Memoirs of Gregorio Panzani

PREFACE.

The Memoirs of Panzani, which I now present to the public, have been long witheld, from motives, I think, of a false delicacy. He was an Italian clergyman sent into England by his holiness Urban VIII. in the year 1634, the ninth of Charles I. To compose certain differences, that had long divided the Catholics, particularly those of the clerical order, was the main object of his mission; in the prosecution of which, however, much incidental matter intervened, in which the court, some of the ministers, and others were personally engaged. Our historians, in general, seem to have known little of the transaction; and they who have said most, have proved themselves most ignorant.* It was natural that a business, in which a papal envoy, on one side, was the vi principal agent, should, at that suspectful and jealous æera, be guarded with all possible secrecy.

Whether the Memoirs were written by Panzani himself, or composed from the materials he supplied, does not appear; nor is it of moment. Suffice it, that they are authentic; of which no one can doubt who, from contemporary writers, has examined the minute histories of the times. The transactions with which we are acquainted coincide with the statements of Panzani. Where no extrinsic vouchers appear, there is still ample evidence of their truth; for in matters of secret negociation what more can be required, than the attestation of a creditable witness whom no facts or opposition of testimony contradict?

The original Memoirs were written in Italian and never published; of which, by means of an eminent prelate of singular candour and scrupulosity, then residing at Rome, our historian Dodd, some years vii ago, procured an accurate translation *. The Italian MS. he observes, was not in above one or two hands. Of the translation Dodd published only some extracts *, from motives of a benevolent tendency, fearing lest the publication of the whole memoirs might prejudice the evil-disposed, as he says, still more against the memory of the unfortunate Charles, and from a delicate forbearance towards some societies of his own communion *. The first consideration, the reader from the perusal will find, bears no weight; and to the second, at this time, he will not give a thought. Mr. Dodd, however, was extremely desirous of publishing these memoirs, in which he saw, he thought, many things that were interesting, and which would throw light on a dark and misrepresented period. He, therefore, brought the principal materials together under a new title, meaning to publish them as the Memoirs of Windebank, the secretary of state, who was much engaged in the transaction. I am viii in possession of his MSS. in this form, as also under the original title, of which I avail myself, subjoining to the text a few notes where the subject may seem to want illustration.

I am myself so satisfied of the authenticity of the memoirs, that I was not inclined to make any further enquiries; otherwise, by a direct application to Rome, I could have procured, I doubt not, an attested copy of the Italian original. This Mr. Dodd equivalently did; and on his accuracy and honour the most punctilious reader may rely. I will detain him, therefore with no unnecessary observations.

Mr. Dodd, who is not so generally known, to the protestant public, at least, as he merits, was a clergyman of the Roman church, who resided at Harvington, in Worcestershire, an old seat now belonging to the Throckmorton family, where he died about the year 1745. I can speak of his virtues which are recorded, of his talents which were eminent, of his labours in the range of literature which ix were incessant and manifold. The work, that has principally given celebrity to his name, is a Church History of England, in three volumes Folio, from 1500 to 1688, chiefly with regard to Catholics. In the compilation of this work he spent almost thirty years. It contains much curious matter, collected with great assiduity, and many original Records. His style, when the subject admits expression, is pure and unincumbered, his narration easy, his reflections just and liberal. I have seldom known a writer, and that writer a churchman, so free from prejudice and the degrading impressions of party-zeal. But I am not sure, that his materials are well arranged. Indeed, he was himself, for a long time, so dissatisfied, as, with his own hand, to copy a work so voluminous, into two or three different forms. I think, I have seen three. There are many repetitions, which might have been avoided; but its main defect is the want of a copious Index. Of this I have had a painful experience.

The History, of which I am speaking, for many years was little known; but it x has, at length, found its way into the libraries of the curious, and no copies have remained unsold. The reader will see what use I have made of it in the following pages; and I readily acknowledge my obligations,

Not long after the appearance of the two first volumes, a petulant and captious critique, under the title of A Specimen of Amendments, was published by Clerophilus Alethes, that is, —— Constable a Jesuit, in 1740. It is extremely peevish, and malevolent as peevish, and weak as malevolent. He rebukes the clergyman principally for his commissions and omissions in regard to the fathers of the society. Them, he more than intimates, he should have never blamed; he should have loaded his page, from the pleasant histories of fathers More, Bartoli, and Juvency, with the edifying and wonderful, sometimes miraculous, events of their births, lives, and burials. With such materials as these, he observes, he might have compiled a history truly worthy of the notice of a christian reader! xi

Dodd, whose mind, it appears, was irritable, was not pleased, as, I think, he might have been, with this ludicrous attack. He was aware, that the cant of piety, and certain insinuations breathed with unction, might at once, in the estimation of a misjudging public, blast his character and all the fruits of his thirty years labour. He, therefore, in 1741, replied to Constable, in a work entitled An Apology for the Church History of England. It is written with uncommon acuteness, keen discrimination, a brevity that impresses, and a ridicule that cuts. I only lament that his conscious superiority should have sometimes descended to asperities of language, and recriminating taunts, which prove that he did not sufficiently despise his adversary. The generous mastiff indignantly passes on, heedless of the curs that aim to annoy and teaze him.

Other works have been ascribed to Mr. Dodd, of which, I believe he was the author, written too acrimoniously against the insidious conduct, as he deemed it, of the Jesuits in their transactions with xii the secular clergy. He has also left behind him a variety of papers, some complete, some imperfect, on different subjects, all written with his own hand. Few men have been more indefatigable in research, and patient of that toil that wearies most in the walks of literature.

So much for Gregorio Panzani and Charles Dodd, whose name, as the reader is now sensible, is nearly connected with the Memoirs,

To the Memoirs I have prefixed an Introduction and subjoined a Supplement, which exhibit the state of the English Catholic church and the general conduct of parties, before and after the short period comprised in the memoirs, down to the present year. Something, I thought, was necessary to prepare the mind of the reader; and if, when I had gained his attention, I could lead him forwards to the contemplation of more recent occurrences, he would find, I flattered myself, some things not uninteresting. But I was not sensible that I should say so much, having, a few years before, traversed the xiii same ground, and found it barren *. My sources of information, however, were now more copious; and that must account to the reader for any departures from, or opposition to, the statements I had before given,

I know not that it is at all necessary, to speak of the authors or different records with which I was furnished. When I first quote them, invariably, I believe, I give, in a note, some account of their authors or contents. The MS. Letters of Dr. Allen and of many of his contemporaries, from which I could have drawn some curious facts, had my plan required it, were copied with an accuracy too minutely scrupulous, from originals and copies deposited in the library of the English college at Rome. The Relation of the Regulars, almost the whole of which I have given, was transcribed from the same place. The other MS. documents, I occasionally quote, are equally authentic. I wished to have obtained a sight of some xiv papers, preserved, I understood, in the archives of our chapter, particularly of a History of all their Affairs, compiled by John Ward, their secretary, at the end of the last century. The liberty I requested was refused me, from the generous motives, I once thought, of the peevish animal who, lying in the manger, refused to let the patient ox, whom hunger pressed, feed on the food that was natural to him, and unnatural to the snarling tyrant that did but defile it by his presence. However, I am now told, that the valuable MS. cannot be found. I was, therefore, necessitated to make use of an Abridgement [sic], extracted, I doubt not, very faithfully by the learned John Serjeant, and published in 1706.

It may be asked, as I invariably side with the secular clergy in all their controversies with the monastic orders, and as invariably censure the Jesuits, particularly father Parsons, why I have not been honest enough to consult their own authors?—Perhaps, I did consult them. The truth, however, is, that the principal xv historians of the Jesuits, whose names I have already mentioned, (two of whom are foreigners, and the other is little esteemed) are acknowledged to be extremely partial; and though, as I am ready to admit, a sufficient degree of partiality may be found on the other side, I was yet disposed, as I could not free myself from all party-prepossession, rather to err, if I was to err, in favour of my own inclinations, than against them. But my deviations from the line of historic justice are not great: I am not even conscious that I have deviated at all. What really is the place of truth, in speaking of men and their transactions, I know it to be morally impossible to define. Les choses de ce monde sont a facette: look which way you will, some deception will attend you. To approximate to truth is all we can pretend to; and he is the best historian, who, from some accidental impression, perhaps, taking his bias, falls into the fewest errors.—With regard to the regulars, in general, of which corps the Jesuits were members, I have been laudibly candid, giving their own Relation of many events. I warned xvi the reader, indeed, to be on his guard, from the obvious impression on my own mind, that there was little truth in their statements.

I have been severe, I admit, on father Parsons, and sometimes, on the general policy of the regulars. Under this consciousness, therefore, I have coolly reviewed my observations, when the warmth had subsided which naturally accompanies competition. But I see not much to censure: some things, perhaps, are improperly harsh, though warranted, to my apprehension, by the evidence of facts. One reflection only gives me pain, and that is, left, from blaming freely, as I always do, what I judge to be reprehensible in the conduct of individuals, or the policy of certain communities, an inference should be wantonly drawn, that I am an enemy to whole institutes and all their component members. It is the esprit de corps that I condemn, all behaviour dictated by that spirit, and the individuals that it sways. Its influence, I think, has greatly actuated all the monastic orders, xvii as it obviously does all other societies of men, whom a common interest binds, whether of worldly politics or of religious economy. Father Parsons, it was evident, could sacrifice to it considerations of the most weighty import: I, therefore, deemed him most blame-worthy, and treated him as such. De mortuis nil nisi verum is the motto of historians. Whether with the predominating spirit, I am censuring, can consist real integrity of manners, and moral worth, I chuse not to define : but of this I am certain, that men of party unblushingly do, what, when taken out of that influence, they would reject with horror.

I shall be reproached with speaking too freely of the Roman pontiff, of his court, and of his sacred congregations *.—I xviii respect the Roman pontiff, his court, and his sacred congregations; but as neither he nor they are privileged from the errors, into which human passions and their politics precipitate the greatest men, I was, surely, at liberty to censure those errors, when they struck my eye with the broad light of noontide. I can excuse, I think, great misconduct, or not treat it very harshly, when it is conceded to proceed from the instigation of resentment, of ambition, or of interest; but when conscience is pleaded, and the sacred duties of religion, and yet such things are done, as the professed politician would blush to acknowledge, my indignation, I own, rises, and I express its strongest feelings. Such was, sometimes, my indignation, and I expressed it, while I traced with pain the hundred arts and domineering policy practised by the Roman court, in their transactions with the small remnant of the ancient British church. It is indecorous, truly, that the vicar of him who was meek and lowly of heart, and the professed descendents of fishermen, should assume the tones of worldly power and the maxims of worldly xix craft. To this, however, I will agree, that if, after having perused my statement of facts, and compared it with the guarded narration of the most devoted papist, the reflecting reader shall say, I have been unduly severe, I will acknowledge my fault, and be disposed (I think, I may be disposed) to write a treatise in favour of the pretensions of the Roman court, and the views of its fifteen congregations. To the jurisdiction of the Roman see and to the supremacy of its first pastor I bow with reverence; but neither with that jurisdiction nor with that supremacy, though they are sometimes sullied by the contact, has the court of Rome and its fifteen congregations any proper concern. These are human; they divine *.

It will be said, that I have dwelt, with a minute detail, on our ecclesiastical proceedings, xx in the appointment of archpriests, the nomination of bishops, (if so they might be called) the erection of their chapter, the manly conduct of this chapter, the final delegation of vicars apostolic, and the characters and behaviour of these venerable men.—I own it; for it was to trace these various events, with all their concomitant circumstances, which was a part of history, I was aware, little known, that I undertook to disturb the dust of records. When my brethren, I said, shall be informed by what means, and in the face of how dignified an opposition, their present ecclesiastical government was established, they will view it, perhaps, with a less partial eye, and be disposed to reform what is abusive.— With the same motive, I strongly marked, what I conceived to be, the original mistake in erecting houses for foreign education, the evils they gave rise to, and the error of persevering in the measure.

But to complain of evils, and not suggest a practicable remedy, might justly be deemed idly querulous; I, therefore, xxi before I closed my observations, presumed to delineate a sketch of two plans, which, if adopted, would tend to correct the main grievances under which we internally labour. May I request the reader not to throw by my book, till once, twice, and thrice, divesting himself of all party-prepossession, he has maturely weighed those plans ?

And here, I think, the curtain might drop; but I am requested to subjoin a few additional observations. They shall be as brief, as possible.

A work has been put into my hands, lately published, entitled, with a motive of charming benevolence, Ecclesiastical Democracy Detected. I read it, rather I ran through it, as was natural, when every step was painful. The terms most familiar with the gentle author *, who styles himself reverend, are heretic, schismatic, impostor, hypocrite, not always broadly spoken, the two last I mean, but palpably xxii implied; and even more than this, for it may be that the curious antiquary (he is a fellow of the antiquarian society) has found in the vocabulary of the banks of the Thames something aboriginal on which to feed his appetite. Take a sample. But how shall I follow my adversary through all the glaring inconsistencies, malicious misrepresentations, and unblushing falsehoods, which he has heaped together?* The man that uses this language is neither a gentleman nor a Christian. Whether the water-nymphs, I alluded to, would take him for their chaplain, I know not: sure I am, that communities of a better polish and of better principles must be shocked by his intemperate effusions. And what, after all, was the provocation that instigated the fellow thus to throw about his stink-pots?

Sir John Throckmorton, a gentleman of large fortune, and of amiable manners, a man of great mental endowments, a scholar deeply read, a citizen devoted to his xxiii country, a christian in practice as well as theory, a Catholic enlightened in his belief and sincere in his conviction, Sir John Throckmorton, a few years ago, addressed a letter to the clergy of his own communion on the appointment of bishops. He had seen, with some emotion, two recent instances, in which, it appeared, the court of Rome had delegated two vicars apostolic, at that time, not favoured by the general wishes of the districts, they were appointed to govern. Versed in the maxims and practices of the best æra of Christian discipline, to the study of which the circumstance of his being a member of the Catholic committee had led him; Sir John viewed the extraordinary delegation of the two vicars as a departure from the usages of venerable antiquity; and, under that impression, it was, that he wrote his letter. In it he advised the clergy to assume, what he deeded, a better spirit, and to return to the ways, so they seemed to him, of their ancestors. The letter was read; was approved and disapproved; xxiv and would soon have sunk into oblivion, as is the common fate of such essays.

The fellow of the Antiquarian Society came forward : He was answered by Sir John: the fellow rejoined: was again replied to: and then appeared this masterpiece of good-breeding and Christian forbearance, Ecclesiastical Democracy Detected*.

The reader need not be told, that, with each new publication, much new matter was collected: for controversy, as the snow-ball, always picks up as it advances. It concerns not my purpose to discuss the merits of the publications, or of the cause in debate : nor am I a competent judge. With the works of Sir John I am acquainted; but of the fellow's I have only tasted the spirit. This xxv told me, as I observed, that he was neither a gentleman nor a Christian. To the first character, probably, he does not pretend; but he should, in this æra of the world, strive to be a Christian.

There was a society of men, of whom we read much in an old book, called the Testament, with which, as it is old, I marvel our antiquarian fellow is not better acquainted, that is, from admiration, at least, of the venerable stamp with which time has marked it, that he has not imbibed some portion of its maxims. That society of men were called Pharisees. They were extremely popular in their day, and they led the fashions and taste of their countrymen. But as, in the line of morals and religious belief, they built much on human traditions, on outward forms, on the observances of days, on faith unincumbered by works, and on a flattering complacency of judgements, that, for these things, they were the chosen friends of heaven and better than other men, when the divine founder of Christianity appeared amongst them,: their cant of holiness and ostentatious xxvi presumption, so adverse to the native simplicity of truth, roused his warmest indignation. He pointed the keenest shafts of censure against their arrogance, aware that if their maxims could stand, it would be even vain to sow the seeds of a heavenly doctrine. On no occasion, therefore, did he spare these men, and he, who was gentleness and charity, became indignant and irresistible in reproof, to stem the spreading contagion of their lessons. In many passages of the gospels, but particularly in the 23d chapter of St. Matthew, is a whole-length portrait of the Pharisees drawn, to the contemplation of which I refer our antiquary and some other modern christians.

For the family of Pharisees is not yet extinct. We haw men that found their own trumpets, that place themselves in the seat of Moses, that make broad their phyladeries and enlarge the borders of their garments, that love to be called masters, that shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, that make long prayer, that compass sea and land to make proselytes, that pay tithe of mint, xxvii and anise, and cummin, omitting the weightier matters of the law, that strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel, that make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, that trust in themselves as righteous, and despise others. We have such men; and I cannot avoid thinking, judging from their fruits which unerringly denote the good and bad tree, that they who talk as the fellow of the antiquarian society talks, and he, by no means, talks alone, are the genuine offspring of the Pharisees. They blazon their faith, and they make wide their hope, but the greatest of these is charity, which, evidently, they have not. I am, then, authorised to say, that they are not Christians, for they want the virtue that is essential to its nature. Can there be a man that is not a rational animal; or a brute that is not sensitive? They speak loudly, it is true, of their orthodoxy, that is, they make broad their phylacteries; they proclaim their submission to authority, that is, they pay tithe of mint, of anise, and cummin; they extol their own righteousness, that is, they clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; they talk with xxviii unction of the love of souls, that is, they compass sea and land to make proselytes to their own opinions: while the men they despise, whom they call heretics and schismatics believe what, on the authority of revelation, is proposed to be believed, and, neglecting the traditions of men, emulate better gifts. I have seen these give meat to the hungry, and drink to the thirsty; take in the stranger, and clothe the naked; visit the sick, and relieve the prisoner. When all nations shall, therefore, be gathered, we know where their place will be, and what their reward.

I have been more serious on the occasion, than, I thought, I could have been; but it is not without motive. And should it be retorted on me, that, by these remarks, I prove myself as uncharitable as the men I censure; I beg leave to refer to the fruits of the tree, which I have just mentioned, those unerring guides to judgment. He who knew what was in man, needed not any should inform him concerning man: and he who hears what the mouth uttereth, may safely pronounce on xxix the abundance of the heart. I am willing to be thought uncharitable with the divine master of charity.

The antiquary, some few years back, published Exclamations of the soul to 'God, or Meditations of St. Teresa, prefixing to them an introductory preface, full of abuse and scurrility, chiefly poured out on me. The frontispiece, if I remember well, was a pretty device—the Saint, in the brown habit of her order, seated in a chair of ' Gothic carpentry, the accompaniments all Gothic, with eyes in a fine phrenzy fixed. It was ingenious, surely, to couple with the effusions of real piety the effusions of real rancour; but the fellow is ingenious.

He has, likewise, very lately entertained the public (but I have not the title of the book) with something, I am told, like the story of the renowned St. George and the Dragon, against the assertions of Edward Gibbon, Esq. Such labours are innocent; and should scurrility load the page, the dragon, it must be allowed, is a more proper vehicle for abuse, than the , meditations of St. Teresa. He may next xxx undertake the achievements (they will be no disgrace to antiquarian research) of Guy earl of Warwick and the Dun Cow, and make the champion or the cow porters of such other malevolent remarks, as he may then have collected, against heretics and schismatics, that is, against Sir John Throckmorton and myself *

xxxi There is another priest *, lineally descended from the same Jerusalem flock, and even more true to the principles of his tribe, than the fellow I have just parted from. I would not notice him; but my silence, I am told, would be deemed a rudeness.—We saw him, some time ago, rising, as he more than intimated, from the duty of recollection and self-examination, at the foot of his crucifix, to spread from the press defamation and abuse. The wits have named him Tartuffe, from the resemblance, they noted in him, to that eminent personage on the old French stage. His sanctimonious air and oily diction veil a mind of artifice; and, at a distance, may be heard the founding brass and the tinkling cymbal. Brother, says he, stretching out his hand, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye; while the beam that is in his own eye he considereth not. I think, without any effort of fancy, I can see this man pass by, whilst he, who had xxxii fallen among thieves, lay wounded on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. It is true, by a laudable anticipation of future days, he might be busied in preparing a gay posey of devotion to the sacred heart of Mary*, heedless of earthly objects. When I once observed to Tartuffe, that, from some circumstances, it appeared, he was actuated, in his writings, by a spirit of resentment. Such may be the appearances, he answered, but when I took up my pen, I assure you, I purified my intention. Reader! dost thou understand this casuistry, the most apt of all to cover the commission of crimes? I know not that they, who sat in xxxiii the chair of Moses, possessed an ingenuity that could reach to this commodious latitude. It is true, says the assassin, I did cut the man's throat; but I purified my intention, as I drew the knife.*

To the antiquary I kindly observed that, as he had spoken so characteristically, I thought, he might fairly be recommended to the chaplaincy of Billingsgate: And so I still think: but as it might be well to procure the establishment of a see there dignified with a complete hierarchy, will it be deemed schismatical, if I propose his elder brother as the properest candidate? By a combined influence, they may escape the crying sin of a popular election; and when the merits of the candidate shall be detailed (he understands the method) by the antiquarian orator in person, all opposition, I am sure, will be calmed, and the sisterhood, with the ejaculations of an approving complacency, receive their worthy pastor. xxxiv Then, taking his stand at the corner of some street, while the trumpet sounds before him, he may pray, making broad his phylacteries; and the chaplain, meanwhile, shall draw motes from the eyes of the passengers, or amuse them with straining at gnats, and swallowing camels.

Having completed his libel against the gentlemen of our late committee, Tartuffe (the name is patronymical not opprobrious)assailed me in a pamphlet of some length, denouncing all my errors. I have never read it, nor ever shall; but I hear it is written in his best manner. I am not inclined, unnecessarily, to expose my mind's peace, by the perusal of such personal invectives; to draw any benefit from them, is not possible; reply to them I will not. In a word, my religion, I solemnly declare, is not his or that of his admirers: I profess myself the disciple of a better master, of him who was the friend of man, who was the foe of Pharisaical hypocrisy, and who raised the noble fabric of a divine religion on the broad basis of universal charity. Why then has the xxxv officious priest obtruded himself on me? I will speak of him in the words of the amiable Metastafio:

Se'l mosse
Leggerezza; no'l curo:
Se Follia; lo compiango:
Se Raggion; gli son grato : e se in lui sono
Impeti di malizia; io gli perdono.*

xxxvi

ERRATA.

[Note that errata in the HTML edition have been corrected.]

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——	323	——	9	for Serne	——	Kerne.
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xxxvii

CONTENTS,

The various changes which the public mind had witnessed, through the reigns of Henry, Edward, and Mary, had so completely, by dissipating old attachments and weakening the prejudices of early education, prepared the people for any further change, that, on the accession of Elizabeth, without any reluctance, they quitted the religion of their ancestors, and accepted the new settlement that finally closed the Reformation. The nobility, indeed, and gentry, whom the spoils of the church had enriched, were interested in the event; and the multitude had listened, with an increasing alienation of mind, to the ridicule thrown on 2 their former practices, and to the invectives against the Roman see and the jurisdiction of its pontiff, while the horrors of the last reign had contributed, perhaps, more than any other cause, to produce the general effect I am describing. Many, however, in the higher orders, and in the lower ranks, stood unmoved; and the bishops, with some of the leading and learned clergy, set an example of firmness, which was viewed with amazement by those, who remembered, with what ease, the same order of men, but a few years before, had adopted more violent and irregular innovations *.

The queen, whom no motives of interest or education could have cordially attached to the religion of her late sister *, seemed disposed to listen to the voice of prudence and policy, and to pursue such measures as, agreeing best with the wishes of her people, should hold out the surest prospects of terminating their differences, and of giving stability to her throne. Yet there were many things, we are 3 told, in the old religion which she admired; and could she have foreseen the success of a rising faction, which acquired the name of Puritans, and which soon became so troublesome to herself, and at last so fatal to the throne of one of her successors, it may, with reason, be presumed, that, in establishing the reformation, she would either have adopted the tenets of her father Henry, or have departed, probably, even less from the rites, if not from the doctrine, of the Roman church. But, whatever might have been her first sentiments, Paul IV. soon took care to fix her resolution; and to him, perhaps, in the wayward series of human events, may be imputed the defection of England from the communion of Rome.

On the death of her sister, Elizabeth, through the English resident at Rome, Sir Edward Carne, notified to his holiness her accession to the throne. The stern pontiff replied: That the kingdom of England was a fief of the holy see; that Elizabeth was a bastard, and had no right to the succession; that he could not annul the decrees of Clement VII. and of Paul III. with regard to her father's marriage; that it was an act of signal audacity in her to have assumed the title of queen, without his participation; that thus she was undeserving of the smallest indulgence; yet, if she would renounce her 4 pretensions, and submit to his free disposition, he would treat her with the kindness of a father, and do her every service which should be compatible with the dignity of the vicar of Christ.* Thus spoke the haughty Paul, true to the maxims of Hildebrand, even after the lapse of five hundred years! And when the answer was reported to Elizabeth, she must have seen that the admission of such a monstrous prerogative could not consist with the safety and independence of her throne. If in high and indignant resentment she then made her choice, and if that choice proved subversive of a religion, the professors of which could suffer their first pastor so to think, or so, at least, to speak, I may be sorry, but I cannot be surprised.

The new parliament met, modelled according to her own desires, and prepared to go all the lengths of those profound and sagacious politicians, the queen's principal advisers, who now came forward on the scene *. The first act recognised her title to the throne; which being followed by some others, with a view to 5 feel the dispositions of parliament on the subject of religion, both houses proceeded to the grand question of the Supremacy, that is, in the language of the statute, To restore to the crown the ancient jurisdiction over the estate ecclesiastical and spiritual; and to abolish all foreign powers repugnant to the same.—After warm debates and strenuous opposition, especially from the bishops in the upper house, the act passed with its oath repealing whatever the late king Philip and queen Mary, by their parliament, had done in favour of the jurisdiction of Rome, and reviving all such laws and statutes as her father Henry and his son Edward, by their parliaments, had enacted for the overthrow of the same; and thus uniting and annexing to the imperial crown of this realm such jurisdictions, privileges, superiorities, and preheminences, spiritual and ecclesiastical, as by any foreign spiritual or ecclesiastical power or authority had heretofore been exercised or used. In the oath the queen's highness is styled the only supreme governour of this realm, as well in all spiritual and ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal. Whoever refused this oath is declared incapable of holding any public office. The act then states that whoever denied the queen's supremacy, as by law now established, or attempted to deprive her of that prerogative, should, for the first offence, forfeit all his goods and chattels; for the second, be subjected to the penalty of a 6 premunire; and for the third, be guilty of high treason *.

This famous act was followed by others of a similar complection, all tending to strengthen the new powers of the crown, and to give energy to the plan of reformation, when, on the 8th of May 1559, the parliament was prorogued, having, in a single session, without violence or tumult, altered the whole system of religion, in the commencement of a reign, and by the will of a young woman, whose very title to the throne was by many thought liable to objections,

But while the representatives of the people, and the lords were thus busied, both houses of Convocation, called together by the royal summons, had, with anxious expectation, watched the rapid progress of this lay-reform. Their opposition to every act was steady and uniform; and the lower house drew up and signed a Declaration, expressive of their orthodox belief in the holy sacrament, in the mass, in the jurisdiction of the successor of St. Peter, and in the authority of the pastors of the church, which was presented to the lord keeper 7 Bacon, by Bonner, president of the. synod. At the same time, both universities, under the hand of a public notary, declared their assent to the same articles. The solemn instrument, as delivered into parliament, is still upon record *; and it must remain to posterity a standing proof, that so far, at least, the reformation had proceeded reclamante clero.

It is not my intention, though the occasion be most favourable, here to examine the nature and extent of that supremacy which the legislature annexed to the crown: Suffice it to observe, that the notions of all men were then indistinct on the subject : for so universal and undefined had the power of Rome been, call it ecclesiastical or spiritual; so much had it absorbed within its cognizance all the concerns of life, that the primitive rights of a first bishop could with difficulty be traced, and the whole fabric of his jurisdiction seemed rather to be the contrivance of human ambition on the one side, and of weak concessions on the other. How then should a state proceed, now convinced that such a paramount jurisdiction was incompatible with its sovereignty, than at once to break down the whole mass, (conscious, 8 at the same time, that their decrees would not affect: what was really divine and primitive, and that a jurisdiction so defined could excite no jealousy,) and commit any ambiguity of expression to the interpreters of the law, should an interpretation be afterwards deemed necessary. Under this view, I believe, many moderate men then patronised the scheme, and the legislature of Elizabeth proceeded.

The queen, by a clause in the act, empowered to name commissioners, erected the court of high ecclesiastical commission, whose office it was to execute the late decrees of parliament, in the general reformation of the church and clergy. The agents of no popes had possessed such discretionary and independent powers. To these commissioners, fourteen in number, (of whom one only was a churchman,) Elizabeth, in virtue of her supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction, entrusted also a body of injunctions, containing rules of discipline and of general order, and to which was annexed an admonition, designed to explain the oath and to remove from it every sinister interpretation. The admonition is:

The queen's majesty being informed that, in certain places of this realm, sundry of her native subjects being called to ecclesiastical ministry in the church, be, by sinister persuasion and perverse construction, induced to find some 9 scruple in the form of an oath, which, by an act. of the last parliament, is prescribed to be required of diverse persons, for the recognition of their allegiance to her majesty, which certainly was neither ever meant, nor by any equity of words or good sense can be thereof gathered: would that all her loving subjects should understand, that nothing was, or is, or shall be meant or intended by the same oath, to have any other duty, allegiance, or bond required by the same oath, than was acknowledged to be due to the most noble kings of famous memory, king Henry VIII. her majesty's father, or king Edward VI. her majesty's brother; And further, her majesty forbiddeth all manner her subjects to give ear or credit to such perverse and malicious persons, which most sinisterly and maliciously labour to notify to her loving subjects, how by the words of the said oath it may be collected, that the kings or queens of this realm, possessors of the crown, may challenge authority and power of ministry of divine offices in the church, wherein her said subjects be much abused by such evil disposed persons. For certainly her majesty neither doth, nor ever will, challenge any other authority, than that was challenged and lately used by the said noble kings of famous memory, king Henry VIII. and king Edward VI. which is and was, of ancient time due to the imperial crown of this realm; that is, under God, to have the sovereignty and rule over all manner of persons born within these her realms and dominions and countries, so as no other foreign power, shall, or ought to, have any superiority over them. And if any person that hath conceived any other sense of the form of the said oath, 10 shall accept the same oath with this interpretation, sense, or meaning; her majesty is well pleased to accept every such in that behalf as her good and obedient subjects, and shall acquit them of all manner of penalties, contained in the said act, against such as shall peremptorily or obstinately refuse to take the same oath.

This interpretation of the oath was afterwards repeated in the declaration enjoined to be read by the ministers of the church, before the thirty-nine articles were framed, and of these articles the thirty-seventh says : we give not to our princes the ministering either of God's word or of the sacraments, the which thing the injunctions lately set forth by Elizabeth our queen do most plainly testify; but that only prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly princes in holy scriptures by God himself, that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil doers. The same sense was finally settled by act of parliament in the fifth year of her majesty: Provided also, (says the act,) that the oath expressed in the said act, made in the first year, shall be taken and expounded in such form as is set forth in an admonition annexed to the queen majesty's injunctions, published in the first year of her majesty's reign: that is to say, to confess and acknowledge in her majesty, her heirs and successors, none other authority than that was challenged and lately used by the noble king Henry VIII. and Edward VI. as 11 in the said admonition more plainly appears*.—But to proceed.

The commissioners began their progress through the nation, tendering, as they advanced, the oath, and directing the execution of the laws and of her majesty's injunctions.

The number of bishops was then greatly reduced, being no more than fifteen, including Heath, archbishop of York; and when, in the beginning of July, they were required to take the oath as the law directed, all, but Kitchin of Landaff, refused compliance. He, it is said, who had formerly submitted to every change, resolved to shew himself no changling 12 in not conforming to the pleasure of the higher powers.* The bishops were deprived; and their deprivation was accompanied by various fates, which a general lenity, however, softened, as the interest of friends prevailed, or their own inoffensiveness of conduct solicited.—Heath retired to one of his own houses in Surrey, where he lived unmolested, respected by his neighbours, and often visited by the queen. Tunstall of Durham, and Thirlby of Ely were entertained in the palace of Lambeth, and Bourn of Wells in the house of the dean of Exon. White of Winchester, after a short imprisonment in the tower, was suffered to retire among his friends; which indulgence was also allowed to Turberville of Exeter, a gentleman of ancient descent. Watson of Lincoln, after a short restraint, spent his time with the bishops of Rochester and Ely; but being accused of practicing against the state, he was finally committed to Wisbich castle. Oglethorp of Carlisle, soon after his deprivation, died of an apoplexy, Bayne of Lichfield of the stone, and Morgan of St. David's of some other disease; but all of them in their beds, and in perfect liberty. Poole of Peterborough resided with his friends, 13 and died on one of his own farms; and Christopherson of Chichester experienced a like indulgence. Bonner of London alone, whose cruelties in the last reign had exposed him to general indignation, was doomed to perpetual confinement. Pates of Worcester, before the oath was tendered to him, had quitted the kingdom, as had Goodwell of St. Asaph's, who retired to Rome *.

The oath was next offered to the deans and dignitaries, and then to the rural clergy; and, as conscience or as particular views directed, they refused or took it. But for that refusal, or for not conforming to the public liturgy, only 80 rectors and vicars seem to have loft their preferments, 50 prebendaries, 15 heads of colleges, 12 deans and as many archdeacons, . the whole number not amounting to 200 persons *.

Few then remained firm to the old cause; and of these few, as many were placed in elevated stations, we may, perhaps, be induced to think that a point of honour, rather than conviction of duty, influenced their determination. 14 Still, when we contemplate the general state of the kingdom, as contemporary writers represent it a few years later, in its universities and various parishes, the warmest admirer of the reformation will be compelled to own that many, even far the major part, of those whom learning signalised, or probity of manners graced, had withdrawn from their stations. Our universities, says Jewel, the new bishop of Salisbury, are in a most lamentable condition.* — Upon the Catholic clergy throwing up their preferments, the necessity of the church required the admitting of some mechanics into orders. They are the words of Collier *. — There was not, observes Heylin, a sufficient number of learned men to supply the cures, which filled the church with an ignorant and illiterate clergy. Many were raised to great preferments, who having spent their time of exile (in the reign of Mary) in such foreign churches as followed the platform of Geneva, returned so disaffected to episcopal government, unto the rites and ceremonies here by law established, as not long after filled the church with 15 most sad disorders. Private opinions not regarded, nothing was more considered in them than their zeal against popery, and their abilities in learning to confirm that zeal.*

For some time, uncertain what might be the event of things, the great body of the clergy conformed exteriorly to the law. The changes of the preceding reigns, which themselves had witnessed, prompted this weak compliance. But when the firmness of the queen and her ministers, and the general aspect of the nation, convinced them, that no further change, favourable to their wishes, might be expected, again some surrendered their livings; others retained sine cures, through the connivance of their neighbours, or the patronage of friends, procuring men who would officiate in their stead; many served as chaplains in private families; more, perhaps, (for there is reason to believe it,) fearful of penury or the severity of legal prosecution, persevered in the outward conformity with a service which their minds inwardly rejected; while all, (to their praise be it spoken,) bishops and clergy, in silent resignation bowed their heads, conscious that to submit to laws 16 which, while their active ministry permitted, they had laboured to avert, was now become their christian duty. To clamour, when clamour could only irritate; to disturb, by opposition, the peace of society, when endless feuds would be the only fruits; to provoke persecution or the resentment of the law, when a heavier oppression, with more apparent justice, might be then inflicted; in a word, to aim to restore their religion by violence, or to vilify that of their adversaries by reproach, when that divine master, by whose maxims they professed to be governed, had not set them the example—were rules of conduct; which the clergy, I am describing, under more than the common irritation of human passions, nobly disdained to follow *. 17

The conduct of the laity was such as, from circumstances, might be naturally expected. The nobility, in great numbers, adopted the faith of the court, and they were followed by what might be called the nation. I have said, how much the recent progress of changes had prepared the way for this event. Still amongst this nobility and all the subordinate ranks of life, there were many, some of whom remained firm, while more, actuated by the weak policy of their clergy, exteriorly conformed, frequenting the public service of the church. And in this service, it must be allowed, when it came to be regularly organised, there was a decency and a dignity, well adapted to the sedate and philosophic character of the English people. The churches were the same, the orders of the hierarchy remained, and, what was calculated to conciliate the multitude, the communion table was placed where the altar stood, music was retained, all the old festivals, with their eves, were observed; the dress of the officiating ministry only was changed to a less gaudy and garish vesture. The use of the English language also, when the first impression was effaced, greatly contributed to attach the people to it; as did the admission of the laity to the cup *. 18

In framing the articles of the public faith, it was, at the same time, the wish of the queen, that they should depart, as little as might be, from the tenets of former times. To conciliate the minds of men, not to divide them, was the policy of this uncommon woman. The language of the article on the real presence, a subject which had excited great controversies, indicates this conciliatory plan; and it was remarked, that she enjoined the sacramental bread to be continued round in the form of wafers *.

Of the great numbers who at first, we are told, from ignorance, or pusillanimity, or policy, were occasional conformists, many became gradually attached to the new faith, when every prospect of further change had ceased, and they saw before them not discouragement only, but the danger of prosecution in returning to the religion of their ancestors. It was afterwards more than once publicly declared by Sir Edward Coke, when attorney general, which the queen herself had confirmed in a letter to Sir Francis Walsingham, that, for the first ten years of her reign, the Catholics, without doubt or scruple, repaired 19 to the parish churches *. The assertion is true, if not too generally applied. I deny it not, says father Parsons in reply to Coke, but that many throughout the realm, though otherwise Catholics in heart, (as most then were,) did at that time and after, as also now, (an. 1606,) either upon fear, or lack of better instruction, or both, repair to Protestant churches *.

Such was the general state of things.—But men of more ardent minds than I have described, such principally as, for noncompliance, had been expelled the universities, or were disappointed in their views of preferment; such as a warmer zeal for religion animated, and who could ill brook the growing success of innovation; such as, habituated as they had been in the schools to refill the new doctrines of the reformers, were resolved not silently to quit the field, but to maintain, by every exertion, the war of words they loved, and which finally, they doubted not, must triumph: all these and more, when the measures of the court prevailed, withdrew to the continent. They were received as 20 professors or students in the universities and monasteries, particularly of France, Flanders, and Italy *.

This secession I lament; because 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 legislature would soon have relaxed; no jealousy would have been excited; and no penal statutes, we may now pronounce, 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 penetration might, certainly, have taught them, that the measures they were pursuing must accelerate the ruin, not support the religion of their friends, or the interest of their cause.

William Allen, a divine of Oxford, one of the first who relinquished his preferments, soon became the guide of the exiles, (if they might be so called who had voluntarily retired from their country,) and the soul of their 21 plans. His manners were gentle, his learning above the ordinary measure, his prudence in government constant, and his energy of action unceasing. In 1568, the tenth year of Elizabeth, having matured the weighty scheme, and drawn together many learned men who had been educated in Oxford and Cambridge, but who now were scattered on the continent, he laid the foundation of a college or seminary at Douay, a city in Flanders then subject to the Spanish crown. This was succeeded by other establishments, which the activity of the same man promoted, in Italy, Spain, and France. To perpetuate the succession of a Catholic clergy, and to supply England with pastors of that persuasion, as the old priests should die off, was the principal design of these establishments. In a few years, the number of students and residents in the single college of Douay amounted to 150 persons. But their means of subsistence, by private contributions, were fluctuating and precarious. Recourse therefore was had to Rome; and the holy see conspiring, as was natural, with the views of Allen and his associates, contributed liberally to their support, Other succours afterwards flowed in *. 22

I am disposed to admit, what the warmest advocates for these establishments can demand, that the views of their founders, when we contemplate the characters of the men and the motives of their actions, originated in a sincere and commendable zeal; but I cannot admit that those views were wise. Will it be proved, that similar establishments, better adapted to our genius, might not have been formed at home, if, as I have observed, time had been allowed for the fermentation of the public mind to subside; and moderation and forbearance disarming government of all its jealousies and resentments, had conciliated its good will to the professors of the ancient faith? The bishops of this faith, besides, who survived the reformation, had they been animated and protected by the abilities and learning of the men who emigrated, would, doubtless, themselves not have favoured only, but have suggested and promoted measures, whereby a regular succession of clergy might have been maintained, and schemes of education formed. But seeing themselves deserted, and hearing of foreign plans to which much praise was given, and on which the most sanguine hopes of success were founded, they persevered in the habits of retirement they had chosen, and entertained, it seems, no thoughts of perpetuating their hierarchy, or providing for days to come. It may also be remarked that, in 1578, twenty 23 years after the reformation, Watson of Lincoln was the only surviving prelate *

Our ancestors then, I have said, were unwise in founding foreign houses of education, not only because they took place of better establishments which, in the course of a few years, we might have formed at home; but also because, (from their views, some real and some imputed by their enemies, on the ground of their foreign connections and their avowed designs against the religion of their country,) they soon excited in the breasts of our governors a suspectful jealousy, which was the source of many evils. Nor will it, I think, be denied that, from too warm an opposition to the doctrines (of the reformers who rejected, without cause, all jurisdiction in the Roman bishop; from a connection with the court of Rome, begun in circumstances of penury, upheld by the same calls, and strengthened by sentiments which gratitude created; finally, from associating too intimately with the divines of that court, and adopting the maxims of its schools; it will not, I say, be denied that, from the operation of these various causes, our foreign houses soon imbibed an ultramontane spirit which, as it flattered, and by flattering 24 secured the favour of Rome, so did it offend, and by offending draw down on our heads the vengeance of the British government. The doctrine of deposing princes and disposing of their crowns, with other concomitant maxims of a like tendency, were the pabulum on which that ultramontane spirit fed; and we may too easily discover, in reading their works, that the divines of our English seminaries had, with a culpable inattention to circumstances, espoused those dangerous tenets *. Their direct application to the princess on the throne and to many events of her reign, proved too evidently that they were not tenets of barren speculation, calculated for the exercise of school disputation only: and if they rendered the men who maintained them obnoxious to the state, exposing them to prosecution and imprisonment, and sometimes even to death, it should not excite our wonder.

In a few years, the number of those who returned from these seminaries to support the 25 Catholic cause was considerable; and had they returned, (as many of them doubtless did) actuated by a pure zeal for religion, and with sentiments of an enlightened patriotism and of allegiance to their sovereign, they might have practised the duties of their ministry, unheeded and unmolested. But father Parsons had, by this time, set his hand also to the work, a man, with the sound of whose name are associated intrigue, device, stratagem, and all the crooked policy of the Machiavelian school. He left Oxford in 1574; entered among the Jesuits at Rome in 1575; and in 1580, returned into England with father Campian, being the two first Jesuits who visited this country. The society had been founded in the year 1540. Campian, in the following year, suffered death, for a supposed plot entered into abroad against the queen and government, when father Parsons thought it adviseable once more to withdraw. In 1587, having spent the intermediate time in France, he again went to Rome. A few years after this, we find him in Spain, highly favoured by that court, and using all its favour in the establishment of various seminaries at Valladolid, Seville, and St. Omer's, for the benefit, as it was esteemed, of the English Catholics. These foundations being completed, he once more repaired to Rome, which would honour him, it was expected, with the purple; but where he was only raised to the government 26 of the English college in that city, which he retained to his death in 1610 *.

To the intriguing spirit of this man (whose whole life was a series of machinations 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 as often has been said with truth. Devoted to the most extravagant pretensions of the Roman court, he strove to give efficacy to those pretensions in propagating, by many efforts, their validity and directing their application *: pensioned by the Spanish monarch, whose pecuniary aids he wanted for 27 the success of his various plans, he unremittingly favoured the views of that ambitious prince, in opposition to the welfare of his country, and dared to support, if he did not first suggest, his idle claim or that of his daughter to the English throne *: wedded to the society of which he was a member, he sought her glory and preheminence; and to accomplish this it was his incessant endeavour to bring under her jurisdiction all our foreign seminaries, and at home to beat down every interest, that could impede the aggrandisement of his order *. Thus, having gained an ascendancy over the minds of many, he infused his spirit 28 and spread his maxims; and to his successors of the society, it seems, bequeathed an admiration of his character and a love of imitation, which has helped to perpetuate dissentions,and to make us, to this day, a divided people. His writings, which were numerous, are an exact transcript of his mind, dark, imposing, problematical, seditious.

To confirm the above statement and to prove its truth, I select: the following passage from a contemporary author and an honest man. Father Parsons, he says, was the principal author, the incentor, and the mover of all our garboils at home and abroad. During the short space of nearly two years that he spent in England, so much did he irritate, by his actions, the mind of the queen and her ministers, that, on that occasion,the first severe laws were enacted against the ministers of our religion, and those who should harbour them. He, like a dastardly soldier, consulting his own safety,fled. But, being himself out of the reach of danger, he never ceased, by publications against the first magistrates of the republic or by factious letters, to provoke their resentment. Of these letters many were interrupted, which talked of the invasion of the realm by foreign armies, and which roused the public expectation. Incensed by his work on the succession, 29 and by similar productions on the affairs of state, under the semblance of a cause that now seemed just, our magistrates rise up in vengeance against us, and execute their laws. They exclaim, that it is not the concern of religion that busies us; but that, under that cloak, we are meditating politics and practising the ruin of the state. Robert Parsons, stationed at his ease, intrepidly, meanwhile,. conducts his operations; and we, whom the press of battle threatens, innocent of any crime and ignorant of his dangerous machinations, undergo the punishment which his imprudence and audacity alone merit. They are the words of John Mush, taken from a work published by him in Latin, which will be quoted in a succeeding note, and which, in the name of the English clergy, was addressed to Clement VIII.

To ascertain an important point, that the painful situation in which our ancestors were involved, was principally owing to certain opinions of a dangerous tendency imported from abroad, and that, if we had founded no foreign seminaries, we had provoked no penal laws, I wish to observe that, during the first ten years of her majesty's reign, the Catholics experienced no other molestation than what arose from the act of supremacy, and that the severity of that measure was gradually ceasing 30 when, in 1569, the Bull of Pius V. was issued *. In language irritating and insolent (for he denominates her fagitiorum serva and pretensa Angliæ regina) Pius excommunicates the queen, deprives her of all title to the throne, and absolves her subjects from every tie of allegiance *. In the same year a rebellion broke out in the northern provinces, under one pretence among others, of restoring the old religion, but not fomented, it seems, by the Bull of Pius, of which the rebels, probably, had not then heard. But the pontiff, in a letter to the earls who headed the insurrection, gave his blessing to their enterprise, which he 31 calls holy and religious, and promised to support it with as large a fum of money as was then in his power to supply. Our Lord, he says, to them, hath inspired your minds with a zeal worthy of your Catholic faith, that you may attempt to free yourselves and country from the shameful slavery of female lewdness, and bring it back to its former obedience to this holy Roman see.*

Yet these attempts against the dignity of the throne and the peace of the people were not resented by any public act, except what fell immediately on the rebels, till, in 1571, a new parliament met and passed the law of the 13 Eliz. entituled An act against bringing in, and putting in execution Bulls, &c. from the see of Rome. Nor till 1577, did any priest suffer death, though, in the space of the three preceding years, more than fifty of that order had been sent into England from the seminary of Douay. In the two next years they were followed by thirty two more *. But from the period of 1577, laws gradually succeeded to laws of more minute and rigorous severity, and proclamation to proclamation, whereby many were apprehended, and many suffered death. 32

Of those who suffered death, in number more than 120, to say that none were guilty of the crimes imputed to them, would be to arraign too severely the justice of my country; and to say that none were innocent, would be to contradict, I am aware, the truth of history. Often have I read the Memoirs* of the lives and deaths of those unfortunate men, when I was compelled to admire the innocence of their characters, their zeal for religion, their fortitude in the most trying scenes. That these Memoirs were compiled with a partiality too strongly marked, I will allow: still, when I see opinions punished which never came into action, and crimes charged which, with the expiring breath, were denied, I must be permitted to say, that the laws, which thus punished, were cruel, and that the spirit of the times was intolerant and bloody. But let the whole truth be spoken : The tenets these men adopted, (I mean those regarding the papal prerogative,) were, as I have observed, of a most dangerous tendency. These they would not abjure; they maintained them in their interrogatories *; and as they had been 33 educated, all of them, I believe, in foreign luminaries, whence books were daily published in support of the same tenets *, and in which seminaries, machinations, some real, some fictitious, were incessantly practised (as it was rumoured,) against the queen and the religion of the state, it was natural that great alarms should be excited, and more danger apprehended, than, in less irritating circumstances, would have provoked resentment, much less the vengeance of the law.

Lord Burleigh in a treatise entitled, The Execution of Justice in England, published in 1584, affirms that none had then suffered for religion; and he instances the old clergy and the numerous Catholics who lived unmolested, while the seminary priests only were brought into trouble, who, on their examinations returned evasive answers, indicating too evidently that they admitted the deposing power in the pontiff, and did not reprobate the Bull of Pius.—The positions of this work were controverted, it is true, and many of them denied by Dr. Allen *. 34

This then I infer, (and I have ample grounds for the inference,) that as none of the old clergy suffered, 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 *. But their foreign education connecting them with Rome and other hostile courts, itself raised suspicions; and the tenets which all of them held, many most innocently, formed another link which, in the apprehension of a government justly jealous, again connected them with the great events of the times. These were the insurrection of the earls in the north in 1569; the publication of the Bull of Pius in the same year, its renewal by Gregory XIII. in 1580, and again, with expressions of stronger acerbation, in 1588, by Sixtus V.; the attempts to release the unfortunate Mary, during her many years of imprisonment, but principally in 1586; and finally, the Spanish 35 Armada in 1588 : To which add the various plots of imaginary existence, supposed to be formed in all English houses on the continent. Parsons, in the mean while, and Bristow, and Stapleton, and Dr. Allen, (with all his virtues too much attached to the interests and prerogatives of Rome,) had been the instructors of those men; and with commissions from them and from his holiness, they had returned, under the positive inhibition of the law, to disturb the established faith of the country and to bring it again under the controlling jurisdiction of the Roman bishop *. 36

I have introduced, with more detail than, perhaps, was necessary, this general statement, that the reader might be better prepared for the subject to which I wished to lead him.

I have noticed that the old bishops, whilst they lived, continued to exercise some 37 jurisdiction over the Catholics, but that they appointed no successors to their sees. The last of them, Dr. Watson, who had been a kind of pope's legate over England, died in 1584; and four years before this, bishop Goodwell of St. Afaph's, who had long resided at Rome, came as far as Rheims, intending to return to England, and take upon himself the charge of our religion *. Age and infirmity impeded the accomplishment of his design, which, had it succeeded, might have left us a hierarchy, without that series of anarchy and internal dissentions, which ensued and have continued.

Dr. Allen who, towards the close of his life, had been made cardinal, and then archbishop of Mechlin in Flanders, died in 1594. Held in high estimation by all, revered for his manifold accomplishments, and powerful by an influence which reached from Rome to Douay, and from Douay to England, he, for many years, upheld a general inspection over the concerns of the Catholics *. The misfortune was that, naturally easy and unsuspicious, he permitted the artful Parsons to gain too great an ascendancy over him, an ascendancy 38 which the crafty politician took care to cement by rendering his pecuniary services absolutely necessary to Allen *. So great was the number of emigrants daily flocking to Douay, that common aids could not suffice for their maintenance. This pained the generous mind of Allen, and compelled him to implore assistance from whatever quarter it might be procured. Thus was Parsons become the general spring of action. But when the cardinal was no more, every obstacle, it seemed, to the completion of his most sanguine schemes was removed.

Having established his houses, as I have remarked, in Spain and Flanders, through the interest of the Spanish court which was subservient to his wishes, father Parsons had returned to Rome, and was in the plenitude of his power, at the head of the English college 39 there. This college, founded in 1578 *, and well endowed for the education of secular clergy, was forced from them within the same year, by a train of dark machinations, and committed to the administration of the Jesuits *. Besides this, the influence of the same body was becoming predominant also in Douay, to which place the English had returned in 1593, after an absence at Rheims of fifteen years.

It should here be observed, that the English Jesuits themselves were not yet formed into a regular society. They received their education among foreigners; were governed by the general of the order and foreign superiors; and in the concerns of the clergy acted as moderators and inspectors. But father Parsons was incessantly at work to establish their independence on a permanent foundation, which was 40 effected, soon after his death, in the three houses of Watten, Liege, and Ghent *.

Thus then stood the power of father Parsons. He ruled the colleges of Spain, and that of St. Omer's which was erected in 1594, retaining all the favour of the Spanish court: at Douay, Dr. Barret, the successor of the cardinal, was subservient to his beck *: In Rome, at the head of the college there, he possessed the ear of the pontiff, and was consulted in all matters regarding the English nation. It only remained that, in England itself, where he had many friends among the laity, and many creatures of the ecclesiastical order, either of his own society, or bound to him by the grateful recollection of favours they had experienced from his hands abroad, he should establish an authority over the body of secular clergy that might bring themselves and their concerns under his immediate controul, or under that of the society.

But that body of men, soured by some recent events and jealous of their independence, proved more untractable than he had expected. 41 The wresting from them the administration of the Roman college they recollected with resentment. In the castle of Wisbich, wherein more than thirty priests had been confined since the year 1587, great dissentions had arisen, disgracing the cause for which they suffered, and of which dissentions father Weston, then superior of the Jesuits, was thought to be the principal mover, by endeavouring to establish among the prisoners a form of discipline and economy favourable to the views of his order *. In this quarrel, strange as it may seem, the whole Catholic body, as they were variously affected, took sides. Nor could the clergy forgive an expression of father Garnet's uttered in reference to that quarrel: why, said he, may not the Jesuits govern, and have the preeminence over the secular priests in England, as they have at Rome over the English seminary *.—The influence the same order had obtained over the establishment at Douay excited also their indignation.—In a word, they had long experienced the indefatigable ardour 42 of father Parsons, who now aimed, they saw, at universal domination. But they were without a head, or any system of union, to resist the growing power, the absorbing influence of which was, with reason, dreaded.

It was this consciousness of their own inability, joined to the necessity which was urgent of having a superior amongst them, who, whilst he governed their body by a canonical superintendence, might, at the same time, administer confirmation, to the laity, which determined the clergy to apply to Rome for one or more bishops. They were now sensible, when it was too late, how culpable had been their remissness in not having induced the old bishops to leave successors behind them.

Still, it is my opinion that we always had a church, incomplete, it is true, since the death of the last bishop, but ever remaining a society of true believers, governed by a succession of inferior pastors, and holding communion with the centre of unity, the Roman see. The words mission, then, and missionaries have been improperly applied to us, which always designate a society recently converted to christianity, and unprovided with a regular clergy. The origin, however, of those words is obvious, taking their rise from the circumstance, which I have lamented, of ministers being sent from our 43 foreign establishments to supply the flocks with pastors. This idea of the perpetuity of our church I must resume, when incidents of greater moment shall call for it.

The clergy deliberated, and unanimously resolved to present a supplication to his holiness, praying that he would restore to them an ecclesiastical hierarchy in the government of bishops, which bishops should be elected by the common consent of the clergy, and appointed by them to different districts.*

Had they deliberated to better purpose, and consulting their church chosen such a number of bishops as the exigences of the people required, the measure would have been more consonant with the spirit of primitive discipline, while it would have secured them from a world of difficulties, into which their 44 too subservient attention to the Roman court was soon to precipitate them, and involve their successors. But their foreign education in pontifical colleges, which I cannot too often repeat, had taught them to think too well of a court, the measure of whose policy has generally been what would most tend to its own aggrandisement, and to the support of the prerogative of its supreme head. Even when that court is inclined to proceed on the most laudable motives, it is ever liable to be misled by the interested or sinister views of advisers, to whom, from a want of that knowledge which present inspection can alone supply, it is almost necessitated to give ear. When a cause, (said the honest men of whom I am speaking,) in which the interests of religion are obviously concerned, presents itself to Rome, with the eagerness of a kind parent she will listen to our prayer, and redress our grievances. So they reasoned. They were also aware of the dependent state, into which the benefactions bestowed by Rome on their foreign houses had thrown them; a dependence which gratitude cemented, but which, to the present hour, has operated fatally.

The measure on which the clergy had decided, could not be long concealed from those whose interest it was to obstruct its 45 completion. Father Parsons was in Spain; but no sooner was the project communicated to him, than he hastened to Rome. This was about the year 1597.—Mean while, to amuse the clergy and to lull them into security, the faction at home loudly applauded their design and wished it success, while secretly they laboured to draw off some of the clergy to their own side. In this they succeeded. Mr. George Blackwell, whose name will often return, a man of a quicker penne, than either of wisdome or sinceritie, not only joined them, but consented to write a letter which mould be conveyed to Rome, purporting that for twenty years, there had been no dissention between the secular priests and the jesuits; that the reports, stating the ambition of those fathers, were so far from the truth, that, on the contrary, the jesuits were in all places most notable examples of humility, gentleness, patience, piety, and charity. The testimonial thus worded was committed to the care of a Mr. Standish, another seduced clergyman, and with him dispatched to Rome *. 46

Father Parsons had now the game in his own hands. On the arrival of Standish, he introduced him, with two other clergymen, then in Rome, equally his own creatures, to his holiness, Clement VIII, as the deputies from the secular priests in England. They presented their letter; then entreated his holiness, that he would kindly deign to appoint a superior over the English church; for so great were the dissentions betwixt the secular priests and the laity , that many inconveniences must necessarily follow, unless one were placed over them, who, by his authority, might reconcile and reform them.—Clement seemed surprised: Doth what you have said, he asked, proceed from the desire and consent of my loving priests in England?—Standish replied: What we have presumed to offer to your holiness, is done by the most assured and unanimous consent of our brethren.*

His holiness, thus deceived, committed the business to cardinal Cajetan, then protector, as the phrase is, of the English nation, and to cardinal Borghese. But the former being familiarly connected with father Parsons, 47 as was natural, deemed it most proper to entrust to him the arrangement of the measure; and, by his superior authority, overruled his colleague. The whole plan is said to have been, previously adjusted between them *.

The wily politician did not long hesitate.—That the wishes of the clergy must, in part, be complied with, was plain; or they would soon be at Rome with the Supplication of their body, when the plot of his faction would be detected, and, perhaps, frustrated in its whole extent:—But they must not have a bishop for their superior, with ordinary jurisdiction at least, such, he knew, as they requested, who would unite all their interests, and annul the project he had laid for the elevation of his own order:—If a superior, of a character hitherto unheard of in the church of God, can be obtained, to him, as a Roman delegate, the clergy must submit; and, if he be a creature of the Jesuits, under his auspices, the views they had formed will be more effectually promoted:—To select a Jesuit for this superior would be too palpable and revolt numbers: but the way may be opened to the office; for though the constitutions of the society exclude them from the mitre, they bar 48 not the access to other ecclesiastical preferments.

In this, or in a manner not unlike it, we may presume, father Parsons reasoned; and he could not be long at a loss OH whom to fix his choice. The name of Blackwell was known at Rome, where he had once resided in habits of intimacy with Bellarmin, and to whom, twenty years before, certain powers had been entrusted *. Recently also, as we have just seen, he had merited peculiar favour by a most signal service. Him, therefore, he deemed a proper instrument for his designs; and he recommended him to the cardinals. They approved his choice; and it was determined that Mr. Blackwell should be nominated superior over the clergy of England and Scotland, with the title of Archpriest*.

Had the Presbyterian idea come from the school of Calvin, it would have raised no surprise: why then be surprised that it originated in a school, wherein the Jesuits Lainez and Salmeron had taught, that the whole ecclesiastical hierarchy was concentered in the pope, and 49 that he was the only bishop jure divino?* The sequel will still develop this unseemly doctrine;

An instrument was now prepared, under the form of a Letter from cardinal Cajetan, directed to George Blackwell, and dated March 17, 1598.—It states, that satan had lately moved dissentions between the Catholic laity and the secular priests: That in the Roman college peace and harmony now prevail: That some subordination among the priests, it was thought, would tend to generate concord, as the reasons just urged by the delegates proved: That with this view, he nominates him, with the title of archpriest, to direct and govern all the secular priests of England and Scotland: That, however, to lighten the heavy charge, he appoints six advisers or assistants, whom he mentions by name, empowering him at the same time, to add six more to the number: that harmony and concord must be maintained, and that with the fathers of the society whom he greatly extols, saying that their labours, for the good of their country, in England as elsewhere, were incessant; that they had not, nor pretended to have any jurisdiction over the secular priests, to whom they would cause no uneasiness; and therefore it was the devil's 50 work, designed to overturn all the benefits of the ministry, if any Catholics excited or practised envies and jealousies against them.*

Such, in a much longer detail, are the contents of this curious instrument, obviously, in every article, fabricated by father Parsons, in a perfect accord with the late stratagem, and to answer the designs he had in view.—It was signed by the cardinal, and dispatched into England, but in company with another instrument, by way of codicil, still more extraordinary *. This was a paper of Instructions which prohibited the archpriest, with his twelve assistants, from determining any matter of importance, without advising with the superior of the jesuits, and some others of the order.* Thus was the controuling power ultimately lodged in the hands of the society, whose superior or provincial, at that time, was the distinguished Henry Garnet.

In this manner, were the venerable remains of the British church wantonly insulted! His holiness does not deign by a Bull or Brief, (an instrument used on the most common occasions,) to signify his will to them, but commands his chamberlain to do it. This 51 chamberlain, calling himself protector of the English nation, commits the business to father Parsons; and he plans and directs the whole. A man is chosen, devoted to his interest, and who had betrayed his brethren; but he is appointed with a title, in its present application, unknown in the christian church; and that the powers annexed to this title may be retrained, he is provided with a council, all of them the creatures of the jesuits, one of them the notorious James Standish; and that powers even thus restricted may be more effectually restricted, the controuling energy of the whole is delegated to the fathers of the society!*

It was on the 7th of March an. 1598, that the Rev. George Blackwell was nominated archpriest in the kingdoms of England and Scotland.

52 In tracing the dissentions which continued to disturb our internal peace at home, I omitted to mention a train of similar misunderstandings which kept pace with them abroad, particularly among those Catholics who dwelt in Flanders. The number of these, laity and clergy, was considerable, whom the benevolence of the Spanish court principally maintained. Father Holt, a jesuit, resided at Brussels, in whom the government of the country confided, entrusting to him the distribution of their charities; and through his hands also passed such other charities as were collected in England for the support of the emigrants and exiles. In the execution of this delicate office father Holt offended many, and many charges were preferred against him. About this same time also, the year 1597, a Memorial of great length, containing many heads of accusation against the jesuits in general, and the English jesuits, residing in England, in particular, was sent out of Flanders to Rome. The memorial, though signed by few, was supposed to speak the general sentiments of the English clergy and a large portion of the laity, both at home and abroad. Counter-memorials and counter-petitions were, therefore, procured, while father Parsons, at Rome, father Garnet in England, and father Holt at Brussels, strenuously exerted their predominant influence to check the effects of so dangerous an opposition, and to maintain their credit. Among those in Flanders who signed for father Holt and the society, I find Dr. Stapleton and other dignified ecclesiastics, the officers and colonel of Stanley's legion, (who a few years before, being sent by the queen to garrison the town of Deventer in Holland, had gone over to the Spaniards, saying that their consciences allowed them not to fight for heretics,) nearly 40 gentlemen and some ladies, at the head of whom is the countess of Northumberland. But Dr. Worthington had laboured hard to procure these signatures. They who refused to sign were far less numerous, Dr. Giffard, afterwards archbishop of Reims, the earl of Westmoreland, and 12 others, whose names are recorded.—MSS Letters in my hands: See also A True Relation, p.66, which contains the Memorial just mentioned.

53 From the appointment of the archpriest Blackwell an. 1598, to the nomination of the bishop of Chalcedon an. 1623.

The resentment of the clergy, thus overreached and insulted was great, when they understood what had been done at Rome, and clergy. when Mr. Blackwell announcing his delegation, declared his title with the extent of its powers, and demanded their submission. The elders came forward, at the head of whom were Mr. Colleton in the south, and in the north Mr. Mush, firm but candid men, admired for their learning, revered for their virtues *. They saw that the Letter from the protector was unsupported by any Brief from his. holiness; and soon the whole transaction was unravelled to them, the perfidy of Blackwell and Standish, 54 and the shameless declaration of the latter in company with the pretended delegates before the pontiff at Rome. They doubted not but the whole was the contrivance of father Parsons, and that the cardinal and the pope had been both imposed on, which many clauses of the protector's letter sufficiently evinced. Under this conviction, they intreated that they might not be urged to admit the authority of the archpriest, till it should be confirmed by an express Brief, or till his holiness's pleasure were signified to them. Besides, they observed, they would not believe that the court of Rome, as the private instructions were said to enjoin, would impose on the clergy of England the hard condition of submitting themselves to the dominion of the new order of Jesuits*.

Blackwell perceived there was no time to be lost: wherefore, in conjunction with father Garnet, he dispatched agents through the kingdom to collect signatures to a Letter of thanks to the pope and cardinal, for that excellent form of government they had established over them. The young and ignorant, as yet unapprised of the matter, 55 allured by promises, or intimidated by threats, gave their names; and a messenger set out for Rome *.

The heads of the clergy, meanwhile, deliberately concerted their plan of opposition, when it was agreed to depute two of their body, to exhibit their complaints to his holiness. The two chosen were Dr. Bishop, (whose name will often return,) and Mr Charnock; and they took with them a Remonstrance, the chief heads of which were, That the government of an archpriest for a whole nation seemed unprecedented and extraordinary; that it did not answer the ends of the million, especially as to the sacrament of confirmation; that the divine institution required a hierarchy in every national church; that the measures of the appointment were taken by misinformation and surreptitious means; that the chief persons among the clergy had neither been advised with, nor had they consented, as the court of Rome had been made to believe; that the whole derogated from the dignity of the clergy; that it was a contrivance of father Parsons and the jesuits, who had the 56 liberty to nominate both the archpriest and his assistants; that the cardinal protector's letter, without an express bull from his holiness, was not sufficient to make so remarkable an alteration in the government of the church; that the archpriest being ordered to advise with the jesuits in all matters relating to the clergy, was an unbecoming restraint upon their body, and without a precedent. For these, and such like reasons, they beg leave to demur in their obedience to the archpriest, till his authority shall be more legally established.*

The Letter of thanks to the Roman court was soon followed by less pleasing information, announcing the opposition to the archpriest, and finally stating that two agents from the clergy were actually on their way to Rome *. The cardinal received the news with indignation, and instantly, by letter ,demanded from Blackwell, in the name of his holiness, a minute detail of all things, with the names and characters of the agents and their refractory associates, and the motives on which their resistance was founded *.—The letter is dated Nov. 10, 1598. 57

About the beginning of the new year, the deputies being arrived in Rome, presented Rome themselves before the cardinals Cajetan and Borghese. How gracious their reception was, we may conjecture; for at night, they were arrested in their lodgings, and conducted under a guard of soldiers to the Roman college, where father Parsons presided. He committed them to separate rooms, after their papers, under a threat of excommunication if they with-held any, had been taken from them. That reverend father, it is related, and other jesuits had accompanied the Sbirri. They were now separately examined by this same inquisitor, while another father, officiating as secretary, minuted their answers; after which, being again admitted to the cardinals, they underwent another interrogatory, and were reconducted to prison, where they remained four months *.

Such, thus far, was the issue of a solemn deputation from the Catholic clergy of England to his holiness Clement VIII.! 58

Clement was now sensible, it seems, either from something that had fallen from the delegates, or from their Remonstrance, which he must have seen, that, in authorising the cardinal protector to appoint an archpriest, he had departed from precedent, and that the measure must be amended. Had he reasoned, that, as the office was unprecedented, a mode of appointment equally unprecedented comported with it best, I presume to think, it would have been more consistent.—He therefore issued a Brief, dated April 6, an. 1599 *. Its language is dictatorial and indignant, confirming whatever the cardinal had enabled, and superadding the usual mandates of a papal decree.

While this was doing at Rome, hostilities, with an increasing acrimony, were waged between the parties in England. Books were published: the non-complying clergy were distinguished by the name of appellants: and a father Lifter, in a Treatise on Schism, endeavoured to fasten on them the more odious appellation of schismatics. The clergy drew up their case, and proposed it to the faculty of Sorbonne, which returned an answer in their favour. 59 Mr. Blackwell, who, during the dispute, behaved with an indecent partiality, issued a decree against the determination of Sorbonne; threatened the clergy with the vengeance of his power; and actually proceeded to the suspension of Mush and Colleton *.

But when the Brief arrived in England, the clergy submitted to its dictates, and tranquillity for a time was restored.

The delegates still remained immured: for we have a letter of April 21 *, written jointly by the cardinals Cajetan and Borghese, to the rector of the Roman college, wherein, after stating that they had examined the cause of the two English priests, for some months detained in his college by his holiness's order, they give it as their opinion, that it is not expedient for the good of the English church, they should immediately return to a country, where, in concert with their brethren, they had practiced contentions. Wherefore, in the name of the pontiff and in their own, under pain of censures and the infliction of punishments, 60 they command the said William Bishop and Robert Charnock, without an express permission from his holiness or the cardinal protector, not to presume to enter the kingdoms of England, Scotland, or Ireland, but to abide, peaceably and quietly in those countries which had been prescribed to them. By a strict compliance with these injunctions, they may the sooner be permitted to return. In conclusion, father Parsons is commissioned to signify these orders to his prisoners.

The prisoners, however, were released, and soon made their way to England, one account * says, by the interest of cardinal du Perron, then embassador from France, after they had obtained an audience of his holiness, in which they stated all the motives of their conduct: while another account * mentions, that they rather escaped by flight, taking different routes through Lorraine and Holland.

The tranquillity which the Brief had restored did not long continue. It forced obedience from the clergy, but it could not reconcile them to all its injunctions. The 61 clause particularly of the private instructions, which subjected their concerns to the jesuits, was intolerable; and now more than ever, when the treatment of their delegates, in their own college, under the intrusive eye of father Parsons, was detailed to them, they bore more impatiently the unnatural controul. The archpriest, besides, though in his private character estimable, and endowed with ability and virtue, was harsh and imperious in command, permitting himself to be hurried on by the impetuosity of the men to whom he owed his promotion.

Charges however unfounded often leave a stigma, and reproachful appellations are not easily removed. Thus it was with the name of schismatic, which the ignorant and malevolent often repeated in the ears of the clergy. Hurt by an imputation which should only have provoked a smile, they applied to the archpriest, requesting that some reparation should be made them. His reply was, that their behaviour had merited the reflection, and that it was rather their duty to make: him satisfaction. The intemperate answer roused again their resentment, which was daily aggravated by authoritative edicts, by oppression, and by exertions of power which his commission, it seems, did not always warrant. Once more, therefore, they resolved 62 to recur to Rome; and they drew up an appeal, in their own names, and in those of the other clergy and laity, against the oppression and mal-administration of their superior. It is dated November 17, an. 1600, with only 32 signatures *.

This appeal drew some attention from his holiness; and nine months after, August 17, 1601, he issued another Brief* addressed to the archpriest, to the clergy, and to the Catholic world, wherein he states the motives which originally induced him to appoint an archpriest, the approbation given by some to the measure, the opposition of others, with the general state of the controversy, which his Brief of confirmation, he says, happily closed. He mentions the renewal of the former dissentions, imputing it, in a great measure, to the imprudent expressions and conduct of the archpriest, which renewal, he observes, induced the clergy to appeal, whose appeal he had received and read: But all circumstances maturely weighed, it is obvious, he says, that the whole is the work of the devil, who divides 63 the pastors that he may scatter the flock. Then, again confirming the office of archpriest with all its powers, he opens an address to him, and to the ministers of religion of both parties, conveying sentiments the most paternal and pastoral. But he refuses to admit the appeal, which would but widen the breach: he imposes silence on the parties, suppresses their various publications, and, under pain of excommunication, forbids them to write on the subject, or to mention the name of schismatic. The Brief closes with a fervourous exhortation, from the apostle, to peace and charity, in which he includes the laity, whom the late dissentions of their pastors may have scandalised.

Though the general sentiments of this Brief cannot be too much admired, yet, I own, the clauses of authority disgust me, wherein a pope of Rome takes upon himself to regulate the civil conduct, as it may certainly be esteemed, of British subjects in their mode of writing or treating a private matter of controversy. And, not long before, he had dared to imprison two delegates deputed to him. But why send delegates; or why appeal to this distant court, unless in circumstances against which no private church has a remedy, and for which the canons of general discipline have not provided? 64

The appealing clergy having gained nothing from the last Brief but good advice, and the archpriest continuing the same arbitrary and oppressive conduct, under the guidance of father Garnet and the Jesuits, again determined, after some months, to apply to Rome. It was apparent, indeed, they saw from some passages of the Brief, that his holiness's mind was not quite hardened against impression. Delegates were, therefore, sent, whose names are not recorded, who so far succeeded as to procure the following Brief from the pontiff; It is dated October 5, 1602,* and addressed to the archpriest.

It begins with admonishing him to use his power discreetly, and not to exceed his commission, as, in some cases, he seemed to have done. It defines more minutely the limits of his jurisdiction, and then adds, in order that, in the execution of his office, peace may be the better secured; In virtue of holy obedience we command you, in transacting the duties of your charge, not to communicate or treat with the provincial of the Jesuits or any members of that society—and we annul the instruction of the late cardinal 65 protector appertaining to this matter. Moreover, we order that, in things regarding the administration of your church or office, you treat not, by letter, or messenger, or by any other means, with the religious of that society residing at Rome or elsewhere; but let all things be referred to us, or to the protector.—That this clause, however, might not be prejudicial to them, Clement immediately praises their christian zeal, and says, that the jesuits themselves, for the establishment of peace, deemed the measure expedient; This is followed by another injunction, namely, that, when any of the present assistants to the archpriest die, three of the appellant clergy be successively chosen by him to succeed them.—He next proceeds to condemn all books written against the society, or against any persons of either party; and by a more extensive comprehension than before, threatens censures and excommunication against all men, laity, clergy, and religious, who, in future, shall publish such works without the approbation and licence of the cardinal protector, or have them in their keeping. He then closes, in a style of more decent supremacy with another apt exhortation to fraternal charity and concord.

Thus was contention terminated. But when parties have been formed in a community, 66 such as I have stated, and under the influence of such motives, their duration is written on brass. Political feuds can cease; so can those of civil life; religious animosity alone seems interminable.*

It may appear extraordinary that these internal broils should have agitated the 67 Catholics, while the penal statutes, made against them in the preceding years, had not ceased to be executed with extreme severity. The prisons and castles were crowded, (for I find more than fifty, at this time, in the single castle of York,) and many suffered death, that is, 20 priests, from 1598 to 1602, and more than 10 of the laity *. They were convicted, principally under the statute of the 27th of Eliz. by which British subjects ordained abroad; and returning into England, were made guilty of high treason. The laity suffered for aiding and receiving the same.—In addition also to the observation I have made of the inveteracy of those disputes, it is worth remarking, that the appeal last sent to Rome against the archpriest was dated from Wisbich castle, where many of the appellants then were, and had been long confined.

The general prejudice against this unfortunate order of men had now been growing for many years, aggravated by a succession of great political events, in which, as a body, they certainly had no concern. But, as I have sufficiently observed, the circumstance of their foreign education drew suspicions on 68<

PREFACE.

ERRATA.

CONTENTS,

INTRODUCTION.

MEMOIRS of PANZANI.

SUPPLEMENT.

CONCLUSION.

INTRODUCTION.