The last page of this twenty-fifth chapter is as followeth: Cum insula hac reducetur in formam reipublicæ, quæ perpetuas inimicitias cum Scotia gerat, actionesque suas non nisi lente perficiet, &c. When this island shall become a republick, it will be at perpetual enmity with Scotland, and move very slowly, and so do the less harm to Spain; whereupon, the King of Spain, as soon as the throne is empty, may step in, pretending to help the English: but let him be sure to keep correspondency with some English noblemen, who have power over the adjacent islands; and let every one of them have full and absolute dominion in his several place, as we read it was in the days of old. Then let him tamper with the nobility of Ireland, that, when the queen is dead, that nation may be formed either into a commonwealth, or, at least, into a kingdom distinct by itself; then let him promise supplies to each of those noblemen apart; and so much the more, because in that kingdom, or island, Catholicks (especially Monks of the Order of St. Francis) are very much beloved. Now the Irish agree better with the Spaniards than with the English, either because their manners or climates are alike, or because their countries are near one another. And there are in Ireland many vagabond persons who cannot endure to be in subjection, and yet they are good Catholicks, and able to do the King of Spain excellent service in the matter which we now speak of.

These and the like things may easily be prepared, that, when Queen Elizabeth is dead, they may be put in execution; for every one knoweth what bloody civil wars, what alterations and changes have been oftentimes in England. So that what I have propounded will not seem strange or impossible.

To conclude: The same Campanella, in his eighth chapter of the same book, lays down this rule or maxim, That the way to keep up, or increase the King of Spain's monarchy, is, to keep his own subjects in peace, and his neighbours in contention.

Tho. Campanella having thus given the King of Spain directions how to get and keep the English nation.

PARSONS'S PLOT.

OBERT PARSONS goes a step further, and will help him to a title to the crown of England: for, in the year 1593, he published a book under the name of R. Doleman, intituled, 'A Conference about the next Succession to the Crown of England, divided into two Parts.' The first was for chastising of kings, and proceeding against them, &c. and was lately reprinted by Robert Ibbitson, in Smithfield, and called, 'Several Speeches made at a Conference.'

*Concerning this book [being condemned in Parliament, ann. 35 Eliz. when it was enacted, That whoever should have it in his house should be guilty of high-treason, and the printer was hanged, drawn, aud quartered] see a book intitled, 'His Majesty's Message for Peace,' page 125. Printed by R. Royston, 1648. Or see Mr. Prynne's Speech in the House of Commons, Dec., 1648, page 109, where Mr. Prynne affirmeth, That he himself, and others, complained of this book, but that nothing was done to vindicate the House from this gross imputation; and it may be looked upon as one great means of corrupting the nation, seducing it from its allegiance to the crown, and bringing the king's head to the block.

The second part was to prove, that the Infanta of Spain was the legal heir to the crown of England, the penning whereof did much indear him to the King of Spain, the Pope and cardinals, as Roman priests relate.

Not to repeat any thing of Parsons's Memorial; wherein he adviseth* to destroy the common law of England, &c. and to have no preachers but itinerary: I shall only transcribe a few lines, which you may read in an ordinary book, entitled, 'A Reply to Father Parsons's Libel, written by William Clark, a Roman Priest,' where are these words, 'Such as have read [Parsons's Memorial for Reformation] being priests and men of credit, unto some of whom Father Parsons himself shewed the said book (as secretly as now it is kept) do report, That his directions are, that the municipal laws of our country [England] shall be so altered, that the civil laws must bear the sway.' And a little after, ' For our clergy also they say, That all men should be put to pensions in the beginning; and the colleges both in Oxford and Cambridge, in the same sort, deprived of their lands and revenues, and become pensioners. All religious orders (except only one, i. e. Jesuits) he excludeth out of England (as they affirm) for the first seven years and more; that Master-Jesuits, in the mean time, may have the sway of all, and enter into the houses, livings, and possessions of other religious orders, &c.'

THE PROTESTANTS' DOOM

IN POPISH TIMES.

A

PRINCE putting himself, and his dominions, under the authority decrees of the Romish Church, all his protestant subjects being, by the judgment and sentence of that church, hereticks, do forthwith lie under the penalty which those laws and constitutions will have inflicted upon hereticks; heresy being the highest degree of high-treason: called, therefore, by them, Lasa Crimen Majestatis Divina: So the English Protestant must be a traytor, and the worst of traytors, and exposed to the penalties of high treason.

THE LAWS AND DECREES OF THE ROMISH CHURCH

AGAINST HERETICKS.

Heresy is denounced infamous, and the heretick must be dealt with as such; which are many penalties in one.

First, Whereby they are deprived of all nobility, jurisdiction, and dignity, and debarred from all offices, and public councils, parliaments

The same that Gundamore wished a Roman Catholick to expect, and then [and not till then] a toleration of the Roman religion. + Page 72.

As others; being made uncapable of choosing, and being chosen: so that it reacheth all sorts of clergy, laity, noble and ignoble; which is extended to their children also: for, they say, 'The issue of traytors, civil and spiritual, lose their nobility.' And all, that owe any duty to such infamous persons, are discharged and exempted therefrom; as subjects from their prince, servants from their masters, children from their parents; whom they also may lawfully kill.

Whereby we may see a little, to what condition the admission of a Papal authority would reduce us, expelling both nature and humanity, and making the dearest relatives unnatural and barbarous to one another: it would leave no Protestant either dignity or authority, either safety or liberty; nobles are sentenced to peasants, and peasants to slaves.

Secondly, Another penalty, to which hereticks are condemned by their laws, is confiscation of goods and estate; and this they incur Ipso jure, & ipso facto; that is, immediately, as soon as they shew themselves hereticks, before any legal sentence have passed: for which there is an express command in the canon-law, Bona Hæreticorum ipso jure discernemus confiscata; 'We decree the goods of heretics to be confiscated by sentence of law. The effect of this confiscation, wherein they all agree, makes the severity of the law apparent, viz. First, All the profits made of the estate, from the first day of their guilt, is to be refunded. Secondly, All alienations, by gift, sale, or otherwise, before sentence, are null and void; and all contracts, for that purpose, rescinded. Thirdly, children, heirs of hereticks, are deprived of their portions; yea, though they be Papists.

Whereby, it appears, that as soon as Papacy is admitted, all title and property is lost and extinct among us: and, therefore, we must not think that Pope acted extravagantly, who declared, That all his Majesty's territories were his own, as forfeited to the Holy See for the heresy of prince and people.' Not only abby-lands are in danger, whoever possess them, but all estates are forfeited to his exchequer, and legally confiscated: all is his own, which Protestants, in these three nations, have, or ever had, if he can but meet with a prince so wise, as to help him to catch it; whose process follows them beyond their grave, and ruins their children, and children's children after them. And, when they have stripped the heretick of his all, they provide that no other shall relieve him, viz. That none shall receive him into their houses, nor afford him any help, nor shew him any favour, nor give him any counsel.' We are here, in England, zealous for property; and all the reason in the world we should so be: but we must bid adieu to this, when we once come under the Pope's authority; for, as soon as this is admitted, 'all the Protestants in these nations are beggars by law,' viz. by the laws of that church; which will then of necessity be ours, divesting us of all property and title to whatever we count our own.

Thirdly, Another penalty which their law inflicts on hereticks, is death, which is the sentence of the canon-law; and which is so absolute, that no secular judge can remit'; and which is the judgment of all the doctors, Ita docent omnes doctores: and from which penalties, neither emperors nor kings themselves are to be freed or exempt. And the death

they inflict is burning alive: no death more tolerable, or of less exquisite torture, will satisfy the mercy of that church. The canon saith thus: Decernimus ut vivi in conspectu hominum comburantur; 'We decree, That they shall be burnt alive, in the sight of the world.' So our last Popish Successor, Queen Mary, practised upon near three hundred persons, without regard either to age, sex, or quality. The scripture they urge for it, is John xv. 6. If any one abide not in me, men gather them, aud cast them into the fire, and they are burnt.

So that, as soon as the Papal authority is admitted among us, all the Protestants in these nations are dead men in law; being under a law that hath sentenced us to be burnt alive; and under a power that hath de clared it necessary, that no one of us escape with life.

Fourthly, Where legal penalties cannot take place, by reason of opposite strength, they hold war necessary, and lawful, to chastise hereticks: for which we might give you divers authorities; but let Cardinal Allen, our countryman, suffice; who asserts, it is not only lawful, but necessary: his words are these; 'It is clear,' saith he, what people or persons soever be declared to be opposite to God's church, with what obligation soever, either of kindred, friendship, loyalty, or subjection, I be bound unto them; I may, or rather must, take up arms against them: and then must we take them for hereticks, when our lawful Popes adjudge them so to be. And which (saith Cardinal Pool) is a war more holy, than that against the Turks.'

Fifthly, To destroy them by massacres, is sometimes held more adviseable, than to run the hazard of war; and which, they say, is both lawful and meritorious, for the rooting out a pestilent heresy, and the promoting the Romish interest. This set a-foot the Irish Massacre, that inhuman, bloody butchery, not so much from the savageness and cruelty of their natures, as the doctrines and principles which directed and encouraged it as also that of Paris; than which nothing was more grateful and acceptable to their Popes, as their bulls make manifest, and the picturing it in the Pope's chamber; and for which, as a most glorious action, triumphs were made, and public thanksgivings were returned to God. So in Savoy, and elsewhere, both in former and later times. And this was that which the late conspirators aimed at so fully, intending a massacre. Those that escaped a massacre,' saith Dugdale,* 'must be cut off by the army.' And Coleman tells the Internuncio, in his letter,† "That their design prospered so well, that he doubted not, in a little time, their business would be managed, to the utter ruin of the Protestant party: the effecting of whereof was so desirable aud meritorious, that if he had a sea of blood, and an hundred lives, he would lose them all, to carry on the design. And if, to effect this, it were necessary to destroy an hundred heretical kings, he would do it.' Singleton, the Priest, affirmed, "That he would make no more to stab forty parliament-men, than to eat his dinner.' Gerard and Kelley, to encourage Prance to kill Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, told him, 'It was no murder, nor sin; and that to kill twenty of them was nothing in that

• Five Jesuits' Tryal, page 28.

+ Colman's Letter to the Pope's Nuncio. t See Prance's Narrative, page 4.

case; which was both a charitable and meritorious act.' And Grant, one of the massacring gun-powder traytors, said, upon his execution, to one that urged him to repent of that wicked enterprize, 'That he was so far from counting it a sin, that, on the contrary, he was confident, that that noble design had so much of merit in it, as would be abundantly enough to make satisfaction for all the sins of his whole life.' Sir Everard Digby, speaking to the same purpose also. The Provincial, Garnet, did teach the conspirators the same Catholick doctrine, viz. 'That the king, nobility, clergy, and whole community of the realm of England (Papists excepted) were hereticks; and, that all hereticks were accursed and excommunicated; and, that no heretick could be a king; but that it was lawful and meritorious to kill him, and all other hereticks, within this realm of England, for the advancement and inlargement of the authority and jurisdiction of the Pope, and for the restoring of the Romish religion. This was that Garnet whom the Papists here honoured as a Pope, and kissed his feet, and reverenced his judgment as an oracle; and, since his death, have given him the honour of saintship and martyrdom. Dugdale deposed, That after they had dispatched the king, a massacre was to follow.'

But surely, it may be supposed, that the temper of such a prince, or his interest, would oblige him to forbid or restrain such violent executions in England: I, but what if his temper be to comply with such courses? Or if his temper be better? What if it be over-ruled? What if he be persuaded, as all other Catholicks are, that he must in conscience proceed thus? What if he cannot do otherwise, without hazard of his crown and life? For he is not to hold the reins of government alone, he will not be allowed to be much more than the Pope's postilion; and must look to be dismounted, if he act not according to order. The law+ tells us, 'That it is not in the power of any civil magistrate, to remit the penalty, or abate the rigour of the law. Nay, if the prince should plight his faith by oath, that he would not suffer their bloody laws to be executed upon his dissenting subjects, this would signify nothing; for they would soon tell him, 'That contracts made against the canonlaw are invalid, though confirmed by oath; and, that he is not bound to stand to his promise, though he had sworn to it: and, that faith is no more to be kept with hereticks, than the Council of Constance would have it.' So that Protestants are to be burnt, as John Huss and Jerom of Prague were by that Council, though the Emperor had given them his safe conduct in that solemn manner, which could secure them only (as they said) from the civil, but not church process, which was the greatest. For it is their general rule, "That faith is either not to be given or not to be kept with hereticks. Therefore, saith Simanca, That faith engaged to hereticks, though confirmed by oath, is in no wise to be performed; for,' saith he, 'if faith is not to be kept with tyrants and pirates, and others who kill the body, much less with hereticks who kill the souls;' and that the oath, in favour of them, is but Vinculum Iniquitatis, 'a bond of iniquity. Though Popish princes, the better to promote their interests, and to insnare their Protestant subjects, to get

* See the Tryal of the Five Jesuits, page 25.

Viz, The Law of the Romish Church, which begins, Caput Officium,