regard of the nature of man, the dignitie of kyngdomes, the reuerent aspect to diuinitic, or any other manly and reasonable consideration, without any more vigor, agilitie of soule, and industrie to do noblely, than is in a cowe: a beast, in deede, profitable for worldly foode, as papistrie is, but (as most part of beastes be) redy to promiscuous and vnchosen copulations, and specially meete for a bull; and, among other prety qualities, hauyng one speciall grace (as one of theyr owne popish doctours preached) to swynge away flyes with her tayle wett in the water, as foolish papistes swynge away sinnes and temptations with a holy water sprinkle.

In thys beastly likenesse, degenerating from manly forme, and maiestie of gouernance, by Dædalus workmanship, that is, by popish clergies traitorous practise, ensued the copulation of a bull and a queene, in a cowishe shape, that is, sodomiticall and vnnaturali mixture of popish vsurpation with, and vpon, royall gouernance, in brutish and reasonlesse forme.

Of this ingendring is begotten Minotaurus, a compounded monster, halfe a bull, and halfe a man, a beastly cruell bodie, roaring out with the voyce or sound of a bull, and wordes of a man, the sense of a deuill. The selfe same monster bull is he that lately roared out at the Byshops palace gate, in the greatest citie of England, horrible blasphemies agaynst God, and villanous dishonors agaynst the noblest queene in the world, Elizabeth, the lawful Queene of England; he stamped and scraped on the ground, flong dust of spitefull speches and vaine curses about hym, pushed with hys hornes at her noble counsellers, and true subiectes, and, for pure anger, all to berayed the place where he stoode; and all thys stirre he kept, to make a proofe of hys horned armye of calues would, or durst, come flyngyng about hym toward Midsommer moone.

But he looked so beastly, and he raged so vaynely, that, though the whole wood rang of hys noyse, yet hys syre, the great bull, hys damme, the prostitute cowe, and hys children, the foolish calues, were more ashamed of hym, than the noble lion was afraide of him; and, therefore, the bull, bys sire, the cowe, hys damme, and the wysest of hys calues, fled once agayne to Dædalus, the treason of popish clergie, for succour and good counsell, by whose good workmanship thys myngled monster is closed vp in a maze, that is, in vncertainetic of vayne and false reportes, and (as it happeneth in a maze) by waycs leadyng to other places than they seme to tend vnto, by crokednesse of deuises, by spredyng into sondry creekes of rumors, to hyde whence the bull came, or where he lurketh, euen as in the maze of Dædalus it happened; so it commeth to passe, that the Minotaure is not found out, and such as enter into the maze, that is, into followyng of popish reports and devises, entangle them selues so, that, wanderyng vncer tainely, at length they may hap to perish in Dædalus engyne. And iudgement they lacke (the euident proufes considered, that are in that behalfe to be ministred) that beleue the report to be true, of transferring that bull to protestantes deuises. But I feare a worse thing; for, if they haue no wisedome that say so, wise great persons can not beleue them,

and, if they lacke not witte, then can not them selues beleue it; and so is their truth to the Prince to be perillously suspected.

The remedie resteth, that some Theseus, some noble and valiant counseller, or rather one bodie, and consent of all true and good nobilitie and counsellers, follow the good guiding thred, that is, godly policie, deliuered them by the virgine whom they serue, and, conducted thereby, not onely may passe, without error, through the maze, and finde out the monster, Minotaure, that roared so rudely, but also destroy hym, and settle theyr prince and them selues in safetie; so as (Pasiphae dueley and deseruedly ordered, Dædalus vnwynged and banished, hys fethers ryghtly restored, Icarus fayre drowned, the cowe transformed, the maze dissolued and razed, the monster destroyed, the calues, after the cowe perished, sent, with Walthams calfe, to sucke theyr bull) Theseus may be victorious, the virgine ladie most honorable, the land quyet, the subiectes safe, and Gods prouidence euer iustly praysed, not vaynely tempted; hys kyndnesse thankfully embraced, his name louyngly magnified, hys policies wisely followed, and hys religion zelously mainteyned.

But, till these noble enterprises be acchieued, it is not good to be hedelesse; the monster may be let out of the maze, when it pleaseth Pasiphae and Dædalus.

It is good to be awake. Some men be wakened with tickelyng, and some with pinchyng, or pullyng by the eare; that is, some with mery resemblances, and some with earnest admonitions. Some be raysed out of sleepe with noyse, as by the speech, or calling of men, or by brute voyces, as the roaring of bulles, and noyse of beastes; that is, either by aduises of them that warne with reason, or with the bragges and threateninges of the enemies, or inklinges slipped out of uncircumspect aduersaries mouthes, Some be wakened with very whisperinges, as with secret rumors and intelligences. Some agayne are so vigilant and carefull, that the very weight of the cause, and pensiue thinking of it, wil scarcely let them sleepe at all. But most miserable is theyr drowsinesse, or, rather, fatall semeth their sleepinesse, that, for all the meanes aforesayd, and specially so leude and loued roaring of so rude and terrible a bull, can not be wakened, or made to arme and bestirre them, till the tumult and alarme in the campe, the clinking of armour, the sounde of shotte and strokes, the tumbling downe of tentes round about them, the groning of wounded men dying on euery side of them, treason, force, and hostilitie triumphing in theyr lustiest rage, and Sinon, that perswaded the safetie of the traitorous horse, insulting among them, yea, till the very enemies weapon in theyr body awake them. Such may happe so to sleepe, as they may neuer wake.

Let vs all wake in prayer to God. Let vs cry louder, in sinceritie and deuotion, than the bull is able to roare in treason and blasphemie, Let vs pray God to arme our queene and counsell with all wisedome and fortitude, and our selues with all fidelitie and manhoode, and to repose our selues vpon confidence of theyr most blessed gouernance, and redy, with our liues and all that we haue, to follow and serue them.

Let vs dayly and nightly pray God to send a curst cow and a curst bull short hornes, or to be well capped, or well sawed of, that they budde no more; for els it were better to take away head and all to be sure, least honester than these calues be made calues, or knocked on the head, as though they were calues. Surely, as of a body, there is but one head that can not be spared, so, in a body, may be many heads that must needes be spared, as, perhappes twenty byles, and euery one hath a head, in which case there is no perill, but least they goe into the body agayne, and then, perchance, infect the hart bloud, and put the body in danger; and the onely perill of driuing them in agayne, you wote, is colde, and colde handling. Some of our botches be runne already, of some theyr heads be broken, some ryping, and, I trust, shall be well launced, or cleane drawne out in time. In the meane time beware cold, and God send and maintayne the warmth of his grace. Amen.

THE

EXECUTION OF IUSTICE IN ENGLAND,

FOR MAINTENAUNCE OF

PUBLIQUE AND CHRISTIAN PEACE,

AGAINST

CERTEINE STIRRERS OF SEDITION,

And Adherents to the Traytours and Enemies of the Realme,

Without any Persecution of them for Questions of Religion*,

As is falsely reported and published by the Fautors and Fosterers of their Trea sons; xvii December, 1583.

Imprinted at London, 1583, quarto, containing 5 sheets, black letter, the first edition; though, as it appears from some manuscript additions and alterations on the title, and in other parts of the book, prepared a second time for the press, by the Author, on the 14th of January, 1583.

After the Pope and his party had tried all means to soften Queen Elisabeth, and draw her council into their snare, to submit the church of England, as in times past, to the church of Rome, and had even condescended so far as to offer to reverse the sentence pronounced against the legality of her mother's marriage; to consent to the Common-Prayer-Book's being used in English; and that the laity might receive the communion in both kinds; for the treating about which, Pope Pius had sent a nuncio as far as Flanders: but perceiving that these were insufficient baits to allure a Queen, who, in her minority, had postponed her

• See the letter to Don Bernardin Mendoza, to begin vol. II, of this Miscellany,

liberty to her religion, and was too well instructed in the Christian faith, to yield up the essentials for a few externals of religion; resolved at all adventures to crush her, and consequently not only raised her up enemies abroad, but exerted his power among his deceived Zealots in England and Ireland, to try, if, under the form of religious obedience, he could persuade the Queen's subjects to take up arms against their lawful Sovereign, and deprive her of her crown and life. Thus, in the year 1570, Pope Pius engaged one Felton, to fix a bull on the Bishop of London's palace, declaring her subjects absolved from their allegiance, and commanding them to take arms, and dethrone her, on pain of damnation. Then he sent many priests, both secular, regular, and Jesuits, from time to time, out of their seminaries, to corrupt the people and propagate the doctrine of his bull; and, therefore, the Queen, in just regard to our holy religion, the laws aud liberties of the people, and to her own welfare, looked no longer upon those that usurped the name Catholick, to be only distinct members of the Christian church, but, in her dominions, as so many rebels; and, consequently, provided laws for her own and the nation's security, in church and state, against such traytors, as, under the form and name of religion, maintained the rebellious doctrine of the forementioned bull, would take away her crown and life, and subject the nation to a foreign yoke. This brought on those penal laws, which the Papists complained of, and would persuade the world were enacted against them as Papists, and not as rebels, and in defence of which this treatise is written.

IT

T hath bene, in all ages and in all countries, a common vsage of all offenders for the most part, both great and small, to make defence of their lewd and unlawfull facts by vntruthes and by colouring and couering their deedes (were they neuer so vile) with pretences of some other causes of contrarie operations or effectes; to the intent not onely to auoid punishment or shame, but to continue, vphold, and prosecute their wicked attempts, to the full satisfaction of their disordered and malicious appetites. And though such hath bene the vse of all offendors, yet of none with more danger than of rebels and traitours to their lawful princes, kinges, and countries. Of which sort, of late yeeres, are specially to be noted certeine persons naturally born subiectes in the realmes of England and Ireland, who, hauing for some good time* professed outwardly their obedience to their Souereigne Lady, Queenc Elizabeth, bauc, neuerthelesse, afterward bene stirred vp and seduced by wicked spiritest, first in England, sundry yeeres past, and secondly and of later times in Ireland, to enter into open rebellion, taking armes and coming into the field, against her Maiestie and her lieutenants, with their forces under banners displayed, inducing by notable vntruthes many simple people to followe and assist them in their traiterous actions. And, though it is very well knowen, that both their intentions and manifest actions were bent, to haue deposed the Queenes Maiestie from her crowne, and to haue traiterously set in her place some other whom they liked, whereby, if they had not been speedily resisted, they would haue committed great bloodsheddes and slaughters of her Maiesties faithful subiectes, and ruined their natiue countrey; yet, by Gods

• Fer the space of ten years, after Queen Elizabeth had established the reformed church those, that yet adhered to the supremacy of the church of Rome, continued to communicate with the church of England as by law established.

+ Authorised by the Pope's bull to take up arms against their lawful sovereign.

to feele their strength, and to assemble themselves in such nombers with armour and weapons, as they might haue presumed to haue been the greater part, and so by open ciuill warre, to haue come to their wicked purposes. But God's goodness, by whom kinges doe rule, and by whose blast traitours are commonly wasted and confounded, hath otherwise giuen to her Maiestie, as to his handmayde and deare seruant, ruling vnder him, the spirit of wisdome and power, whereby she hath caused some of these seditious seedemen and sowers of rebellion, to be discouered for all their secret lurkings, and to be taken and charged with these former poyntes of high treason, not being delt withall upon questions of religion, but iustly, by order of lawes, openly condemned as traitours. At which times, notwithstanding al maner of gentle ways of persuasions vsed, to moue them to desist from such manifest traiterous courses and opinions, with offer of mercy; yet was the canker of their rebellious humors so deepely entred and grauen into the hearts of many of them, as they woulde not be remooued from their traiterous determinations. And, therefore, as manifest traitours in maintayning and adhearing to the capital enemy of her Maiestic and her crowne, who hath not only bene the cause of two rebellions alreadie passed in England and Ireland, but in that of Ireland did manifestly wage and maintaine his owne people, captaines and soldiours, under the banner of Rome, against her Maiestie, so as no enemy coulde doe more: these, I say, have iustly suffered death, not by force or forme of any newe lawes established, either for religion or against the Pope's supremacie, as the slaunderous libellers would haue it seeme to be, but by the auncient temporall lawes of the realme, and namely by the lawes of parliament made in + King Edward the Thirds time, about the yere of our Lord, 1330, which is about two-hundred yeres and moe past, when the Bishops of Rome and Popes were suffered to haue their authoritie ecclesiastical in this realme, as they had in many other countries. But yet of this kind of offenders, as many of them, as after their condemnations were contented to renounce their former traiterous assertions, so many were spared from execution, and doe liue still at this day, such was the vnwillingnes in her Maiestie to haue any blood spilt, without this verie vrgent iust and necessary cause, proceeding from themselues |. And yet, neuerthelesse, such of the rest of the traitours as remayne in forreyne pertes, continuing still their rebellious myndes, and craftily keeping themselues aloofe off from dangers, cease not to prouoke sundry other inferiour seditious persons, newly § to steale secretly into the realme, to reuiue the former seditious practises, to the execution of the Popes foresaid bulles against her Maiestie and the realme, pretending, when they are apprehended, that they came onely into the realme by the commandement of their superiours, the heads of the Jesuites, to whom they are bound (as they say) by othe against either king or countrie, and here to informe or reforme mens consciences

+25 Edward III.

• Pope of Rome and King of Spain. There were only four put to death, viz. Hanse, Nelson, Maine, and Sherwood; who were condemned and executed for publickly maintaining, that the Queen was lawfully deposed by the Pope's bull. Stow, pag. 682. 684, 685, and Camden, p. 476.

See the Letter to Don Bernardin Mendoza.

This refers us to Father Parsons and Edm. Campian, the two first Jesuits employed in England, preach rebellion against the Queen Camden.