute remission for all their sins, and such as
in the holy time of Jubilee is usual to be granted to those that
devoutly visit a certain number of privileged Churches, within

and without the walls of our City of Home. By the tenor of
which present letters, for once only and no more, we freely
bestow the favour of this absolution, upon all and every one of
them and withal, desiring heartily all the faithful in Christ,
;
now in arms as aforesaid, to be partakers of this most precious

l
treasure/
Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, 1G41-1G52, edited by John

1
T. Gilbert, vol. i.
part ii. p. 632 Cox s H Hernia Anglicana, vol. ii., Appendix,
;
Early in 1643, Urban VIII. sent Father Scarampi, an
Oratorian, to Ireland as his accredited agent to the rebels,
and with him sent a quantity of arms and money. He re
mained for several years in Ireland, very much to the delight
and advantage of the rebels. Two years later, Innocent X.
sent Rinuccini as his Nuncio to the Irish Confederation.
Miss Anne Hutton, who translated his letters into English,
states that :
To give an idea of the amount and importance of the aid

"
sent to the Roman Catholic party in Ireland by the hands of

the Nuncio Rinuccini, we give an extract from a document
found amongst the papers of the Archbishop of Tuam, when
shot by the Protestants. From this it appears that the Nuncio
was preceded to Ireland by a vessel laden with 1000 pairs
of pistols, 4000 cartouche belts, 2000 sabres, 500 muskets,
and 20,000 pounds of powder. Whilst in France he dre^v
on the Holy See bills of exchange for the sum of 150,658
dollars. Cardinal Antonio Barberini, the friend and Pro
tector of Ireland, assisted him with 10,000 crowns Cardinal ;
Mazarin with 25.000 dollars." With a portion of the

money the Nuncio purchased, and brought with him to
Ireland, 2000 muskets, 2000 cartouche belts, 4000 sabres,
400 pairs of pistols, with holsters, and 2000 pikeheads. He
spent 5400 dollars in the purchase of powder and ball.
1
" "
In the Instructions given to Rinuccini by the Pope,

it is evident that Innocent had in his mind the possibility
that, as an outcome of the War, he might be appointed

Sovereign Ruler of Ireland in temporals, for he began by
telling him Your Excellency has been called by his
:
Holiness to a great and glorious office to restore and re

establish the public exercise of the Catholic religion in the
Island of Ireland ;
and further, to lead her people, if not
as tributaries to theHoly See, as they were jive centuries ago,
to subject themselves to the mild yoke of the Pontiff, at
least in all spiritual matters."
2
Both the Pope and the
Nuncio made frequent professions of friendship to the
2
1
Button s Embassy of Rinuccini, pp. x., xi. Ibid., p. xxvii.
RINUCCINI IN IRELAND 335
King, Charles I., and exhorted his subjects to loyalty but ;
such professions and exhortations were nothing better

than canting hypocrisy. The Queen of England, Romanist
though she was, did not wish her husband to lose his
Sovereignty over Ireland. Soon after Rinuccini arrived
in Ireland, in a letter written to Cardinal PamphiH, Papal
Secretary of State, he told him that in an interview
with her, which he had in Paris before passing over into
complained loudly of the Irish, and
"
Ireland, the Queen

amongst them of O Hartigan, and the Secretary, who
1 2
from the first made use of the Catholic religion in general

as a pretext to throw off their allegiance
King, that to the
they did not wish to make peace with him unless they saw
it to be an absolute necessity, and were always
adding new
petitions, and more exorbitant than the last on these ;
two particulars she vehemence, and that they

insisted with
had dared to tell her that they would fight against the King to
the last drop of their blood, if they did not obtain what they
desired."
3
No doubt O Hartigan and Sellings only ex
pressed the real opinions of the Irish Confederation thev
officially But, for a time, it was necessary
represented.
to wear a mask. The King w as useful to the rebels for a
T
time but in their hearts they would be glad to get rid of

;
him, so soon as his heretical name was no longer of use to

Report on the State of
"
their cause. In his Ireland,"
dated March 1, 1646, Rinuccini wrote : "I am alarmed

by tho general opinion of his Majesty s inconstancy and
bad faith, which creates a doubt that whatever concessions
he may make, he will never ratify them unless it pleases
him, or, not having appointed a Catholic Viceroy, whether
he might not be induced by his Protestant Ministers to
avenge himself on the noblest heads in Ireland, and renew
more fearfully than ever the terrors of heresy. Therefore
/ am disposed to believe that in considering the subject of
1
O Hartigan was a Jesuit, and Envoy of the Irish Confederation at the
French Court.
2
Kichard Bellings, Secretary of the Irish Confederation.
3
Embassy of JRinuccini, p. 50.
religion, which grows and is purified by opposition, the
destruction of the King would be more useful to the
i
Irish."
When Rinuccini arrived in Kilkenny, on November 12,
1645, he delivered a speech to the Confederate Assembly,

for which he subsequently received a severe censure from
Rome. "
I am well aware," he said,

"
that persons will be

found ready to circulate false rumours endeavouring to
;
make the public believe that I have been sent over here by
his Holiness, Innocent X., for the purpose of detaching the
Catholic people of Ireland from the allegiance due to his
most Serene Majesty, the King of England. How very far
such an assertion is from truth, the Almighty Searcher of
hearts fully knows. I, therefore, publicly protest and
solemnly call my God to witness, that I now do not, nor
will I ever devise, approve of, or do anything which is or
shallbe detrimental to the honour, rights, or interest of
the most august King Charles. Nay more, I now publish
and make known to the Catholics of Ireland, both absent
and present, that nothing on earth would give greater
satisfaction to his Holiness than that the Confederate
Catholics,having recovered the full and free exercise of
show unto their mighty and most Serene
their faith, should
King, although a Protestant, every mark of subjection,

assistance, and reverence."
2
Rinuccini sent a copy of this speech to Rome, and re

ceived in reply a severe censure for speaking in favour of
loyalty to a Protestant King, and urging his subjects to
observe it. On May 20, 1646 (I have already quoted this
censure [page 298], but think it well to reprint it here, for
the sake of clearness), Cardinal Pamphiii, Papal Secretary
of State, wrote to him :
u
The Holy See never can, by any positive act, approve
of the civil allegiance of Catholic subjects to an heretical
Prince. From this maxim of the Holy See have arisen
1
Embassy of Rinuccini, pp. 145, 140.
2
Brenan s Ecclesiastical History of Ireland, p. 457, new edition.
RINUCCINI CENSURED BY THE POPE 337
many and disputes in England about Oaths of

difficulties
Allegiance and his Holiness displeasure is the greater,

;
because you have left the original of this your speech in

the hands of the Catholic Confederates, which, if published,
will furnish heretics with arguments against the Pope s
power over heretical Princes, seeing that his Minister ex

horts the Catholics of Ireland to allegiance to an heretical
King. Youmust, therefore, withdraw the original, and

suppress copies of the said speech, and never indulge
all
in such speeches again." l

On September 25, 1646, Rinuccini wrote to the Cardinal,
acknowledging the receipt of his letter of May 20, and at
the same time exhibiting his own duplicity.
"
I render,"
Eminence
"
he wrote, my best thanks to your for your
warning touching the expressions in my first document,

which seemed to approve of the fidelity of this people to
the King and I shall have greater reason than ever in
;
the present Revolution to avail myself of such a record. I

am certain that neither the Council nor any one else ob
served the words, and if I had made any other excuse than
that which I have done, I should only have directed atten
tion to them, when otherwise they would never have been
thought of.So, under pretext that I had lost the copy
of the document, I dexterously obtained the original from
the hands of the Secretary, and substituted a copy in which
I entirely changed that sentence. I can, therefore, posi
tively assure your Eminence that all danger is over."

2
But before Rinuccini wrote this letter, and before he

had received the Cardinal s letter of May 20, he had signed
a document which again gave great offence to the Pope.
On March 28, 1646, the Irish Confederates had signed a
Treaty of Peace with the Marquis of Ormond, which gave
great annoyance to Rinuccini, who did all in his power to
upset it. By Treaty every reasonable concession was
this
made to the Irish Roman Catholics. Full religious and
1
O Conor s Historical Address, part ii. pp. 415, 416.
2
The Embassy of Rinuccini, p. 207.
civil liberty was granted to them, and they were declared
as eligible to hold the highest and other offices in the State
as the Protestants. But as it did not concede everything
to the Church of Rome that she required, but granted
some rights and privileges to Irish Protestants, it was
rejected by the Papal Nuncio. To further his object he
called a Synod, which met at Waterford, and, on the
12th of August, passed a Decree strongly condemning the
Peace. It was signed, first of all by Rinuccini, and also
by twelve Irish Bishops, and several Abbots, and the
heads of several Monastic Orders in Ireland. It declared
that those who signed the Peace were
"
absolutely to be
considered as perjurers," because it contained no pledge
for the security of the Roman Catholic religion. We :c
"
never will," they declared, give our consent to this or
any other Treaty, unless it shall include the security of

our religion, our country, and our King." These last cited
three words of the Decree were those which made the
Pope very angry. When the Decree reached Rome, the
Papal Secretary of State. Pamphili, wrote the letter I have
already cited (page 298), to the Nuncio, on December 10,
and our King
words
" "
1646, quoting the :
It had been the constant and uninterrupted practice

"
of the Holy See never to allow its Ministers to make or to

consent to any public edict of Catholic subjects for the
defence of the Crown and person of an heretical Prince ;
that this conduct of his furnished pretences to the enemies

of the Holy See to reflect on her, as deviating from the
maxims of sound policy, to which she had ever yet adhered ;
and that the Pope desired (hat he would not by any public
act show that he knew, or consented to any declaration of
allegiance which Irish ^Catholics might, for political reasons,
be compelled or willing to make to the King." 1
In 1645, an Irish Jesuit named Conor O Mahony, re
siding in Portugal, Professor of Theology at Evora, wrote

his notorious book, Disputatio Apologetica de jure Regni
1
A MURDEROUS BOOK 339
HibernicB adversus hcereticos. Henry Foley, S.J., writing in

was a great light in Moral Theology
"
1883, says that he

in Lisbon." 1 In this book O Mahony wrote to the Irish
rebels :
Dear Irish
"
My Go on and perfect the work of your

!
liberty and defence, which is so happily begun by you ;
and kill all the heretics, and all that do assist and defend
them. You have in the space of four or five years, that is,
between the years 1641 and 1645, wherein I write this,
killed 150,000 heretics, as your enemies do acknowledge.
Neither do you deny it. And for my own part, as I verily
believe you have killed more of them, so I would to God
you had killed them all ! which you must either do, or
drivethem all out of Ireland, that our Holy Land may be
plagued no longer with such a light, changeable, inconstant,
barbarous, ignorant, and lawless generation of people. We
Catholic Irish will not, and never would, neither ought we to
suffer our country to be ruled by a proud King, who calls
himself the Head Let us, therefore, choose
of the Church.
a Catholic King from among our brethren and let us ;
have Irish Catholic judges and magistrates to rule over

us in all matters temporal, and the Pope in all matters
2
spiritual."
Copies of this murderous book were secretly circulated

throughout Ireland and when a priest was charged with
;
possessing it, the Nuncio saved him from a well-deserved

punishment. Carte, after describing the contents of the
book, adds that This book had been privately dis
:
persed over the nation, and one of them being found with
John Bane, then parish priest of Athlone, complaint was
made of it to the Council. The Nuncio saved Bane from
punishment, refusing to deliver him to the secular power,
and would fain have saved the book too from censure. But
the contents of it were so expressly contrary to the Oath
of Association, and the tendency thereof towards raising a
1
Folcy s Records of the English Province, S.J., vol. vii., Appendix, p. 29.
2
As quoted in Collette s Reply to Cobbett, p. 256.
civil war among the Confederates so very manifest, that
the Council were forced to condemn it as traitorous, and as
such ordered it to be burnt by the common hangman at
Kilkenny. The Nuncio was much displeased with the

Council for this sentence, which he imputed to the power
of the lawyers, who detested the proposition that an hereti
cal King is not a lawiul one, as ruinous to all those who
had any Church lands by grant from the Crown. If this
treatise, industriously spread, and calculated to favour the
schemes of the clergy for making the Pope their Protector,
and of the Ulster Irish for setting up O Neill for their
King, was not intended for that purpose, it certainly much
increased the general apprehensions of such designs, and
made the Confederates of English descent, whose extirpa
tion was thus openly advised and encouraged, more de
l
sirous than ever of a peace."
A Roman Catholic Irishman was, in the year 1648,

sent to Rome to present to the Pope certain complaints
against Rinuccini, apparently made by the Irish Confeder

ation. Amongst other things, he was to tell the Pope that
Rinuccini hath given the world an occasion to believe
"
that he had private and secret commission to change the

Government of Ireland, and to separate that Island from
the Crown of England. And this opinion is the more
confirmed since that one Mahony, a Jesuit, hath printed a
book in Portugal, wherein he endeavours to prove that all
the Kings of England have been either tyrants or usurpers
of Ireland, and so fallen from the dominion of it exhort ;
ing all its natives to get thither, cruelty and to use all
against the English (with expressions full of villainy and

reproach), and to choose a new King of their own country.
And this book, so barbarous and bloody, dispersed through
Ireland, yet credited by the Catholic and Apostolic Chair.
is
And the Continuation of the History of Cardinal Baronius

was published at the same time, under the name of
Olderico Raynaldo, in which he endeavours to establish
1
Carte s Life of the Duke of Ormond, vol. iii. p. 343, edition 1851.
THE ARTICLES OF CESSATION 341
the supreme right and Dominion in the Apostolic Chair,

even in Temporalibus, over England and Ireland." T
The indignation of the Confederates was greatly increased
by the attitude adopted by the Nuncio towards Lord
Inchiquin, who during the Rebellion commanded a power
ful army in Munster, in the interests of the English
Parliament, and against the King. He was then a Pro

testant. But soon after the Peace had been signed, he
declared himself for the King. This made it necessary for
the Confederates to enter into negotiations with Inchiquin,
which led to the signing of Articles of Cessation between
the hitherto
contending parties. It was agreed that
give mutual assist

"
during the Cessation each party shall

ance to the other upon all occasions for the advancement
of his Majesty s service and that all persons who shall
"
;
"
adhere either to the said Lord Baron of Inchiquin, or to

the said Confederate Catholics, declare themselves for his
Majesty."
2
The Cessation was signed on May 20, 1648.
Its publication drove Rinuccini furious. On May 27,
seven days later, he issued a decree excommunicating every
one who signed or adhered to the Cessation, including the
Supreme Council of the Confederation, and commanded
they presume not to join themselves to the above-
"
that
said Baron of Inchiquin, or any other heretic." 3 In
October, 1648, the Confederates sent to the Pope a series
of nineteen accusations against the Nuncio. The last of
His Lordship, by himself and by his
"
these asserted that

continual practices, ministers, and accomplices, hath en
deavoured to withdraw this nation from their allegiance to
his Majesty, to subvert the fundamental laws and govern
ment of the land, and instead thereof to introduce a
foreign, arbitrary, and tyrannical Government, as by the
course of his Lordship s proceedings is to be undeniably
4
evidenced."
1
Borlace s History of the Execrable Irish Rebellion, p. 192.
-
Gilbert s History of the Irish Confederation and War in Ireland, vol. vi.
pp. 23G, 238.

3 4
Ibid., p. 240. Ibid., p. 3UO.
This accusation was perfectly true but what the ;
accusers failed to realise was that the Pope was responsible

for the actions of his Nuncio, who throughout his more
than three years residence in Ireland was only endeavour
ing to carry out the policy of the Roman Curia. The Pope
never censured Rinuccini for his efforts to break the tie
which bound the Irish Romanists to the English King, and
it is evident from his
despatches to Rome that Rinuccini
was throughout confident that he had the full approval of
the Pope for his conduct, except, as we have seen, when
ever he urged the Irish to be loyal to Charles I. This story
of the Nuncio in Ireland is an object-lesson to the twentieth
century, as showing the real value of professions and pro

mises by Irish Roman Catholics, which have never been
formally accepted by the Vatican.
On January 17, 1649, the Supreme Council of the Irish
Confederation signed a Treaty of Peace with the Marquis
of Ormond, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, as representing
Charles I., in which many concessions were made to the
Roman Catholics. These concessions were sufficient to
satisfy the Supreme Council, all of whom were Roman

Catholics. But they were to be required to take an Oath
of Allegiance to the King. This Treaty was very dis
pleasing to Rinuccini. A few weeks later Sir Richard
Blake, Chairman of the Confederate Assembly, was in
Gal way, where the Nuncio was at the time staying. Writing
from Galway, on February 3, 1649, Blake relates
"
Though :
the Italian kept himself close, I sent him and his Dean,
by Father Nugent, a Jesuit, my Lord Bishop of Ferns
letters, with an intimation that I would after that just
ceremony [publishing the Peace], wait upon his Lordship

to kiss his hand, and crave his benediction. And the
answer he returned me was that he would not willingly
see me, or admit me to his presence." l No doubt the part-
Blake had taken in proclaiming the Peace was the cause of
the Nuncio s rudeness. Soon after, Rinuccini left Ireland.
1
History of the Irish Confederation and War in Ireland, vol. vii. p. 247.
RiNuccrars REPORT TO THE POPE 343
In a Report which he presented to Pope Innocent X.

after his return to Rome, the Nuncio relates the proceed
ings which led up to the Peace with the Marquis of
Ormond, as representative of the King, and then he adds
these words : When I heard of these proceedings I deter
"
mined to hesitate no longer, but forthwith declared that

the Government of a heretic was incompatible with the exercise
of my Mission. I announced that it was neither usual,

nor decorous, for the Holy See to maintain a public Minister
among those who spontaneously submitted themselves to
one who professed any other than the Catholic religion." 1
When Rinuccini returned to Italy his work in Ireland
was not censured by the Pope. On the contrary, the Rev.
E. A. Dalton asserts that He was offered a high place
:
"
at the Papal Court, which, however, he declined, and

2
quietly retired to his diocese at Fermo, where he died."
1
The Embassy of Rinuccini, p. 543.
2
D Alton s History of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 297.
CHAPTER XXI
CHARLES i. (concluded)
The Underground Work Komanists Disguised Romanists in High

of English
Position Secretary Windebank assists the Papists Becomes publicly
a Roman Catholic Sir Kenelm Digby s Double-dealing Sir Tobie
Matthew a disguised Jesuit Bishop Goodman s Duplicity Diplomatic
Relations with Rome Secret Mission of the Archbishop of Ambrun
Secret Mission of Panzani His Interviews with Secretary Windebank
The Jesuits want to restore Popery by Force of Arms" Jesuits in
Masquerade
"
An Emissary of the King sent to Rome A Jesuit s

Disloyal Book Panzani s Secret Interview with the King Proposed
Diplomatic Relations with Rome Panzani Acts as Spy on Church of
England Bishops His Interview with Bishop Montague Another
Papal Agent arrives in England He tells the King that he "stands
above Parliament A third Papal Agent arrives in England Parlia
"
ment s Opposition to Papal Nuncios.
ENGLISH Protestants in the seventeenth century had greater

reason to fear the underground and secret tactics of the
Papacy than anything it could do in the light of day. This
kind of work was largely conducted by disguised Roman
Catholics, who, from whatever motive, thought well to
outwardly profess themselves members of the Church of
England, while in reality they believed in all the doctrines
of the Church Rome, and were, in many instances, actual,
of
though secret, members of that communion. And, un

fortunately, these disguised Romanists were mainly men
and women in the highest ranks of society. They were,
while wearing their disguise, in a better position to help
on the cause of the Pope, politically and socially, than if
they avowed themselves to be what they really were. A
great deal of light thrown on this aspect of affairs by
is
Father Cyprien Gamache, who, from 1630 to 1669, was one

of the Capuchin Monks who waited on Queen Henrietta
as her Chaplains. He wrote his Memoirs of the Mission in
344
ROMANISTS IN SECRET 345
England, which were published for the first time in 1848,

as a supplement to the second volume of The, Court and
Times of Charles the First. He wrote from an intimate
acquaintance with the chief personages in the Court of
Charles. He states that Two different Briefs of Popes
:
"
expressly forbid Catholics this attendance at the preaching

of Protestant Ministers. There are, however, English
priests who explain away these Briefs, and who secretly
maintain that, on certain important occasions, Catholics
may, without offence, frequent the Churches of the
Huguenots, and hear the sermons of the Ministers. In
this opinion, they admit them to Confession, and administer
the Sacraments to them, without obliging them to desist
from those practices." l Sir Francis Coke, writing, several
years before this, to Sir John Coke, on November 17, 1625,
remarks : "I understand that his Majesty doth call for
the arrearages of the Recusants now behind and unpaid,
which I am glad of but I fear the most of them will now
;
come to the Church, having dispensations from the Pope ;

for some of them have prevented this demand of the
arrearages by coming to the Church about a month since,

perhaps having notice beforehand, whereof Sir Henry
Shirley is one, the worst of all being Church Papists."
Gamache mentions an English gentleman with whom he

was personally acquainted, who was a member of the
King s Privy Council in Ireland. After a great many
"
interviews with the priest, he received absolution of his

heresy, confessed, took the Sacrament with extraordinary
fervour, returned to Ireland, practised secretly all the exercises
of his religion, at the same time attending the King s
Council as usual, retaining his offices, which he would have
lost,and done a great wrong to his family if he had declared
himself a Catholic" Father Gamache has not one word
3
of censure for the duplicity of his penitent, who, under
1
The Court and Times of Charles the First, vol. ii. p. 408.
2
Manuscripts of Earl Cotvper, Hist. MSS. Commission, vol. i. p. 228.
3
The Court and Times of diaries the First, vol. ii. p. 341.
such a disguise, was, from his position on the Privy Council,
able to do considerable damage to the Protestant cause
in Ireland. He next tells us about the Earl of Portland,
Lord Treasurer of England, of whom he reports that :
He had private correspondence with the Reverend

Father Joseph of Paris, a Capuchin, whom Cardinal
Richelieu kept about him out of respect. This nobleman
favoured the Queen s Capuchins [i.e. in London], but
underhand, clandestinely, and in secret ; to prevent it being
known that he had an inclination to Popery, as they term
it. This intercourse with the Rev. Father Joseph, and this
secret affection which he entertained for the Capuchins,
were followed by a success highly conducive to his salva
1
some time afterwards the Earl
" "
tion." It seems that

was taken dangerously ill, and then called in a priest, who
received him into the Church of Rome. Gardiner states
that : "It was soon rumoured that he had died a Roman
Catholic. The rumour was true but so long had he ;
delayed the acknowledgment of his belief, that, though his

wife and daughters and most of his friends were Roman
Catholics, it was only at the last that his true sentiments
were known even to them." 2 Father Tootle, who includes
Portland in his lives of Roman Catholic noblemen, quotes
Echard as asserting of the Earl that His wife and all
"
his daughters being professed Papists, though he and his

sons appeared sometimes at Church, he was never thought
a friend to it. His most familiar conversation was with
those of the Romish persuasion and yet he was so little
;
in credit with that party, that they were the only people
that did not believe him of their persuasion." 3 The
Dictionary of National Biography says of the Earl, whose
family name was Weston, that Almost all the branches
"
of the Weston family retained a secret or open attachment

to the Roman Catholic religion. Sir Richard [i.e. the Earl
of Portland] was no exception, and with this religious belief
"
went a political sympathy with Spain." In 1628, his

1
The Court and Times of Charles tltc First, vol. ii.
p. 331.
2
Gardiner s History of England, vol. vii. p. 378.
3
Dodd s Church History, vol. iii. p. 51. edition 1742.
COTTINGTON A DISGUISED PAPIST 347
unpopularity was mainly owing to a well-founded

. . .
suspicion that he was at heart a Roman Catholic." It

is added that "he died on 13th March, 1634-5, a Roman
Catholic priest being called in to administer the last rites

*
of religion."
The Lord Cottington may here be mentioned. I

case of
think it commence what I have to say about him
best to
by quoting the Dictionary of National Biography, which
His religious historjr was indeed somewhat
"
states that :
remarkable. Cornwallis records an attempt to convert him

to Catholicism in 1607 (Winwood Papers, ii. 321), but he
did not actually become a Catholic till 1623, during a
dangerous illness which took place while he was at Madrid.
Returning to England, he again adopted Protestantism, but
made a second declaration of Catholicism during another
illness in 1636. Now resolving, as he wrote to the King
on 1st March, 1651, to remain in Spain, he determined again
to become a and was, after considerable difficulties,
Catholic,
reconciled by the Papal Nuncio (Clarendon, Rebellion, xiiii.
27 ;
Calendar of Clarendon State Papers, ii. 97). He suc
ceeded in obtaining licence to remain at Valladolid, and
a promise that his necessities should be supplied. The
care of the English Jesuits provided and made ready for
him the house in that cit}^, where he had before resided
during the reign of Philip III., and there he died, on 19th
2
June, 1652, at the age of seventy-four."
Cottington held many high offices. He was one of those
sent to Spain to negotiate the Marriage Treaty with Spain,
and returned from that country with the signature to it
of the King of Spain. He must, while in that country,
have been at heart a believer in the Church of Rome, since
he was afraid to die outside of her communion. Father
Francisco de Jesus, in his Narrative of the Spanish Marriage
Treaty? states that while he was at Madrid
"
Sir Francis :
Cottington, having been attacked by a serious illness,

brought on by the fatigues of his journey, and imagining
himself to be dying, desired to be reconciled to the Catholic
1
Dictionary of National Biography, vol. Ix. pp. 3G4-3G7, first edition.
2 3
Ibid., vol. xii. p. 295. p. 249 (Camden Society).
Church, as, in fact, he was by means of Fray Diego de la
Fuente, who had by this time returned from Rome, to
whom the Inquisitor-General gave authority for the purpose.
Nevertheless, as soon as he found himself free from his
sickness, he returned to his old way of living." When
Cottington returned to England he continued his profession
of Protestantism. On July 21, 1628, he caused his son to
be baptized at Han worth, where
he resided, Charles I.
assisting at the ceremony, which he would not dared to
have done had it been performed by a Roman Catholic
priest. When, in 1636, Panzani, the Pope s Agent in
"
England, visited him, Cottington reverently took oft

his hat whenever the Pope s name was mentioned."
l
Whenever he was seriously ill he seems to have called in a

priest to reconcile him to the Church of Rome, in which he
2
heartily believed all the rest of his life. Amongst the
offices he held, before he left England, were those of Privy
Councillor, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Master of the

Wards, Lieutenant of the Tower, Ambassador to Spain,
and Lord High Treasurer of England. He was one of the
most powerful aiders of Rome, sailing under false colours,
until towards the time of his death, when he died as an
avowed Romanist.
Another helper of Papal schemes for the recovery of
lost ground in England was Secretary Windebank. It has
been asserted that he joined the Church of Rome about
the time he became Secretary of State but of this I can
;
find no adequate proof. It is, however, acknowledged that

late in life, after he left England, he joined the Church of
Rome, of which he became an open and zealous advocate.

But all through his official life, as Secretary of State, he
was an active and warm supporter of the Laudean party
in the Church of England, in their schemes for union with
Rome, and a bitter hater of the Puritans. Moreover, he

gave considerable assistance to the secret agents of the
1
Gardiner s History of England, vol. viii. p. 130.
2
Ibid, p. 140.
WINDEBANK ASSISTS THE PAPISTS 349
Papacy sent by the Pope to England. The first of these

agents was Signor Gregorio Panzani, who arrived in England
towards the close of 1634, and returned to Rome towards
the end of 1636. His mission was a strictly secret one,
concerning which I shall have more to relate further on.
He was a priest, and while in England was disguised in
lay attire. At present I content myself with quoting, from
his Memoirs, his own description of several interviews he
had with Windebank while in London. At his first inter
view, Panzani informed Windebank that he was at liberty
to regulate the concerns of the Oath of Allegiance."
"
To
"
this the Secretary of State replied that he thought it

would be a part of prudence in his Holiness, either to
recall or moderate the Briefs that were in force against
"
such as took the Oath of Allegiance but Panzani assured ;
him that nothing would be altered, unless the King agreed

to make the Oath more agreeable to the humour of the See
he added,
" "
of Rome." that it is the Pope s

I know,"
pleasure that the Catholics answer all demands of civil
the Pope draw

" "
allegiance." Then," said

Windebank, let
up the form of an Oath, and send it hither." Panzani

promised to write to Rome about this matter but nothing ;
ever came of it, except that, as Panzani tells us, he was

"
very much blamed as to this affair of the Oath, [Cardinal]

Barberini taking the liberty to tell him that he had exceeded
his commission, and that it was too tender a point to be
handled at that time." The fact was, Rome did not want
any Oath Windebank
"
of Allegiance to a Protestant King.
very familiarly Panzani that it was whispered in

told
corners that he would be ordered to leave the Kingdom.
But take no notice, said he, of those reports you may ;
stay without any apprehension or hazard. The Secre

requested that his Holiness would write an
"
tary then
*
obliging letter to the King For why, said he, should ;
not a common Father make himself familiar with his chil

Panzani says that, soon after, it was proposed
"
dren ?
1
Memoirs of Panzani, pp. 143-146.
to the Queen and Cardinal Barberini, whether a mutual
agency between the Court of Rome and England would
not be very convenient. Windebank seemed so charmed
with the beauty of the project, that he was beforehand with
Panzani in communicating it to the Queen. He assured
her Majesty lie would be secret, cordial, and assiduous in
carrying it on."
J
He kept his promise, with the result
that a secret agency was established.
Soon after this, the Secretary had another interview
with Panzani. He told him [Panzani] that he really
"
looked on himself to be a good Catholic ; otherwise, that he

should make no difficulty to bid adieu to all that was dear
to him in order to purchase that name. He then instanced
some things he boggled at in the Church of Rome, and
namely, the article of Communion in One Kind, which he
viewed as a scandalous practice, adding that, if he were to
be concerned in uniting the Churches, the Catholics should
disclaim that article as a preliminary. Panzani only re
plied that, in his opinion, the writers of the Church of
Rome had given full satisfaction on that head. Windebank
went on to another point. If, said he, we had neither
Jesuits nor Puritans in England, I am confident a union
2 "
might easily be effected. Gardiner informs us that in

one of the interviews between these two men, Windebank
said to Panzani that, as to the Puritans, he had a splendid
scheme of his own for suppressing them. The King might
weed out seditious persons (i.e. Puritans), from his King
dom by sending them to the wars in Flanders. The priest," "
replied that Charles might

"
(i.e. Panzani), says Gardiner,
count upon the Pope to supply him with Captains, soldiers,

and money. Such was the discourse which an English
Secretary of State allowed himself to carry on with a
foreign ecclesiastic. The year before, Windebank had been
employed by Charles to contrive how the naval forces of
England could be used against a friendly nation. This

year he was contriving how they could be used against
1 2
Memoirs of Panzani, p. 100. Ibid., pp. 162, 163.
WINDEBANK FLIES TO FRANCE 351
Englishmen." dated March 13, 1635, Cardinal

1
By a letter,
Barberini, Papal Secretary of State, ordered Panzani
"
that
he should keep the Conferences he had with Secretary Winde
bank a secret from the Roman Catholics." 2 After Panzani
had left England, in 1639, an Italian prelate named Count
Rosetti was sent by the Pope as his agent to the English
Court. Of course he also had an interview with Winde-
bank, and afterwards reported to Cardinal Barberini that
he was amazed at the language of Windebank, who,
"
though ostensibly a Protestant, spoke to him like a zealous

3
Rosetti was a good judge of the Secretary s
"
Catholic /
language. It was well for old England in those dark and

treacherous days that she had a Parliament thoroughly
loyal to the Protestant cause. careful watch was kept A
on the movements of Windebank, and, although not able
to penetrate into all his secret movements, enough was
discovered to justify action. In 1640, the House of
Commons drew up six articles against him. The offences of
which he was accused were as follows (1)
"
Seventy-four :
Letters of Grace to Recusants, within these four years,
signed by his own hand. (2) Sixty-four priests in the

Gatehouse, within these four years discharged, for the most
part by him. (3) Twenty-nine discharged by his verbal
order. (4) A warrant to protect one Muffon, a condemned
priest, and all the houses he frequented. (5) One com

mitted by the King s own hand, and discharged by him,
without signification of the King s pleasure therein. (6) A
petition of St. Giles in the Fields, near London, to the
King, of the increase of Popery in their parish, wherein
twenty-one persons were seduced and turned by two

4
priests, the which priests were both discharged by him."
Windebank, knowing that a storm was brewing against
him in the House of Commons, thought it wise to flee out
1
Gardiner s History of England, vol. viii. p. 1. 55.
2
Memoirs of Panzani, p. 171.
3
Gardiner s History of England, vol. ix. p. 87.
4
Cobbett s Parliamentary History, vol. ii. p. 682.
of England. From Calais he wrote to the Earl of Pem
broke a letter defending himself against the accusations of
the House of Commons. It was of a pitiful, almost whining,
character, in which he appealed for mercy, but in which
he did not refute the charges brought against him, merely
pleading in self-defence that he had acted throughout in
obedience to the orders of the King. He added Now, :
"
because there an opinion in the world, that I have much

is
improved my fortune by the Roman party, and that there

hath been a design, by my Ministry, to introduce Popery
into England, I shall humbly crave your Lordship s patience
in giving me leave to clear these two great misunder
standings which, if they were true, were sufficient to

;
render me incapable of his Majesty s favours, or of the

compassion of any person of honour."
l
From Calais
Windebank also wrote an appeal to Christopher, first Lord
Hatton, in which he defended himself from the charge of
having been bribed by the Romanists to introduce Popery
into England, and declared that he held the English Church
not only a true and orthodox Church, but the most
"
to be
pure and near the primitive of any in the Christian world."

How far these professions of Windebank were in accord
ance with the facts, my readers are now able to judge.
A few years after he had written these letters, says Father
"
Tootle, he died at Paris, September 1, 1646, a zealous

member of the Catholic Church." 3
Sir Kenelm Digby may be added to the list of influential
workers underground, in the interests of Rome, at this.period.
He was a son of the Sir Everard Digby who was executed
for the part he took in promoting the Gunpowder Plot.
SirKenelm was, as a boy, educated as a Protestant. After
he had nearly attained to manhood, his relative, the Earl
of Bristol, required his services in Madrid, in connection
with the negotiations then going on for the Spanish Marriage
1
Cobbett s Parliamentary History, vol. ii. pp. G83, 684.
2
Dictionary of National Biography, vol. Ixii. p. 164.
3 Dodd s Church History, vol. iii. p. 59, edition 1742.
SIR KENELM DIGBY S DUPLICITY 353
It was during this period," says Mr. Gillow,

"
Treaty.
"
that he seized the opportunity to reconcile himself to the

faith of his ancestors, from which he had been restrained
by his Protestant
guardians. He returned with Prince
Charles to England, and on October 23, 1623, received
l " "
the honour of Knighthood and, early in 1636, after ;
a visit to France, he publicly announced his reconciliation

with the Catholic Church." As Digby returned from
Spain towards the close of 1623, he must, therefore, have
concealed his membership of the Church of Rome from the
public gaze, and publicly have passed himself off as a
member of the Church of England. Father Tootle says
going abroad, he had an opportunity of
"
of Digby that,
re-uniting himself to the religion of his ancestors, which
he never entirely forsook, but was under a restraint as
to the practical part during his minority."
3
A modern
biographer of Sir Kenelm Digby, who does not give his
name, but describes himself on the title-page as One of
"
His Descendants," tells us that

"
Aubrey says that in :
163-, which some historians believe to have been one of

the earliest years of the thirties, temper e Car. I., Sir
Kenelm received the Sacrament in the Chapel at White
hall, and professed the Protestant religion, but afterwards
"
4
he looked back. This biographer adds that "It is :
possible that Sir Kenelm may not have practised the Catholic
religion publicly, or allowed the public to be aware that he
practised, or even professed, it in private, until 1636 ;
and should be remembered that he lived at a period

it
when there was some difference of opinion, not only among

laymen but also among ecclesiastics, as to the extent of
public profession required from a Catholic. The times

were, to say the least of it, exceedingly difficult, and there
can be no doubt that there were Catholics who concealed
1
Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, vol. ii.
p. 71.
2
Ibid., p. 72.
3
Dodd s Church History, vol. iii. p. 55, edition 1742.
4
The Life of Sir Kenelm Digby, p. 200.
their a very questionable manner." l While
religion in
passing as a Protestant, though all the time a disguised

Romanist, Sir Kenelm Digby held several influential
positions, including that of Gentleman of the Bedchamber,
Commissioner of the Navy, and Governor of Trinity House.
Tobie Matthew was a very serviceable underground
worker for Rome in the times of James I. and Charles I.
He was a son of the Archbishop of York, and was born in
1577. He joined the Church of Rome in 1606, while travel
ling on the Continent. I do not charge him with ever,
after that date, attempting to wear the disguise of a Pro
testant. What he did was to assume the disguise of a lay
courtier, and hiding from the public gaze his real character
of priest and Jesuit ;
and that for political purposes, and
not to secure his own personal safety. It was as a layman
that he was sent, in 1623, by James I. to Spain, to assist
in the negotiations then going on for the Spanish Marriage
Treaty. He gave such satisfaction that, on his return to

England, Matthew, whose priesthood was, says Dr. Oliver,
"
2
kept a profound secret," received the honour of Knight
hood, and was henceforth known as Sir Tobie Matthew.
though the fact of his priesthood was
"
Gillow says that

a it oozed out
long kept close secret, through his espousing
the side of the Jesuits in their controversy with the secular
clergy, and in 1630 the Bishop of Chalcedon obtained
attestations from different people who had heard him say
3
Mass."At that time a petition against the appointment
of a Roman Catholic Bishop to officiate in England was circu
lated by the Jesuits. The modern biographer of Matthew,
Mr. A. H. Matthew, who describes himself as His Kinsman,"
"
Sir Tobie, who drew up the petition in the name

"
says that :
of the laity, and signed it, as though he were one of them,

was all the time a priest, and not only a priest, but also a
; and he adds that
" "
Jesuit it is impossible not to condemn
of Sir Kenelm Digby, p. 203.

The Life
1
2
Oliver s Collections Illustrating the Biography of Members S.J., p. 125,
edition 1838.
3
Gillow s Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, vol. iv. p. 539.
SIR TOBIE MATTHEW 355
l
the dissimulation of Sir in the highest
Tobie."
Moving
ranks of society for several years afterwards, this disguised
Jesuit played the part of a spy on the frequenters of the
Royal Court. The Dictionary of National Biography asserts
that Matthew was a sedulous courtier, who had the gift
"
of gossip and a finger in all Court intrigues, about which

he was a sure informant 2 and it further states that in
"
1633 the French Ambassador in London wrote The "
cleverest of all the Seminaries Tobie Matthew, a man of

is
parts, active, influential, an excellent linguist he pene ;
trates Cabinets, he insinuates himself into all kinds of

and knows the temper and purpose of those who
affairs,
govern the Kingdom, especially of the Lord Treasurer,

whom he manages so skilfully that he is able to realise
all hisschemes in favour of Spain."
In 1633, Tobie Matthew went over to Ireland to under
take the very secular work of Secretary to Lord Wentworth,
on visit to that country as Lord Deputy.
his first He
returned to England in 1634, and continued in favour with
the King and his Roman Catholic Queen until he finally
left the country in 1642. Prynne affirms that Tobie
Matthew
"
made a voyage with the Lord Deputy into Ire

land, to stir up the Papists there to contribute men, arms,
moneys, to subdue the Scottish Covenanters." 3
The case of Bishop Godfrey Goodman, appointed
Bishop of Gloucester in 1624, may here be mentioned as
an instance of underground work in the Church of Eng
land in the interests of the Church of Rome. The facts
recorded of this Bishop by the Dictionary of National
Biography are decidedly startling, and naturally raises the
question, Is deceitful conduct such as his possible in the
twentieth century ? It says :
"
Goodman s religious views gradually brought him into

very close sympathy with the Roman Church, and he soon gave
1
The Life of Sir Tobie Matthew, by A. H. Matthew, p. 250.
2
Vol. xxxvii. pp. GG, G7.
3
Rome s Masterpiece, by William Prynne, p. 32, second edition, 1G44.
grounds for the suspicion that he had secretly joined that com
munion. Panzani, the Papal agent in England, wrote in January
1635-6, that the Bishop said Divine offices in private out of
the Eoman Breviary, and had asked permission to keep an
Italian priest to say Mass secretly in his house (Gardiner, Hist.
viii. 140).
Early in 1638 similar allegations were made in Rome,
and Sir William Hamilton, the English agent there, wrote to
Secretary Windebank that Goodman had been converted about
1635 or 1636 by one William Hanmer, who went by the name of
John Challoner. On 13 July, 1638, Edmund Atwood, Vicar of
Hartbury, Gloucestershire, gave Windebank an account of
Goodman s intimate relations with Hanmer, and with the Pro
vincial of the Jesuits, who were both repeatedly the Bishop s
guests at Gloucester (Clarendon State Papers, in Newcome s
Memoir, App. 0). ...
Goodman s equivocal position was
very prejudicial to the cause of his fellow- Churchmen. In
February 1640-1, when the condition of the Church was under
debate in Parliament, Falkland ascribed the disrepute into which
it had fallen to the
dishonesty of men like Goodman, who
found a way to reconcile the opinions of Rome to the preferments
of England, and to be so absolutely, directly, and cordially
Papist, that it is all that 1500 a year can do to keep them from
confessing it. . .His will, dated 17 Jan. 1655-6, and proved
.
16 Feb., opens with the profession that he died as he had lived,

most constant in all the doctrine of God s holy and Apostolic
Church, whereof I do acknowledge the Church of Rome to be
the Mother Church. And I do verily believe that no other
Church hath any salvation in it but only so far as it concurs
"
with the faith of the Church of Rome. l
In 1640, certain new Canons were passed by the Con

vocation of Canterbury, and the Bishops were required to
subscribe and swear to them. But Goodman for a long time
refused. Archbishop Laud stated that Goodman gave
but that which stuck in
"
several excuses for his refusal,

his stomach was the Canon about the suppressing the growth
of Popery. For, coming over to me, to Lambeth, about
that business, he told me he would be torn with wild horses
before he would subscribe that Canon. I gave him the best
advice I could, but his carriage was such when he came
into the Convocation that I was forced to charge him
Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xxii. pp. 132, 133.

1
BISHOP GODFREY GOODMAN 357
openly with it, and he as freely acknowledged it, as there

is plentiful proof of Bishops and other Divines then
Eventually, under great pressure, Goodman
l
present."
signed the Canon. In 1641, Bishop Goodman signed a

protest, addressed to the King, to which eleven other
Bishops added their names, in which they declared that
they do abominate all actions or opinions tending to
"
Popery and the maintenance thereof."

The Rev. Richard Newcome,Memoir of Gabriel in his
Goodman, states that a remonstrance was sent to the King
protesting against the Romanising doctrines and conduct
of Bishop Goodman but he does not name the year in
;
which it was presented. It was signed by Burton, Bast wick,

and Prynne. In it they affirmed that :
"
Since Christmas last past, the said Bishop hath super

seded one Mr. Ridler, Minister of Little Dean, within the
County and Diocese of Gloucester, only for preaching against
divers gross errors and idolatries of the Papists (of which
he hath divers in his said parish), and then concluding
(according to the Homilies and learnedest writers of our
Church) that an obstinate Papist, dying a Papist, could
not be saved, and that if we were saved, the Papists were
not, and for refusing to make a formal recantation, which
the said Bishop prescribed him in writing, in which re
cantation the said Bishop styled the Church of Rome
. . .
God
Catholic Church, and in direct terms affirmed that,
s
in the eye of the law, we are still one with the said Catholic
Church, from which we sever only for some political respects ;
and that it is impossible there should be any greater offence

against the Church of England than to say that Papists
are damned, in regard of the affinity there is between the
two Churches for we have both the same Holy Orders,
;
the same Church Service, the same ceremonies, the same

Feasts, and the same Festivals, and we have generally the
same Canon Law, and, therefore, through the sides of the
1
Fuller s Church History, vol. vi. p. 174, note (Oxford, 1845).
2
Clarendon s History of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 472, Mac ray s edition.
:
Church of Rome they do but give deadly and mortal wounds
to the Church of England, who affirm that Papists are
damned."
In men Bishop Goodman the Church of Rome in

like
England found one of her most powerful auxiliaries. It

was conduct like his which tended to rouse the dormant
energies of English laymen, and decided them on the course
they eventually adopted towards the Church of England.
Rather than have her Romanised, and her vast wealth
and power devoted to the propagation of more or less
modified Popery, they raised the cry of
"
Down with her !
"
even to the ground !
In a Protestation and Declaration of the Lords and

Commons in Parliament on October 22, 1642, we find this
Great numbers of Papists have, in show,
"
statement :
conformed themselves to the Protestant religion, by coming

to the Church, receiving the Sacrament, and taking the
Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy which some of their ;
own have encouraged them to do, by maintaining

priests
That they might do all those things, and yet continue
l "
good Catholics.
British Protestants have ever had good reasons for
dreading secret negotiations with Rome. They have ever

been fruitful of evil to the Protestant cause. These secret
negotiations were numerous in the seventeenth century.
In the year 1624, the King of France sent the Archbishop
of Ambrun to London as his secret agent to intercede for
a greater measure of toleration for the Roman Catholics.
He came in disguise, and passed himself off as a Councillor
of the Parliament of Grenoble. He had an interview
with King James at Roys ton, with the result that, after
several conferences, the King told him : "I
perceive you
are the man sent God, to whom I may freely open
me from
my mind." He added that he always had a good opinion
of Roman Catholics, and he intended to grant them full
toleration ; but, before doing so, he intended to call to-
1
PANZANFS SECRET MISSION 359
gether a conference of foreign and English divines at Dover

or Boulogne, who should be invited to declare themselves
in favour of a universal liberty of conscience. He would
give the Archbishop two letters on the subject, one to the
King of France, the other to the Pope. If he returned to
England with the Pope s approbation, the conference should
be immediately held. Such is the statement made by the
Archbishop himself. Deageant, in his Secret A/airs of
France, affirms that James actually did write to the Pope ;
but Rapin is not much inclined to rely on his testimony. 1

But the mission of Gregory Panzani, a secular Roman
priest, to England, from 1634 to 1636, was one of the most
important character. He subsequently wrote his Memoirs,
which were translated into English by the Rev. Joseph
Berington, and published in 1813. Panzani, who writes
singular care was taken
" "
in the third person, states that

should not be divulged
"
that his mission in England

among the Catholics or Protestants, who, from different
and that
"
views, might have obstructed its execution ;
he under
"
privately passed over into England, the pre

tence of satisfying his curiosity with the fashions and
customs of the country, as other strangers often did."
He first of all had an interview with the Queen ; and, be

fore leaving, requested that his arrival might be notified to
"
the King, with the occasion of it. When," saj^s Panzani,

"
the Queen signified the event to his Majesty, his only

reply was that Panzani should be cautious, and carry on
his business with secrecy." 3 He was not long in England,
proofs of the com
"
he states, before he found strong

plaisance, not to say affection, of the Court party towards
the Roman See." 4 He was very shy in making his presence
known even to those who might sympathise with his mission.
He writes :
As yet Panzani had not made himself known

"
to either
1
Kapin s History of England, vol. viii. pp. 287-289.
2
Panzani s Memoirs, p. 132.
3 4
Ibid., p. 134. Ibid., p. 136.
and he used the same caution in
of the Secretaries of State ;
Ambassadors of France and Spain. But Father

regard to the
Philip and the Abbe du Perron were of opinion that it
was high time he should have an interview with Secretary
Windebank, at to remedy the discords
least in private,
about the Oath and to proceed as he should
of Allegiance,
find encouragement. Windebank was a Protestant by
profession, yet no enemy to the Catholics, and prepared
to go all the lengths of the King and the Court party." 1
Panzani, as I have already stated, had several inter
views with Windebank, and was greatly cheered and en
couraged by them. In these conferences the great and
secret project of the union of the Church of England with
the Church of Rome was discussed. Panzani seems to have
had a suspicion that Windebank was already a Roman
Catholic, for when he states that several years later, on the
latter s return to England, he became a Romanist, he
adds, he had not done it privately before, as many

"if
conjectured."And again, he says, with reference to

2
negotiations with the English Secretary of State Winde :

"
bank was most apprehensive of being discovered wherefore ;
he admonished, as well Panzani as the Cardinal, never to

3
mention his name." Curiously enough, the Jesuits in
England seem to have been opposed to Panzani s scheme
for the reunion of the Churches. He says :
"
Their usual
language was, that the Roman
Catholic religion would never
be restored in England, but by the sword. This topic was
very displeasing to Panzani. He told them very frankly
ithad too great an affinity to the detestable contrivance
of theGunpowder Plot but he was satisfied their zeal;
would never transport them so 4

And again, he far."
writes, concerning the Jesuits They visibly affected :
would not treat [for peace with secular priests]

superiority ;
upon a level and seemed disposed to frustrate everything,

;
unless it were a scheme of their own. Their management
1 2
Paiizani s Memoirs, p. 142. Ibid., p. 191.
3 4
Ibid., p. 237. Ibid., p. 151.
A JESUIT S DISLOYAL BOOK 361
spoke indifferency as to restoring religion in England,

unless it were effected by their means and in consequence ;
of this their common discourse was, that it could never be
brought about but by force of arms."

1
In this we have clear
proof of the danger to the State of harbouring in England
such a dangerous set of men as the Jesuits. They were
not trusted by many Romanists in the seventeenth century.
Panzani says that The clergy, to prevent being im
:
"
posed on by false brethren, caused an oath to be privately

administered to all new [Roman Catholic] missionaries
of their body, whereby they were to disown themselves to
be Jesuits in masquerade."
Panzani states that the King, at this time, was very
much irritated at the appearance of a book by a Jesuit
who passed by the name of Courteney, but whose true name
was Edward Leedes. In his instructions to Mr. Arthur
Brett, a Roman Catholic gentleman whom he sent on a
secret mission to Rome, in 1635, the King informed him
that when in Rome :
"
You are to take notice of a base

and seditious discourse, written not long since by a Roman
Catholic, one Courteney, against the Oath of Allegiance ;
and you are to press earnestly for some exemplary punish

ment to be inflicted upon him for daring so presumptu
ously, without licence from that See, to awaken that
subject, which of late hath been prudently laid asleep, not
without knowledge, as we understand, of the Pope him
self and which cannot be agitated but with his diminution
;
and the irritating of all Christian Princes against him. If

you find them difficult in this, you shall then assure them
we will take the business into our own hand, and execute
3
the rigour of our laws upon him."
Courteney s book was never printed, and the only quota

tionsfrom it which I have seen, are those made at the time
by Father Preston, better known by his alias of Roger
Widdrington, and printed in the Clarendon State Papers.
1
Panzani z
s Memoirs, p. 225. Ibid., p. 249.
3
Foley s Records of the English Province, S.J., vol. i.
p. 259.
The following extracts will serve to indicate the character
of the book, and to justify the King s anxiety for the
punishment of the author :
"
It is a matter of faith believed by all Catholics, that the
Pope, by his spiritual authority, can authorise Princes to make

war, invade, and depose for spiritual ends.
The Pope hath an undoubted power to depose, both
spiritual and temporal.
Whatsoever power the Pope hath to deprive Princes of
their Kingdoms and titles, or by authorising of war for cause
of religion, he hath much more to deprive them of their subjects
allegiance.
"
If the Pope should depose the King, authorise Princes to

invade him, absolve his subjects from their allegiance, for
cause of religion, and command them not to obey, but to take
part with those Princes, if he will not desist to put in execution
the penal laws made against Catholics, they are bound, or at
leastwise may lawfully rebel against him.
"
Whosoever taketh the Oath [of Allegiance] incurreth formal

1
heresy, idolatry, and high treason/
Father Preston wrote a book in reply to Courteney,

and the King told Panzani that he should consider it a
singular affront if it should be censured at Rome. This
expression of opinion Panzani conveyed to Cardinal Bar-
berini, who thought the application a dishonour to the
Papacy. Instead of censuring Court eney s book for its

disloyalty, influence was brought to bear on Father Preston,
and, as a consequence, his loyal reply was suppressed.
Courteney represented the true spirit of the Papacy ;
Preston did not. 2

After Panzani had been some time in England, he
obtained a secret interview with the King. The former
says that The King and Panzani were brought together,
:
"
though in a very remote and unsuspected place, the Queen

also being present. The King received him with a very
cheerful countenance, taking off his hat, while Panzani
kissed his hand and then, with a great deal of freedom,
;
pp. 70-72, 8vo edition, 1767.

1
Clarendon Stale Papers, vol. ii.
2
DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH ROME 363
the latter gave his Majesty an account of his business in

England, with an ample assurance of the great affection
his Holiness had for him, and a grateful remembrance of
the kind treatment the Catholics had met with under his
Majesty s Some time before
mild and prudent reign."
l
this interview, Windebank and Panzani decided that an

effort should be made to establish diplomatic relations
between England and Rome and that, as a preliminary
;
step, the Queen and Cardinal Barberini should be asked

their opinion. Panzani says that Windebank seemed :
"
so charmed with the beauty of the project, that he was

beforehand with Panzani in communicating it to the Queen.
He assured her Majesty he would be secret, cordial, and
assiduous in carrying it on." In due course, the Cardinal s
reply came, expressing hearty approval of the project, and
promising that nothing should be neglected in order to
provide a proper representative of the Pope in England.
The Queen made known the scheme to the King, who
agreed, merely requesting that he should name the person
who should be sent to Rome, and that the Pope s repre
sentative should be a layman, and not be considered a
Secrecy was enjoined on all
"
Nuncio. hands," says Panzani,

by the King, who observed that
"
especially should such

a correspondence once get wind, it would be highly resented
by the generality of the nation." Eventually, a young
Roman layman, Arthur Brett, was chosen to
Catholic
represent, not the King, but the Queen, in the Court of
Rome. Charles gave Brett written instructions before he
started for Rome, signed by himself. He told him that in
all his dealings with the Cardinals he should style himself
the Queen s servant only, and not take upon you any
"
quality, nor to pretend any power from Yet in reality us."
he was to do the King s work there. Charles added :
Nevertheless, though for your person and quality you are

"
to govern yourself in this manner, this must not slacken

your diligence in any service that may concern us ;
to the
1 2
Panzani s Memoirs, p. 161. Ibid., p. 160.
advancement whereof you must have a special eye, and to
bend your best endeavours to that end." l
Some time after his arrival in England, Panzani was
instructed by Cardinal Barberini, Papal Secretary of State,
and "Protector of England," to act as a spy on the Church
of England Bishops. He tells us that he was
"
directed by
the Cardinal to inquire into the characters of the Protestant
Bishops for as they were to be employed in the projected
;
scheme of union [between the Churches of England and

Rome], it was requisite to be fully informed what sort of
men they were, and how qualified as to learning, morals, re
ligion, politics, &c., that those who were to treat with them
might know how to come at them by proper and suitable
addresses. But he had a strict charge to be very cautious
2
and secret in the inquiry."
Panzani thought the proposed mutual agency between

the Courts of England and Rome would greatly promote
the union of the Churches, and he seems to have been very
hopeful of this being accomplished. His hopes were greatly
strengthened by three secret interviews he had with Dr.
Montague, Bishop of Chichester. Panzani reports that :
He (Montague) signified a great desire that the breach

"
between the two Churches might be made up, and appre

hended no danger from publishing the scheme, as things
now stood. He said he had frequently made it the subject
of hismost serious thoughts, and had diligently considered
allthe requisites of an union, adding that he was satisfied
both the Archbishops, with the Bishop of London, and
several others the Episcopal Order, besides a great
of
number learned inferior clergy, were prepared to
of the
fall in with the Church of Rome as to a Supremacy purely
spiritual and that there was no other method of ending

;
controversies than by having recourse to some centre of

ecclesiastical unity. That, for his own part, he knew no
tenet of the Church of Rome
to which he was not willing
1
Clarendon State Papers, vol. ii.
p. 24G, edition 1767.
2
PANZANI AND BISHOP MONTAGUE 365
to subscribe, unless it were the article of Transubstan-

l
tiation."
We
need not wonder that when the report of this secret
interview reached Rome, the Papal authorities were greatly
delighted and filled with joyful hope. Panzani was, there
upon, ordered to flatter the Bishop of Chichester as much
as possible, and to tell him that in Rome
"
his learning
and pacific dispositions were applauded." At his second
"
secret interview with Panzani, repeated his Montague

former discourse concerning the Union, adding that he
was continually employed in disposing men s minds for it,
both by words and writing, as often as he met with an
opportunity. He then again mentioned the Pope s Supremacy,
whose feet, he said, he was willing to kiss, and acknowledge
himself to be one of his children. He added that the Arch
bishop of Canterbury [Laud] was entirely of his sentiments,
but with a great allay of fear and caution." At the third
interview with Montague, Panzani managed to extract
from him the information required by the Court of Rome.
The latter writes :
"
Panzani, being curious to know the

characters of the chief of the Protestant clergy, Montague
told him there were only three Bishops that could be
counted violently bent against the Church of Rome, viz.
Durham, Salisbury, and Exeter. But Panzani received
a particular character of each Bishop from another hand.
It gave an account of their age, family, way of life, qualifica
tions, natural and acquired, moral and political, and, as
far as could be guessed, how they stood affected as to the
present of affairs at Court.

management This account
was carefully transmitted to Barberini." 3
At this third
"
interview, the Bishop of Chichester observed that the

King had been often heard to say, that there was neither
policy, Christianity, nor good manners in not keeping a
correspondence with Rome, by sending and receiving
Ambassadors, as was practised by other Courts and that ;
if his Majesty should think fit to settle such a correspond-
1 2 3
Panzani s Memoirs, p. 238. Ibid., p. 242. Ibid., p. 24(5.
ence, he would himself make interest for that honourable
charge. Then, replied Panzani, the world would immedi
ately conclude that you were going over to the Church of Rome
1
And what harm would there be in that ? said the Bishop."
As showing the Jesuitical tactics adopted by Montague
and his party in their underground Romanising work, it
may suffice to quote what he said on that occasion to Pan
zani "As for our aversion [to Rome], we discover, in our
:
sermons and printed books, they are things of form, chiefly

to humour the populace., and not much to be regarded / 1
"
There can be no doubt that the mission of Panzani

was of considerable service to the Papacy. He had a deli
cate and difficult task to perform. It included an attempt
to reconcile the Secular priests in England with the Regulars ;
but in this he was by no means successful nor was he more ;
successful in his efforts to secure an agreement on the vexed

question of appointing a Roman Catholic Bishop for Eng
land. His hopes for the return of the Church of England
to the Church of Rome were, happily, disappointed. He
failed also in obtaining the modification of the Oath of
Allegiance. When, at length, the existence of his mission

became known in England, a storm of indignant protest
was raised, which had an important influence in the sub
sequent destruction of the Church of England, and the
establishment of the Commonwealth.
Panzani left England in 1636, and was succeeded by
another secret Papal agent, named George Conn. Like
Panzani, he was a priest, and in high favour at the Papal
Court. He was a native of Scotland, but had resided for
a long time on the Continent. He was nominally delegated
to the Queen, but his mission embraced the whole of English
affairs in which the interests of the Papacy were included.
He was, very soon after his arrival, on the most intimate
terms with the King, with whom he spent much time
2
discussing politics and theology. Bellesheim says that
1
Parizani s Memoirs, pp. 247, 248.
2
Gardiner sHistory of England, vol. viii. p. 236.
ANOTHER PAPAL AGENT ARRIVES 367
the principal subject of his communications with that

"
Monarch appears to have been the form of Oath prescribed

by James I. to his Catholic subjects, and requiring them
not only to profess their loyalty and allegiance to the
Sovereign, but also to expressly repudiate the doctrine that
the Pope had the power of deposing secular Princes. . . .
It would seem, from Conn s own account of his conversation

with Charles on the subject, that the King was not only
indisposed to introduce a new and modified formula, but was
equally reluctant to comply with the suggestion made to him
by the Papal agents that he should use his own authority
to dispense the Catholics from the obnoxious Oath ordered
by Parliament. Sire, was Conn s remark, we Catholics
J "
maintain that your Majesty stands above the Parliament.

Conn devoted himself zealously to the work of proselytism
amongst the upper ranks of society. He was on very
friendly terms with the King Charles was quite satisfied .
,
to find in Conn a well-informed and re

"
says Gardiner,
spectful man, ready to discuss politics or theology without
acrimony by the hour, and to flatter him with assurances
of the loyalty of his Catholic subjects, without forgetting
to point to the sad contrast exhibited by the stiff-necked
and contemptuous Puritans. Offence was taken at this
unwise familiarity in quarters in which ordinary Puri
tanism met with but little sympathy." 2 Conn devoted
himself zealously to efforts to induce the King to alter the
Oath of Allegiance, which the Papacy detested, because
it repudiated the Pope s deposing power. He also tried to
promote the scheme, then on foot, for the reunion of the
Church of England with the Church of Rome. Ranke
Conn set before the King the prospect that
"
states that
in the event of an Union with Rome, which still formed
a great centre of European politics, he would have as much
power as any Continental potentate ;
and the King might
Bellesheim s History cf the Catholic Church of Scotland, vol.

1
iv. pp. 53,
f>4
;
Ranke s History of England, vol. ii. p. 41.
2
Gardiner s History of England, vol. viii. p. 23G.
well feel tempted to enter the lists at Rome as elsewhere
1
against Spain and France." There can be no doubt
that the work of Conn, while in England, largely secret as
itwas, did a great deal of mischief to the Protestant cause,
and assisted the political ambitions of the Papacy. He
returned to Rome in the autumn of 1639.
Early in the year 1640, a successor to Conn was sent
to England, in the person of a priest named the Count
Rosetti, under the pretext of a communication to the Queen
from Cardinal Barberini, but in reality as Papal Nuncio.
Although a priest, he appeared in England in the dress of
a layman. He assisted the Queen in her efforts to raise a
Roman Catholic army to assist the King in fighting against
the Scotch Covenanters. also urged the King to be He
come a Roman Catholic, by which means, he assured him,
he would not only have his own Roman Catholic subjects
the Catholic Princes of Europe would
"
on his side, but all
come to his assistance to root out that venomous sect
(the Puritans) wherever they might be found in the King

dom, and establish his throne in security." In several
other ways Rosetti interfered with the political affairs of
the nation.
Of course, the presence of such a man as Count Rosetti
in England could not be altogether unknown to the leading
statesmen of the period, though, at the time, the Protestants
knew very little of the work he was doing. But Parlia
ment knew enough to justify it in adopting, on June 23,
1641, a series of "Propositions," one of which, headed
Concerning the Nuncios," was That it may be declared,
" "
by an Act of Parliament, that if any man shall presume

to come to this Kingdom, with instructions from the Pope,
or the Court of Rome, that he shall be in the case of High
Treason, and out of the protection of the King and the
3
laws." This threatening attitude of Parliament led to
1
Eanke s History of England, vol. ii.
p. 42.
2
Nugent s Memorials of Hampden, vol. ii.
p. 451, second edition.
3
REMONSTRANCE OF PARLIAMENT 369
Rosetti leaving England, only five days later. It can

hardly be surprising that Parliament should become alarmed
at the presence of Papal Agents in England, and it is
much to be regretted that their proposed Act of Parliament
was not passed. In the Grand Remonstrance of Parliament,
presented to the King on December 1, 1641, the dangerous
work of the Papal Agents, of whom Rosetti was the third,
was
"
referred to. time the Popish

It declared that at that
Party had
"
a
"
Secretary of State, Sir Francis Windebank,

a powerful agent for the speeding of all their desires and ;
a Pope s Nuncio residing here, to act and govern them ac

cording to such instructions as he received from Rome,
and to intercede for them with the most powerful concur
rence of the foreign Princes of that religion by whose ;
authority the Papists of all sorts, nobility, gentry, and
clergy, were convocated after the manner of a Parliament ;
new jurisdictions were erected of Romish Archbishops ;
taxes levied another State moulded within this State,

;
independent in government, contrary in interest and

affection, secretly corrupting the ignorant or negligent
professors of our religion, and closely uniting and combin
ing themselves against such as were sound in this posture :
waiting foran opportunity, by force, to destroy those whom

they could not hope to seduce. For the effecting whereof,
they were strengthened with arms and munitions, and
encouraged by superstitious prayers, enjoined by the
Nuncio to be weekly made for the prosperity of some great
1
design."
On March 7, 1642, both Houses of Parliament united

"
in presenting a Declaration to the King, Setting forth the

Causes of their Fears and Jealousies." In this document
they affirmed that The design of altering religion in this,
"
and in your other Kingdoms, hath been potently carried

on by those in greatest authority about you for divers
years together the Queen s Agent at Rome, and the Pope s
;
Agent or Nuncio here, are not only evidences of this design,

1
2A
but have been great actors in The great cause we
it."
"
have to fear that the late design, styled The Queen s Pious
Intention, was for the alteration of religion in this kingdom ;
for success whereof the Pope s Nuncio, the Count Rosetti,
enjoined fasting and praying to be observed every week by

the English Papists which appeared to us by one of the
;
original letters, directed, by him, to a priest in Lancashire."

The manifold advertisements which we have had from
"
Rome, Venice, and other parts, that they still expect

Paris,
that your Majesty has some great design in hand, for the
altering of religion and breaking the neck of your Parlia
ment that you will yet find means to compass that design.
:
That the Pope s Nuncio hath solicited the Kings of France

and Spain to lend your Majesty 4000 men apiece, to help
to maintain your Royalty against the Parliament. And this
foreign force, as it is the most pernicious and malignant
design of all the rest, so we hope it is, and shall always be

furthest from your Majesty s thoughts because no man ;
can believe you will give up your people and Kingdom to

be spoiled by strangers, if you did not likewise intend to
change both your own profession in religion, and the public
profession of the Kingdom so that you might still be
;
more assured of those foreign States of the Popish religion,

your future support and
l
for defence."
1
Cobbett s Parliamentary History, vol. ii.
p. 1115-1118.
CHAPTER XXII
COMMONWEALTH AND PROTECTORATE
Severe Law., against the Papists.
DURING the Commonwealth and Protectorate, but very

few laws were passed specially affecting Roman Catholics.
They suffered in common with the members of the Episcopal
Church, largely for their adherence to the cause of the
Stuart family. Under the Puritans their lot was far from
enviable. The last Act of Parliament signed by Charles I.
was in 1640. All Acts passed by Parliament from that date
until the restoration of Charles II., in 1660, are not printed
in any of our collections of Statutes. And, therefore,
although the Commonwealth was not proclaimed until
1649, yet the Act of 1643 was passed by those who, six
years later, established the Commonwealth. The Act of
1643 was exceptionally cruel, and cannot be justified by
any modern lover of religious liberty. It was religious per
secution pure and simple. The concluding portion of the
Oath, which it required all Papists to take, and which re
pudiated the political claims of the Pope, was fully justified.
But the Puritans went further than the Parliament of
James I. which enacted the Oath of Allegiance, for it re
quired the Romanists, under severe penalties, to repudiate
the purely spiritual doctrines of the Church of Rome. The
Act was passed on August 19, 1643. It enacts that :
"
All and every person or persons which at any time hereto

forehave been convicted of Popish Recusancy, and so continue,
or that hath been or shall be thereof indicted, and such their
indictments removed by certiorary, or being not removed, shall
not by appearance and traverse be legally discharged, before
seizure or sequestration made of their goods or estates, or stay
of their rents, by force of this, or the said former ordinance, or
that have been at Mass, at any time within one whole year
371
before the 26th day of March, 1643, or shall hereafter be at Mass,
or whose children or grandchildren, or any of them living in
house with them, or under their, or any of their tuition and
government, shall be brought up in the Popish religion. And
all such persons as being of the age of twenty-one years, or above,
shall refuse to take the oath hereafter expressed. The tenour . . .
of which is :
I, A. B., do abjure and renounce the Pope s Supremacy

and authority over the Catholic Church in general, and over
myself in particular. And I do believe that there is not any
Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Lord s Supper,
or in the elements of bread and wine after consecration thereof,
by any person whatsoever, And I do also believe that there
is not any Purgatory or that the consecrated Host, Crucifixes,
;
or Images, ought to be worshipped, or that any worship is due

unto any of them. And I also believe that salvation cannot
be merited by works. And all doctrines in affirmation of the
said points, I do abjure and renounce, without any equivocation,
mental reservation, or secret evasion whatsoever, taking the
words by me spoken, according to the common and usual mean
ing of them/
"
Shall forfeit as Papists within this and the said former

Ordinance, and seizure and sequestration of two-thirds part of
all their goods and estates, Real and Personal, and sale of such
proportion of their goods so seized and sequestered, shall be made,

and their rents and estates disposed of, in such manner and
proportion, and by such persons.

"
. . .
The said Committees for Sequestrations, or any two or

more of them respectively, shall have power to examine by oath
or otherwise, all and every person or persons (other than the
parties themselves so declared to be delinquents) that probably
may be able to discover such delinquents and Papists, or that
may be trusted with, or privy to the keeping or conceding of
the goods or estates of any such delinquent or Papist, or that
shall owe anything to any such delinquent or Papist. And sucli
as shall refuse to be examined, or to declare the whole truth
therein, so far as he shall be so required, shall be committed to
safe custody by the said Committee, or any two or more of them,
employed for their examinations, till he or they shall conform
x
him, her, or themselves/
The severity of this Act was partly due to the fact that
1
Scobell s Collection of Acts and Ordinances made in Parliament, pp. 49,
50, 1658.
THE OATH OF ABJURATION 373
the English Roman Catholics were actively assisting the

King in the Civil War, and to the belief that the Papacy,
through the Queen, was also assisting him. The atrocities
committed by the Irish Rebels against Irish Protestants
were also calculated to exasperate the Protestants of
England. On April 3, 1646, Parliament published an
banishing all Papists from the cities of
"
Ordinance for
London and Westminster, and all other places within the
but this was not confined to
"
lines of communication ;
"
Papists, for it also included all officers, soldiers of fortune,

and other persons who have borne arms against the Parlia
ment."
l
It must not be forgotten that the members of
the Church of England were persecuted by Parliament,
"
as well as the Romanists. In the Articles for the Future

Government of the Commonwealth," it was decreed that
liberty of doctrine and worship should be granted to all,
"
provided this liberty be not extended to Popery nor

Prelacy." In 1656, another persecuting Act of Parlia
ment was passed, more severe than that of 1643. It pro
vided that Justices of the Peace shall, at the Quarter
all
Sessions, present the names of all persons above the age of

sixteen years, who are suspected or reputed to be Papists,
and that such persons shall be required to appear at the
next Quarter Sessions, and there take and subscribe the
Oath of Abjuration, in these terms :
"
I, A. B., do abjure and renounce the Pope s Supremacy

and authority over the Catholic Church in general, and over
myself in particular. And I do believe the Church of Rome
is not the true Church and that there is not any Transubstan-
;
tiation in the Sacrament of the Lord s Supper, or in the elements

of bread and wine, after consecration thereof, by any person
whatsoever. And I do also believe that there is not any Purga
tory. And that the consecrated Host, Crucifixes, or Images,
ought not to be worshipped, neither that any worship is due unto
any of them. And I also believe that salvation cannot be merited
by works. And I do sincerely testify and declare that the Pope,
neither of himself, nor by any authority of the Church or See
1 2
Cobbett s Parliamentary History, vol. iii. p. 453. Ibid., p. 1425.
of Rome, or by any other means with any other, hath any power
or authority to depose the Chief Magistrate of these nations,
or to dispose of any the countries or territories thereunto be
longing, or to authorise any foreign Prince or State to invade
or annoy him or them, or to discharge any of the people of these
nations from their obedience to the Chief Magistrate or to ;
give licence or leave to any of the said people to bear arms,

raise tumults, or to offer any violence or hurt to the person of
the said Chief Magistrate, or to the State or Government of these
nations, or to any of the people thereof. And I do further
swear, that I do from my heart abhor, detest, and abjure this
damnable doctrine and position, that Princes, Rulers, or Gover
nors, which be excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, may,
by virtue of such excommunication or deprivation, be killed,
murdered, or deposed from their rule or Government, or any
outrage or violence done unto them by the people that are under
them, or by any other whatsoever, upon such pretence. And
I do further swear, that I do believe that the Pope, or Bishop
of Rome, hath no authority, power, or jurisdiction whatsoever,
within England, Scotland, and Ireland, or any or either of them,
or the dominion or territories belonging to them, or any or either of
them. And all doctrines in affirmation of such points, I do abjure
and renounce, without any equivocation, mental reservation, or
secret evasion whatsoever, taking the words by me spoken
according to the common and usual meaning of them. And
I do believe no power derived from the Pope or Church of Rome,
or any other person, can absolve me from this my oath. And
I do renounce all and to the contrary.
pardons dispensations
So help me God."
It is further provided, that if any person so summoned

"
to appear at the Quarter Sessions fails to do so, he shall

be adjudged a Popish Recusant convict to all intents and
purposes whatsoever." All Churchwardens and Constables
are required to present at the Quarter Sessions, four times
each year, the names and addresses of all persons over
sixteen years of age, who are suspected or reputed to be
Such persons are to bo-
"
Papists, or Popishly affected/

summoned to the next Quarter Sessions, and if they then
fail to appear and take the oath cited above, they shall be
convict, to all intents and
"
adjudged Popish Recusants

purposes whatsoever." It shall be lawful to seize and take,
SEVERE LAWS AGAINST RECUSANTS 375
to the use of the Commonwealth, two -thirds of all the goods

and chattels of every such so convicted Popish Recusant,
shall conform by taking the said oath."
"
unless he If a
Popish Recusant dies, then his, or her, heir, if sixteen years

of age, shall hold the estate, with all its profits, if he takes
the Oath provided in this Act, before the Barons of the
Exchequer, in open Court. But if he refuses to take the
Oath, then he shall have and enjoy the profits of the estate,
from such time only as such heir shall come before the
"
said Barons, and take and subscribe the Oath as aforesaid,

and not before." But, if the heir be under sixteen years,
his, or her, Guardians shall pay the profits of the estate
to the heir, until he, or she, is full sixteen years old when ;
the heir must take the Oath under the same penalty as
those incur who enter on their estates after that age. A
similar provision is made as to the widow and other children
of a deceasedPopish Recusant.
And be
it further enacted that, if any person being
"
no Popish Recusant convict, nor sequestered for Popish

Recusancy, shall marry or take to wife an}7 woman that
he shall know to be a Popish Recusant convict, then upon
information exhibited, and proof thereof made in the Court
of Exchequer, he shall be taken and adjudged a Popish
Recusant convict, to all intents and purposes whatsoever,
and shall be subjected and liable in his own particular
estate, real and personal, to such seizures and penalties
as any other Popish Recusant convict, until he shall come
before the said Barons of the Exchequer, and in open
Court take and subscribe the said Oath, and no longer."
person concealing the property of a Recusant is
Any
liable topay one-third of the property so concealed. Any
Justice of the Peace who neglects to issue a warrant to the
Churchwardens and Constables of his district, commanding
them to present Popish Recusants at the Quarter Sessions,
shall, for each offence, forfeit 20. And if any Church
warden or Constable neglects to present such persons,
they shall, for every offence, forfeit 10. But if the estate
of a deceased Recusant should descend to a Protestant,
"
such person shall have his estate discharged without

paying fees." It was also enacted that any person who
shall be present at Mass other than the household servants
("
that shall come over with any Ambassador whether in "),
the house of an Ambassador, or any other place what

"
soever, shall be liable to a penalty of 100, and imprison

ment by the space of six months." l
I cannot justify a cruel Act of Parliament like this ;
but I am glad to be able to add that it was not enforced

to any great extent. Referring to this Act, Mr. Frith, the
historian, says "It, nor the old laws against Recusants,
:
appear to have been seriously enforced. The Middlesex

Sessions Records show no sign of any increased activity
against the Catholics. In December 1657, eight priests, or
supposed priests, were arrested in Co vent Garden. Their
crosses confiscated, and Cromwell made
and jewels were
some gentlemen try on their Copes and other Popish
of his
Vestments, which caused abundance of mirth in him and

other spectators. But the priests themselves were neither
indicted nor punished. It is not possible to determine the
amount of revenue raised from the estates of the Recusants
under this Act, but there is reason to believe it was very
Gardiner, while he seems to differ from Frith,
2
small."
as to the amount of money collected from Papists under

this Act, says that Bordeaux, at that time Ambassador of
France in London, writing a few months after the passing
declared that though the laws against the
"
of the Act,
Catholics had not been modified, the connivance shown to
them, the number of priests remaining at large in London,
and the freedom with which the Chapels of foreign Am
bassadors were frequented, were sufficient evidence that
his co-religionists received better treatment under the Protector
than had been accorded to them by any former Government,
3
ivhelher Royal or Parliamentary."
1
Scobell s Collection of Acts and Ordinances made in Parliament, pp. 443-449.
2
Frith s Last Years of the Protectorate, vol. i. p. 79.
History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, vol.
3 iv. p. 19.
Gardiner s
CHAPTER XXIII
CHARLES II.
His Accession welcomed by the Papists Charles Secret Negotiations with

the Pope in 1649 His double-faced Hypocrisy Negotiations with
Scotch Presbyterians Lands in Scotland, and Swears to the Solemn
League and Covenant His Dunfermline Declaration against Prelacy
and Popery In 1651 Charles writes to the Pope for Assistance
Bishop Burnet on Charles secret Keception into the Church of Kome
Father Peter Talbot, S.J. s, Letter to Charles inviting him to become
secretly a Eomanist Dr. Renehan s account of Charles Secret Recep
tion as a Romanist Carte s Version of the Secret Reception Charles
denies his Reception His Protestant Letter from Breda to the Speaker
An Act to punish those who said that the King was a Papist
Charles marries a Popish wife He asks Parliament for Concessions
to Romanists Charles sends an Agent on a Secret Mission to the
Pope He boasts of his Services to the Papacy The Agent carries
Terms of Submission of the Three Kingdoms to the Pope Charles
secret Correspondence with the General of the Jesuits He tells the
General that he abhors the Protestant Religion Charles aims at
establishing Popery in England His Secret Conference in the Duke
of York s House His Relations with Louis XIV. What Charles told
the French Ambassador The Secret Treaty of Dover What Lord
John Russell said about the Treaty Charles issues a Declaration of
Indulgence Charles forms an Army to establish Popery.
THE Restoration of Charles II., in 1660, was an event which

filledthe Romanists with joyful hope. It seemed to them
that they had every reason to expect favour from the King.
He had made them many and important promises, and if
their had been consistent with his personal
fulfilment
comfort and safety, they would have been realised. But
Charles was a man devoid of honour. He was an un
principled libertine, whose only care was for himself, and
the gratification of his passions. When he ascended the
Throne he was a Roman Catholic, though secretly, and
he remained such until his dying day. But if the grant
of favours to his Romish subjects meant personal incon-
377
venience to himself, he was quite ready to sacrifice even
them.
Directly after the execution of his father, Charles entered
into negotiations with Spain and the Pope, seeking for help
to set him on the Throne by force of arms. On May 24,
1649, he signed secret instructions for Lord Cottington
and Sir Edward Hyde, whom he sent as his Ambassadors
Extraordinary to the King of Spain. You shall," he told

"
"
them, assure his Catholic Majesty of our full resolution

of grace and favour towards the Catholics of our several
dominions and that we are so far from an inclination to
;
be severe against them, that we resolve not only to give

them our utmost protection from the severity of those
laws wilich have been made to their prejudice, but to en
deavour effectually the repeal of those laws." 1 Charles
sent Mr. Robert Meynell, a Roman Catholic gentleman,
to negotiate with the Pope. He arrived in Rome on Sep
tember 18, 1649, with written credentials from Charles.
The Pope w as asked to supply an annual sum of money
r
for maintaining a war against Cromwell that he should ;
require all the Roman Catholic clergy in the world to give

a third or fourth part of their income for the same purpose ;
and that all the Roman Catholic States should unitedly

help Charles to obtain the Crown of England.
2
Fortunately,
the negotiations with both the Pope and the King of Spain
failed to secure the aid required.
At the very time that Charles agents were busy on his
behalf at Rome and Madrid, he double-faced hypocrite
as he was was negotiating with the representatives of
the Presbyterians of Scotland, with a view to his being
crowned King of Scotland. Father Cyprien de Gamache,
who, from his position as Confessor to Charles mother, was
well acquainted with what was going on in Royal circles,
says that The bad state of his [Charles ] affairs obliged
:
"
him to smother his just resentment, to use towards those

1
Clarendon State Papers, vol. ii. p. 481, folio edition, 17(57.
-
Lord Somcrs Tracts, vol. xiii. pp. 408-410.
THE HYPOCRISY OF CHARLES II. 379
dissembling people [the Scotch] a very ingenious and

necessary dissimulation. He complied, therefore, with
their humour, relinquished that majestic haughtiness which
accompanies Royalty, exhibiting to them nothing but an
agreeable, insinuating familiarity, which won them, and
indeed induced them to take up his defence, his cause,
and his establishment, to begin with. They made him a
great number of proposals, demanding several things,
which he granted with a good grace." 1 After negotiations
on the Continent with Scotch Commissioners, he consented
to accept their terms, and landed in Scotland early in July
1650. Before he landed he swore to, and signed, the Solemn
League and Covenant, a document which in his heart he
loathed and detested. On August 16 he signed the Dun-
fermline Declaration, in which he affirmed that He doth :
"
now detest and abhor all Popery, superstition, and idolatry,

together with Prelacy and all errors, heresy, schism, and
profaneness and resolves not to tolerate, much less allow,
;
of those in any part of his Majesty s Dominions, but to
oppose himself thereto, and endeavour the extirpation

thereof to the utmost of his power." 2 Charles never in
tended to keep his oaths and declarations, and in taking
them was guilty of wilful perjury. But they served his
purpose, for on New Year s Day, 1651, he was crowned
King, and once more committed perjury by taking an
Oath to maintain the Solemn League and Covenant. But
all his perjuries failed to do him any permanent service,
for on October 16, 1651, he landed in Normandy as a fugitive.

He had no sooner arrived than he once more wrote to the
Pope asking for assistance. Clarendon, writing to a cor
respondent on April 2, 1656, remarks think I have : "I
told you heretofore that after the defeat at Worcester,

and the King s coming into France, his Majesty was pre
vailed with (upon the confident undertaking of some men,
that the Pope, upon those expressions of favour towards
1
The, Court and Times of Charles the Firxt, vol. ii. p. 383.
2
Burton s History of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 1 J.
his Catholic subjects which the King was ready to make,
would take his condition to heart, and give him notable
assistance) to write a letter to the last Pope, which was
delivered by the General of the Augus tines, who pretended
to have authorityfor that undertaking, and desired the
letter. The was no other but that the Pope liked
effect
well the expressions, but would have a certain time pre
fixed when the King would declare himself a Catholic." l
I have no doubt, that, even at this early period in his life,
Charles judgment approved the doctrines of the Church
of Rome, though he had not yet been formally received
into Communion with that Church. It was not long after
his arrival in France when it began to be rumoured that
he had actually seceded to Rome. I do not think he had
seceded at that time, for reasons to be explained further
on. Bishop Burnet s account of Charles alleged reception
into the Church of Rome will be read with interest. He
Before King Charles left Paris he changed his
"
writes :
religion, but by whose persuasion is not yet known only :
Cardinal de Retz was in the secret, and Lord Aubigny had

a great hand was kept a great secret. Chancellor
in it. It
Hyde had some it, but would never suffer him

suspicion of
self to believe it quite. Soon after the Restoration, that
Cardinal came over in disguise, and had an audience with
the King what passed is not known. The first ground I
:
had to believe it was this the Marquis de Roucy, who was

:
the man of the greatest family in France that continued

Protestant to the was much pressed by that Cardinal
last,
to change his religion he was his kinsman and his par
:
ticular friend. Among other reasons, one that he urged was

that the Protestant religion must certainly be ruined, and
that they could expect no protection from England, for to
his certain knowledge both the Princes were already changed.
Roucy told this in great confidence to his Minister, who
after his death sent an advertisement of it to myself. Sir
Allen Broderick, a great confident of the Chancellor s, who,
1
Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. p. 291, folio edition, 1767.
FATHER TALBOT S LETTER TO CHARLES 381
from being atheistical, became in the last years of his life

an eminent penitent, as he was a man of great parts, with
whom I had lived long in great confidence, on his death
bed sent me likewise an account of this matter, which he
believed was done in Fontainebleau, before King Charles
was sent to Colen." 1
Towards the close of the year 1655, the Jesuits were
actively engaged in seeking help for Charles, to restore him
to the Throne of England. The leader of these negotiations
was the well-known Jesuit, Father Peter Talbot, subse
Archbishop of Dublin." He was par
"
quently titular
ticularly anxious for help, in money and men, from Spain.
The Spanish King and Government were quite willing to
grant the needed assistance, but were unwilling to do so
unless Charles became a Roman Catholic. The Jesuit
Father, elated with the prospects of success, wrote a long
letter to the King, dated Anvers, December 24, 1655,
urging him to become a Roman Catholic, from

" "
secretly
which letter I take the following extracts :
"
MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY.

Mr. Harding hath assured me that he delivered my last
"
letter unto your Majesty, wherein I advertised you of what I

thought to be my duty and though your Majesty seemeth to
;
take no notice of that, nor of former letters, yet I will write

this one more, the matter being of high concernment, and the
opportunity once let slip, hardly ever recovered. It imports

your Majesty most of any to keep secret what folloiveth, and to
consult none but God ; therefore I write in cypher, which will
come to your Majesty s hands by another way. Saxby was
desired by Count Fuensaldagna to tell what propositions he had
to Father Talbot, that Father Talbot might deliver them in
writing to Count Fuensaldagna some things there were pre ;
judicial to the King, though not named in particular yet ad ;
vantageous at the present for the King of Spain, as Don Alonzo

and Count Fuensaldagna conceived. Father Talbot desired
them both to reflect upon the evil consequences of Common
wealth and Parliament. They answered all was considered,
and very good desires there were in the Council of Spain to help
1
Burnet s History of His Own Time, vol. i. p. 126 (Oxford, 1823).
the King, but that at present one only way could enable them
to help him and that was, that the King should renounce the
;
French faction, and BECOME A ROMAN CATHOLIC, YET so

SECRETLY, THAT NO LIVING CREATURE SHOULD KNOW OP IT, but
Count Fuensaldagna, Don Alonzo, the Archduke and Father
Talbot, or any other whom the King would name and in all ;
things proceed as the Queen of Sweden did.

and
"
For all his life, if it be not his interest, not to declare, IF

THE SECRET BE DURING THE KlNG s LIFE DISCOVERED, THEY
ARE CONTENT TO LOSE THEIR HEADS. Father Talbot desired
to know what might that avail the King ? They answered
that the King of Spain and the Pope will engage themselves to get
him all his own again ; and that very suddenly by the Pope s
collections of money and other ways under divers pretexts . . .
if [the King] resolve to be a Roman Catholic privately as soon

lie
as he comes, let him in God s name come suddenly, but as

incognito as if he were in England, for jealousies of Saxby and
the States of Holland. One shall be despatched immediately
to the King of Spain and Don Lewis, another to the Pope, and
infallibly (by God s assistance) the King s business shall be
done
before it be six months. Father Talbot urged that the King . . .
might come to Brussels, without desiring him to be a Roman

Catholic, privately ; but Count Fuensaldagna is much against
his coming upon any other score ; yet he is most earnest for it
upon this, because he knows how profitable this will be for the
King of England and the King
of Spain. I desire your Majesty
not to opportunity though you live a hundred years
let slip this ;
there will never occur such circumstances to your advantage.

Remember, Sir, that three kingdoms is worth a journey Father ;
Talbot takes upon himself all the danger, there can be none in that
particular, he says. The last words Count Fuensaldagna and
. . .
Don Alonzo told Father Talbot were these Tell the King of Eng :
land that he shall find among us secrecy, honour, and real dealing ;
and assure him that if he will do what we desire, we will live and
die together let him make no capitulations, for that will be sus
;
picious the more he trusts the King of Spain and the Pope the
;
better it is. But secrecy is the life of all it shall be kept on

. . .
l
this side, let the King of England keep his own.
"
P. T."
Three weeks later the Jesuit Talbot wrote again to the

King, as to instruction to be given him in the Roman
Catholic faith was never thought, and much less
: "It
pp. 280-283, folio edition, 1767.

1
Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii.
CHARLES SECRETLY BECOMES A PAPIST 383
said, that your Majesty was of any other religion than that
of which you profess yet it was believed, and must be
;
still as an article of our faith, that only want of information
can alienate a person of your Majesty s great wit and

judgment from our communion and truly I did, and do;
always suppose, that a very short time is sufficient to inform
one who hath so much knowledge beforehand as your

Majesty. This confidence, or rather belief, can be no
greater crime than the other articles of our faith there ;
fore I can as little crave pardon for it, as for professing

l
myself a Catholic."
Probabty a more disgraceful letter than Talbot s, of

December 24th, was never penned by a professedly Chris
tian Minister. Coldly, and deliberately, he proposes to the
King that the whole of his future life should be an acted
lie ;that, outwardly, and to the whole world, he should
profess himself to be a Protestant, while in reality he should
be a traitor to the faith he publicly professed Talbot !
wrote several times to the King on the subject. At last

his efforts were rewarded with success and he had the ;
privilege of himself formally receiving the King into com

munion with the Church of Rome. The story of his re
ception is thus related by the Rev. Laurence Renehan, D.D.,
who from 1845 to 1857 was President of Maynooth College.
"Charles writes Dr. Renehan,
II.," to Paris,
"fled
whence he removed to Cologne in July, 1655, after the

conclusion of the treaty between the French Court and
Cromwell. His Majesty now turned his thoughts on en
gaging the Spanish Court to assist in his restoration. Tal
bot possessed a great deal of influence with many of the
Spanish Ministers in Flanders, and particularly with the
Count de Fuensaldagna, who at that time was the actual
Governor of the country, though the Archduke Leopold
enjoyed the title. His old and special intimacy with Father
Daniel Daly, alias Dominick a Rosario, a native of Kerry,
and then the Ambassador of the King of Portugal at the
1
Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. p. 285, folio edition, 17G7.
Court of France, besides the vast power and influence of the
Society to which he belonged [i.e. the Jesuit Order] enabled
Talbot to be of incalculable service to Charles in the days
of his distress. He frequently visited his Majesty at Cologne,
and was always honoured with the most gracious and friendly
reception. Conversation, after some acquaintance, often
turned on the respective merits of the Catholic and Pro
testant religion. If the King was willing to learn, Talbot
was able and willing to teach and so deep was the im;
pression made on the conscience of His Majesty, that after

a secret conference of some days, he at length shut himself
up with our professor [Talbot] in his closet for several days
till his conviction was fully completed, and every doubt
removed from his mind. Charles, however, was not a

man who would forfeit a crown to follow his convictions.
He knew how much the English mind was maddened by
the spirit of bigotry against the Catholic Church, he knew
the character of Ormond and the others that surrounded
his person, he probably saw that these calculating Royalists
might believe that his conversion would mar their projects

for the settlement and partition of Ireland and he there ;
fore determined to be received into the bosom of the Catholic

Church as secretly as possible, and afterwards, and then only,
to absent himself from Protestant Communion, but to make
no declaration of his religious opinions. Talbot had thus
the pleasure to witness his solemn renunciation of the errors
of Protestantism, and to receive him, after a formal profession

of faith, into the Catholic Church, and no doubt to administer
to him the holy sacraments.
"
Charles, soon after his conversion in 1655, or

King
56, despatched Father P. Talbot on an Embassy to the
Court of Spain. The purport of this Embassy was studi
ously concealed from his Protestant Ministers, and hence
some of them afterwards suspected that among other things
Talbot was authorised to communicate to Philip IV. the
J
fact of Charles reconciliation to the Catholic Church."
1
Kenehan s Collections on Irish Church History, pp. 202, 203.
CHARLES II. AT MASS 385
The date of Charles secret reception into the Church

"
of Rome, as given by Dr. Renehan, is 1655 or I 56."
have no doubt that this story is reliable. There is an

other version of the same story to be read in Carte s Life
of Ormond, which confirms the accuracy of what Dr. Rene
han states. The Duke of Ormond was one of the most
trusted counsellors of Charles II. during his stay on the
Continent previous to his Restoration. The Duke, though
thoroughly loyal to the King, was, unlike some other of
his counsellors, also true to the Protestant faith. After
stating that, in 1656, Charles II. of England was anxious
to enter into a treaty with the Court of Spain, Carte relates
that :
Either a slowness natural to that Court, and observed

"
in all their counsels and proceedings, or some other reason,

caused a great delay in the Treaty which his Majesty was
desirous to conclude with the King of Spain. It was on this
occasion suggested by some Roman Catholics to the King,
that the dilatoriness of that Court arose from their aver
sion to enter into any league with a Prince of a different
religion ;
and that he would suffer the Duke
if of Gloucester,
or, he could be persuaded himself, to make profession of
if
their religion, it would be a vast advantage to his affairs.

The mischiefs that would arise from the King s open pro
fession were so very great, and so very evident, that Mr.
Walsingham and the most zealous of that party could not

but acknowledge the danger of such a step and yet it ;
being as certain that the Pope and Roman Catholic Princes

of Europe would not assist his Majesty as long as he con
tinued of a different Communion, it was proposed as an
expedient that he should be secretly reconciled to the Church
of Rome. This ivas supposed to be done about this time ;
for Father Peter Talbot was very often shut up with him
in his closet at Cologne, where they had many private
conferences together, and in consequence thereof he was
despatched in the spring of this year to Madrid on a very
secret affair, which, not being communicated to the Council,
2B
was imagined to be to impart to his Catholic Majesty the
King s assent to the Roman Catholic religion."
l
Carte adds that The King had carefully concealed

"
that change [of religion] from the Duke of Ormond, who

yet discovered it by accident. The Duke had some sus
picions of it from the time that they removed from Cologne
to Flanders, for though he never observed that zeal and
concern as to divine things which he often wished in the
King, yet so much as appeared in him at any time looked
that way. However, he thought it so very little that he
hoped it would soon wear off upon returning to his King
doms, and was not fully convinced of his change till about
the time the Treaty of the Pyrenees was going to be opened.
The Duke was always a very early riser, and being then
at Brussels, used to amuse himself, ... in walking about
the town, and seeing the churches. Going one morning
very early by a church, ... he stepped in, and advancing
near the altar, he saw the King on his knees at Mass. ... Be
cause the King had kept his conversion as a secret from
him, it was by no means proper for him to show that he
had made the discovery."
The Marquis of Halifax, who held high office in the
Government of Charles II., emphatically declared: con "I
clude that when he [Charles] came into England he was as

certainly a Roman Catholic as that he was a man of pleasure,
both very consistent by visible experience." 3 Towards the
close of 1658, rumours were circulated in England that
Charles had become a Romanist. When they reached his
ears he wrote a letter from Brussels to the Protestant
Ministers at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in which he said
that it was "very strange such rumours had gone abroad,
"
since the world cannot but take notice of Our constant

"
and uninterrupted profession and exercise of the Protes

"
tant religion and that no man hath or can more manifest

;
"
Life of the DuJce of Ormond, vol. iii. pp. C51, 652, edition 1851.
1
Carte s
2 See also The Jesuits in Great Britain,
Ibid., vol. iv. pp. 109-111. by
Walter Walsh, pp. 231-233.
3
Life and Letters of the First Marquis of Halifax, vol. ii.
p. 345.
CHARLES PROFESSES PROTESTANTISM 387
his affection to, and zeal for, the Protestant religion than We
have done."
l
And again, when he was about to return to
England to be crowned its King, Charles wrote from Breda
to the Speaker of the House of Commons you de : "If
sire the advancement and propagation of the Protestant
religion, We have, by Our constant profession and practice

of it, given sufficient testimony to the world, that neither
the unkindness of those of the same faith towards Us, nor
the civilities and obligations from those of a contrary
profession (of both which We have had abundant evi
dence), could in the least degree startle Us, or make Us
swerve from it. And nothing can be proposed to manifest
Our zeal and affection for it, to which We will not readily
consent. And We hope in due time Ourself to propose
somewhat to you for the propagation of it, that will satisfy
the world that We have always made it both Our care and
Our study."
2
Charles knew very

well that without some such pro
fessions Protestantism he could never become King
of
of England. He succeeded in thus deceiving the Parlia
ment, and in due course his Coronation took place. No
doubt it served to blind his new subjects when they knew
that, in the year of his Restoration, he gave his assent to
the Act 12 Charles II., cap. 18, which provided that from
all and every
"
the general pardon should be excepted,

offence and offences committed or done by any Jesuit,
Seminary, or Romish priest whatsoever, contrary to the
tenor or effect of the Statute made in the seven-and
twentieth year of the Reign of the late Queen Elizabeth,
entitled, An Act against Jesuits, Seminary Priests, and
other Disobedient Persons, or any part thereof, and all
outlawries, proceedings, judgments, and executions for the
same offences, or any of them." But the King was not a
year on his Throne before rumours were revived to the effect
that he was secretly a Ronmnist, and intended to promote
Popery in his Dominions. For the purpose of stopping
1
Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. pp. 419, 420, folio edition.
2
Cobbett s Parliamentary History, vol. iv. p. 19.
by force such unwelcome rumours, was provided by the
it
Act 13 Charles II., cap. 1, sect. 2, that

any person or
: "If
persons at any time after the four-and-twentieth day of

June, in the year of our Lord, 1661, during his Majesty s
life, shall maliciously and advisedly publish or affirm the
King an heretic or Papist, or that he endeavours to

to be
introduce Popery then every such person and persons,
. . .
being thereof legally convicted, shall be disabled to have

or enjoy, and is hereby disabled and made incapable of
having, holding, enjoying, or exercising any place, office,

or promotion ecclesiastical, civil, or military, or any other
employment in Church or State, other than that of his
Peerage." With such an Act as this in force the wonder
isthat anybody had the courage to infringe it. It proved,
however, very serviceable to the King, who must have
dreaded exposure more than anything else.
Having, by means of oft-repeated professions of Pro
testantism, blinded the eyes of Englishmen as to his true
objects, Charles II. for two years after his Restoration
went on in security, doing his utmost for the promotion of
arbitrary power and Popery in his Kingdom. The pro "
ject to make the King absolute," writes Rapin, and

"
equally to employ for that purpose the assistance of Catho

licsand Protestants, begun by James I., vigorously pursued
by Charles I., interrupted by twenty years troubles, was
eagerly resumed under Charles II."
l
Contrary to the wishes
of a majority of his subjects, he insisted on selecting as his
wife a Roman
Catholic Princess, Catherine of Braganza,
Infanta of Portugal, to whom he was married at Ports
mouth on May 24, 1662. King James II. tells us in his
Memoirs Writ of His Oivn Hand, that she was first of all
secretly married by Lord Aubigny, a Roman Catholic
priest, and subsequently she was publicly married by the
Protestant Bishop of London.
"
Their Majesties," wrote

James II., were married by my Lord Aubigny, Almoner
"
to the Queen, but so privately (not to offend the Protestants)

that none were present but some few Portuguese, as wit-
1
Rapin s History oj England, vol. xi. p. 187.
THE KING S POPISH WIFE 389
nesses. Soon King and Queen coming forth

after this, the
into the great room, where all the company was, and being
seated in two chairs, Doctor Sheldon, then Bishop of
London, performed the outward ceremony in public, of
declaring them to be man and wife."
1
Amongst those who went to Portsmouth to visit the

new Queen, and congratulate her on her arrival, was the
Provincial of the English Jesuits, who presented to her the
respects of his Society.
2
Her Confessor, who came over
with her from Portugal, a Father Mark Anthony Galli, was
a Jesuit. He applied to the General of his Order to admit
"
the Queen into a participation in the merits of the Society,"

towards which she ever manifested a great friendliness. 3
When Parliament met on February 18, 1663, Charles
tried, in his speech from the Throne, to obtain some con
cessions for Roman Catholics. He said : "I am in my
nature an enemy to all severity for religion and conscience,
how mistaken soever it be, when it extends to capital and
sanguinary punishments, which I am told were begun in
Popish times. Therefore, when I say this, I hope I shall
not need to w arn any here not to infer from thence, that
T
I mean to favour Popery. I must confess to you there

are many of that profession, who, having served my father
and myself very well, may fairly hope for some part in
that indulgence I would willingly afford to others, who
dissent from us. let me explain myself, lest some
But
mistake me
herein, as I hear they did in Declaration. my
I am far from meaning by this a toleration or qualifying
them thereby to hold any offices or places of trust in the
Government nay, further, I desire some laws may be
;
made to hinder the growth and progress of their doctrine.

I hope you have all so good an opinion of my zeal for the
Protestant religion, as, I need not tell you, I will not yield
4
to any therein, not to the Bishops themselves."
Charles always boasted most of his zeal for the Protestant

1
Clarke s Life of James the Second, vol. i. p. 394.
2
Foley s Records of the English Province S.J., vol. iv. p. 278.
3
Ibid., p. 279.
4
moment when he was helping on Popery.
religion at the very
Parliament was not altogether satisfied with this speech
from the Throne, and, therefore, after consideration, both
Houses united in sending his Majesty, on March 31, a
petition for the enforcement of the penal laws against
"
Popery. They complained that By the great resort of :
Jesuits and Romish priests into this Kingdom, your good

subjects are generally much affected with jealousy and
apprehension. Your Majesty s two Houses of Parlia
. . .
ment are, therefore, humble suitors to your Majesty to

issue out your Proclamation to command all Jesuits, and
all English, Irish, and Scottish Popish priests ... to de
part the Kingdom by a day, under pain of having the laws

inflicted upon them." In reply to this Petition, Charles
1
promised to issue the required Proclamation. As Rapin
remarks : The Proclamation
"
was accordingly published,

but no better observed than all those published for the same
purpose since the beginning of the Reign of James I. As
it was not then known that the King was a Catholic, his
assurances of zeal for the Protestant Religion were taken

for so many truths, which removed all suspicion of his having
the least design to restore the Catholic religion in England.
As we are now better informed, we are better able to judge
of his intentions." 2 Only a few months before he issued
this Proclamation, the King, in October 1662, had sent
Sir Roman Catholic, and Secretary
Richard Bellings, an Irish
to Charles Roman
Catholic wife, on a secret mission to the
Pope, to ask that a Cardinal s hat should be given to Lord
Aubigny, Almoner to the Queen. The wishes of Charles
were supported by his mother and wife. Bellings took
with him to Rome a Report of The Favours and Benefits
"
bestowed upon the English Catholics by the Reigning

Monarch," in the handwriting of Charles himself. In this
document the King boasted of his services to the Papacy
during the first two years of his reign, which he enumerated
as follows :
1
Cobbett s Parliamentary History, vol. iv. pp. 263-2G5.
2
Rapin s History of England, vol. xi. p. 251.
A SECRET MISSION TO THE POPE 391
1. He had relieved a large number of Catholics from the

"
sentence of confiscation of property pronounced on them under

Cromwell.
"2. He had suspended the execution of a portion of the
Penal Laws ;
so much, namely, as punished non-attendance
at Protestant worship, in the case of rich Catholics, by the loss
of two-thirds of their estate, and in the case of poor, by a fine
of a shilling for every instance of recusancy.
3. He had set at liberty priests and religious, who were
"
in
prison or under sentence of death, for exercising their ministry.

He had abolished the pursuivants, the officials charged
"4:.
with the duty of searching out priests in the houses of Catholics,

and had thus put an end to an intolerable oppression, inasmuch
as a Catholic in whose house a priest was found was liable to
confiscation of propertyand banishment for life.
Notwithstanding other and much more advantageous
"
5.
proposals, he had married a Catholic Princess.

He had permitted the erection of two public chapels
"6.
inLondon for the Queen-Mother and his own Consort in the ;
Queen s chapel the choral office was solemnly celebrated by the

Benedictines, while in that of the Queen-Mother the functions
were carried out by Capuchins. All this was the cause of
great consolation to the Catholics, who had free access to the
Divine Service in the Royal Chapels.
He had, immediately on ascending the throne, caused
"7.
liberal alms to be bestowed on the English Nuns living in

Flanders, especially those domiciled at Ghent and even during
;
his exile in Holland he had sent to the latter sixteen hundred

scudi, in earnest of his goodwill towards them.
8. He had given the Ghent Nuns permission to build a
"
Convent at Dunkirk, and to this he himself contributed twelve

thousand scudi.
"9. He had repeatedly received in audience priests and
religious, in particular two Provincials of the Jesuits, and had
assured them of his protection.
He had
"
10. visited theQueen s Chapel, attended by his Court,

had assisted at part of the Pligh Mass, and knelt profoundly at the
elevation.
11. He had given the Catholic Lords a seat and voice in
"
the Upper House of Parliament, a concession unheard of since

the reign of Elizabeth.
"
12. The oath of allegiance prescribed to Catholics on
entering or leaving the Kingdom had been abolished.

13. Thirty thousand Catholics belonging to the London train-
"
bands, who had declared themselves unable to take the oath ac
cording to the customary form, had been permitted to subscribe to
a new formula, in which the name of the Pope was not mentioned.
"
14. Several Catholics had been appointed to positions of trust.

"
15. The endeavours of Parliament at the beginning of the

current year, to provide for the enforcing of the Penal Laws,
had been opposed by the King.
16. He had deprived the Exchequer of a considerable sum
"
by not permitting it to appropriate the forfeited two-thirds of

the estates of Catholics.
"
17. With regard to the accusations that the King had
prescribed to Catholics a form of oath prejudicial to their loyalty

to the Pope, it was to be observed that the real responsibility
for the formula in question rested with one Peter Walsh, a
Franciscan friar, who drew it up and had it printed and sub
scribed to by a number of his religious brethren whilst a ;
Dominican bishop, and others, had presented it to the King,

x
with the assurance that Catholics might lawfully take it."
Here was abundant evidence of the Royal goodwill

towards the Papacy. But Sir Richard Bellings was en
trusted, at the same time, with a further mission. The
late Lord Acton wrote an article in the Home and Foreign
Eeview, on The Secret History of Charles
"
For this II."
article he was supplied with copies of original documents,
relating to this period, by Father Boero, Librarian of the

Jesuits College in Rome.
"
His Lordship states that Sir

Richard Bettings carried to Rome proposals for the submission
of the three Kingdoms to the Church [of Rome], and presented
-
to Alexander VII. the King s profession of Faith." In
this document, Bellesheim states, the King describes the
"
greatly longed-for union of his three Kingdoms of Eng

land, Scotland, and Ireland with the Apostolic Roman See."
The King also professed his willingness to accept all the
Decrees of the Council of Trent, and the decisions of recent
Popes against the Jansenistic doctrines and expressed ;
what he termed
"
his detestation of the deplorable schism

and heresy introduced by Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, and other
1
Bellesheim s History of the Catholic Church of Scotland, vol. iv. pp. 97-101.
2
Home and Foreign Review, 1862, vol. i. p. 154.
SECRET LETTERS TO THE JESUITS 393
wicked men," and the

" "
Babylonish confusion brought

about by the Protestant Reformation. 1
If further proof be needed to show that Charles, while
King of England, attending the services of the Church of

England, and even taking the Sacrament in her communion,
was in reality all the time a Roman Catholic, it will be
found in the story of his first illegitimate son, as related
for the first time in Italy, in 1863, by a Jesuit priest, Father
Boero, in the columns of the Civilta Cattolica, the official

organ of the Jesuit Order at Rome. The articles contri
buted by Father Boero to that magazine were subsequently
reissued by the Jesuits as a pamphlet of 79 pages with the
"
following title Istoria : Delia Conversione Alia Chiesa

Cattolica Di Carlo II. Re D lngilterra, Cavata Da Scritture
Autentiche ed Originali, Per Giuseppe Boero, D.C.D.G."
In 1866 a translation into English of some of the documents
in this extraordinary pamphlet appeared in the Gentleman s
Magazine. An article on Father Boero s revelations ap

peared in the Home and Foreign Review for July, 1862, which
was then edited by the late Lord Acton. The article bears
and is entitled, Secret History of Charles
"
his initials, II."
Lord Acton had been shown the documents by Father

Boero, before they were published by him in Italy, and
he gives his readers a most interesting account of the
secret intrigues of Charles with the Pope and the General
of the Jesuits. In 1890 the late Mr. W. Mazier e Brady,
a Roman Catholic residing in Rome, devoted a chapter of
his book, entitledAnglo-Roman Papers, to the story of
The Eldest Natural Son of Charles
"
Neither Lord II."
Acton nor Mr. Brady express any doubt as to the truthful

ness of Father Boero s extraordinary narrative.
From
these documents we learn that, early in the year
1668, Charles eldest illegitimate son, James Stuart, under
the alias of James de la Cloche, was received into the Order
of Jesuits at Rome, as a novice. When the news reached
London, the young man s Royal father expressed his satis-
1
Bellesheim s History of the Catholic Church of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 101.
faction in a long and secret letter, which he addressed to
the General of the Jesuits, on August 3, 1668. In this docu
ment Charles tells the General that he had long prayed that
God would send him some one could con to whom he
"
fide the important matter of Our spiritual welfare, without

giving Our Court the shadoio of a suspicion that We were a
There were, he said, a large number of priests
" "
Catholic."
of the Church of Rome about the Court, but he could not

with safety accept the services of any of them, for fear of
detection. Under these circumstances it seemed to him
Providence of God that he had now a son of his own
" "
a
in the Jesuit College at Rome. This son would, he hoped,
be sent by the General as quickly as possible to London,
to be secretly ordained a Roman Catholic priest, in order,
"
said the King, that he may administer to Us, privately,

the Sacraments of Confession and Communion, which We
desire to receive without delay," and thus enable his father
to practise the rites of the Roman Catholic religion without
"
exciting in Our Court the shadow of a doubt that We

belong to that persuasion." He tells the General We "
often wrote secretly to His Holiness concerning Our own

conversion to the Roman Catholic Church
thus proving
"
that the Pope was not ignorant of the facts of the case ;
and he adds that he had no wish to withdraw his son from

the Jesuit Order on the contrary, he assured the
;
General :
"
We near to Our heart that he should

hold it pass his
life with you." Apparently the King felt that although
he had been formally received into the Church of Rome
thirteen years previously, yet, for his attendance at Church
of England services, and his hypocritical promises to
support the Protestant religion, and his other innumerable

wickednesses, he needed absolution, and therefore he ex
pressed a hope that his son, when he arrived in London,
absolve Us from heresy and reconcile Us to God
"
would
and His Church." In conclusion, he assures the General
of his Royal affection and goodwill to the Jesuit Order,
and of his desire to assist it.
CHARLES HATRED OF PROTESTANTISM 395
On the same day Charles wrote direct to his natural

son, telling him about his plans for his future, and urging
him not to write to his father, in order that not the slightest
"
suspicion of Our being a Catholic may arise," and assuring

him of the good feelings which We entertain for the
Reverend Fathers, the Jesuits." On August 29, 1668, the
King again wrote to the General of the Jesuits on the
same subject, and urged him to become a party to a de
ception which he was practising on the Queen of Sweden,
evidently without a doubt that he would comply with his
underhand wishes. He tells the General that he is in great
fear lest the fact that he is a Roman Catholic should be
"
discovered by his subjects, for of all the evils that could

surround Us, the certainty that We were a Catholic would
be the greatest, and the most likely to cause Our death."
The King wrote a second letter, on the same day, to
the General of the Jesuits, giving further directions for his
son s journey to England, and ordering that on his arrival
he should call himself by the name of Henry de Rohan.
The King informs the General that he takes note secretly
and circumspectly of all departures and arrivals of vessels
at the various English ports, and of the arrival of all
strangers :
"
This," says Charles II.,

"
We do on colour of
zeal for the Kingdom and on pretext of
maintaining the
Protestant religion, to which We feign more than ever
to be
attached, although before God Who sees the heart We abhor it

as most false and pernicious. We now desire Our son not
to travel vid France. We ask you, Father General, to
spread a report that he is gone to Jersey or Hanton to see
his pretended mother, who wishes to become a Catholic.
. .No doubt, when time and circumstances shall permit
.
Our writing to acquaint Plis Holiness of the obedience which

We owe to him as Vicar of Christ, We hope that he will enter
tain for Us such benevolence as not to refuse Oar son the
Cardinal s hat. If it should be inconvenient for him to
reside in England as a Cardinal, We can send him to reside
in Rome, as We intend, with all the Royal magnificence due
to his rank. If he wishes, nevertheless, to be a simple Jesuit,
We not force the purple on him against his will." x
shall
It is impossible for any honest-minded man to read
these letters without indignation at the infamous conduct
of the King. We look in vain for any censure of his dupli
city on the part of the Pope or the General of the Jesuits,
who were evidently well acquainted with his underhand
proceedings. The son referred to came to London as re
quested, with a certificate of his identity in his pocket
from the General of the Jesuits but his after-proceedings ;
are, to a large extent, shrouded in mystery.

Charles continued to give evidence of his goodwill
towards the Papacy throughout his reign but in nothing ;
was this more clearly manifested than in his relations

with Louis XIV., King of France. On the 25th of January, "
1669," writes the author of the Life of the First Earl of

the King held a secret conference, in the Duke
"
Shaftesbury,
of York s house, with the Duke, who had lately embraced
the Roman Catholic religion, Lord Arundel of Wardour, a
Roman and Arlington and Clifford, who were
Catholic,
both, if not Roman
Catholics, more or less disposed to that
religion, and who both ended by adopting it and on this ;
occasion Charles declared himself a Roman Catholic, ex

pressed his grief at not being able publicly to avow his
religion, and, stating that he wished to encounter the
difficulties while he was young and vigorous, asked advice
as to the means of establishing the Roman Catholic religion in
2
England." This statement is confirmed by the testimony
of the Duke of York himself, who further relates that he :
"
Well knowing that the King was of the same mind [i.e. to
declare himself a Roman Catholic], and that his Majesty had
opened himself upon it to Lord Arundel of Wardour, Lord
Arlington, and Sir Thomas Clifford, took an occasion to discourse
with him upon that subject at the same time, and found him
resolved as to his being a Catholic, and very sensible of the un
easiness it was to him to live in so much danger and constraint ;
1
Brady s Anglo-Roman Papers, p. 103.
2
Life of the First Earl of Shaftesbury, by W. D. Christie, vol. ii. p. 16.
A SECRET CONFERENCE 397
and that he intended to have a private meeting with those per

sons above-named, at the Duke s closet, to advise with them about
the ways and methods ft to be taken for advancing the Catholic
religion in his dominions, being resolved not to live any longer

in the constraint he was under. This meeting was on the 25th
of January, the day on which the Church celebrates the Con
version of St. Paul.
When they were met according to the King s appointment,
"
he declared his mind to them in the matter of religion, and re

peated what he had newly before said to the Duke how uneasy
it was to him not to
profess the faith he believed, and that he had
called them together to have their advice about the ways and
methods fittest to be taken for the settling of the Catholic re
ligion in his Kingdoms, and to consider of the time most proper
to declare himself telling them withal, that no time ought to
;
be lost that he was to expect to meet with many and great

;
difficulties in bringing it about, and that he chose rather to under

take it now, when he and his brother were in their full strength
and able to undergo any fatigue, than to delay it until they
were grown older, and less fit to go through with so great a design.
This he spake with great earnestness, and even with tears in his
eyes and added, that they were to go about it as wise men and
;
good Catholics ought to do.

"
The consultation lasted long, and the result was that there
wasTno better way for doing this great work, than to do it in
conjunction with France and with the assistance of His Most
Christian Majesty the House of Austria not being in a con
;
dition to help in it and, in pursuance of this resolution, Mons.

;
de Croissy Colbert, the French Ambassador, was to be entrusted

with the secret in order to inform his master of it, that he might
receive a power to treat about it with our King." 1
Charles held several secret interviews with the French

Ambassador on the subject, in which they plotted the
destruction of the Protestant religion of England by force
of arms. In a despatch to Louis XIV., dated November 13,
1669, Colbert tells his master that in a secret interview
he had with Charles :
"
He told me that he believed I must have thought that he

and those to whom he had entrusted the conduct of this affair,
1
Life of James the Second : Collected out of Memoirs writ of his own hand,
edited by the Rev. J. S. Clarke, vol. i.
pp. 441, 442.
were to pretend to re-establish tlie Catholic religion in
all fools
England that, in effect, every versed person in the affairs of

;
his Kingdom, and the humour of his people, ought to have the
same thought; but he hoped that with your
that, after all,
Majesty s undertaking would have a happy

support, this great
success. That the Presbyterians and all the other sects had a
greater aversion to the English Church than to the Catholics.
That all the sectaries desired only the free exercise of their re
ligion, and provided they could obtain it, as it was his design
they should, they would not oppose his intended change of re
ligion. That besides, he has some good troops strongly attached
to him, and if the deceased King his father had had as many,
he would have stifled in their birth those troubles that caused
his ruin. That he would still augment as much as possible his
regiments and companies, under the most specious pretexts lie could
devise ; that all the magazines of arms are at his disposal, and
all well filled. That he was sure of the principal places in England
and Scotland that the Governor of Hull was a Catholic that
:
;
those of Portsmouth, Plymouth, and many other places he named,

among the rest Windsor, would never depart from the duty they
owed him that as to the troops in Ireland, he hoped the Duke
;
of Ormond, who had very great credit there, would be always

faithful to him and that though the Duke, not approving this
;
change of religion, should fail in his duty, my Lord Orrery, who

was a Catholic in his heart, and who had still a greater power
in that army, would lead it wherever he should command him.
That your Majesty s friendship, of which he had the most
obliging proofs in the world by the answers given to his pro
posals, and with which he assured me he was entirely satisfied,
would also be of great service to him and, in short, he told
;
me that he was pressed both by his conscience, and by the con

fusion which he saw increasing from day to day in his Kingdom,
l
to the diminution of his authority, to declare himself a Catholic/
noteworthy that, all the while this evil plot was

It is
being prepared, the country knew nothing at all about it,

and, in a state of fancied security, was really sleeping on a
volcano. At last the negotiations between Charles II. and
Louis XIV. ended in the Treaty of Dover, of which James II.
writes The Treaty was not finally concluded and signed,
:
"
till about the beginning of 1670, the purport of which was,

1
Memoirs of Great Britain, by Sir John Dalrymple, second edition, vol. ii..
1773, Appendix, p. 39.

THE SECRET TREATY OF DOVER 399
that the French King was to give 200,000 a year, by

quarterly payments, the first of which to begin when the
ratificationswere exchanged, to enable the King to begin the
work in England ; that when the Catholic religion was settled
here, our King was to join with France in making war upon
Holland. 1 All this was translated with the last secrecy,
. . .
and in preparation thereunto, Colonel Fitzgerald, lately

come from Tangier, where he had been Governor, was to
have a new regiment of foot prepared for him, and such
officers chosen for it as might be confided in. ... The
rigorous Church of England men were let loose and en-

couraged underhand to prosecute according to the law the
Nonconformists, to the end that these might be the more
sensible of the ease they should have when the Catholics
The author of The Secret History of the Court
prevailed."
2
and Reign of Charles II., published in 1792, states that

Lord Arundel of Wardour, a declared Papist, was the
"
person appointed to go to Paris, with full instructions ;
and none of the Ministry or Council were admitted into the

secret, but Arlington, Clifford, and Sir Richard Bealing,
who were all Roman Catholics." 3 The first article of this
Secret Treaty of Dover was as follows :
Art. 1. The King of Great Britain being convinced of the

"
truth of the Catholic religion, and resolved to declare himself a

Catholic, and to reconcile himself to the Church of Rome, thinks
the assistance of His Most Christian Majesty may be necessary
to facilitate the execution of his design. It is, therefore, agreed
and concluded upon, that His Most Christian Majesty shall
supply the King of England, before the said declaration, with
the sum of 200,000 sterling, one-half to be paid in three months
after the ratification of the present Treaty, and the other half
in three months more and further, that His Most Christian
:
Majesty shall assist the King of England with troops and money,
as there may be occasion, in case the said King s subjects should
not acquiesce in the said declaration and rebel against his said
Britannic Majesty, which is not thought likely/ 4
1
Holland was a Protestant nation, and therefore it was necessary that it
2
should be crushed. Life of James the Second, vol. i. pp. 442, 443.
3
Secret History of the Court of Charles II., vol. ii., Supplement, p. 3.
4
Ibid., p. 4.
The reading of this secret article of the Dover Treaty
greatly moved the indignation of the late Lord John Russell.
he wrote,
"
"It is impossible," to read this article without
indignation at the unprincipled ambition, the shameless

venality, and the cool hypocrisy of Charles. For the sake
of public tranquillity an army of Frenchmen was to be in
troduced into England, to force the nation to embrace a
religion they detested The holy name of God is used for
!
the purpose of sanctioning the subjugation of a free people

by the assistance of a foreign power Such was the return !
which a King of the House of Stuart thought fit to make

to a country which had received him with unlimited con
fidence. Neither the affection which the people had shown
to his person, nor the general duty of a Sovereign to his
subjects, nor the solemn obligation of an oath, were sufficient
to restrain Charles from signing a treaty, which will ever
remain a monument of ingratitude, perjury, and treason.
And as his offence cannot be justified, so neither can it be
palliated. He was not obliged, whatever he might allege,
by the unreasonable demands or unquiet humours of his
people, to fly to foreign protection : his perfidy was as
spontaneous as it was unexampled."
the Treaty of Dover, Charles engaged to join with
By
Louis XIV. in a war against Holland, whose Protestantism
was an object of hatred to both Kings. Under false pre
tences the English Parliament was induced to vote large
sums of money to carry on this war, but this was supple
mented by large grants of money from the King of France.
With the hope that the Roman Catholics, Presbyterians,
and Dissenters would rally round him, Charles, shortly
before commencing this war, issued a Declaration of In
dulgence, by which he suspended the execution of the
penal laws against Roman Catholics and Nonconformists,
allowing the latter to publicly hold Divine services in
and the former to have services in private
licensed buildings,
1
The Life of William Lord Russell, by Lord John Eussell, fourth edition,
p. 47.
A POPISH ARMY AT BLACKHEATH 401
houses, and to be exempted from the penalties to which

they were subjected by law. Bishop Burnet says the
Presbyterians thanked the King for his Declaration, but,
apparently, they afterwards changed their mind, for Rapin
assures us that The King and the Cabal were extremely
:
"
mistaken in imagining that the Declaration for Liberty of

Conscience would gain the Presbyterians, in return for so
great a favour. The leaders of the Presbyterians were
too wise to be taken in so palpable and dangerous a snare.
It was easy for them to see, they were only designed for
instruments to advance the interests of the Romish religion.
When they reflected that this favour was received from the
King, the Duke of York, and the members of the Cabal,
they could not believe it flowed from a principle of religion
or humanity. They saw, besides, so many extraordinary
proceedings, somany invasions upon the rights of the people ;
the Papists indulged in their religion the King making ;
exorbitant demands upon his Parliament an army en ;
camped at the very gates of London in the midst of winter ;
a war begun to destroy the only Protestant State capable

of supporting religion, and Papists in the principal posts ;
all this sufficiently demonstrated that the suspension of

1
the Penal Laws was not for their sake."
With a portion of the money obtained from the King

of France, and a grant obtained from his own Parliament
by false pretences, Charles set to work to form an army

likely to do his bidding, and carry out his plans. On
this scheme a writerthe period remarks of :
"
And now
the King, having got the money in his hands, a new project
was set on foot, to set up an army in England for the intro
duction of slavery and Popery, under pretence of landing in
Holland which was raised with all the expedition imagin
;
able over which, a Colonel Fitzgerald, an Irish Papist,

;
was made Major-General, so were the greatest number of

the Captains and other officers of the same stamp."
1
Eapin s History of England, vol. xi. pp. 385, 386.
2
Secret History of Charles II. and James II., p. 70.
2c
"
Nor were they ignorant of the real design for which the
King had raised his army, and what care the King and his
brother took, that there should be no other officers in that army
than what were fit for the work in hand, which was to introduce
Popery and French government by main force four parts of ;
the five being downright Papists, or else such as resolved so to

be upon the least intimation. The Duke [of York] recommending
all such as he knew fit for the turn, and no less than a hundred
commissions being signed by Secretary W. to Irish Pa.pists to
raise Forces, notwithstanding the late Act, by which means
both the land and Naval Forces were in safe hands and to ;
complete the work, hardly a Judge, Justice of the Pea-ce, or any

officer in England but what was of the Duke s promotion. Nor
were they ignorant of the private negotiations carried on by the
Duke, with the King s connivance, with the Pope and Cardinal
Norfolk, who had undertaken to raise money from the Church
sufficient to supply the King s wants, till the work were done,
in case the Parliament should smoke their design, and refuse to
give any more. Nor was the Parliament ignorant what great re
joicing there was in Rome itself, to hear in what a posture his
Majesty was, and how well provided of an army and money to
1
begin the business."
There is an entry s Diary, under date June 10,

in Evelyn
1673, about this Army :
"
We
went after dinner to see the
formal and formidable camp on Blackheath, raised to in
vade Holland, or, as others suspected, for another design."
1
Secret History of Charles If. and James II., p. 90.
CHAPTER XXIV
CHARLES ii. (concluded)
Secret Romanists at Court The Duke of York favours Popery secretly The
Duke dissembles his Religion for many years The House of Commons
and Increase of Popery Charles professes Zeal for Protestantism He
assumes Arbitrary Power Parliament passes the Test Act Two Sham
Bills for Defence of Protestantism The Declaration against Tran-
substantiation The Popish Plot.
THE schemes of Charles II. for restoring Popery in England

were greatly facilitated through the presence in his Court
and in his Government of a number of men who were, like
himself, secretly Roman Catholics. Professor Masson calls
attention to some of these men, when writing about the
events of this period.
The condition of things in Charles Court," writes
"
from August 1662 onwards, had been peculiarly

"
Masson,
favourable for the resuscitation in his mind of the idea of
exchanging his crypto-Catholicism for an open profession of
the Roman Catholic faith. His new Queen had her chapel,
her priests, and Confessors his mother, Queen Henrietta
;
Maria, who had come over again from France, to make the
acquaintance of the new Queen, and to try how long she
could stay in England, had also brought Roman Catholic
priests and servants in her train ;
the number of avowed
Roman Catholics at Court, and the conveniences for Roman
Catholic worship there, had been largely increased."
And
"
so, though conversions among the Protestants of the

Court were not yet much heard of, the state of mind which we
have called crypto-Catholicism, consisting in a secret inclina
tion to Roman Catholicism and a willingness to go over to it
openly if there should ever be sufficient occasion, had come
greatly into fashion. There were now many crypto-Catholics at
403
Court, besides Charles himself. Lady Castlemaine was one ;
Bennet [afterwards Lord Arlington] was another Berkeley ;
was another indeed, the faction that gathered nightly in Lady

;
Castlemaine s apartments, where Clarendon and Southampton

disdained to be seen, may be described as the crypto-Catholic
faction. There was a meaning, therefore, in the introduction
of Bennet into the ministry as Secretary of State instead of
Nicholas, and in the promotion of Berkeley in the Household in
October 1662. They were signs that the King was strengthen
ing the crypto-Catholic interest, and building it up about him."
l
Rapin states that, in the year 1671, the Earl of Arling

ton, Secretary of State, and Clifford, a member of the
inner Council of the King, knownin history as the Cabal,"
"
were
"
secretly Roman "
Catholics. 2 Of the Duke of York,

heir to the Throne, he writes that :
"
He was a Papist
before the King s Restoration, but I cannot find at what
time he changed his religion. It was a secret for some
time."
3
Some
particulars are supplied by the
further
Jesuit Father F. J. D
Orleans, who, writing of events in
the year 1667, says of the Duke of York that A jealousy :
"
spread abroad of his being a Catholic in his heart, though

he outwardly appeared as a Protestant.
still That . . .
jealousy was well grounded. The Duke was indeed a

Catholic, and the memory of his conversion deserves to be
preserved in history. These rational reflections opened
. . .
the Duke of York s eyes from that time he became a ;
Catholic in his heart, and with this disposition he returned

to England at the Restoration. Many weighty reasons
at first obliged him to conceal that change from public
view he trusted the King, his brother, with the secret,
;
who commended him, but desired he would so far prevail

himself as not to let it be known. This held for
upon
some time, but could not last always. The Duke, in
sensibly growing heedless, and keeping a less watch upon
himself than he had done, gave others the opportunity
to observe him, and conclude that he was not of the religion
1
Massori s Life of Milton, vol. vi. p. 289.
3
2 s History of England, vol. xi. p. 363. Ibid., p. 353.
Rapin
ROMANISTS IN DISGUISE 405
of his country. . . . After such proceedings there was no

more pretending to make a secret of that Prince s religion ;
all his friends could do was to save

being too publicly its
known. ... In short, soon after the death of that Princess

[his first wife] he abjured his error, which he had not done
then, and returned
till to the faith of St. Edward, whose
Crown he was to wear. . . . Some of the Duke s friends,
observing this change, desired him to curb himself the ;
King, his brother, urged him again, and all men represented
to him that, though it was no longer time for him to counter
feit what he was not, yet it was not convenient he should
own what he was. He took this advice." I notice that 1
the Jesuit D Orleans has not one word of censure for the
Duke s duplicity. Burnet says that after his reception
into the Church of Rome, the Duke of York
"
continued
for many years dissembling his religion, and seemed zealous
for the Church of England." Of the Earl of Arlington,2
Gillow quotes, without censure, the statement of Echard

"
that, in 1659, Arlington (then Sir Henry Bennet) secretly

espoused the Catholic cause, and exerted his influence with
considerable effect to induce the King to embrace Catholicity,
the year before his Restoration, at Fontarabia." 3 The
Jesuit D Orleans asserts that
"
Clifford and Arlington were

so [i.e. Roman Catholics] in private, and both died in the
Church of Rome." 4
The Parliament was by no means an indifferent spec

tator of the King s designs, though it only knew a part of
is now public
that which property. From time to time
both Houses sent to Charles petitions, asking him to take
action against the increase of Popery, and to issue Pro
clamations banishing Jesuits and priests from the country.
In every case he promised to do what he was asked, and from
time to time he issued such Proclamations, which, however,
1
A History of the Revolutions in England, by F. J. D Orleans, S.J.,
pp. 231-233.
2
Burnet s History of His Own Time, vol. i.
p. 289, Oxford edition, 1823.
3
Gillow s Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, vol. i. p. 182.
4
D Ovleans History of the Revolutions in England, p. 236.
he took care not to enforce, except on very rare occasions.
In 1666, the House of Commons appointed a Committee
and certify informations of the insolence of
"
to receive
Popish priests and Jesuits, and of the increase of Popery."

The Committee examined a large number of witnesses,
and then presented their report, whereupon the House
con
"
presented a Petition to the King requesting that,

sidering the present juncture of affairs, all Popish Recu
sants, and such as, being suspected so to be, shall refuse to
take the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, being tendered
to them, may be forthwith so disarmed, as to remove all
apprehensions from the people, of their possibilities to dis

turb the public peace of the nation and that all officers,
:
military and civil, and soldiers, as shall not within twenty

days take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, may be
disbanded and displaced." They also requested that His
"
Majesty be humbly desired to issue out a new Commission,

for tendering and administering the Oaths of Allegiance and
Supremacy to the members of both Houses." The King

1
issued the Proclamation as requested, but it was not enforced.

Once more, on March 10, 1671, both Houses of Parlia
ment united in sending Charles a lengthy petition Against
"
the Growth of Popery." No doubt this petition war.

mainly caused by the Treaty of Dover, and the fear of
French influence. It commenced with a reference to
Your Majesty s constancy to the Protestant Religion,
both at home and abroad," as to which they must surely
have spoken ironically, and then proceeded to enumerate >
the causes of the growth of Popery. These included tho

presence in the country of great numbers of Jesuits and
priests, and the existence of several Chapels and places
"
used for saying of Mass, in the great towns, and many other
parts of this Kingdom, besides those in Ambassadors houses,
whither great numbers of your Majesty s subjects constantly
resort and repair without control." They also mention
the erection of Popish schools, the sale of Popish books,
1
Cubbett s Parliamentary History, vol. iv. p. 334.
THE GROWTH OF POPERY 407
the remissness of the Magistrates in not convicting Popish

Recusants, and also that the Advowsons of Churches,
"
and presentations to livings

"
in the Church of England,

"
are
disposed of by Popish Recusants, or
by others instructed
by them, as they direct, whereby most of those livings
and benefices are filled with scandalous and unfit Ministers."
They also mention that the open exercise of Mass in
"
Dublin, and other parts of Ireland, is a further great cause

of the present growth of Popery in that Kingdom. As a "
remedy for the growth of Popery they recommend the

banishment from his Majesty s dominions of all Jesuits
and priests, excepting those attending on Ambassadors
from foreign Courts that Judges be ordered to enforce
;
no office or em
"
the laws against Popish Recusants that ;
ployment of public authority, trust, or command, in civil

or military affairs, be committed to, or continued in the
hands of any person being a Popish Recusant, or justly
suspected to be In conclusion, the petition requested

so."
that Dr. Plunket, titular Primate of Ireland, and Peter

Talbot, the Jesuit titular Archbishop of Dublin, should be
brought over to England, there to answer to such matters
"
as shall be objected against them." The King, as usual,

in reply, promised to issue the required Proclamation, and
to order the Judges to enforce the laws against Papists,
but he added these words suppose no man will wonder
: "I
if I make a difference between those that have newly
changed their religion, and those that were bred in that

religion,and served my father and me faithfully in the late
In the Proclamation itself he hypocritically affirmed
wars."
that he had seriously considered, and with much content

"
ment approving the great care of the said Lords and

Commons for the preservation of the true religion estab
lished to which, as he hath always adhered against all
;
temptations whatsoever, so he will still employ his utmost

care and zeal in the maintenance and defence of it."
l
How
insincere the King was in his professions, the report, given
1
Cobbetfc s Parliamentary History, vol. iv. pp. 477-479.
above, of his secret conference with the Duke of York and
others, on January 25, 1669, and the Secret Treaty of
Dover, clearly reveals.
With such a Parliament Charles despaired of obtaining
its assistance in promoting his plans for making
Popery
once more triumphant in his Dominions. He, therefore,
determined to ignore the law, and dispense with its observ
ance. Claiming a right to a Dispensing Power over the
laws, and in furtherance of his schemes for gaining absolute
rule, without the help or consent of Parliament, he issued,
on March well-known Declaration of Indulgence.
15, 1672, his
*
We do," declare our will and pleasure to be,
he said,
"
that the execution of all, and all manner of Penal Laws in

matters ecclesiastical, against whatsoever sort of Noncon
formists or Recusants, be immediately suspended, and
they are hereby suspended and all Judges, Judges of ;
Assize and gaol delivery, Sheriffs, Justices of the Peace,

Mayors, Bailiffs, and other officers whatsoever, whether
ecclesiastical or civil, are to take notice of it, and pay due
obedience thereunto. . . . We do further declare that this

our indulgence, as to the allowance of the public places of
worship, and approbation of the preachers, shall extend to all
sorts of Nonconformists and Recusants, except the Recusants
of the Roman Catholic religion, to whom we shall in no
wise allow public places of worship, but only indulge them
their share in the common exemption from the Penal Laws,
and the exercise of their worship in private houses only." J
It was not through any love for the Nonconformists
that Charles issued this Declaration of Indulgence but ;
because he hoped that by granting them religious liberty

they would support him in abolishing the Penal Laws
against the Roman Catholics. As Neal remarks The "
Protestant Nonconformists had no opinion of the Dispensing

Power, and were not forward to accept of liberty in this way ;
they were sensible that the Indulgence was not granted

out of love to them, nor would continue any longer than
1
Neal s History of the Puritans, vol. ii. pp. G83, 684, edition 1754.
THE DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE 409
it would serve the interests of Popery."

1
But it was the
claim the King of a Dispensing Power over the
made by
laws of the land which most of all raised the indignant
opposition of Parliament, when it met on February 4,
1673. In his speech from the Throne the King referred
to his Declaration of Indulgence, and declared shall : "I
take it very ill to receive contradiction in what I have

done. And, I with you, I am resolved
will deal plainly
to stick to my Declaration." 2 But, fortunately, there
were men in that Parliament who were not afraid to offend
a King. On February 8 there was a special debate on the
subject in the House of Commons, in which several members
spoke strongly against the Declaration, while others were
in its favour. Sir Thomas Meres said he had conferred
with books, and learned persons in the law, and found that
a general suspension of the Penal Statutes is against law. Mr.
Powle said that if the King can dispense with all Penal
Laws, he may dispense with all laws. The King by this
may change religion as he pleases. If they looked into

the nation they would find that nothing ever raised such
doubts as this Declaration. Mr. Vaughan affirmed that
the Declaration repealed forty Acts of Parliament, which
were no way repealable but by the same authority that
made them. The Declaration repealed fourteen Statutes
of the present King. Eventually, the House of Commons,
by 168 to 116, passed the following resolution: "That
Penal Statutes, in matters Ecclesiastical, cannot be sus

pended but by Act of Parliament," and an address on the
subject was ordered to be drawn up and presented to the
King. In this address the House of Commons said We :
"
have, with all duty and expedition, taken into our considera
tion several parts of your Majesty s last speech to us, and
withal the Declaration therein mentioned, for indulgence
to Dissenters and we find ourselves bound in duty to inform
;
your Majesty, that Penal Statutes in matters Ecclesiastical

1
Neal s History of the Puritans, vol. ii. p. 684.
2
cannot be suspended but by Act of Parliament. We,
therefore, do most humbly beseech your Majesty that the
said laws may have their free force, until it shall be otherwise
provided for by Act of Parliament."

l
The King sent a civil
answer to this address but he refused to give way to its
;
demands. At this time he was badly in want of money

to carry on the war with the Dutch, which was very un
popular with Parliament, and as there seemed no other

way of getting it, he, by the advice of Louis XIV., at length
consented to cancel his Declaration. A modern writer
says that when the news was made public, There had
"
not been such bonfires of joy for a long while as blazed in

London that Saturday night." 2
The Parliament, in its well-founded dread of Popery,
now went forward, and passed the celebrated Test Act,
25 Charles II., cap. 2,which received the Royal assent on
March 29. Its full title was, An Act for preventing
"
dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants." It

provided that every person holding any office, or place of
trust, under the King, should, by a given date, take the
Oath of Supremacy, and also the Oath of Allegiance passed
in the Reign of James I. and, further, that every such
;
person shall partake of the Lord s Supper in some Parish

Church, on some Sunday before August 1, 1673. These
provisions applied to all who should subsequently be ap
pointed to similar offices. In these cases they must partake
of the Lord s Supper on some Sunday within three months
from their appointment. Those who refused to comply
with these requirements should be treated as disabled by
law, and their offices adjudged void. Section 9 of the Act
was as follows :
And
"
be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that

at the same time when the persons concerned in this Act shall
take the aforesaid Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, they
shall likewise make and subscribe this Declaration following,
1
Cobbett/s Parliamentary History, vol. iv. pp. 517-52G.
2
Masson s Life of Milton, vol. vi. p. 594.
THE TEST ACT 411
under the same penalties and forfeitures as by this Act is
appointed :
I, A. B., do declare, that I do believe that there is not any

Transubstantiation in the Sacrament of the Lord s Supper, or
in the elements of bread and wine, at or after the consecration
thereof by any person whatsoever/
One of the most noteworthy matters connected with

tl^ passing of this Bill through Parliament was the speech
in its favour, delivered in the House of Lords, by the Earl of
Bristol. He was a Roman Catholic ; but, as he explained, he
was "
a Catholic of the Church of Rome, not a Catholic of the

Court of Rome a distinction he thought worthy of memory
;
and reflection whenever any severe proceedings against those

they called Papists should come in question, since those
of the Court of Rome did only deserve that name." In
"
"
this Bill, my Lords," he continued,

notwithstanding all
the alarms of the increase of Popery, and designs of
Papists, here is no mention of barring them from private
and modest exercise of their religion ;
no banishing them
to such a distance from Court, no putting in execution of
Penal Laws in force against them all their precautions ;
are reduced to this one intent, natural to all societies of
men, of hindering a lesser opposite party from growing

too strong for the greater and more considerable one.
And in this just way of prevention, is not the moderation
of the House of Commons to be admired, that they have
restrained it to this sole point, of debarring their adver
saries from Offices and Places, and from accessions of
wealth by favour of the Sovereign ? And after all, my
Lords, how few do these sharp trials and tests of this Act
regard ? Only a few such Roman Catholics as would fain
hold Offices and Places at the price of hypocrisy, and dis
l
simulation of their true sentiments in religion."
Early in 1G77 two Bills were introduced into Parlia

ment which, says Mr. Andrew Marvel, had been hatched " "
1
Cobbett s Parliamentary History, vol. iv. pp. 5G4-5G6.
two years before by a select Cabal of great Ministers." l
"
The first of these was entitled, An Act for securing the "
Protestant Religion by educating the Children of the

Royal Family, and providing for the continuance of the
Protestant Clergy." The second Bill was entitled, An "
Act for the more effectual Conviction and Prosecution of

Popish Recusants." Both Bills were ostensibly in the
interests of Protestantism, but in reality in the interests
of Popery. The first of these, under the pretence of edu
cating the children of the Crown in the Protestant Religion,
permitted the Kings of England to be successively Papists.
They were, indeed, required to make a declaration upon
That they did not believe in Transubstantiation
"
"
Oath, ;
but if they refused to take it, no means or penalty was

provided to compel them. The Bill, which was denounced
as a subtle scheme to enable a Papist to become King,
was committed by the House of Commons, and then
dropped. The second Bill was passed by the House of Lords,
but when it came on in the House of Commons it was
severely criticised. Mr. Sacheverell pointed out that it set
aside all the laws against Popery, excepting only the Test
Act, and any man under it might hold office for three months
without taking the Test. It put Protestant Recusants in a
worse condition than the Popish Recusants. The Bill was
a bare toleration of Popery. Sir Harbottle Grimstoiie said
as soon make a good fan out of a pig s tail,
"
they might
as a good Bill out of this one." After a long debate the
House rejected the Bill. But although these Jesuitical
Bills failed to pass into law, another and most important
Billwas more fortunate. It is entitled, An Act for the "
more effectual preserving the King s Person and Govern

ment, by disabling Papists from sitting in either House
of Parliament
"
(30 Charles II., cap. 1). It fell like a bomb

shell into the Popish camp, causing therein the utmost
consternation. We
may be quite sure it was never signed
1
Marvel s Growth of Popery, printed in State Tracts privately printed in.
the Reign of King Charles IL, p. 98.

THE PROTESTANT DECLARATION 413
by the King with a glad heart. It provided that from the

1st of December 1678, no person should vote, or make his
proxy, either in the House of Lords, or House of Commons,

"
or sit there during any debate," until he had taken the

Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and also subscribe
"
and audibly repeat this Declaration following "
"
I, A. B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God,
profess, testify, and declare that I do believe that in the Sacra

ment of the Lord s Supper there is not any Transubstantiation
of the Elements of Bread and Wine into the Body and blood of
Christ, at or after the consecration thereof
by any person what
soever and that the Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin
;
Mary or any other Saint, and the Sacrifice of the Mass, as they
are now used in the Church of Rome, are superstitious and
idolatrous. And I do solemnly, in the presence of God, profess,
testify, and declare, that I do make this declaration and every
part thereof in the plain and ordinary sense of the words read
unto me, as they are commonly understood by English Protes
tants, without any Evasion, Equivocation, or mental Reserva
tion whatsoever, and without any dispensation
already granted
me for this purpose by the Pope, or any other authority or person
whatsoever, or without any hope of any such dispensation from
any person or authority whatsoever, or without thinking that I
am or can be acquitted before God or man, or absolved of this
declaration or any part thereof, although the Pope or any other
person or persons or power whatsoever should dispense with or
annul the same, or declare that it was null and void from the
beginning."
Should any member of either House of Parliament

refuse to take the Oaths mentioned in the Act, or should do
"
"
shall thenceforth be deemed

"
anything contrary to it, he

and adjudged a Popish Recusant convict, and shall forfeit
and suffer as a Popish Recusant convict, and shall be dis
abled to hold or execute any office or place of trust, civil
or military, in of his Realms
"
any Majesty s of England or
Ireland
"
or ;
to sue or use any action, bill, plaint, or in
formation in course of law, or to prosecute any suit in any
Court of Equity or to be guardian of any child, or executor
;
or administrator of any or capable of any legacy

person ;
or deed of gift ;
and shall forfeit for every wilful offence
against this Act the sum of 500." The last section of the
Act contained an important and unfortunate exception.
"
It enacted that Nothing in this Act contained shall extend

to his Royal Highness the Duke of York." The Declara
tion imposed by this Act was, by the Act of Settlement,
12 and 13 William III., ordered to be taken by the Sovereigns
of these Realms, when they met their first Parliament, or
at their Coronation. In 1910 it was removed from the
Statute Book, and a much milder Protestant Declaration
substituted in its place.
The part which Charles took in the Popish Plot of 1678

brings lasting disgrace on his memory, for he signed the
death-warrants of many Roman Catholics, executed for
their alleged complicity in that Plot, while all the time he,
at least, believed that they were innocent of the charges
brought against them by Titus Gates and his fellows. The
torrent of Protestant opinion was so strong that he yielded
to it merely to save himself from public odium. I need
not enter here at any length into particulars concerning
this Popish Plot, for I believe those who were at the bottom
of it were nothing better than a set of scoundrels, whose
words were quite unworthy of credence. It is true there
w as a very real and dangerous Popish Plot going on at the
r
time, under the guidance of the Jesuits but this of Titus ;
Gates was quite a different affair.

The testimony of Bishop Burnet, the author of the well-
known History of the Reformation, as to Gates Plot, is of
great importance. His Protestantism cannot be doubted.
The Bishop boasts that he was more capable to give an
account of the Plot than any man he knew. He gives 1
<t
very black character indeed of Titus Gates of whom he ;
states that He was proud and ill-natured, haughty, but

:
"
ignorant. He conversed much with Socinians, and he had

been complained of for some very indecent expressions con -
cerning the mysteries of the Christian religion. He was
1
Burnet s History of His Own Time, vol, ii.
p. 144, Oxford edition, 1823,
THE POPISH PLOT 415
once presented for perjury. But he got to be a Chaplain

in one of the King s ships, from which he was dismissed
upon complaint of some unnatural practices, not to be

named."
1
"I could have no regard to anything he either
Indeed, Oates and Bedlow
2 "
said or swore after that."
did, by their behaviour, detractmore from their own credit

than all their enemies could have done. The former talked
of all persons with insufferable insolence and the other ;
was a scandalous libertine in his whole deportment." 3

The testimony of Evelyn, whose love for the Protestant
cause cannot be doubted (and who was present at the trials
of several of the alleged plotters), is worthy of considera
tion. On July 18, 1679, he wrote in his Diary : For "
my
part, I look on Oates as a vain insolent man, puffed up
with the favour of the Commons for having discovered
something really true, more especially as detecting the
dangerous intrigue of Coleman, proved out of his own letters,
and of a general design which the Jesuited party of the
Papists ever had, and still have, to ruin the Church of Eng
land but that he was trusted with those great secrets he
;
pretended, or had any solid ground for what he accused

divers noblemen of, I have many reasons to induce my
contrary belief. That among so many Commissions as he
affirmed to have delivered to them from P. Oliva [General
of the Jesuits] and the Pope, he who made no scruple of
opening all other papers, letters, and secrets, should not

only not open any of those pretended Commissions, but not
so much as take any copy or witness of any one of them,
is almost miraculous." Writing again in his Diary, on
June 18, 1683, Evelyn remarks The Popish Plot also, :
"
which had hitherto made such a noise, began now sensibly

to dwindle, through the folly, knavery, impudence, and
giddiness of Oates."
The fact that there are still to be found amongst us
some Protestants who believe that every word uttered by

1
Burnet s History of His Own Time, vol. ii.
p. 145, Oxford edition, 1823.
2 3
Ibid., p. 151. Ibid., p. 18(5.
Titus Gates was true and reliable, makes it necessary to
give here several extracts from the opinions of men of note,
whose Protestantism is unquestioned. I have just cited
Burnet and Evelyn. Now let us note what that great
modern historian, Ranke, has to say on this subject. He
writes About the plans that had been formed for the
:
"
re-establishment of Catholicism in England upon the death

of the King, Gates made statements which contradict the
actual position of affairs they are ;
without doubt false.
Gates had been from his youth up notorious for the most
shameless untruthfulness. He had a passion for startling
people, and giving himself importance by boastful and
lying exaggerations, which he spiced with invective on
every side, and confirmed with wild oaths he was a small :
man with a short neck, and a mouth strikingly out of

proportion people were careful not to contradict him,
;
as they were afraid of quarrelling with him. He mixed up

what he knew with what he only guessed, or what seemed
to him
serviceable for his schemes, and he was believed by
all. His successful shamelessness stirred up emulators, of
whom Bedlow was one. But still it cannot be affirmed
that all they alleged was mere invention. There was
some truth in it, as Dry den says, but mixed with lies.
Moreover, the fact that much of what they said as to matters
which no one suspected proved true, led people to accept
also the monstrous things they gave out. Coleman s corre
spondence, which Gates first described and afterwards
l
discovered, especially forwarded this impression."
"
we suppose," writes Lord Macaulay,

Rational men,
in his
Essay on Mackintosh s History of the Revolution,
are now fully agreed that by far the greater part, if not
"
the whole, of Gates story was a pure fabrication. It is

indeed highly probable that, during his intercourse with
the Jesuits, he may have heard much wild talk about the
best means of re-establishing the Catholic religion in Eng
land, and that from some of the absurd day-dreams of the
1
Ranke s History of England, vol. iv. p. 60.
THE REAL POPISH PLOT 417
zealots with whom

he was associated he may have taken
hints for his narrative. But we do not believe that he was
privy to anything which deserved the name of conspiracy.
And it is quite certain that, if there be any small portion
of truth in his evidence, that portion is so deeply buried in
falsehood that no human skill can now effect a separation." 1
The opinion of another eminent historian I must quote,
before I pass on. Hallam terms the Popish Plot the great "
but he is careful to add

" "
national delusion ;
It is first :
to be remembered that there was really and truly a Popish

Plot in being, though not that which Titus Oates and his
associates pretended to reveal not merely in the sense of
Hume, who, arguing from the general spirit of proselytism
in that religion, says there is a perpetual conspiracy against
all governments, Protestant, Mahometan, and Pagan, but
one alert, enterprising, effective, in direct operation against

the established Protestant religion in England. In this
Plot the King, the Duke of York, and the King of France
were chief conspirators the Romish priests, and especially
;
the Jesuits, were eager co-operators. Their machinations

and their hopes, long suspected, and in a general sense
known, were divulged by the seizure and publication of
Coleman s letters."
This real Popish Plot, which centred round the name of
Edward Coleman, it is now our duty
to notice briefly.
Coleman was private Secretary to the Duchess of York,
who was a Roman Catholic, and, while acting in that
capacity, he carried on a treasonable correspondence with
French Jesuits, a Papal Nuncio, the Cardinal of Norfolk, and
other English Roman Catholics residing on the Continent.
He was arrested on the evidence of Titus Oates, who, at
his trial, swore that Coleman had formed a plot to murder
the King. Now the Jesuits must have known very well
that Charles was himself a Roman Catholic, and it certainly
was not to their interest to destroy him. As we have seen,
1
Lord Macaulay s Works, vol. vi. p. 10G, Edinburgh edition, 1897.
2
Hallam s Constitutional History of England, vol. ii. p. 423, eighth edition.
2D
the evidence of Titus Gates is not to be trusted. When
Coleman was arrested there was found in his house his
treasonable letters, by means of which this very real plot
of his and the Jesuits came out. The letters seized on his
premises were shortly after published by authority, in two
parts. As a rule they were very obscure, purposely so,
no doubt, but this at least may be gathered from their
contents. The aid of the French King was sought by the
Duke York, through the instrumentality of Coleman, in
of
order that by destroying the power of the English Parlia
ment, the Duke might be placed in a position of supreme
power in England, the King being but a cypher in his hands.
It was thought by the conspirators that if the French King
would grant to the Duke a sum of 300,000, he, with that
money, would be able to induce Charles to do whatever the
King of France and the Jesuits Avished or, as Coleman put ;
it to the Nuncio, in a letter dated October 2, 1674 But if :

"
the Duke, or any other, could show of a sudden some other

way what would effectually help him [Charles II.] to money,
he would himself be governed entirely by him, and in
let
this case the Duke would have all power over him * "
or ;
as to the same correspondent on October 23,

Coleman wrote
agree with me that money is the only means
You
"
1674 :
of bringing the King [Charles] into the Duke s interest,

and of disengaging him from the Parliament, and you
must also agree with me that nothing can more promote
the interest of the Catholic party, which is the principal
object of the Duke s care and affection. ... I am
certain money could not fail ofpersuading him [Charles]
to it, for there is nothing it cannot make him do." 2 If
Louis XIV. would only help the Duke, the Duke promised to
be for ever devoted to the French interests. What the Duke
aimed at he had made known, a few years previously, to
Colbert, the French Ambassador
at the English Court, in a
private interview, in which (so Colbert wrote to Louis XIV.)
1
Collection of Letters Relating to the Horrid Popish Plot, part ii.
p. 5.
2
Ibid., part i. pp. 12, 13.
EXECUTION OF EDWARD COLEMAN 419
he said that affairs are at present here in such a situation

"
as to make him believe that a King and a Parliament

can exist no longer together. That nothing should be any
longer thought of than to make war upon [Protestant]
Holland, as the only means left without having recourse to
Parliament, to which they ought no longer to have recourse
tillthe war and the Catholic faith had corne to an happy
issue, and when they should be in a condition to obtain by
force, what they could not obtain by mildness." Of all

the lettersfound in Coleman s house, none caused greater
excitement and indignation than one addressed by him
to Father le Chase, the French King s Jesuit Confessor.
;
We have wrote Colernan, a mighty work upon our

here,"
"
hands, no less than the conversion of three Kingdoms, and

by that, perhaps, the subduing of a pestilent heresy, which
has domineered over great part of this northern world a
long time. There were never such hopes of success since
the death of Queen Mary, as now in our days when God ;
has given us a Prince who is become (may I say, a miracle)

zealous of being the author and instrument of so glorious
a work. But the opposition we are sure to meet with, is
also like to be great so that it imports us to get all the
;
aid and assistance we can, for the Harvest is great, and

2
the Labourers but few.
"
Coleman was put upon his trial for High Treason, for
having conspired the death of the King, and holding a

treasonable correspondence having for its object the destruc
tion of the Protestant religion by political weapons. Cole
man admitted the correspondence, but denied that he had
ever plotted the murder of the King. The evidence against
him for plotting the King s death was that of Oates and
Bedlow only, which ought never to have been accepted.
He was condemned to death, and suffered the last penalty,
proclaiming his innocence of the chief crime. But that

he was guilty of High Treason for holding the correspond-
1
Dalrymple s Memoirs of Great Britain, vol. ii., Appendix, p. 80.
2
Collection of Letters Relating to the Horrid Popish Plot, part; i. p. 1 18.
ence there can be no doubt whatever, and the punishment
of that crime was then, and still is, that of death. It
cannot be truthfully pleaded that he was a martyr to the
Roman Catholic faith, since although he was accused of
an attempt to destroy the Protestant religion in England,
yet it was to be done by foreign money and by brute force.
Were any one now charged with this offence, he would be

severely punished, not for trying to overthrow Protestantism,
but for trying to do it by unlawful means. Coleman and
his fellow- conspirators were really laying dangerous plans
for making war on Parliament and the liberties of the people,
and for this he deserved to die. Of course the Jesuits
ever since have held him in high esteem ;
and it is remark
able that Leo XIII. has raised him to the ranks of the
as a preliminary to his eventual canonisa
"
Venerable,"
tion This modern glorification of a traitor by the Papacy,
!
shows that it still retains its old position, honouring most

those whose lack of loyalty to a Protestant Government is
most conspicuous.
CHAPTER XXV
JAMES II.
His Reign an Object-lesson for Protestants He promises to Preserve the

Church of England Alterations in his Coronation Service Secretly
Crowned by a Popish Priest Corrupt Means used at the first General
Election Popish Prisoners discharged from Prison "The Bloody
Assizes James and the Exiled Huguenots His Duplicity He
"
suppresses a Protestant Pamphlet He forms a Secret Council of

Papists The Clergy preach against Popery Dr. Sharp persecuted
for preaching against Romanism Bishop Compton and Sharp sus
pended illegally James renews Diplomatic Relations with Rome
Protestant Faithfulness of the Duke of Somerset James says that he
is above the Law
"
He publicly kneels before the Papal Nuncio He

"
seeks to Corrupt the Courts of Law A Judge is a Disguised Romanist

Protestants dismissed from Office to make Room for Papists James
fills the Army and Navy with Papist Officers and Men Samuel
Johnson s Spirited Protestant Address to Soldiers and Sailors He is
Imprisoned and Publicly Whipped Extraordinary Letter from a Jesuit
about the King The King s Illegal Attitude towards the Universities
The Master of University College, Oxford, for a long while a Concealed
Papist A
Concealed Papist appointed Dean of Christ Church, Oxford
James two Declarations of Indulgence His claims to be a
issues
Friend of Religious Liberty criticised by Macaulay Robert Parsons,
S.J. s, Memorial for the Reformation of England The Principles of
this Book and James Policy identical Contains the Jesuit s Plan for
ruling England under a Popish Sovereign Its Religious Intolerance
and Persecuting Spirit exposed The Policy of the Book approved by
the modern English Jesuits Another remarkable Jesuit Book which
influenced James Policy The Jesuit, Petrie, appointed Privy Councillor
The King s Declaration of Indulgence Ordered to be read in all
Churches Bishops and Clergy refuse to read it They plead that the
Declaration is Illegal The Seven Bishops sent to the Tower They
are supported by the Nonconformist Ministers The Bishops are
Tried and Acquitted Great Rejoicings Landing of William, Prince
of Orange Flight of James II. What might have happened had
James continued King much longer.
THE Reign of James II. is an object-lesson, teaching us
(to quote the Bill of Rights) that "It hath been found
:
by experience that it is inconsistent with the safety and

welfare of this Protestant Kingdom to be governed by a
Popish Prince, or by any King Queen marrying a Papist."
or
When James succeeded to the Throne, on February 6,
1685, he was an avowed Roman Catholic. His wife also
was of the same religion. Yet, with the inconsistency which
characterised his Reign, on the day of his accession he
I shall make it my endeavour
"
said to his Privy Council :
to preserve this Government, both in Church and State, as

it is now by law the principles of the
established. I know
Church of England are for Monarchy, and the members
of it have shown themselves good and loyal subjects ;
therefore I shall always take care to defend and support

1
He repeated this promise in his speech at the opening
it."
of Parliament, on
adding these words
May 22, Having :
"
given you this assurance concerning the care I will have of

your religion and property, which I have chose to do in
the same words which I used at my first coming to the
Crown the better to evidence to you, that I spoke then
;
not by chance, and consequently that you may firmly rely

upon a promise so solemnly made."
2
And Parliament
relied on the word and solemn promise of the King, and,
on May 27, passed a resolution That this House doth :
acquiesce, entirely rely, and rest wholly satisfied in his

Majesty s gracious word, and repeated Declaration, to
support and defend the religion of the Church of England."
They had soon reason to regret their misplaced confidence.
James not only failed to keep his solemn promises, but
from the first he never intended to keep them. The
great ambition of his Reign was to destroy the Church of
England, and to erect the Church of Rome on its ruins.
In order that he might gain his real object, duplicity was
necessary. On April 23, the King and Queen were crowned
by the Archbishop of Canterbury, according to the Pro
testant rite. Rapin mentions, however, that some authors
assert that several material things were struck out of the
1
2
Ibid., p. 1353.
JAMES CROWNED BY A POPISH PRIEST 423
Coronation Oath, though he does not mention what they

were but Macaulay positively asserts that changes were
;
made in the service, the real object in making them being

to remove some things highly offensive to the religious
"
feelings of a zealous Roman Catholic. The Communion

Service was not read. The ceremony of presenting the
Sovereign with a richly bound copy of the English Bible,
and of exhorting him to prize above all earthly treasures
a volume which he had been taught to regard as adulterated
with false doctrine, was omitted. What remained, how
ever, after all this curtailment, might well have raised
scruples in the mind of a man who sincerely believed the
Church of England to be a heretical society, within the pale
of which salvation was not to be found. The King made
an oblation on the altar. He appeared to join in the
petitions of the Litany, which was chanted by the Bishops.
He received from those false prophets the unction typical
of a Divine influence, and knelt with the semblance of
devotion, while they called down upon him that Holy
Spirit of which they were, in his estimation, the malignant
and obdurate foes." l A modern Roman Catholic writer
tells us that James and his Queen were first anointed
:
"
and crowned privately by Fr. Manhet (Mansuetus, his

Confessor) with the same holy oil of Rheims that the Kings
of France used, Louis XIV. having sent some over at the
King s request." 2
That the King should use his influence in favour of the
Roman Catholic religion was but natural, and if he had
confined his efforts to persuasion no one could reasonably
object. Where he went wrong was in using unlawful, and
frequently dishonourable, means to accomplish his purpose.
1 have not, of course, to record the passing of any new
penal laws during his reign in England but I have to ;
describe his efforts to secure their abolition by discreditable

1
Macaulay s History of England, vol. i. pp. 369, 370, edition 189G.
2
History of the Jesuits in England, by the Rev. E. L. Taunton, p. 444,
note.
and lawless methods. At first he hoped to get the penal
laws against Romanists repealed through the instrumen
tality of Parliament. He took great pains to secure, at
the elections for his first Parliament, the election of as
many as possible of those likely to agree with his plans.
Burnet says that all arts were used for this purpose, and
that complaints came from all parts of England of the

injustice and violence used at the elections, beyond what
had ever been practised in former times. The Boroughs
saw their privileges wrested out of their hands, and their
elections were hereafter to be made as the Court should
direct. The result of these dishonourable tactics was
that the King was able to boast that in the new Parliament
there were not above forty members but such as he wished
to see there. But the people declared that such a Parlia
ment was not the choice of the nation, or its representa
1
tive, and that, therefore, it was no Parliament at all.
The King soon found that even such a Parliament would
not grant all he wanted. He wished them to agree to his
illegal action in appointing Popish officers in the Army,
who had not taken the Tests required by law but they, ;
an address to his Majesty, plainly told him that Those

"
in
officers cannot by law be capable of their employments ;
and that the incapacities they bring upon themselves

thereby, can no way be taken off but by an Act of Parlia
ment."
2
The King, in anger, dissolved Parliament, and
never called another. All of its members who had defended
the Tests were turned out of the offices they held.
On April 18, 1685, orders were issued, signed by the
Earl of Sunderland, Secretary of State, for the discharge
of all persons who were in prison for refusing the Oaths of
Allegiance and Supremacy, and it was commanded that

no future proceedings should be taken against such persons,
until the Royal pleasure had been signified. Lingard
states that, under this order, "The Dissenters enjoyed a
1
Burnet s History of His Own Time, vol. iii. pp. 15-17.
2
THE BLOODY ASSIZES" 425
respitefrom the persecution which they suffered under

the Conventicle Act and Catholics to the amount of
;
some thousands, Quakers to the amount of twelve hundred,

were liberated from confinement." l The Dissenters, apart
from the Quakers, however, do not seem to have bene
fited by this order. Macaulay says have not been : "I
able to find any proof that any person, not a Roman

Catholic or a Quaker, regained his freedom under these
2
orders."
The Rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth gave James

an excuse for persecuting the Dissenters. He chose the
infamous Judge Jeffreys as his instrument, and sent him
down to the West of England to try the persons accused of
participating in the Rebellion. Amodern writer remarks :
"It is difficult was excited by

to say whether greater horror
the vindictive denunciations of the Judge, or
by the severity
of the sentences which he imposed. Both have combined to
give to the circuit the name of The Bloody Assizes, by
which it will always be known. More than 300 persons were
put to death, and more than 800 were sold to slavery in
the West Indian plantations. That James regarded this
severity with approval at the time is proved by the tone
of his letters to William of Orange, in which he complacently
speaks of Jeffreys as making his campaign in the West,

and by the grant of the Great Seal, recently vacated by the
death of Lord Keeper Guilford, as a reward to the vindic
tive judge." 3 Burnet says that 600 were hanged by
Jeffreys.
At first seems inconsistent with the King s views
sight it
that for a time he showed some favour to the exiled Hugue

nots, who flocked to England on the Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes. He had, however, no real sympathy with the
Protestant refugees, who had fled from the most fearful
persecution that ever stained the pages of French history.
1
Lingard s History of England, vol. xiii. p. 9.
2
Macaulay s History of England, vol. i. p. 396, note.
3
The Political History of England, by Richard Lodge, M.A., LL.D., vol. viii.
p. 251.
As news came to England, week by week, of the sufferings of
the Huguenots who had not been able to escape, James had
special interviews with Barrillon, the French Ambassador,
and listened with avidity to the reports of the persecu
tions which he gave him. 1 Ranke says that We know :
"
that James II. approved at bottom of the proceedings of

Louis XIV." in revoking the Edict of Nantes support ;
"in
of which Barrillon placed in his hands the most effective of

the pamphlets written in its defence that of Durand."
But the tide of sympathy for the exiled Huguenots was
so strong in England that, as a matter of policy, the King,
on March 5, 1686, signed a proclamation ordering a collec
tion on their behalf to be made in all the Churches in
England and Wales. Lord Acton says that James "urged
Louis, secretly, to pursue the work of the Revocation, and
was reluctant to allow collections to be made for the
3
Huguenot In order to protect his brother
fugitives."
persecutor, the King of France, and the Church of Rome,

from the odium which had come upon them, James com
manded the Archbishop of Canterbury to inform the clergy
that when they read to their congregations the proclama
tion ordering the collection, they must not presume to
preach on the sufferings of the French Protestants. Ho
supplemented this order by commanding that none of the
refugees should receive a crust of bread, or a basket of
coals, who did not first take the Sacrament according to
the Anglican ritual. 4 He would not allow the Test Act
to be put in force against the Popish officers he had placed
in the Army but he had no hesitation in imposing a Test
;
on the unfortunate Protestant refugees, who were all

Calvinists, members of a Church which did not recognise
Episcopal Orders and this, in order that as few of them MS
;
possible might benefit by the collection. He sent word to
Huguenots and Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, vol.

1
Baird s the ii.
pp. 93, 94.

2
3
4
Macaulay s History of England, vol. i.
p. 583.
JAMES AND THE EXILED HUGUENOTS 427
his Privy Council that if the refugees wished to be relieved

out of the vast sums which had been collected for them,
they must become members of the Church of England.
At about this time there was published in London a trans
lation from the French of a pamphlet written by Jean
Claude, an eminent French Protestant Minister, entitled,
An Account of the Persecutions and Oppressions of the Pro
testants in France, caused by the Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes. Its publication made James very angry, for
he did not want the truth to be known in his dominions ;
so he ordered its suppression, and commanded that it should

be burnt by the common hangman. This was accordingly
done, and every effort was made to suppress the pamphlet,
which consequently became very scarce. It was repub-
lished in 1908, by Professor Edward Arber, in a volume
entitled, The Torments of Protestant Slaves.
Father Flanagan states that, in 1686, the King formed
a
"
Private Council," composed of four Roman Catholic

Peers, the Lords Bellasis, Powis, Arundel, and Dover,
and the Jesuit, Father E. Petrie,
to this private
"
and
Council entrusted the accomplishment of his plan of tolera
l
tion." This was not the Privy Council, which Petrie
did not join until late in the following year. By the com
mencement of 1686 the nation had become seriously alarmed
at the progress of Popery since the King s accession, and not
without reason. The outlook of Protestantism, at the time
was very dark. Political weapons, for the time being,
seemed to them useless, and therefore the clergy adopted
a policy characterised by considerable wisdom. They
determined to preach sermons and write books against
Popery. A large number of these sermons and books were
published. An interesting catalogue of all these Pro
testant publications, together with a list of Roman Catholic
replies, may be seen in the Chetham Popery Tracts, in two
volumes, issued by the Chetham Society. Bumet says
that these Protestant works had a mighty effect on the
"
1
Flanagan s History of the Church in England, vol. ii.
p. 353.
whole nation and Mackintosh asserts that the contro
" "
versial sermons against the opinions of the Church of
Rome, which then abounded, proved in effect the most

formidable obstacle to the progress of her ambition." We
have in this fact a lesson for the clergy of the twentieth
century. One of the first to preach controversial sermons
against Popery was the Rev. Dr. John Sharp, Rector of
St. Giles , London, and subsequently (1691 to 1714) Arch
bishop ofYork. Sharp s sermon gave offence to the King,
not because of anything political in it, but because it gave
reasons wiry Protestants should not join the Church of
Rome. Thereupon his Majesty sent orders to Dr. Compton,
Bishop of London, to suspend Sharp, and inquire as to the
justice of the charges which might be brought against him
afterwards. But that was not in accordance with the
Bishop s idea of justice. So he respectfully told the King
that no man could be lawfully condemned until he had
been heard in self-defence. If, however, an accusation
were brought against Sharp in his Court in the ordinar} r
way, he would promise that justice should be done in

accordance with ecclesiastical law. Meanwhile he re
quested Sharp to abstain from officiating until the case
had been settled. But this did not satisfy the King, who
simply wanted to gag all Protestant preaching against
Popery, as would assuredly have been the case if he had
succeeded in the present instance. So both the Bishop
and Sharp were summoned before the High Commission,
over which the infamous Lord Jeffreys presided, where,
although several of the Commissioners were inclined to let
him off, the Lord Chancellor succeeded in obtaining a
sentence of suspension, during the King s pleasure, against
both of the defendants. 1 Burnet states that this Court
High Commission w as and that "
contrary to law
"
r
of ;
there was not so much as a colour of law to support the

"
2
sentence."
1
Campbell s Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. iii. p. 564.
2
JAMES KNEELS BEFORE A PAPAL NUNCIO 429
It seemed as though James was determined to do every
thing likely to annoy and anger his Protestant subjects.

Englishmen, even in pre-Reformation times, ever watched
diplomatic relations with Rome with a jealous and a,nxious
eye nor had that feeling died out when James II. came to
;
the Throne. Early in 1686 it was once more aroused by

the appointment of the Earl of Castlemaine as Ambassador
to the Pope, and greatly increased the following year by
the public reception given to a Papal Nuncio in England.
Castlemaine s instructions bound him, on his arrival in
Rome, to seek the advice of the General of the Jesuits,
and this fact told against the success of his Mission to the
Pope, Innocent XL, who was an enemy of the Jesuit Order.
And Castlemaine s arrogant conduct while in Rome tended
to defeat one object of his Mission, which was to secure a
Cardinal s hat for the Jesuit Petrie, who was high in favour
with the King. In short, his Mission was a complete failure.
On October 26, 1689, he was impeached by the House of
Commons for having gone as Ambassador to Rome, and
with having taken his seat as a Privy Councillor without
which are great crimes, and against
"
taking the Tests,

law." The Earl appeared at the bar of the House, and
delivered a lengthy speech in his defence [which is reported
in the fourth volume of the State Trials, second edition],
after which the House made an order committing him to
the Tower for High Treason, and
"
for endeavouring to
reconcile this Kingdom to the See of Rome." There he
remained until the 10th of February following, when he
was released on bail for 30,000.
The Papal Nuncio to England was Ferdinand, Count of
Adda. He had been in England privately since November
1685, as Papal plenipotentiary, but without any expecta
tion of being recognised as Nuncio. Ranke says that :
Among the anti-Catholic laws which James II. wished

"
was one forbidding Diplomatic Relations with

to repeal,
Rome. That seemed to become quite absurd when the
King belonged to the Catholic Church. James thought
he might at once show disregard for And Burnet it."
all commerce with the See of Rome was

" "
asserts that
declared High Treason by law." 2 Early in 1687, the
"
King decided to receive Adda as Papal Nuncio, with the

public ceremonial usual at the French Court on similar
occasions. According to that practice, the Chamberlain
of highest rank who bore the title of Duke, was to intro
duce the Nuncio to the King. At that time this position
in England was held by Charles, Duke of Somerset, of the
old Protestant house of the Seymours. James sent for
him, and what then took place is thus described by
Macaulay :
my Lord, said James, that I was doing

"
I thought,
a
you great honour in appointing you to escort the Minister
of the first of all crowned heads. Sir, said the Duke, I
am advised that I cannot obey your Majesty without
I will make you fear me as well as
*
breaking the law.

the law, answered the King insolently. Do you not knoiv
that I am above the law ? Your Majesty may be above
the law, replied Somerset, but I am not and, while I ;
obey the law, I fear nothing. The King turned away in

high displeasure ;
and Somerset was instantly dismissed
3
from his posts in the Household and in the Army."
Before the public reception of Adda could take place,

it was thought necessary that he should be raised to the
rank of an Archbishop. James insisted that the ceremony
of consecration should take place in the Chapel of St.
James Palace. After it was over, In the evening, Adda,
"
wearing the robes of his new office, joined the circle in the
Queen s apartments. James fell on his knees in the presence
of the whole Court, and implored a blessing. In spite of
the restraint imposed by etiquette, the astonishment and
disgust of the bystanders could not be concealed. It was
long indeed since an English Sovereign had knelt to mortal

1
2
Burnet s History of His Own Time, vol. iii. p. 177.
3
Maoauiay s History of England, vol. ii.
p. 88.
PROTESTANTS REMOVED FROM OFFICE 431
man ;
and those who saw the strange sight could not but
think of that day of shame when John did homage for his
Crown between the hands of Pandulph."
1
The young Duke Somerset s answer to James was a of

noble one, of which Ducal family may even yet be proud.
his
But in the King s question, Do you not know that I am "
above law ? we find the unfortunate principle which

"
guided him throughout his Reign, and at length led to his

downfall. To dismiss those, like the Duke, who refused
to to his autocratic will, was a common practice with
bow
James. He wished to obtain from the Courts of Law a
decision in favour of the Dispensing Power. But how was
he to obtain it ? Macaulay says that "It would have :
been difficult to find in all the Inns of Court a barrister of

reputation to argue in defence of a prerogative which the
Sovereign, seated on his Throne in full Parliament, had
solemnly renounced a few years before."
2
But what
could not be obtained by fair means might be gained by
foul. How this was done is revealed by Burnet, who
Sir Edward Hales, a gentleman of a noble
"
tells us that :
family, declared himself a Papist, though he had long dis

guised it ; and had once to myself so solemnly denied it, that I
was led from thence to see there was no credit to be given
to that sort of men, where their Church or religion was
concerned. He had an employment and, not taking the ;
Test, his coachman was set up to inform against him, and

to claim the 500 that the law gave to the informer. When
this was to be brought to trial, the Judges were secretly
asked their opinions and such as were not clear to judge as
:
the Court did direct were turned out, and, upon two or three
canvassings, the half of them were dismissed, and others

of more pliable and obedient understandings were put in
3
their places."
In this way the fountains of justice were
polluted by the King. Lord Campbell terms it "a
1
Macaulay s History of England, vol. ii. p. 87.
2
Ibid., vol. i.
p. 584.
3
Burnet s History of His Own Time, vol. iii.
p. 01.
fictitious action," supported by "a sham argument by
l
Counsel."
Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, who held the office

of Lord High Treasurer, had gone with the King in several
of his political schemes but he refused to do anything to
;
the injury of the Protestant religion, or to assist in aiding

the Roman Catholic faith. After James had made use of
him for some years, he plainly told him that he must either
become a Roman Catholic or lose his high office. He re
fused to secede to Rome, and was consequently dismissed.
The Treasury was thereupon put in commission, and several
Popish Lords were put into it. This was followed up by
secret interviews between the King and those members of
Parliament who held military or household offices, and with
other men of influence, with a view to inducing them to
agree to his plans for the removal of the Tests and Penal
Laws against the Romanists. One of these was John Moore,
then Lord Mayor of London. He plainly told the King that
he had been informed that his Majesty wished to introduce 1
Popery, and he refused to lend a hand to such work. Moore

was thereupon removed from his place, and so was Peter
Rich, Chamberlain of London, for the same reason. Similar
action w as taken in all branches of the public service. The
r
Treasurer and the Controller of the Royal Household were

also dismissed. So also was Arthur Herbert, Rear-Admiral
of England and Master of the Robes. So was Henry
Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. The
Earl was not sufficiently compliant, and therefore was dis
missed, and the Popish Earl of Tyrconnel, known in history
lying Dick Talbot," was sent over to take his place.
"
as
extended even to the military
"
"
This rigour," says Ranke,

service. Both Lord Shrewsbury, who, under these circum
stances, had taken a step contrary to that expected, and had
passed over to Protestantism, and Lord Lumley, lost their
places as Colonels in the Cavalry ;
even subaltern officers who
should declare against the King s purposes were threatened
1
Campbell s Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. iii. p. 562.
SAMUEL JOHNSON S PAMPHLETS 433
with dismissal from the service." 1 In most cases the places

wrested from Protestants were given to Romanists, or to
accommodating Protestants. The fall of the Hydes," says
:
Macaulay, had excited throughout England extreme alarm

"
and indignation. Men felt that the question now was, not
whether Protestantism should be dominant, but whether it
should be tolerated. The Treasurer had been succeeded by a
Board, over which a Papist was the head. The Privy Seal
had been entrusted to a Papist. The Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland had been succeeded by a man who had absolutely
no claim to high place, except that he was a Papist. . . .
This, then, was the real meaning of his Majesty s respect for
the rights of conscience. He wished his Parliament to re
move all the disabilities which had been imposed on Papists,
merely in order that he might himself impose disabilities

equally galling on Protestants. It was plain that, under such
a Prince, apostasy was the only road to greatness. It was
a road, however, which very few ventured to take. For the
spirit of the nation was thoroughly roused and every ;
renegade had to endure such an amount of public scorn

and detestation as cannot be altogether unfelt even by the
most callous natures." 2
It was no doubt indignation like this which moved the
Rev. Samuel Johnson, when he heard that the King had
placed a large army on Hounslow Heath, and filled it, so
far as in him lay, with Popish officers, to write two pamphlets,
which were widely circulated amongst the soldiers and
sailors. We can hardly wonder at the fierce anger they
aroused in the mind of the King. But Johnson evidently
understood what the King was aiming at, when, addressing
the soldiers, in his Humble and Hearty Address to all the
English Protestants in the Present Army, he asked them :
name
"
Is it iii the of God, and for His service, that you have
joined yourselves with Papists who will indeed fight for
;
the Mass Book, but burn the Bible ;

and who seek to extirpate
1
Kanke s History of England, vol. iv. p. 311.
2
Macaulay s History of England, vol. ii. p. 27.
2E
the Protestant religion with your swords, because they cannot
do it with their own ? And will you be aiding and assisting to
set up Mass Houses, to erect that Popish Kingdom of darkness
and desolation amongst us, and to train up all our children in
Popery ? How can you do these things, and yet call yourselves
Protestants ?
And
"
then, what service can be done your country, by being

under the command of French and and by bringing
Irish Papists,
the nation under a foreign yoke ? Will you help them to make
forcible entry into the houses of your countrymen, under the
name of Quartering/ directly contrary to Magna Charta and
the Petition of Eight ? Will you be aiding and assisting to all
the murders and outrages which they shall commit by their
void commissions ? which were declared illegal, and sufficiently
blasted by both Houses of Parliament (if there had been any
need of it), for it was very well known before that a Papist cannot
have a commission, but by the law is utterly disabled and dis
armed. Will you exchange your birthright of English laws and
liberties for martial, or club law and help to destroy all others,
;
only to be eaten last yourselves ? If I know you well, as you

are Englishmen, you hate and scorn these things. And, there
fore, be not unequally yoked with idolatrous and bloody Papists :
Be valiant for the truth, and show yourselves men/

"
The same considerations are likewise humbly offered to

all the English seamen, who have been the bulwark of this nation
l
against Popery and slavery, ever since Eighty-Eight/
For issuing these pamphlets Johnson was tried, for

high misdemeanours, in the King s Bench, Westminster,
and, being found guilty, he was sentenced to pay 500 Marks
to the King, and to lie in prison until it was paid. He
was further sentenced to stand three times in the pillory
once in the Palace Yard, Westminster, once at Charing
Cross, and once at the Royal Exchange and to be whipped
by the common hangman from Newgate to Tyburn. This
cruel sentence was carried out, the hangman giving him
no fewer than 317 lashes, with a whip of nine cords knotted.
The first Parliament after the Revolution passed a resolution
to the effect that the judgment passed on Mr. Johnson was
2
cruel and illegal.
We gain a glimpse of what was going on underneath
1 2
State Trials, vol. vii. p. 645. Ibid. , p. 647.
A JESUIT S EXTRAORDINARY LETTER 435
the surface at this time, in a letter written by a Jesuit at

Liege, and addressed to a Jesuit at Friburg. The Month,
the official organ of the English Jesuits, terms it a docu
ment and value," and states that it
"
of great interest
was in Echard s History of England." l The
"
published
following is a portion of this document, as found in that
work. It is dated February 2, 1687 :
"
I do not doubt but you have heard that the King, writing
to Father de la Chase, the French King s Confessor, concerning
the affairs of the House among the Walloons, declared that what
soever was done to the English Fathers of that House, he would
look upon as done to himself. Father Clare, Rector of the same
House, being arrived at London to treat of that matter, got an
easy access to the King, and as easily gained his point. The
King himself forbid him to kneel and kiss his hand, according
to custom, saying, Reverend Father, you have indeed once
kissed my hand but if I had known then, as I do now, that
;
you were a priest, I would rather myself, Father, have kneeled

down and kissed your hand/ After he had finished his business,
in a familiar conversation his Majesty told this Father, That
he would either convert England, or die a Martyr and he had ;
rather die the next day and convert it, than reign twenty years
piously and happily, and not effect it/ Finally, he called him
selfa Son of the Society, of whose good success/ he said, he
was own/ And it can scarcely be expressed
as glad as of his
how much gratitude he showed, when it was told him, That he *
was made partaker, by the most Reverend, our Provincial,

3
of all the merits of the Society. . . .
He (the King) has Catholic Lord-Lieutenants

"
in most
Counties, and we shall shortly have Catholic Justices of the
Peace in almost all places. We hope also that our affairs will
have good success at Oxford. In the public Chapel of the Vice-
who is a Catholic,
Chancellor, there is always one of our Divines,
who has converted some of the students to the Faith. The
Bishop of Oxford himself seems to be a great favourer of the
Catholic Faith. He proposed to the Council, Whether it did
not seem expedient that at least one College should be granted
to the Catholics at Oxford, that they might not be forced to
study beyond sea at such great expenses but it is not known ;
what answer he had. The same Bishop, having invited two of

our Brethren, together with some of the nobility, drank the
1
The Month, September 1879, p. G7.
King s health to a certain heretic Lord who was in
company,
Wishing his Majesty success in all his undertakings adding ;
also, That the religion of Protestants in England did not seem

to him in a better condition than Buda was before it was taken ;
and that they were next to Atheists that defended that Faith/ 1
"
The King caused great indignation by his attitude

towards Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He was
anxious to promote the cause of Popery in those seats of
learning, and adopted dishonourable and lawless means
to gain his object. He began with Cambridge University,
sending to it an order to admit Alban Placid Francis, a
Benedictine Monk, to the degree of Master of Arts. The
Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University replied that it
was required by several Acts of Parliament that, before
receiving that degree, the candidate must take the Oath
of Supremacy, and another oath of a similar character
called the Oath of Obedience. Francis had been invited
to take those oaths, and had refused, and consequently
the University could not legally admit him. The result
of this refusal was that the Vice-Chancellor was illegally
deprived of his office. James next tried his hand on Oxford

University. Early in 1687, the President of Magdalene
College died. Thereupon the King sent a Royal mandate
to the Fellows, ordering them to elect Anthony Farmer,
a pervert to Popery and of a dissolute character, as their
President. The Fellows replied that they could not do
so without violating their oaths, one of which was that
they should nominate no one as President but a Fellow of

their own College, or a Fellow of New College, Oxford.
Mr. Farmer had never been a Fellow of either of those
Colleges, and therefore
"
they could not comply with his

Majesty s letter, without the violation of their oaths, and
hazard of their legal interest and property." Lastly, they
informed the King that they had elected as President the
Rev. John Hough, B.D., one of their Fellows,
"
a person
every way qualified to be President, who has been since
1
Echard s History of England, vol. ii. pp. 1082, 1083.
THE KING AND THE UNIVERSITIES 437
confirmed by the Bishop of Winton, their Visitor, as the

statutes of the said College direct." x The King, finding
he could not bully the Fellows into an illegal act, sent
down a mandate, ordering them to elect the accommodating
Dr. Parker, Bishop of Oxford, as President, and dispensing
with all statutes to the contrary. This was the Bishop
named in the Jesuit s letter cited above (page 435). They
replied that they had elected Mr. Hough, and it does not "
lie in our admit any other." 2 The result of this

power to
action thus described by Burnet
is The new President
:
"
was turned out. And, because he would not deliver the

keys of his house, the doors were broken open and Parker ;
was put in possession. The Fellows were required to make

their submission, to ask pardon for what was past, and to
accept of the Bishop for their President. They still pleaded
their oath and were all turned out, except two that sub
;
mitted. So that it was expected to see that House soon

stocked with Papists. The nation, as well as the Uni
versity, looked on all this proceeding with a just indignation.
It was thought an open piece of robbery and burglary,
when men, authorised by no legal commission, came and
forcibly turned men out of their possession and freehold.
This agreed ill with the professions that the King was still
making, that he would maintain the Church of England
as by law established for this struck at the whole estate,
;
3
and all the temporalities of the Church." This was
followed by the illegal admission of two Roman Catholics
as Fellows of Magdalene College. When Parker died, in
February 1688, the King made Bonaventura Giffard,
Popish Vicar Apostolic, President of the College. Under
his Presidency, Magdalene College was transformed into
a Roman Catholic Seminary. 4
Obadiah Walker, in the year 1676, was appointed Master
of University College, Oxford. In 1678, he had been
1 2
Wellwood s Memoirs, pp. 388-392. Ibid., p. 394.
3
*
The Political History of England, vol. viii. p. 271.
publicly accused in Parliament and I cannot find that
the charge was denied of having given assistance towards
a scheme for training up youths in Roman Catholic prin
ciples and with having shown Papistical leanings in
;
the notes he wrote to a Life of King Alfred ; and that he

had caused to be printed in Oxford certain books favour
Mackintosh thus refers to him Obadiah
"
ing Popery. :
Walker, Master of University College in Oxford, a man

of no small note for ability and learning, and long a
concealed Catholic, now obtained for himself, and two
of his a dispensation from all those acts of
Fellows,
participation in the Protestant worship which the laws
since the Reformation required from them, together with a
licence for the publication of books of Catholic theology.
He established a printing-press and a Catholic Chapel
in his College, which was henceforth regarded as having
fallen into the hands of the Catholics." 1 Dcdd says
that On the 5th of January 1685 (6), King James II.
:
"
having been scarce a year on the Throne, Mr. Walker re

paired on a sudden to London, purposely, as it was sup
posed at Oxon, to be persuaded by the Cabal at Somerset

House (who had sent for him) to declare openly what had
been in his mind, many years before : and, returning to his
College, about the latter end of the said month, he kept
up close in his lodgings, and did not frequent the College
Chapel, as formerly he did. About the beginning of March
following, when he understood that the report was current
that he was a Roman Catholic, and that it was put in the
French Gazette, he declared to many of his friends and
acquaintances that resorted to him, that he really was so."
On the same authority we are informed that, after the

Revolution, in 1689, Walker was brought to the bar of the
House of Commons, when he gave some very shuffling
answers to the charges brought against him.
The King further increased the indignation felt in the
1
Mackintosh s History of the Revolution, vol. i. p. 288, Paris edition, 1834.
2
THE DECLARATION OF INDULGENCE 439
University of Oxford, and throughout the country, by

illegally appointing, December 1686, John Massey, a in
Popish priest, as Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. James

gave him a dispensation from the usual oaths, and from
"
attendance at Protestant worship. Thereupon" says

Gillow, he renounced Protestantism, and publicly de
"
clared himself a Catholic, though he occasionally took his

seat in the meetings of the Chapter, and also qualified as
a Justice of the Peace for the County of Oxford. After
wards he opened a Chapel within the precincts of Christ
Church for the use of Catholics." l Mackintosh says that
"
Massey actually presided at the election of a Bishop of

Oxford near two years afterwards." 2 The double-dealing of
Massey is further revealed by Dodd, who writes that "In :
the beginning of King James II. s Reign, he (Massey)

discovered himself to be a Catholic having several years ;
entertained some thoughts that way, by the instructions he

received under his old master, Obadiah Walker." 3 James
also granted a sum of 1000 per annum to each of four
Vicars Apostolic, who had been appointed by the Pope to
Episcopal powers in England, and this money, says Father
4
Berington, was payable from the Exchequer."
"
On James issued his first Declaration of

April 4, 1687,
Indulgence. In this document his Majesty declared that
he thought the best way to make his subjects happy was
by granting to them the free exercise of their religion
"
for the time to come and that it was his opinion that
"
"
conscience ought not to be constrained, nor people forced

in matters of mere religion," and, therefore, he proceeded,
"
by virtue of our Royal prerogative,"

We do declare that we will protect and maintain our
"
Archbishops, Bishops, and Clergy, and all other our subjects

of the Church of England, in the free exercise of their religion,
1
Gillow s Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, vol. iv. p. 523.
-
Mackintosh s History of the Revolution, vol. i. p. 289.
a
4
Berington s Memoirs of Panzani, p. 36(J.
as by law established, and in the quiet and full enjoyment of all
their possessions, without any molestation or disturbance whatso
ever. We
do likewise declare that it is our Royal will and pleasure,
that from henceforth the execution of all and all manner of Penal
Laws in matters ecclesiastical, for not coming to Church, or not
receiving the Sacrament, or for any other Nonconformity to the
religion established, or for or by reason of the exercise of religion
in any manner whatsoever, be immediately suspended, and the
further execution of the said Penal Laws, and every of them, is
hereby suspended. . . .
We do hereby further declare that it is our Royal will and

"
pleasure, that the Oaths commonly called the Oaths of Supre

macy and Allegiance, arid also the several Tests and Declarations
mentioned in the Acts of Parliament made in the 25th and 30th
year of the reign of our late Royal brother, Charles II., shall
not at any time hereafter be required to be taken, declared, cr
subscribed by any person or persons whatsoever, who is, or
shall be, employed in any office or place of trust, either Civil or
Military, under us, or in our Government." l
On April 27, 1688, James issued his second Declaration

of Indulgence, in which he reprinted the first, word for word,
and then confirmed it. At first sight all this seems very
nice and commendable but it does not always do to decide
;
from a first appearance. James did not deserve the

character for toleration which he claimed for himself. It
is a modern Roman Catholic who affirmed that
"
His :
(James desire)
for arbitrary power was notorious, and the
country did not believe that his zeal for the liberty of con
science was sincere. They believed, and they believed rightly,
that he demanded more than that which would satisfy the just
and obvious necessities of his Church, in order to strengthen
his prerogative, and that he was tolerant in order that he
2
might be absolute." The King s claim to be a sincere
friend of religious liberty is eloquently and crushingly
exposed by Macaulay.
"
The Catholics/ he writes, lay under severe restraints

in England. James wished to remove those restraints and ;
therefore he held a language favourable to liberty of conscience.

1
State Trials, vol. iv. pp. 314-315.
2
A REMORSELESS PERSECUTOR 441
But the whole history life proves that this was a mere
of his
pretence. . . . We know
most certainly that, in 1679, and long
after that year, James was a most bloody and remorseless
persecutor. After 1679, he was placed at the head of the Govern

ment of Scotland. And what had been his conduct in that
country ? He had hunted down the scattered remnant of the
Covenanters with a barbarity of which no other Prince of
modern times, Philip II. excepted, had ever shown himself
capable. He had indulged himself in the amusement of seeing
the torture of the Boot inflicted on the wretched enthusiasts
whom persecution had driven to resistance. After his accession,
almost his first act was to obtain from the servile Parliament
of Scotland a law for inflicting death on preachers at Conventicles
held within houses, and on both preachers and hearers at Con
venticles held in the open air. . . .
advice again was James guided ? Who were the

"
By what
persons in whom he placed the greatest confidence, and who
took the warmest interest in his schemes ? The Ambassador
of France, the Nuncio of Rome, and Father Petrie, the Jesuit.
And is not this enough to prove that the establishment of equal
toleration was not his plan ? Was Louis for toleration ? Was
the Vatican for toleration ? Was the Order of Jesuits for tolera
tion? We know that the liberal professions of James were highly
approved by those very Governments, by those very societies,
whose theory and practice it notoriously was to keep no faith
with heretics, and to give no quarter to heretics. And are we,
in order to save James reputation for sincerity, to believe that
all at once those Governments and those societies had
changed
their nature, had discovered the criminality of all their former
conduct, had adopted principles far more liberal than those of
Locke, of Leighton, or of Tillotson ? Which is the more probable
supposition, that the King who had revoked the Edict of Nantes,
the Pope under whose sanction the Inquisition was then imprison
ing and burning, the Religious Order which, in every controversy
in which it had ever been engaged, had called in the aid either
of the magistrate or the assassin, should have become as
thorough-going friends to religious liberty as Dr. Franklin and

Mr. Jefferson, or that a Jesuit-ridden bigot should be induced
to dissemble for the good of the Church ? 1 "
Towards the close of Elizabeth s Reign, Robert Parsons,

the Jesuit, wrote a, book entitled, A Memorial of the
Reformation of England, in which he laid down rules for
1
Macaulay s Works, vol. vi. pp. 114, 116.
a Roman Catholic King. That book remained in MS.
until 1690,when it was printed for the first time, edited by
the Rev. Dr. Gee, with the title of The Jesuit s Memorial.
But before this took place an MS. copy had been given to
King James for his guidance soon after his accession. The
importance book can scarcely be overestimated.
of this
Father Ethelred Taunton, writing in 1901, states that :
Throughout James short Reign a careful student can

"
distinctly see traces of the influence of this book and one ;
can hardly doubt but that, had James succeeded, the whole
*
of the provisions, including the Inquisition under another
name, would have been introduced. This is a conclusion

based upon a careful comparison between James action
and the principles set forth in Parsons Memorial. It was
evidently impossible, under the circumstances existing,
to follow in detail all that Parsons had devised. The Re
formation would be a matter of time and expediency. But
the principles of that book and James policy will be found
to be identical." l A book like this, which so widely affected
English history during the reign of James II., is well worthy
of study from a historical point alone but additionally ;
so when it is remembered that it has been held up to ad-

miration by English Jesuits of the present generation.
They say (through their official organ) that The main "
features of his [Parsons ] proposal are of permanent interest,

not merely as an historical study, but as affording some
valuable suggestions for the guidance of Catholics, even in
circumstances very different from those which the head
strong House of Stuart turned to such ill account."
2
It may be well, therefore, to look at some of these so-

called
"
valuable suggestions." Under the heading of,

"
How all sorts of People, to wit, Catholics, Schismatics,

and heretics, may be dealt withal, at the next change of
Religion,"
Parsons declares that Known Catholics " "
are to be used and employed by the Commonwealth in

"
1
Tauntorrs History of the Jesuits in England, p. 445.
2
The Month, October 1889, p. 191.
A SCHEME TO SUBDUE THE "HERETICS" 443
1
all principal Charges, Rooms, and offices," which would
certainly exclude all Protestants from such high positions in
the State. Obstinate
"
heretics," by whom he evidently

means decided Protestants, are to be treated in a character
istically Jesuit manner.

" "
Perchance/ writes Parsons, it would be good, considering

the present state of the Realm, and how generally and deeply
it is, and has been, plunged in all kinds of heresies, not to press
any man s conscience at the beginning for matters of religion, for

some few years to the end that every man may more boldly
;
and confidently utter his wounds, and so be cured thereof,

which otherwise he would cover, deny, or dissemble to his
greater hurt, and more dangerous corruption of the whole
body but yet it may be provided jointly, that this toleration be
;
only with such as live quietly, and are desirous to be informed of

the truth, and do not teach, and preach, or seek to infect others ;
and by experience it hath been seen that this kind of suffering
and bearing for a time hath done great good, and eased many
difficulties in divers towns rendered up in the Low Countries,
which being mitigated at the beginning with this entrance of
clemency, never greatly cared for heresy afterwards. Yet do
I give notice that my meaning is not any way to persuade
hereby that liberty of religion, to live how a man will, should be

permitted to any person in any Christian Commonwealth, for any
cause or respect whatsoever from which I am so far off in my ;
judgment and affection, as I think no one thing to be so danger

ous, dishonourable, or more offensive to Almighty God in the
world than that any Prince should permit the Ark of Israel and
Dagon, God and the Devil, to stand and be honoured together
within his Realm or country. But that which I talk of, is a
certain connivance or toleration of magistrates only for a certain
time to be limited, and with particular conditions and exceptions,
that no meetings, Assemblies, preaching, or perverting of others
be used, but that such as be quiet and modest people, and have
never heard, perhaps, the grounds of Catholic religion, may use
the freedom of their consciences to ask, learn, and to be in
structed for the space prescribed, without danger of the law, or
of any inquiry to be made upon them to inform themselves of
2
the truth."
So that, according to this Jesuit Plan, from the very

first commencement of the Reign of a Roman Catholic King
2
1
The Jesuit s Memorial, p. 29. Ibid., pp. 32-34.
and the existence of a Roman Catholic Government in
England, the only religious liberty given will be for a

limited class of Protestants to think as they conscientiously
for some few years," and that solely in order
"
believe,
that they may in the Roman Catholic
"
be instructed
"
faith, with a view to their perversion. But even this class

are not to be allowed to meet together in
"
meetings (or)
assemblies." They must not preach, and, above all, they
must not be guilty of perverting Romanists to the Pro " "
testant religion. But even this poor, miserable thing,

toleration," is, from the beginning of Papal
"
falsely called
be granted only to those who are desirous to be
"
rule, to
informed of the [Roman Catholic] truth, and do not teach,
and preach, or seek to infect others with Protestant
"
opinions.
Parsons proceeds to recommend a number of measures
which he thought desirable under the altered circumstances
of England, and then goes on to recommend the formation
Council of Reformation," and to mention its duties.
"
of a
Its members should be persons of great sufficiency and
"
respect, and fit for the purpose as for example, perhaps, ;
the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Winchester,

London, and Rochester." The principal duties of this
Council, consisting, Catholics only,

of course, of Roman
should include the ecclesiastical revenues of the Church
of England, and restoring them to the Church of Rome ;
and, more important than anything else, the persecution

of Protestants, who are known in Parsons book as
"heretics." In fact, the Council was to be the notorious
Inquisition, but under a new name to prevent suspicion.
name
" "
And/ writes Parsons, for that the of Inquisition
may be somewhat odious and offensive at the beginning, perhaps

it would not be amiss to name these men a Council of Reforma
tion, and that their authority might be limited for some certain
number of years, as four, five, or six, as it should be thought
most convenient and sufficient for the setting up and establishing
l
of the English Church/
1
The Jesuit s Memorial, p. 70.
THE INQUISITION TO BE ESTABLISHED 445
But, of course, it would never do to allow the Inquisi

tion to die out in the country when the Council of Reforma
tion had completed its task. So it is advised that Before "
this Council make an end of their office, or resign the same

... it would be very much necessary that they should leave
some good and sound manner of Inquisition established for the
conservation of that which they have planted for that, ;
during the time of their authority, perhaps it would be best

to spare the name of Inquisition at the first beginning, in
so new and green a state of religion as ours must needs be,
after so many years of heresy, atheism, and other dissolu
tions, may chance offend and exasperate more than do
good ;
but afterwards
it will be necessary to bring it in,
eitherby that or some other name, as shall be thought

most convenient for the time for that without this care ;
all will slide down and

Parsons thinks that fall again."
1
the form and manner of Inquisition

" "
to be brought in
had better be a mixture between the Spanish form of
" "
Inquisition and that of the Roman Inquisition that it ;
"
should execute the punishment assigned by the Ecclesi

and that with resolution,"
"
Canons
"
astical for heretics,

"
when the former sweet means by no way will take place."

2
What those punishments are is well known.

"
Ecclesiastical
"
They include imprisonment, torture, and death. The late

Cardinal Hergenrother declared that "It
only follows :
from Leo X. s condemnation of Luther s 33rd Thesis that

not contrary to the spirit of Christianity to punish heretics
it is
with death by Jire" 3 But surely this is contrary to the

Love your enemies." Burning them
"
Saviour s command,
to death is not the same as loving them.
Parsons tells us and he evidently himself approved
of the idea that some are of the opinion that it were "
good that other [Military Orders] in place of this of Malta,

or besides this some other new Order were erected also in
2
1
The Jesuit
s Memorial, pp. 98, 99. Ibid., pp. 99, 100.
3
Hergenrdther s Catholic Church and Christian State, vol. ii. p. 309.
(London Burns and Chites, 187G.)

:
our country of Religious Knights, and that their Rule might
be to fight against heretics, in whatsoever country they should
be employed." l No doubt the services of a Military
body, whose special work would be to
"
fight against
of the Protestant type, would be of immense
"
heretics
service to the Papacy. They could at any time be called
out to do service on the lines adopted in the seventeenth
century in France, by means of the Dragonnades, who were
quartered wholesale on the unoffending Huguenots, perse
cuting them in every possible manner, and afterwards
slaughtering them wholesale. It would be a bad thing for
British Protestants if they were placed at the mercy of an
Order of Religious Knights, as named in Parsons book.
If England once more became a Roman Catholic State,
Liberty of the Press would not exist, were Parsons views

realised. He asserts that :
Public and private Libraries must be searched and ex

"
amined for books, as also all bookbinder s, stationer s, and book

seller s shops and not only heretical books and pamphlets, but
;
also prophane, vain, lascivious, and other such hurtful and
dangerous poisons, are utterly to be removed, burnt, suppressed,

and severe order and punishment appointed for such as shall
conceal these kinds of writings." 2
Of course Parliament must be Reformed as well as

religion. Parsons thinks that no one s election to Parlia
ment should be confirmed until the Roman Catholic Bishop
of the Diocese in which his constituency is situated has
virtue and forwardness in religion
"
judged whether his

that he is suited to be a Member of Parliament.
proves
The Bishop is to have the power not only (as to those
to confirm their election," but also to have
"
a
"
elected),
negative voice." By this plan the Bishops w ould have r
the power to keep out of Parliament every one who dis

pleased them. The Bishop is also to see that elected
Members make
public profession of their faith
shall
"
before their election could be admitted, or they take their

1 2
The Jesuit s Memorial, p. 79. Ibid., p. 94.
FURTHER DETAILS OF PARSONS PLAN 447
way towards Parliament." The

must be that "
faith
"
of the Church of Rome, for no Protestant must be allowed

to defile the House of Commons with his presence there as
a Member. When the new and Reformed Parliament
begins its work :
"
After the first decree, whether it be a lawful Parliament or

no, the second should be, that every man be sworn to defend the
Catholic Roman faith ; and, moreover, that it be made treason for
any man to propose anything for change thereof, or for the intro
1
duction of heres}^/
making of new laws and decrees in our Catholic
"
But now, for

Parliament, these notes following must be remembered, among
others. To abrogate and revoke all laws whatsoever have been
made at any time, or by any Prince or Parliament, directly or
indirectly in prejudice of the Catholic Roman religion, and to
restore and put in full authority again, all old laws that ever
were in use in England, in favour of the same, and against
2
heresies and heretics/
"
His [the Roman Catholic King s] Temporal Council shall

be needful to be made with
great choiceand deliberation,
especially at the beginning in England for that if any one ;
person thereof should be either infected with heresy, or justly

suspected, or not fervent, nor forward in the Catholic religion,
and in the Reformation necessary to be made for good establish
ment of the same, it would be to the great prejudice of the
cause, and of his Majesty and Realm how zealous and . . .
jealous ought our new Catholic Prince to be in excluding from his

Privy Council, and other places of chief charge and government,
not only men known or justly feared to be favourers of heresy
or heretics, that will never be secure to God or his Majesty, but
also cold and doubtful professors of Catholic religion, until they
3
be proved by long tract of time/
is the Jesuit Utopia which Robert Parsons wished

Such
to set up in England. As I have already intimated, the
scheme had an important influence on English history in the
Reign of the Roman Catholic James II., and for that reason
alone it has its value as a historical study in Jesuit tactics,
" "
proving the hatred of that notorious Society of Jesus

1 2
The Jesuit s Memorial, pp. 104, 105. Ibid., p. 107.
3
Ibid., pp. 20G, 207.
for religious and civil liberty. But more than an his
it is
torical study, for it seems to me has an important

that it
bearing on Jesuit policy at the present time. Not that

for one moment do I believe that that policy will succeed
in all its branches, as proposed by Parsons. But short
of complete success, may have disastrous consequences,
it
unless frustrated by the wakeful and watchful Protestants

of the United Kingdom. What the English Jesuits of the
present generation think of Parsons Utopia was forcibly
expressed in an article which appeared in the official maga
zine of the Jesuits in England, entitled the Month. In its
issue for October 1889 appeared a remarkable article on
Parsons book, entitled :
"
A Jesuit Scheme for the Reforma

tion of England." It was written by the editor, Father
R. F. Clarke. According to the Constitutions of the Jesuit
Order, no Jesuit is allowed to write anything unless it has
passed the censorship of the authorities of the Order, which
must therefore be held responsible for the article to which
I have just referred. The Month mentions that a copy of
Parsons book was presented to King James [II.] soon after
"
his and it regrets only that he did not make suffi

accession,"
he had followed its direc

" "
cient use of it. it says, If,"
tions, his chance of remaining King of England would at

least have been far greater, and the salutary measures it
recommends would have retarded, even if they did not entirely
prevent, the rebellion which he had, in a great measure,
brought upon himself by his reckless and headstrong
obstinacy." What was included in those salutary
"
know.
"
measures my readers already It is noteworthy

that the Month carefully abstains from mentioning the
intolerant and persecuting portion of those
"
measures,"
not through any dislike to them, but, probably, through a

dread that their exposure in its pages would not tend to
increase the popularity of the Jesuit Order in England
in the present generation. But they were evidently in
cluded, though not expressly named, in the subjoined
extract from its article :
MODERN JESUITS PRAISE THE SCHEME 449
Father Parsons object in his book is not to criticise

"
the past, but to provide such plans for the future that
Catholics may avail themselves of them if the occasion
offers of restoring the Church in England. He is construc
tive throughout, and his constructive scheme is not only
that of a good and prudent man, but of one who knows by
experience the nature of the evils to be met and the best
remedies for them. He is very practical, and sometimes
enters into details into which we shall not attempt to
follow him. But
main features of his proposal are of
the
permanent interest, not merely as a historical study, but as

affording some valuable suggestions for the guidance of Catho
lics, even in circumstances very different from those which the
headstrong House of Stuart turned to such ill account ."
Father Taunton, whom

have already quoted, reI
veals to the public further particulars of the plans adopted
by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century for overcoming
so-called heresy in Protestant Kingdoms. He writes :
It will be well to take notice of a book published in 1629,

"
which assuredly influenced the Jesuit policy in the time of James II.
Adam Contzen of the Society, and a Professor at Munich,
brought out a large folio Politicorum Libri Decem in quibus de
:
perjectai virlutibus et vitiis.

ReipubliccB forma, We are only
concerned with the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters, which
treat of the manner of reducing people to the true religion. The
work to be accomplished by degrees
is the chief heretics and
:
teachers are to be banished, at once, if possible and the same ;
methods are to be used which the Calvinists found efficacious

against the Lutherans in Germany. These were secrecy as :
to the ultimate design, at least as far as the people were con

cerned a pretence of toleration of liberty of conscience on the
;
part of the Prince moderation in handing over Churches to

;
the opposite party conferences to satisfy objections

; pro ;
clamations that neither party should cast aspersions on the

other pretence of peace
;
silence to all remonstrances, while
;
calumny was freely used when the moment was ripe for action,
;
all adversaries were to be deposed from their charges, and the

Churches bestowed on their opponents scholars at the Uni;
versities were to be practised on with divers arts, and Professors

refused the Royal protection. Other means suggested by the
2F
Jesuit were : that all adverse to the Koman Catholic religion
were to be ousted from their honours, dignities, and public offices ;
strife to be stirred up among the various sects all secret and ;
all public meetings to be strictly forbidden and by severe ;
laws and punishments the obstinate were to be compelled to

submit. The writer adds It is, I allow, the opinion of some
:
politicians that men are not to be compelled. But those who so

advise are in error, and give counsel not only against the safety
of religion, but also against the commonweal since by a whole ;
some law men may be overruled so that they may not do evil ;
and a good law will soon reduce such, as being of tender years,
are either not at all or very little tainted with heresy. And so,
if a
compulsory reformation does no good to old men, it will make
the younger generation Catholic/ Before marriage, men and
women were to give an account of their faith, and to receive in
structions only Catholic baptisms and burials allowed and while
; ;
the differences existing between the preachers of error were to be

kept up so that they might often confer and wrangle, preferments
were to be given to unmannerly men, for by that means error
will grow into contempt/
The methods advocated in this book savour more of worldly
intrigue than of the Gospel of Christ but it accurately repre

;
sents the prevalent tone. Such were the new methods of propa
gating Christianity, and in them we find much of the same
spirit that Parsons displays in his Memorial for the Reformation
l
of England."
Probably no one action of James angered his subjects

more than his appointment of Father Petrie. the Jesuit,
to the important position of Privy Councillor. Lord Powis,
Lord Arundel, Lord Bellasis, the Earl of Sundeiiand, and
Lord Dover all Koman Catholics were already members
of the Privy Council, and guided the policy of the King
in almost everything. The appointment of Petrie was
an error of tactics, as many Romanists of the time per
" "
ceived. It is
says Lingard, to describe the
difficult,"
astonishment, the vexation, with which the intelligence of

this appointment was received by the great body of the
people. The enemies of James secretly hailed it as an

event most favourable to their wishes :
by the Catholics
it was deplored as a common calamity. To prevent a
1
Tauuton s History of the Jesuits in England, pp. 431, 432.
THE KING S ORDERS TO THE BISHOPS 451
repetition of their remonstrances, the design had been con

cealed from their knowledge and now that the appointment
;
had been publicly announced, it only remained for them to

bewail the infatuation of the Monarch, and to await in despair
the Revolution which he was preparing by his own precipi
tancy and imprudence."
l
Roman Catholic opposition may
be partly accounted for by the hatred of the Jesuit Order,
which has ever been strong in a section of the Roman
Catholics but they did not bemoan the appointment of Petrie
;
so much by itself, as for the consequences they foresaw.

There was no Roman Catholic opposition to the appointment
of Roman laymen 011 the Privy Council. The
Catholic
Revolution which many of them saw coming on was mainly
brought on by the King s conduct with regard to his second
Declaration of Indulgence. He was determined to compel
the clergy to read the Declaration in their Churches, and there
fore the following order was published by the Privy Council :
At the Court at Whitehall, the 4th of May 1688. It

"
is this day ordered by

Majesty in Council, that his
his
Majesty s late gracious Declaration, bearing date the 27th

of April last, be read at the usual time of Divine Service,
upon the 20th and 27th of this month, in all Churches

and Chapels within the Cities of London and Westminster,
and ten miles thereabout and upon the 3rd and 10th of
;
June next, in all other Churches and Chapels throughout

this Kingdom. And it is hereby further ordered, that
the Right Reverend the Bishops cause the said Declara
tion to be sent and distributed throughout their several
and respective Dioceses, to be read accordingly." 2
This order created the most intense excitement through
out the country. Men wondered what the Bishops and
clergy would do. The doctrines of the Divine Right of
Kings, and of non-resistance to Royal commands, had
been so extensively preached by them that the King does
not appear to have had a doubt as to their obedience on this
1
Lingard s History of England, vol. xiii. p. 114.
2
State Trials, vol. iv. p. 315.
occasion. But there a limit to everything human, and
is
in this case the limitwas reached. There was not much

time for consultation between the date of the order and
the day appointed to read the Declaration. The London
clergy held a meeting to discuss the question, which re
sulted in all present signing a paper refusing to read it.
This was sent round to the clergy in the Metropolis, with

the result that no fewer than eighty-five London Incumbents
signed it. This was a good beginning. The London
Dissenters took action, and stood by the Protestant clergy
most firmly, urging them on no account to obey the order.
On May 18 a meeting of Bishops was held in Lambeth
Palace. Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, was able to
announce to his brethren at this meeting that he had ascer
tained that eighteen Bishops, and the main body of the
clergy, had agreed not to read the Declaration. After
serious consideration the Archbishop, and six other Bishops
present, drew up a petition to the King, which was signed

by them all, in which they told his Majesty that they were
averse to distributing and publishing the Declaration, not
from any want of due tenderness to Dissenters, in relation
to whom they are willing to come to such a temper as shall
be thought fit, when that matter shall be considered and
settled in Parliament and Convocation but amongst ;
many other considerations, from this especially, because

this Declaration is founded upon such a Dispensing Power
as hath been often declared illegal in Parliament, and
particularly in the years 1662 and 1672, and in the beginning

of your Majesty s Reign ;
and is a matter of so great moment
and consequence whole nation, both in Church and
to the
State, that your petitioners cannot in prudence, honour,

or conscience, so far make themselves parties to it, as the
distribution of it ail over the nation, and the solemn publi
cation of it once and again, even in God s House, and in
the time of His Divine Service, must amount to, in common
and reasonable construction." l The Bishops went to the
1
State Trials, vol. iv. p. 346.
REFUSAL OF THE BISHOPS 453
King with their petition, excepting Sancroft, who had been

forbidden to approach the Court. James expected some
thing different from them, and when he read it he at once
showed and disappointment. He declared that
his anger
it was a standard of rebellion," and that the Bishops
"
"
were trumpeters of sedition

"
the fact being that it ;
was the King himself who was in rebellion against the laws
of the country. He
he would be obeyed.
insisted that
" "
I tell
you,"
still seven
he exclaimed, that there are
thousand of your Church who have not bowed the knee
to Baal." But he was mistaken in this also, as in many
other things. In all London only four of the clergy read
the Declaration. In two of these cases, the congregations
rose and left the building, refusing thus to stop and listen
to it. Burnet says that in London only seven of the
and not above 200 all England
"
clergy obeyed the order,

over."
On June 8 the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the six

Bishops who signed the petition, were summoned before
the Council, the King himself being present. Before they
left, a warrant was made out committing the seven Bishops
to the Tower, on a charge of criminal libel. On their way
thither they were accompanied by thousands of sympathisers,
asking their blessing, and crying out, God bless your "
Lordships When their committal was known through

!
"
out the country the whole nation was moved as by one

common impulse of sympathy with the brave Bishops,
whose cause was that of the people. A deputation of ten
Nonconformist Ministers visited the Bishops in the Tower
to express their sympathy. Sir John Reresby, who was
in London
at the time, states that the King sent for four
of the ten to reprimand them, but their answer was, that
they could not but adhere to the prisoners, as men constant
and firm to the Protestant faith and, he adds What "
;
:
"
is more extraordinary, the very soldiers that kept guard

in the Tower would frequently drink good health to the
Bishops ;
which being understood by Sir Edward Hales,
Constable of the Tower, he sent orders to the Captain of
the Guard, to see it was done no more but the answer ;
he received was, that they were doing it at the very instant,

and would drink that, and no other health, while the Bishops
were there.
"
1
On June 15 the seven Bishops were brought
into the King s Bench, when
it was found that the only
charge brought against them was the petition which they

had presented to the King, which was termed a seditious "
libel in There is 110 need for me to report the

writing."
proceedings, which are fully reported in the State Trials.

The result was that the jury brought in a unanimous
verdict of not guilt} and thereupon the prisoners were
7
,
discharged. Sir John Reresby states that Westminster

"
Hall, the Palace Yards, and all the streets about, were
thronged with an infinite people, whose loud shouts, and
joyful acclamations, upon hearing the Bishops were ac
quitted, were a very rebellion in noise, though very far
from being so in fact or intention. Bonfires w ere made, r
not only in the City of London, but in most towns in England,

as soon as the news reached them though there were ;
strict and general orders given out to prevent all such doings ;
and the clergy preached more loudly and more freely than
ever against the errors of the Latin Church." 2
The trial and acquittal of the seven Bishops sounded
the death-knell of James rule as King. I do not think it
necessary, for my purpose, to relate the further steps taken
to bring this to pass. The landing of William, Prince of
Orange, at Torbay, on November 5, 1688, was hailed with
delight by the nation. James flight was the end of a

Reign which had proved a blight on national prosperity.
The people were sick and tired of a Popish King. His
Reign was an object-lesson which has lasted down till the
present time. May God grant that the now United King
dom may never be cursed in the same way again. English
men had at least reason for thankfulness that James Reign
1
Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, p. 347, edition 1813.
2
Ibid., p. 348.
IF JAMES HAD BEEN SUCCESSFUL 455
was so brief. If it had extended to another twenty years,

the probability that Papal Supremacy would have once
is
more been recognised by an English Parliament. Macaulay

rightly estimated the possibilities when he wrote :
"
The Statute Book might declare all Englishmen

equally capable of holding office but to what end, if all
;
offices were in the gift of a Sovereign resolved not to employ

a single heretic ? We firmly believe that not one post in
the Government, in the Army, in the Navy, on the Bench,
or at the Bar, not one Peerage, nay, not one ecclesiastical
benefice in the Royal gift, would have been bestowed on
any Protestant of any persuasion. Even while the King
had still strong motives to dissemble, he had made a
Catholic Dean of Christ Church, and a Catholic President
of Magdalene College. There seems to be no doubt that
the See of York was kept vacant for another Catholic.
If James had been suffered to follow this course for twenty
years, every military man from a General to a drummer,
every a ship, every Judge, every King s Counsel,
officer of
every Lord-Lieutenant of a County, every Justice of the

Peace, every Ambassador, every Minister of State, every
person employed in the Royal Household, in the Custom
House, in the Post Office, in the Excise, would have been
a Catholic. The Catholics would have had a majority in
the House of Lords, even if that majority had been made,
as Sunderland threatened, by bestowing Coronets on a

whole troop of the Guards. Catholics would have had, we
believe, the chief weight even in the Convocation. Every
Bishop, every Dean, every holder of a Crown living, every
Head every College which was subject to the Royal
of
power, would have belonged to the Church of Rome.

Almost all the places of liberal education would have been
under the direction of Catholics. The whole power of
licensing books would have been in the hands of Catholics.
All this immense mass of power would have been steadily
supported by the arms and by the gold of France, and would

have descended to an heir whose whole education would
have been conducted with a view to one single end the
complete re-establishment of the Catholic religion. The
House of Commons would have been the only legal obstacle.
But the rights of a great portion of the electors were at the
mercy of the Courts of Law and the Courts of Law were
;
absolutely dependent on the Crown. We cannot there

fore thinkaltogether impossible that a House might
it
have been packed which would have restored the days of

*
Mary."
1
Macaulay s Works, vol. vi. pp. 118, 119.
INDEX
ABERCROMBIE, Father, S. J., secretly 26 Henry VIIL, cap. 14 149 :
receives Anne of Denmark into 27 Henry VIIL, cap. 28: 120

the Church of Rome, 304 28 Henry VIIL, cap. 16 149 :
ABINGDON, Edward, 224 1 Edward VI., cap. 12: 131, 132,

ACTON, Lord, on Pius V. and the 140
proposed murder of Elizabeth, 1 Edward VI., cap. 132 I. :
175, 212. On Popes and Murder 1 Edward VI., cap. 14: 133
Plots, 219 2 & 3 Edward VI., cap. 1 133 :
ACTS OF PARLIAMENT 2 & 3 Edward VI., cap. 21 133 :
35 Edward I., stat. 1, cap. 2 50 : 3 & 4 Edward VI., cap. 10 133 :
Statute of Provisors, 61-63 5 & 6 Edward VI., cap. 6 133 :
25 Edward III., stat. 5, cap. 22 : The Act De Hceretico Gomburendo,

63 140-142
27 Edward III., stat. 1, cap. 1 1 & 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 8 :
(Statute of Prgemunire) 64 : 143

38 Edward III., stat. 2, cap. 1 67 : 1 Elizabeth, cap. 1 149 :
25 Edward III., stat. 6 79 : 1 Elizabeth, cap. 2 150 :
3 Richard II., cap. 3 73 : 5 Elizabeth, cap. 1 153 :
7 Richard II., cap. 12 73 : 13 Elizabeth, cap. 2 ;
12 Richard II., cap. 15 78 : 13 Elizabeth, cap. 1 194

16 Richard II., cap. 5 (Statute of 23 Elizabeth, cap. 1 203 :
Prsemunire) 83 : 27 Elizabeth, cap. 2 215

5 Richard II., stat. 2, cap. 5 139, : 34 Elizabeth, cap. 2 243 :
140 34 Elizabeth, cap. 245

1
4 Henry IV., cap. 17 88 : 35 Elizabeth, cap. 289
2 Henry IV., cap. 3 89 : 2 James L, cap. 4 266
:
2 Henry IV., cap. 4 89 : 3 James L, cap. 1 283

6 Henry IV. (1404) 89 : 3 James L, cap. 284
9 Henry IV., cap. 8 90 : 3 James L, cap. 4 284-288
1 Henry V.
(1413) 92 : 3 James L, cap. 5 288
3 Henry V., stat. 2 93 : 3 Charles L, cap. 2 322 :
2 Henry V., cap. 7 139 :

Commonwealth, 371-376
2 Henry IV., cap. 15 139, 140 : 12 Charles II., cap. 18 387 :
2 Henry V., cap. 7: 142 13 Charles II., cap. 1 388 :
31 Henry VIII., cap. 14 105 : 25 Charles II., cap. 2 (The Test

21 Henry VIII., cap. 13 110 :
Act) 410
:
23 Henry VIII., cap. 20: 110 30 Charles II., cap. 1 412 :

ADDA, Ferdinand, Count of, Papal
24 Henry VIIL, cap. 12: 113, 149 Nuncio to England, 429. Was
25 Henry VIII., cap. 19 114, 149 : first Papal Plenipotentiary, 429.
25 Henry VIII., cup. 20 115, 149 : James II. receives him with
great ceremony, 430. James
25 Henry VIII., cap. 14 140 : orders the Duke of Somerset to
26 Henry VIIL, cap. 1 115 : introduce the Nuncio to him,
458 INDEX
430. The Duke refuses to intro Anglo-Roman Papers, by Brady,
duce him and is dismissed by contains an account of James de
James, 430. James causes him la Cloche, illegitimate son of
to be raised to the rank of an Charles II., 393
Archbishop, 430. James falls on ANNATES or First-fruits, an Act for
his knees publicly before him, 430 the Restraint of, 110
AGAZARIUS, Jesuit Rector of the ANNE of Denmark, wife of James
English College in Rome, 193 I., 304. Her secret reception
ALEXANDER VII. Charles II. sends
,
into the Church of Rome, 304.
Sir Richard Bellings on a secret Desires her son, Prince Henry,
mission to him, 390-392. to marry the Infanta of Spain,
Charles II. desires him to give a 304.- Professes to be a Pro
Cardinal s hat to Lord Aubigny, testant, 304. Refuses to take
390. Sir Richard Bellings places Holy Communion, 304. Her
before him a proposal for the love for Spain, 304
submission of the three king ANSELM, Abbot, refused admission
doms to the Church of Rome, 392 as Legate, 8
ALLEN, Cardinal, his statement re ANSELM, Archbishop, refused leave
garding the Six Questions on to visit Rome by William II., 4.
Loyalty put to the executed
-
English Bishops against, 4.
priests in Elizabeth s Reign, 193. Investiture by the King first
Says the priests would have denied by, 5
been pardoned had theyanswered APPEALS to Rome, 4, 14, 15, 16, 17,
the questions satisfactorily, 193. 64, 113, 115. Phillimore on,
His connection with a great 16. Henry II. forbids, 17.
Jesuit Plot, 207. His en Edward III. forbids, 64
deavours to place Philip II. on AQUILA, Don Juan de, sent by
the English Throne, 230, 231. Philip III. to aid O Neill s Re
Defends the treacherous sur bellion in Ireland, 251. Issues
render of Deventer to the a Proclamation, 251
Spaniards by Sir William ARAGON, Cardinal, receives a state
Stanley, 232, 233. Writes sedi ment from Father Thomas Bluet
tious books, 233. His Admoni regarding the disloyalty of
tion to the Nobility, 234, 235. Jesuits executed in the Reign of
Sends Father Creswell to Elizabeth, 188, 189
Flanders to assist the Spanish ARCHER, James, S.J., 249
Armada Plot, 261 ARDEN, Edward, executed for
A.LLEN, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, plotting the murder of Eliza
129 beth, 214
ALMOND, Rev. John, executed in ARLINGTON, Lord, attends a secret
James I. s Reign, 297 conference in the Duke of York s
ALVA, Duke of, and the Ridolfi house, 396. Connected with the
Conspiracy, 170, 174. Receives secret Treaty of Dover, 399. A
a visit from Ridolfi, 174. Pro disguised Papist, 404, 405
mises his help if Elizabeth is ARNOLD, John, a Carthusian Prior,
murdered, 174 240
AMBRUX, Archbishop of, sent by ARUNDEL, Archbishop of Canter
Louis XIII. of France to London bury, 91
as his secret Agent, 358.- Passes ARUNDKL, Earl of, supports the
himself off as a Councillor of the Ridolfi Conspiracy, 172
Parliament of Grenoble, 358. ARUNDEL, Lord, of Wardour, 390,
Has an interview with James 1. 399. Member of James ll. s
at Royston, 358. James I. re Private Council," 427.
"
Mem
ceives him cordially, 358 ber of Privjr Council, 450
INDEX 459
ASHLEY, Ralph, executed for his BABINGTON, his Plot to assassi

connection with the Gunpowder nate Elizabeth, 221-228
Plot, 280. Modern Jesuits in BALDWIN, Father, a Jesuit, impli
clude his name in their list of cated in the Plot to secure armed
Martyrs, 280. Eaised by Leo assistance from Spain, 259. His
XIII. to the rank of "Vener letter to Father Creswell, 259
able,"
280 BALLARD, John, 224, 228
ASKE, Robert, leader of the Pil BANCROFT, Bishop of London,
Dr.,
grimage of Grace, 125. Exe his with
interview Father
cuted, 125 Thomas Bluet, 188
ATKINSON, Rev. Nicholas, executed BARBERINI, Cardinal, Papal Secre
in James I. s Reign, 297 tary of State, 330. States that
ATWOOD, Edmund, Vicar of Hart- the Papacy never gives succour
"
bury, 356 to heretics," 330. Sends 10,000

AUBIGNY, Lord, a priest, 380. crowns to help on the Irish
Almoner to the wife of Charles Rebellion of 1641, 334. Tells
II., 390. Secretly marries Panzani that he has exceeded
Charles II. to Catherine, 388. his commission, 349 Orders
Charles endeavours to obtain a Panzani to keep secret his
Cardinal s hat for him from the interviews with Windebank, 351.
Pope, 390 Expresses his approval of a
AUBIGNY, Lord, chief conspirator scheme to establish diplomatic
in a great Jesuit Plot, 205. The relations between England and
object of his mission to Scotland, Rome, 363. Instructs Panzani
205. His rapid promotion, 206. to act as spy on Church of
Joins the Presbyterian Kirk, England Bishops, 364. Receives
205. Swears to the Solemn from Panzani a detailed account
League and Covenant, 206. of the character, &c., of Church
Created Duke of Lennox, 206. of England Bishops, 365
Secures the execution of the BARNWELL, Robert, 224, 228
Protestant leader, the Earl of BARONIUS, Cardinal, writes a His
Morton, 206. Becomes pos tory, under the nom de plume of
sessed of the principal military Olderico Raynaldo, 340
forts in Scotland. 206. Receives BEAR, Don Philip O Sullivan, 196
Jesuit priests secretly, 206. BEAUFORT, Cardinal, Bishop of
His secret interviews with the Winchester, 94. Sent by the
Jesuits Creighton and Holt, 207. Pope as Legate, 94. The Remon
His Plot approved by the strance of Parliament against,
Pope, 207. Informs Mary, 94, 95. The twenty-one Arti
Queen of Scots, about the Plot, cles of Humphrey, Duke of Glou
207. His false professions of cester, against, 96. Archbishop
Protestantism, 206, 208, 209. Chicheley s letter to Henry VI.
Corrupts themoralsof James VI., protesting against his appoint
208. Invited to Ruthven Castle ment as Legate, 97
by the Protestant noblemen and BECKET, Archbishop, his quarrel
made prisoner, 208. Flies to with Henry II., 11-14
Edinburgh, 208. Has an inter BEDLOW, connected with the sham
view with Queen Elizabeth, 209. Popish Plot of Titus Gates,
Arrives in France, 209. His 419
letter to Mary, Queen of Scots, BKDMAR, Cardinal, 318
209. Boasts of his Protestant BELLAMY, Jerome, 224
ism to Elizabeth, 209. Boasts BELLASIS, Lord, member of James
of his Popery to Mendoza, 209. II. s "Private Council," 427.
Dies a Roman Catholic, 209 Member of Privy Council, 450
460 INDEX
SELLINGS, Richard, Secretary to letter to Philip IV. of France, 49.
j
the Irish Confederation, 335. His Decretal, Unam Sanctam,

Sent by Charles II. on a secret 75
mission to the Pope, 390. Was !
BORGHESE, Cardinal, receives a

Secretary to Charles II. s wife, j
statement from Father Thomas
Catherine of Braganza, 330. Bluet regarding the disloyalty
Connected with the secret of Jesuits executed in Elizabeth s
Treaty of Dover, 399 Reign, 188, 189
BENNUT, Sir Henry. See under BOSGRAVE, James, 192
Arlington, Lord BOURGHIER, Archbishop of Canter
BERINGTON, FatherJoseph, his bury, and the moral character
translation the Memoirs of
of of his clergy, 102
Panzani, 190, 359. States that BOURKE, Father Hugh, Commis
priests in Elizabeth s Reign sary of the Irish Friars Minors
suffered for disloyalty and not in Germany and Belgium, 332.
for their religion, 190. His States that the Irish Rebellion
opinion of Robert Parsons, 200. of 1641 was started in the
His remarks on the state of interests of the Roman Catholic
the Papists under James I., 204. religion, 332. Intermediary in
BERKELEY, Sir Charles, Comp the Netherlands between Rome
troller of theHousehold, a dis and Ireland, 332. His Letters
guised Papist, 404 on the Irish Rebellion of 1641,
BERULLE, Cardinal, 318 332. States that Ireland is a
BIBLE placed in every church by fief of the Church of Rome, 332.
Edward VI., 132 BRAYBROKE, Robert de, Bishop of
BIRKHEAD, Arch-priest, opposes the London, and Lord Chancellor, 76
Oath of Allegiance to James I., BRETT, Arthur, sent by Charles I.
305. His letter to Dr. Richard on a secret mission to Rome,
Smith, 305 361. Goes to Rome nominally
BLACKHEATH, Charles II. s Popish as the Queen s representative,
army at, 401-402 363. Charles instructions to
BLACKWELL, Arch-priest, advises him, 363, 364
his clergy to take the Oath of BRIANT, Alexander, 192
Allegiance to James L, 291 BRISTOL, George Digby, 2nd Earl
BLAKE, Sir Richard, Chairman of the of,an avowed Roman Catholic,
Irish Confederation, Kinuccini s 411. His speech in the Housw
rudeness to him, 342 of Lords on the Test Act, 411
BLOODY The, 425
"
Assi/es," BRISTOW, Dr., his disloyal book,

BLUET, Father Thomas, a secular entitled Book of Motives, 192
priest, his testimony as to the BitODERiCK, Sir Allen, 380
disloyalty of the Jesuits executed BROET and Salmeron, Jesuits, sent
in Elizabeth s Reign, 188, 189. by Paul III. to Ireland to en
Presents a statement of their courage Rebellion, 129
disloyalty to Cardinals Borghese BURLEIGH, Lord, his examination
and Aragon, 188, 189. His in of the Jesuit, Thomas Wood-
terview with Dr. Bancroft/Bishop house, 183. His testimony as
of London, 188 to the disloyalty of the executed
BOERO, Father, a Jesuit, relates in Jesuits, 185. Gives the number
the Civilta Cattolica the story of of Protestants who suffered
Charles II. s illegitimate son, under Mary, 186. His book,
James do la Cloche, 393 Execution for Treason, 185, 180,
BONIFACE VIII., his Bull Clericis 190
Laicos, 39 - 42. Claims the BURNET, Bishop, his account of the
Throne of Scotland, 43-45. His secret reception of Charles II.
INDEX 461
into the Church of Rome, 380, CATHERINE of Braganza, Infanta

381. His remarks on the char of Portugal, wife of Charles II.,
acter of Titus Gates, 414 a Roman Catholic, 388. Secretly
married to Charles by Lord
CADWALADOR,Rev. Roger, executed Aubigny, a Popish priest, 388.
in Reign of James I., 297 The Provincial of the English
CAMBRIDGE University. See Uni Jesuits welcomes her to England,
versities 389. Her Confessor, Father
CAMPION, Edmund, asked the Six Mark Anthony Galli, was a
Questions on Loyalty, 192. The Jesuit, 389. Her friendliness to
Oath of Loyalty tendered to the Jesuit Order, 389
him, 193. Arrives in England CHALLONER, John, an alias of
in 1580, 198. Execution of, 198 William Hanmer (c/.f.),
356
CANTERBURY, Convocation of, pass, CHAMBERS, Anthony, Chaplain to
in 1640, some new Canons against the Archduke at Brussels, 259.
Popery, 356. Bishop Godfrey Implicated in the Spanish Plot,
Goodman s attitude towards the 259
Canons, 357 CHANTRY lands granted to Edward
CARDINALS appointed by the Pope, VI., 133
foreign, 68 CHAPUYS, Ambassador of Charles
CARNE, Sir Edward, Ambassador V. to England, 124
of Mary I. at Rome, 144, 147 CHARLES, Prince of Wales, after
C ASS AISO, Bishop of, proposes the wards Charles I., his proposed
murder Maitland, Lord Chan
of marriage with the Infanta
cellor of Scotland, 240 Maria of Spain, 306-310. His
CASTLEMAINE, Earl of, sent by marriage with Henrietta Maria,
James II. as Ambassador to the 310-313
Pope, 429. He offends Innocent CHARLES-!, violates Articles of his
XI. by first going to the General Marriage Treaty, 315. Par
of the Jesuits at Rome, 429. liament calls his attention to the
Endeavours to obtain a Car growth of Popery, 315. -He
dinal s hat for the Jesuit Petrie, promises to grant its requests,
but fails, 429. His arrogant 316. Visits Somerset House
conduct while in Rome, 429. and orders his Queen s Bishop
Impeached by the House of and all her retinue to return to
Commons for having gone as France, 316. He distributes
Ambassador to Rome, 429. 22,602 amongst them, 316.
Committed to the Tower, 4-29. Urban VIII. exhorts the Kings
Released on bail of 30,000, 429 of France and Spain to attack
CASTLEMAINE, Lady, a disguised his kingdom, 317. Promises to
Papist, 404 help Louis XIII. of France in
CATESBY, Robert, Gunpowder Plot his war against the Huguenots,
conspirator, 254, 276. Sends 319. Sends the Vanguard and
Thomas Winter and Father seven other ships to France
Tesimond to Spain to induce to help capture Rochelle, the
Philip to invade England, 259. Huguenots stronghold, 319.
His visits to Henry Garnet, His orders to Pennington, who
260. Chief conspirator in the commanded the ships, 321.
Gunpowder Plot, 269. His re La-,vs against the Romanists not
ligious character, 269. Meets fully enforced in his Reign, 323.
the other Plotters in the house Father George Gage proposes
of Father John Gerard, 273. a scheme to raise an army to
Offers to disclose the whole Plot help him in his wars with the
to Father Henry Garnet, S.J., 278 Scotch Covenanters, 328. He
462 INDEX
approves of the scheme, 329. hypocrisy, 379. Crowned King
He sends instructions to Father of Scotland, 379. Again swears
Gage s brother, Colonel Henry to the Solemn League and Cove
Gage, 329. He requests the nant, 379. Lands in Normandy
authorities in Flanders to send as a fugitive, 379. Writes a
him 6400 men to help him, 329. letter to the Pope, 379, 380.
Promises, in return, to send Bishop Burnet s account of his
English and Irish soldiers to reception into the Church of
Flanders to recruit the King of Rome, 380. His interview with
Spain s army, 329. The scheme Cardinal de Retz, 380. Jesuits
fails, 329. His Queen, Henrietta aid to restore him to the Throne,
Maria, requests Urban VIII. for 381. Philip IV. of Spain willing
a loan of 50,000 crowns to help to assist him if he became a
pay the soldiers fighting against Roman Catholic, 381. Father
the Covenanters, 330. The re Peter Talbot urges him to be
quest refused because Charles come Roman Catholic "sec
a
was not a Romanist, 330. Dis 381,382.
retly,"
Father Talbot s
guised Papists in his Reign, 344- letter to him, 381, 382. Father
358. States that Parizani should Talbot s second letter to Charles,
carry on his mission in England 382, 383. His endeavours to
with secrecy, 359. Sends Mr. obtain help from Spain, 383.
Arthur Brett on a secret mission Father Talbot, the Jesuit, re
to Rome, 3G1, 3(53. His secret ceives him into the Church of
interview with Panzani, 362, Rome, 384. He despatches
363. Receives Panzani with Father Talbot to Spain to tell
great cordiality, 362. Supports Philip IV. of his renunciation of
the establishment of diplomatic Protestantism, 384. Another
relations with Rome, 363. His version of his reception into the
friendly reception of George Church of Rome in Carte s Life of
Conn, a secret Agent of the (Jrrnond, 385-386. He carefully
Pope, 366. Conn tells him that conceals his change of religion
he stands above the Parlia
"
from the Duke of Ormond, 386.

ment," 367. Conn endeavours The Duke sees him on his
to persuade him to alter the knees at Mass, 386. Testimony
Oath of Allegiance, 367 of the Marquis of Halifax as to
CHARLES II., his Accession wel Charles secret reception, 386.
comed by thu Papists, 377.- He professes hisaffection and"
Was secretly a Roman Catholic zeal for Protestantism, 386.

"
when he ascended the Throne, Writes, boasting of his Protest

377. His character, 377. He antism, to the Speaker of the
sends Lord Cottington and Sir House of Commons, 387.
Edward Hyde, in 1649, to Spain An Act passed to punish those
to seek assistance from Philip who said that he was a Romanist,
IV., 378. Despatches Mr. 388. His endeavours to obtain
Robert Meynell to Rome to ask arbitrary power, 388. Marries
the help of Innocent X., 378. Catherine of Braganza, a Roman
Negotiates with the Presby Catholic, 388. The first mar
terians of Scotland, 378. En riage ceremony secretly per
deavours to become crowned formed by a Popish priest, 388.
King Scotland, 378. Lands
of His endeavours to obtain
in Scotland in 1650,379. Swears concessions for the Romanists,
to the Solemn League arid Cove 389. Parliament requests him
nant, 379. Signs the Dunferrn- to issue a Proclamation com
line Declaration, 379. His manding all Jesuits to leave the
INDEX 463
kingdom, 390. He issues the 410. The part he took in the

Proclamation, 390. Sends Sir Popish Plot of 1678, 414
Richard Sellings on a secret CHARNOCK, John, 224
mission to the Pope, 390. Gives Ghetham Popery Tracts, 427. Bui-net
Sir Richard Boilings a document on the, 427. Mackintosh on the,
in which he boasts of his ser 428
vices to the Papacy, 390-392. CHICHELEY, Henry, Bishop of St.
He wishes for the union of his David s, 90. Archbishop, his
three kingdoms with the Church letter to IJenry VI., protesting
of Rome, 392. Expresses his against the appointment of
willingness to accept all the Cardinal Beaufort as Legate, 97.
Decrees of the Council of Trent, Receives a furious letter from
392. Expresses his detestation Martin V., 99. Martin V. orders
of the doctrines of Luther, him to have the Statute of
Zwingle, and Calvin, 392. His Pnemunire repealed, 100. Com
illegitimate son, James de la plains of an injury offered him
Cloche, 393-395. His secret by Eugenius IV., 101
letter to the General of the CHICHESTER, Bishop of, cited to
Jesuits, 393, 394. His letter to appear in Edward III. a Court,
James de la Cloche, 394, 395. 68
His second and third letters to Civilta Cattolica, articles in this
the General of the Jesuits, 395. magazine by Father Boevo re
Desires James de la Cloche to lating to James de la Cloche,
be made a Cardinal, 395. His illegitimate son of Charles II.,
relations with Louis XIV., 396. 393
His secret conference in the CLARE, Father, Jesuit Rector of
Duke of York s house, 396. His the House of tho Walloons, 435.
secret interviews with the His interview with James II.,
French Ambassador, 397. His 435
plans for establishing the Roman CLARENDON, Constitutions of, 15
Catholic religion in England, CLARENDON, Earl of. See Hyde, Xir
396 - 398. Signs the secret Edward; and Hyde, Henry
Treaty of Dover, 398. He re CLAUDE, Jean, a French Protestant
solves to declare himself a Roman minister, writes a pamphlet on
Catholic, 399. Louis XIV. pro the sufferings of the Huguenots,
mises him 200,000 to help on his 427
scheme, 399. Promises to join CLEMENT VI. and Papal Provisions
Louis XIV. in his war against and Reservations, 54. Letter of
Protestantism in Holland, 400. Edward III. to, 56
Suspends the Penal Laws CLEMENT VIII., aids the Rebellion
against Papists and Noncon of Hugh O Neill in Ireland, 250.
formists, 400. His Popish army Sends Dr. M
Gauran, titular
at Blackheath, 401, 402. Secret Archbishop of Armagh, to Ire
Romanists in his Court, 403-405. land as his Envoy, 247. Sends a
Parliament presents him with number of Jesuits to Ireland to
a Petition against the growth of help O NeilFs Rebellion, 249.
Popery, 406. He promises Par Sends Indulgences to the Rebels,
liament to enforce the laws 249. Addresses a Bull to the
against the Papists, 407. His Rebels, 250. Presents O Neill
claims to the Dispensing Power, with a costly Crown, 251. Re
408. Issues his Declaration of ceives O Neill at Rome, 253.
Indulgence, 408. Parliament Gives him a royal welcome, 253,
condemns his Declaration, 409. 254. Takes steps to secure a
He cancels the Declaration, Roman Catholic successor to the
404 INDEX
English Throne, 254. Issues Put on his trial for high treason,
two Briefs on this subject to the 419. He admits the correspon
Roman Catholics of England, dence, but denies that he in
254. These Briefs used as their tended to kill the King, 419.
justification by the Gunpowder Sentenced to death, 4J9. Is
Plot conspirators, 254. He did raised to the rank of u Vener
not wish for the toleration of able by Leo XIII., 420
Roman Catholics in Elizabeth s COLERIDGE, Rev. H. J., S.J., on
Reign, 256. States that perse the value of the evidence of
"
cution was profitable to the spies, 241

Church of Rome, 256
"
COLLETOX, Dear;, a secular priest,

CLERGY, crimes of the, 12-14. on Robert Parsons treasonable
Immunities of the, 11-17, 39-42, plots, 199
107 COLLIXS, Dominick, a lay Jesuit,
Clericis Laicos, the Papal Bull, 249
39-42 COLOXA, Prospero, nephew of Pope
CLIFFORD, Sir Thomas, attends a Martin V., made Archdeacon of
secret conference at the Duke of Canterbury by the Pope, at the
York s house, 396. Connected age of fourteen, 97
with the secret Treaty of Dover, COMMON Prayer, the First Book of,
399. A disguised Papist, 404. legalised, 133. The Revised Book
Dies a Roman Catholic, 405 of, legalised, 133. The Second
CLOCHE, James de la, an illegiti Book of, legalised in Elizabeth s
mate son of Charles II., 393. Reign, 150
Received into the Jesuit Order COMMOXWEALTH, severe laws against
at Rome, 393. His father, the Papists passed during the,
Charles II., writes several letters 371-376. The laws not seriously
to him and to the General of the enforced, 376
Jesuits at Rome, 393-396 COMPTOX, Dr., Bishop of London,
COKE, Sir Francis, 345 James II. orders him to suspend
COKE, Sir John, 345 Dr. Sharp for preaching against
COLE, Dr., Dean of St. Paul s, Popery, 428. He refuses and is
156 himself suspended also, 428. See
COLEMAN, Edward, chief conspira also under Sharp, Dr.
tor of the real Popish Plot, Coxx, George, secret Papal Agent
417. Private Secretary to the in England, 330. Nominally
Duchess of York, 417. Carries delegated to the Queen, 366.
on a treasonable correspondence Soon becomes on intimate
with French Jesuits, a Papal terms with Charles I., 366.
Nuncio, the Cardinal of Norfolk, Negotiates with Charles about
and other Roman Catholics on the Oath of Allegiance, 367.
the Continent, 417. Arrested Tells Charles that he "stands
on the information of Titus above the Parliament," 367.
Gates, 417. Titus Gates falsely Endeavours to bring about the
swears that he intended to kill reunion of the Church of Eng
Charles II., 417. Treasonable land with the Romish Church,
letters found in his house, 418. 367. He returns to Rome in
His correspondence published 1639, 368
intwo volumes, 418. The Duke COXSTABLE, Sir Robert, execution
ofYork through Coleman seeks of, 125
French aid to destroy the Eng COXTZEX, Adam, a Jesuit Professor
lishParliament, 418. His letters at Munich, his plan for suppress
to the Papal Nuncio, 4-18. His ing Protestantism in England,
letter to Father le Chase, 419. 449
INDEX 465
CONVENTS, their condition in Henry and sends instructions to Father

VIII. s time, 116-120. Paul III. Gage s brother, Colonel Henry
appoints a Commission to inquire Gage, in Flanders, 329. The
into the condition of the Italian, scheme fails, 329. The Pope
117. Report of the Commission, does not favour the scheme, 330.
117. Scottish, fearful state of, Sir Tobie Matthew visits Ire
1 18. Erasmus testimony on the land to collect money to help sub
state of, 119. The lesser, sup due them, 355. Count Rosetti,
pressed, 120 a secret Papal Agent, assists
CORONATION of James II., many Queen Henrietta to raise a
alterations made in the service Roman Catholic army to fight
during the, 423. James II. against them, 368. See also
secretly anointed and crowned under Gaye, Father George
by a Popish priest, 423 CREIGHTON, Father, a Jesuit priest,
COTTINGTON, Lord, sent to Spain to his secret interviews with the
negotiate the Marriage Treaty, Duke of Lennox, 207. Reports
347. Becomes secretly a Roman the results of his interviews to
Catholic, 347. At Madrid, 347. the Pope, 207
Returns to England and pro CRESSY, Father Hugh-Paulin de,
fesses Protestantism, 347. At draws up a Declaration of Loyalty
Valladolid, where the Jesuits to Charles I., 324
provide him with a house, 347. CRESWELL, Father, a Jesuit, im
Received into the Church of plicated in a Plot to secure armed
Rome by Father Diego de la assistance from Spain, 259.
Fuente, 348. Takes off his hat Assists the Spanish Armada,
whenever the Pope s name is 261. He brings the requests of
mentioned, 348. Was a Privy the English Jesuits before Philip
Councillor, Chancellor of the III., 261. He urges Philip to
Exchequer, Master of the Wards, nominate a Roman Catholic suc
Lieutenant of the Tower, and cessor to the English Throne,
Lord High Treasurer of England, 261, 262
348. Dies a Roman Catholic, CROWN of England, claimed by
348. Sent by Charles II. on a Gregory VII., 2, 3. Surrendered
mission to Philip IV. of Spain, to the Pope by King John, 23-
378 25. Claimed by Urban V., 46
COTTOM, Thomas, 192 Claimed by Paul IV., 47.
COUNCIL of Lyons, 31 Claimed by Gregory XIII. 48. ,
COURTENAY, Bishop of London, Claimed by Sixtus V., 48

publishes Interdict of Gregory CROWN of Scotland claimed by
XI. at St. Paul s Cross, 71 Boniface VIII., 43
COURTENAY, Archbishop Canter of CUMBERLAND, Earl of, supports the
bury, his Declaration approving Ridolfi Conspiracy, 172
of the limitation of the Pope s
authority, 81, 82
COVENANTERS, the Scotch, Charles DALY, Father Daniel, Ambassador
I. s wars against them, 328. of the King of Portugal at the
Father George Gage draws up French Court, 383
a plan to help the King to fight DARBYSHIRE, Thomas, S.J., 256
them, 328. Gage proposes to DARCY, Sir Thomas, execution of,
draw an army 10,000 men
"of 125
from Flanders to subdue them, DARCY, Lord, execution of, 125
328.- The army to be also used DARDAIN, James, Pope s Collector,
to intimidate Parliament, 328. 78. Forbidden by Richard II.
Charles approves of the scheme to enforce any Papal Letters, 78
2G
466 INDEX
DECLARATION of Indulgence, the, 276. His son, Sir Kenelrn
issued by Charles IT., suspend Digby, a disguised Romanist,
ing the Penal Laws against 352-354
Roman Catholics and Noncon DIGBY, Sir Kenelm, son of Sir
formists, 400, 401, 408, 409. Everard Digby, who was
Parliament objects to it, 409. executed for the part he took
Charles cancels it, 410 in the Gunpowder Plot, 352.
DECLARATIONS of Indulgence, Educated as a Protestant, 352.
James II. issues his first and Goes on a mission to Spain
second, 439, 440. James orders in connection with the Spanish
the Bishops to circulate his Marriage Treaty, 352. While in
second Declaration through their Spain becomes a Roman Catholic,
dioceses, 451. The Bishops, re 353. Returns to England and
fusing to circulate it, are sent to isknighted, 353. Visits France,
the Tower, but acquitted by the 353. Conceals his real reli
King s Bench, 452-454 gion for about thirteen years,

DECLARATION, the King s Protes 353. Professes Protestantism,
413, 414.
tant, origin of, Re 353. Was Gentleman of the
moved from the Statute Book Bedchamber, Commissioner of
in 1910, 414 the Navy, and Governor of
DE CROISSY COLBERT, Mons., Trinity House, 354
French Ambassador, 397. Dispwtatio Apologetica de jure
Secret interviews of Charles II. Regni Hibernice adversus hccreticos,
with, 397. His letter to Louis a murderous book, by Conor
XIV. regarding Charles II. and O Mahony, an Irish Jesuit, 338-
the Parliament, 418 340
DE JESUS, Father Francisco, 547 .
DOLLINGER, Dr., on the need for
D ORLEANS, Father F. J., a Jesuit, a Reformation in Germany, 105
his History of the Revolutions, DOUAY, the Seminary at, Cardinal
404, 405. On the secret pro D Ossat on, 201
fession of Popery by the Duke DOVER, Lord, member of James II. s
of York (afterwards James II.), "Private Council," 427. Mem
404, -105 ber of the Privy Council, 450
D OssAT, Cardinal, his letter to DRAYTON, Sir Simon, Innocent VI.
Henry IV. of France concerning orders his dead body to be
the Seminaries of Douay and St. desecrated, 67
Omers, 201 DRURY, Rev. Robert, executed in
DERBY, Earl of, supports the James I. s Reign, 297
Ridolfi Conspiracy, 172 DUBLIN, Archbishop of, Matthew
DE RETZ, Cardinal, visits England de Oviedo, 249
and has an audience
in disguise DUNFERMLINE Declaration, Charles
with Charles II., 380 II. signs the, 379
DE ROUGT, Marquis de, 380. A DUNN, Henry, 224, 228
kinsman of Cardinal de Retz, Du PERRON, the Abbe, 360
380. Cardinal de Retz presses
him to become a Papist, but he ECCLESIASTICAL Jurisdiction re
refuses, 380 stored to the Crown in Elizabeth s;
DEVENTER, the surrender of, 231- Reign, 149

232 EDWARD I. s letter to the Pope,
DIGBY, Sir Everard, a Gunpowder 45. Duplicity of, 51
Plot conspirator, 270, 271. EDWARD III., requested by Parlia
Gives large sums of money to ment to expel the Papal Power,
support the Plot, 275. His 54. His brave letter to Clement
secret letters to his wife, 275, VI., 56. Innocent VI. and,
INDEX 467
66, 67. Forbids Importation of 219, 221. Sixtus V. s Bull de

Papal Letters, 67. Protects the posing her, 235237. Remarks
Florentines, 71 on the administration of her
EDWARD IV. resists the admission Penal Laws, 255
of Papal Legates, 102 EMERSON, Ralph, a lay Jesuit, 198
EDWARD VI., the Reign of, ENGAIN, Lord John, excommuni
Protestantism comes into power cated by Innocent VI., 67
in, 131. Rome claims no ERASMUS, on the state of Monas
Martyrs in, 131. Reforming teries and Convents, 119
Acts in, Bible placed
132-134. ESCURIAL, the Spanish, Ridolfi
in every church in, 132. Piay- appears before its Councillors,
ing to images forbidden in, 132, 125. Explains to them the
133. Images destroyed in, 132. proposed Plot to murder Eliza
Lord s Supper given in both beth, 175. The Councillors in
kinds in, 132. Chantry lands favour of the scheme, 176
given to the King in, 133. EUGENIUS IV. and Archbishop
The First Book of Common Chicheley, 101. Sends the
Prayer legalised in, 133. Popish Golden Rose to Henry VI., 101
books burnt, 133. Revised Book EXCOMMUNICATION, declared to be
of Common Prayer legalised in, of no force, 94. Its effects
13.3._Three Popish Rebellions nullified, 102, 103. Of Henry
raised against the King in, 134 VIII. by Paul III., 126. Protest
EFFINGHAM, Lord Howard of, 239 of nineteen Bishops and twenty-
ELIZABETH, Queen, Paul cen IV". live Doctors of Divinity against
sures her for assuming the Henry VIII. s, 129
Crown without his consent, EXETER Conspiracy, the, 129, 130
148. Pius IV. oners to confirm EXETER, the Marquis of, executed,
her in her "Princely dignity," 130
148. Mary s persecuting laws
repealed in her Reign, 149. FALMOUTH, Earl of. See under
The extreme penalties of her Berkeley, Sir Charles
Penal Laws not inflicted, 152. FARINACCI S Treatise of Heresy, 281,
How she was provoked by the 282
Papists, 152, 153, 155. Popish FARMER, an alias of Father Henry
Conspiracies against her in the Garnet, S, J. See under Garnet
early years of her Reign, 155- FARMER, Anthony, a dissolute
158. Roman Catholic Bishops Papist, James II. orders Magda
ask Pius IV. to excommunicate lene College, Oxford, to appoint
her, 157. Council of Trent him as President, 436. The Col
discusses her proposed excom lege refuses to nominate him, 436
munication, 157-159. Refuses FAWKES, Guy, conspires to induce
to receive Papal Nuncio, 159. Philip to invade England, 258-
Declaration of her Majesty s 262. The Jesuits help him, 258-
Council on this point, 159-161. 262. His Examination in 1605,
Pius V. s famous Bull deposing 259, 273. His further Confes
her, 164, 165. Pius V. and her sion, 259. His religious charac
proposed murder^ 175. Ridolfi s ter, 269. Wore a hair shirt, 269.
statement before the Spanish Meets the other Gunpowder
Escurial regarding her proposed Plotters in the house of Father
assassination, 175. Another Plot John Gerard, 273
to murder her approved of by FKLTON, John, posts up Pius V. s
the Pope, 210-213. Four men Bull deposing Elizabeth on the
swear to murder her, 219. Their Bishop of London s Palace, 165.
Plot approved of by Mendoza, Arrested for High Treason and
468 INDEX
executed, 166. Declared to be a his wars with the Covenanters,
Beatified Martyr by Leo XIII., 328. Windebank actively assists
166 his scheme, 328, 329. He pro
FERIA, Duke of, questions Ridolfi poses that Charles should use
before the Spanish Escurial re the army also for the purpose of
garding the proposed, murder of intimidating Parliament, 329.
Elizabeth, 175 Charles I. approves of the scheme,
FILBEE, William, 192 329. His brother, Colonel Henry
FINEUX, Lord Chief-Justice, 108 Gage, receives instructions from
FIRST-FRUITS of Benefices for the Charles on the subject, 329.
Pope prohibited, 77, 78. To be His plan opposed by the Pope,
paid to the King, 78 330. Failure of his scheme, 329.
FISH, Simon, author of the Suppli See also under Covenanters
cation of Beggars, 108 GAGE, Robert, 224
FISHER, Bishop, 109. Desired GAMACHE, Father Cyprien, Chap
Charles V. to invade England, lain to Queen Henrietta Maria
124. Execution of, 124 in England, 312. His book, The
FITZGERALD, Colonel, Governor of Court and Times of Charles the
Tangier, 399. Made Major- First, 312. His Memoirs of the
General of the Popish army Mission in England, 344. His
raised by Charles II., 401 remarks on Romanists who pro
FITZMAURICE, James, commands an fessed to be Protestants, 345.
Expedition to Ireland, 196. His description of the duplicity
Slain in battle, 196 of Charles II., 378
FITZSIMON, Henry, S. J., 249 GARNET, Father Henry, Jesuit,
FLAHER, Rev. Matthew, executed on the two Briefs issued by
in James I. s Reign, 297 Clement VIII. to the Roman
FLORENTINES, Edward III. protects Catholics of England, 254. In
the, 71 forms the Government about
FORDE, Thomas, 192 Father Watson s Plot, 258. His
FOREIGN Ecclesiastics appointed connection with Guy Fawkes
by Gregory XI., a list of, 68. Plot to secure armed assistance
Prebends or Benefices not to be from Spain, 260. His connec
held by, 78 tion with the Gunpowder Plot,
FRANCE, marriage negotiations 275-280. Provincial of the Eng
James I. s Reign, 311-313
with, in lish Jesuits, 275. Confesses his
FRANCIS, Alban Placid, a Benedic guilt, 278, 279. His letter to
tine Monk, James II. orders Father Tesimond, 278. Visited
Cambridge University to admit in prison by the Deans of St.
him to the degree of Master of Paul s, Westminster, and the
Arts, 436 Chapel Royal, 279. --Tells them
FUENSALDAGNA, Count, 381, 382, that he does not wish to be made
383 a Martyr, 279. His name down
on the Vatican list with a view
GAGE, Colonel Henry, brother of to his Canonisation, 280
Father George Gage, receives in GARNET, Rev. Thomas, executed in
structions from Charles I. about James I. s Reign, 297
the proposed scheme to raise GEE, Rev. Dr., publishes in 1690
an army from Flanders, 329. Robert Parsons Memorial of the
Charles tells him to use great
"
Reformation of England, 442

329
secrecy,"
Gentleman s Magazine publishes
GAGE, Father George, proposes a articles on James de la Cloche,
scheme to raise an army from illegitimate son of Charles II., 393
Flanders to assist Charles I. in GERARD, Father John, a Jesuit, be-
INDEX 469
trays the Plot of Father William scribe to certain new Canons

Watson, 258. Implicated in the passed by the Convocation of
Gunpowder Plot, 258, 2G9. His Canterbury, 356. Under great
description of Robert Catesby s pressure he signs the Canons,
religious character, 269. States which contained a protest against
that Guy Fawkes wore a hair Popery, 357. A Remonstrance
shirt, Describes the re
269. against his Romanising doctrines
character of the other
ligious and conduct sent to Charles I.,
Gunpowder Plot conspirators, 357. He deprives a minister of
270, 271. His connection with his living for preaching against
the Plotters, 273-275. Govern Popery, 357. His duplicity, 355-
ment orders his arrest, 273. 358
Escapes to the Continent, 273. GRANT, John, a Gunpowder Plot
Writes a Narrative of the Gun conspirator, 270
powder Plot, 273. The Plotters GREENWAY, an alias of Father
meet in his house, 273. Says Tesimond, a Jesuit. See under
Mass for them, 273 Tesimond
GERVASE, Rev. George, executed in GREENWELL, an alias of Father
James I. s Reign, 297 Tesimond, a Jesuit. See under
GIFFARD, Bona ventura, Popish Tesimond
Vicar Apostolic, James II. ap GREGORY VII. claims the Crown of
points him President of Magda England, 2, 3. Forbids Investi
lene College, Oxford, 437.- ture by laymen, 5
Under his Presidency, the College GREGORY XI. issues an Interdict
is transformed into a Popish against the Florentines, 71
Seminary, 437 GREGORY XIII. claims the Throne
GIFFORD, Gilbert, sent to Mendoza, of Scotland, 48. Renews the ex
220. Implicated in a Plot to communication of Elizabeth pro
murder Elizabeth, 221-228. nounced by Pius V., 189. En
Afterwards made Archbishop of deavours to compel Philip II. to
Rheims, 225 invade England, 195. Sends
GLASGOW, Archbishop of, His con 50,000 ducats to Don John of
nection with the great Jesuit Austria to aid him to conquer
Plot, 207. Approves of the pro England, 195. Appoints Mgr.
posed murder of Elizabeth, 212 Sega as Nuncio to Don John,
GOLDEN ROSE sent to Henry VI. 195. Sends Mgr. Sega as Nuncio
by Eugenius IV., 101 to Madrid, 195. Offers Philip
GOLD WELL, Bishop, of St. Asaph, II., through Mgr. Sega, a force
endeavours to obtain the ex of 4000 to 5000 men, 195. Sends
communication of Elizabeth, 159. Sir Thomas Stukeley on an ex
His letter to the Cardinal of pedition to Ireland, 195. Sends
Trarii, 159 Nicholas Sanders as Papal Nuncio
GOODMAN, Godfrey, Bishop of to Ireland, 196. Issues a Bull
Gloucester, 355. A disguised granting pardon to those who took
Papist, 355. Uses secretly the part in the Irish Rebellion, 196. -
Roman Breviary, and asks per Supports the great Jesuit Plot,
mission of the Pope s Agent to 207. Sends 12,000 crowns to the
keep an Italian priest to say Plotters yearly, 207. Hears
Mass secretly for him, 356. His from his Nuncio in Paris of an
relations with the Provincial of other Plot to murder Elizabeth,
the Jesuits, 356. His Will states 210, 211. Approves of the Plot,
that he acknowledged the Church 211,212. Promises 20 ,000 crowns
of Rome to be the Mother to the Plotters, 211 .Blesses the
Church, 356. Refuses to sub first Jesuit Sodality, 224
470 INDEX
GRIMSTONE, Sir Harbottle, M.P., Children of her marriage to be
412 brought up as Roman Catholics,
GUILDFORD, Lord-Keeper of the 312. Herletter to Pope Urban
Great Seal, 425 VIII., 312. Charles orders her
GUISE, Duke of, 205, 207, 208, 213, French Bishop and attendants to
214. His Plot to murder Eliza return to France, 316. Through
beth, 210. Promises large sum of her influence many favours were
money to the proposed murderer bestowed on the Romanists, 323.
of Elizabeth, 212. League be Requests Urban VIII. for a
tween him and Philip II., 215 loan of 50,000 crowns to pay the
GUNPOWDER Plot, the, 269-280. soldiers fighting against the
Originated by Robert Catesby, Covenanters, 330. Her request
269. The Religious character of refused because Charles I. was
the Plotters, 269-271. Narra not a Romanist, 330. Rinuccini,
tive of the Plot written by Father Papal Nuncio to the Irish Rebels
John Gerard, 273. The Plotters of 1641, has an interview with
meet in Father John Gerard s her, 335. She complains to
house, 273. The Plotters Oath Rinuccini about the Irish Rebels,
of Secrecy, 273. The Results of 335. Her interview with Pan-
the Plot, 281, 283. Public zani, 359. She reports her inter
Thanksgiving for deliverance view with Panzani to Charles I.,
from the Plot, 283 359. Supports a scheme to
establish diplomatic relations
HALE, John, Vicar of Isleworth, with Rome, 363. George Conn,
disloyalty and execution of, 122- secret Papal Agent, nominally
123. Beatified by Leo XIII., delegated to her, 366. Count
123 Rosetti, a secret Papal Agent,
HALES, Sir Edward, a Papist, in assists her to raise a Roman
connection with the attempt of Catholic army to fight the Scotch
James II. to obtain from the Covenanters, 368
Courts of Law a decision in favour HENRY II., first English Sovereign
of the Dispensing Power, 431. to resist Papal tyranny, 10.
Constable of the Tower, 454 Archbishop Becket and, 11-14.
HALIFAX, Marquis of, 386 Forbids Appeals to Rome, 17.
HALL, an Father Oldcorne,
alias of And the Crimes of the Clergy,
a Jesuit. See under Oldcorne. 11-14
HAMBLETON, Lord, James VI. of HENRY III., homage to the Pope
Scotland s letter to him, 257 by, 26. Complaints of the
HAMILTON, Sir Stephen, execution Abbots to, 27
of, 125 HENRY IV. compels Oxford Uni
HAMILTON, Sir William, English versity to submit to his autho
Agent in Rome, 356 rity, 91
HANMER, William, 356. Under HENRY V. seizes all livings held by
the name of John Challoner, he aliens, 92. Sends an Embassy
persuades Bishop Godfrey Good to Martin V. to protest against
man to join the Church of Rome, his encroachments, 97
356. Bishop Goodman s in HENRY VI. receives the Golden
timate relations with him, 356 Rose from Eugenius IV., to
HART, John, 192 gether with a request for money,
HATTON, Lord, 352 101. Refuses the collection of
HENRIETTA Maria, youngest daugh Tenths for the Pope, 101
ter of Henry IV. of France, her HENRY VIII. was not a Protestant,
marriage with Prince Charles, 105. Roman Catholic testimony
afterwards Charles I., 310-313 on his religious belief, 105, 106.
INDEX 471
Supported by the laity, 107. promises to help Louis to ex

His motives for abolishing Papal terminate them, 319. Charles I.
Supremacy, 109. Complains of fulfils the promise and sends
the conduct of the Clergy, 112. help to Louis in order to capture
Suppresses the lesser Monas Rochelle, their stronghold, 319-
and Convents, 120. Ex
teries 322. See also under Rochelle
asperated by Cardinal Pole, 121. HUGUENOTS after the Revocation
Excommunicated by Paul III., of the Edict of Nantes, the
126 attitude of James II. towards
HENRY of Navarre, 215 the exiles in England, 425-427.
HENRY, Prince, eldest son of Jcanes James interviews with the
I., his proposed marriage with French Ambassador, when he
the Infanta of Spain, 305. His listened with avidity to the
death in 1612, 305 reports of their persecution, 426.
HERBERT, Arthur, Rear- Admiral of James II. approves of their
England and Master of the persecution, 426. James urges
Robes, dismissed by James II. Louis to continue tho perse
for refusing to support Popery, cution, 426. James reluctantly
432 allows public collections for the
"
HERESY," Roman Catholic Penal fugitives, 426. James orders the

ties for, 281 Clergy not to preach on their
HERGENROTHER, Cardinal, his sufferings, 426. James orders
Catholic Church and Christian State that none of the exiles shall have
quoted, 445. States that it is relief until they first join
"
any
not contrary to the spirit of the Church of England, 426, 427.
Christianity to punish heretics An account of their perse
with death by fire," 445 cution published in London, 427.
HOLBY, Father Richard, Superior James orders the book to be
of the English Jesuits, 292. burnt by the common hangman,
His statement regarding the 427. The book republished in
Oath of Allegiance to James I., 1908, entitled The Torments of
292 Protestant Slaves, 427
HOLLAND, Charles II. helps Louis HUME, Major Martin, on the
XIV. in his war against, 400, 410 various plots to murder Eliza
HOLT, Father, a Jesuit priest, his beth, 241, 242
secret interviews with the Duke HUMPHREY, Duke of Gloucester,
of Lennox, 207 the Protectorate of, 94. An
Home and Foreign Review, an article enemy of Papal encroachments,
by Lord Acton on James de la 94. His twenty - one Articles
Cloche, illegitimate son of against Cardinal Beaufort, 96
Charles II., published by the, 393 HYDE, Sir Edward, afterwards Earl
HOPTON, Sir Arthur, English Agent of Clarendon, sent by Charles II.
at Madrid, 329 on a mission to Philip IV. of
HOUGH, Rev. John, B.D., appointed Spain, 378. Chancellor of the
President of Magdalene College, Exchequer, 380. Mentioned in
Oxford, 436. James II. has him connection with the secret
turned out, and forcibly instals Papists, 404
Dr. Parker, Bishop of Oxford, HYDE, Henry, Earl of Clarendon,
437 Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, dis
HODGHT, John, executed, 123 missed from his office by James
HOUNSLOW Heath, the Popish army II., and lying Dick Talbot put
"
"
James II. on, 433

of in his place, 432
HUGUENOTS, Louis XIII. makes HYDE, Laurence, Earl of Rochester,
war on them, 319. James I. Lord High Treasurer of England,
472 INDEX
James II. tells him that he must Cardinal s hat for the Jesuit
either become a Roman Catholic Petrie, but fails, 429
or lose his office, 432. He re INQUISITION, proposal of Robert
fuses and is dismissed, 432 Parsons to set it up in England
under another name, 444, 445
INVESTITURE, Dean Hook on, 5, 6.
IDIAQUEZ, Juan de, Secretary, 219, Archbishop Anselm and, 5, 6.
233, 248 Papal Law by Gregory VII.
IMAGES, prayers to them forbidden on, 5. Boniface VIII. and, 49.
by Edward VI., 192 Edward I. and, 52
IMMUNITIES of the Clergy, 11-17., IRELAND, Papal Legates in, 160,
39-42, 107 161, 298, 334. Rebellions in,
INFANTA proposed mar
of Spain, 129, 160, 161, 246-253, 331-343.
riage between her and Prince Sir Thomas Stukeley s expedi
Henry, eldest son of James I., tion to, 195, 196. The Rebellion
305. Proposed marriage be of Hugh O Neill in, 246-253.
tween her and Prince Charles, The Rebellion of 1641 in, 298,
306-310 331-343. Father Bourke states
INNOCENT III., 19-22, 25. Places that the country is a fief of the
England under an Interdict, 20. Pope, 332. Rinuccini s report
King John excommunicated on the state of, 335
and deposed by, 22 IRISH Confederation of 1641,
INNOCENT IV., the English nation s Richard Sellings, its Secretary,
complaints to, 32, 33 335. Rinuccini s speech to the
INNOCENT VI., Edward III. and, Assembly, 336 Signs a Treaty
66, 67 of Peace with the Marquis of
INNOCENT X. censures Binuccini, Ormond, 337. Rinuccini en
Papal Legate to the Irish Rebels, deavours to upset the Peace
for professing loyalty to the Treaty, 337. Its
negotiations
King, 298. Condemns the Three with Lord Inchiquin, 341. Signs
Propositions on Loyalty, and the Articles of Cessation, 341.
censures the subscribers to them, Sends to the Popo nineteen
327, 328. Blesses the Irish Re accusations against Rinuccini,
bellion of 1641, 333. Sends 341. Signs a Peace Treaty with
Rinuccini as his Nuncio to the the Marquis of Ormond as re
Rebels with large supplies of presenting Charles I., 342
money and arms, 334. His in IRISH Rebellion of 1641, 298, 331-
structions to Rinuccini, 334. 343. Started in a time of pro
Receives from the Irish Con found peace, 331. Testimony of
federates nineteen accusations Dr. O Conor and Dr. Killen, 331.
against Rinuccini, 341. He re The Rebels desire to recover the
fuses to censure Rinuccini, 342. Church revenue, 331. Father
Receives a Report from Rinuc Hugh Bourke states that it was
cini on his return from Ireland, "
begun the interests

solely in
343. Offers Rinuccini a high of the Catholic and Roman re
place in the Papal Court, 343. ligion,"
332. Popes Urban VIII.
Charles II. writes for assistance and Innocent X. bless the Rebels,
to him, 379 333,-Urban VIII. sends Father
INNOCENT XI., an enemy of the Scarampi to the Rebels as his
Jesuit Order, 429. James II. Nuncio with large supplies of
appoints the
Earl of Castle- money and arms, 334. Cardinal
rnaine English Ambassador
as Barberini sends 10,000 crowns
to, 429. Lord Castlemaine en to the Rebels, 334. Cardinal
deavours to obtain from him a Mazarin sends 25,000 dollars,
INDEX 473
334. Innocent X. sends Rinuc- full toleration to Papists,

grant
cini tothe Rebels as his Nuncio 358. His death, 313. Evil
with money and ammunition, results of his reign, 313
334. The Rebels enflamed by a JAMES II., his Reign an object-
murderous book written by lesson for Protestants, 421.
Conor O Mahony, a Jesuit, 338- When he came to the Throne he
340. The Rebellion ends with was an avowed Roman Catholic,
the Peace Treaty between the 422. His wife a Papist, 422.
Irish Confederation and the Promises to defend and support
Marquis of Ormond, 342 the Church of England, 422.
IRISH Remonstrance of 1660, the, Many changes made in his
condemned by Rome, 325. De Coronation service, 422, 423.
Vecchis, Papal Nuncio at He and his Queen secretly
Brussels, summoned the Ecclesi anointed b\ a Popish priest, 423.
astics who signed it to appear Corrupt practices used by him
before him
as heretics," 325.
"
at the first General Election,

De Vecchis states that it con 424. Endeavours to appoint
tained damnable doctrines, 326. Popish officers in the army, 424.
De Vecchis exhorts Irish Dissolves Parliament and
Romanists to martyrdom rather never calls another, 424. His
than sign it, 326 persecutions of the Dissenters,
425. Appoints Judge Jeffreys,
JAMES I., Accession to English 425. Regards the severity of
Throne, 257. Promises tolera Judge Jeffreys with approval,
tion to the Romanists, 257. His 425. He rewards Jeffreys with
letter to Lord Hambleton, 257. the grant of the Great Seal, 425.
A Plot to capture him, 258. His His attitude towards the
Proclamation ordering allJesuits exiled French Huguenots, 425-
to leave England, 263. His 427. Approves of the revoking
views on Religious Toleration, of the Edict of Nantes, 426.
264-266. His speech at the Secretly urges Louis XIV. to
opening of Parliament, 265. His pursue the work of the Revoca
Act against the Jesuits, 266, tion, 426. Reluctantly allows
267. States that he does not collections to be made for the
intend to enforce the Act unless Huguenot fugitives, 426.
obliged, 268. His Penal Laws Orders the Clergy to refrain
against the Papists mildly ad from preaching on the sufferings
ministered, 285, 290. His mar of the French Protestants, 426.
riage negotiations with Spain Refuses to allow the Test Act
and France, 304-312. Relaxes to be enforced against the
the laws against Popish Re Popish officers he had placed in
cusants, 308. Promises Parlia the army, 426. Orders the
ment that he will enforce the Huguenots to become members
laws against Recusants, 311. Church of England before
of the
Breaks his promises, 311. they could receive any relief
Swears to Marriage Treaty with from the public collections, 426,
France, 311. Promises Cardinal 427. Causes an account of the
Richelieu to help Louis XIII. to sufferings of the French Pro
fight the Huguenots, 319. testants to be burnt by the
Charles fulfils his promise,
I. common hangman, 427. Forms
319-322. Cordially receives the a "
Private Council "
composed
Archbishop of Ambrun, a secret of four Romanists and a Jesuit
Agent Louis XIII., 358.
of priest, 427. Orders the Bishop
Promises Louis XIII. s Agent to of London to suspend Dr. Sharp,
474 INDEX
who had preached against and second Declarations of In
Popery, 428. Bishop of London dulgence, 439, 440. His claim
displeases him, 428. Obtains a to be a friend of religious
sentence of suspension against liberty exposed by Macaulay,
the Bishop of London and Dr. 440-441. A copy of Parsons
Sharp, 428. Appoints the Earl Memorial of the Reformation of
of Castlemaine, Ambassador to England presented to him, 448.
Innocent XI., 429. Dismisses Appoints Father Petrie, a Jesuit,
the Duke of Somerset for re a Privy Councillor, 450. Com
fusing to escort the Pope s mands the Bishops to circulate
Nuncio, 430. Receives the his Declaration of Indulgence
Pope s Nuncio, the Count of through their dioceses, 451.
Adda, with great ceremony, 430. The Bishops refuse to comply
Insists that Adda should be with his orders, 452, The Arch
made an Archbishop, 430. bishop of Canterbury and six
Publicly fallson his knees before Bishops draw up a Petition to
Adda, 430. Endeavours to him and present it, 453. He
obtain from the Courts of Law summonses them before the
a decision in favour of the Dis Council, 453. Signs a warrant
pensing Power, 431. Dismisses to commit them to the Tower,
Hyde, Earl of Rochester, John 453. The Bishops tried before
Moore, Lord Mayor of London, the King s Bench and acquitted,
Peter Rich, Chamberlain of 454. Their acquittal sounded
London, Arthur Herbert, Rear- the death-knell of his rule as
Admiral of England, Hyde, Earl King, 454. His flight, 454.
of Clarendon, and many others, What would have happened had
because they were Protestants, he remained King much longer,
432, 433. Puts Papists in 455, 456. See also under York,
their places,433. Extraordinary Jhike of
letter by a Jesuit with regard JAMES V. of Scotland and the
to his schemes, 435. His atti Pilgrimage of Grace, 125. Paul
tude towards the Universities, III. blesses and sends him a cap
436-438. He orders Cambridge and a sword, 125
University to admit a Bene JAMES VI. of Scotland, the Pope,
dictine Monk, 430. Deprives and Philip II. endeavour to win
the Vice-Chancellor of Cam him over, 240. His wife, Anne
bridge University of his office, of Denmark, a secret Romanist,
436. Orders Magdalene College, 240. Becomes James I. of Eng
Oxford, to appoint Anthony land, 257
Farmer, a Papist, to the office of JEFFREYS, Judge, James LI. speaks
President, 436. They refuse, so of him as "making his campaign
he orders them to appoint Dr. in the West," 425. James re
Parker as President, 437. Turns gards his severity with approval,
out the President, Mr. Hough, 425. James rewards him with
and instals Dr. Parker by force, the grant of the Great Seal,
437. On the death of Dr. 425
Parker, he appoints to the JESUIT Invasion, the, 198. Com
Presidency a Popish Vicar- mences with the arrival in
Apostolic, 437. Appoints a England, in 1580, of Edmund
Popish priest as Dean of Christ Campion, Robert Parsons, and
Church, Oxford, 439. Grants a Ralph Emerson, 198
sum of1000 per annum to each Jesuit s Memorial for the Reformation
of thefour Popish Vicars- of England, by Robert Parsons,
Apostolic, 439. Issues his first published by the Rev. Dr. Gee,
INDEX 475
442-450. Father Etheldred His interview with Pandulph at

Taunton remarks on the book,
s Northampton, 21. His inter
442. The Month praises Parsons view with Pandulph at Dover,
book, 442, 448, 449. Further 22-24. Surrenders England and
particulars of the Jesuits plan Ireland to the Pope by Charter,
revealed by Father Taimton, 449 23-24. His Oath of Allegiance
JESUITS, sent by Paul III. to to the Pope, 24. Swears allegi
Ireland to encourage rebellion, ance to the Pope a second and
129. Executed in Elizabeth s third time, 25
Reign,, 181-194. Testimony as JOHN XXII. publishes a truce
to their disloyalty by Father between England and Scotland,
Campion s biographer, 185. 75
Testimony of Lord Burleigh, JOHN of Austria, Don, his proposed
Father Watson, a priest in 1603, Conquest of England, 195.
Father Thomas Bluet, Father Gregory XIII. sends him 50,000
Nicholas Sanders, Father Robert ducats to aid the expedition,
Parsons, S.J., Father Joseph 195. Gregory XIII. sends Mgr.
Berington, Sir John Throck- Sega to him as Nuncio, 195
morton, and Cardinal Allen, 185- JOHN of Desmond, Sir, leader of a
193. The Six Questions on Rebellion in Ireland, 196
Loyalty put to them, 191, 192. JOHNSON, Rev. Samuel, his Address
They betray Father William Wat to all the English Protestants in the
son s Plot to capture James I., Present 433.
Army, Fined 500
258. Their Plot to induce Philip marks, placed in the stocks, and
to invade England, 258-262. whipped by the common hang
Proclamation of James I. order man for writin^ the pamphlet,
ing them all to leave England, 434.
263. All laws against them re JOHNSON, Robert, 192
newed in James I. s Reign, 266. JONES, Edward, 224
Their connection with the Gun
powder Plot, 269-280. Their
bitter opposition to the Oath of KEYS, Robert, a Gunpowder Plot
Allegiance to James I., 292. conspirator, 270
Actively assist Charles II. in KILLALOE, Bishop of, begs Philip
II. to send an army to Ireland,
his endeavour to gain the
English Throne, 381. An Act
247. Appeals again to Philip,
them passed in the 248
against
Reign of Charles II., 387. KIRBY, Luke, 192
Letters of Charles II. to the KNOX, Father, of the Brompton
General of the Jesuits at Rome, Oratory, whitewashes an at
393-396. Letters of Edward tempt to murder Elizabeth, 212,
213
Coleman, chief conspirator in
the real Popish Plot, to them in
France, 417. An interesting LAMBETH Synod of 1556, its penal
letter from a Jesuit at Liege ties against heretics, 144, 145
to a Jesuit at Friburg about LANGTON, Archbishop, 20, 21, 25
James II., 435, 436. Parsons LATHAM, a priest, executed in
plan for the Eeformatio?i of Eng James I. s Reign, 297
land praised by the modern LAUD, Archbishop, 356. Bishop
Jesuits, 442, 448, 449. Further Montague states that he was
details of the Jesuits plan re favourably disposed towards a
vealed by Father Taunton, 449 union of the Church of England
JOHN, King, threatens to slit the with Rome, 365
noses of all the Clergy, 20. LAWRENCE, Robert, executed, 123
476 INDEX
LEA, Dr., on the use of torture by clares the rebel Earl of Northum
the Spanish Inquisition, 168 berland a saint, 163. Beatifies
LE CHASE, Father, Jesuit Confessor Thomas Plumtree, Chaplain to
to Louis XIV. of France, 419, 435 Rebels of the Northern Rising,
LEEDKS, Edward, a Jesuit, writes a 164. Beatifies the Countess of
disloyal book against the O.ith Salisbury, 130. Declares John
of Allegiance under the name of Felton to be a Beatified Martyr,
Courteney, 361. The book never 166. Beatifies the traitor, John
published, 361 Quotations from
.
Storey, 181. Beatifies Thomas
his book, 362. Father Preston s Woodhouse, 184. Declares
reply to the book, 362 Thomas Sherwood a Beatified
LEGATES, Papal, English restric Saint, 184. Raises Father Old-
tions on, 7-9. Refused admis corne, 8. J., Father Henry Garnet,
sion to England, 7, 8, 102. S.J., Nicholas Owen, S.J., and
Extortions by, 19, 26, 27, 29-33, Ralph Ashley, who were all im
98. Denounced by the English plicated in the Gunpowder Plot,
Nobles, 29, 30. Denounced by to the rank of "
Venerable,"273,
the Council of Henry VI., 94. 280. Raises nine priests who
Archbishop Chicheley s protest refused to take the Oath of Alle
against, 98. Mary I. refuses to giance to James !._, to the rank
receive Cardinal Pole and Peto of "Venerable," 297. Raises
as, 144. Queen Elizabeth s Edward Coleman, who was con
Council s protest against, 159- nected with the real Popish Plot,
161 to the rank of Venerable," 420
"
LEGATES, Papal, to England LERMA, the Duke of, 259

Hubert, 3 LEWIS, Archbishop of Rouen, given
Guido, 7 the Bishopric of Ely by the Pope,
Vanutelli, 7 101
Abbot Anselm, 8 LEWIS, Dr., Bishop of Cassano, 240
John de Crema, 8, 9 LISLE, Thomas de, Bishop of Ely, 66
Peter, 8 LITTLETON, Humphrey, executed
Pandulph, 21-25 for his connection with the Gun
Cardinal Vivian, 18 powder Plot conspirators, 272.
John of Ferentum, 19 His confession, 272. Consults
Bishop of Tusculum, 25 Father Oldcorne about the Plot,
Cardinal Otto, 26-29 272
Master Martin, 30-35 LOLLARDS, the Bishops efforts to
Rustand, 36-38 suppress them, 76. An Act
Cardinal Beaufort, 94, 97 against them passed by fraud, 76.
John Opizanus, 98 Act against them repealed by
Cardinal Pole, 144 Edward VI., 132. The Act De
Peto, 144 Hwretico Comburendo against, 140-
Abbot de Sancta Salute, 161 142
LEGATES, Papal, in Ireland, 160, LORD S Supper in both kinds insti
161, 298, 334 tuted, 132
LEICESTER, Earl of, 221 Louis XIII., King of France, Urban
Leicester s Commonwealth, said to VIII. urges him to attack Eng
have been written by Father land, 317, 318. Makes war
Robert Parsons, 154 against the Huguenots, 319.
LENNOX, Duke of, chief conspira James I. promises to help him,
tor in a great Jesuit Plot. See 319. Charles I. fulfils the pro
under Aubigny, Lord mise and sends the Vanguard
LEO XIII. beatifies John Hale, and seven merchant vessels over
Vicar of Isleworth, 123. De to him, 319-322. Cardinal
INDEX 477
Richelieu, his Prime Minister, II., a Roman Catholic, 422. She

319. Sends the Archbishop of and James II. secretly anointed
Ambrun to London as his secret by a Popish priest, 423
Agent, 358 MARTIN V., the audacious preten
Louis XIV. of France, his secret sions 96.
of, Claims the right
negotiations with Charles II. of presentation to all churches,
with a view to establishing 97. Makes his nephew, aged
Popery in England, 396-401. fourteen, Archdeacon of Canter
Signs the secret Treaty of Dover bury, 97. An Embassy sent to
between himself and Charles II., him by Henry V. to complain of
398. Promises 200,000 to his encroachments, 97. Trans
Charles to help on his scheme, lates Richard Fleming from See
399. Charles helps him in his of Lincoln to the See of York,
war against the Protestants of 98. Is forced to transfer him
Holland, 400, 410. His aid back again, 98.- His letter to
sought for by Edward Coleman, Archbishop Chicheley complain
chief conspirator in the real ing of Papal Disabilities, 99.
Popish Plot, 418 Demands the repeal of the
LOYALTY, the Declaration of, drawn Statute of Prremunire, 100.
up by Father Hugh-Paulin de His letters to the King, Par
Cressy, 324. Part of it included liament, and the Duke of Bud-
in the celebrated Irish Remon ford, 100. Orders the Clergy to
strance, 325. Signed by seven contribute towards the expenses
English Roman Catholic Peers of a war in Bohemia, 100
and twenty-seven Roman Catho MARY I., Queen, disabilities im
licEsquires, 325 posed on Protestants by, 1 34.
LOYALTY, the Six Questions on, Her duplicity towards the Suffolk
put to the priests in Elizabeth s Protestants, 134. Promises not
reign, 191-193. Three priests to make any religious altera
who answered them satisfactorily tions, 134.Breaks her promise,
were pardoned, 192. Cardinal 134-135. Her persecuting laws
Allen s statement regarding against Protestants, 137-140.
them, 193 Protestants excluded from Par
LOYALTY, the Three Propositions liament in the Reign of, 137.
on, signed by fifty-nine English Her marriage with Philip un
Romanists and several priests, popular in England, 138. Papal
327. The subscribers to them Supremacy restored in the Reign
censured by Innocent X., 327. of, 143. Some disabilities im
Reasons why they were con posed on the Papacy even in the
demned by Innocent X., 327, 328 Reign of, 143-145. Refuses to
LUMLEY, Lord, deprived of his receive Cardinal Pole as Papal
Colonelcy in the Cavalry, 432 Legate, 144. Refuses to receive
Peto as Papal Legate, 144.
MAGDALENE College, Oxford. See Lord Burleigh on the number
under Universities of Protestants who suffered in
MAGUiRE,a leader in Hugh O Neill s her reign, 186
Rebellion, 247 MARY, Queen of Scots, and the
MAITLAND, Lord Chancellor of Northern Rising, 162. Sends
Scotland, 239. Sixtus V. gives the Bishop of Ross to the Span
authority to have him assassin ish Ambassador, 168. Her pro
ated, 240 posed marriage to the Duke of
MAN RET, Father, secretly anoints Norfolk, 169. And the Ridolti
and crowns James II., 423 Conspiracy, 168-171. Her hypo
MARIA of Modemi, Queen of James critical letter to Elizabeth, 169.
478 INDEX
Consents to the Ridolfi Con MAYENNE, Duke of, 214. His Plot
spiracy, 169. Her instructions to murder Elizabeth, 210. Pro
to Ridolfi, 170, 171. Desires the mises a large sum of money
assistance of Pius V., 171 Don to the proposed murderer, 212
John of Austria s proposed plan MAZARIN, Cardinal, sends 25,000
to place her on the Throne of dollars to help on the Irish
England, 195. Her part in the Rebellion of 1641, 334
great Jesuit Plot, 207. Re MEERES, Sir Thomas, M.P., 409
ceives letters about the Plot MENDOZA, Spanish Ambassador in
from the Duke of Lennox, 207, London, 209. Aids the great
209. Supports the Plot of Philip Jesuit Plot, 209. His letters to
II.to place her on the English Philip II., 209, 221, 228. Mary,
Throne, 217. Her letter to Queen of Scots , letter to him,
Metidoza, 217. Her part in the 217. His letters to Idiaquez,
Babington Plot, 226, 229. Exe 219. Interviews four men who
cution of, 229 had sworn to murder Elizabeth,
MASSEY, John, a Popish priest, 219. Approves of their plan
James II. appoints him as Dean 219, 221. His expulsion from
of Christ Church, Oxford, 439. England, 218. Urges the assas
He renounces Protestantism, and sins to hurry, 222. Urges them
publicly declares himself a Rom to kill or seize Cecil, Walsing-
anist, 439. Qualifies as a Justice ham, Lord Hunsdon, Knollys,
of the Peace, 439. Opens a and Beal, of the Council, 222
chapel within the precincts of MEYNELL, Robert, sent by Charles
Christ Church for Papists, 431) II. to Rome to obtain the Pope s
MATHIEU, Father Claude, Provin help to set him on the Throne,
cial of the Jesuits in France, 378
207. His connection with the M GAURAN, Edmund, Archbishop
great Jesuit Plot, 207. His part of Armagh, sent to Ireland by
in the proposed foreign invasion Clement VIII. as his Nuncio,
of England, 213 247. Killed on the battle-field,
MATTHEW, Sir Tobie, a dis 248
guised Jesuit, son of the Arch MONASTERIES, an
Act against
bishop of York, 354. Was really abuses Their condition in
in, 88.
a priest and a Jesuit, but Henry VIII. s Reign, 116-120.
assumed lay disguise, 354. Commission appointed by Paul
James sends him to Spain
I. III. to inquire into the state of
to assist the Marriage Treaty the Italian, 117. Text of the
negotiations, 354. His priest Report of the Papal Commission
hood kept a profound secret, on, 117. Letters on the Suppression
354. Knighted by James I., of the, 119. Erasmus testimony
354. Espouses the side of the on the state of, 119. The lesser,
Jesuits, 354. Signs a petition suppressed, 120
which was circulated by the MONMOUTH, Duke of, his rebellion
Jesuits, 354. Spies on the fre gives James II. an excuse for
quenters of the Royal Court, 355. persecuting the Dissenters, 425
Has a finger in all court in MONTAGUE, Dr., Bishop of Chiches-
trigues, 355. His ascendency ter, Panzani s three secret inter
over the Lord Treasurer, 355. views with him, 364 366.
Sent to Ireland as Secretary to Desires to obtain the union of
Lord Wentworth, 355 the Church of England with
MAXFIELD, Rev. Thomas, executed Rome, 364. Expresses his will
in James I. s Reign, 297 ingness to subscribe to all the
MAXIMILIAN II., Emperor, 159 tenets of the Church of Rome,
INDEX 479
364. Panzani flatters him, and them, 425. James II. suspends
obtains information concerning the Penal Laws against them,
the other Bishops of the Church 440. James reason for doing
of England, 365. Says he is so, 440. Ten Nonconformist
willing to kiss the Pope s feet, ministers show their sympathy
365. States that Archbishop with the seven Bishops who re
Laud was entirely of his senti fused to publish James II. s
ments, 365 Declaration of Indulgence, 453
MONTAGUE, Lord, executed, 130 NORFOLK, Cardinal of, connected
Month, The, organ of the modern with the real Popish Plot, 417
Jesuits, praises the plan of NORFOLK, the Duke of, proposed
Robert Parsons for theReforma marriage of, with Mary, Queen
tion of England, 442, 448, 449 of Scots, 169.
disguised A
MOORE, Father, Agent in Rome Romanist, 169. And
the Ridolri
for the English priests, 306 Conspiracy, 169-176. Feigns to
MOORE, John, Lord Mayor of be a Protestant, 172. His in
London, dismissed by James II. structions to Ridolfi, 171-173.
for refusing to support Popery, Requests the assistance of Philip
432 II. and Pius V., 173. Executed,
MORE, Sir Thomas, execution of, 176
124 NORTHERN Rising, the, 161.
MORGAN, Bishop Philip, of Ely, 101 Originated by Pius V., 161. Its
MORGAN, Thomas, Agent of Mary, object was to restore the Popish
Queen of Scots, on the Continent, religion, 162. Pius V. sends
226. His letter to her, 226 12,000 crowns to the Rebels, 162.
MORTON, Dr. Nicholas, sent by Letter of Pius V. blessing the
Pius V. to foment the Northern Rebellion, 162. Causes the en
Rising, 161 actment of new Penal Laws,
Morton, Earl of, his execution pro 194
cured by the Duke of Lennox, 206 NORTHUMBERLAND, Earl of, leader
MUFFON, Father, 351 in the Northern Rising, 161.
MURDERS by the clergy, 12-14 Executed for high treason, 163.
MUSH, Father, his letter to Father Enrolled as a "Martyr" and
Moore, agent in Rome for the Beatified by Leo XIII., 163.
English priests, 306 Supports the Northern Rising,
172
NANTES, the Revocation of the NUNCIO, Papal, in James II. s
Edict of. See under Huyue-iwts Reign-
NAPIER, Rev. George, executed in Ferdinand, Count of Adda, 429,
James l. s Reign, 297 430
NETHERLANDS, the war with Spain NUNCIOS, Papal, in Charles l. s
in the, 231, 232 Reign
NEWCOME,Rev. Richard, his Memoir Rinuccini (in Ireland), 334-343
of Gabriel Goodman, 357 Signer Gregorio Panzani, 349-
NICHOLAS, Sir Edward, Secretary 351, 359-366
of State, 404 Count Rosetti, 351, 368
NONCONFORMISTS, Charles II. sus George Conn, 366-368
pends the Penal Laws against NUNCIOS, Parliament s opposition
them, 400, 408, 409. They realise to them, 368-370
that the suspension of the Penal
Laws was not done for their sake, OAKLEY, the Rev., a Roman
401, 408. The Rebellion of the Catholic, states that Henry VIII.
Duke of Monmouth gives James "
maintained Catholic doctrine

II. an excuse for persecuting to the end,"
106
480 INDEX
GATES, Titus, originator of the Commission to tender the Oath
sham Popish Plot, 414. His to members of both Houses of
character as given by Bishop Parliament, 406. Parliament
Burnet, 414, 415. Evelyn on, passes the Test Act, which re-
415. The comments of the his .
quires every person holding office

Ranke, Lord Macaulay,
torians, to take the Oath, 410. Earl of
and Hallam, on his character, Sunderland signs an order re
410, 417. He states falsely that leasing from prison all those
Edward Coleman plotted the who had refused to take the
death of Charles II., 419 Oath, 424. James II. dispenses
OATH of Abjuration required to with the Oath, 424, 426, 432, 436,
be taken during the Common 437, 439, 440
wealth, 372, 373 OATH Fealty, demanded by
of
OATH of Allegiance as required by Gregory VII., 3. Refused by
the Parliament of James I., 28(5, William
I., 3
287. Secular priests advise the OATH of Loyalty to Elizabeth,
Romanists to take it, 291. tendered to Edmund Campion
Arch-priest Blackwell advises his and other priests, 193
clergy to subscribe to it, 291. OATH of Supremacy and Allegiance,
Every Roman Catholic Peer in 149. Ecclesiastical persona
the House of Lords took it ex ordered to take it in Elizabeth s
cept one, 292. The Jesuits and Reign, 149

the Pope its bitter enemies, 292. O HARTIGAN, a Jesuit, Envoy of
Father Richard Holby, S.J., the Irish Confederation at the
on the Oath, 292. Henry Foley, French Court, 335
S.J. s, untruthful statement O HELY, Dr. James. See Tuam,
about it, 292. Paul V. s de Archbishop of
nunciation of it, 293, 306. His OLDCORNE, Father, a Jesuit, exe
two Briefs on the subject, 293- cuted for helping the Gunpowder
295. The real objection to it Plotters, 272. Father Confessor
was because denied the Pope s
it to Catesby and Robert Winter,
deposing power, 295. Testi 272. Says the Gunpowder Plot
mony of Sir John Throckmorton, was good," 272.
"
Refuses to
Bart.,Mr. Charles Butler, Father condemn the Plot, 272. Raised
Robert Parsons, S.J., the Rev. to rank of Venerable by Leo
" "
Charles O Conor, D.D., and XIII., 273, 280. Modern Jesuits

Father Berington, 295-297. refer to him as a 280
"
Martyr,"
Nine priests refuse to take it OLIVARES, Count de, 230, 233, 261,
and are executed, 297.- Arch- 318
priest Birkhead opposes it, 305. O MAHONY, Conor, an Irish Jesuit,
-Paul V. forbids Romanists to Professor of Theology at Evora,
take it,30G. Romanists in his murderous book, Disputatio
Reign of Charles I. would have Apologetica de jure Regni Hibernia
taken it in large numbers but adversus hcereticos, 338-340
for the Papal prohibition, 324. O NEIL, Con, leader of an Irish
Negotiations between Panzani Rebellion, 129. Letter from
and Windebank regarding the Paul III. to, 129
Oath, 349. Edward Leedes, a O NEILL, Hugh, Earl of Tyrone,
Jesuit, writes a disloyal book 246. His Rebellion, 248-253.
against the Oath, 361. George Clement VIII. aids the Rebels,
Conn, secret Papal Agent, tries 250. Professes to be a Pro
to persuade Charles I. to alter testant, 248. His letter to
the Oath, 367. Parliament re Philip II., 248. Desires absolute
quests Charles II. to issue a new supremacy of the Church of
INDEX 481
Rome, 248. His address to the 349, 360. Negotiates with Win
Catholics of Ireland, 249. debank regarding the Oath of
States that he fights for the Allegiance, 349. Cardinal Bar-
extirpation of heresy, 249. The berini informs him that he has
Universities of Salamanca and exceeded his commission, 349.
Valladolid favour the Rebellion, Sets up a secret agency between
252, 253. Congratulated by England and the Court of Rome,
Clement VIII. on his successes, 350. Windebank tells him that
253. Gives up the contest and he has a good scheme for sup
fliesto the Continent, 253. pressing the Puritans, 350.
Arrives in Rome, 253. Royal Cardinal Barberini orders him
welcome given him by Clement to keep his conferences with
JFIII., 253,
254 Windebank a secret, 351. His
ONATE, Spanish Ambassador in Memoirs translated by Rev.
England, 318 Joseph Berington, 359. Pre
OPIZANUS, John, a Papal Legate, cautions taken to prevent his
imprisoned, 98 secret mission from being made
ORANGE, William, Prince of, lands known, 359. His interview with
at Torbay, 454 the Queen, 359. Charles I.
ORMOND, Duke of, a trusted coun states that he should carry on
sellor Charles II. on the
of his business in England with
"
Continent before the Restora secrecy,"

359. His great cau
tion, 385, 398. Charles II. con tion, 359. The Jesuits tell him
ceals from him his change of that the Roman Catholic religion
religion, 386. He sees Charles could never be re-established
on his knees at Mass, 386 "but
by the sword," 360. His
ORRERY, Lord, 398 secret interview with Charles L,
ORTON, Henry, 192 362. Charles receives him cor
OVIEDO, Matthew de, Archbishop dially, 362. He and Windebank
of Dublin, 249 cause diplomatic relations be
OWEN, Nicholas, executed for his tween England and Rome to be
connection with the Gunpowder established, 363. Instructed by
Plot, 280. Modern Jesuits call Cardinal Barberini to act as spy
him a "Martyr," 280. Raised on Church of England Bishops,
by Leo XIII. to the rank of 364. His three secret interviews
"Venerable," 280 with Dr. Montague, Bishop of
OXFORD, Earl of, supports the Chichester, 364-366. Ordered
Ridolfi Conspiracy, 172 to flatter Dr. Montague, 365.
OXFORD University. See Univer Obtains from Dr. Montague
sities information concerning Church
of England Bishops, 365. His
PAMPHILI, Papal Secretary of State, mission revealed, 366. He
his letters censuring Rinuccini for leaves England, 366
professing loyalty to the King, PAPAL Claims, 2, 3, 43, 46, 47, 48,
298, 336-338. Rinuccini s letters 75. Barons repudiate, 44, 45.
to him from Ireland, 335-337 Edward repudiates, 45.
I. The
PANDULPH, Papal Legate, his Bishops repudiate, 46. Philip
insolent speeches to King John, IV. of France repudiates, 49
21,22 PAPAL Extortions, complaints of,
PANZANI, Signer Gregorio, secret 19, 26, 27, 29-38, 50, 51, 54, 56,
Agent to England of the Papacy, 67, 69, 78, 80, 89, 90, 100, 110-
sent by Urban VIII. 349-359. ,
112. Legal decisions on, 73.
Visits Lord Cottington, 348. English Bishops protest against,
His interviews with Windebank, 37. Wycliffe on, 75
2H
482 INDEX
PAPAL Provisions and Reserva appeals to Rome, 4, 14, 15, 16,
tions, Definitions
53-63. of, 17, 113, 115.
64, Forbids the
53. Remonstrance of Parlia reception of Citations from
ment on, 53-55, 93. Specimen Rome, 67. Petitions Richard
text of, 57, note. II. to put down the Pope s
PAPAL Supremacy in England, collectors, 77, 78. Requests
Henry VIII. and the abolition Richard II. to expel all foreign
of, 109. Abolished by Parlia Priors, 77. Prohibits going to
ment, 113. Restored in Reign Rome for Benefices, 78. Charges
of Mary I., 143. Abolished in Richard II. with allowing the
the Reign of Elizabeth, 149 Pope too much power, 85.
PAPISTS in Disguise, 344-358. Forbids the reception of infants
Sir Henry Shirley, 345 into Monasteries, 88. Forbids
Earl of Portland, 346 the purchase of Bulls fom Rome,
Lord Cottington, 347 89. Orders all livings held by
Sir Francis Windebank, 348-352 aliens to be seized by the King,
Sir Kenelm Digby, 352-354 92. Its Petition to Henry
Bishop Godfrey Goodman, 355- VIII. on the tyranny of the
358 Church of Rome, 109. Prohibits
Dr. Montague, Bishop of the payment of Peter s Pence,
Chichester, 364-366 115. Suppresses the lesser
Lady Castlemaine, 404 Monasteries and Convents,
Lord Arlington, 404, 405 120. Protestants excluded from
Sir Charles Berkeley, 404 it in
Reign of Mary I., 137. Papal
Duke of York (afterward James Supremacy restored in the Reign
II.), 404 of Queen Mary by, 143. Papal
Parliament s protestation Supremacy abolished in the
against, 358 Reign of Elizabeth by, 149.
PAPISTS ordered to attend Pro Restores Ecclesiastical Juris
testant services, 151. The testi diction of the Crown in Eliza
mony of Father Robert Parsons beth s Reign, 149. Prohibits
on this point, 151. Testimony the use of Papal Bulls in Eliza
of the Month, 151 beth s Reign, 176, 177, 194, 195.
PARKER, Dr., Bishop of Oxford, Orders a Public Thanksgiving
favours Popery, 435. Proposes for deliverance from the Gun
that at least one College at powder Plot, 283. Renews in
Oxford should be granted to the James I. s Reign all laws against
Papists, 435. James II. orders Jesuits, 266.-Passes severe laws
Magdalene College, Oxford, to against the Recusants in James
appoint him as its President, 437. I. s Reign, 284, 285-290. Its
The College refuses, and James Remonstrance to James I. over
has him forcibly installed. 437 the Spanish Marriage Treaty,
PARLIAMENT, its protests against 306308. Complains to James I.
Papal Extortions, 33, 34, 69. about the growth of Popery in
Repudiates Papal claims, 44. the Kingdom, 307. Petitions
Forbids taxes to the Pope, 50- James I. to enforce the laws
51. Protests against Papal Pro- against Recusants, 310. Pre
visors and Reservations, 54, 93. sents a list of names of Popish
Requests Edward III. to forcibly Recusants to James, 311.
expel the Papal Power, 54. Prohibits in Charles I. s Reign
Forbids sending money to the the education of Romanists in
Pope, 59, 70. Prohibits pur foreign Seminaries, 322.
chase of livings from Rome, Scheme of Father George Gage to
63, 73, 77, 89, 90. Prohibits intimidate it, 328, 329. Its Pro-
INDEX 483
testation in Charles I. s Reign PARSONS, Father Robert, S.J., on

against disguised Papists, 358. Henry VIII. s decrees against
George Conn, secret Papal the Protestants, 105. His tes
Agent, tells Charles I. that he timony as to Papists attending
stands above the Parliament,"
"
Protestant services in Eliza
367. Its opposition to Papal beth s Reign, 151. Said to have
Nuncios, 368, 369. Its Declara written Leicester s Commonwealth,
tion to Charles I. with regard 154. Urges the assassination of
to the attempts to alter the Elizabeth by poison or sword,
religion of the country, 369- 188. Shows that Elizabeth
370. Passes severe laws against punished Romanists for treason
the Papists during the Common and not for their religion, 190.
wealth, 371-376. Charles II. Arrives in England in 1580,
endeavours to obtain from it 198. Was the centre of all plots
concessions for Roman Catholics, against Elizabeth, 199. Sows
389. Passes an Act against the the seeds of the Gunpowder
Jesuits in Charles II. s Reign, Plot, 199. Forms a Sodality of
387. Requests Charles II. to Roman Catholics in England,
enforce the Penal Laws against 199. This Sodality furnished
Papists, 390. Appoints a Com the principals of many of the
mittee to inquire into the in plots in Elizabeth s Reign, 199.
crease of Popery, 406. Presents Establishes Seminaries on the
a Petition to Charles II. against
"
Continent to propagate seditious

the growth of Popery," 406. principles, 201-203. -His con
Passes the Test Act, 410. nection with the great Jesuit
Objects to the Declaration of Plot, 207. Sees Philip II. about
Indulgence issued by Charles II., the Plot, 207. Reveals the
409. Considers the two Jesuiti design to the Pope, 207. His
cal Bills ostensibly introduced part in the proposed invasion of
to further Protestantism, 411, England, 213. Consults the
412. Condemns the two Bills, Pope about the proposal, 214.
412. Passes a Bill to prevent His endeavours to place Philip
Papists from sitting in either II. on the English Throne, 230.
House of Parliament, 412. The He urges that the claim of
Duke of York s Plot to destroy Philip II. should be kept in the
it, and make himself real background, 231. Writes sedi
Governor of the Kingdom, 418. tious books, 233. His connec
Passes a resolution expressing tion with the Spanish Armada,
its confidence in the Declaration 237, 238. His Brief A ote on the
of James II. in which he promised Present Condition of "England, 237,
to defend and support the 238. Endeavours to secure the
Church of England, 422. Cor English Throne for the Infanta
rupt means adopted by James of Spain, 245. His book, A Con
II. to secure the return of his ference About the Next Succession
friends to, 424. James II. in the Throne of England, 245.
wishes it to agree to his illegal Supports the Rebellion of Hugh
action in appointing Papists in O Neill, 248. His letter to
the army, 424. Presents an Idiaquez, 248. His statement
address to James protesting as to the real objection to the
against his illegal action, 424. Oath of Allegiance to James I.,
Dissolved by James II., who 295. His book, A Memorial of
never called another, 424. theReformation of England, pub
Robert Parsons plan to make it lished in 1690 by the Rev. Dr.
Roman Catholic, 446, 447 Gee, 441-450
484 INDEX
PASCHAL II., letters to the King orders, 319, 320. His crews
of England from, 6, 7, 8. Com refuse to
fight against the
plains of Papal Disabilities in Protestants, 320. He returns
England, 6, 7 to England with the ships,
PAUL appoints a Commission
III. 320. Duke of Buckingham
to inquire into abuses among orders him to take the ships
the clergy in Italy, 117. The back again, 321. His crews re
Commission suggests that he fuse to return, but he induces
should abolish the Italian Con them by deception to do so,
vents, 117. Blesses the Pil 321. Receives definite instruc
grimage of Grace, 125. Sends a tions from Charles, 321, 322.
cap and a sword to James V. of He threatens to hang any of the
Scotland, 125. Excommunicates crews who refused to serve
Henry VIII., 126.- Issues a against Rochelle, 322. His crews
promise of indulgence to all unanimously refuse to serve,
Catholics who an would kill 322. He delivers the ships to
English heretic, Sends 129. the French, manned by French
two Jesuits to Ireland to en men and foreigners, 322. See
courage rebellion, 129 alsounder Rochelle.
PAUL IV. claims the Crown of PERCY, Thomas, a Gunpowder Plot
England, 47. Censures Eliza conspirator, 270, 273
beth for assuming the Crown PETER S Pence, 33. The origin of,
without his consent, 148. Queen 2. William and, 3. The pay
I.
of Scots and three Cardinals ment of, prohibited, 115
petition him to remedy the PETO, William, refused admittance
scandals in Scottish Convents, to England as Papal Legate by
118 Mary I., 144-145
PAUL V., a Treatise of Heresy PETRIE, Father E., a Jesuit, mem
dedicated to him, 282. De ber of James II. s "Private
nounces the Oath of Allegiance Council," 427. Afterwards a
to James 293, 306.
I.,
His member of the Privy Council,
two Briefs on the subject, 293- 427, 450. James II. sends Lord
295 Castlemaine to Rome to secure
PEMBROKE, Earl of, supports the for him a Cardinal s hat, but
Ridolfi Conspiracy, 172 fails, 429
PEMBROKE, Fourth Earl of, 352 PHILIP of Spain, Mary I. s marriage
PENAL Laws of Henry VIII., 110- with him unpopular in England,
115 138
PENAL Laws of Queen Elizabeth, PHILIP II. of Spain, Papists en
the extreme penalties of, not deavour to obtain his help to
inflicted, 152. Testimony of depose Elizabeth, 155, 156. And
the Month on this point, 152, the Ridolfi Conspiracy, 170-176.
155. Testimony of Father His interview with Ridolfi,
Camm on the "comparative 174. Receives a letter from
mildness 154. Testimony
of,"
Pius V. from the hands of
of Father Watson, 155 Ridolfi, 175. Receives letters
PENAL Laws of James I., 266-268, from Mary, Queen of Scots, and
283-290. Rarely enforced, 268. the Duke of Norfolk, 175. Pius
Mildly administered, 285, V. exhorts him to support the
290 Ridolfi Conspiracy, 174, 175.-
PENNINGTON, John, in command of Questions Ridolfi before the
ships sent by Charles I. to fight Spanish Escurial regarding the
against the Huguenots, 319- proposed murder of Elizabeth,
322. He receives contradictory 175. He supports the scheme,
INDEX 485
176. Approves of the proposed PILGRIMAGE of Grace, the, 125.

murder of Elizabeth, 212. His Its objects, the restoration of
league with the Duke of Guise, the Monasteries arid the Pope s
215. His Plot to place Mary, Supremacy, 125. The oath taken
Queen of Scots, on the English by the Rebels, 125. Paul III.
throne, 216. Desires to become blesses the enterprise, 125
King of England himself, 216. PISTOJA, the Capuchin preacher
Mendoza informs him of Babing- 219
ton s Plot to murder Elizabeth, Pius IV. offers to confirm Eliza
221. He approves of it, 223. beth in her Royal dignity, 148.
His letter of approval to Men Petitioned to depose Elizabeth,
doza, 223. Endeavours to win 156, 157. Roman Catholic
James VI. of Scotland over to Bishops request him to excom
his side, 240. Promises assist municate Elizabeth,, 157
ance to O Neill, Earl of Tyrone, Pius V. sends Dr. Nicholas Morton
in his Rebellion, 247. Sends to England to foment the North
Captain Alonso Cobos as Emis ern Rising, 161. Sends 12,000
sary to Ireland, 248. Receives crowns to the Rebels, 162. His
a letter from O Neill, 248 letter blessing the Rebellion, 162.
PHILIP III. of Spain, sends 22,000 His famous Bull deposing
gold pieces to pay O Neill s Elizabeth, 164, 165. The Bull
soldiers in the Irish Rebellion, posted on the Bishop of London s
249. Sends Don Juan de Aquila palace by John Felton, 165.
to aid the Rebels, 251. De And the Ridolfi Conspiracy, 170-
Aquila s object to make Philip 176. His assistance requested
King of Ireland, 251. Thomas by Mary, Queen of Scots, and the
Winter and Father Tesimond Duke of Norfolk, 171-173. His
sent to him to induce him to interview with Ridolfi, 174.
invade England, 259. Promises Gives Ridolfi a letter to Philip
them 100,000 crowns, 259. Re II. approving of the Plot, 174.
quested by Father Creswell to And the proposed murder of

nominate a Popish successor to Elizabeth, 175. His deposing
the English Throne, 261, 262. Bull causes new Penal Laws to
Father Creswell s recommenda be enacted, 194
tions to his Council, 261, 262. PLANTAGENET, Lady Blanche, 66
His Council s report on the PLUMTREE, Thomas, Chaplain to
matter, 262, 263 the Northern Rebels, 164.
PHILIP IV. of Spain, urged by Beatified by Leo XIII., 164
Urban VIII. to attack England, PLUNKET, Dr., titular Primate of
317, 318. -Charles II. endeavours Ireland, 407. Parliament re
to obtain his help to set him on quests Charles II. that he should
the Throne, 378. Charles sends be brought over to England to
Lord Cottington and Sir Edward answer certain charges against
Hyde to him as Ambassadors, him, 407
378. Promises to help Charles POLE, Cardinal, on Queen Mary s
if he should become a Roman right to the Crown, 46, 47. His
Catholic, 382. Father Peter book De Unitate Ecclesiastica,
Talbot sent by Charles II. to 121. Exasperates Henry VIII.,
tell him of his change of reli 121. Endeavours to raise a
gion, 384. foreign army for the invasion of
PHILIP IV. of France, his letter to England, 130. Execution of his
the Pope, 49 brothers, 130. His letter to
PHILLIMORE, Sir Robert, on Appeals Charles V. s Father Confessor,
to Rome, 16 136. Mary I. refuses to receive
486 INDEX
him as Papal Legate, 144, 145. PRO VISORS, the First Statute of,
Summoned to Rome to answer 61-63. Another Act against,
charges of heresy, 144. William 79. The Statutes against, con
Peto appointed Papal Legate in firmed by Henry V., 92
place of, 144. Mary I. forbids PURITANS, Windebank s scheme for
him to go to Rome, 144. Re their suppression, 350. Count
news penalties against heretics Rosetti promises Charles L, if
in the Lambeth Synod of 1556, he became a Roman Catholic,
144, 145 the help of all the Popish Princes
POPES, the Crimes of the, Richard of Europe to suppress them, 368.
II. on, 85 They pass severe laws against
POPISH Plot, the Real, its chief the Papists during the Common
conspirator was Edward Cole- wealth, 371-376
man, 417-420. See also under
Coleman, Edward
POPISH Plot, the Sham, originated RAPHOE, Bishop of, appeals to
by Titus Gates, 414. Dr. Burnet Philip II. to help O Neill s Re
O n 414. Evelyn on, 415. The
5
bellion in Ireland, 248
historian Ranke on, 416. Lord RAYNALDO, Olderico, a nom de plume
Macaulay s comments on, 416. of Cardinal Baronius, 340
Hallarn s remarks on, 417 RECUSANTS, disabilities imposed on
PORTLAND, Earl of, Lord Treasurer the, 151, 244, 266, 267, 284, 285-
of England, a disguised Papist, 290, 292, 307, 308, 310, 311, 371-
346. His intercourse with 376, 407, 410, 413
Father Joseph of Paris, a REFORMATION, why it was neces
Capuchin, 346. Received into sary, 104-107. Dr. Dollinger
the Church of Rome by Father- justifies its necessity in Germany,
Joseph, 346. His wife and 105. Rendered possible by the
daughters were professed Pap anti - ecclesiastical bias of the
ists, 346. Dies a Roman Catho laity, 107. The progress of, in
lic, 347 the Reign of Mary I., stopped,
POWERIE, William de, his protest 137
to the Pope against Papal ex REFORMERS, the, Declaration
tortions, 32 against Wyatt s Rebellion by,
Powis, Lord, member of James II. s 138
Private Council," 427. Mem
"
RERESBY, Sir John, his Memoirs

ber of the Privy Council, 450 quoted, 453, 454
PRÊMUNIRE, the First Statute of, REYNOLDS, Richard, executed, 123
64. The Statute of, 83. Martin RICH, Peter, Chamberlain of Lon
V. s furious letter on, 99. don, dismissed by James II. for
Martin V. demands its repeal, refusing to support Popery,
100 432
PRESTON, Father, known by the RICHARD II., promises to prohibit
name of Roger Widdrington, the collection of First-fruits of
361. His reply to Courteney s benefices for the Pope, 77, 78.
disloyal book, 362 Forbids the Pope s Collector to
PROTESTANTS, Mary I. s duplicity enforce any Papal letters, 78.
towards the Suffolk, 134, 135. Forbids sending of taxes to the
Disabilities imposed on, by Mary Pope, 78. Re-enacts the law
I., 134-142. Persecution of, by against Provisors, 79. Issues
Mary I., 136-142. Persecuting a prohibition against Papal exac
laws* against, repealed in Eliza tions, 80. His letter to Boniface
beth s Reign, 149. list of A IX. on the Crimes of the Popes,
Popish penalties for, 281-283 86. Deposed, 85
INDEX 487
RICHARD III., the effects of ex Pope, 336-338. His letters to

communication nullified in the Cardinal Pamphili, 335, 336, 337.
reign of, 102 He withdraws his expressions
RICHARDSON, Lawrence, 192 of loyalty to the King, 337.
RICHELIEU, Cardinal, Prime Min Endeavours to upset the Treaty
ister to Louis XIII. of France, of Peace between the Irish Con
317, 318, 346. Asks James I. to federates and the Marquis of
help Louis to fight the Hugue Ormond, 337. Calls a Synod at
nots, 319 Waterford, 338. Signs a Decree
RIDLER, Rev. Mr., minister of of the Synod condemning the
Little, Dean, deprived of his Peace Treaty, 338. His action
living by Bishop Godfrey Good with regard to a murderous
man for preaching against book by Conor O Mahony, an
Popery, 357 Irish Jesuit, 338. An Ambas
RIDOLFI Conspiracy, the, 168- sador sent to the Pope to com
176. List of Peers supporting, plain of his conduct, 340. His
172. Philip II. and, 169-176. attitude towards Lord Inchiquin,
Ends with the execution of the 341. Issues a decree excom
Duke of Norfolk, 176. Causes municating every person who
the enactment of new Penal signed the Articles of Cessation,
Laws, 194 341. The Irish Confederates
RIDOLFI, Robert, chief Agent in send to the Pope nineteen accus
the Ridolfi Conspiracy, 170. ations against him, 341. His
Pius V. sends financial assist rudeness to Sir Richard Blake,
ance to the Northern Rebels Chairman of the Irish Confeder
through his hands, 170. Mary, ation, 342. Returns to Rome,
Queen of Scots instructions to, 342. His report to Innocent X.,
170, 171. Receives instructions 343. Offered a high place in the
from the Duke of Norfolk 170- Papal Court, 343. His death,
173. His interview with the 343
Duke of Alva, 174. Interviews RIVERS, Father, a Jesuit, 267
Pius V., 174. Appears before ROCHELLE, stronghold of the
the Spanish Escurial, 175. His Huguenots, English ships sent
statement on the proposed by Charles I. for services against,
murder of Elizabeth, 175 319-322. Cardinal Richelieu
RTNUCCINI, Papal Legate to the asks James I. to send the ships
Irish Rebels of 1641, 298, 334- 319. Charles I. sends the Van
343. Censured by Innocent X. guard and seven merchant vessels,
for professing loyalty to the 319. John Pennington in com
King, 298, 336. His instruc mand of the ships, 319. The
tions from Innocent X., 334. ships sail for Dieppe, 320. Their
Innocent X. sends with him to crews refuse to fight against the
Ireland large supplies of money Protestants, 320. The ships re
and arms, 334. Cardinal Bar- turn to England, 320. The
berini sends with him 10,000 Captains and owners of the ships
crowns, 334. Cardinal Mazarin send in a protest, 320. Duke of
assists him with 25,000 dollars, Buckingham orders the ships
334. His report on the state of back to Dieppe, 321. The Cap
Ireland, 335. States that the tains hold a conference at
Irish Rebels would benefit by the Rochester, 321. The crews re
destruction of the King, 336. fuse to take the ships to France,
His speech to the Confederate 321. Peimington, by deception,
Assembly at Kilkenny, 336. induces the crews to return to
Censured for his speech by the Dieppe with the ships, 321.
488 INDEX
Charles definite orders to Pen- sent by Paul III. to Ireland to
nington, 321. The crews unani encourage a rebellion, 129
mously refuse to serve, 322. SANCROFT, Archbishop of Canter
Pennington delivers up the ships bury, he and six other Bishops
manned by foreigners, 322. present a petition to James II.
The ships used against the in which they refuse to publish
Protestants, and Rochelle is the King s Declaration of In
captured, 322. See also under dulgence, 452, 453. The seven
Pennington, John Bishops sent to the Tower, 453.
ROCHESTER, Earl of. See Hyde, But are acquitted by the King s
Laurence Bench, 454
ROME, the Jesuit Seminary at, SANCTA Salute, the Abbot de, sent
203 as Papal Legate to England by
ROOKEWOOD, Ambrose, a Gun Pius IV., 161. Endeavours to
powder Plot conspirator, 270 stir up a rebellion, 161
ROSETTI, Count, an Italian Prelate, SANDERS, Nicholas, Dr., 157, 191.
sent by Urban VIII. to England His book, The Rise and Growth of
as his secret Agent, 351, 368. the Anglican Schism, 189. States
His interview with Windebank, that Romanists were punished
351. States that Windebank in Elizabeth s Reign for treason
spoke like a zealous Catholic,"
"
and not for their religion, 189.

351. He assists the Queen in His book, Of the Visible Monarchy
her efforts to raise a Roman of the Church, 192. Accompanies,
Catholic army to fight against as Papal Nuncio, an expedition
the Scotch Covenanters, 368. to Ireland under James Fitz-
Urges Charles I. to become a maurice, 196. His letter to the
Roman Catholic, 368. Fright nobility and gentry of Ireland,
ened by the attitude of Par 197
liament, he leaves England, 369 SARPI, Father Paul, of Venice, 148
Ross, Bishop of, and Mary, Queen SAVAGE, John, 224, 228. His Con
of Scots, 168, 169 fession, 225
ScARAMn, Father, sent by Urban
VIII. to the rebels in the Irish
SABINA, Cardinal of, his petition Rebellion of 1641 as his Agent,
to Paul IV. on Convent Scandals 334. Brings with him a quantity
in Scotland, 118 of arms and money, 334
ST. ANASTASIA, Cardinal of, ejected SCOTCH Presbyterians, Negotia
from England, 56 tions between Charles II. and
ST. SABINA, Cardinal of, ejected the, 378. Charles II. s hypo
from England, 56 critical promises to them, 379.
ST. OMERS, the Seminary at, Cardi Charles II. accepts their terms
nal D Ossat on, 201 and lands in Scotland, 379
SALAMANCA, the University of, ap SCOTLAND, Boniface VIII. claims
proves O Neill s Irish Rebellion, the Throne of, 43-45
252 SCOTLAND, King of, interview in
SALISBURY, Countess of, executed 1237 of Otto, Papal Legate, with,
for treason, 130. Made a Beati 28. His outspoken speech to
fied Saint by Leo XIII., 130 the Legate, 28
SALISBURY, Lord Treasurer in James SEBASTIAN, King of Portugal,
I. s reign, his letter to Zufriga, perishes in the expedition to Ire
Spanish Ambassador in England, land under Sir Thomas Stukely,
297 195
SALISBURY, Thomas, 224 SECULAR Priests in Elizabeth s
SALMERON and Broet, Jesuits, Reign, 153. Their testimony as
INDEX 489
to the disloyalty of the executed High Treason, 184. Declared a

Jesuits, 187. Endeavour to Beatified Saint by Leo XIII.,
secure toleration by showing 184
their loyalty, 255. Four of them SHIRLEY, Sir Henry, a disguised
pay a visit to the Pope, 255. Papist, 345
Clement VIII. wasoffended SHREWSBURY, Charles Talbot, Earl
when they Elizabeth
"named of, becomes a Protestant and is
Queen," 255. They advise Ro deprived of his Colonelcy in the
manists in James I. s Reign to Cavalry, 432
take the Oath of Allegiance, 291. SHREWSBURY, Earl of, supports the
Panzani endeavours to lecon- Ridolfi Conspiracy, 172
cile them with the Regulars, SIXTUS V. claims the Throne of
366 England, 48. Renews the ex
SEGA, Mgr., Gregory XIII. sends communication of Elizabeth,
him Nuncio to Don John of
as pronounced by Pius V., 189.
Austria, 195. Brings 50,000 Promises one million crowns to
ducats from the Pope to Don aid the Spanish Armada, 230.
John to aid him to conquer Claims the nomination to the
England, 195. Gregory XIII. Throne of England should Eliza
sends him to Madrid as Nuncio, beth be dethroned, 230. His
195. Urges Philip II. to invade Bull deposing Elizabeth, 235-
England, 195 237. Agrees to the murder of
SEMINARIES, established on the Maitland, Chancellor of Scotland,
Continent by Robert Parsons, 240
201. Their seditious fruit, 201- SMITH, Anthony, a secular priest,
203. An Act against them, 215. 274
Parliament in Charles I. s Reign SMITH, Dr. Richard, Bishop of
forbids young Romanists being Chalcedon, 305
educated in them, 322 SODALITIES, Jesuit, formed by
SERMONETA, Cardinal, his letter Robert Parsons, S.J., 199. Fur
to Paul IV. on the Scandals in nishes the principals of many of
Scottish Convents, 118 the plots in Elizabeth s Reign,
SHARP, Rev. Dr. John, Rector of 199. Six of the men who con
St. Giles London, subsequently
, spired in Babington s Plot to
Archbishop of York, preaches murder Elizabeth were members
against Popery, 428. His ser of them, 224. Blessed by Gre
mon gives offence to James II., gory XIII., 224
428. James II. orders Dr. Comp- SOLEMN League and Covenant,
ton, Bishop of London, to sus Charles II. swears to, 379
pend him first and try him SOMERSET, Charles, Duke of, James
afterwards, 428. Dr. Cornpton II. him to escort the
orders
refuses to suspend him before he Papal Nuncio, Count of Adda,
is tried, 428. Dr. Compton re 430. He refuses and is dismissed
quests him to abstain from offici by James, 430. James tells him
ating until the case is heard, that the King is "above the
424. James II. orders both Dr. law," 430, 431
Compton and Dr. Sharp before SOMERVILLE, John, sentenced to
the High Commission, 428. death for plotting the murder
Sentence of suspension obtained of Elizabeth, 214. Commits
on both defendants, 428 suicide, 214
SHERT, John, 192 SOUTHAMPTON, Thomas Wriothes-
SHERWIN, Robert, 192 ley, Earl of, mentioned in con
SHERWOOD, Thomas, a student nection with the disguised
at Douay, 184. Executed for Papists, 404
490 INDEX
SOUTHAMPTON, Earl of, supports obtain Spanish aid to overthrow
the Ridolfi Conspiracy, 172 Protestantism in England, 179,
SPADA, Papal Nuncio at Paris, 317, 180. Accused of having assisted
318 the Northern Rebels, 180. Exe
SPANISH Armada, the, prepara cuted, 180. His disloyal speech
tions 229-239. Sixtus V.
for, on the scaffold, 180. Declared a
approves of the enterprise and Beatified Saint by Leo XIII.,
promises one million crowns, 230. 181
Robert Parsons, S.J., and the STRANGE, Father Thomas, a Jesuit,
proposed invasion, 237-238 his views on the lawfulness of
SPANISH Marriage Treaty, the, King-killing, 271, 272
304-310. Text of the Articles, STUKELY, Sir Thomas, his ill-fated
308-309. Sir Francis Cot ting- expedition, sent by Gregory
ton sent to Spain to negotiate, XIII. to Ireland, 195, 196. He
347. Sir Kenelm Digby sent to abandons the expedition, 195,
Spain to negotiate, 352. James 196
I. sends Sir Tobie Matthew to SUFFOLK Protestants, the, Mary
Spain to help on the negotiations, I. sdeception towards, 134-135
354 SUNDERLAND, Earl of, Secretary of
SPES, Guerau de, Spanish Ambas State, signs an order for the dis
sador in England, 168, 173, 174 charge of all persons in prison
SPIES, Rev. H. J. Coleridge, S.J., for refusing to take the Oaths
on the value of their evidence, of Allegiance and Supremacy,
241 424. Member of the Privy
SPINOLA, the Marquess, 260 Council, 450
STAFFORD, Archbishop of Canter Supplication of Beggars, The, by
bury, his letter to Eugenius IV. Simon Fish, 108
on the Collection of Tenths,
101
STANDISH, Dr., Guardian of the TALBOT, Father Peter, a Jesuit,
Mendicant Friars in London, titular Archbishop of Dublin,
107 381. Actively assists to restore
STANLEY, Sir William, 231. Sur Charles II. to the Throne, 381.
renders Deventer to the Span Endeavours to obtain help for
iards, 232. Commands a portion Charles from Spain, 381. Urges
of the Spanish Armada, 238 Charles to become a Roman
STATUTES. See Acts of Parliament Catholic "secretly," 381. His
STOREY, John, escapes from prison, letter to Charles, 381, 382. He
178. Goes to Belgium, 178. writes another letter to Charles,
Become a naturalised subject of 382, 383. Receives Charles into
Philip 178.
II., Principal of the Church of Rome, 383, 384,
Broadgate Hall, Oxford, 178. 385. Charles sends him to the
Helps Bishop Bormer to burn Court of Spain to proclaim his re
the Protestants, 178. Regrets nunciation of Protestantism, 384.
he did not burn more, 178. Parliament requests Charles
Vicar-General to Bishop Bonner, that he should be brought over
178. Charged with wishing that to England to answer certain
Queen Elizabeth had also been charges against him, 407
burnt, 179. Appointed Assis TALBOT, Richard, Earl of Tyrconnel,
tant Inspector of English ships James II. makes him Lord-
at Antwerp, 179. Made prisoner, Lieutenant of Ireland in place
179. Brought to England, 179. of Henry Hyde, Earl of Claren
His confession, 179. Con don, 432. Known as "lying
fesses to having endeavoured to Dick Talbot,"

432
INDEX 491
TASSIS, J. B., approves of the pro TREATY ofDover, the Secret, 398-
posed murder of Elizabeth, 212 401. Lord John Russell on, 400
TESIMOND, Father, alias Greenwell, TRENT, Council of, discusses in
a Jesuit, sent to Spain to induce 1563 the question of excommuni
Philip to invade England, 259. cating Elizabeth, 157-159
Religious instructor of Robert TRESHAM, Francis, implicated in
Catesby, the chief Gunpowder a plot to secure armed assistance
Plot conspirator, 269. His de from Spain, 260
scription of Guy Fawkes re TUAM, Archbishop of, Dr. James
ligious character, 269. Father O Hely, 246. Raises a Rebellion
Henry Garnet s letter to him, in Ireland, 246, 247. Obtains
278 the help of Hugh O Neill, Earl of
TEST ACT, the, 410, 411. Lord Tyrone, 246. Arrives in Spain,
Bristol speech in the House of
s 246. His statement to the
Lords on the, 411 Spanish Court, 246. Obtains
TESTA, William, Italian priest, ex promises of help from Philip II.,
tortions by, 50-51 247. Returns to Ireland, but is
THIRNING, Lord Chief-Justice, de drowned, 247
clares that the Pope "cannot TYRCONNEL, Earl of. See Talbot,
change the Law of the land," Richard
91
THROCKMORTON, Francis, arrested Unani Sanctam, Decretal of Boni
for treason, 214. Executed, 214 face VIII., 75
THROCKMORTON, Sir John, his Letter UNIVERSITIES of Oxford and Cam
to the Catholic Clergy, 191. States bridge, privileges conferred by
that executed priests in Eliza the Pope on Oxford, 91. Oxford
beth s Reign were not martyrs to refuses the visitation of Arch
their religion, 191. On the Oath bishop Arundel, 91. Henry IV.
of Allegiance to James L, 295 compels Oxford to submit to his
THROCKMORTON, Sir Nicholas, authority, 91. James II. en
English Ambassador in Paris, deavours to promote Popery in
156 Oxford and Cambridge, 436-439.
TICHBORNE, Henry, S.J., states James orders Cambridge to
that toleration for Romanists admit a Benedictine Monk to
was dangerous, and should not the degree of Master of Arts,
be permitted, 256 436. Cambridge refuses, and its
TILNEY, Charles, 224 Vice-Chancellor is deprived by
TITCHBOURNE, Chideock, 224 James II., 436. James orders
TOOTLE, the Roman Catholic author, Magdalene College, Oxford, to
proves that Henry VIII. was appoint Anthony Farmer as its
riot a Protestant, 106. Gives President, 436. The College re
the provisions of Henry VIII. s fuses, arid appoints Rev. John
last will, 106. His opinion of Hough, B.D., as President, 436.
Robert Parsons treasonable James then orders Magdalene
plots, 200 College to appoint Dr. Parker,
TORTURE, the use of, 167. Mr. Bishop of Oxford, as President,
Jardine on, 166, 167. The last 437. On its refusing, James
instance of, in England, 168. instals Dr. Parker by force, 437.
Dr. Lea on its use by the In The illegal admission of two
quisition in Spain, 168. Its use Roman Catholics as Fellows of
in Austria , 168 Magdalene College, 437. On the
TRANSUBSTANTIATION, the Pro death of Dr. Parker, James
testant Declaration against, 413 appoints a Popish Vicar Apos
TRAVERS, John, 224 tolic as President of Magdalene
492 INDEX
College, Oxford, 437.Under the WADDING, Father Luke, letter of
Presidency of the Popish Vicar, Father Hugh Bourke to him on
Magdalene College becomes the Irish Rebellion of 1641, 332.
transformed into a Popish His nephew prays for the ex
Seminary, 437. ObadiahWalker, pulsion of all the Protestants
a concealed Papist, appointed as from Ireland, 332
Master of University College, WALKER, Obadiah, appointed
Oxford, 438. James II. appoints Master of University College,
James Massey, who publicly de Oxford, 437. Accused in Par
clared himself a Papist, to tho liament of assisting a scheme
Deanery of Christ Church, Ox for training youths in Popery,
ford, 439. Massey opens a chapel 438. The Papistical leanings of
within the precincts of Christ his notes to & Life of King Alfred,
Church for the use of Papists, 438. Accused of having printed
439 in Oxford some books favouring
URBAN V. claims the Crown of Popery, 438. For long a con
England, 46 cealed Papist, 438. Establishes
URBAN VIII., his letter to the a printing-press and a Popish
French King condemning the chapel in his College, 438. De
Oath of Allegiance to James I., clares himself a Papist, 438.
294, 323. Receives a letter from Brought before the Bar of the
Henrietta Maria, written on the House of Commons, 438
eve of her marriage with Charles WALPOLE, Henry, S.J., translates
L, 312. Exhorts the Kings of a book written by Robert Par
France and Spain to attack sons, S.J., 190
England,317. If his plot against WALSH, Father Peter, author of
England were successful, Ireland the History and Vindication of the
was to belong to him, 319. Loyal Formulary, or Irish Remon
Does not favour a scheme to strance, 299. His Letter to the
draw an army from Flanders to Catholics of England, Ireland,
assist Charles I. in his wars and Scotland, 299-303. Supports
against the Covenanters, 330. the Oath of Allegiance to
The secret cause of his not James I., 299. Father Tootle
favouring the scheme, 330. on, 299
Henrietta Maria requests him WARS of the Roses, the, 102
for a loan of 50,000 crowns to WATSON, Father, his Important
pay the soldiers fighting against Considerations, 153, 154,187. His
the Covenanters, 330. He re testimony as to the disloyalty of
fuses the request because Charles the Jesuits executed in Eliza
I. was not a Romanist, 330. beth s Reign, 187. His Plot to
Blesses the Irish Rebellion of capture the person of James I.,
1641, 333. Sends Father Scar- 258. Betrayed by the Jesuits,
am pi to Ireland as his Agent to 258. Arrested and executed,
the Rebels, 334. Sends arms and 258
money to the Rebels, 334. Des WEBSTER, Augustine, executed,
patches Panzani to England as 123
his secret Agent, 349. Sends WENTWORTH, Lord, appointed Lord-
Count Rosetti on a similar Deputy in Ireland, 355
mission, 351 WESTMORELAND, Earl of, 221.
Leader in the Northern Rising,
VALLADOLID, the University, ap 161. Supports the Ridolfi Con
proves the Rebellion of O Neill in spiracy, 172
Ireland, 252, 253 WESTON, Sir Richard. See Port
Vanguard, the. See Roclielle land, Earl of
INDEX 493
WIDDRINGTON, Roger, an alias of to the Earl of Pembroke, 352.

Father Preston (q.v.)
His letter from Calais to Lord
WILLIAM I. refuses Oath of Fealty Hatton, 352. Dies at Paris, a
to the Pope, 3. The Pope s Roman Catholic, 352
power restrained by, 2, 3. Letter WINTER, Robert, a Gunpowder Plot
to the Pope from, 3. Places conspirator, 270
Bishoprics and Abbacies under WINTER, Thomas, sent to Spain to
military rule, 4 induce Philip to invade Eng
WILLIAM II. refuses leave to land, 259. His connection with
Archbishop Anselm to visit Henry Garnet, 260. His re
Rome, 4 ligious character, 270. Meets
WINCHCOMB, Tideman de, Bishop the other Plotters in the house
84
of Llandaff, of Father John Gerard, 273.
WINCHCOMB, the Abbot of, sermon His letter to the Lords Com
by, on the immunities of the missioners, 273
Clergy, 107. Impeached for his WOODHOUSE, Thomas, a Jesuit
sermon, 107. Publishes a book priest, 182-184. Proof of his
on the subject, 107 disloyalty, 182-184. Says Mass
WINCHESTER, Marquis of, supports in his cell daily, 182. His
the Ridolfi Conspiracy, 172 traitorous letter to Lord Bur-
WINDEBANK, Sir Francis, Secretary leigh, 183. Brought before Lord
of State, supports a scheme to Burleigh, 183. Says the Pope
draw an army from Flanders to had deposed Elizabeth, 183.
help Charles I. in his wars against Brought before the Council,
the Scotch Covenanters, 328, 183. Executed for treason,
329. His Popish sympathies, 184. Beatified by Leo XIIL,
329. Greatly disappointed at 184
the failure of the scheme, 329. WOOLFE, David, Papal Legate in
His letter to Sir Arthur Hopton Ireland, 161. Stirs up a re
on the subject, 329. Supports bellion there, 160, 161
the Laudean Party, 348. A WORCESTER, Earl of, supports the
bitter opponent of the Puritans, Ridolfi Conspiracy, 172
348. Gives considerable assist WRIGHT, Christopher, conspires
ance to the secret Agents of the with Guy Fawkes to induce
Vatican, 348, 369. His inter Philip III. to invade England,
views with Panzani, secret Agent 259. A Gunpowder Plot con
of Urban His
VIII., 349, 360. spirator, 270. His religious
negotiations with Panzani with character, 270
regard to the Oath of Allegiance, WRIGHT, John, a Gunpowder Plot
349. Supports a secret agency conspirator, 270, 273
between the Courts of Rome and WRIOTHESLEY, Thomas. See South
England, 350, 363. Tells Pan ampton, Earl of
zani that he regarded himself as WYATT S Rebellion, 138. Protest
good Catholic," 350. Tells
"a ant Bishops condemnation of,
Panzani that he has a good 138, 139
scheme for suppressing the Puri WYCLIFFE, the work of, 74-75.
tans, 350. Has an interview Consulted by Richard II., 74.
with Count Rosetti, another On sending treasure to the
secret Agent of the Pope, 351. Pope, 75. The Bishop s en
Rosetti says that he spoke like "
deavour to suppress his follow

a zealous Catholic," 351. Six ers, 76
accusations against him drawn
up by Parliament, 351. Flies to YORK, Duke of (afterwards James
France, 351. Writes from Calais II.), Charles II, attends a secret
494 INDEX
conference in his house, 396. destroy Parliament and make
A disguised Papist, 404. Father himself the real governor of the
D Orleans, a Jesuit, on his secret country, 418
profession of Popery, 404, 405. YORK, Duchess of, Edward Cole-
Excepted from the provisions man, chief conspirator in the
of the Act 30 Charles II., cap. real Popish Plot, her private
1, 412. His connection with the Secretary, 417
real Popish Plot of Edward Cole-
men, 418. He desires to obtain ZUNIGA, Spanish Ambassador in
aid from Louis XIV. in order to England, 297
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON &* Co.

Edinburgh &- London
BR WALSH
757 ENGLAND S FIGHT
,W3 WITH THE PAPACY
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FROM-THE- LIBRARY-OF

WALTER WALSH, F.R.HisT.S.

&quot;THE JESUITS IN GREAT BRITAIN: AN HISTORICAL INQUIRY

which confines to the political conflict with the Papacy

in this country during any lengthened period of time, and

light during the past half-century. To a very large extent

wished, had many opportunities of lightening the burden

of English Roman Catholics but it refused them all. A

modern Roman Catholic biographer of Edmund Campion,

abdicate, with the hope of receiving back their Crowns,

I have tried to write with moderation : it is for my

prefer strong facts to strong adjectives, though there are

Roman the Gallican School, would object.

fight with the Court of Rome before her. It is the dearest

like Delilah with Samson, to shave ofT his locks, so that

A SAD interest attaches to this book, which is the last to

taking his seat, peacefully passed away. During the last

years of patient toil and research ; and, although Mr.

WILLIAM I. HENRY II.

HENRY II. JOHN

JOHN HENRY III.

England protest against Papal Extortions English Ambassadors

Papal Provisions and Reservations The Remonstrance of Parliament

from England The Letter of Protest from Parliament to the

Pope The Pope s Letter of Complaint Edward III. s Indignant

House of Commons &quot;

Petitions to the King The First Statute of Provisors An Act

EDWARD III. RICHARD II.

or occupy Livings in England .......

RICHARD II. HENRY IV.

The Work of Wycliffe The Government and People at first on WycliftVs

HENRY IV. HENRY VIII.

An Act against Abuses in Monasteries Other Acts relating to Monks

says the Pope

Was the Reformation necessary ? Testimony of Dr. Dollinger Henry

comparative mildness of Elizabeth s early Years as

The Use of English Romanist Plot to make Mary, Queen of

The Treasonable Work of Popish Seminaries Testimony of Cardinal

Mary, Queen of Scots Letter approving the Plot . . . 201

Four English Papists propose to murder Elizabeth Lord Acton on

A Jesuit Sodality and its Evil Influence Fourteen Gentlemen

Another Penal Law in England Parsons tries to prevent King James

of Conscience to the Romanists

The Pope sends Jesuits to

Hope of the Romanists on James Accession James deceives the

said the Plot

The Results of the Gunpowder Plot Roman Catholic Penalties for

Papal Diplomacy and Intrigue Marriage Negotiations with Spain

Charles and his Roman Catholic

Papists Dissembling their Religion

King The Irish Rebellion of 1641 Started in a Time of pro

The Underground Work of English Romanists Disguised Romanists

Jesuits to restore Jesuits in

Masquerade An Emissary of the King sent to Rome A

Jesuit s Disloyal Book Panzani s Secret Interview with the

"THE JESUITS IN GREAT BRITAIN: AN HISTORICAL INQUIRY

House of Commons "

above the Law "

King in the dispute. All,"

Bishop of the staff and ring."

were they at any time in subjection to the Roman Legate."