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 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1691 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BR375.C65 C69 
 
 Queen Elizabeth and the penal laws, with 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 245 532 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029245532 
 
QUEEN ELIZABETH 
 
 AKD 
 
 THE PENAL LAWS, 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION ON 
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT'S "HISTOEY OF THE 
 PROTESTANT EEEOBMATION." 
 
 PASSING IN REVIEW THE REIONS OF HENRY VIII., 
 EDWARD VI., AND MARY. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHAELES HASTINGS COLLET TE. 
 
 " Let me speak, sir, 
 For Heaven now bids me ; and the words I utter 
 .... They will find them truth." 
 
 Henry VIII., Act v.. Seem xiv. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 PBOTESTANT ALLIANCE, 9 STRAND, 
 
 1890 
 

 9\^°\^o44- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ' Truth IS of so pure and virtuous a Nature that it refuseth to be in league 
 with any falsehood in the world, much more disdaineth to be 
 assisted by it."— S;> Edwin Sandy's Europae Speculum. 
 
 It was Lord Bacon who said that Prefaces and passages of 
 excusations are great wastes of time. Adopting this practical 
 advice, I ask my fellow countrymen to give a patient and unpreju- 
 1 perusal of the following narrative of the most eventful period 
 or history. The circumstances connected with that history 
 havmg been shamefully perverted by the enemies of the Reforma- 
 tion, I would fain hope that my labour will not have been in vain 
 in exposing fallacies and fictions which have been put forth by the 
 ipponents of the Protestant constitution of this country. 
 
 J.B. — Cobbett's book being divided into paragraphs each bearing 
 listinct number, the passages quoted are distinguished by such 
 iiibers within [ ]> of ^^^ first edition dated 1824, preserving his 
 and capitals. 
 
QUEEN ELIZABETH AND THE PENAL LAWS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Cobbett's History of the Protestant Reformation. 
 
 'But that slander, sir, grows again 
 Fresher than e'er it was ; and held for certain." 
 
 Henry VIII., Act ii., Scene i. 
 
 It may be objected that I should have adopted the book passing 
 by the title of " The History of the Protestant Reformation in 
 England and Ireland," by William Cobbett, as the basis of the 
 following compilation. I feel the force of the objection, but there 
 is a sufficient justification. The so-called " History " by Cobbett, 
 is, even at the present day, not only confidently quoted by Priests 
 of the Roman Church as the testimony of a " Protestant Historian," 
 but they have republished the work in an unprecedented cheap form, 
 and industriously circulate it broadcast, recommending and quoting 
 it on every available occasion ; and it has been deemed worthy of being 
 translated into several foreign languages. But for this public 
 recognition, and recommendation, and, therefore, adoption by 
 Romanists, I fully admit that such a travesty of history would 
 be quite beneath serious consideration. But, further, the incidents 
 alluded to by Cobbett have given me an opportunity of stating 
 the real facts as recorded, in histories, as well from the pen of 
 Romanists as Protestants. 
 
 Cobbett's book is proposed for acceptance on the alleged fact 
 that its author was a " Protestant " and a member of the Church of 
 England J and that, therefore, his motives at least, cannot be 
 questioned, and his statements ought to be accepted against 
 members of his own Communion. The proposition is plausible, 
 
 I 
 
but the alleged fact of his being, at the time he wrote his " History," 
 either a member of the Church of England, or even a Protestant, 
 is very questionable, for when he published his book he openly 
 avowed himself an admirer of the infidel, "Thomas Paine;" and 
 his entire work is a fulsome praise of the Roman Church, her 
 institutions, principles, and doctrines ; while he does not hesitate 
 to vilify the leading Reformers, the Reformation, and everything 
 connected with our reformed Established Church. 
 
 First, let me prove by incontestable evidence that Cobbett, when 
 he wrote his history, was neither a member of our Reformed 
 Church, nor a " Protestant." 
 
 A church is known by its creed or symbol of faith. To the year 
 1546 the only creeds professed by any Christian church were the 
 three creeds passing by the titles of the Nicene, Apostles', and 
 Athanasian, as they stand at the present day in our "Book of 
 Common Prayer; " and the Canon of Scripture as given in the 
 Sixth Article of the Church of England (excluding the Apocrypha), 
 was the only recognized Code of Scripture of the Universal Church. 
 The books passing by the title of the Apocrypha were first 
 admitted into the Roman Code, as divinely inspired, in the year 
 i_;46, at the third Session of the Council of Trent. The Council 
 of Florence, 1439, is sometimes quoted ; but it is very doubtful 
 whether that Council passed any such decree, as the whole subject 
 was re-argued at the Council of Trent. Courayer, in his history of 
 the Trent Council, says :* "Not only the heretics, but the catholics, 
 and what was worse Cardinals themselves, called in question the 
 canonical authority of some of the Books of the Old and New 
 Testament received by the Council of Carthage." 
 
 The law of the Universal Church was proclaimed by the Code 
 of Justinian, which we find incorporated at the present day in the 
 book of Canon Law of the Roman Church: "We order that all 
 who follow this rule (that is, who believe in the Deity of the 
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in their co-equal majesty and 
 triune Godhead, according to Apostolic teaching and Gospel 
 doctrine) shall adopt the name of Catholic Christians, "f 
 
 * Lib. ii. 5-58. 
 
 ■}■ Hanc legem (i.e. qui secundum Apostolicam disciplinam Evangeli- 
 
In the year 325, at the first General Council of the Church, that 
 of Nice I., a form of creed was drawn up and adopted In the 
 year 381, the second General Council, Constantinople I., in order to 
 meet certain heresies creeping into the Church, published a creed 
 which amplified certain definitions of the creed passed at the 
 Council of Nice. Attempts were made to alter this creed, now 
 passing by the title the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed ; accord- 
 ingly the third General Council, that of Ephesus, a.d. 431, opposed 
 the proposition and declared: — 
 
 " That it should not be lawful for any one to write or to compose 
 any other form of faith than that defined by the Holy Fathers, who, 
 with the Holy Ghost, had assembled at Nice."* 
 
 The Council proceed to declare of " All such as shall presume 
 either to compose, or to provide, or to offer any other form of faith' 
 to those wishing to be converted to the acknowledgment of the 
 truth, whether from Paganism or from Judaism, or from any other 
 form of heresy, that they, be they Bishops or clergymen, shall 
 be deposed — the Bishops from their episcopacy, and the clergy 
 from their clerical ofiice ; but if laymen they shall be subject to 
 anathema." 
 
 Again, the General Council of Chalcedon, a.d. 451, attended by 
 630 Bishops, confirmed the decision of the three previous General 
 Councils ; and when, according to custom, the same amended 
 Nicene Creed was rehearsed, it is recorded in all histories of this 
 Council that the assembled Bishops declared : " Let no person 
 make any other exposition of faith. We neither attempt nor dare to 
 do so. For the fathers have taught, and in their writings have been 
 set forth by them (namely in the said Creed), and other than these 
 we cannot speak. These principles which have been set forth are 
 sufiicient, it is not lawful to make any other exposition. "f 
 
 camque doctrinam, Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti unam deitatem sub 
 pari majestate et sub pia Trinitate credunt) sequentes Christianorum 
 Catholicorum nomen jubemus amplecti." (Vide Cod. Just., Lib. i., Tit. i.) 
 
 * Labb. et Coss. Concil., Tom. iii., col. 689, Paris, 1671 ; and Tom. iv., col. 
 J362, Florentiae, 1759. 
 
 •j- Labb. et Coss. Concil., Tom. iv., cols, i-io, Paris, 1671 ; and Mansi, Tom. 
 vi., col. 630, Florentiae, 1759. 
 
"It was Gregory I., Bishop of Rome, in the year 600, who said 
 (and his words are recorded in Rome's Book of Canon Law),* 
 "■ I acknowledge and receive and venerate, as I do the four Gospels, 
 the four Councils, to wit the Nicene — also the Constantinopolitan 
 — the first of Ephesus — that of Chalcedon. Moreover I embrace 
 them with entire devotion. I guard them with perfect approval, 
 because of them, as on a squared stone, the building of the holy 
 faith rises." 
 
 The three creeds were retained by our Reformers, as appears in 
 our Book of " Common Prayer." 
 
 According to the "Annalist" Cardinal Baronius, the Spanish 
 provincial Council of Toledo, in 477, added the word "filioque," 
 the procession of the Holy Spirit from the " Son " as well as the 
 "Father." The Greek Church, at a Council held at Constanti- 
 nople, A.D. 879, would not recognize this addition, acting on the 
 above principle laid down by the early councils, not because they 
 objected to the doctrine propounded by the addition. 
 
 It is important to note, that so jealous was even the Roman 
 Church of the integrity of that creed that Pope Leo III., in the 
 year 809, in order to put a stop to the publication of the interpolated 
 creed, caused that of the year 381 to be engraved in Greek and 
 Latin, on silver tablets, and placed in his chapel, without the 
 addition of " filioque " ; and he personally forbade the interpolated 
 creed to be used to the deputation from the Council of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle,t which had waited on him with reference to the addition 
 of the " filioque," so careful was he to retain the integrity of the 
 common Creed of Christendom. 
 
 From the sixth century until the sixteenth, various practices and 
 innovations in faith and worship were introduced by the Roman 
 Church, but never recognized by the Universal Church, or added to 
 any creed. 
 
 In the year 154J the Roman Church was represented by a 
 Council held in the town of Trent, under the order of Pope Paul 
 III., professedly to reform that Church in faith and morals. The 
 
 * Decret. i., Dist. xv. 2. 
 
 j- See Labb. et Cossi, Tom. vi:., cols. 1194, 1198, Paris, 1671. 
 
first act of that council passed at its third session, a.d. 1546, was as 
 follows : — 
 
 " In the name of the Holy and undivided Trinity, this holy 
 CEcumenical and General Synod of Trent, lawfully assembled in 
 the Holy Spirit . . . before all things, decrees and determines to 
 set forth, in the first place, the Confession of Faith, following the 
 example of the Fathers in this matter, who were wont to place this 
 in the beginning of their actions, as a shield against all heresies. . 
 . . Wherefore it has thought fit to express the symbol of Faith 
 which the Holy Roman Church uses, as that first principle in which 
 all, who profess the faith of Christ, necessarily believe, and the firm 
 and only foundalion against which the gates of hell shall not prevail, 
 in the very words in which it is read in all the churches ; which is 
 as follows." * 
 
 They then recited the so-called Nicene-Constantinopolitan 
 Creed, which was retained as the symbol of faith, by the Reformed 
 Church in 1546, then independent of the Roman Church. The 
 Trent Council declared that that Creed was a " shield against all 
 heresies, ly which means alone, they have not unfrequently drawn 
 infidels to the faith, confuted heresies, and confirmed unbelievers." 
 It will be observed, that the Council applies the declaration in the 
 text. Matt. xvi. 18 — "The only foundation of the Church against 
 which the gates of hell shall not prevail," — not to the Apostle 
 Peter, and his alleged successors in the See of Rome, hut to the 
 confession of the true faith. And this is, I believe, the only text, to 
 which the Church of Rome has offered an authorized interpretation, 
 but which is repudiated by modern Romanists, since they now 
 apply it to the person of Peter. The Jesuit Father Gallwey of 
 Farm Street, London, in his Twelve Lectures on Ritualism] renders 
 the text. Matt, xvi. 18, as applied to the person of Peter — "Thou 
 art the Rock, and on this Rock I will build my Church;" and the 
 Jesuit Father Anderdon, of Manchester, in a tract for children 
 entitled, "What do Catholics really believe?":]: renders the same 
 text, "Thou art Peter, and upon this Peter I will build my 
 Church." 
 
 * Labb.et Coss. Concil., Tom. xiv., cols. 743-4. Paris, 1671. 
 
 ■j- Lecture iv., p. 128. % London, 1888, p. 6. 
 
In the year 1564^ as the result of the deliberations of that Council 
 (their decisions being arrived at after considerable opposition, and 
 scandalous bickerings), Pope Pius IV. issued a Bull establishing 
 for the first time twelve articles of faith, hitherto recognized by no 
 Christian Church as such ; which he added to the ancient Nicene 
 Creed, and to which new creed, in the year 1870, were added two 
 additional theories, the Supremacy and Infallibility of the Bishop 
 of Rome, as defined by the late Vatican Council ; out of which creed 
 they declared there is no salvation. If that creed is the symbol of 
 faith of a true Christian Church, then no such Church existed pre- 
 vious to 1564, indeed 1870. It is alleged that the Council defined 
 no new doctrines, but coniirmed what previously had been noto- 
 riously accepted as such, and a confirmation was necessary to meet 
 the objections of the Reformers. If infallibility of the Pope was 
 then believed in, the Council would have been unnecessary, his 
 ex- cathedra Bull would have been suflScient. But it so happens 
 that all the leading propositions raised angry discussions and had 
 to be put to the vote, many dissenting ; and it took that Council 
 twenty years to formulate the Faith of the Roman Church; all which 
 could not have been the result if the Council had met to proclaim 
 what had already been defined and accepted by the church. The 
 only subject on w^hich the members of the Council were unani- 
 mous, was the acceptance of the ancient Nicene-Constantinopolitan 
 Creed, as the only foundation of faith against which the gates of 
 hell would never prevail. 
 
 Thus at the door of the Roman Church lies the charge of schism 
 by the publication of a new creed, some twenty years after the 
 Reformation was established in England under Edward VI. ; and 
 some forty years after the Pope's authority in England had been 
 formally rejected under Henry VIII. 
 
 The supremacy or authority of the Bishop of Rome was not an 
 accepted doctrine of the Church of England, nor indeed of the 
 Church of Rome. It was an usurpation in England, which was 
 denied and resisted by repeated Acts of Parliament and otherwise, 
 from the days of William I. to the final Act passed during the reign 
 of Henry VIII., when all the Bishops (except Fisher of Rochester) 
 who otherwise professed Romish doctrines which had, from time 
 
7 
 
 to time, been engrafted on the Roman system, abjured their alle- 
 giance to the Pope, and swore fealty to the King in all matters 
 Ecclesiastical as well as Temporal. In like manner every Irish 
 Bishop without an exception abjured the authority of the Pope. 
 
 In 1546, the very year when the Council of Trent legislated on 
 the creed of the Church as above stated, Edward's Parliament 
 formally rejected those several innovations in the faith which had 
 been adopted as practices in the Roman Church, but retained the 
 sacred canon of Scriptures and the three ancient creeds as the rule 
 of faith ; and the authority of the first four General Councils as the 
 source of discipline of the Church of England; and adhering to 
 the law of Justinian, the members of that Church continued to 
 be " Catholic Christians." This was, as I said, twenty years 
 before the Church of Rome published her new symbol of faith. 
 Edward's laws were confirmed by Elizabeth's Parliament, vesting 
 in the Sovereign of England the title of " Supreme Governor of all 
 estates in the re^lm whether they be ecclesiastical or civil," according 
 to the ancient right and custom of England, with the emphatic 
 declaration that : 
 
 "the bishop of ROME HAS NO JURISDICTION IN THIS REALM 
 OF ENGLAND." 
 
 In the presence of these facts, which cannot be denied. Dr. 
 Bagshawe, Bishop of Roman Catholics in Northampton, in his 
 " Pastoral " as reported in the Romish paper the Weekly Register 
 of December ist, 1883, states : — 
 
 " There is no Christianity out of the Catholic Church. If a 
 person is a Christian he is a Catholic, and if he is a Catholic he is 
 a Christian. The words Christian and Catholic are inseparable. 
 England as a nation is not Catholic, and therefore she is not 
 Christian. The foul blot is on her brow, and it is the mark of a 
 rebel and a heretic. To say that a nation which is steeped in 
 heresy, and which honours as a Reformer the heresiarch Luther, is 
 a Christian nation, is incorrect. As there is but one Christian 
 Church, namely, that which is Catholic, and whose head is the 
 Vicar of Christ, the Pope and Bishop of Rome ; so nations alone 
 are Christian and Catholic which uphold every jot and tittle of the 
 Christian and Catholic Faith." 
 
To wit, Pope Pius's creed as amended in 1870. 
 
 There are a few circumstances worthy of note connected with 
 the compilation of this new creed of the Roman Church. The 
 Council of Trent, which met for the purpose of defining the faith 
 of that Church, assembled in the year i_54j and closed its sittings in 
 1564. It took, therefore, twenty years to formulate her system of faith. 
 They arrived at their decisions only, as I have said, after hot debates 
 and unseemly squabbles. Two venerable brethren came to blows 
 and tugged at each other's beards, when they came to discuss the 
 subject of " Original sin."* And when they discussed the question 
 of the " Divine right of Bishops," at the 23rd session, the contend- 
 ing parties became so violent, that the session was obliged to be 
 prorogued no less than ten times.t 
 
 Paleotto, who in 1560 was made a Cardinal, referring to the 
 discordant proceedings of that Council, indeed of a Church Cobbett 
 describes as the very harbour of peace and security, said : " We 
 used formerly to object to heretics, that they had no concord, but 
 bitter disputes with each other, and that in consequence all charity 
 was banished from them, nor could they have the presence 
 of the Holy Spirit; now how forcibly will these weapons be 
 hurled back by the same heretics upon ourselves." J To define 
 their doctrine of Justification, they published sixteen chapters and 
 thirty-three canons. The subject created a hot debate ; the Fran- 
 ciscans and Dominicans taking opposite views. The decrees, after 
 several amendments, apparently to meet their different opinions, 
 were worded ambiguously. No sooner had the decrees been 
 passed than publications were issued by each contending party 
 maintaining its own opinions. The authors dedicated their works 
 
 * " Turn vero Cavensis ut mos est iracundia quam ultum ibat — Na:m in 
 Chironensis barbam injecta manu multos ex e4 pilos avulsit, et confestim 
 abcessit." (Vide Pallav. Hid. Condi. Trid., Tom. i., p. 277. Aug. Vind., 
 I775-) 
 
 t See La Plat., Tom. v., pp. 524, 542, 564, 580, 596, 620, 659, 672, and 
 Tom. vii , 21, 63, 138. And Pallavicini, Lib. xvii., 8, 15 ; Paul Sarpi, vii., 5, 20. 
 
 { " Nos olim objiciebamus hasreticis quod inter se non convenirent, 
 acerbeque concertarent, hincque charitas omnis ab eis exularet, nee spiritus 
 sanctus iis adesse posset ; nunc, quam bene in nos iidem haec tela retor- 
 quebunt." — Acta. Trid. a Gab., Paleotto. London, 1842; p. 457. 
 
to the Council; they appealed to the decrees, in preparing which 
 they themselves took part, and yet interpreted them differently, each 
 in favour of his own scheme ; all this is duly recorded by Paul Sarpi, 
 Pallavicini, and Du Pin in their histories of the Council. The 
 doctrine of "Intention' in administering a Sacrament, was 
 vehemently opposed, principally by Catherini, Bishop of Minori, 
 as endangering the validity of every sacrament, specially that of 
 Baptism. The decree on "Communion in one kind," was also 
 vehemently opposed. At the third session they defined the Canon 
 of Scripture, admitting the Apocrypha, which had been hitherto 
 rejected as non-canonical and not divinely inspired ; this also 
 caused vehement opposition ; they declared also that Tradition was 
 to be placed on a level with sacred Scripture as equally divinely 
 inspired. There were only five Cardinals and forty-nine Bishops 
 present professedly representing the " Catholic Church ; ' ' after a 
 hot debate sixteen dissented. Such was their clamour that their 
 votes were separately taken ; and their historians tell us that there 
 were as many opinions as tongues.* In order to allay the scandal 
 likely to arise from doubtful interpretations being given to 
 decrees of the Council, Pope Pius IV., by Bull dated January 26th, 
 1564, confirming the Trent decrees, expressly prohibited all private 
 interpretations to be given to those decrees, as also the publication 
 of any commentaries, glosses, annotations, remarks, &c., without 
 Papal authority ; but if any doubt or difficulty existed, recourse was 
 to be had " to the place which the Lord had chosen '' — the 
 Apostolic See. To meet the case a Congregation of Cardinals was 
 appointed to regulate and announce the legitimate meaning of 
 the decrees. A collection of the sentences of this tribunal has 
 been published by Dr. Zaniboni in eight quarto volumes at Rome, 
 with the title " CoUectio Declarationum Congregationis Concilii 
 Tridentini." This conclave of Cardinals is supposed to be still 
 sitting. I have now only to note that the decrees of this Council 
 were enforced by some two hundred curses to be inflicted on those 
 who opposed their definitions of doctrines; and there is one 
 
 * " Tot sententias quot linguas tunc fuisse." Pallav. Lib. iv., c. 2 ; Paul 
 Sarpi, Lib. ii., 35, 45, 47. 
 
lO 
 
 notable peculiarity; all the decrees are drawn up in a negative 
 form, anathematizing all those who should deny their definitions. 
 Whereas Pius IV., in codifying those decrees into twelve articles, 
 imposed them in a positive form. And this is the faith, which 
 Cobbett and his Jesuit prompters, would seek to make us believe 
 was the faith of the Church planted by Our Lord Christ at 
 Jerusalem, and taught by his Apostles, and was the only faith 
 professed by the Christian Church through all time.* 
 
 It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the Church of England, " as 
 by Law Established " under Edward VI., confirmed by the Parlia- 
 ment of Elizabeth, was a perfectly orthodox Christian Church and 
 her members " Catholic Christians." While the Roman Church, 
 so far as her publicly recognized declaration of faith was concerned, 
 was orthodox up to the year 1^64, though fearfully diluted by her 
 Traditions ; but from that year became a new and separate " Sect " 
 of Christians by the publication of a new creed out of which they 
 declared there was no salvation. 
 
 Now let us see how far Roman priests are justified in putting 
 forth Cobbett's book as the work of a "Protestant " or member of 
 our Reformed Church of England. Throughout Cobbett uses the 
 word " Catholic " as exclusively applied to the Roman Church. 
 In his introductory chapter he clearly gives his views of the 
 respective systems of religion, He states (and I retain his capitals 
 and Italics) : " Before we proceed further, let us clearly understand 
 the meaning of these words — Catholic, Protestant, and Reformation. 
 Catholic means universal, and the religion, which takes this epithet, 
 was called universal, because all Christian people of every nation 
 acknowledged it to be the only true religion, and because they all 
 acknowledge one and the same head of the Church, and this was the 
 Pope, who though he generally resided at Rome, was the head of 
 the Church in England, France, in Spain, and in short in every 
 part of the world where the Christian religion was professed. But 
 there came a time when some nations cast off the authority of the 
 
 " The reader is recommended three concise Histories of the Council of 
 Trent, by T. Rhys Evans, Religious Tract Society, 1888 ; by Dr. Littledale, 
 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1888 ; and Mendham's 
 Memoirs of the Council of Trent, 1834. 
 
II 
 
 Pope, and of course no longer acknowledged hira as the head of the 
 Church. These nations, or parts of nations, declared or protested 
 against the authority of their former head, and also against the 
 doctrines of that Church, which until now had been the only- 
 Christian Church. They therefore called themselves Protestors or 
 Protestants ; and this is now the appellation given to all who are 
 not Catholics. As to the word Reformation it means an alteration 
 for the letter ; and it would have been hard indeed if the makers of 
 this great alteration could not have contrived to give it a good 
 name. Now, my friends, a fair and honest inquiry will teach us 
 that this was an alteration greatly for the worse; that the Reforma- 
 tion, as it is called, was engendered in beastly lust brought forth in 
 hypocrisy and perfidy, and cherished and fed on plunder and devas- 
 tation, and by rivers of English and Irish blood." * "The Refor- 
 mation was given us (Cobbett adds) in exchange for the ease and 
 happiness and harmony and Christian charity enjoyeil so abund- 
 antly, and for so many ages, by our Catholic forefatheis." 
 
 With regard to the Roman religion, we presume Cobbett meant 
 the creed of Pius IV. ; he adds " they will not, because they can- 
 not, deny that this religion was the only Christian religion in the 
 world iov fifteen hundred years after the death of Christ." "In fact 
 there was no other Christian Church known in the world, nor had 
 any other been thought of." " Our ancestors became Christians 
 about six hundred years after Christ." Indeed, he adds, that the 
 name of Christ was not heard of in this country until the arrival of 
 the Pope's emissary Austin, at the beginning of the seventh century j 
 and this is the individual whom Roman Priests quote as a veracious 
 historian, a " Protestant," and a member of the Church of 
 England ! 
 
 The Reformers he declares to have been: " revilers of religion," 
 [24J "vile and selfish calumniators," [25] " a mongrel sect," [^3] 
 " a mongrel litter," [60] " motley mongrels," [88] " hypocrites," 
 [89] "profligate" [100] " ruffians and villains," [160] "rapacious 
 vultures," [173] " hellish ruffians," [175] "liars," [179] "nothing, 
 
 * Not one Romanist suffered death during the reign of Edward when the 
 Reformation in England was established. 
 
12 
 
 indeed, short of diabolical malice was to be expected from such 
 men'' [185]. And Roman Priests are not ashamed to adopt this 
 stream of abuse ! 
 
 The man who propagates the falsehood of another, knowing it to 
 be untrue, endorses that falsehood, and is equally guilty as the original 
 inventor. Is it for a moment to be believed that a Roman Priest 
 would confidently recommend a " History of the Reformation in 
 England" from the pen of one they assert to be a "Protestant" 
 and member of the Reformed Church of England without first 
 mastering its contents ? I therefore assert that the Roman Priest 
 who recommends Cobbett's book is equally guilty as Cobbett of 
 propagating libels and falsehoods. The fraud lies equally at their 
 door. They indignantly repudiate the axiom that " the end 
 justifies the means," but they act up to that precept, and are most 
 unscrupulous in the means they employ. 
 
 It was Dr. Hook, Dean of Chichester, in his Lives of the 
 Archbishops of Canterbury, who thus expressed his opinion of 
 Cobbett's book : * " But even worse than this, the infamous pro- 
 ceeding of hiring Cobbett to employ his powerful pen to "write a 
 ' History of the Reformation,' in which every refuted fact is asserted 
 as an undisputable historical statement. But even worse than this 
 is the fact that this book of lies is still industriously circulated by 
 leading men of the Romish persuasion. It is represented to 
 foreigners as the only authentic history of the English Reformation. 
 We fear not the result, for we know who is the father of the lies ; 
 but such conduct on the part of those who profess to call themselves 
 Christians affects the hearts of all who serve the God of truth." 
 
 Let me cite a few examples of the many falsehoods with which 
 Cobbett's book abounds, and which Roman Priests must know to 
 be deliberate falsehoods. 
 
 Cobbett says : — " The name of Christ was not pronounced in 
 this land until six hundred years after the death of Christ": [11] 
 alluding to the period of the mission of Austin the monk and his 
 forty followers; and yet their own records of Councils give the 
 names of three English Bishops, namely, of York, London, and 
 Carleon-upon-Usk, and of one Deacon, as being appended to the 
 * Second series, vol. ii., p. 295. London, 1868. 
 
i3 
 
 list of signatures of those who attended at the Council of Aries in 
 Gaul, A.D. 314, summoned by the Emperor. The names of British 
 Bishops also stand in their records of the Council alleged to have 
 been held at Sardica, a.d. 347 ; and of that of Ariminiumj a.d. 359. 
 
 Bede's History proves Cobbett's statement to be false. He tells 
 Us that there was a Christian Bishop (Lindhard) and a Christian 
 Church at Canterbury before the arrival of Austin, and he records 
 the massacre of laoo ecclesiastics in one establishment. Their 
 own historian. Dr. Lingard a Roman priest, says : — " We have 
 undoubted proofs that the believers in Christianity were numerous, 
 and that a regular hierarchy had been instituted before the close of 
 the third century ; for by contemporary writers the Church in 
 Britain is always put on an equality with the Churches of Spain 
 and Gaul."* "It is surprising that so many modern historians 
 should have represented the Bri tains as holding different doc- 
 trines from those professed by the Roman missionaries, though 
 these writers have never yet produced a single instance of 
 such difference. Would Augustin have required the British 
 clergy to join in the conversion of the Saxons if they had 
 taught doctrines which he condemned ? Bede has related with 
 great minuteness, all the controversies between the two parties. 
 They all regard points of discipline. Nowhere does the remotest 
 hint occur of any difference respecting doctrine, f Tertullian, 
 of the second century, Origen, of the third century, and Eusebius, 
 of the fourth, all refer to the spread of Christianity in Britain.]: 
 
 Notwithstanding these testimonies Roman priests unblushingly 
 circulate Cobbett's falsehood " that the name of Christ was not pro- 
 nounced in this land for six hundred years after Christ ! " But it must 
 be borne in mind that not one article contained in Rome's present 
 Creed, appended to the ancient Nicene Creed by Pius IV., in 1564, 
 and amended in j 870, by adding Supremacy and Infallibility of the 
 Pope as defined by the late Vatican Council, was binding on the 
 
 * History of England, cap. i., vol. i., p. 67. London, 1825. 
 
 -[■ Ibid., vol. i., c. ii., p, 113. 
 
 J The reader is referred to the reprint of Dr. Alexander's work on The 
 Ancient British Church, Religious Tract Society, 1889, as a concise and 
 interesting work on this subject. 
 
J4 
 
 conscience of a member of the Roman Church at the period in 
 question ; indeed they were inventions of a subsequent date. Rome 
 was the same Church in name, not in doctrine. 
 
 To take another specimen of Cobbett's historical veracity. 
 Referring to Henry VIII. (a favourite subject with Romanists, 
 forgetting that Henry lived and died a thorough Romanist in doc- 
 trine and practice as then professed), Cobbettsays: "There was no 
 valid objection to the marriage of Catherine " [6i]. Whereas the 
 marriage with a brother's widow was contrary to the Canon Law 
 of Rome, and alleged to be contrary to the law laid down in 
 Leviticus. Every single Bishop, save Fisher of Rochester (and he 
 only objected in consequence of the existing dispensation of Pope 
 Julius II. for the marriage with Catherine) ; every noble, including 
 the Chancellor More — who actually brought up the Petition of 
 Divorce to the House ; the Convocation ; the two Universities, and 
 every College and faculty abroad of any repute, including many of 
 the Cardinals, declared the marriage with Catherine to be illegal and 
 void. In i^o^, before Henry came to the throne, the marriage 
 contract with Catherine was formally annulled before a notary, on 
 the same grounds of illegality, and this took place before Anne 
 Boleyn was born. Notwithstanding, on political grounds, the mar- 
 riage was celebrated in 1509. Cobbett continues: "After seven- 
 teen years of marriage, all of a sudden he (Henry) affected that he 
 was living in sin because he was married to his brother's widow " 
 [62]. 
 
 In 1527, when Mary (afterwards Queen), the daughter of 
 Henry and Catherine, was betrothed to the eldest son of the 
 King of France ; that contemplated marriage was put an end to, 
 on the same objections as were raised in 1505, as illegal and 
 void, and that Mary was therefore illegitimate ; and this was two 
 years before Cranmer was consulted, at whose door Cobbett throws 
 all the responsibility of the divorce ; and before Anne Boleyn was 
 heard of in the Court of England. She was then in France. 
 Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn did not take place until 
 January, 1533. Henry separated from Catherine in 1527, Anne 
 being still in France, and yet Cobbett attributes Henry's separation 
 from Catherine to his " brutal lust," [25] to marry Anne Boleyn. 
 
15 
 
 Cobbett proceeds : — " He resolved to gratify his beastly lust cost 
 ■what it might. First he applied to the Pope for a divorce, wkich 
 the Pope could not and did not grant" [63]. 
 
 In reply to this bold statement I refer again to their own 
 authority, Dr. Lingard. He tells us that on the application of 
 the King's messengers to Pope Clement VU., of whom Car- 
 dinal Wolsey vfas one, " the Pope signed two instruments 
 presented to him by the envoys of Henry, the one authorizing 
 Cardinal Wolsey to decide the question of divorce in England as 
 the Papal Legate ; the other granting Henry a dispensation to 
 marry, in the place of Catherine, any woman whomsoever, even 
 if she were already promised to another, or related to him in the 
 first degree of affinity." * 
 
 According to the same authority (Dr. Lingard) the Pope further 
 expressed himself in these unmistakable terms: — "If the King 
 believes, as he affirms, that his present marriage is null, he might 
 marry again. This would enable me, or the Legate, to decide the 
 question at once. Otherwise it is plain, that by appeals, exceptions, 
 and adjournments, the case must be protracted for many years." 
 And yet Henry is censured for following the Pope's advice ! 
 
 Dr. Lingard gives the date December i6th, 1527. Henry, as 
 I said, did not marry Anne Boleyn until 1533. This is only 
 another specimen of the manner in which Cobbett treats history ; 
 and Roman Priests are constantly quoting the above passages from 
 Cobbett, forgetting that the reformation in religion had not set in till 
 long after, and that every one connected with these transactions was 
 a Romanist in doctrine, and that they took place even before the 
 Pope's authority in England was repudiated. And the marriage of 
 Anne Boleyn was consecrated by a Romish Bishop, assisted by 
 Bonrier, Bishop of London, and Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and 
 also by the Bishop of Bayonne. But the fraud does not end here, for 
 Roman priests have published a cheap edition of this so-called 
 History, and on the cover is an engraving representing Queen 
 Elizabeth in the act of consecrating an Archbishop with the words 
 at foot: "Queen Elizabeth consecrating an Archbishop"! So 
 
 * History of England, vol. vi., cap. iii., pp. 172-3, London, 1823, and edit. 
 1848, vol. vi., pp. 128-9. 
 
i6 
 
 they not only adopt Cobbett's slanders and falsehoods, but they 
 aggravate their crime by their own "endorsement."* 
 
 Let me take another example. Cobbett is most violent in his 
 denunciations against Henry VIII. , in which he includes Cranmer, 
 who took no part in the transactions, for the confiscation of 
 monastic properties. He calls the actors in these confiscations 
 "hypocrites," "villains," "hellish ruffians," "robbers," and "per- 
 jurers." But he omits to tell us that the Parliament, Lords, and 
 Commons, Bishops, and every person connected with these con- 
 fiscations were Romanists. The Parliament which decreed the 
 confiscations consisted of forty-six Temporal Peers, two Arch- 
 bishops, sixteen Bishops, two Guardians of Spiritualities, twenty-six 
 Abbots, and two Priors, all Romanists. If Romanists possessed 
 a particle of common sense ; if they had any respect for them- 
 selves or their religion, they would reject with scorn such an 
 advocate, who, instead of serving their cause, was, in fact, making 
 both himself and them the derision of all honest and truth-loving 
 men. It was, in fact, komanists robbing Papists. The inspections 
 were undertaken under the authority of three Papal Bulls. And, 
 farther, while he informs us that during the reign of Mary a 
 Roman Catholic Parliament passed an Act (i and 2 Philip and 
 Mary, cap. 8) confirming the titles in the holders of all the con- 
 fiscated properties ; he omits to tell us that the Pope himself, as 
 a bargain to recover his lost authority in England, granted a Bull 
 of Dispensation for every single possessor of those confiscated 
 properties to retain the same, with a confirmation of their titles 
 and an absolution for their supposed mortal sin. For the truth of 
 this I need not appeal to Protestant authorities, for Dodd, the 
 
 * The edition bearing this libel is issued by the R. C. publishers, 
 Messrs. Duffy, of Dublin, at sixpence. Father Matthews, of Trowbridge, 
 wrote to the Tablet for one thousand copies of this edition of Cobbett's 
 History of the Reformation to distribute at Trowbridge. When called to 
 account for this, he replied (December 31st, 1886) that " Cobbett is the 
 only Protestant who has written an inexpensive but truthful account of the 
 Reformation." It is inexpensive because his co-religionists have thus 
 published it for sixpence ! (See Brinckman's Controversial Methods of 
 Romanism, 1888, p. 50.) 
 
17 
 
 Roman Catholic historian, confirms it. He tells us that Parliament 
 was not satisfied with a general Bull of Dispensation which had 
 been issued, but insisted on a special Bull to meet their particular 
 case, which was granted.* What then becomes of the vehement 
 and virulent denunciations of Cobbett, which are echoed by every 
 Roman Priest who writes on the subject ? 
 
 The Parliament in return acknowledged the Pope's authority and 
 supremacy, and proceeded at once to pass an Act reviving the 
 " Six Articles Act " passed in Henry's reign, consigning to the 
 flames, or treating as felons, those who refused to accept certain 
 Romish dogmas, such as Transubstantiation, solitary Masses, con- 
 fession, celibacy, &g., and the persecuting statutes of Richard II., 
 Henry IV., and Henry V., against so-called heretics ; which Act 
 was hurried through both houses with most unseemly haste ; and 
 the first victim of these cruel laws was Rogers, who led the van of 
 the noble army of martyrs. He reminded Queen Mary of her 
 promise to grant liberty of conscience to all her subjects, and for 
 this offence he was committed to the stake. 
 
 And once again what are we to say of the man who deliberately 
 asserted that Elizabeth "established an Inquisition more horrible 
 than ever was heard of in the world." "The Spanish, from its 
 establishment to its present hour, has not committed so much cruelty 
 as this ferocious Protestant apostate in one single year of the forty- 
 three years of her reign." " Even the massacre of St. Bartholomew 
 was nothing when fairly compared with the butcheries and other 
 cruelties of the reign of this Protestant Queen of England. Yes, a 
 mere nothing." [269.J And these statements are unblushingly 
 propagated by Romish Priests at the present day ! 
 
 It was only a short time before Cobbett published his book, that 
 he described the "Inquisition" in his Political Register" as "that 
 powerful, cruel, and infernal instrument of tyranny over the bodies 
 and consciences of men."f Again he calls it "this infernal and 
 dread tribunal,":|: and the Inquisitors "sainted villains. "§ "Re- 
 specting this abominable institution, the original idea of establishing 
 which never could have entered the mind of any other being than 
 
 * Church History, vol. ii., p. 115. Brussels, 1739. t ^°'- x"^-' P- 201 
 { Vol. xxvi., p. 271. § Ibid., p. 298. 
 
 2 
 
i8 
 
 of a gloomy and barbarous Monk, which under the sanctified 
 pretence of zeal for the glory of God and the safety of religion, has 
 committed more atrocious murders and i?iflicted greater torments on 
 their fellow -men than are detailed in all the accounts that have leen 
 published of the cruelties that have been practised by the most savage 
 dealer in human flesh."* 
 
 Again he stated in his Register : " An eloquent writer has said 
 that the ' Christianity preached to the infidels of the sixteenth 
 century was no longer the Christianity of the three first ages; it was 
 a bloody murdering religion. For five or six hundred years, accus- 
 tomed to carnage, Rome had contracted an inveterate habit of 
 maintaining and aggrandizing herself by putting whatever opposed 
 her to the point of the sword. Burnings, butcherings, the horrid 
 tribunal of the Inquisition, Crusades, Bulls exciting subjects to 
 rebel, seditious preachers, conspiracies, assassinations of Princes, 
 were the ordinary means which she employed against those who 
 submitted not to her injunctions. 
 
 " Nor will this appalling picture of the diabolical proceedings of 
 the Romish See excite- surprise, when it is considered that it is held 
 lawful by the Canons of the Church, to kill a Prince who is excom- 
 municated by the Pope, wherever the Prince may be found ; for the 
 Universe belongs to the Pope, and the man who accepts a com- 
 mission of this kind is engaged in the most charitable employment. 
 
 " What sovereign can be safe, what people can be virtuous, where 
 principles of so infernal a nature are recognized and inculcated ? 
 It has been attempted by modern Catholics to soften down and give 
 a more favourable interpretation to the infamous doctrines formerly 
 held and acted upon by the Church of Rome. But if that Church 
 is again restored to unrestricted power, how easily will it find 
 excuses for reviving its ancient decrees. The readiness with which 
 Pope Pius restored the Inquisition and the Jesuits, when he felt his 
 authority somewhat extended, and the frivolous pretences he 
 assigned for this, sufficiently prove that if the Sovereigns are 
 disposed to permit his Holiness to consult his own inclination 
 merely, as to the lengths he ought to go, there is not one of them 
 
 * Poliiical Register, vol. xxvi,, p. 291. 
 
19 
 
 but may be obliged ere long to supplicate permission to reign from 
 tbe successor of St. Peter. There is not a nation in Europe who 
 will not be prepared to dethrone kings, and to deluge the earth 
 with blood, on a signal given by the Roman Pontiff."* 
 
 Such were Cobbett's former opinions. 
 
 We now come to another branch of our subject. Cobbett's 
 former opinions of the Jesuits and Roman Priests generally, were 
 not complimentary : — "The Jesuits have been accused of hatching 
 a regular system for the undermining and corrupting the principles of 
 youth. But, though this accusation be just, every priest is a Jesuit as 
 far as relates to a desire of gaining the minds of youth. All priests 
 have necessarily the desire of influencing the minds of others. From 
 their very calling they have a disposition to be teaching. Women 
 and children are the materials that they like to work upon. Next 
 to the Devil, they dread men of understanding."! 
 
 Again, of the Jesuits he wrote : — " Solely and blindly devoted to 
 the interests of the Roman Pontiff, they seemed to have come into 
 the world for the purpose of bringing the Universe under his 
 claims. They corrupted the youth, the education of whom they 
 wished exclusively to engross ; they strove to restore barbarism, 
 knowing well that want of knowledge is the greatest prop of 
 superstition ; they exalted ignorance and blind submission ; they 
 depraved the manners, and in their stead substituted vain usages and 
 superstitions, compatible with every vice, and calculated to suppress 
 the remorse which crime might produce. They preached up 
 slavery and unbounded submission to Princes, who themselves 
 were their slaves, and who consented to become instruments of 
 their vengeance. They preached rebellion and regicide against the 
 Princes who refused to bend under the yoke of the successor of 
 St. Peter, whom they had the effrontery to declare infallible, and 
 whose decisions they preferred far above those of the universal 
 Church. By their assistance the Pope became not only the despot, 
 but even the true God of the Christians."! 
 
 * Register, vol. xxv., pp. 350, 373. t Rigi^iif, vol. xxxiii., p. 297. 
 
 J Register, vol. xxxi., p. 312. 
 
20 
 
 And these are the men on -whom Cobbett relied for his "facts " 
 to concoct his " History ;" at least they adopt them. 
 
 Commenting in his so-called " History " on the usurped supre- 
 macy of Popes, he writes : — " Can we look back to the days of our 
 Catholic ancestors, can we think of their lofty tone, and of the 
 submission instantly produced by their threats without sighing, 
 Alas ! those days are never to return " [454]. " When I consider 
 the long, long triumph of calumny over the religion of those to 
 whom we owe all that we possess that, is great and renowned" 
 [478] . And he now advocates the papal supremacy in this country. 
 The Pope he tells us, " was a foreigner exercising spiritual power 
 in England; and this the hypocrites [the Reformers] pretended 
 was a degradation to the King and country" [89]. He calls it 
 "the much-abused Papal Supremacy" [95]. He declares the 
 Church was founded on Peter, who was selected by Christ to be 
 head of the Church. He then advances the old Popish arguments 
 founded on that fallacy [40-41], and on Peter's supposed residence 
 in Rome ; and that the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, as 
 successor of Peter, " was always acknowledged by the Church ; 
 that is to say, by all the Christians then in the world" [41]. 
 " The Scriptures tells us that the Church was one, and that that 
 Church was the Church of St. Peter" [85]. In his Political 
 Register, however, he wrote, on the alleged visit of Peter to 
 Rome : — " Several authors have denied, and with much reason, 
 that St. Peter ever set a foot in Rome. In the Acts of the Apostles 
 no mention is made of this journey, unless we suppose that Luke 
 has omitted to speak of St. Peter for the purpose of attributing to 
 St. Paul, his master, the conversion of the capital. If St. Peter had 
 been at Rome, his gospel would have been forced to yield to that 
 of the apostle of the Gentiles, more accommodating to the heathen, 
 as it dispensed with circumcision. It may, therefore, be presumed 
 that St. Paul was the first Pope."* 
 
 And on the Supremacy, and the means to obtain it, he wrote in 
 the same Register :—" A very apocryphal tradition had made St. 
 
 * Register, vol. xxv., p. 370. 
 
21 
 
 Peter travel to Rome, and had also made the chief of the Apostles 
 to establish his see in that city. The Roman Bishop, therefore, 
 pretended to have succeeded to the rights of Simon Peter, to whom 
 Jesus, in the Gospel, had entrusted, more particularly, the care of 
 feeding His sheep. He, accordingly, assumes the pompous titles 
 of Successor of St. Peter, Universal Bishop, and Ficar of Jesus Christ. 
 It is true these titles were often contested with him by the Oriental 
 Bishops, too proud to bow willingly under the yoke of their brother ; 
 but, by degrees, through dint of artifices, intrigues, and frequent 
 violences, those who enjoyed the See of Rome, ever prosecuting 
 their object with ardour, succeeded in getting themselves acknow- 
 ledged in the West as the heads of the Christian Church. Pliant 
 and submissive, at first, to Sovereigns whose power they dreaded, 
 they soon mounted on their shoulders and trampled them under 
 their feet, when they saw themselves certain of their power over 
 the minds of devotees rendered frantic by superstition. Then, 
 indeed, they threw off their mask ; gave to nations the signal of 
 revolt ; incited Christians to their mutual destruction ; and preci- 
 pitated kings from their thrones. To support their pride, they 
 shed oceans of blood ; they made weak princes the vile sport of 
 their passions — sometimes their victims, and sometimes their 
 executioners. Sovereigns, become their vassals, executed with fear 
 and trembling, the decrees of Heaven pronounced against the 
 enemies of the Holy See, which had created itself the arbiter of 
 faith. In fact, these inhuman Pontiffs immolated to their God a 
 thousand times more human victims than Paganism sacrificed to 
 all its divinities."* 
 
 And on the character of the Popes he further wrote in his 
 Register : — " In corroboration of what is here stated, if we look 
 into the history of Popes, we shall find reason to conclude that they 
 were the most abandoned and flagitious of mortals, who hesitated 
 not at the perpetration of any crime to accomplish their purposes. 
 Even Popish writers admit that no throne was ever filled with such 
 monsters of immorality as the Chair of St. Peter. They are described 
 as not only being detestable in themselves, but as having given 
 
 * Register, vol. xxvi., p. 379. 
 
occasion, by their example, to the perpetration of all sorts of wicked- 
 ness, imposture, delusion, oppression, robbery, tyranny, murder, 
 and massacre. 
 
 "Of Pope Formosus it is said, his successor, Stephen VII., 
 considered him so horrid a criminal, that he caused his body to be 
 dug out of the grave and thrown into the Tiber. Stephen himself 
 was regarded as equally infamous, and was strangled on account of 
 his crimes. Pope Sergius was so far lost to all sense of shame, 
 that he openly kept both the mother and daughter as his mistresses. 
 Like many other modern concubines, these holy females (for every- 
 thing is esteemed holy that belongs to the Pope) regulated all 
 matters of State, and governed the Church as best suited their 
 interest. A successor of Sergius on the Papal throne, John XL, is 
 represented to have been the fruit of this intercourse with the 
 daughter, and to have taken his own mother into keeping. John 
 XII., is accused of practising magic, of paying divine honours to 
 Venus and Jupiter, and having debauched females on the steps of 
 the altar. He was afterwards deposed by a Council supported by 
 an Emperor ; but this act has been censured by some Popish 
 writers, on the ground that no man on earth has a right to judge 
 as to the conduct of the Pope. Boniface VII. is accused of murder- 
 ing Benedict VI., in order to make way for his elevation to the Papal 
 See. It is, indeed, admitted by Cardinal Benno that a bravo, of the 
 name of Brazut, was kept in pay at Rome by his aspiring brethren, 
 and that this holy assassin actually carried off seven or eight Popes 
 by poison, at the instigation of those Cardinals who became im- 
 patient to fill the Chair of St. Peter. Of Gregory II., it is well 
 ascertained that he deluged Germany with blood. When the 
 Emperor, in the year 728, issued a decree against the worship of 
 images, this pious villain caused the Vicar of the Emperor to be 
 put to death for giving it publicity ; and such was the extensive 
 influence which the Church of Rome then possessed over the 
 minds of the people, and the awe with which her mandates were 
 exercised, that this murder, which in other circumstances might 
 have occasioned the overthrow of the Papal power, had the 
 effect of causing a revolt amongst the Emperor's troops, who 
 elected another master. We afterwards find, in the year 1072, 
 
23 
 
 another Emperor deposed through the cunning and knavery of the 
 Pope, and obliged to cross the Alps in Winter, barefooted and in a 
 woollen frock, to ask pardon of his Holiness, before he would 
 sanction his restoration to the Crown. This Emperor's offence 
 was his presuming to nominate bishops, and to govern the empire 
 conformably to the practice of his predecessors. A second offence 
 induced the Pope to transmit the Crown to another, and to absolve 
 the subjects of the former Emperor from thdir duty and allegiance. 
 Pope Gregory VU. equalled, if not surpassed, his namesake in acts 
 of cruelty and insolence. Innocent III. was designated by his 
 Catholic historian 'a lion in cruelty, and a blood-sucker in avarice.' 
 There is a decree of this Pope, by which he ' discharges the sub- 
 jects of all heretical princes from their allegiance, and gives away 
 their kingdoms to Catholic princes, in order to exterminate here- 
 tics.' During the reign of Henry IH. of England, it was this 
 Pope who plundered and oppressed the people during the greater 
 part of that silly monarch's sway. Benedict XH. is accused of 
 having purchased the sister of Petrarch fromi her family, to live 
 with him as his mistress ; and it is charged against Pope Alexander 
 VI. that, after debauching his own daughter, he gave her to one of 
 his sons as a mistress, who transferred her to another son, with 
 whom she afterwards lived as his wife. Innocent VIII. had sixteen 
 natural children. Leo X. used to exclaim, ' What treasure the 
 Church has derived from the fable of Christ.' Of Pope Paul III., 
 it is said, that he ' not only lay with his own daughter, but, to have 
 her all to himself, poisoned her husband.' We all know, from 
 our own history, that the arrogance of the Church of Rome had 
 reached to an enormous pitch in the year 1163 ; for we then find 
 our Henry II. leading the horse of Pope Alexander HI. on the 
 one side, and Lewis VI. of France on the other, while his Holiness 
 made a triumphal entry into Tours, and this at a time, too, when 
 the Papal See was disputed by another Pope, who was as much 
 revered in Spain and Germany as his rival. The sketch which I 
 have attempted to give is but a faint one indeed of the atrocities 
 committed by these pious, or rather impious, Pontiffs.''* 
 
 * Register, vol. xxvi., pp. 370-373. 
 
24 
 
 And on Roman Catholic influence in Europe he wrote : — " In 
 whatever way you may contemplate — in whatever light the people 
 of this country may be disposed to consider the strenuous efforts 
 now making by the Church of Rome to obtain a preponderating 
 influence in Europe, I confess the very idea of there being merely 
 a chance of her succeeding fills my mind with the most gloomy 
 apprehensions." * 
 
 "I am aware," ha said, "that the art of printing will always 
 present an insurmountable barrier to the total and absolute sub- 
 jugation of the human mind ; but when I consider the cunning 
 and the wiles which were successfully practised, in former ages, by 
 a knavish and interested Priesthood to subject even thrones to its 
 insolent domination, I am not without fears that the modern 
 attempts to reduce mankind to that dreadful state of vassalage 
 under which they groaned, particularly during the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries, may in some degree prove successful. Even 
 should the Romish clergy succeed in obtaining half the power 
 which they exercised at those periods, it would be a matter, in my 
 apprehension, which every true friend of liberty ought to deplore ; 
 for I have universally observed, in my perusal of history, that the 
 increase of ignorance and of oppression, always kept pace with 
 the increase of clerical power.'' f 
 
 In his Register he refers to the " re-establishment of those 
 monstrous institutions of the Papacy (the Inquisition), and the 
 avowal of these monstrous principles under which the Church of 
 Rome formerly held the human mind in bondage. To this very 
 country; to this enlightened age; to the thinking, the reflecting, 
 the intelligent people of England, are to be ascribed, more than 
 any other cause, the melancholy, the gloomy, the degrading, the 
 disgraceful change that threatens to restore the empire of the clergy, 
 by which the world was formerly, for so many centuries, plunged 
 in midnight darkness." J 
 
 In his so-called " History " Convents and Monasteries are 
 subjects of unbounded praise, and their destruction and confisca- 
 
 * Register, vol. xxvi., p. 311. -j- Register, vol. xxvi., pp. 312, 313. 
 
 X Register, vol. xxvi., p. 347. 
 
^5 
 
 tions of their properties are fruitful themes of invective against the 
 Reformers, conveniently forgetting that these confiscations took 
 place, under Roman rule, as I said, Romanists robbing Papists. 
 Cobbett's views, however, of these establishments were very differ- 
 ent before he contemplated them through the medium of a pair 
 of gold spectacles ; for in the thirty-second volume of his Register, 
 p. 1068, he said: — "The place where a set of monks lived, or 
 where they still live, is (as I told you) called a ' convent ' in 
 English. This comes from the French word ' couvent,' and this 
 comes from the French word ' couver,' which means ' to sit over 
 eggs.' The brood which comes from a sitting is in French 
 called a ' couvee,' and hence comes our word, a ' covey ' of partridges. 
 The monks' place was called ' couvent ' in French, and ' convent ' 
 in English, because they pretended that they were a brood of the 
 choice children of God, collected together in fulfilment of that 
 passage of Scripture which says, ' Like as a hen gathereth her 
 chickens under her wings, so will the Lord gather together His 
 children under His wings.' Pretty chickens they have been ! 
 
 " From them have gone forth a great part of the curses which 
 have afflicted the world. It was in the convents, or sitting-places, 
 that were hatched the Inquisition and all those means of robbing, 
 tormenting, and brutalizing mankind which have produced such 
 dreadful misery. The French Revolutionists disturbed a great 
 many of those hatching-places. They put the chickens, that is to 
 say, the gormandizing, drunken, debauched, and savage monks to 
 flight ; sold the lands and houses which they had extorted, and 
 exposed the whole thing to the hatred it so well merited. In place 
 of meriting the appellation grounded on the tender idea of a brood 
 of innocent little creatures collected under the wings of the 
 fondest of mothers, the convents of the monks were wasps' nests, 
 whence the lazy and cruel inhabitants sallied forth to rob and 
 sting, to annoy, persecute, and murder the industrious, laborious, 
 and provident bees." 
 
 Again, in the same Register: — "We have all heard, from 
 our infancy, about the tricks of monks and friars. Those tricks 
 were very numerous, and, many of them, very farcical. They 
 showed, in a phial, some blood, which they pretended was the real 
 
i6 
 
 blood of Christ. They exhibited the parings of St. Anthony's 
 nails. They had a bit~of the skin of St. Lawrence. They had the 
 wonder-working breeches of St. Pacomo, which they employed as 
 a charm for barren women. Holy water and sanctified crosses 
 they always had on sale, for the purpose of keeping out witches, 
 laying the Devil, curing the itch, turning aside thunderbolts, 
 curing weak eyes, preserving gluttons from apoplexy, and for 
 various other important uses. This was very impudent, and, at 
 the same time, hypocritical. — The monks and friars were a set of 
 impostors. With all their tricks, they had but one object in view, 
 namely, that of living well upon the labours of others. This was 
 with them the law and the gospel." * 
 
 And this is the instrument selected by Jesuits to advocate their 
 cause! Surely it was a very short-sighted policy. But, then, they 
 dare not put their names to such a tissue of ribaldry and falsehood, 
 the staple commodities of his " History ;" so they employ the pen 
 of the unprincipled Cobbett to do their wicked work, and they are 
 not ashamed to come under the shadow of his protection, and 
 Cobbett himself, doubtless under the tempting inducement of a 
 bribe, conveniently ignored all his former expressed convictions. 
 
 Cobbett was not contented with the dogmatic expression of his 
 own opinions, but he unceremoniously sets down all other His- 
 torians differing from himself as hypocrites and liars. Our great 
 historian Hume he describes as " a calumniator of Catholic institu- 
 tions " [3ii], he calls him this "lying historian '' [ii6]. "The 
 monstrous Hes of Hume ' [4J1]. The " malignant Hume " [1,34, 
 &c.]. "The malignity of the liar exceeded his cunning " [136], 
 &c. Of Burnet, the great Protestant historian and Bishop, whose 
 history procured him an honour never before or since paid to any 
 writer — the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, with a desire that 
 he would prosecute the undertaking and complete his valuable 
 work. The History of the Reformation in England, a work that 
 has been deemed worthy to be translated into most European 
 languages— of Burnet Cobbett speaks as " That calculating, cold- 
 blooded, brazen Burnet" [96]. "The vile pen of Burnet" 
 
 * Register, vol. xxxvii., pp. 93, 94. 
 
27 
 
 [88]. "The malignant Burnet" [i03]. " Our lying Protestant 
 historian" [346]. " Vile calumniator " [346]. " His history of the 
 Reformation is a mass of as vile falsehoods and misrepresentations 
 that ever were put on paper " [405]. Burnet substantiates every 
 single statement by reference to existing records, whereas Cobbett, 
 on the other hand, has not verified one siilgle statement ; his entire 
 history resting on his own sole authority and dictum, but more 
 probably on the dictation of a Jesuit. Foxe, our Martyrologist, 
 comes in, as might be expected, for vehement abuse. 
 
 Of the Reformers generally he says in his so-called " History' ' : 
 "■ Perhaps the world has never, in any age, seen a nest of such 
 atrocious miscreants as Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, Beza, and the 
 rest of the reformei-s of the catholic religion. Every one of them 
 is notorious for the most scandalous vices, even according to the 
 full confession of their followers. They agreed in nothing but in 
 the doctrine that good works were useless; and their lives proved the 
 sincerity of their teaching ; for there was not a man of them whose 
 acts did not merit a halter'' [200]. Beza in particular, he says, 
 " was one of the most infamous of all reforming preachers, and 
 perhaps second to none but Luther himself " [277]- 
 
 As Luther is made a standard of comparison; let me record here 
 the estimation in which he was held by his contemporary, the 
 learned Roman priest Erasmus, and, indeed, his opponent. Erasmus 
 tells us that he " perceived the better any man was, the more he 
 relished the writings of Luther ; that his very enemies allowed him 
 to be a man of good life ; that he seemed to him to have in* his 
 heart certain evangelical sparks ; that it was plain that some con- 
 demned those things in Luther's writings which in St. Augustin's 
 and St. Bernard's passed for orthodox and pious."* 
 
 In the same letter, writing to Archbishop Albert, Erasmus con- 
 tinues to say of Luther : " That he was accounted a good man even 
 by his enemies, and that the best men were least offended by his 
 writings." 
 
 AgaiUj writing to Laurentius Campegio, he said : " I heard dis- 
 
 * Eras. Epst. ad Albert, Ephcop. et Prin., Mogunt. Cardin., Tom. iii., col. 
 514. Lug. Bat. 1703. 
 
28 
 
 tinguished men of approved doctrine and religion congratulate them- 
 selves that they had met with this man's books. I saw that who- 
 ever was most correct in his morals, and nearest to evangelical purity, 
 was least offended with Luther. Moreover, his life was commended 
 even by those who were displeased with his doctrine." Writingto 
 CEcoIampadius, he said that Luther " meditated on nothing but 
 heavenly things." And once again, writing to Cardinal Thomas : 
 " The man's life is approved by general consent. Now this is not 
 a slight prepossession in his favour, that so great is his moral 
 integritythat even his enemies canjindnothing to calumniate." * Guic- 
 ciardini, the Italian Historian, said: "Many conceived that the 
 troubles which were raised against Luther took their original from the 
 innocency of his life and soundness of his doctrine rather than from any 
 other cause." t Thomas Carlyle said of Luther : — "I call this Luthera 
 true great man; great in intellect, in courage, affection, and integrity; 
 one of our most lovable and precious men. Great not as a hewn 
 obelisk, but as an Alpine mountain — so simple, honest, spontaneous, 
 not setting up to be great at all ; there for quite another purpose 
 than being great ! Ah, yet, insubduable granite, piercing far and 
 wide into the heavens ; yet in the clift of it fountains, green, beautiful 
 valleys with flowers. A right spiritual hero and prophet ; once 
 more, a true son of nature and fact, for whom these centuries, and 
 many that are to come yet, will be thankful to heaven." % And Mr. 
 Hallam said of him that " his soul was penetrated with a fervent 
 piety, and his integrity as well as purity of life are unquestioned." § 
 Anfl Luther is selected by Cobbett as a standard worse than all 
 the Reformers ! 
 
 Can it be wondered at that our Reformers Cranmer, Ridley, 
 Latimer, Hooper, and Knox, come under the lash of Cobbett, but 
 in language so vile that it would be a sin merely to repeat his low 
 abuse ? 
 
 * Tom. iii., col. 514, col. 596 ; and Lib. ix., to Thomam Cardinalem, Ep. 
 317, par. 7, col. 322, Tom. iii. ; and col. 367, Ep. 354 to CEcoIampadius. 
 Edit. Lug. Bat., 1703. 
 
 ■j- Hist. Itah, Lib. xiii., p. 380. Venice, 1563. 
 
 J Heroes and Hero Worship, Lecture IV., Edit. 1840, p. 131. 
 
 § Introduction to the Literature of Europe, vol. i., p. 417. London, :837. 
 
29 
 
 Of Cranmer Cobbett asserts twice [104, 4^1] that when he 
 married, his first wife was still alive. Cranmer's first wife died in 
 the year 1517 when he was a tutor at Cambridge. He married his 
 second wife in 1532. 
 
 And for all this he no doubt received a handsome "retaining fee'' 
 from his Jesuit prompters, and his statements are endorsed and 
 recommended by every unscrupulous Roman Priest of the present 
 day. If there is any shame left in them, they should blush for 
 their champion. 
 
 Cobbett was the son of a small farmer. He ran away from his 
 home and enlisted as a soldier in 1 784 ; rose to the rank of serjeant- 
 major, and got his discharge in 1 791, as narrated by himself. In 
 his "Life," as written by himself,* he says, "Our religion was that of 
 the Church of England to which I have remained attached." And in 
 his "Works" hewrotef — "Convinced asl am, from the experience 
 of America, as well as from history in general, that an Established 
 Church is absolutely necessary to the existence of religion and 
 morality ; convinced, also, that the Church of England, whilst she 
 is an ornament, an honour, and a blessing to the nation, is the 
 principal pillar of the throne, 1 trust I shall never be base enough to 
 decline a combat with her enemies;" and in his Political Register X 
 he said : — " I am thoroughly persuaded, that, if the Church of 
 England establishment fall, the monarchy will not survive it." He 
 left for America and became a political writer, adopting violent anti- 
 republican principles. He was prosecuted for libel and fled to 
 England in 1790. Here he started the political journal, the Porcu- 
 pine, of ultra Tory principles. With the change of his political 
 principles to rabid radicalism, he changed the title of his periodical 
 to the Political Register. A peculiar feature, however, of this work, 
 as I have shown, was his continuous attacks, in most scathing 
 terms, on the Romish Church, her Popes, Bishops, priests, monks, 
 convents, monasteries, and the Inquisition. He was prosecuted by 
 the English government for libel, fined, and imprisoned. He fled 
 to America, and wrote a work in praise of the infidel Tom Paine, 
 
 * Second edition, London, 1809, p. 6. t Vol. ii., p. 433, London, 1801. 
 % Vol. viii., p. II. 
 
3° 
 
 declaring him to be "an unflinching advocate for the curtailment 
 of aristocratical power," and "the boldest champion of popular 
 rights," having previously in 1796 published the Life of Tom Paine, 
 wherein he called him a "hypocritical monster"; he alludes to- 
 "his notoriously bad character," that "he merited death, at least 
 transportation." He brands him as a " hoary blasphemer," "no- 
 language can describe the wickedness of the nian," and compares- 
 him to " Judas." 
 
 While in America, however, his views of the infidel Paine 
 were entirely changed ; so much so, that, as he himself stated, he 
 made "a pilgrimage to America," exhumed the body of Paine, 
 converted his bones into " sacred relics," the identity of which he 
 certified on parchment, and sold them as genuine relics at a guinea 
 a piece. This was in the year 1824, the same year in which he 
 issued his first number of his so-called History of the Protestant 
 Reformation. We have here a ready tool in the hands of the 
 Jesuits. There cannot be the slightest doubt that the matter of 
 this so-called History was supplied by Jesuit Priests. Whether 
 that be so or not, his book is adopted and extensively circulated, 
 even at the present day, by Romish Priests; the manner of 
 expressing himself is essentially in Cobbett's then usual style, 
 abusive and violent, with a total disregard for truth. 
 
 " His words are realities, his principles fictions." — Bulwer. 
 
 Throughout the entire work there is not a reference appealed to 
 in support of his bold assertions. And this is the book put forward 
 by our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen as professing to give 
 a true account of the most eventful epoch in our history. 
 
 There is one incident I desire to mention before I bring to a 
 close this chapter. In a Roman Catholic periodical, entitled the 
 Truthteller, a weekly Political Pamphlet, in the issue for May 
 20th, 1826, there is a report of an "Aggregate Meeting in Dublin." 
 At that meeting a vote of thanks to Cobbett for his History of the 
 Protestant Reformation was submitted for adoption. The motion 
 was seconded by Daniel O'Connell. An amendment was sub- 
 mitted by Sir Edward Bellew, who said he did not " approve of 
 the whole of Mr. Cobbett's conduct." This amendment was duly 
 seconded. Mr. Hugh O'Connor, supporting the amendment^. 
 
said : " He was well aware that Mr. Cobbett was an able writer, 
 and that he had done some service to the cause ; but he could 
 not forget that he had formerly maligned the religion which he 
 (Mr. O'Connor) professed and revered; and recollecting that, 
 he douhted much of the purity of the motives which had dictated 
 Mr. Cobbett's late writings. He would support the amendment.'' 
 
 The original motion was opposed by others. A Mr. Birch 
 said : " He could not forget how basely he (Cobbett) had calum- 
 niated their best friends. If he proved Mr. Cobbett to be a wilful 
 calumniator, he was sure the meeting would not return thanks to 
 such a man." Notwithstanding, the motion was agreed to. 
 
 But the matter did not end here. Not receiving the encourage- 
 ment he considered himself entitled to for his Historical Romance 
 — the Protestant Reformation — Cobbett turned round and began to 
 abuse "The Catholic Association in England and Ireland," and 
 the Roman Catholic Aristocracy and Lawyers, in a Letter addressed 
 to Pope Pius VIII. ; from which I take the following paragraphs. 
 
 Of " The Catholic Association of England and Ireland " Cobbett 
 wrote : " The Association ascribed to me a part, at least, of that 
 decision which prevented its members from enriching and exalting 
 themselves by adding to the misery and degradation of their poor 
 Catholic countrymen. From this time forward these unprincipled 
 men became my bitter enemies and my foul calumniators ; and 
 thus they continue to the present hour. They practise the grossest 
 delusions upon the more ignorant part of their countrymen, upon 
 whom they still impose, and whom they keep constantly engaged 
 in noises and broils, with a view of terrifying the Government 
 into some project like that above described [that the Roman 
 Bishops and Priests of Ireland should have salaries paid them by 
 Government out of the taxes], having still the desire and the hope 
 to sacrifice the civil rights and religion of the main body of the 
 Catholics, to the gratification of their own ambition and interests." * 
 
 In page lo he writes : " It is well known to every man in these 
 countries (though the fact will shock every true Catholic on the 
 face of the earth who has heard of it) that a large part of the rent, 
 
 * A Letter to His Holiness the Pope on the Character, and Conduct, and the 
 Viewsofthe Catholic Aristocracy and Lawyers of England and Ireland. London, 
 1828, p. 12, British Museum mark 8,135 ''^ '^' "• 
 
32 
 
 the fruits of piety of the poor Catholics of Ireland, is, in part, 
 expended by the unprincipled men who receive it in the paying of 
 prostituted writers to vilify and calumniate the author of the 
 Protestant Reformation." 
 
 In the same Letter, pages 51, 52, he gives his opinion of "the 
 Roman Catholic Aristocracy and Lawyers" : "The greater part of 
 the Aristocracy and lawyers are only a kind of mongrel Catholics; 
 the former retaining the name of their religion from fomily pride, 
 and the latter retaining it because, without it, they would have 
 little or no practice in their profossion among the Catholics, who 
 form, at least, four-fifths of the middle and lower classes in Ireland. 
 In England, where the Catholics are still numerous, they naturally 
 give the preference to lawyers of their own religion. This prefer- 
 ence serves to supply the place of legal knowledge and talent ; and 
 men, who would never have a brief, never be employed as lawyers, 
 if they were not Catholics, do, by the means of this preference, 
 make a tolerable figure in their profession. Were it not for these 
 motives, these two descriptions of men, generally speaking, would 
 apostatize at once, and in a body. The former — that is to say, the 
 aristocracy — do steal out of the barren fold one by one, and while 
 they remain in it, they clearly show that they have the strongest 
 desire to be battening and fattening on the rich pastures of bribery, 
 corruption and taxation." 
 
 In pages 53, 54, we read: "Dr. Doyle has promulgated a 
 scheme of uniting the two Churches of England and Rome! 
 If the Doctor had proposed to unite darkness with light, the pro- 
 position would have been just as reasonable. He meant, doubtless, 
 to divide the tithes and other revenues of the Church between the 
 clergy of the united body; but we, both Protestants and Catholics, 
 regard such union as the English farmer would regard an union 
 between the rats and cats, shut up together in his pantry or his 
 lofts of cheese ; or as the Italian farmer would regard an union 
 between the wolves and the sheep-dogs, from which he would 
 certainly anticipate additional worrying and slaughter committed 
 upon his flock." 
 
 With these facts before us we gladly hand over Cobbett, and his 
 so-called History, to our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen as 
 their unscrupulous advocate. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 " And now 
 While it is hot I'll put it to the issue." 
 
 Henry VI 11.. Act I., Scene 5. 
 
 The events of the reign of Elizabeth have ever been fruitful 
 sources of invective by Romanists. The personal character of 
 Elizabeth has been ruthlessly assailed, and she is accused of being 
 lewd, and a merciless persecutor. While it may be admitted that 
 there were traits in her character, and acts which betrayed her 
 weaknesses, and at times exhibited an overbearing disposition, and 
 even retained some taints, the result of her education in the Roman 
 Church, still neither vice nor cruelty can be imputed to her; and 
 as to incontinence that can never be established. No mortal is 
 perfect. What we look to is the result of her glorious reign. As 
 to the alleged persecutions under the "Penal Laws," during her 
 reign, we ask whether there was not a cause ? Unless the right to 
 dethrone and even to murder a so-called heretical Sovereign, and 
 to incite rebellions, in order to establish the authority of a foreign 
 Priest, are deemed within the province of the religion of the Roman 
 Church — and these acts are certainly sanctioned by Rome's Canon 
 Law — not one victim of that reign suffered death for his religion, 
 but as a traitor. After a period of twelve years of peace and pros- 
 perity at home, the Pope of Rome, having failed to regain his 
 usurped ascendancy, issued his Bull of excommunication, dam- 
 nation and deposition of Elizabeth as a heretic, a bastard and a 
 usurper 3 hence all the subsequent troubles. 
 
 Pope Pius V. excommunicated Elizabeth, and absolved her 
 subjects from their oath of allegiance. Notwithstanding, it was this 
 very same Pope who asserted, in a letter to the Archbishop of 
 Cambray (1567), that "the corrupt and depraved morals of the 
 
 3 
 
J4 
 
 clergy were the cause of the heresies."* This Pope was canonized 
 and declared to be a Saint in heaven by Pope Clement XL in 1712, 
 among other things, expressly for : — " his unhesitating zeal in 
 striking with his dread anathema the impious heretic Elizabeth, 
 the pretended Queen of England, the slave of vices, as a heretic, and 
 the favourer of heretics ; absolving her subjects from their alle- 
 giance, and depriving herself, by Pontifical authority, of her pre- 
 tended right to the Crown of England. "f 
 
 At the door of the Pope lies the responsibility of the enactment 
 of the so-called Penal Laws, and the fate of those who suffered 
 under those laws ; but with this notable difference — that whereas 
 under the Romish Mary's reign her victims were brought to the 
 stake and burnt alive, without any legal formality, for denying some 
 Romish dogmas, and were true Martyrs, not one victim under 
 Elizabeth suffered death for his religion, but as a traitor, by the 
 more merciful death of being hanged. They were convicted before 
 legal tribunals, as traitors to their Queen and country. 
 
 And here I venture to quote the eloquent words of the Rev. 
 Hugh Stowell, from a lecture delivered before the " Young Men's 
 Christian Association " in i8_59 : — 
 
 " If we would arrive at an impartial judgment in relation to 
 Elizabeth, we must judge her by her own times, not by ours. 
 
 " In the next place, we ought to give full weight to the fact that 
 she and her contemporaries had but recently and imperfectly 
 emerged from the thick darkness of Popery, waded out of the deep 
 quagmire of her pollutions and superstitions. No marvel, there- 
 fore, that their moral and spiritual vision should have long continued 
 dim and distorted, and that somewhat of the slime of the pit should 
 have clung to them. Was it to be expected that all at once they 
 should be utterly free — free from influences the most debasing and 
 corruptions the most inveterate ? Was it to be expected that they 
 should forthwith be disinfected from the leprous touch of a system 
 
 * See Mendham's Lifi of Pope Pius V., p. 42, 1832, for other extracts to 
 the like effect. 
 
 f Acta Congregationis Sand. Pii V„ &c. : Romae, 1720. Ex Typ. Vatic. 
 Superiorum Permissu, Literas Decretales Clement. XL, June, 1712 
 sec. 27. 
 
35 
 
 which has enlisted falsehood into the service of the God of truth, 
 and the sword of persecution into the service of the God of love ; 
 which has not unfrequently reputed murderers martyrs, canonized 
 the vilest criminals, and consecrated the darkest crimes ? 
 
 "Realize, if you can, the consequent state of the nation, oscil- 
 lating, as it had so long been, between freedom and slavery, truth and 
 error, spiritual worship and gross idolatry, — and then say whether it 
 ought to scandalize us that, on Elizabeth's accession to the throne, 
 there was much to unlearn as well asto learn. To the Romish writers 
 who taunt us with these things, our fairest and strongest answer is 
 — 'Whence came they ? ' Whose offspring did their family like- 
 ness proclaim them to be ? These were the bequest of Romanism. 
 
 " Elizabeth was the great antagonist of Popery, and the great 
 champion of Protestantism. Not only did she bravely uphold the 
 truth at home, but she spread the shield of Britain over the 
 oppressed for conscience sake, all over the world. She sustained 
 the Reformation in Scotland, she defended it in Holland, and she 
 manifested the deepest indignation and sorrow when the horrible 
 massacre of St. Bartholomew clothed the skies of Europe with 
 sackcloth. And when Henry IV. of France, basely apostatized 
 from his early faith, and, influenced by a temporizing expediency, 
 sacrificed his religion to his throne, she wrote him a letter, which 
 for pungent power, indignant eloquence, and scriptural truth, is 
 hardly surpassed by any of the writings of our martyred Reformers. 
 These are but a few of the proofs she gave of the genuine devoted- 
 ness of her heart to the Word of God and to the maintenance and 
 diffusion of Protestant principle. 
 
 " Ought not, then, her memory to be cherished by England ? 
 Ought we not to be very jealous of her fame ? Ought we not to 
 feel that when her name is struck at, the blow rebounds upon our- 
 selves ? Ought we not the rather thus to feel at a juncture when 
 so many Romish writers have exercised a perverse ingenuity 
 in trying to exaggerate her blemishes and disparage her virtues — 
 antipathy to the Reformation thus betraying itself in antipathy 
 to her — the former aimed at, though the latter is assailed. The 
 subtlest and most sedulous manoeuvre of modern Jesuitism has 
 been and still is to poison the streams of history.'' 
 
 3 * 
 
36 
 
 In spite of all that has been written and said against the Queen 
 we do not hesitate still to designate her — " Glorious Queen Bess ! " 
 
 It is a popular complaint of Romanists that the Reformation in 
 England was principally brought about by cruel Penal Laws. 
 There were many reasons which laid the foundation of the Reform- 
 ation in the religion of this country before the Laws under 
 Elizabeth were enacted. These laws I propose to pass in review 
 when I come to consider the political and social reforms effected 
 during the reign of Henry VIII. ; the reforms in religion^ during 
 the reign of Edward ; the cruel persecutions under Mary, and the 
 proceedings of the Pope's emissaries during the reign of 
 Elizabeth. It is a remarkable fact that while the list of so-called 
 " Popish " Martyrs recorded in the " Calendar of Martyrs of the 
 i6th and 17th Centuries," published with the sanction and impri- 
 matur of Cardinal Manning (London, 1887), we find registered the 
 names with dates of those who suffered during the reigns of 
 Henry, Elizabeth, and James I., not one name appears under the 
 reign of Edward VI., when the Reformation in the Religion of 
 this country took place, under the guidance of Cranmer, Ridley, 
 and Latimer, who were consigned to the flames under Mary's 
 reign. 
 
 Now, Romanists desire to impress us with the idea that a mighty 
 force was obliged to be laid on men's consciences by cruel penal 
 laws, before the English nation could be brought to adopt the 
 reformed Religion. Nothing can be more false. Besides other 
 abuses under which this country suffered, far beyond the inflictions 
 imposed on any other nation under Papal rule, England had been 
 annually drained of large sums by remittances to Rome, for 
 Dispensations and Indulgences "and a thousand other Taxes (be- 
 sides annates and first-fruits) which that artful and rapacious Court 
 levied on the credulity of mankind."* No doubt the Pope had 
 reasons to be angry with Henry. His grievance was not on the 
 ground of religion, since no change in the religion of the country 
 had taken place, but on the contrary Henry's Parliament, after his 
 excommunication, enacted a most cruel and persecuting law, 
 
 * See Robertson's Charles V., vol. ii., p. 317, Edit. 1772. 
 
i1 
 
 consigning to the flames all who denied the Popish doctrine of 
 Transubstantiation, and visited with death and confiscation of goods, 
 as felons, those who denied other essentially Romish doctrines, 
 such as Celibacy of the Priesthood, private Mass, Communion in 
 one kind, and Confession. But, the Pope's authority being repudi- 
 ated, the suppl ies were stopped, Hinc illce LachrymcB. The celebrated 
 Bonner, Bishop of London, the cruel and unrelenting champion of 
 Romanism, did not hesitate to declare : " That the Pope exercised 
 in England an atrocious and bitter tyranny ; and while he was called 
 a Servant of Servants, was but a rapacious wolf in the sheep's 
 clothing."* And the Priest Erasmus, a witness of the Pope's rapac- 
 ity in England, said : " I am pressed to say if I ever saw a pirate made 
 a Bishop at Rome. I omit what I have seen. But he will not 
 deny that sometimes there are promoted to the highest dignities, — 
 if not pirates, — murderers, poisoners, simoniacal persons, and those 
 who are familiar with vices that are not here to be named. "f 
 Instead of any severity being necessary to bring in or establish 
 Protestantism in this kingdom, we have Mary's own authority for 
 saying, that men's minds were " so alienated " from the Pope in 
 her reign, that she herself was obliged to confess it to Cardinal 
 Pole.J Speaking of her own situation to Commendone, she said, 
 " I must wait until my people's feelings towards the Apostolic See 
 are somewhat mollified, or until I am more settled on the throne. 
 At present the very name of Rome is mortally hated here."^ The 
 popular indignation against the priests who introduced the Mass on 
 her accession showed itself so strongly, that the Queen was obliged 
 to make a declaration to the Lord Mayor and Recorder of London, 
 that she did not mean to constrain the conscience of her subjects. 
 So little were the people blinded by this deceitful declaration, that 
 Romish Priests could not preach at St. Paul's Cross without a royal 
 guard of two hundred men. This pulpit, which had hitherto been 
 so popular, was now so little to the taste of the people, that the Lord 
 
 * Quoted by Sharon Turner, Hist, of England, vol. iii., p. 63. Edit. 1835. 
 ■f Eras. Oper., Tom. ix., col. 1810. Leyden, 1703-6. 
 + October 27th, 1853. See Sharon Turner's Modern History 0/ England, 
 vol. iii., p. 408, London, 1835. 
 
 § Soames' History the Reformation, vol. iv., p. 76. London, 1826. 
 
38 
 
 Mayor issued an order that the ancients of all the companies 
 should be present, lest the speaker should be discouraged by his small 
 audience.* With reference to Cardinal Pole, Mary did not dare to 
 admit him into the kingdom as the Pope's Legate. She wrote to 
 him : — " Your public delegation is so distrusted, and so odious to 
 our subjects, that your approach, though it would be very desirable 
 to us, would bring more prejudice than benefit.'' She then men- 
 tions that a measure proposed by her Privy Councillors and Bishops 
 was " suspected" by the House of Commons to be "proposed from 
 favour to the Pope in order that the title of Supreme Head of the 
 Church, which had been annexed to the Crown, might be taken from 
 it, and that we might bring back the power of the Pope into this 
 kingdom ; we are therefore afraid," she goes on, "lest they should 
 insist upon our continuing and assuming this title more pertina- 
 ciously than we desire." In fact, to appease the mistrust of the 
 people, she did, in the first session of her Parliament, continue the 
 title, " Supreme Head of the Church of England and Ireland.' ' Nor 
 was Mary deceived as to the hatred of her people to the Pope and 
 his emissaries ; for though the Pope sent permission to Pole 
 (December 8th, 1553) to lay aside for a time his official title and 
 state, as Legate, and visit England privately, Pole did not think it 
 safe or useful to risk his person, either in disguise or in his pomp ; 
 and therefore he did not dare to land.f And a paper of his is still 
 extant in which he confesses that there were but " few in the king- 
 dom who were on the side of Rome. "J We learn from a letter of 
 Pole's, that the Emperor Charles V., in speaking to him of England, 
 said: — "The name of obedience to the Church [of Rome] is 
 universally alhorred there. And so is the Red Hat [of the Car- 
 dinal] and the monastic garments. "§ So it proved, at the burning 
 of the first Protestant Martyr, Rogers, when "the greatest part" 
 of the spectators " were not backward to make him many accla- 
 mations to strengthen his courage. "|| In fact, nothing but the 
 
 * Ibid., pp. 31-35, and Blunt's History of the Reformation, p. 257. 
 f Turner's History, vol. iii., p. 411. London, 1835. 
 { Ibid., p. 413. § Ibid., p. 450. 
 
 II See the Letter from the French Ambassador, February 4th, 1555, in 
 Turner, vol. iii., p. 461. 
 
39 
 
 most cruel severities could, during Mary's reign, have arrested the 
 progress of the Reformation. Paramo, the Romish historian, says 
 that the Reformation would never have taken place in England if 
 the Inquisition had been established here; a plain proof of his 
 opinion that the English people were determined to forsake Popery 
 as soon as the overwhelming force, by which they had been con- 
 strained to conform to it, was removed.* 
 
 Can it be justly asserted that any force on men's consciences was 
 necessary to compel the nation to forsake Popery, which the great 
 majority of them had abjured ? The Reformation in Germany was 
 effected without any such pressure. To re-establish the authority 
 of the Pope in this country would be to revive all his pecuniary 
 exactions, and to put in force the cruel and persecuting Papal laws 
 for the extirpation of all so-called heretics. 
 
 The object of Elizabeth's Penal Laws was to secure the Throne 
 and Protestant Government, and to protect the life of the Queen 
 and that of her loyal subjects. 
 
 As a text for my present " Sketch " I have, as I have said, adopted 
 Cobbett's so-called History of the Reformation. My justification 
 for this is, that even to the present time that work is not only exten- 
 sively quoted by Roman Priests as an authentic record of events of 
 that period, and as the reliable authority of a "Protestant," but they 
 have also issued an unprecedented cheap edition which they indus- 
 triously circulate, with an engraved frontispiece on the cover, repre- 
 senting Elizabeth in the act of consecrating an archbishop ! In fact 
 they adopt the book as their own. The work from beginning 
 to end is one series of falsehoods and misrepresentations. It is 
 unblushingly put forward as professing to give a true account of the 
 
 * See Mendham's Literary Policy of the Church of Rome, p. 305, 2nd edit. 
 1830. Paramo's observations apply to some other countries as well as 
 England, and Cardinal Pallavicino admits that the Reformation would 
 have crept into Italy unless the Inquisition had been established there 
 (p. 306) ; and Pope Pius IV., soon after Elizabeth's accession, found it 
 necessary to supply various States with money, in order to enable him to 
 withstand the Protestant spirit which was rising in so many parts of 
 Europe. (See Sharon Turner's History, vol. iv., p. 156. London, 1835.) 
 
40 
 
 most eventful epoch in the history of our country. One feels 
 humiliated at the task of having to demolish such a flimsy tissue of 
 falsehoods, strengthened (as the author imagines) by insults and 
 abuse, concocted by one, according to his own teaching, who was 
 an apostate, if not an infidel ; and with whom no right-minded 
 Englishman, whether Protestant or Romanist, would care to asso- 
 ciate, or even acknowledge, as a fellow-countryman. 
 
 In order that the reader may fully appreciate the virulent and 
 abusive style adopted by Cobbett in describing the character of 
 Elizabeth, I now give specimens of it in his own words from his 
 so-called History of the Protestant Reformation. By the adoption 
 and recommendation of this work Romanists practically eiidorse 
 his ribaldry. 
 
 With Cobbett Elizabeth is everything that is mean, despicable, 
 cruel, brutal, and licentious. He calls her in several places, in deri- 
 sion, "the Virgin Saint Elizabeth," the word "Virgin " always 
 printed in large capitals. Also "the horrible woman," " Horrible 
 virago." The "savage good Queen Bess," " the ferocious woman;" 
 " To whom truth, justice, and mercy were alike unknown." " Foul 
 tyrant." "Ferocious Protestant apostate." " A notorious apostate 
 from motives as notoriously selfish." " Inexorable apostate." " As 
 great a tyrant as ever lived." " Brutal hypocrite." "Termagant 
 tyrant." " The butchering and racking Elizabeth." " The good 
 and glorious maiden, and ripping-up Betsey." And all this is uttered 
 without a single attempt at proof ; and he says that " her disgusting 
 amours were notorious." " Historians have been divided in opinion 
 as to which was the worst man that England ever produced, her 
 father or Cranmer [but no such historian is named] ; but all man- 
 kind must agree that this was the worst woman that ever existed in 
 England, or in the world, Jezabel herself not excepted." He re- 
 peatedly refers to " her unparalleled cruelties, her flagrant falsehoods, 
 her haughtiness, her insolence, her lewd life." " This Queen," he 
 says, " was resolved to reign ; the blood of her people she deemed 
 necessary to her safety, and she never scrupled to make it flow." 
 " She never cared for the character or principles of those she 
 employed, so that they did but answer her selfish ends." " Her 
 reign was almost one unbroken series of butcheries and robberies." 
 
41 
 
 " During the whole of that reign she was busily engaged in persecut- 
 ing, in ruining, in ripping-up the bowels of those who entertained 
 the faith." He calls it "the pauper-ripping reign." "She estab- 
 lished," he tells us, " an Inquisition more horrible than ever was 
 heard of in the world" [338]. "The Spanish Inquisition, from 
 its first establishment to its present hour, has not committed so 
 much cruelty as this ferocious Protestant apostate in one single year 
 of the forty-three years of her reign " [339]. " Even the massacre 
 of St. Bartholomew was nothing when fairly compared with the 
 butcheries and other cruelties of the reign of this Protestant Queen 
 of England. Yes, a mere nothing!" [269]. As the result of 
 this reign, Cobbett adds — " Thus was the nation heavily taxed, 
 afflicted with war, and afflicted with pestilence ; thousands upon 
 thousands of English people destroyed, or ruined, or rendered 
 miserable, merely to gratify this proud and malignant woman, who 
 thought that she could never be safe until all the world joined in 
 her flagrant apostacy [248]. 
 
 That Cobbett should indulge in such extravagantly abusive 
 language, based on falsehoods, is not to be wondered at, for "it 
 was his nature to." That he should deliberately contradict his 
 previously expressed opinions of the Roman Church, her Priests, 
 the Jesuits, Monks and Nuns and the Inquisition, and undertake 
 his unsavoury task, doubtless " for a valuable consideration," is 
 clearly accounted for. But that Roman Priests and educated 
 Englishmen should deliberately endorse his ribald falsehoods at the 
 present day, is to say the least of it, a short-sighted policy, and 
 recoils on themselves. 
 
 * * * "At what ease 
 Might corrupt minds, procure knaves as corrupt 
 To swear against you ? Such things have been done. 
 You are potently opposed, and with a malice 
 Of as great size." 
 
 Henry VIII., Act V., Scene 5. 
 
 On the other hand, of Queen Mary, Cobbett is most fulsome 
 in his praise. He describes her as " one of the most virtuous of 
 human beings," " the honest and sincere," " the virtuous, the 
 patriotic, the calumniated Mary." " Her zeal was equal to her 
 
42 
 
 sincerity." He describes her as "the just, the good, but singulai'ly 
 unfortunate Queen," "whom artful knaves have taught generations 
 of thoughtless people to call ' the lloody.' " " We still have the 
 injustice, or the folly, to call her the ' lloody Queen Mary/ all 
 whose excellent qualities, all whose exalted virtues, all her piety, 
 charity, generosity, sacred adherence to her faith and her word, all 
 her gratitude, and even those feelings of anxiety for the greatness 
 and honour of England, which feelings hastened her to her grave, 
 all this, in which she was never equalled by any sovereign that sat 
 on the English throne, Alfred alone excepted, whose religion she 
 sought to re-establish for ever; all these are to pass for nothing, 
 and we are to call her the 'lloody' Mary, because it suits the views 
 of those who fatten on the spoils of that Church, which never 
 suffered Englishmen to bear the odious and debasing name of 
 pauper." "What queen, what sovereign, ever took more care of 
 the glory of a people?" Cobbett thus apologizes for Mary's 
 cruelties : — " The law should tolerate but one religion, or it should 
 know nothing at all about the matter. The Catholic code was 
 consistent. It said there was but one true religion, and it punished 
 as offenders those who dared openly to profess any opinion contrary 
 to that religion." This at least is candid. " Her motive was to 
 put an end to the propagation amongst her people of errors which 
 she deemed destructive of her own creed." "That which had been 
 law for so long a period was now to be law again, so that here was 
 nothing new, at any rate." He tells us, "The unfortunate Mary 
 expired in the sixth year of her reign, leaving to her sister and suc- 
 cessor the example of fidelity, sincerity, patience, resignation, 
 generosity, gratitude and purity of thought, word and deed ; an 
 example, however, which in every particular that sister and suc- 
 cessor took special care not to follow." And Cobbett, we are now 
 told, was a Protestant ! As to the cruelties which lie at the door of 
 her reign, Cobbett says : — " For every drop of blood Mary shed, 
 Elizabeth shed a pint." And he falsely asserts that " Marys victims 
 were conspirators against, or most audacious insulters of, the royal 
 authority and the person of the Queen." And he adds : — "And 
 observe and never forget, that Catholics, where they inflicted 
 punishments, inflicted them on the ground that the offenders had 
 
43 
 
 departed from the faith in which they had been bred, and which 
 they had professed ; whereas the Protestant punishments have 
 been inflicted on men because they refused to depart from the 
 faith in which they had been bred, and which they had professed 
 all their lives." " Let it never be forgotten that the punishments 
 in Smithfield were for the purpose of reclaiming ; for the purpose 
 of making examples of a few, who set at nought the religion of 
 their fathers, and that in which they themselves had been born." 
 Who does not trace in all this the suggestions of a Jesuit ? How 
 Cobbett must have laughed in his sleeve when he pocketed the 
 bribe;* and Roman Priests are not ashamed to make Cobbett's 
 book a ready tool to convey the ribaldry to which they are ashamed 
 to attach their own names. 
 
 We have another indication that Cobbett's prompter was a 
 Jesuit priest. What responsibility attaches to the cruel persecu- 
 tions under Mary's reign, is thrown exclusively on the Queenj not 
 one hint is made as to her priestly advisers, Bonner, Bishop of 
 London, and Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, both relentless per- 
 secutors. They no doubt were her advisers. Their advice might 
 have had some weight with Mary had they been inclined to mercy 
 and lenity. But it did not suit the Jesuit prompter to bring dis- 
 credit on "the Church," so Mary is made the scape-goat. Judging 
 from his previous writings Cobbett had no love or respect for 
 priests. Mary was a devout " Papist," and no doubt acted under 
 the firm conviction that she was doing God service. She and her 
 advisers were faithfully and zealously carrying out the recognized 
 principles of the Roman Church. The cruel " Six Articles Act," 
 passed under the reign of Henry VHL, was revived, under which 
 all those who denied the monstrous dogma of Transubstantiation 
 were ordered to be roasted alive, and on the denial of other Romish 
 practices, such as compulsory private confession to a priest, the 
 celibacy of the priesthood, &c., were to be treated as felons, their 
 goods confiscated and to be delivered over to the executioner ; and 
 
 * There is no positive evidence of a pecuniary bribe, and not likely to 
 be. But what motive could have induced Cobbett, other than a bribe, to 
 unsay all he had before said of the Roman Church, and to attack the 
 Church of England, of which he professed to be a member ? 
 
44 
 
 the Statutes of Richard II.j Henry IV., and Henry V. were revived, 
 committing so-called heretics to the flames. Whether the Queen 
 was personally responsible, or her Bishops, for these cruel acts, the 
 adherents of the Roman Church do not seem to be agreed. An 
 anxious desire of some is exhibited to shield the Queen ; while 
 Charles Butler, Esq., a zealous lay Romanist, says*: — 
 
 " There appears reason to think that Mary's bishops in general 
 did not promote the persecutions. Little blame seems imputable 
 to Cardinal Pole or Bishop Tunstal ; more is chargeable to Gardiner; 
 the greatest part of the odium fell on Bonner. Dr. Lingard [the 
 Romish historian and priest] suggests some observations which, 
 he thinks, render it very probable that neither Bishops Gardiner nor 
 Bonner were quite so guilty as they have been represented." 
 
 That the burnings took place under Papal rule is admitted. Who, 
 then, was responsible ? Mary and her bishops conformed strictly to 
 the established practice of the Roman Church. 
 
 The reaction, under Elizabeth, the result of these cruel persecu- 
 tions under Mary's reign, was a natural consequence, and needed 
 no pressure from without to confirm the emancipation from Papal 
 authority effected by Henry VIII., and the Reformation under 
 Edward VI. 
 
 '* Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 207. London, 1825. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 Henry VIII .j Edward VI. and Mary. 
 
 "If we live thus tamely 
 To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet, 
 Farewell nobility." 
 
 Henry VIII., Act Hi., Scene ii. 
 
 " He's a rank weed, 
 And we must root him out." 
 
 Act v.. Scene i. 
 
 Before I proceed with my observations on the reign of Eliza- 
 beth, and her Penal Laws, I propose to pass in review a few 
 incidents in the reigns of Henry, Edward, and Mary, that we 
 may thoroughly appreciate the genius of the Reformation. 
 
 The reign of Henry VIII. formed one of the most important 
 eras in the history of this nation. I pass over the virulent abuse 
 heaped on Henry, while I record a few facts for which England is 
 indebted to that monarch and his parliament. The King was a 
 Reformer, but the Reformations effected by him were principally 
 political and social. It was a revolution of astonishing boldness, 
 carried out by a series of Acts of Parliament passed by members 
 exclusively of the Roman Catholic religion as then professed in 
 England. The hand of God directed the issues. These political 
 and social reforms cleared the ground for the reception of the 
 Reformation in religion which followed. 
 
 Christianity was planted in Britain in the second century, and 
 preserved, to a great extent, its original purity and simplicity until 
 the first papal aggression, which took place in the beginning of the 
 seventh century, when the Monk Austin set foot on our shores. 
 His mission was professedly to convert the heathen Saxons ; but it 
 was soon seen that he had further designs. 
 
46 
 
 At his interview with " many of the most learned divines of the 
 British Church," particularly from the "most noble college of 
 Bangor," the ambitious views of Austin were soon developed, 
 namely, to subjugate the English Church to the authority of 
 Gregory I., the then Bishop of Rome. This purpose was firmly 
 resisted. The British clergy refused to have Austin as their Arch- 
 bishop, or to recognize the authority of the Bishop of Rome. The 
 haughty monk thereupon threatened them, and declared that they 
 should suffer the vengeance of death, which threat was soon after 
 realized. Twelve hundred ecclesiastics of Bangor were slaughtered. 
 This was the tragic result of the first mission of Rome to this 
 country. Austin established his See at Canterbury, acknowledging 
 no other authority than the Bishop of Rome. To borrow the words 
 of the poet Horace : — 
 
 " Hoc fonte derivata clades 
 In patriam populumque fluxit." 
 " Hence the contagion first began, 
 And reached our blood, and stained our shores." 
 
 It is not necessary here to enter on the province of controversy ; 
 but I may be permitted to add that after a most anxious investiga- 
 tion of ecclesiastical writers of the first five centuries, called the 
 Fathers, I cannot discover that there was any real difference on 
 fundamental principles between the faith held by the Christian 
 Churches, even that of Rome, and the profession of faith of the 
 present Anglican Church, and that no Church in those days pro- 
 fessed or taught any of the articles of faith now embodied in the 
 Roman Creed first published in the year 1564, amended in 1870 by 
 adding Supremacy and Infallibility of the Pope, out of which Creed 
 they now declare there is no salvation. Although, from the days of 
 Austin until the time of the Reformation, the various developments 
 of doctrine as they emanated from Rome were, more or less, tacitly 
 adopted by the Anglican Church, yet for several centuries after this 
 first "Papal aggression," the Church in England remained an 
 independent Church. From the days of William " The Conqueror " 
 to Henry VIII., the contention between the two Churches was not 
 one of doctrine, but of authority. The questions were who should 
 rule the Church ? Who should nominate Bishops — the King or 
 
47 
 
 Pope ? Had a foreign priest the right to exact a large revenue 
 from this country ? The importance of these questions may be 
 readily conceived. Papal encroachments were vehemently resisted ; 
 and this was the ultimate "head and front" of Henry VHI.'s 
 offence — the restoration of the Church in England to her primitive 
 independence, falsely called a schism, and thus depriving the 
 Pope of his illegal spoils. William I. asserted his independence 
 of Rome. " He never," he said, " paid to the Bishop of Rome, nor 
 would he pay him, homage ; nor could he find that any of his 
 predecessors had done so ; and he declared, at the same time, that 
 none of the Bishops of his realm should obey the mandates of the 
 Bishop of Rome." Nothing was transacted in the Church in 
 England but by the King's sanction, and he forbade his subjects to 
 receive their "Order" as priests from foreign authority, or to 
 acknowledge it without his permission. His successor, William 
 Ruf us, in like manner prohibited all appeals to Rome as " unheard of 
 in the kingdom," and " altogether contrary to its usages." 
 
 The weakness and superstition of Henry II. and of John gave the 
 Pope an unconstitutional ascendancy in England. Hume graphi- 
 cally describes the awful results of the interdict during the reign of 
 Xing John. Edward I., however, passed several Statutes depriving 
 the Pope of his usurped powers, and further declared that bishoprics, 
 "benefices, &c., belonged to the Crown, being endowed by the King 
 and people of England, and he prohibited all presentments and 
 collections of fines, fees, &c., by the Bishop of Rome. Edward III. 
 confirmed these rights of the Crown. The Act 25 Edward III., 
 ■c. iv., declared " that the Holy Church was founded in a state of 
 prelacy in the kingdom of England by the King and his progenitors, 
 and by the Courts, Barons and Nobles of this kingdom and their 
 ancestors, for themselves and their people, conformable to the law 
 of God." By another Statute (38 Edward III., c. i.), all appeals to 
 Rome were prohibited. Richard II. passed Acts to the same effect.* 
 It was solemnly declared that the Crown of England was, has been, 
 and should be free of subjection to the Bishop of Rome. The 
 Cistercian monks, notwithstanding, procured Bulls of Dispensation 
 
 * 3 Rich. II., c. iii. ;' 12 Rich. II., c. xv. ; and 16 Richard II., c. v. 
 
48 
 
 from Rome, and accordingly Henry IV. passed Acts* prohibiting 
 the publication of Papal Bulls, &c. in this country, which prohibi- 
 tion was renewed by Henry V. (4 Henry V., c. iv.). It was during 
 the reign of Henry II. that the arrogance of the priests reached its 
 height ; placing themselves, indeed, above all civil control. The 
 contest resulted in the murder of Thomas a Becket and the humilia- 
 tion of the King. Hume describes the cruel exactions of the 
 Bishop of Rome, when he temporarily gained the ascendancy. The 
 revenue the Pope derived from England at times exceeded the 
 revenue derived by the Crown from the national taxes. And 
 Matthew Paris tells us, the Archbishop of York during the reign of 
 Henry I. paid to the Pope ;^io,ooo for his pallium — an immense 
 sum in those days. When Henry VIII. ascended the throne Papal 
 abuses were rife. The Pope practically controlled all ecclesiastical 
 affairs. The Canon Law of Rome was in full force in this country, 
 which vested in the Pope plenary powers, among others to absolve 
 subjects from their oaths of allegiance. Cranmer drew up a state- 
 ment of this Canon Law to submit to the King.f It is important 
 to record here two of the provisions of this Law. The first was, 
 and is, " The Bishop of Rome may be judged by none, but of God 
 only ; for although he neither regard his own salvation nor any 
 man's else, but draw down with him innumerable people to hell, 
 yet may no mortal man in this world reprehend him ; for, so much 
 as he is called God, he may not be judged by man, for God may be 
 judged by no man, unless by chance he be convicted of declining 
 from the faith." This and the next extract are found in Rome's 
 Canon Law at the present day. The other passage is the Decree 
 of Pope Boniface VIII. : " "We decree, say and define, that it is 
 absolutely necessary to salvation for every human creature to be 
 subject to the Bishop of Rome." The late Dr. "Wiseman (Cardinal) 
 stated that the establishment of a Papal Hierarchy, in place of 
 Vicars Apostolic, was necessary to give effect to this Canon Law in 
 this country ; and it is recommended by Dr. Manning to be studied 
 in our Universities. One of the first acts of Henry VIII. was to 
 declare that this Canon Law had no authority in England. 
 
 * 2 Henry I'V,, u. 14; 7 Henry I'V., c. viii, 
 
 f See Cramncr's Remains, by Jenkins. Appendix, Oxford, 1833. 
 
49 
 
 The reforms effected by Henry VIII. were constitutionally 
 carried out by a series of Acts of Parliament. Priests had asserted 
 a complete immunity from the administration of justice. They 
 placed themselves above the law. Beyond this, every church was 
 a sanctuary of refuge, and if a thief or murderer could get within 
 the line of protection the officers of justice were set at naught. 
 All these privileges Henry swept away. Again, the country was 
 overrun with monasteries and like establishments of enormous 
 wealth. The monks held a great part of the land, derived 
 principally from death-bed bequests, thus depriving the legitimate 
 heir of his right. They toiled not, but reaped plenteously. From 
 early times this evil weighed heavily on the resources of the 
 nation, and several confiscations took place even under William the 
 Conqueror. He took from the Abbey of St. Alban's all the 
 revenues "which lay between Barnet and London Stone." King 
 John sequestered eighty-one priories. In 1360 the popular voice 
 was raised against monasteries. WyclifE denounced their existence 
 as intolerable. The good Bishop Grosseteste inveighed against the 
 vices of the monks. In 1400 the House of Commons petitioned 
 Henry IV. for the secularization of monastic properties, and, to 
 appease the public indignation, more than one hundred monasteries 
 were suppressed, and their possessions given to the king and his 
 heirs. I say nothing of the vices practised in these establishments, 
 for great efforts have lately been made to clear them of 
 this stigma.* It is to be hoped that the reports of Henry's 
 Commissioners of inspection were exaggerations. As a fact, how- 
 ever, these inspections were authorized by Papal Bulls. In 1489, 
 at the instigation of Cardinal Morton, Innocent VIII. directed a 
 general investigation throughout England into the conduct of 
 monasteries, with powers to correct and punish. Under the 
 authority of another Bull in ijn, another attempt was made to 
 reform these institutions. Again, under another Bull (June 20th, 
 1519), Cardinal "Wolsey tried to effect a reformation, but failed; 
 and again Clement VII., by a Bull in 1,524, authorized Wolsey to 
 
 * See Father Gasquet's Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries. London, 
 1889. 
 
 4 
 
5° 
 
 suppress several minor establishments, under which he confiscated 
 the property of upwards of forty monasteries. At length, in i535> 
 Henry issued his commission under the authority of an Act of 
 Parliament. The result was the " Black Book," which, when laid 
 before Parliament, raised a universal cry of "Down with them." 
 The entire confiscation of monastic properties was decreed by Acts 
 of Parliament. After careful investigation I cannot find that the 
 Bishops or beneficed clergy raised any protest against this 
 proceeding. If the proceedings were justified by the circumstances 
 of the case, it is of little consequence what became of the 
 property ; lay Romanists profited by the spoils. All the persons 
 acting in this transaction professed the Roman Catholic faith. Of 
 the Parliament that passed the Act, that the lands and chattels 
 should be placed at the disposal of the King, the House of Lords 
 consisted (which it is worth repeating) of forty-six Temporal Peers, 
 two Archbishops, sixteen Bishops, two Guardians of Spiritualities, 
 twenty-six Abbots, and two Priors ; all members of the Romish 
 Church.* It was, in fact, Romanists robbing Papists — an example 
 since followed by every " Catholic" nation in Europe. The same 
 spoliation took place in Ireland, then independent of England, 
 under the authority of a Parliament in Dublin exclusively Roman 
 Catholic. But we have further to record a circumstance overlooked 
 by those who clamour for a restitution of this property to their 
 Church as an unlawful confiscation. It must be borne in mind 
 that no Church property, but only monastic, was confiscated, 
 for the Bishops and secular clergy still retained their sees and 
 benefices, and their emoluments ; and all save Fisher, Bishop of 
 Rochester,! took the oath of allegiance to the King in ecclesiastical 
 
 * See Hook's Lives of the Archbishops, vol. vii., p. 40. London, 1868. 
 
 f With regard to Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, there is a remarkable 
 article in the November number, 1889, of the Nineteenth Century, p. 883, by 
 Mr. W. E. Gladstone, m.p., wherein is given a passage taken from Sander's 
 work, De Origine ac Progressu Schismatis A nglicani, printed at Rome, 1610 
 (pp. 106, 107), representing Bishop Fisher as having persuaded others to 
 take the oath of allegiance to the King in matters ecclesiastical and 
 spiritual. I give a literal translation of the passage : " By this, I say, and 
 many other reasons being influenced and deceived [the Bishop of] 
 Rochester (which act he afterwards very frequently and most sorely 
 
6>- 
 
 matters, and renounced that of the Pope. The same oath was 
 taken by every Irish Bishop and Noble. Queen Mary, by her 
 Parliament, repealed all the Acts passed in Henry's reign which 
 had abrogated the authority of the Pope, and thus restored all the 
 rites and ceremonies of the Roman Church set aside by Edward 
 VI., her predecessor. The Pope's power and supremacy were 
 restored, but the so-called "plundered" property was retained by 
 the holders. Neither the Lords nor Commons would concede 
 anything to the Pope until he confirmed the. titles acquired by them 
 under the confiscations. The Act of Parliament (i and 2 Phil, and 
 Mary, c. 8) which restored the Pope's power, confirmed their 
 titles, and freed them from all ecclesiastical censure. But this was 
 not deemed sufficient. To hold such properties was accounted a 
 mortal sin. The sanction of the Pope was required. Accordingly 
 a bargain was struck between the Pope and the Parliament. 
 Romanists ignominiously forfeited their independence of the Pope ; 
 and Pope Paul, on his part, under the authority of a Bull, through 
 Cardinal Pole, ratified the bargain and gave the "plunderers " dis- 
 pensation for their alleged iniquities, with a plenary absolution and 
 confirmation of all their titles. The Roman Catholic Historian, 
 Dodd,* says that Parliament was not satisfied with the general 
 
 deplored) judging that he ought to yield to the immediate necessity, 
 persuaded the rest, who as yet were more stedfast in Christ (for most had 
 by this time adhered to the Archbishops Cranmer and Hugh, the latter 
 of York, the former of Canterbury, who were both promoting the affair of 
 the King), that with the aforesaid exception at least (viz. as far as the word 
 of God would permit) they should swear obedience to the King in causes 
 ecclesiastical and spiritual. Of which act Rochester afterwards so bitterly 
 repented, that publicly accusing himself he declared, that it was his, that 
 is the Bishop's office, rather to have instructed the rest, not with a doubtful 
 exception, but openly and in express words, what the word of God per- 
 mitted, and what it forbade, to prevent others from incurring harm ; nor did 
 he ever afterwards appear to himself to have expiated this sin till he had 
 washed the stain away with his own blood." From this it may fairly be 
 presumed that Fisher did take the oath, before he endeavoured to persuade 
 others to do so. The writer of the article points out the fact that 
 M. Bridgett, s. j., in his Life of B. Fisher (Burns and Dates, 1888), and also 
 Mr. David Lewis in his translation of Sander's book, both omit this passage 
 * Church History, vol. ii., p. 115. Brussels, 1789. 
 
 4* 
 
5^ 
 
 Bull of dispensation, but insisted on a special Bull to meet their 
 peculiar case, which was granted. The operation of the Bull 
 extended to Ireland, where similar confiscations had taken place 
 under an Irish Parliament in Dublin, when independent of 
 England. Romanists were there also robbing Papists.* Thus, 
 then, was one of the greatest social reforms ever effected in this 
 country brought about by Henry VIII. Every " Catholic " nation 
 has tardily followed the example. Henry was a pioneer in the 
 great work. 
 
 Another evil under which the country suffered was that enormous 
 sums of money were annually carried out of the country to Rome, 
 in the shape of Peter's Pence, first-fruits, annates, fees on appoint- 
 ment of Bishops, and in causes carried to the appellate jurisdiction 
 of Rome. 
 
 Every Archbishop paid an enormous fee for his Pallium, or 
 ensign of ofiice, an exaction made by Popes in contravention of a 
 decree of Pope Gregory I., who forbade " giving anything for the 
 Pallium."t 
 
 All beneficed clergy paid one-third of their incomes to the Pope, 
 and licensed absentees one-half. Some Priests held as many as 
 eight livings, and carried on secular trades. Many benefices were 
 held by Italians, who could not speak our language. Matthew 
 Paris and FleuryJ give sad descriptions of the result of these Papal 
 extortions. 
 
 Matthew Paris states one of the grievances thus : " Also it is 
 aggrieved in general taxes, collected and imposed without the consent 
 and will of the King, against the appeal and opposition of the King's 
 commissioners of all England." Fleury says : "England, fatigued 
 and exhausted by Rome's exactions, began to speak and complain, 
 like Balaam's ass overpowered with blows." He further tells us 
 that : " The Pope, annoyed at the firmness with which the Arch- 
 
 * For further authorities, see Strype's Eccl. Mem., vol. iii., p. 159. 
 London, 1721. For the Bull, see page 60 ; also Harleian Miscellany, vol. ii., 
 pp. 267-280. London, i8ii ; and Wilkins' Concilia, iv. 202. 
 
 f Lahb. et Coss. Condi., Tom. v., col. 1199. Paris, 1671. 
 
 X Matt. Paris, Hist. Aug., p. 716, edit. 1640. Fleury, Hist. Eccl., Liv. 82. 
 Nismes, 1779. 
 
53 
 
 bishop Senal refused to comply to confer the best benefices of the 
 Church on unworthy and unknown Italians, caused him to be 
 excommunicated by Bell, Book, and Candle, in order to intimidate 
 others by this degrading censure." And Matthew Paris adds 
 (p. 703) that " England offered to the Popes a rich prize, a golden 
 harvest" ; it was to them, as Innocent IV. testified, "a very garden 
 of delights, an inexhaustible well." Henry and his Parliament 
 swept cleanly away all these abuses. 
 
 The first step taken by Henry, in order to bring about a great 
 social and political reform, was in 1 J29 (and this was four years 
 before he married Anne Boleyn, on which event Cobbett and 
 Romanists base all their accusations against Henry), to pass an 
 Act (21 Henry VIII., c. 13) by which all spiritual persons were 
 debarred from holding pluralities of livings, and from taking lands 
 to farm, or carrying on secular trades, such as tanning, brewing, &c. 
 All licences from Rome for non-residence were declared illegal, 
 and all persons procuring the same were to be fined. We see the 
 hand of God in all this, preparing the way for the Reformation 
 which followed. In the twenty-third year of his reign, an Act 
 was passed (c. 12) prohibiting appeals to the Court of Rome. By 
 this Act the King's Courts were by ancient and acknowledged 
 custom declared to be the only sources of jurisdiction. It was 
 declared that whosoever procured from the See of Rome any 
 appeals, processes, sentences, &c., should incur forfeiture of prae- 
 munire, under an Act passed by Richard II (16 Rich. II., c. 3), 
 By another Act (cap. 12) "for the submission of the clergy and 
 restraint of appeals," it was declared that the clergy should not 
 enact any constitutions or ordinances without the King's assent ; 
 and all Convocations should be assembled only by the King's writ, 
 and all appeals in spiritual matters should be regulated according 
 to the statute last-mentioned. By the Act (c. 20) all fees thereto- 
 fore payable to the Bishop of Rome on the appointment of Bishops, 
 and for Bulls, Palliums, &c., were swept away, and it was declared 
 that no man should be presented for the dignity of an Archbishop, or 
 Bishop, by the Pope, nor annates or first-fruits should be paid to him. 
 This Act was passed on a petition of the Convocation of Bishops 
 and Clergy, which concluded thus : " May it please your Highness 
 
54 
 
 to ordain in this present Parliament that the obedience of your 
 Highness and of the people be withdrawn from the See of Rome."* 
 This petition came from Roman Catholic Prelates and clergy 
 themselves, because the oppression was so great in their case, from 
 which Henry relieved them. The next Act (cap. 2 1), after enumer- 
 ating a long list of Papal exactions " in great numbers heretofore 
 practised and obtained, otherwise than by the laws and customs of 
 the realm, the specialities thereof being over long and large in 
 number, and too tedious particularly to be inserted j" and all these, 
 continues the preamble of the- Act " set up by a person abusing and 
 beguiling the King's subjects, pretending that he hath power to 
 dispense with all human laws and customs of all realms, to the 
 great derogation of the Imperial crown and authority,' \— all these 
 exactions the Act swept away, and declared that no impositions 
 were to be paid to the Bishop of Rome ; but it must be specially 
 remarked that it was this Act which declared that " no article 
 of the established religion of the Catholic faith of Christendom ' ' 
 was to be in consequence altered. In the following year, 1534, 
 the ever-memorable Act (26 Henry VIII., c. 1) was passed declaring, 
 what the preamble of the Act stated had been already recognized 
 by the clergy of the realm in their Convocations, that the King was, 
 and his heirs and successors should be, the head of the Church of 
 England under Christ. The oath of allegiance to the King, 
 renouncing that of the Pope, was taken by every bishop except 
 Fisher of Rochester,! and by the beneficed clergy generally, and 
 by every Noble and other person in office under the Crown, 
 except by the Chancellor More. A similar Act of Parliament was 
 passed in Dublin, and the entire bench of Bishops and the leading 
 nobles took a similar oath of allegiance, renouncing the allegiance 
 of the Pope. In the following year Paul III. issued his Bull of 
 deposition against Henry VIII. He excommunicated him, and 
 anathematized him, interdicted the nation, and absolved his "subjects 
 from their oath of allegiance. To follow the wording of the Bull, 
 the Pope transferred the kingdom to any successful invader, and 
 prohibited all communications with the English monarch. He 
 
 * Strype's Memorials, vol. i., part ii., p. 158. London, 1721. 
 •)■ But see note ante, p. 50, note f . 
 
deprived the King of Christian burial, and consigned him, his 
 friends and adherents, to anathema and everlasting destruction, 
 and condemned him to everlasting damnation. He stigmatized 
 his posterity with illegitimacy and incapacity of succession to the 
 Crown, and delivered his partisans to slavery. The English clergy 
 he commanded to leave the kingdom, and admonished the nobility 
 to arm in rebellion. He annulled every treaty between Henry and 
 other Princes, and enjoined the clergy to publish the excommuni- 
 cation by bell, book, and candle. I have set out this extraordinary 
 Bull in a translation in Appendix A. The Pope having thus 
 relieved his inflated " wind-bag," Henry and his Parliament at once 
 passed an Act declaring all Papal Bulls in this country void. Not 
 one single bishop, priest, or English subject obeyed the Pope's Bull. 
 Henry might well have anticipated the words of Shakespeare : — 
 
 " His cursings and his blessings 
 Touch me alike ; they 're breath I not believe in.'' 
 
 Henry VIII., Act ii., Scene ii. 
 
 Such, then, were some of the reforms carried out under the firm 
 and judicious guidance of Henry VIII., and his Parliament. We 
 clearly trace the hand of God in all this, preparing the field, and 
 making it ready for the reception of the good seed of the Reforma- 
 tion; and, what was more marvellous, that God should have 
 selected as His instrument a king to whom the Pope gave the title 
 "Defender of the Faith," whose Parliament passed an Act con- 
 signing to the stake, to be burnt alive, all who denied the Roman 
 doctrine of Transubstantiation, and condemned as felons all who 
 opposed confession to a Priest, or the celibacy of the clergy, com- 
 munion in one kind, and other Romish practices ! 
 
 It was the Rev. J. Mendham who observed that with the 
 vindication of the character of Henry VIII., members of the Re- 
 formed Church have little concern. Our opponents — the members 
 of the Unreformed Church, with whom he, as little as with the 
 Reformers, is a favourite — would gladly impose on us the necessity 
 of his defence. But in one respect, his effectual renunciation of 
 the usurped authority of the Papal See and its chief Bishop, that 
 which constituted his main, if not only, offence in the eyes of 
 Roman Catholics, the members of the Reformed Church do, and 
 
i6 
 
 always will, defend him ; for the rest he is more their client. He 
 wanted to establish a Royal supremacy as absolute and persecuting 
 as the purely ecclesiastical supremacy he was rejecting ; but he 
 was in reality making loopholes for liberty and the Reformation 
 which followed. Henry weeded the field, and rooted out the huge 
 fungus that poisoned the soil, the Upas-tree that infected the air. 
 Edward ploughed the ground and sowed the seed ; Mary harrowed 
 the soil and fertilized it with the blood of our martyrs ; and 
 Elizabeth reaped a golden harvest. 
 
 We thus account for the hatred exhibited towards Henry VIII., 
 and the bitter invectives heaped on him by Cobbett and members 
 of the Roman Church at the present day ; but they find no 
 fault with him for his persecutions of those who refused to accept 
 Romish dogmas enforced by the infamous " Six Articles Act." 
 
 Edward VI. succeeded his father in 1546. The Pope's au- 
 thority had been banished, and with it many ecclesiastical abuses. 
 
 Cobbett's seventh Letter is more specially devoted to the aliuse 
 of the Reformation and the Reformers during the reign of Edward 
 VI. To call it a history of that period would be ludicrously 
 absurd. The process of calmly analyzing statements with the 
 view of extracting truths, of separating the faults of actors from 
 the goodness of the cause in which they acted, of writing without 
 extenuation on the one hand, or exaggeration on the other, would 
 not suit Cobbett's object, even if he had been possessed of mental 
 capacity sufficient (presuming, of course, he had not accepted a 
 bribe) for the task. We have seen the opinion of Dr. Hook, Dean 
 of Chichester, in his Lives of the Archbishops of Canterhury, that 
 the so-called history is a series of barefaced lying, where every 
 refuted fact is asserted as an indisputable historical statement. 
 To place a few facts, so distorted and misrepresented as to bear 
 the least possible resemblance to truth, in the midst of an over- 
 whelming verbiage of sneers, sarcasms, ribaldry, and coarse 
 vulgarity, was more consonant with his feelings and more likely to 
 do mischief with the uneducated mass. Accordingly we find the 
 first fourteen paragraphs of this chapter little more than an 
 unbroken tirade of low scurrility, and which he introduced with 
 the solemn declaration that " the Reformation was engendered 
 
57 
 
 in beastly lust, brought forth in hypocrisy and perfidy, and 
 cherished and fed by plunder, devastation, and by rivers of innocent 
 English and Irish blood " [192]. " There was not a man among 
 them [the Reformers] whose acts did not merit a halter " [200]. 
 The vials of Cobbett's wrath are specially poured on the devoted 
 head of the youthful King and his advisers. He was the first Pro- 
 testant monarch ; the King under whom a reformation of doctrine 
 was first introduced in our Church. But it was the same Church 
 which continued to exist j the same fundamental doctrines, the 
 characteristics of Christian principles, embodied in the only known 
 Christian creeds (for be it ever remembered that Rome's present 
 creed was not published for nearly twenty years after, viz. in 1^64), 
 were retained, and the authority of the first four General Councils 
 was fully acknowledged ; and the same canon of Scripture as then 
 received by the Roman Church. The Apocryphal Books were first 
 admitted into the Roman code in 1546. "I make not the least 
 doubt in the world," observed Bramhall, " but that the Church of 
 England before the Reformation, and the Church of England after 
 the Reformation, are as much the same Church as a garden before 
 it is weeded and after it is weeded is the same garden, or a vine 
 before it is pruned and after it is pruned and freed from the 
 luxuriant branches is one and the same vine." Such a Church 
 had an undoubted right to reform itself. The reformation in 
 religion set in in i J48. All images were directed to be removed 
 from churches ; the doctrine of Transubstantiation and the mass, 
 as also private masses, and the law against priestly marriages, 
 were abolished 3 prayers to the Virgin and Saints expunged ; the 
 free use of the Scriptures was allowed to all ; the service of the 
 Church was conducted in the English language ; Purgatory was 
 discarded, and Indulgences, and Rome's trafficking in souls- 
 Masses for the dead — were prohibited. All this was, no doubt, very 
 galling to the Popish priesthood, and Edward, and his chief adviser, 
 Cranmer, have, therefore, came in for their share of abuse. But 
 in these reforms, and in the necessary composition of a revised 
 Liturgy, "they proceeded," says Hume (cap. 34, a.d. 1549), "with 
 moderation in the delicate undertaking ; they retained as much of 
 the Mass as the Reformers would permit ; they indulged nothing 
 
58 
 
 in the spirit of contradiction, which so naturally takes place in all 
 great innovations." 
 
 To style Edward, on every occasion, "a Saint," is of course 
 intended by Cobbett for sarcasm. It is not necessary for the 
 cause of the Reformation that he should really be so. Nor will 
 I attempt to deny that he and his advisers and " Protectors" might 
 be tainted with the spirit of the Church which they were then 
 reforming. The predominant vice was the spirit of persecution. 
 It would be unreasonable to expect that the old leaven could be at 
 once eradicated. They were all fallible men. Hume sums up his 
 chapter on this reign with the following striking passage : — 
 
 " All the English historians dwell with pleasure on the excellent 
 qualities of this young Prince, whom the flattering promises of 
 hope, joined to many real virtues, had made an object of tender 
 affection to the public. He possessed mildness of disposition, 
 application to study and business, a capacity to learn and judge, 
 and an attachment to equity and justice. He seems only to have 
 contracted, from his education, and from the genius of the age in 
 which he lived, too much of a narrow prepossession in matters of 
 religion which made him incline to bigotry and persecution. But 
 as the bigotry of the Protestants, less governed by priests, lies 
 under more restraints than that of [Roman] Catholics, the effects 
 of this malignant quality were less to be apprehended, if a longer 
 life had been granted to young Edward." 
 
 And here it is interesting to note that in the edition of the 
 so-called Martyrs of the i6th and lyth Centuries, -puhlished with 
 the imprimatur of Cardinal Manning (1887), where w^e have a 
 detailed list of those who suffered under the reigns of Henry, 
 Elizabeth, and James I., there is not one instance given under 
 Edward. 
 
 Fuller, in his Church History (Book vii. s. i), wrote: — "No 
 pen passeth by him without praising him, though none praising 
 him to his full deserts." 
 
 The difficulties of Edward's position were no doubt increased 
 by the fact that his "Protectors," the Executors appointed by his 
 father's will, sixteen in number, were a mixed body of Romanists 
 and Reformers. Separate and opposing influences were put in 
 
59 
 
 action. Though the Reformation was setting in, light and know- 
 ledge and an entire appreciation of truth did not come all at once, 
 by sudden inspiration. There were two other opposing elements 
 to complicate matters. There was a Reforming Archbishop, 
 Cranmer, and there was Bishop Gardiner, essentially Romish, 
 who strenuously opposed all change. In this reign the fanatic 
 Joan Bocher — known as Joan of Kent — was in 1550 burnt as a 
 heretic for denying the Incarnation of Christ of the Virgin Mary, 
 and Van Paris suffered for a like offence. They were condemned 
 under an existing Act of Parliament (2 Henry IV., c. 15), passed in 
 Popish times. No one will attempt to justify these executions ; 
 but, on the other hand, how many have been massacred and burnt 
 by Papists for denying some Popish doctrine? The " Six Articles 
 Act" of Henry VIII. was repealed; why was not this Act also 
 repealed ? Stow informs us that two priests were " condemned 
 for the keeping of certain relics." The relic was an arm, bearing 
 on it an inscription that it belonged to one who " had suffered 
 martyrdom under King Henry VIII." * This was deemed treason. 
 But the old leaven of persecution had not been eradicated from the 
 system. In Mary's reign in 1555, John Barnard and John 
 Walshe were condemned by an order of the Privy Council for 
 carrying about the bones, as relics, of one Pigott (who had been 
 burnt for his religion), showing them to the people, "and per- 
 suading them to stand by their [the martyrs'] error." Bishops 
 Gardiner, Heath, and Day were imprisoned for various acts of 
 recusancy by Edward's Council. Gardiner actually called his 
 judges heretics. Bishop Tunstal, by reason of his forbearance 
 and moderation in his opposition to the Reformers, was respited 
 by Somerset, but when Northumberland gained the ascendency 
 he was thrown into prison ; Cranmer, however, opposed the Bill 
 of Attainder against him. Then again, we find that two chaplains 
 and three domestics of the Princess Mary were imprisoned for 
 celebrating and hearing Mass contrary to the order of the Privy 
 Council.t In the King's journal there is mention of one adult 
 
 * Annal., p. 594, col. ii. London. 1631. 
 
 t Dodd's Church History, Tierney's edition, 1839, App. xxx., pp. ccvi., 
 ccxxii. 
 
6o 
 
 and "two children" imprisoned for recusancy.* All these were 
 undoubtedly religious persecutions. But Bonner's imprisonment 
 was provoked by his insolent temper j and Tunstal had given 
 encouragement to a project for an insurrection. Some Ana- 
 baptists were put down by the Church Courts and a Royal 
 Commission ; but in this Romanists were associated with 
 Cranmer.f Hooper was imprisoned a short time for his persistent 
 opposition to the use of ecclesiastical vestments. :f These I believe 
 to be all the acts of persecution brought against the King and his 
 advisers, and a sad catalogue it reveals. It is as well to let the 
 worst be known and the just reprobation awarded ; but let these 
 acts, also, be compared with the blood-stained pages of con- 
 temporaneous history. Paul Sarpi, a Romanist, tells us that no less 
 than fifty thousand persons, in the Netherlands alone, were hanged, 
 beheaded, buried or burnt alive, on account of their reforming 
 principles. § Grotius^ a most trustworthy author, places the number 
 at nearly double.|| The massacre of the Huguenots amounted in a 
 few days to forty thousand.^ The " burnings" during Mary's reign 
 were a deep stain on the history of our country ; but then, as 
 Cobbett admits, " the Catholic [Romish] code was consistent. It 
 said that there was but one true religion, and it punished as 
 offenders those who dared openly to profess any opinion contrary 
 to that religion" [204J. " When we compare," says Dr. Hook, 
 "the legislation and the acts of the Government of Edward's 
 reign with those of Queen Mary, we cannot fail to admire the 
 mildness and leniency, comparatively speaking, of both Somerset 
 and Cranmer. The more credit is due to them because, for their 
 lenity, they were despised by their enemies and censured by their 
 friends."** But persecution is not the crime laid specially to the 
 
 * See Burnet's Collection, pt. ii., b. ii.' 
 f Strype's Eccl. Mem., b. ii., c. xv., p. 365. Edit. 1721. 
 J Collier's Eccl. Hist., pt. ii., b. iv., p. 295. Folio edition. 
 § Hist. Condi. Trid., lib. v., p. 335. Aug. Trin., 1620. 
 II Annul, ie Ret. Belg., lib. i., p. 17. Amst. 1658. 
 
 IT D'Avila, Civil Wars 0/ France, Eng. Tr., b. v., ann. 1572, p. 184. 
 London, 1678. 
 
 *■* Lives of the Archbishops, vol. ii., 2nd series, p. 234. London, 1868. 
 
6i 
 
 charge of Edward and his advisers. Dodd, the Roman Catholic 
 Historian, says that Edward was " apparently wholly taken up 
 with that project (the Reformation) ; he seemed not inclined to 
 shed blood on that account and therefore no sanguinary, but ouly 
 penal laws were executed upon such as stood off." * The general 
 charge brought by Cobbett is, that this " Reformation reign was 
 a reign of robbery and hypocrisy, without anything to be compared 
 with them, and anything in any country or in any age. Religion, 
 conscience, was always the pretext" [199]. "The Reformation 
 was not the work of virtue, of fanaticism, of error, of ambition, 
 but a love of plunder" [aoi]. 
 
 When we contemplate the work of devastation and plunder 
 laid at the door of Henry VHL, and the enormous wealth that 
 Cobbett himself states passed into his hands, what must have been 
 the aggregate wealth of the monasteries ? I am not aware that 
 the charge against Edward is that Church property was confiscated ; 
 nevertheless it is represented that the plunder acquired by Edward 
 in his short reign of seven years was beyond anything to be com- 
 pared, even in any country or in any age ! Cobbett, in the second 
 part of his book, gives a detailed list of the confiscated property 
 during Henry's reign, but in this reign of Edward he is very 
 general ; all he says is : " the old tyrant [Henry] had, in certain 
 cases, enabled his minions to rob the bishoprics." — Now this is 
 untrue, since property such as belonged to Bishops and secular 
 Priests was left intact, only monastic property was taken, nor do I 
 find any protest raised by the Bishops; on the contrary, they 
 assisted in passing the "Act of Confiscation" — "but now (con- 
 tinues Cobbett) there was a grand swoop at them. The Protector 
 took the lead, and his example was followed by others. They 
 took so much from one, so much from another, and some they 
 wholly suppressed, as that of Westminster, and took their estates 
 to themselves. There were many chantries (private property, to 
 all intents and purposes), /ree chapels, also private property, alms- 
 houses, hospitals, guilds, or fraternities, the property of which was 
 
 * Church History, Tierney's Edit., 1834, vol. ii., p. 49. 
 
62 
 
 as much private property as the funds of any Friendly Society now 
 are. All these became lati(ful plunder " [202]. 
 
 If it be as represented by Cobbett, the abuse arising from the 
 concentration of property in monks was sufficient justification for 
 the spoliation, and at this distance of time, and seeing that every 
 other Christian nation in Europe has followed the example, we 
 contemplate the act as one of sound political wisdom. And so, 
 no doubt, Cobbett thought, until he was hired to write down the 
 Reformation. But it is something new to be told that Cranmer 
 aided or abetted or took any interest in the plunder. He himself 
 was a considerable sufferer by the Act in Henry's reign.* In the 
 reign of Edward he opposed the grant of chantry lands passing to 
 the King ; he desired to have them preserved until the King came 
 of age, when he might with better judgment dispose them for the 
 maintenance of the poor clergy .f Both he and Ridley fell into 
 great displeasure " with those who governed for opposing as much 
 as they could, though to no effect, the spoil of the Church goods. "J 
 It was reserved, it appears, for Cobbett to make the discovery that 
 Archbishop Cranmer had an interest in the plunder. These 
 "monstrous effects" resulted from giving the "supremacy'' to a 
 child ! Well, there have been more than one boy Pope. But as our 
 kings disclaim any participation in the administration of eccle- 
 siastical rites and duties, the alleged monstrous effects had no 
 relation to the Reformation in religion. 
 
 To pass from general to specific charges, I propose to deal with 
 a few distorted facts. 
 
 The first misrepresentation we have to note is in paragraph 112, 
 affecting Henry VIII. rather than Edward, wherein Cobbett says 
 that " Queen Jane Seymour, in 1537, brought Henry a son, who 
 was afterwards King under the title of Edward VL, but that the 
 mother died in childbed, and had her body ripped up to preserve 
 the child." If true, what had that to do with the Reformation ? 
 
 * See Sirype's Cranmer, h. ii., ch.xxix., p. 281, fol. edit, and 37 Henry VIII., 
 c. xvi. 
 
 f Burnet's Hist, of the Reformation, part ii,, b. i., vol. ii., p. 72. Nare's 
 edit., 1830. 
 
 J See Strype's Cmnmer, b. iii., ch. 36, p. 455. 
 
63 
 
 The alleged event took place in essentially Popish times, when 
 Henry was a Romanist. But the calumny aimed, in fact, against 
 Henry, has been triumphantly refuted by the production of a letter, 
 which is now in the Cotton Library, written by Queen Jane to the 
 Council, giving them an account of the happy delivery. She did 
 not die until twelve days after the birth of Edward, and there is a 
 certificate in the same Library from her physicians of the state of the 
 Queen's health a few days before her death, which makes no 
 mention of this scandalous charge, the invention of the traitor 
 Sander, and copied by Sir Richard Baker in his Chronicles, and 
 from thence transferred to the pages of Cobbett. 
 
 Cobbett, speaking of the will of Henry VIIL, says [195]: — 
 " To carry this will into execution, and to govern the kingdom 
 until Edward, who was then ten years of age, should be eighteen ; 
 there were sixteen Executors appointed, amongst whom was 
 Seymour, Earl of Hertford, and the ' honest Cranmer.' " Now, he 
 might as well have added that these executors were some of them 
 Papists, and others inclined to Protestantism ; some of them 
 ecclesiastics, and others laymen ; so that King Henry (who him- 
 self lived and died a Roman Catholic) had given no definite idea 
 of his wishes, either as to the education of his son or the manage- 
 ment of his kingdom. The Executors were "to administer 
 the affairs of the kingdom as they should judge fit.'' Cobbett 
 might also have added that, at the King's death, the whole country 
 was in a transition state, disgusted with Popery, and yet not fully 
 resolved as to the nature and extent of the requisite change; con- 
 sequently, it is only natural to expect and to find variations, and 
 even real or apparent inconsistencies and faults, in the conduct 
 of good and conscientious leaders. The true Reformers were 
 cautious and honest men, and proceeded, step by step (as prudence 
 and good sense clearly required), according as their own religion 
 and political views became gradually clearer, and as the general 
 feeling of the people would support them. 
 
 "These sixteen worthies," says Cobbett, "began by taking, in 
 the most solemn manner, an oath to stand to and maintain the 
 last will of their master." Suppose that were so, what was there 
 wrong in such a proceeding ? " Their second act was to break thai 
 
6+ 
 
 oath, by making Hertford, who was a brother of Jane Seymour the 
 King's mother, Protector." How was this a violation of their 
 oath ? What more natural or more unavoidable than that one out 
 of the sixteen should become a kind of president or chief of this 
 council, and more especially governor of the young King ? And 
 who so proper a person as his nearest relative to be such governor ? 
 How could the whole sixteen act as governors of the King's 
 person ? How could the whole sixteen act as Protectors of the 
 Realm, although all might consult and unite in all important 
 measures ? 
 
 "The next step was to give new peerages to themselves." 
 This creation of new peers was only a fulfilment of the well- 
 known intention of Henry, postponed by the scruples of some of 
 the parties, but principally by the King's sickness, which resulted 
 in his death. 
 
 "The fourth, to award to the new peers grants of the public 
 money." The grant of money was a necessary consequence of the 
 creation, and the gratuitous act of the nation ; and, according to 
 Cobbett's own statement, public money was not the source, for he 
 says that chantries and free chapels (which were used for the grant) 
 were private property [202]. Moreover, the alienation of chantry 
 lands was principally effected in Henry's reign ; and when the 
 Bill for giving some of these lands to King Edward VI. was before 
 the Lords (a.d. 1549) Cranmer joined other Bishops in opposing it, 
 and himself voted against it. 
 
 " The fifth was to lay aside at the Coronation the ancient Eng- 
 lish custom of asking the people if they were willing to have and 
 obey the king." This assertion, if not actually in very words, is in 
 spirit and substance untrue. The form of Coronation of Edward VI., 
 as given in the collection of Records, by Burnet and Collier, shows 
 that the following words were used : " Will ye serve at this time 
 and give your goodwills and assents to the same consecration, 
 inunction, and coronation, as by your duty of allegiance ye be 
 bound to do? The people to answer — Yea, yea, yea. King Edward, 
 King Edward, King Edward." 
 
 The sixth violation of their oath by the Executors was, accord- 
 ing to Cobbett, "to attend at a solemn high mass." How was 
 
65 
 
 this any violation of their oath ?— and what other public religious 
 service could they have then attended— if they did attend any 
 service — the Roman Catholic ceremonial and religion then still 
 being national ? 
 
 The seventh violation of their oath was : " to begin a series of 
 acts for the total subversion of all that remained of the Catholic 
 religion in England, and for the effecting of all that Old Harry had 
 left uneffected in the way of plunder." How, again, was this any 
 violation of an oath? The Executors were "to administer the 
 affairs of the kingdom as they should judge fit." One would 
 suppose that to carry out all that "Old Harry" had left unfinished 
 in the way of ecclesiastical plunder (as Cobbett calls it) would be in 
 strict accordance with his wishes — " the cream had been taken off, 
 but there remained the skimmed milk of Church altars, chantries, 
 and guilds " [196]. " There was plunder remaining, and to get at 
 this plunder, the Catholic religion must be wholly put down " [197]. 
 The Catholic religion ! We call it Popery ! 
 
 " Next came a law to allow the clergy to have wives ; and then, 
 when all things had been prepared, came the Book of Common 
 Prayer and the Administration of the Sacraments " [198]. These 
 are grievous sins in the eyes of Protestant William Cobbett ! 
 
 " Every Church altar had more or less of gold and silver. A 
 part consisted of images, a part of censers, candlesticks, and other 
 things used in the celebration of the Mass" [207J, and the like. 
 Well, what then ! If all the superstitious practices of the Church 
 of Rome were to be abolished, and if the religion of that Church 
 was to be treated as false and idolatrous (as it was), and if the 
 laity w^ere thenceforward to be freed from the tyrannical rule of 
 priests, it was unavoidable that all instruments of superstition and 
 idolatry, and all monastic institutions (alleged, even by Cobbett, 
 to be the fertile source of vice and profligacy), should be removed, 
 and that the clergy should be allowed to marry. 
 
 But horrible were the results of Protestantism ! 
 
 " The consequences \_i.e. of the Reformation] to the morals of 
 the people were such as were naturally to be expected. All 
 historians agree that vice of all sorts, and crimes of every kind, 
 were never so great and so numerous." When any person 
 
 6 
 
66 
 
 attempts to prove the truth of this wild and general proposition — - 
 conveniently supported by a reference to " all historians " — it will 
 be time enough to deal with it. But we have at hand sufficient 
 proofs of the vice and profligacy of Roman priests. 
 
 There is a peculiarity in the present attacks which seldom occurs 
 in literary warfare. The advocate is not himself a believer in the 
 system he defends. At least Romanists persist in telling us 
 Cobbett was a Protestant. He does not even profess to believe 
 in the Roman system, in so many words ; but declares himself a 
 member of the Church of England, which Church, if we believe him, 
 is founded on the horrible wickedness of Henry VHI., perpetuated 
 by his son Edward, and whose characters, of course, must cor- 
 respond with the foundation. This Church, if we still believe him, 
 he confesses to be good enough for him. At the same time he 
 maintains that Popery is genuine Christianity, and the only thing 
 that existed in the world as such for many hundred years ; that 
 the people of England had no occasion to exchange it for another, 
 and that the Reformation was a wicked abortion ; and, as he never 
 was admitted into the Church of Rome, according to his own 
 showing, he was living in a state of error and schism, which, if he 
 really believed in his own statements, to say the least of it, was 
 inconsistent with common honesty. But his Romish admirers are 
 so enraptured with his vituperative attacks on the Reformers and 
 the Reformation that their appreciation of the ridiculous and the 
 anomalous position of their champion does not occur to them. 
 
 And now for another specimen of veracity. ■■' To reconcile the 
 people to these innovations, the plunderers had a Bible contrived 
 for the purpose, which Bible was a perversion of the original text 
 wherever it was found to be necessary. Of all the acts of this 
 hypocritical and plundering reign, this was perhaps the basest " 
 [ 208 ] . I preserve Cobbett's italics. Doubtless, no one ever credited 
 him with being a classical scholar, or capable of forming any 
 adequate opinion on the subject ; but who, except Cobbett, would 
 have ventured such an assertion as that the Reformers' Bible was 
 "a perversion of the original text' ' ? But it seems impossible for him 
 to be accurate, even in the smallest particular. The Bible he speaks 
 of was translated, in the reign of Henry VHI., by Tunstall and 
 
6; 
 
 Coverdale, Romanists in doctrine, not in the reign of Edward. 
 Cobbett's accuracy is as much to be admired as his boldness. The 
 reader must ever bear in mind that all Cobbett's assertions are 
 practically endorsed by Roman priests at the present day. 
 
 " The Protector Somerset did not forget himself," says Cobbett; 
 and then he proceeds to state, in his own peculiar way, how the 
 Protector built Somerset House, and, in so doing, he adopts without 
 hesitation all the accusations, however vague, of Somerset's personal 
 enemies; amongst which was one "that he was raising a much 
 larger and more stately palace than the King's, and had pulled down 
 several churches for the sake of the materials, and alienated Church 
 lands to bear the charge." But suppose it be true that he pulled 
 down houses of three Bishops (as alleged), and used the stone and 
 other materials of some churches, how is it possible at this distance 
 of time to know upon what terms he obtained the Bishops' houses ? 
 They may have been, and probably were, sold to him at their fair 
 value, and we have seen enough of pulling down churches, even in 
 our own day, to be aware that Somerset may have purchased, or 
 otherwise obtained the stone, lead, and other materials of churches 
 demolished for improvements, or so-called improvements. In any 
 way the nation has benefited by the transaction, as it possesses 
 Somerset House. But let it be assumed that Somerset acted 
 avariciously, lawlessly and tyrannically. "What then ? Is it thereby 
 proved that the Reformation was wrong, ought never to have taken 
 place, and ought now to be discarded?— for ^Aa^ is in effect Cobbett's 
 inference. Pray of what material was St. Peter's at Rome built? 
 It was built by moneys extracted from the people principally by the 
 fraudulent and wicked sale of Indulgences amassed by the Pedlar 
 General of Pope Leo X., the impostor Tetzel ! It is somewhat 
 sino-ular, however, that the people, who, as Rapin, the French His- 
 torian, observes, are " seldom out in their judgment about great 
 men," were strongly attached to Somerset; and so generally per- 
 suaded of his innocence that, when he was executed, many dipped 
 their handkerchiefs in his blood, looking on him as a Martyr.* 
 
 But perhaps the greatest of all Cobbett's absurdities is, to attribute 
 " the impoverishment and degradation amongst the people at large " 
 * Rapin, vol. viii., p. 97. London, 1721. 
 
 6* 
 
68 
 
 and " the general discontent which in some cases broke out into 
 open insurrection" [210], to the Reformation in this reign, and 
 amongst other causes, to the promulgation of the Book of Common 
 Prayer [212]. 
 
 Now, there were many causes (not connected with religion) 
 for these insurrections. Disbanded monks and friars, distributed 
 through the kingdom, were inciting the people to discontent. They 
 were, for the most part, idle and dissolute men, who had been made 
 so by the vicious system of support from the subsequently dissolved 
 monasteries. The opponents of the Reformation were working 
 up, by all possible means, the passions of the Romanists. Again 
 tillage land was changed into pasture, for the purpose of producing 
 wool, which was then in great demand at home and abroad, and 
 whole- estates were converted into enclosures. Tenants in great 
 numbers were expelled from their habitations. The poor were 
 deprived of their rights of common, by which they formerly fed 
 their small stock of cattle ; and there was want of employment for 
 the labouring classes. All these, and other causes, continued to 
 produce discontent. One might as well attribute recent strikes to 
 the Reformation ! 
 
 What the people most felt was, the practice of inclosing land 
 for pasturage, which necessarily destroyed their employment in 
 agriculture, from which their support had been previously derived. 
 But this was a grievance before the reign of Edward. Sir Thomas 
 More, in his Utopia, observes, that a sheep in England had become 
 a more ravenous animal than a lion or wolf, and devoured A^'hole 
 villages, cities, and provinces. Moreover it will be found from 
 authentic history that the complaints of the commonalty at this 
 time, were not made against Cranmer and the Reformers or the 
 " Prayer Book," but against the nobility and gentry on account of 
 these very enclosures ; and not until after the suppression of insurrec- 
 tion in several counties were the priests able to give the discontent 
 a direction towards religion. Moreover, the Protector himself 
 befriended, to a certain extent, the people during these insurrections, 
 and published his proclamation against the principal evil of which 
 they complained — a tolerably clear proof that hostility to the 
 Reformation was not the origin of these troubles. 
 
69 
 
 Cobbett says [214]: "Somerset, who had brought his own 
 Irother to the block in 1549, chiefly because he had opposed himself 
 to his usurpations (though both were plunderers), was, not long 
 after the commission of the above cruelties on the people [i.e. the 
 punishment of the insurrection], destined to come to that block 
 himself." Well, if Somerset really brought his brother to the 
 block, his own death by the same mode seems an instance of 
 retributive justice. But is it fair to say in this unexplained manner 
 that he did " bring his brother to the block "? "Amongst all those 
 that envied the Protector," says Rapin,* "there was not one more 
 eager against him than the Admiral Thomas Seymour, his brother. 
 He was a hot, proud, and haughty man." Whilst the Protector 
 was in Scotland carrying on war,f the Admiral was cabaUing against 
 him in England, and had succeeded so far, that the Protector was 
 obliged to return from Scotland, leaving his successes there 
 incomplete. The Admiral (who had married Catherine Parr, the 
 widow of Henry VHL, without the knowledge of the Protector) 
 continued his schemes against his brother, by insinuating himself 
 into the young King's favour, and forming a party amongst the 
 nobility. With the people he had no chance. After the return of 
 the Protector from Scotland, the Admiral continued his project of 
 supplanting his brother. Having gained to his side some of the 
 Privy Councillors and nobility, and many members of Parliament, 
 he persuaded the young King that the two offices of Protector of 
 the realm and governor of his person gave Somerset too much 
 power, and obtained from him a written message to the House of 
 Commons, requesting them to make the Admiral the governor of 
 his person. But the Council of the Kingdom, having been informerl 
 of the Admiral's proceedings, sent some Lords to him, to persuade 
 him to proceed no further. He replied that " if he were crossed in 
 his attempt, he would make that the blackest Parliament that ever 
 ■was in England.''^ Whereupon he was summoned to appear before 
 the Council, but refused to obey. He was next warned by the 
 Council that he would be deprived of his offices, sent to the Tower, 
 and prosecuted under the Act of Parliament which made it high 
 
 * Vol. viii., p. 34. London, 1721. f It)i<l-. P- 27. 
 
 J Burnet, vol. ii., p. 88. Edit. 1830. 
 
treason to disturb the Government. He then submitted to the 
 Council, and was reconciled to his brother, "who," says Rapin, 
 "desired nothing else but to reclaim him by fair means." Never- 
 theless, the Admiral continued his intrigues until the Protector was 
 compelled to: consider him a dangerous enemy. 
 
 At length the Admiral formed the design to carry awaythe King to 
 his own house, to displace the Protector, and seize the Government, 
 for which purpose he enlisted two thousand men, according to Rapin 
 — ten thousand according to Burnet. The Protector, having learned 
 these proceedings, still exercised the greatest forbearance towards 
 his brother. Ultimately the Council, being informed that the Admiral 
 was contriving something against the Government, signed a warrant 
 for his committal to the Tower. Commissioners were then 
 appointed to take the evidence of witnesses j these Commissioners 
 reported to the Coimcil that the Admiral was accused of having 
 formed a conspiracy against the Government, of having committed 
 many misdemeanours in the Admiralty department, of having 
 protected pirates and shared their booty, and of refusing to do 
 justice to private persons, or even to foreign princes who com- 
 plained of these piratical outrages, whereby the King was in danger 
 of a war. The Protector, with the view of saving him, endeavoured 
 once more to persuade him to resign his office and retire from 
 Court. But the Admiral obstinately refused to comply with this 
 advice. Hereupon his accusation was drawn up by the Council in 
 the form of thirty -three Articles. Some of the Council attended 
 upon him to examine him } and on the next day, the Privy Council 
 went to him in a body to the Tower ; but, on both occasions, he 
 refused to answer any of the charges, and demanded an open trial. 
 Afterwards the case was brought before Parliament by Bill of 
 Attainder, and some of the members were sent to take his answer. 
 He gave answers to the first three charges, and then refused to say 
 more. This conduct being reported, the Bill of Attainder passed 
 through the House of Lords ; but it was much opposed and debated 
 in the House of Commons. Ultimately it passed through the House 
 of Commons, four hundred members being present, and nqt more 
 than twelve voting against it. 
 
 These details are historically interesting ; at the same time they 
 
expose the barefaced proceeding of Cobbett for the unworthy pur- 
 pose of discrediting the Reformers, by boldly and curtly stating 
 that " Somerset brought his brother to the block." But suppose it 
 were true that both the brothers were bad, ambitious, and heart- 
 less men, how does that fact prove that the Reformation was 
 unjustifiable ? 
 
 I have no desire to represent Somerset any better than he was. 
 But when Romanists abet Cobbett in his unmeasured abuse of every- 
 one who favoured the Reformation, it is not out of the scope of this 
 reply to present to the reader the estimate of the Protector's 
 character as drawn by Bishop Burnet : — 
 
 "Thus fell the Duke of Somerset, a person of great virtues, 
 eminent in piety, humble in his greatness, sincere and candid in 
 all his transactions ; he was always careful of the poor and the 
 oppressed ; and, in a word, had as many virtues and as few faults 
 as most great men, especially when they were so unexpectedly 
 advanced, have ever had. It was generally believed that all this 
 pretended conspiracy upon which he was condemned was only a 
 forgery, for both Palmer and Crane, the chief witnesses, were soon 
 after discharged, as were also Bartuile and Hamond, and with all 
 the rest that had been made prisoners on the pretence of this plot. 
 And the Duke of Northumberland continued after that in so close 
 a friendship with Palmer, that it was generally believed he had been 
 corrupted to betray him." And after further remarks on this head, 
 Burnet adds : — " The people were generally much affected with 
 this execution ; and many threw, handkerchiefs into the Duke of 
 Somerset's blood to preserve it in remembrance of him. One 
 lady that met the Duke of Northumberland when he was led 
 through the city in Queen Mary's reign, shaking one of these bloody 
 handkerchiefs, said, 'Behold the blood of thatworthy man, that good 
 uncle of that excellent King, which was shed by thy malicious 
 practice, doth now begin apparently to revenge itself on thee !' Sure 
 it is, that Northumberland, as having maliciously contrived this, 
 was ever after hated by the people."* 
 
 This is the Somerset whom Cobbett, following all Jesuit writers, 
 
 * Burnet's History of the Reformation, vol. ii., p. 296. Nare's Edit. 1830. 
 
72 
 
 abuses in his vulgar vituperative style, simply because he was 
 more of a Reformer than a Papist, but for whom neither he nor 
 they have one single word of praise or compassion ! 
 
 Speaking of the execution of Somerset after that of his brother, 
 Cobbett says : — "As the King, the Protestant Saint Edward, had 
 signed the death warrant of one uncle at the instigation of another 
 uncle, he now signed the death warrant of that other, the Saint 
 himseli Leing now under , fifteen years of age" [214]- The w^ords 
 " being now under fifteen years of age '' do, w^ithout further proof, 
 show that Edward could never have signed either of these death war- 
 rants — he was still under age — and the government of the country 
 was in the hands of the Council appointed by Henry VIII. But I 
 avail myself of this opportunity of correcting a vulgar error, that 
 the Sovereign signs death warrants. Such signature never was 
 required ; and, as far as I can discover, they neverwere given. There 
 was no such signature for the burning of Joan Bocher ; and the 
 whole story of Edward's reluctance and Cranmer's persuasion may 
 be vastly pretty and sensational, but, although told by respectable 
 writers, is a mere myth. Even Queen Elizabeth did not sign the 
 death warrant of Mary Queen of Scots, as may be seen by con- 
 sulting the trial of Davidson, as recorded in the State Trials. 
 
 In our own memory there was the practice of the Recorder of 
 London reporting to the King the capital cases in London ; but 
 this was for the purpose of ascertaining which were proper cases 
 for mercy, not for the purpose of obtaining the King's signature 
 for execution. The Recorder's Report is now discontinued, pur- 
 suant to an Act of Parliament passed at the commencement of our 
 Queen's reign. With reference to Joan Bocher, the entry in the 
 King's Journal was as follows : — " Joan Bocher, otherwise called 
 Joan of Kent, was burnt for holding that Christ was not incarnate 
 of the Virgin Mary ; being condemned the year before, but kept 
 in hope of conversion, and on the 30th April, the Bishop of London 
 and the Bishop of Ely went to persuade her, but she withstood 
 them, and reviled the preacher that preached at her death."* 
 Ridley was then Bishop of London, and Goodrich, the Lord 
 
 • Soames' Histqry of Englani, vol. iii., p. 544. London, 1825. 
 
73 
 
 Chancellor, was Bishop of Ely. From this extract it has been 
 justly argued that if the King had been importuned, as alleged, by 
 Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to sign the warrant for 
 committing Joan to the flames, something further would have 
 appeared. The following is the entry in the Privy Council Book, 
 April 27th, 1550 : — " A warrant to the L. Chancellor to make out 
 a writ to the Sheriff of London for the execution of Jolian of 
 Kent condemned to be burnt for certain detestable opinions of 
 heresie." A long list of persons, stated to have been present at 
 the Council on that day, is given ; but neither the King nor 
 Cranmer were present.* Joan was executed under a writ De 
 hceretico comlurendo, under an unrepealed Popish Act of Parliament 
 addressed to the Sheriff of London, on the authority of a warrant, 
 signed by the Council, issued out of the High Court of Chancery. 
 I do not pretend to palliate or excuse the act. It cannot be 
 justified, but what I desire to establish is, that this wretched piece 
 of persecution, sought to be fixed on Cranmer, was neither the act 
 of Cranmer nor of the King. It was moreover according to law 
 and public sentiment. Mr. Bruce, in the work above quoted, clearly 
 proves that " the narrative which the worthy martyrologist (Foxe) 
 was misled into inserting, and Cranmer's ditficulty to cause the 
 King to ' put to his hand,' and the tears by which subsequent 
 writers have declared that his submission to the stern pleading of 
 his spiritual father were accompanied, all vanish." 
 
 I am aware of what Foxe and Burnet say on this subject, but 
 documentary evidence has subsequently thrown more light on it ; 
 and it is a significant fact that the Romish libellers of Cranmer> 
 Foxe's contemporaries, are wholly silent on this matter. It is 
 somewhat startling to find, even in the present day, assertions 
 advanced which do not appear to have any shadow of truth to 
 support them. The Saturday Review, in an article on this subject 
 (No. 622, vol. xxiv., Sept. 28th), goes so far as to affirm that 
 Cranmer, in his importunity for blood, used his hand "to guide 
 Edward's shrinking fingers " to sign the death warrant of Joan 
 Bocher ! 
 
 Our fair-spoken historian says [215]: "Warwick (afterwards 
 
 * See Bruce's Biography of Roger Hutchinson, prefixed to his works. 
 Parker Society's Edit., Cambridge, 1842. 
 
74 
 
 Duke of Northumberland) was now become Protector. . . . , 
 This was, if possible, a more zealous Protestant than the last 
 Protector ; that is to say, still more profligate, rapacious, and cruel." 
 It is not true that Northumberland was' a Protestant. He was as 
 bigoted and wicked a Papist as ever disgraced this country ; his 
 own intrigues and treasons brought him to the scaffold, and were 
 the cause of suffering to many innocent persons, amongst whom 
 were Lady Jane Grey, and his own son, her husband. Lord Dudley, 
 during Mary's reign. Such, according to Cobbett, are the necessary 
 characteristics of genuine Protestantism, and he concludes by 
 saying " This Church of England, as by law established, became the 
 scorn, not only of the people of England, but of all the nations of 
 Europe." Since Cobbett cites no authority for this extraordinary 
 proposition we may leave it as we find it ; it is simply untrue. But 
 Romanists are not ashamed to quote him as a member of that Church. 
 Cobbett relates, in his peculiar way, the proceedings of 
 Northumberland [216-217] "for getting the crown into his own 
 family; a project," he adds, " quite worthy of a hero of the 
 Reformation." He further tells us that the settlement of the 
 crown by Edward's will met with great difficulty when the 
 matter came before the lawyers [217]. The facts seem to be, that 
 Northumberland was an ambitious man ; that the young King 
 was anxious that the work of the Reformation should not be 
 impeded by the accession of his sister Mary ; that the argument 
 for excluding Mary and Elizabeth, on the ground of their alleged 
 illegitimacy, operated upon him ; and that the King's settlement 
 was contrived and carried out by Northumberland. No doubt, as 
 Cobbett says, the lawyers made a difficulty. Three of the judges 
 were summoned and desired to draw up an assignment of the 
 crown to Lady Jane Grey (Lady Dudley) ; they requested time to 
 consider, and then said that they could not prepare such a 
 document without danger of high treason. Ultimately, however, 
 the settlement of the crown was drawn up and signed by the King, 
 by all the Judges, except Hale, and by all the Privy Councillors, 
 including Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh. Cranmer's name 
 appears the last. He refused for a long time to sign, and only did. 
 so on the earnest entreaty of Edward on his death-bed. Now, 
 suppose all this to have been very wrong — although there may be 
 
75 
 
 great diversity of opinion upon that point, for, according to Roman 
 Canon Law, Mary was illegitimate, and Romanists even at the 
 present day pronounce Elizabeth to be a bastard. How does it 
 prove that the Reformation itself was an injury to this country ? — 
 for thatj in every instance of abuse of persons, is the real argument 
 and intended conclusion of Cobbett. 
 
 We are then informed [219] that "Northumberland, seeing the 
 death of the young saint approaching, had, in conjunction with 
 Cranmerand the rest of his Council, ordered the two Princesses to come 
 near to London under pretence that they might be at hand to comfort 
 their brother, but with the real design of putting them into prison 
 the moment the breath should be out of his body." Now, Rapin tells 
 the story in such a way as to throw the blame of this manoeuvre 
 upon Northumberland; but it did not suit Cobbett's history to 
 omit a slur upon Cranmer. The animus is apparent. Rapin says, 
 " Some days before his [the King's] death, the Duke of 
 Northumberland got the Council to write to the Princesses- 
 Mary and Elizabeth, desiring them to come and keep him company 
 in his sickness. His aim was to have them in his power, that they 
 might not obstruct the promotion of his~ daughter-in-law Jane 
 Grey. The two Princesses, not imagining the King was so near 
 death, were coming to him, but hearing he was in his last agonies 
 they turned back, and the Duke was disappointed of his aim."* 
 
 After Edward's death "the nobility and gentry," says Cobbett, 
 " instantly flocked to the standard of Mary ; and the people, even 
 in London, who were most infected with the pestiferous principles 
 of the foreign miscreants that had been brought from the Continent 
 to teach them the new religion, had native honesty enough to make 
 them disapprove of his [Edward's] last and most daring of 
 robberies" [220]. Verily Cobbett had a power of vituperation, 
 peculiarly his own, for he could say nothing without superlative 
 abuse, being himself nothing more than a literary bully. However, 
 the nobility and gentry did not so instantly flock to the standard 
 of Mary ; and the real cause of some of the Privy Councillors, 
 in London siding with Mary was their personal hatred of 
 
 * Vol. viii., p. J08. London, 1721. 
 
76 
 
 Northumberland. The Earl of Arundel represented to them " that 
 now or never was the time to shake off the tyranny of the Duke 
 of Northumberland; that they had sufficiently experienced how- 
 arrogant, unjust, cruel and treacherous to his friends he was, and 
 if they were so unwise as to support Jane in the throne they would 
 only render more heavy the yoke which the Duke had laid on their 
 necks ; that the only way was to declare for Mary, and when the 
 people should see the Council take that course the Duke of 
 Northumberland would be forsaken by everybody.'' * 
 
 Cobbett thus concludes his History of the Reformation during 
 the reign of Edward VI. :— " No reign, no age, no country ever 
 w^itnessed rapacity, hypocrisy, meanness, baseness, perfidy, such as 
 England witnessed in those who were the destroyers of the [Roman] 
 Catholic, and founders of the Protestant Church " [221]. "Thus 
 ended this reign of reformation, plunder, wretchedness, and disgrace. 
 The nation became every day more and more despised 
 abroad, and more and more distracted and miserable at home. 
 As this Church by law established advanced, all the 
 remains of Christian charity vanished before it. England .... 
 became under a Protestant Church a scene of repulsive selfishness, 
 of pack-horse toil, of pinching want, and of rapacity and plunder and 
 tyranny, that made the very name of law and justice a mockery " 
 [222]. Assuredly we have read history to no purpose, having 
 hitherto been under the delusion that Protestantism introduced 
 into England order and quiet, liberty and prosperity at home, and 
 respect and influence, and high prestige abroad. However, it is 
 never too late to learn ! but we respectfully decline to take our 
 lesson from the pages of a Cobbett's so-called History of the 
 Reformation, for we clearly trace the guiding genius of his Jesuit 
 prompters. 
 
 On the other hand we have the testimony of Sir Robert Peel, 
 delivered in the House on May 9th, 1817, that : — 
 
 " Our Protestant Constitution is the precious inheritance 
 we have received from the hands of our martyred Reformers, under 
 which we have enjoyed more liberty, we have attained more glory, 
 
 • Rapin, vol. viii., p. 128. 
 
// 
 
 we possess more character and power, than has hitherto, fallen 
 to the lot of any other country on the globe." 
 And may God defend the right ! 
 
 Mary succeeded Edward in 1553. She reigned a little over 
 five years.* 
 
 The reign of Mary furnishes one of the blackest pages of 
 English history. It is marked by a total disregard of national 
 character and prosperity, either in our domestic interests or 
 foreign relations, and presents us with nothing but the distortions 
 of bigotry and the ravages of intolerance. It was a reign of terror, 
 where measures, with scarcely any exception, had their origin in 
 persecutions, the disgrace, not only of government, but of human 
 nature itself. No one, in recording the cruelties of Caligula, Nero, 
 or Domitian, has had a more humiliating task to perform than the 
 historian of this reign. The name of Mary has long passed from 
 father to son as a proverb for what reflects the greatest disgrace on 
 a woman and a Queen ; and since the persecuting conduct of this 
 princess contributed more to the stability of the Reformation than 
 any other event, the attempt to turn the current of popular feeling 
 in her favour, even at the present day, is too great a presumption 
 on the ignorance, prejudice, and fickleness of the multitude. The 
 English nation — the Protestant public — has always been decided 
 in the detestation with which it has treated her memory ; and a 
 brief survey of her conduct will be suflicient to show that this 
 does not arise from any want of delicacy towards her as a woman, 
 nor from any inattention to the embarrassments of her situation, 
 but is, in all its severity, the reprobation justly bestowed on an 
 iniquitous system and malignant heart. 
 
 In recording the reign of Mary, Cobbett, as we have seen, 
 speaks of her as "one of the most virtuous of human beings"; 
 and of her crimes, and consequent misfortunes, as rendered 
 unavoidable by the conduct of her predecessors : declaring, in 
 short, that in her excellent qualities, her exalted virtues, her piety, 
 her charity, generosity, sacred adherence to her faith and word, her 
 gratitude, and those feelings of anxiety for the greatness and 
 
 * In this part of my compilation I have partly followed Mr. Oxland's 
 reply to Cobbett. 
 
78 
 
 honour of England which hastened her to the grave, she was 
 never equalled by any sovereign that ever sat on the English 
 throne, Alfred alone excepted. 
 
 Such is Cobbett's panegyric [258]. It is plain to every one, 
 that the reign of Mary takes its character from her zeal for 
 the re-establishment of the Romish Church. This was the 
 nucleus of her virtues — her pole-star over an ocean of crime 
 and misery — the magnitude and sanctity (according to Papal 
 estimate) of which made intervening distresses nothing, and took 
 from wickedness its grossness. Never, surely, was there a 
 more shameless illustration of the execrable maxim, that the 
 end sanctifies the means, than in the slightest commendation 
 bestowed upon this sanguinary reign. We trace at once the 
 spirit and inspiration of a Roman Priest in Cobbett's laudation 
 of this unhappy Queen, for consigning to the flames so-called 
 heretics. But what rendered the matter still more reprehensible 
 in the Queen, was, that she made an open declaration to her 
 Council, notwithstanding her known bias to the Romish cause, 
 that she would put no restraints on any one's conscience, and 
 would only use persuasion by truth, and by means of godly, 
 virtuous, and learned prelates. She commenced by ordering poor 
 Dodd to be placed in the pillory for three days, for having 
 reminded her of her promise,* and then by expelling from their 
 livings and cures at least two-thirds of the clergy, and turning 
 them adrift, with their wives and families, penniless. Cobbett is 
 bitter against Henry VIII., for having ousted the monks from 
 their homes ; they, however, were granted pensions, and the King 
 kept his promise with those who consented to accept the payments. 
 Cobbett has much to say on the hard fate of the monks, but has 
 not one word of compassion for the clerical victims of Mary. We 
 know also, too well, how Mary kept faith with her people generally. 
 Bishops Bonner and Gardiner were her ministers and advisers ; 
 fire and faggot were their instruments. The liberty she granted 
 was exemplified by the proclamation she caused to be issued 
 ordering all foreigners, not denizens or regular merchants, espe- 
 
 * Heylyn's Eccl. Restaurata, p. 79, vol. ii. Cambridge, 1849. 
 
79 
 
 cially " all preachers, booksellers and printers," to quit the realm 
 ■within twenty-four hours. 
 
 The Duke of Northumberland's ambition having been disap- 
 pointed in his attempt to elevate the unfortunate Jane Grey (Lady 
 Dudley) to the throne, Mary's accession was generally acknowledged. 
 The manner in which the nation submitted to her sway has often 
 been represented as evidence of a disposition in favour of the 
 Romish Church ; but, considering the strong prejudice which 
 existed in favour of hereditary succession, and the fear with which 
 the power of Northumberland was regarded, Mary possessed 
 advantages which nothing but a prophetic anticipation of her real 
 •character could have destroyed. She was, by many, 'reputed as the 
 lawful heiress, and a recognition of her power would prevent the 
 turbulent ascendancy of the Dudleys, and the disasters of a civil 
 Tvar. Supposing, therefore, that she was capable of being 
 swayed by benevolence and bound by justice, the people, apart from 
 religious considerations, had many reasons to acknowledge her. 
 That her accession did not prove the hostility, or even indifference, 
 -of the people to the Reformation is shown by the system of 
 compromise she felt herself under the necessity of adopting, and 
 ■which she afterwards basely violated, in contempt of her promise. 
 "To the people of Suffolk in particular, among whom she retired 
 ■on the rising of Northumberland, she pledged her word, as a 
 condition of their support, that she would not change the laws 
 ■of Edward. In the Council, also,, she plainly declared that her 
 resolution was to allow freedom of conscience in matters of 
 religion ; but when, afterwards, the men of Suffolk reminded her 
 ■of her promise to them, one of them, as already noted, was exposed 
 for three days in the pillory on the charge of defaming her. And 
 when, about the same time, Bonner's chaplain had been delivered 
 by two Reformed preachers from the danger into which his 
 calumnies on Edward had hurried him, these two men, on the 
 ■charge of having an undue influence over the multitude, were 
 imprisoned, one in his own house, and the other in the Tower ! 
 But Mary's depravity as a Queen was precocious. She no sooner 
 found herself on the throne than she crushed with an iron hand 
 the hopes she had invited. She published a treacherous proclama- 
 
8o 
 
 tion, in which, recollecting her promise, she affirmed that though 
 she intended to persevere in the Roman Catholic religion herself 
 she would use no force with her subjects till public order shall be 
 taken by common consent ! Among other things sufficiently in- 
 telligible as threats against the Reformers, she prohibited preaching 
 without her special license, which, of course, shut the Reformers 
 out of the pulpit. She threw several members of Parliament into 
 prison for their freedom of speech.* 
 
 One of her next steps was to deprive five Reforming Bishops, 
 and to re-establish Popish ones in their stead ; and though the 
 bishopric of Durham had been dissolved by the authority of 
 Parliament, she chose to erect it anew in favour of TunstalL. 
 Arbitrary imprisonment followed deprivation. Judge Hale, one 
 of the most strenuous defenders of the Queen's title, was confined 
 under treatment of the greatest severity, on account of charging 
 the Justices of Kent to conform to the laws of Edward, which 
 were then unrepealed. Cranmer, as might have been expected, 
 when gratitude and justice were openly proscribed, soon felt the 
 persecuting power of the Queen. Though he had done no more 
 in supporting Henry's divorce from the Queen's mother than was 
 chargeable to Gardiner, now raised to honour, and though Cranmer 
 had stood between Mary and her father's anger when her life was 
 threatened by that monarch, whose supremacy she declined to 
 acknowledge in his own kingdom, his fall was determined ; and 
 for merely contradicting a calumny of Bonner, who affirmed that 
 he had promised the Queen to conform, he was committed to the 
 Tower, till some other excuse might be invented, and ultimately 
 was consigned to the flames as a heretic. Cobbett has a special 
 aversion, at least so he was prompted, for hanging, drawing and 
 quartering ; nevertheless Mary practised these on several. Stowe 
 specially names Sketchley, Bradford and Proctor as her victims. 
 The abolished rites of the Romish Church were openly revived, 
 and imprisonment and death decreed to him who dared to whisper 
 the truth of their unlawfulness ; added to which the Queen was 
 
 * Count de NoailUs' Despatches, vol. iv., p. 25. 
 f Annals, p. 631. London, 1613. 
 
at this time secretly negotiating with the Pope and the Emperor, 
 her cousin, on subjects which she feared to disclose to the nation, 
 and which afterwards involved the country in misfortune and 
 disgrace. With these proofs of intolerance, illegality, and faith- 
 lessness the Reformers could no longer doubt the nature of their 
 impending fate. Foreigners, some of the most useful artisans the 
 kingdom contained, returned home, accompanied by as many native 
 Protestants as possible. Thus far Mary proceeded in changing the 
 aspect of the nation, without even asking the sanction of Parlia- 
 ment, in contempt both of the law and her own promise, by which 
 she was bound. Cobbett speaks of the just and beneficent acts 
 with which she began her reign. How far she deserves the praise 
 of lightening the burdens of her people we may presently learn 
 from the violence of her extortions, and also the deliberate violation 
 of her promises not to impose her faith on the people, otherwise 
 than through godly, learned, and virtuous preachers, and without 
 violence. She indeed remitted the last subsidy granted to Edward, 
 but was never remarkable for modesty in requiring aid for herself. 
 When the Parliament met. Mass, though abolished, was performed 
 with a parade most insulting to the nation. And when Taylor, 
 Bishop of Lincoln, refused to join in the unlawful service, he was 
 violently thrust out of the House. Cobbett affects surprise and 
 indignation at the compliance of Parliament with the wishes of 
 Mary, compared with the conduct of the former reigns. "And 
 now," he says, "we are about to witness a scene which, were not 
 its existence so virell attested, must pass for the wildest of romance. 
 What ? That Parliament, which had declared Cranmer's divorce of 
 Catherine to be lawful, and which had enacted that Mary was a 
 bastard, acknowledged that same Mary to be the lawful heir to 
 the throne ! That Parliament which had abolished the Catholic 
 worship and created the Protestant worship, on the ground that 
 the former was idolatrous and damnable and the latter agreeable to 
 the will of God, abolish the latter and restore the former ! What ? 
 Do these thin'gs ? And that, too, without any force, without being 
 compelled to do them ? No, not exactly so ; for it had the people 
 to fear" [226]. The history of the English Senate during this 
 period is no very honourable record. Cobbett points with exulta- 
 
82 
 
 tion at the fact that the English Parliament, on bended knees, 
 received the absolution of the Pope's representative for their past 
 defection, and that they thereupon acknowledged again his 
 supremacy. If he really considered this a just and meritorious act 
 on the part of the nation, how inconsistent was his whole life and 
 conduct in never once following the example ! He remained to 
 his dying day (but by profession only) a member of the Church 
 of England, a standing protest against any such usurpation. He 
 might have proved his sincerity by going over to Rome. But 
 Cobbett withheld the terms imposed on the Pope, on the Queen 
 and her ministers, and by the Parliament, in turn, on the Pope. 
 Cardinal Pole, though conciliation was his avowed object, did not 
 forbear hinting at the extermination of heretics, and addressing the 
 English Parliament with a view of persuading them to return to the 
 Romish faith.* It was in fact on this condition, of exterminating 
 heretics, that the Pope consented to allow Mary to reconcile herself 
 and her people to Rome — a condition which Mary dutifully per- 
 formed, as we learn from a letter which the French Ambassador 
 in England, a zealous Papist, wrote to his Court (February 4th, 
 1555)) on the burning of the first sufferer, Rogers — " This day was 
 performed the confirmation of the alliance between the Pope and 
 the Kingdom, and a public and solemn Sacrifice of a preaching 
 Doctor named Rogers who has been burnt alive for being a 
 Lutheran." t The country, Cobbett tells us, by the influence of 
 this Parliament, went back to the "old religion," and "once 
 more became Catholic." The reformation in religion had taken 
 place in the previous reign ; but Cobbett's great charge against 
 Edward is not so much that he caused that Reformation, but that 
 he and his "myrmidons" laid their sacrilegious hands on, and 
 plundered, the Church property. Did, however, this submissive 
 Parliament, in restoring the " ancient faith," return to the rightful 
 owners the "plunder"? No! The Act of Parliament which, 
 brought the country back to Popery, or, as Cobbett has it, to be " once 
 more a Catholic country — restored to the fold of Christ " [231 J, 
 
 * See Sharon Turner's Modem History of England, vol. iii., p. 450. 
 London, 1835. 
 + Turner's History, iii.. p. 466. 
 
83 
 
 confirmed the titles of the ''plunderers " in their alleged ill-gotten 
 wealth, and declared that if any one should disturb or molest them 
 therein, he should be deemed guilty of preemunire, and be punished 
 accordingly ; and the Pope, through his Legate, absolved them all 
 from the consequences of their sacrilegious acts by a special Bull, 
 as before explained. These are the men, Cobbett boasts, who 
 had made England again " Catholic" ; these are the "hypocrites," 
 and " villains," "hellish ruffians," "robbers," "perjurers," &c., 
 &c. ; but they were all Romanists nevertheless. If, as I have said, 
 Romanists possessed a particle of common sense ; if they had 
 any respect for themselves or their religion, they would reject with 
 scorn the aid of such an advocate, who, instead of serving their 
 cause, was, in fact, making both himself and them the derision 
 of all honest and truth-loving men ; for we again assert that it 
 was Romanists robbing Papists, and the Pope himself solemnly 
 confirmed the alleged sacrilegious act! What could, be a greater 
 condemnation of the Pope and Popery than the admission of 
 Cobbett (while artfully withholding the Pope's participation in the 
 transaction), that this act was "the very worst transaction of 
 Mary's whole reign, the fires of Smithtield not excepted" [233]. 
 The Jesuit, Father Parsons, in his " Memorial " hereafter referred to, 
 excuses the Pope, on the plea that, " like a prudent and pious 
 mother, she (the Apostolic See) was content to take of her children 
 what she could get, rather than lose all " ! But why the suppleness 
 of this Popish Parliament in re-establishing the Roman religion, 
 should be made to reflect discredit on the Reformed establishment, 
 is difficult of solution. If composed of men who were without 
 principle, they disgraced popery. If they desisted from opposition, 
 believing it to be fruitless, they prove the enormity of the system, 
 to which they conformed, as a contempt of law and justice ; and 
 the flagrancy of its advocates as the most shameless of tyrants. 
 But they had, we are told, the people to fear. This, however, is 
 not only gratuitous, it is contrary to fact. For, if they had merely 
 accommodated themselves to national feeling, why resort to penal 
 statutes, to the dungeon and the stake ? The truth is, the Refor- 
 mation, as the religion of the State, ebbed and flowed with the 
 prejudices of princes and the vacillations of the nobles and clergy ; 
 
 6* 
 
84 
 
 while, as an independent system of faith and practice among the 
 people, it constantly spread. The enactments of Parliament were 
 no more an index to the sentiments of the nation than infallible 
 decisions on points of religious faith. During Henry's reign the 
 Parliament was no more Protestant than the King. During the 
 reign of Edward it became more decided. But when Mary 
 summoned it, measures had been previously laid for its degrada- 
 tion, and it met with the mortifying assurance, that it was at the 
 peril of any of its members to oppose her infuriated zeal. If we 
 think for a moment of the circumstances under which elections to 
 the Parliament took place, the certainty of a full and excessive 
 employment of the Crown influence, and the backwardness of a 
 Reformer to take a seat in a House where he could not give a 
 conscientious vote but at the risk of his life, we may safely 
 conclude that Mary had secured a most obsequious and unprincipled 
 House of Commons. When we look also at the House of Peers, 
 and" recollect the changes which had been made with a view of its 
 meeting, and how its members were interested in making common 
 cause with the Court, we can expect little from this branch of the 
 legislature. 
 
 It was not the Parliament of Henry, or Edward, that abolished 
 the Reformation ; but one packed for the purpose by the artifice of 
 Mary and her priestly guides. Protestantism is no way affected 
 by the baseness of the Parliament, for its baseness exposes the 
 enormity of the influence in which it took its rise. It w^as under 
 a compelling power, whose exercise was relentless and bloody ; but 
 at the same time it will be seen the Parliament of this reign 
 embraced many opportunities afforded them to oppose the designs 
 of the Queen. 
 
 The Session was distinguished by the re-enactment of the " Six 
 Articles Act;" by an establishment of the Queen's title ; by several 
 attainders for high treason ; by authorizing the restoration of popish 
 services; and especially by a repeal of the statutes of Edward 
 regarding religion ; but, as before stated, with the direct sanction 
 of the Pope she confirmed the titles of the " sacrilegious robbers " 
 in their alleged ill-gotten gains of monastic properties. And Pope 
 Paul IV. actually conferred oh Queen Mary the title of Queen of 
 
85 
 
 Ireland, impudently ignoring the fact that Ireland had long been 
 subject to England ! 
 
 Mary's projected marriage with Philip of Spain, the son of the 
 Emperor Charles V., engaged the attention and alarmed the fears 
 of the Commons ; when, venturing to dissuade her from marriage 
 with a foreigner, she hastily dissolved them. There is no need to 
 dwell at length upon the policy of this marriage, though it should 
 be stated that its chief support was all along derived from Roman 
 Catholic infatuation. What advantage could possibly be obtained 
 for England by making her in any degree appendant to the sovereign 
 power of the Emperor ? If a dread of the union of France with 
 Scotland was worth consideration, was it honourable to think of 
 surrendering the nation to Germany or Spain? "Such," says 
 Cobbett, '■ was the policy which dictated the celebrated match ; " 
 the wisdom of which policy was soon obvious in the effects of a 
 war with France. It is amusing to observe how Cobbett's Popish 
 prompters are perplexed in ascribing to Mary a care for the glory 
 of her people in this marriage, while Cobbett is obliged to admit 
 that the same motive influenced the Parliament in opposing it : — 
 " What Queen, what sovereign, ever took more care of the glory of 
 a people ? Yet the fact appears to be that there was some jealousy 
 in the nation at large as to this foreign connection, and I am not 
 one of those who are disposed to censure this jealousy." Let the 
 reader, however, observe, that in the former paragraph the nation, 
 on this account, is called very "unreasonable and ungrateful." 
 "But can I," he adds, "have the conscience to commend, or even 
 to abstain from censuring, this jealousy in our Catholic forefathers 
 without feeling, as a Protestant, my cheeks burn with shame at 
 what has taken place in Protestant times, and even in my own 
 time " [243] ? AH these bursts of pained and indignant virtue 
 proceed upon a very absurd assumption. The rash or dishonest 
 writer speaks of this jealousy as " Catholic,'' when the fact is, that 
 the marriage with Philip was the object of intense desire with our 
 (Roman) " Catholic " forefathers, and the jealousy in question 
 arose from the dread of Papal ascendency, while on " Catholic " 
 principles he defends this marriage with a foreign Prince, and thus 
 subjecting the nation to foreign influence. But he falls foul 
 
of the Protestants of his day. "Does not my cheek," he says, 
 " burn with shame -when I think that William III. was a foreigner, 
 and that we are now supporting the Prince of Saxe Coburg, a 
 foreigner also ? " If, we reply, there is reason for shame in this 
 account, he ought certainly to be ashamed of advocating the cause 
 of Mary and that of the Pope. "The Pope," he says, "was a 
 foreigner, exercising spiritual power in England, and this the 
 hypocrites [i.e. the Reformers] pretended was a degradation to the 
 king and country" [89]. But Cobbett, it appears, can "bid the 
 blush," or "blush only on one side," while he was doubtless 
 laughing in his sleeve at his own inapudence and inconsistency. But 
 he was no doubt paid for it. The adjustment of the marriage 
 preliminaries was marked by some appearance of deference to 
 the wishes of the nation. Though it was unjustly resolved that, 
 whatever opposition existed, the marriage should take place, it 
 was thought advisable to render it as acceptable as possible. The 
 extremely compliant terms on which the Emperor acceded, 
 naturally awakened suspicion, especially when it was known that 
 he had sent to Gardiner twelve hundred thousand crowns, equal to 
 ;,f40o,ooo, for his assistance in removing scruples, and made no 
 secret of having bound Philip to repay him on attaining to the 
 throne of England. The duplicity of Charles was well known, 
 and the character of Mary was no longer a secret. The people, 
 •therefore, had little reason for confidence in a treaty which ambi- 
 tion and bigotry would be tempted to violate. If Mary and her 
 councillors had so far forgotten the honour of the Crown and the 
 welfare of the people, as to entertain the project of this foreign alli- 
 ance, little credit was due to the sincerity of Mary's professions or to 
 the solidity of any engagements by which she sought to recommend 
 it. She regarded it as an accession of power in her opposition to 
 the Reformation ; and, viewed in this light, it justly became an 
 object of dread, to which nothing ought to have reconciled the 
 people. The insurrection which took place, chiefly under the 
 direction of Sir Thomas Wyat, had for its avowed object the 
 prevention of the Queen's marriage, without the mention of con- 
 troverted points of religion. Yet Cobbett, ascribing all honourable 
 ealousy on this head to the Romanists, mentions the rebellion in 
 
87 
 
 another connection, and refers it to the zeal of the Reformed 
 ■Preachers in protesting against the government of a woman ! Mary's 
 lenity also is made, in this connection, the subject of a laudation, 
 because she spared the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey at a time when 
 it would have been dangerous to destroy her, though she seized this 
 occasion to bring her, her husband, and her father, to the block. 
 The execution of the Queen of Scots, who also claimed the throne 
 of England, and who adopted the Royal arms, and was the cause of 
 conspiracies against Elizabeth, is brought in judgment against that 
 Queen as a cruel murder, but not one word of condemnation is 
 uttered against Mary for the execution of the gentle Lady Jane, 
 and her youthful husband, Lord Dudley. In addition to this, this 
 mild and compassionate Sovereign ordered the execution of about 
 a6o persons, and near four hundred are said to have suffered on 
 account of an insurrection in which no blood had been shed ; and 
 lastly, an attempt was made to involve the Princess Elizabeth in the 
 guilt of the rebellion. The manner in which Cobbett has separated 
 these things, attributing to Romanists what proves to have been 
 the temper of the nation in favour of the Reformation, and then 
 exhibiting the Queen as a pattern of excellence, under circum- 
 stances the real nature of which shows her falsehood and cruelty, 
 is another evidence of his artifice as an historian. In a letter 
 addressed to Pope Julius III., dated November 30th, 1555, Philip, 
 now the husband of Mary, besought a " reunion of the Kingdom 
 of England with the Church of Rome and Apostolic See." 
 
 The domestic conduct of Mary and Philip is scarcely the proper 
 object of remark in this place, but I may be excused mentioning 
 that it betrayed the greatest weakness on her part. Infatuated 
 with a husband who despised her, her jealousy was perpetually 
 alarmed, leading her into the most tormenting fondness towards 
 him and injustice towards others. His demands on her resources 
 -were great, and the only way to study his rapacity was by multi- 
 plying the most oppressive exactions from her subjects. She first 
 levied a loan of ;^6o,ooo upon a thousand persons, and then another 
 loan on all who possessed £20 a year. At another time she exacted 
 isixty thousand marks from seven thousand yeomen, and ^^36,000 
 from the merchants ; which according to the then value of money 
 
88 
 
 should be multiplied by at least ten to give us an idea of the amounts 
 raised. Commerce was interrupted to gratify her exorbitance. 
 Hence she placed certain prohibitions on the exportation of cloth, 
 and when the English Company at Antwerp refused her a loan of 
 ;^4o,ooo, she repressed her anger till they had shipped at her own 
 ports large quantities of cloth, when she laid an embargo on their 
 ships, and obliged them to grant the ^^40,000 first demanded, to 
 engage to pay p/^20,000 more at a given period, and submit to an 
 imposition of £1 on each piece. The following case is, if possible, 
 still more wicked. Understanding that the Italian merchants had 
 shipped forty thousand pieces of cloth for the Levant, she prohibited 
 their exportation by closing a bargain with the interested adven- 
 turers, from whom she received ^^5 0,000 in addition to unusual impo- 
 sitions. So low, at the same time, had her credit sunk, that when 
 she offered the city of Antwerp 14 per cent, for ,^3 0,000 it was 
 refused, till she compelled the city of London to suretyship. 
 Hume was supported by facts when he said that the chief part of 
 government to which Mary attended, was the extortion of money 
 from her people in order to satisfy the demands of her husband. 
 If anything divided her heart with zeal for the Romish Church, it 
 was her anxiety to purchase his attentions. When involved in a 
 war with France she again levied loans on the oppressed ; and after 
 equipping a fleet, which she knew not how to victual, she seized 
 11 the corn she could find in Norfolk and Suffolk, without any 
 compensation to the owners. Cobbett ignores all these proceedings. 
 The war with France was as unnecessary as it proved inglorious. 
 Though in the Articles of Mary's marriage it was stipulated that 
 the alliance between England and France should be preserved, 
 notwithstanding war between France and Spain, Philip no sooner 
 found himself a monarch in England, engaged in hostilities with 
 France, than he insisted on English aid ; and, coming to London, 
 threatened the Queen never more to set foot in England if he were 
 disappointed in this request. This was enough. With an exhausted 
 revenue and a divided council, she levied an army for his support ; 
 but so feebly was her share in the war maintained, and so jealous 
 had her Roman Catholic counsellors become of her husband's 
 designs, that notwithstanding Philip's warning of the danger of 
 
89 
 
 Calais, this boasted possession of the English on the Gallic shore, 
 which King Edward III. conquered from France in 1347, fell into 
 the hands of the Duke of Guise in 1J57-8. Cobbett has the 
 effrontery to lay the loss of Calais at the door of Elizabeth, because 
 she would not embroil the nation in a sanguinary and expensive 
 war to regain the lost possession. This event inflamed the 
 discontent of the people, added to Mary's own well-merited 
 shame, and completed the degradation of her reign. These were 
 the consequences of that marriage which, in the anticipations, both 
 of the Queen and her advisers, was to have perfected her triumph 
 over the Reformation ; and, as if the hand of God were on the 
 nation, a few months before her death a pestilential fever broke 
 out in most parts of the country, so that three parts out of fou| 
 were infected, and a fearf al tempest carried destruction over the land. 
 It now remains to inquire how the Queen endeavoured to 
 reconcile the kingdom to Rome, from which it had so deeply 
 revolted. The rites and ceremonies of Popery were resumed 
 without legal sanction, and the Parliament was required to repeal the 
 laws which the Court had previously commanded to be broken. 
 But still the subject of Papal supremacy remained unsettled, and 
 the reversion of property to the monastic orders a question of 
 difficult solution. On all such points, however, the Queen took 
 the side of bigotry and superstition. After much caballing 
 between the Queen and the Pope, and Gardiner and the Emperor, 
 Cardinal Pole arrived in England, with discretionary powers, as 
 Legate. The Queen having renounced, resumed, and a second 
 time abandoned, the title of Supreme Head of the Church, the 
 Cardinal formally invited the Parliament to petition for a reconcilia- 
 tion with Rome. This was done 5 and the representative of the 
 Pope solemnly absolved the nation ! "Thus," says Cobbett, "was 
 England once more a Catholic country. She was restored to the 
 fold of Christ" [232J. Do any of Cobbett's Roman Catholic 
 admirers ever ask themselves why, with such an opinion, he did 
 not himself enter the same fold ? But how far the sense of the 
 country went along with these measures is not determined so easily 
 as such interjectional sentences are written. The preliminaries 
 to this restoration were secretly conducted j the Legate could not 
 
90 
 
 be received with public honours due to his rank and commission ; 
 and therefore compromises were obliged to be made which both 
 disappointed Mary and offended the Pope. " She (England) was 
 restored," Cobbett says, "to the fold of Christ; but the fold had 
 been plundered of its hospitality and charity, and the plunderers, 
 before they pronounced the Amen, had taken care that the 
 plunder should not be restored." So strong, it appears, was the 
 country's concern for the interest of the Church and the authority 
 of the Pope, that the one was left unrepaired, and the other 
 absolutely disobeyed ; and, as we have seen, the Pope himself 
 so little cared for the Church if only the country would own fealty 
 and submission to him, that he actually bartered the monastic 
 and confiscated properties to secure his own supremacy. Now we 
 naturally ask who these plunderers were, and what it was which 
 conferred importance on their opposition ? And Cobbett himself 
 shall tell us that they w'ere the Queen's own supporters and 
 councillors : — "Observe in how forlorn a state, as to this question, 
 she was placed. There was scarcely a nobleman or gentleman of 
 any note in the kingdom, who had not, in some way or other, 
 soiled his hands with the plunder. The Catholic Bishops, all but 
 Fisher, had assented to the abolition of the Pope's supremacy.* 
 Bishop Gardiner, who was now her High Chancellor, wds one of 
 these, though he had been deprived of his bishopric, and im- 
 prisoned in the Tower, because he opposed Cranmer's projects, 
 &c." [227]. Then follows an acknowledgment that a compromise 
 with the plunderers was adopted, but Cobbett omits to note the 
 participation and approval of the Pope, and the bargain struck 
 between them. " Now, then (he adds), it was fully proved to 
 all the world, and now this plundered nation, which had been 
 reduced to the greatest misery by what had been impudently called 
 the ' Reformation ' . . . saw as clearly . . . that all the pre- 
 tences of abuses in the [Roman] Catholic . . . that all these, from 
 the first to last, had proceeded from the love of plunder." Admitting, 
 for a moment, the fairness of all this, it follows that the change 
 from Protestantism to Popery was as much a mercenary compact 
 
 * On this see note anU, p. 50. 
 
91 
 
 as the former change from Popery to Protestantism is said to have 
 been. And here we may pause and ask— How far is Popery 
 benefited by such advocacy ? How is the Reformation discredited 
 by those wanton censures which fall with equal weight on both 
 sides ? The truth is, that the dissolution of the monasteries had 
 altered the state of the kingdom so completely that the interest of 
 the nobles, and of many of the principal clergy, with the habits of 
 the people, stood in the way of their restoration. Mary went as 
 far as she was able ; and her next step would have been to 
 divide the Romanists against her, and involve the kingdom in a 
 civil war. 
 
 The conduct of Mary in restoring her portion of the monastic 
 property is made the subject of invidious and unfounded praise. 
 While the evidence stands, that the Crown needed the wealth in 
 question more than the Church, and that at the time when the 
 Queen surrendered the property, she was reduced to the necessity 
 of soliciting Parliament ; this part of her reign is resolvable into 
 nothing better than the most blinded superstition. 
 
 Pope Julius 11. excommunicated all who held what was falsely 
 called the property of the Church ; and the haughty Paul IV. 
 solemnly affirmed that Peter would not open the gates of Heaven 
 to the English if they continued to usurp his patrimony on earth. 
 The Bull of the former and the threat of the latter Pope had their 
 desired effect on Mary. Though she could not prevail on others 
 to see their danger in the same light, she determined to part with 
 everything rather than risk the displeasure of Rome ; and, when 
 expostulated with on the impolicy of her conduct, replied, with her 
 characteristic devotion to Popery, that she valued the salvation 
 ■of her soul more than ten such kingdoms as England ! Thus 
 her generous and disinterested acts were a necessary compro- 
 mise with that execrable superstition which, if it had not been for 
 the strength of the Reformation, would have degraded the 
 tingdom as eifectually as the pusillanimity of John had formerly 
 done. If we pity the woman we despise the Queen. But the 
 Parliament and nobles were not to be imposed upon; they resisted, 
 and made the same Pope, as we have seen, exempt them from the 
 supposed result of his denunciations; and to cap the inconsistency 
 
pa 
 
 of the Papacy, Pope Paul IV. in i_55_5 not only gave his general 
 dispensation, but specially confirmed to Lord Petre his share of 
 the plunder ; but he was Secretary of State to the Queen ! No 
 sooner was this compact sealed than, true to their promise, the 
 Parliament proceeded at once to revive the persecuting Statutes of 
 Richard II., Henry IV., and Henry V., against heretics, and the 
 "Six Articles Act" of Henry VIII. The Statute enacting this was 
 passed with most indecent haste ; it was brought in on December 
 I2th, sent to the Lords on the 15th, and passed on the i8th 
 of the same month! Rogers was the first victim of this cruel 
 law, and led the van of the noble army of martyrs. 
 
 The persecutions of this reign are treated by Cobbett as a trifling 
 matter. He affects to see in them little injustice or cruelty. He 
 compares them with the persecutions under Elizabeth's reign. 
 But, as though this were giving them an importance which does 
 not belong to them, he asks, if the mass of suffering which they 
 include surpassed what was endured on the same account during the 
 reign of George III. ! The reader will no doubt be surprised at 
 such a question, and will task his memory most severely to find 
 anything in the annals of George III. to be compared with the fires 
 of Smithfield. What must greatly perplex him is the assertion 
 that the great sufferings of the then late reign were on the same 
 account as the martyrdoms under Mary ! But let Cobbett's own 
 words explain the identity : " Unless Smithfield and burning have 
 any peculiar agency, anything worse than death, to impart, did 
 Smithfield ever witness so great a mass of suffering as the Old 
 Bailey has witnessed on account of offences against that purely 
 Protestant invention — lank-notes" \ [258]. This is like ascribing, 
 in another place, the typhus fever to Protestantism ! and reminds 
 us of the saying that Tenterden steeple was the cause of Goodwin 
 sands ! Bank-notes and transubstantiation — the circulation of the 
 former and the denial of the latter — are no longer, it seems, dis- 
 tinguishable ! We have really no faculties for the detection of such 
 subtle relations, and, if we had, know not how the mischiefs of one 
 can excuse the crimes of the other. But let us, for one moment, 
 look at this part of Mary's administration, and we do not doubt of 
 being able to make it appear so flagrantly unjust and brutal that. 
 
93 
 
 instead of being excused by a comparison with anything else, it 
 will prepare us to treat with abhorrence everything which admits of 
 such a comparison. We regard with detestation persecution in the 
 support of any cause. Elizabeth and Cranmer are said by Cobbett 
 to have been persecutors ; if so, they have our condemnation so far 
 as they were implicated in its guilt; but the charge is not true; nor 
 is one act brought home to Cranmer.* The charges against Elizabeth 
 we have yet to examine. But in the same manner as we would censure 
 them whenever they employed, in affairs of religion, the terror of the 
 secular arm, we have scarcely anything but censure for Mary, 
 whose business, policy, and religion were Persecution ! Cobbett, 
 with that forgetfulness and inconsistency which invariably accom- 
 pany the untruthful partisan, asserts that Mary's persecutions 
 "were by no means caused by the principles" of the Roman 
 religion [245], while only a little before [204] he had said in 
 palliation of Popish persecutions, " The law should acknowledge 
 and tolerate but one religion, or it should know nothing at all about 
 the matter. The Catholic code [by which he means Popery] was 
 consistent. It said there was but one true rehgion, and it punished 
 as offenders those who dared openly to profess any opinion con- 
 trary to that religion." Surely Cobbett's modern Popish admirers 
 have overlooked this passage ! Persecution of so-called heretics is 
 the very genius of their system. Laws were enacted to sanction 
 the persecution of heretics, and Indulgences freely given to those 
 who carried them into effect. Mary was essentially a Papist, and 
 therefore all the persecutions of her reign were on the score of 
 religion ; and this is admitted by Cobbett : " Her motive was to 
 put an end to the propagation amongst her people of errors which 
 she deemed destructive of their souls, and the permission of the 
 propagation of which she deemed destructive of her own creed" 
 [246] . The reader will please continually to bear in mind that we 
 are quoting a book published and recommended by Roman Priests 
 themselves. Henry's persecutions were, for the most part, on 
 account of political offences, those of Elizabeth exclusively so ; 
 that iSj for treason against the laws of the country and the person 
 
 * See the whole subject examined in my Liji, Times, and Writings of 
 Cremmer, cap. iv. London, 1887. 
 
94 
 
 of the Sovereign. As a proof of this, burning was for heresy ^ 
 hanging, drawing, and quartering were exclusively the punishment 
 of traitors. Again Cobbett says, that "rebellion" against Mary" 
 was instigated by the "Reformation Preachers" [238]. This is 
 not true, and there is not the remotest justification for the 
 assertion. It is in this part of the History that we trace 
 more particularly the inspiration of a Jesuit prompter. The fact 
 of Mary's persecutions for religion cannot be denied j it was 
 necessary, therefore, to shield the Popish system — religion it is not 
 — so Mary is made the scapegoat, and she is accordingly made 
 personally responsible for the cruelties of her reign : " If she had 
 been opposed to the burnings of heretics, those burnings would 
 certainly never have taken place" [246]. And thus Cobbett's- 
 Jesuit prompter hopes to cover the Roman Church from the dis- 
 grace. But then, again, he throws the ultimate responsibility on 
 the " heretics " themselves, through tlieir obstinacy ! Mary's 
 motives were, of course, sincere, which even " the malignant 
 Hume," he tells us, " is compelled to admit." But no credit is- 
 given to Edward VI. for repealing those "burning" Acts of 
 Parliament! "Now, however, the Catholic religion," says 
 Cobbett, " being again the religion of the country, it was thought, 
 necessary to return to ancient statutes, which accordingly were re- 
 enacted." Why necessary ? " That which had been law for so 
 long a period was now the law again, so that here was nothing 
 new at any rate." Elizabeth repealed these persecuting Popish 
 laws. We must conclude, from this public recommendation of 
 Cobbett's sentiments, that had Papists succeeded in their plots 
 against Elizabeth, they would have again revived these persecuting 
 Statutes against Protestants. Every possible excuse is raised for 
 Mary ; every possible reprobation and abuse are heaped on Edward 
 and Elizabeth. Cranmer is vilified on no evidence; while 
 Gardiner and Bonner pass without one word of censure ! 
 
 When the penal statutes against (so-called) heretics were revived 
 in 1554 under Mary, it became a question of debate whether they 
 should be employed to restrain by terror or to destroy by punishment. 
 Cardinal Pole at first recommended lenity ; Gardiner and Bonner 
 enforced cruelty. The former was probably a sincere man ; the 
 
others, shifting time-serving courtiers, but, suiting the inclination 
 of the King Consort and Queen, they prevailed. They expected, 
 it seems, by the execution of a few Protestant leaders, to terrify others 
 into submission, but finding the work increase upon their hands 
 they gave the drudgery to Bonner. This prelate, not contenting 
 himself with the delivery of orders for imprisonment and death, 
 descended to the most brutal practices in torturing his unfor- 
 tunate victims with his own hands. All ages, both sexes, fell 
 beneath his implacable rage; pretences the most frivolous were 
 made the foundation of the most sanguinary measures. A denial 
 of Transubstantiation was the principal offence into which multi- 
 tudes were studiously drawn. Many who were reluctant to oppose 
 themselves to the faith of the Court, were seized upon suspicion, 
 and persecuted with articles of subscription, the refusal of which 
 was death in every instance, principally by fire. Hooper, Ridley, 
 and Latimer, and, last of all, the much calumniated Cranmer, fell in 
 the storm, and even the life of the Princess Elizabeth was seriously 
 endangered. Amidst these scenes of savage triumph the Spanish 
 Inquisition appears to have been an object of envy, and, in imita- 
 tion of that ghastly tribunal, a commission was appointed for the 
 secret prosecution of the most arbitrary and iniquitous measures, 
 and which left no probability of escape to any who were either 
 religiously or politically obnoxious to suspicion. The circumstances 
 which frequently attended arraignments and executions were 
 marked with the most studied and insulting barbarity. Two 
 hundred and seventy-seven executions are said to have taken place 
 in less than three years. Five Bishops, twenty-one divines, eight 
 gentlemen, twenty-four artificers, one hundred husbandmen, ser- 
 vants and labourers, eighty-four married women, twenty widows, 
 nine girls, two boys, and two infants; in addition seven, on 
 account of their religious opinions, whipped; sixteen perished in 
 prison ; and twelve were buried in dunghills. Many who were in 
 prison waiting their condemnation, were released on the death of 
 the Queen. These persecutions, let it also be remarked, were the 
 most inexcusable in the annals of tyranny or intolerance. The 
 principal perpetrators — Mary, Gardiner, and Bonner — had many 
 resentments to gratify, and the two last no sooner found them- 
 
90 
 
 selves in possession of power than exasperated feelings overflowed. 
 They had nourished their cruelty in confinement, and, therefore, in 
 their liberty became frantic and furious. These inflictions of death 
 by the cruel process of the stake, cannot be excused as the stern 
 dictates of principles, though bad — as politically necessary to the 
 prosecution of any design, whatever were its merits, they were 
 excessive according to every rule which the Popish advocate can 
 furnish ; they formed the intemperate and heated revelry of death 
 —an intoxicating banquet of blood ; and instead of comparing 
 them with the indefensible persecutions of later times, they disgust 
 us by their resemblance to the cannabilism of savages. " I saw the 
 woman drunken with the blood of the Saints and with the blood of 
 the Martyrs of Jesus ; and when I saw her, I wondered with 
 great amazement " ! It is impossible to close this subject without 
 pausing over the grave of the martyrs, and, whatever were their 
 errors, admiring their constancy unto death. Would that we could 
 imitate their firmness, and emulate the triumph of their faith ! — a 
 faith which, though condemned by the profane as without works, 
 "wrought wonders," and stands upon record as an incentive to 
 perseverance and enterprise. Cobbett, with a malignity which on 
 this subject renders him unworthy of any answer, says of the 
 martyrs, that they were " generally a set of the most wicked 
 wretches, and, without a single exception, apostates, perjurers, and 
 plunderers,'' a slander, to give the least probability to which would 
 be a more difficult task than even he ever had the temerity to 
 attempt, though echoed by his Popish admirers. Their fate is 
 what the most illustrious servants of the Cross must always expect 
 — chilling neglect, or the grossest misrepresentation, and the most 
 inveterate enmity. They have seldom been chosen as the 
 ornaments of history, and have, in only a few instances, furnished 
 inspiration to the poet. 
 
 "Their blood is shed 
 
 In confirmation of the noblest claim — 
 
 Our claim to feed upon immortal Truth, 
 
 To walk with God, to be divinely free, 
 
 To soar and to anticipate the skies. 
 
 Yet few remember them. They lived unknown, 
 
91 
 
 Till persecution dragged them into fame, 
 
 And chased them up to Heaven. Their ashes flew — 
 
 No marble tells us whither. With their names 
 
 No bard embalms and sanctifies his song ; 
 
 And history, so warm on meaner themes, 
 
 Is cold on this. She execrates, indeed. 
 
 The tyranny that doomed them to the fire, 
 
 But gives the glorious sufferers little praise." 
 
 Cowper, Tas\, b. v. 
 As Protestants let it be our aim to illustrate the power of their 
 example, and, by our self-denial and devotedness in piety, to pre- 
 serve and purify the principles they have committed to our charge. 
 Mary Queen of Scots, with all the sins laid to her charge, we 
 are now told, is to be accounted a beatified Saint of Rome- 
 Queen Mary, with all the questionable virtues attributed to her by 
 Cobbett and his Jesuit prompters, surely merits the same reward, 
 and who knows but such will be the next development, since the 
 Pope has but recently beatified the traitors who suffered during 
 the reigns of Henry, Elizabeth, and King James I. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 ELIZABETH AND THE PENAL LAWS. 
 
 ' ' Her own shall bless her ; 
 Her foes shake like a field of com, 
 And hang their heads with sorrow." 
 
 Henry VIII., Act v.. Scene iv. 
 
 " Stand forth, and with a bold spirit relate what you. 
 Most like a loyal subject, have collected." 
 
 Act i.. Scene i. 
 
 We now come to our immediate subject, the Reign of Elizabeth. 
 Histor}' confirms the facts of her great popularity, the rejoicings 
 on her accession to the throne of England, of the undoubted 
 prosperity of her reign, and the general happiness and content of 
 her subjects. In the twenty-fifth year of her age Elizabeth was 
 proclaimed Queen of England, November 17th, 1558, according to 
 the Act of Succession, 35 Henry VIIL, not only without a dis- 
 sentient voice, but with the universal acclamation and joy of the 
 people of England. Her first act was to select her own Council. 
 These were twenty in number. Thirteen were members of the 
 old Council of Queen Mary, all professing the Roman religion ; 
 the other seven had embraced the reformed religion, but had not 
 served under Mary. 
 
 England was then labouring under complications ; at home 
 embroiled in a Scottish war, and abroad in a state of hostility with 
 France. The nation was encumbered with a heavy debt, incurred 
 by Henry VIII., Edward and Mary, and with an empty treasury. 
 The country was dishonoured by the loss of Calais and other foreign 
 possessions, cut off from all foreign alliances, and the people dis- 
 tracted by contending religious factions. These were the legacies 
 left to Elizabeth. But such was the prosperity of the country 
 under the guidance of Elizabeth, that within four years "the Estates 
 
99 
 
 assembled in Parliament, congratulating the happiness of the times, 
 granting to her, for the clergy one subsidy, and the laity another ; 
 expressing the reasons of this gratuity — to wit, for that she had 
 reformed religion, restored peace, delivered both England and Scot- 
 land from the foreign enemy, refined the moneys of the land, 
 renewed the navy, provided ammunition for war, both by sea and 
 land," &c.* 
 
 This was a difficulty in the way of Cobbett in the outset of his 
 review of this reign, and required to be explained away, or other- 
 wise satisfactorily accounted for. His ingenuity failed him, for 
 his very excuse raised a still greater difficulty. However, Cobbett 
 commenced the task by dwelling on the misfortunes which would 
 have resulted had her right to the crown been denied, as the 
 throne would in that case have been claimed by a foreign Prince, 
 the Dauphin of France, the then husband of Mary of Scotland. 
 " Mary Stuart," he tells as, "was now (1559) Queen Consort of 
 France, Queen of Scotland, and called herself Queen of England ; 
 she and her husband bore the arms of England along with those of 
 France and Scotland, and the Pope had refused to acknowledge 
 the right of Elizabeth to the English throne." — "This was the 
 real cause of Elizabeth's success in her work of extirpating the 
 Catholic religion" [303, 304J. Indeed Cobbett maintains that 
 Elizabeth's success in establishing the Reformation, from first 
 to last, arose from the nation's jealousy on this head : — " The 
 question," he says, " with the nation was, in short, — the Protestant 
 religion, Elizabeth, and independence ; or — the Catholic religion, 
 Mary Stuart, and subjection to foreigners. They decided for the 
 former" [308]. " Here we have the great, and, indeed, the only 
 cause of Elizabeth's success in rooting out the Catholic religion. 
 Her people were, ninety-nine hundredths of them Catholics " [305]. 
 Cobbett trades on the supposed ignorance of his readers. What 
 are the facts ? The Reformation, it will be evidently seen, had no 
 reference to the political position of England. Elizabeth came 
 to the throne, as I said, on November 17th, 1558. On December 
 27th it was' permitted that the Epistles, Gospels, Ten Command- 
 
 * See Camden's Annals of the Reign of Elizabeth. " To the reader.' 
 3rd Edit. 1635. 
 
lOO 
 
 ments, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Litany, should be 
 used in the vulgar tongue. On March 22nd, 1559, when the 
 Estates of the Realm were assembled, by a renewal of a law of 
 Edward VL, the Communion was allowed to be administered 
 in both elements, bread and wine. On June 24th, under the 
 authority of an Act " Concerning the Uniformity of Public 
 Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments,'' the Sacrifice 
 of the Mass was abolished, and the Litany in the English 
 language was established. In the month of July the Oath of 
 Supremacy was administered to the bishops and others; and in 
 August images were removed out of the churches, broken or burnt j 
 and by Act of Parliament passed in the first year of her reign, 
 section ^6, it was expressly provided that no matter should be 
 deemed or considered a heresy except such points as were adjudged 
 heresy by the authority of the Canonical Scriptures, or by the first 
 four General Councils of the Christian Church. All this was 
 accomplished in a few months without the sacrifice of one single 
 life, without persecution or compulsion, wholly irrespective of Mary 
 Queen of Scots and her claim to the throne. " By means of this 
 alteration of religion," observes Camden,* "England, as politicians 
 have observed, became of all the Kingdoms of Christendom, the most 
 free, the sceptre being, as it were, delivered from the foreign servi- 
 tude of the Bishop of Rome ; and more wealthy than the former 
 ages ; an infinite mass of money being saved at home which was 
 wont to be exported daily to Rome, being incredibly exhausted from 
 the commonwealth for firstfruits, pardons, appeals, dispensations, 
 bulls, and other such like." The first Act of her reign established 
 that the Queen : " was the only and supreme governor of the 
 Kingdom in all matters or causes, as well spiritual as temporal, 
 all foreign princes and potentates being quite excluded from taking 
 cognizance in causes within her dominions. "t The sovereignty 
 over temporals was to bring back England to a state of indepen- 
 dence of the Bishop of Rome, from a foreign usurped power to 
 which it had been again subjected by Queen Mary. Cobbett 
 deliberately misrepresents the scope of this Act by stating that 
 " all persons were compelled to take the Oath of Supremacy on 
 
 * Book i., p. 20, 3rd Edit., 1635. t i Eliz,, c. i. 
 
lOI 
 
 pain of death '' [207] ; whereas by this Act an oath was imposed 
 only on all public officers, lay and ecclesiastical, to acknowledge 
 such supremacy, under certain penalties ; for the first offence (if a 
 lay officer) forfeiture of goods ; if under value of ;^2o, one year's 
 imprisonment; if ecclesiastical, deprivation; for the second offence, 
 then the penalties prescribed by the Act 16 Richard III., the 
 Statute of Provisors and Praemunire, an Act passed in Popish 
 times : for the third offence by being subject to the penalties of 
 high treason. Of all the temporal Lords only two refused to take 
 the oath — Shaftesbury and Montague ; of the Ecclesiastics, as 
 many as refused to take this oath were turned out of their livings, 
 dignities and bishoprics. There were then upwards of 9400 
 ecclesiastics holding preferments ; of these only 80 parsons of 
 Churches, 50 prebends, 15 presidents of colleges, 12 archdeacons, 
 12 deans, 6 abbots and abbesses, and 14 bishops, in all under 200, 
 out of the 9400 who refused ; all the others readily and without 
 any compulsion took the oath of allegiance to the Queen, and 
 adopted the reformed order of things, with the Liturgy.* Hume, 
 in his History of England, states the number at 80 who refused.f 
 It must be remembered that during Mary's reign all the reforming 
 bishops had been disposed of either by burning at the stake, or by 
 flying to avoid such a cruel fate. Of the Irish Bishops all but 
 two abandoned the Pope, and took the oath of allegiance under 
 Elizabeth, and were accompanied by almost the entire body of the 
 clergy. J All these submitted to the new order of things, retaining 
 the Dioceses, Benefices and Cures which they before respectively 
 held. Three of the Bishops of England, who refused to take 
 the oath, were first sent to prison, but were shortly afterwards 
 committed to the custody of their friends ; two — Lincoln and 
 Winchester, who threatened to excommunicate the Queen — were 
 detained ; and three left the country. Now, all these ecclesiastics 
 were thoroughly Popish during Mary's reign. If Cobbett's version 
 be true that they, one and all, abandoned their faith and allegiance 
 to the Pope, and that, " to acknowledge the Queen's supremacy 
 
 * See Camden's Annals of Elizabeth (Edit, as above), p. 17. 
 
 t Vol. v., p. 15. Edit. 1767. 
 
 + See Dr. Murray's Eccl. Hist, of Ireland, 2nd Edit., c. xii., p. 203 et seq. 
 
102 
 
 in spiritual matters was to renounce the Pope and their Catholic 
 religion, or in other words, to become apostate " [267] ; and 
 that " they preferred the Protestant religion, Elizabeth, and inde- 
 pendence, to the Catholic religion, and subjection to foreigners," 
 surely such a representation is a libel on almost the whole 
 " Catholic " body as such. It is as much as to assert that loyalty 
 to Queen and country is incompatible with Romish ascendancy. It 
 is to accuse the Romanists of those days of conduct little worthy 
 of the cause Cobbett had constituted himself a champion to defend, 
 and little to the credit of the Papists. Indeed, it is somewhat 
 surprising that Romanists, at the present day, should take so 
 much pains to publish such a libel on themselves. These Romish 
 patriots — priests, too ! — surrendered their religion and were traitors 
 to their Church and became apostates, or hypocrites, in order that 
 they should be free from the subjection of a foreigner — a foreigner, 
 too, who was of their own religion — the Pope himself ! Yes ; 
 Cobbett makes these very men set at naught the Pope ; so hard 
 pressed is he to find a reasonable solution for this extraordinary 
 phenomenon, that the entire Romish priesthood of the country, 
 with few exceptions, should abandon, what is now considered 
 the essence of the Romish faith, the spiritual supremacy of the 
 Pope, and the Mass service, and embrace the Reformed religion. 
 
 The reader must bear in mind that the ■ whole fabric of the 
 Roman or Papal system now rests on the claim to a spiritual 
 primacy of the Bishop of Rome over all Christian Churches by 
 divine right. Cardinal Bellarmine asks • " What is the question 
 at issue, when we treat of the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff ? 
 It is, I reply, in fact the sum and substance of Christianity."* 
 And in the year 1870 Pope Pius' Creed was amended by adding 
 the Supremacy and Infallibility of the Pope as defined by the late 
 Vatican Council. f We find English and Irish Bishops and Priests 
 renouncing the very heart and essential principle of their religion 
 for the acknowledgment of the supremacy of a woman ! 
 
 With reference to the excommunication which afterwards followed 
 Cobbett adds : — " Though the decision of the Pope was perfectly 
 
 * In Przef. Lib. de Pontifice, Tom. i., p. 189. Edit. 1615. 
 f See Catholic Belief, p. 244. Edit. 1887. 
 
i°3 
 
 honest and just in itself, that decision was, in its obvious and 
 inevitable consequences, rendered by a combination so hostile to 
 the greatness, the laws, the liberties, and a laudable pride of 
 Englishmen, that they were reduced to the absolute necessity of 
 setting his decision at nought, or of surrendering their very name 
 as a nation" [304]. In other words, they reversed the modern 
 theory ; they were Englishmen first and Romanists afterwards. But 
 the Pope's excommunication was not issued until Elizabeth had 
 peaceably reigned for twelve years. Now, the danger to be 
 apprehended was, according to Cobbett, in consequence of the 
 marriage of Mary Stuart with the Dauphin of France, by which act 
 she became Queen Consort of France, and he, in her right, a 
 claimant to the Crown of England. As a fact Francis II., and his 
 wife, the Queen of Scots, did usurp the title of " King and Queen 
 of England and Ireland;" and bore the arms of England, and paraded 
 them to the world. At the very beginning of Elizabeth's reign 
 Strype* tells us that " there were some already of the Popish faction 
 contriving mischief against the Queen by setting up the Scotch 
 Queen's title, and by getting assistance from the Guises in France to 
 carry on their designs on their behalf." In this plot Cardinal Pole's 
 brothers were concerned. This occurred, according to Cobbett 
 [262, 303], eight months after Elizabeth's accession; but seventeen 
 months after this event Francis II., the husband of Mary Stuart, 
 died, and her political importance in France, as Cobbett himself 
 admits, ceased. She had enemies in that country ; and " her 
 husband's mother, Catherine de Medici, soon convinced her that 
 to be anything she must return to Scotland" [306]. Cobbett is 
 not particular in assigning effects to wrong causes, and his excuses 
 therefore fall to the ground ; and, forgetting the reasons alleged 
 for this unprecedented bloodless Reformation throughout the whole 
 nation, he subsequently admits that " there was, for the present at 
 least, an end to the danger from a union of Scotland with France " 
 [307], and, of course, with it the alleged dread of " subjection to 
 foreigners." Nevertheless none of these ecclesiastics relapsed 
 into Popery. Cobbett's subtlety here again savours of Jesuit 
 inspiration, but defeats its object. But mark the further incon- 
 * Annals, Introduction, sect. i. 
 
104 
 
 sistency of the advocate. Cobbett would have us believe that the 
 nation thus becoming Protestant, those Romanists who became 
 apostates were actuated by a high patriotic motive — a voluntary 
 election between " independence" or "subjection to a foreigner." 
 They " were reduced to the absolute necessity of setting the Pope's 
 decision at naught, or of surrendering their very name as a nation" ! 
 and yet he brands Elizabeth herself as " a notorious apostate, from 
 motives as notoriously selfish" [293], and says that, in order to 
 carry out her "selfish ends," she "crammed Cranmer's creed down 
 the throats of her people ' [261J, " having pulled down altars, and 
 set up the tables" [269], and that " she ousted the Catholic priest 
 and worship, and put up in their stead a set of hungry, beggarly 
 creatures, the very scum of the earth, with Cranmer's prayer-book 
 amended in their hands " [269]. Is this the language of a member 
 of the Church of England, but rather was it not that of his Jesuit 
 prompter? He further tells us that "she compelled them to 
 acknowledge her supremacy in spiritual matters, to renounce the 
 Pope and the Catholic religion, or, in other words, to become 
 apostate " [267]. A man who undertakes to write a " history'' of 
 any particular event, and asserts such glaring contradictions and 
 inconsistencies, is beneath contempt ; and one feels humiliated in 
 being occupied with the task of refuting this so-called history ; nor 
 indeed would I have undertaken it, but for the fact that Roman 
 Priests of the present day have practically adopted the book as their 
 own as a standard of reference. There were, however, natural 
 causes which operated in bringing about this change so readily. 
 No pressure was necessary to establish a Reformation, for Queen 
 Mary herself acknowledged that the minds of the people were " so 
 alienated from the Pope " in her reign, that she confessed as much, 
 as already noted, to Cardinal Pole. To such an extent was this 
 the case, that she did not dare to admit him as the Pope's Legate : 
 " Your public delegation," she wrote to him, " is so distrusted, and 
 so odious to our subjects, that your speedier approach, though it 
 be very desirable to us, would bring more prejudice than benefit." 
 Speaking of her own situation to Commendone, she said: — "I must 
 wait until my people's feelings towards the Apostolic See are 
 somewhat modified, or until I am more firmly seated on the throne. 
 
io; 
 
 At present the very name of Rome is mortally hated here."* Pole, 
 in fact, feared to appear in his capacity of Legate. Sharon Turner 
 quotes a document wherein Pole admits "that there were few in 
 the kingdom who were on the side of the Pope."f And in a letter 
 to Charles V., speaking to him of England, Pole said : " The name 
 of obedience to the Church [of Rome] is universally abhorred 
 there, and so are the red hat and the monastic garments. "J The 
 persecutions under Mary's reign did not tend to foster a better 
 feeling; and, what is more important, Mary mentions that a 
 measure proposed by the Privy Councillors and Bishops was 
 "suspected" by the House of Commons to be " proposed from 
 favour of the Pope, in order that the title of Supreme Head of the 
 Church, which had been annexed to the Crown, might bring back 
 the power of the Pope into our kingdom. We are therefore afraid," 
 she goes on to say, " lest they should insist upon our assuming 
 and continuing this title more pertinaciously than we desire." And 
 to appease the mistrust of the people she did, in the first session 
 of her Parliament, continue the title, " Supreme Head of the 
 Church of England and Ireland." § When the pressure of 
 persecutions and compulsion was removed under Elizabeth, the 
 transition was easy and natural. ' 
 
 The next statute was the " Act of Uniformity," by which a 
 penalty of one hundred marks was inflicted on those who derogated 
 and depraved the Book of Common Prayer, or compelled a Minister 
 to use any other, or unlawfully interrupted him in the use of the 
 Common Prayer. For such, and even less, offences under Mary 
 there would have been the stake without trial ! The gravamen of 
 the charge is imposing a penalty of twelve pence for non-attendance 
 at church for the first offence, which, according to our present 
 views of liberty of conscience, was a most absurd and arbitrary 
 enactment. According to Hume, Roman " Catholics at the 
 beginning of her reign showed little reluctance against going to 
 church."|| The prohibition against attending Mass did not take 
 
 * Soames' History of the Reformation, vol. iv., p. 76. London, 1826. 
 f Hist, of England, vol. iii., p. 413. London, 1835. 
 J Ibid., p. 450. § Ibid., p. 41. 
 
 ;| History of England, vol. v., p. 227. Ed. 1767. 
 
io6 
 
 place until the twenty-third year of her reign, when Papists were 
 active in fomenting rebellion, consequent on the Bull of ex- 
 communication. These enactments cannot be justitied on any 
 other ground than as precautionary measures. But if the statement 
 of Lord Coke be true, in his charge to a Grand Jury, that the Pope 
 offered to sanction the Book of Common Prayer if the Queen 
 would accept it at his hands, no great harm to conscience would 
 ensue. Lord Coke states that he himself saw that letter. 
 
 The law, as we said, by Act of Parliament, inflicted a fine of 
 one hundred marks for derogating the Book of Common Prayer. 
 Mary, on the other hand, ly proclamation, six months before her 
 death, ordered that whoever had in his possession heretical books, 
 " or finding them did not forthwith burn the same, without showing 
 or reading them to any other person, shall he taken as a rebel, and 
 without delay executed according to martial law." The Proclamation 
 is given in Mendham's Literary Policy of the Church of Rome* 
 I shall again refer to this "Proclamation." This barbarous 
 proceeding of iSIary accorded vi'ith the practice of the Church of 
 Rome. The Louvain Index of Prohibited Books (1^46) contained 
 an ordinance of Charles V., subjecting booksellers to death who 
 sold any books containing error, &c.t And Mary's husband, 
 Philip II. of Spain, published a decree denouncing death to all 
 who should buy, sell, or keep the books prohibited by the 
 Inquisition.! Further, Mary restored the "Six Articles Act" of 
 Henry's Parliament, consigning to the flames those who denied 
 certain Popish dogmas. Romanists are eloquent in their denun- 
 ciation of Elizabeth's penal laws, but conveniently forget the 
 more cruel laws of the Papacy. In order, however, to render the 
 Church service less offensive to Romanists, the passage " From 
 the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable 
 enormities. Good Lord, deliver us" was expunged from the 
 Liturgy of Edward VI. 
 
 Then, again, under the Act ist Elizabeth, against maintaining 
 
 the usurped authority of the Bishop of Rome, the second offence 
 
 incurred only the penalties of praemunire ; whereas in the reign 
 
 of Henry VIII. , by Statute 28, c. 10, passed by Romanists 
 
 ♦ P. 21-22. Edit, 1830. f Ibid., p. 30. J Ibid., p. 53. 
 
lor 
 
 themselves, the Bishop of Rome was ordered to be abjured 
 on pain of high treason for the Jirst offence. The Act 5th 
 Elizabeth limited the consequences of treason to the offender 
 himself, and did not visit them on the descendants, as formerly. 
 The more severe Penal Laws were enacted after the Pope had 
 issued his Bull of deposition in 1570. 
 
 With reference to the " Oath of Supremacy," we must not 
 pass over the wilful misrepresentation propagated by the Roman 
 Catholic publishers of Cobbett's book. Their last edition has on 
 the outer cover a coarse engraving of Queen Elizabeth in the act of 
 consecrating an Archbishop, the words "Queen Elizabeth Conse- 
 crating AN Archbishop" printed under it. This is a wilful and 
 atrocious calumny. As if the book itself did not contain sufficient 
 misrepresentations, they must "endorse" the book with another ! 
 
 When Henry VIII. re-assumed the title of " Supreme Head 
 of the Church of England" he specially disclaimed the right to 
 administer any spiritual act, and he proclaimed that he did not 
 " take any spiritual power from spiritual ministers that is given to 
 them by the Gospel." Queen Mary, on ascending the throne, 
 passed an Act recognizing in her, a female, all the titles and 
 prerogatives of the late King, and she retained the title of " Supreme 
 Head of the Church of England and Ireland " for nearly a year 
 after her accession. But Queen Elizabeth, in order to avoid offence, 
 did not assume that title, but only " Supreme Governor of the 
 Realm," and the Oath of Supremacy was altered accordingly. 
 The Thirty-seventh Article of the Church of England is clear 
 on this :— " The King's Majesty hath the chief power in this 
 realm of England and other his dominions, unto whom the chief 
 government of all Estates in this realm, whether they be ecclesias- 
 tical or civil, in all causes doth appertain ; and is not, nor ought 
 to be, subject to any foreign jurisdiction." The Queen issued an 
 edict on this subject in order that no mistake should occur. 
 
 Dr. O'Connor, a candid Roman priest, has given the proper inter- 
 pretation and explanation of this Oath of Supremacy. He said, in his 
 Historical Address on Foreign Influence :*—" In the first of Elizabeth 
 in England, and in her second in Ireland, the title of ' Head of the 
 * Part ii., pp. 276, 277. Buckingham, 1810. 
 
io8 
 
 Church,' which gave offence to the Catholics, was omitted, and that 
 of only ' Supreme Governor of the Realm')' was substituted in its 
 stead. This last is the only title which our Kings have ever since 
 assumed ; and it is a mark of vile dishonesty on the part of our 
 foreign-influenced writers that they represent the title of the ' Head 
 of the Church ' as still used in the diplomatic language of kings. 
 But they are shamefully lost to every sense of decorum in this 
 respect; insensible of the soundness of truth." 
 
 I dwell again on this subject, for, even at the present day, Roman 
 Priests ridicule us as acknowledging a female as Head of our 
 Church. If they had not a She-Pope, Joan — though such a Pope 
 did occupy the " chair," is admitted by several of their Chroniclers — 
 they had some that were Infant Popes. 
 
 Dr. O'Connor proceeds :— " Queen Elizabeth herself declared, by 
 solemn injunctions to all her subjects, that she pretended to no 
 authority over the Church but what was of ancient times due to 
 the imperial Crown of England, and she allowed everyone to take 
 the oath subject to this explanation. The same sense was put 
 upon it by all the Clergy of England assembled in Convocation, 
 in the 37th Article of Religion, agreed to by them in 1562." * 
 
 We may now fairly ask what possible object our Roman Catholic 
 fellow-countrymen can have in propagating such a falsehood as is 
 conveyed by the engraving paraded in front of Cobbett's book ? t 
 
 With strange inconsistency, and forgetfulness of their own system 
 of persecution of Protestants in their own Jominions, the Emperor 
 and other Princes wrote to the Queen to request that she would 
 deal mercifully with the ejected clergy, who refused to take the 
 oath of allegiance. She was able, with truth, to answer that though 
 these Popish Priests insolently and openly opposed the laws and 
 the peace of the realm, yet she was dealing and would deal favour- 
 ably with them, " albeit," as she added, " not without some offence 
 to our subjects, seeing how cruelly these men had acted towards 
 the Protestants in our sister's reign." % 
 
 * The document here alluded to is given in Wilkins' Concilia, vol. iv., 
 p. 108. London, 1713. 
 f See Ante, p. 16, for a note on this subject. 
 J See Strype's Annals, vol. i., pp. 84, 148. London, 1709. 
 
Cobbett having thus endeavotired to account for the submission 
 of the Romish priesthood to this new order of things, let us now 
 see in what light the Pope received this Reformation. His priests, 
 at least, were, according to Cobbett, actuated by patriotic motives. 
 The Pope was, by his own confession, actuated by ambitious and 
 sordid motives ; for, on Sir Edward Came, the English ambassador 
 at Rome, notifying to Paul IV. the accession of Elizabeth to the 
 throne without consulting him, " he told Came that England was 
 a fief of the Holy See, and that it was great temerity in Elizabeth 
 to have assumed, without his participation, the title of Queen." * 
 But Pope Paul IV., finding that Elizabeth was firm and determined 
 to hold her own against this insolent interference, offered to her 
 to let things remain as they were provided she would acknowledge 
 his primacy and a Reformation from him.f Pius IV., his suc- 
 cessor, proffered the same conditions to the Queen by letter, written 
 May 5th, 1560, wherein he offered to comply with all her requests 
 to the utmost of his power provided she would allow of his 
 primacy ; J and Pius V., (the same Pope who afterwards issued 
 the Bull of excommunication against Elizabeth), thirty-three years 
 after Elizabeth's birth, and in the seventh year of her reign, offered 
 to reverse the Papal sentence which declared her illegitimate, if 
 she would submit to his rule. The Spanish Ambassador in 
 England, De Silva, assured Queen Elizabeth that she had only to 
 express a desire to that effect, and the Pope would immediately 
 remove the difficulty. § 
 
 Camden, in his Annals of Elizabeth,]] gives the text of a Letter 
 addressed by Pope Pius IV. to Elizabeth, under date May 15th, 1560, 
 wherein he addressed her a.s " our most dear daughter in Christ, 
 
 * Hume's Hist, of England, c. 38. 
 
 t See Sir Roger Twysden's Vindication of the Church of England, p. 148. 
 London, 1637. 
 
 X The Latin Letter is included in Dr. Cardwell's documentary Annals 
 of the Reformed Church of England, vol. i,, p. 233. Oxford, 1839. 
 
 § De Silva's letter to Philip II. of Spain is dated December, 1566. The 
 full text is given by Froude in his Hist, of England, vol. viii., pp. 329, 330. 
 London, 1863. 
 
 II B. i., p. 34; 3rd Edit. 1635 
 
no 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen of England," expressing his "great desire . . . 
 to take care of her salvation, and to provide as well for her honour 
 as the establishment of her kingdom " ! The reader must bear in 
 mind that when Elizabeth had acquainted the Pope, through her 
 Ambassador at Rome, of her succession to the throne, he received 
 the message with haughty disdain, to the effect before stated, and 
 that if she renounced her pretension, and would accept the dignity 
 at his hands, he would show her a fatherly affection.* On this 
 the Queen withdrew her Ambassador, but the subsequent Pope 
 altered his tone towards her. 
 
 Thus matters stood; and I shall leave them for a time, while 
 I consider the first charge against Elizabeth brought by Cobbett, 
 namely : — " It is to the Reformation that we, even to this day, 
 owe that we have to lament the loss of Calais, which was, at last, 
 irretrievably lost by the selfishness and perfidy of Elizabeth" [256]. 
 Calais, which had been in the possession of England since 1347, 
 when taken by our Edward III., was lost by Queen Mary in 
 1557-8. Notwithstanding this fact, Cobbett most unjustly throws 
 the disgrace of the loss on Elizabeth, because she did not plunge 
 the nation into a war with France, at the commencement of her 
 reign, to regain that loss ! But he does not blame Mary for not 
 attempting to retrieve the loss during her reign ; but he tells us 
 that Elizabeth " declined the generous offer ' of Philip of Spain 
 [Mary's late husband] for getting back Calais, who offered to 
 enter into a treaty with this nation "to continue the war for six 
 years unless Calais "was restored, provided Elizabeth bound herself 
 not to make a separate peace for that period." Cobbett says that 
 in "declining this generous offer" — "she began to rip up her 
 subjects, and was afraid of war, and, therefore, clandestinely 
 entered into negotiations with France, and it was agreed that the 
 latter should keep Calais for eight years, and pay to England 
 500,000 crowns." The charge is that Elizabeth sold Calais for a 
 given sum; the treaty with France, he says, was for the restoration 
 of the town in eight years, or the payment of the stipulated 
 sum. Cobbett, as usual, gives no authority for his assertion. The 
 
 * See Heylyn, Eccl. Restomia, p. 275. London, 1674. 
 
Ill 
 
 French Historian Rapin, however, gives a different version of this 
 transaction, virhich wholly destroys the foundation of Cobbett's 
 calumny. He says : " It was agreed that, notwithstanding 
 whether the said sum was paid or not paid, the King of France 
 and his successors should remain under the obligation to restore 
 Calais and the other places, as they engaged by this treaty. 
 These are the express words of the treaty."* But the prin- 
 cipal charge against Elizabeth is her persecuting spirit and her 
 unparalleled cruelty : — "It was not long before she began ripping 
 up the bowels of her unhappy subjects because they were Roman 
 Catholics " [260]. He calls her the savage, ferocious, brutal, 
 butchering, racking, and ripping-up Betsy, and declares that her 
 reign was almost one unbroken series of robberies and butcheries ; 
 and during the whole of that reign she was busily engaged in 
 persecuting, in ruining, in ripping-up the bowels of those who enter- 
 tained the [Roman] faith. "The Inquisition she established," he 
 says, " was more horrible than ever was heard in the world. The 
 Spanish Inquisition, from the first establishment to its present 
 hour, has not committed so much cruelty as this ferocious Protestant 
 Apostate in any one single year of the forty-three years of her 
 reign." — "Even the massacre of St. Bartholomew," he adds, "was 
 nothing -when compared to her butcheries — yes, a mere nothing ! " 
 If Cobbett had written all this, published it, and his statements 
 had been allowed to pass for what they were worth, the refutation 
 of the gross untruths would have been wholly unnecessary; but 
 when Romish Priests have translated this book into almost every 
 European language, reproduced, republished, and distributed it at an 
 unprecedentedly cheap price, and quote it on all occasions as the 
 testimony of a " Protestant Historian," then indeed it becomes 
 necessary to publish a reply, if it be only to show to what desperate 
 shifts even modern advocates of Popery are put, in order to make 
 themselves appear white by the contrast, by blackening the 
 character of others with the aid of the inconsistencies and false- 
 hoods of Cobbett. 
 
 Anent the Spanish Inquisition, let alone the slaughter of the 
 
 * Rapin's History, b. xvii. London, 1721. 
 
1 ra 
 
 Huguenots on St. Bartholomew's eve and two successive days, 
 I do not propose to quote Llorente, since his testimony is 
 questioned by Romanists, but I will now quote from the Spanish 
 Journal La Bandera Catholica of July 29th, 1883 : — 
 
 " We judge our esteemed subscribers will read with great 
 pleasure the statistics respecting those who suffered under the 
 Holy Tribunal [the Inquisition] from the year 1481 to 1808, when 
 this so venerable an institution was abolished. As our readers will 
 see, it refers to Spain only. We are unable to give the numbers 
 of those who suffered in other countries. We have believed it 
 right also to publish the names of those holy men under whose 
 hands so many sinners suffered, that good Catholics may venerate 
 their memory : — 
 
 " By Torquemada— 
 
 Men and women burnt alive . . . 10,220 
 
 Burnt in effigy ...... 6,840 
 
 Condemned to other punishments . . 97,3 71 
 
 By Diego Deza — 
 Men and women burnt alive .... 2,592 
 
 Burnt in effigy ...... 829 
 
 Condemned to other punishments . . 32,952 
 
 By Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros — 
 Men and women burnt alive . . . . 3,564 
 
 Burnt in effigy 2,232 
 
 Condemned to other punishments . . 48,059 
 
 By Adrian de Florencia — 
 Men and women burnt alive. . . . 1,620 
 
 Burnt in effigy ...... 560 
 
 Condemned to other punishments . . . 21,835 
 
 " An inquisitor established the Holy Office in America, and in 
 1522, as a reward for the same, he was elected Vicar of Jesus 
 Christ on earth ; but, so did he love his former ministry, that he 
 did not transfer it to another until the second year of his Pontificate. 
 He burnt during this time 324 persons, and condemned to various 
 punishments short of death 4081. 
 
113 
 
 " Total number of men and women burnt alive 
 under the ministry of forty- five holy inquisitor- 
 generals 3^,534 
 
 Total number burnt in effigy .... 18,637 
 Total number condemned to other punishments 293, S33 
 
 General total . 347,704' 
 
 With our present notions no one will maintain the right to 
 uphold any system, religious or political, by persecution. No 
 honest person will applaud or even justify Elizabeth, or any one 
 else, in enforcing any system on the people, except it be Cobbett 
 himself and his Romish admirers, for while he is railing against 
 Elizabeth for enforcing the principles of the Reformation, and 
 condemning her as a persecutor, he actually discovers in Popery a 
 virtue in maintaining this principle: — "The Catholic code," he 
 says, " was consistent. It said, that there was but one true 
 religion, and it punished, as offenders, those who dared openly to 
 profess any opinion contrary to that religion." This sentiment, 
 publicly endorsed by Roman priests, is admitting, and even vin- 
 dicating the persecuting character which some modern Romanists 
 are so anxious to disclaim. 
 
 A Memorial for the Reformation in England;* by the Jesuit 
 Father Parsons, prepared during Elizabeth's reign, was discovered in 
 a closet of James II., on the flight of that Monarch, and was 
 handed to the Rev. Dr. Gee, Chaplain in Ordinary to King William 
 and Queen Mary, and published by him in extenso, 1690 [a copy 
 of which is in the British Museum Library]. It was proposed to 
 
 * In theil/oBiA for October,, 1 88g — "A Catholic Magazine and, Review" pub- 
 lished in this country by the Jesuits, and printed at their " Manresa Press," 
 Roehampton — we find a notable article under the title of "A Jesuit Scheme 
 for the Reformation of England." This article is written by the Editor, 
 the Rev. Father R. F. Clarke, s.j., and in it Father Clarke directs the atten- 
 tion of Roman Catholics of England to this same book by this Jesuit 
 Father Robert Parsons, in which that notorious rebel propounded a plan 
 for the government of England whenever that realm might be again brought 
 under the dominion of the Papacy. 
 
 8 
 
IJ4 
 
 establish a "Council," of Romanists, of course; to be styled 
 "Council of the Reformation," "for that the name of Inquisition 
 may be somewhat odious and offensive at the beginning." 
 
 In this Memorial we read: "that before this ' Council ' made an 
 end of their office, when they shall have settled and secured the 
 state of Catholic Religion, it -would be very much necessary that 
 they should leave some good and sound manner of iNauisiTioN 
 established for the conservation of that -which they have planted ; 
 that perhaps it would be best to spare the name of Inquisition, 
 at the first beginning, which, in so new and green a state of Religion 
 as ours must needs be after so many years of Heresy, may chance 
 offend and exasperate more than do good. But afterwards it will 
 be necessary to bring it in, either by that or some other name, as 
 shall be thought most Convenient at the time ; for that, without this 
 care, all will slide down and fall again." 
 
 The Memorial proceeds to the consideration of " the form and 
 manner of iNauisiTioN " which it -will be desirable to bring into 
 this Kingdom. The merits of the respective Inquisitions set up in 
 Spain, Italy, and Rome are severally discussed, and it is suggested 
 that possibly " a mixture of all will not be amiss for England when 
 the day shall come." Nevertheless special commendation is given 
 to the " diligent and exact manner of proceeding" that then prevailed 
 in Spain, as being " so necessary as, without this, no matter of 
 moment can be expected." It is also stated that "some High 
 Council of Delegates from His Holiness must preside in the Court, 
 as in Spain is used; or else all will languish." "The prisons of 
 the Inquisition are also to be separated from the concourse of the 
 people," and " some sharp execution of justice is to be made upon 
 the obstinate and remediless." 
 
 Father Parsons adds in his Preface the important statement, 
 " And what is said in this Treatise for the Kingdom of England, 
 is meant also for Ireland, so far as it may do good, seeing the 
 Author desireth as much benefit for God's Service, and the good of 
 that Nation, to the one Country as to the other." 
 
 The "Council" also are exhorted, "before all other matters to 
 publish at the beginning an edict or proclamation, -with all severity, 
 commanding, under pain of great punishment, that no religious or 
 
"5 
 
 ecclesiastical person whatsoever do enter into the Realm with- 
 out presenting himself before the Council within so many days 
 after his entrance, and there to show cause why he cometh, 
 and the License and Authority by which he cometh, and to 
 stand to the determination of the Council for his abode and 
 departure again." 
 
 The "Council of the Reformation," "with Faculty of His 
 Holiness " is to undertake the distribution of all livings and lands 
 which shall be restored," and "without respect of the former Pos- 
 sessors" — " Great and special care also was to be had for erecting 
 monasteries for women." 
 
 But the real question at issue is, whether Elizabeth did enforce the 
 Reformed religion on any one by compulsion or torture, or by 
 other undue means. It resolves itself into the fact, one way or the 
 other, whether undue means were employed by Elizabeth and her 
 advisers ; and whether, taking into consideration the spirit of the 
 times and the conspiracies against the Crown and life of Elizabeth, 
 her laws could be declared to be persecuting, and the victims of 
 those laws to be martyrs. Let the reader decide from the historical 
 facts which I propose to adduce — a series of events w^hich have not 
 their parallel in any country in any age. 
 
 With -reference to the number of victims who suffered under 
 this reign, I have already noticed the extravagant statements put 
 forth by Cobbett, without one single reference to support his 
 assertion, without one attempt at proof ; but when he makes a 
 comparison between the numbers who suffered under Elizabeth's 
 reign of forty-four years and Mary's of fve, we arrive at some 
 data. He says : " Elizabeth put, in one way or another, more 
 Catholics to death in one year, for not becoming apostates to the 
 religion she had sworn to be hers, and to be the only true one, 
 than Mary put to death in her whole reign for having apostatized 
 from the religion of her and their fathers " [269]. " For every 
 drop of blood Mary shed, Elizabeth shed a pint" [225]. Dodd, 
 the Romish writer and Church historian, and a great authority 
 with Romanists, places the number who suffered death under 
 Elizabeth at 199. Dr. J. Milner, the most zealous and uncom- 
 promising and unscrupulous advocate of Romanism, with all his 
 
 8 * 
 
lib 
 
 researches, placed the numbef at 204.* But the Calendar of Martyrs, 
 with the Imprimatur of Cardinal Manning (London, 1887), gives 
 the number 182 who were hanged, and 19 who died in prison, during 
 Elizabeth's reign. The number of "Martyrs" under Queen Mary's 
 reign stands confessedly at 277. Dr. Maitland, in his Reforma- 
 tion in England, p. 57^5, gives this number "after a good deal of 
 trouble has been taken to make it as full and correct as possible." 
 While this disparity of numbers is thus proved, we should take 
 into account the series of treasons and attempts to murder Queen 
 Elizabeth by those who suffered, and that her whole reign extended 
 to the term of forty-four years, while that of Mary only slightly 
 exceeded Jive! The Martyrs under Mary were burnt at the stake 
 for their religious opinions, a cruel death, and in no way on political 
 grounds, and without legal trial. The so-called Martyrs under Eliza- 
 beth were hanged on the charge of treason against the Queen, after 
 legal trial. Not one so suffered under Elizabeth until after the 
 publication of her excommunication by a Bull of the Pope, which 
 was the cause of the rebellious and traitorous conduct of the 
 Seminary Priests. With these undoubted facts before us, we are 
 told, in a popular Romish work. The Clifton Tracts, published for 
 the " Brotherhood of St. Vincent of Paul," permissu superiorum,f 
 that the persecutions under Mary and " the days of the Inquisi- 
 tion " are " all nursery fables " ! 
 
 We may fairly ask the reader to compare the conduct of Eliza- 
 beth and her advisers with that of Mary and her advisers, 
 Gardiner, Bonner, and probably Pole. Mary was proclaimed 
 Queen, July 19th, 1553 ; in September, she refused to recognize 
 the legality of the marriage of the clergy, and married priests were 
 ordered either to quit their wives or leave their benefices. Bishops 
 Barlow, Bush, Hooper, Ferrers, Bird, Holgate, Coverdale, Scorey, 
 Ponet, Cranmer, Ridley, Harley, and Latimer were deprived of their 
 sees, and some of them imprisoned, besides an immense number 
 of priests ; and several of them were publicly burnt alive, notably 
 
 * See Historical Memoirs of the English and Irish and Scotch Catholics, by 
 Charles Butler, Esq., vol i., p. 398. London, 1822. Mr. Butler was 
 educated at the Romish College of Douay. 
 Vol. iii., p. 2. 1853. 
 
1^7 
 
 Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer ; and Elizabeth herself was kept as 
 a close prisoner, though there was not the slightest evidence of her 
 disloyalty to the Queen. There is a remarkable passage in one 
 of the letters written by Renard, the Ambassador of Charles V. 
 (Queen Mary's cousin) at the Court of England. Such had been 
 the persecutions by Mary, that Renard, in June, 1555, writing to 
 the Emperor, said: — "The entire future turns on the accouche- 
 ment of the Queen [Mary], of which, however, there are no signs. 
 If all goes well, the state of feeling in the country will improve. 
 If she is in error, I foresee convulsions and disturbances such as no 
 pen can describe. The succession to the Crown is so unfortu- 
 nately hampered that it must fall to Elizabeth, and with Elizabeth 
 there will be a religious revolution ; the clergy will be put down, 
 the Catholics persecuted, and there will be such revenge for the 
 present proceedings as the world has never seen." * 
 
 This is the retributive justice that was expected 5 but Elizabeth 
 was not a Mary. The nation was quite satisfied in casting off the 
 " works of darkness, and in putting on the armour of light." The 
 nation groaned under Papal tyranny and persecutions, and relief 
 was given by the liberal and enlightened spirit of Protestantism. 
 
 When Papists refer to the penal laws of this period they seldom 
 state what they proscribed, and particularly what offences they 
 were enacted to suppress, and Cobbett follows this example, and 
 they certainly never bring them in comparison with the persecu- 
 tions under Mary. Let the laws speak for themselves. Having 
 already referred to the Act of Supremacy, the next alleged penal 
 Act (i Eliz. c. 2) was the "Act of Uniformity.'' This Act sub- 
 jected offenders to certain penalties. The offences were " deroga- 
 ting and depraving the Book of Common Prayer, compelling 
 ministers to use another, and unlawfully interrupting them in the 
 use of the Common Prayer." Was there no call for this Act? 
 Let us see. Strype and Camden tell us that the followers of the 
 Earls Northumberland and Westmoreland " showed their Popish 
 zeal, among other outrages, in entering into the churches, and there 
 
 * Renard to the Emperor, June 27, 1553. Gnnmlle Papers, vol. vi., 
 quoted by Froude, History of England, vol. vi., p. 354. i860. 
 
ii8 
 
 cutting and tearing the Bibles and Common-Prayer Books, and 
 treading them under foot."* 
 
 The offenders were to be first convicted by a jury of twelve men. 
 The penalty was a forfeiture of one hundred marks ; for a third 
 offence, imprisonment. This was the law established by a solemn 
 Act of Parliament. Now let the reader compare this with what the 
 Popish Mary ordered by her simple " Proclamation " (and it is 
 worth repeating). " Whosever shall be found to have any of the 
 said wicked and seditious books [that is, so-called heretical books], 
 or, finding them, does not forthwith burn the same, without showing 
 or reading the same to any other person, shall in that case be 
 reputed and taken a relel, and shall without delay, be executed for 
 the offence according to martial law."t And this sanguinary 
 decree was issued simply for having in one's possession alleged 
 heretical Books ; and the condemned had not even the benefit of a 
 legal trial ! 
 
 "In the Memorial for the Reformation in England" by the 
 Jesuit Father Parsons, referred to ante p. 113, one of the propositions 
 was, on the establishment of Roman Catholic authority in this 
 country, that care should be taken for the expurgation of heretical 
 books : " Public and private libraries were to be searched and 
 examined for books ; also all bookbinders', stationers', and book- 
 sellers' shops." All heretical books and pamphlets were utterly to 
 be removed, burnt and suppressed, and severe orders and punish- 
 ment appointed for such as should conceal these kinds of writings. 
 
 To go further back to earlier Popish times in this country. 
 What was the law then? By the Statute 2 Henry IV., c. 15, 
 specially levelled against so-called heretical preachers, " on the 
 prayer of the Prelates, it was enacted that none shall preach without 
 licence ; and any offender against the Act shall be arrested by the 
 diocesan, and imprisoned, and fined ; and all persons refusing to 
 abjure, or relapsing, shall be delivered to the sheriff, who then 
 before the people, on a high place, are to he hvrnt, that such punish- 
 ment may strike fear in the minds of others, that such wicked 
 
 * Strype's Annals of Queen Elizabeth, c. liv., vol. i., p. 322, Oxford, 1842. 
 Camden's ^BMflb, p. 115. London, 1635. 
 f See Wilkins' Concilia, Tom. iv., p. 155 et seq., and 163. London, 1737. 
 
irp 
 
 doctrines nor its authors shall be in anywise suffered." Why^ I ask, 
 are Cobbett's censures and wrath reserved for the Reformers ? 
 Here, "on the prayer of the Prelates" (all Papists), is a decree 
 committing to the flames all who refuse to embrace the Popish 
 religion. No wonder the Reformation was retarded ! But it came 
 at last, and all the fires of Smithfield could not arrest its progress. 
 With reference to the Act passed in the first year of this reign as 
 to the supremacy, Cobbett, as we have seen, says : " All persons 
 were compelled to take the oath of supremacy on pain of death. To 
 take the oath of supremacy, that is to say, to acknowledge the 
 Queen's supremacy in spiritual matters, was to renounce the Pope, 
 and the Catholic religion ; or, in other words, to become apostate. 
 Thus a very large part of her people were at once condemned to death, 
 for adhering to the religion of their fathers " [267]. I have already 
 exposed the gross perversion here perpetrated : not a single person 
 was put to death under that Act ; but I cannot do better than quote 
 the testimony of Romanists themselves in reply to this choice 
 specimen of Cobbett's facile mode of recording the grossest calumny 
 and falsehood. In the year 1601 "sundry Secular Priests" pub- 
 lished, during the reign of Elizabeth, a statement of their case, with 
 an epistolary introduction written by Priest Watson. It is entitled 
 " Important Considerations which ought to move all true and sound 
 Catholics, who are not wholly Jesuitized, to acknowledge, without 
 all equivocations, ambiguities or shiftings, that the proceedings of- 
 Her Majesty [Elizabeth] and of the State with them since the 
 beginning of Her Highness's reign, have both been mild and 
 merciful."* "It cannot be denied," say the Secular Priests, the 
 writers of this document, " but that for the first ten years of Her 
 Majesty's reign, the state of England was tolerable, and, after a 
 sort, in some good quietness." This is confirmed by the speech of 
 Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord-Keeper, on the opening of Parliament, 13 
 Eliz. i57i-t "Such asfor their conscience were imprisoned in the 
 
 * This document was reprinted by the Rev. Joseph Mendham, London, 
 1831, in which the authenticity and genuineness of the original is fully 
 established, and will be the edition quoted. A full account of this book is 
 given by the Ecclesiastical Historian of the Roman Communion, Dodd,. 
 See his Church History of England, vol. ii., p. 379, 380. Bruxelles, 1739. 
 
 t D'Ewe's Journal of alhthe Earliammts,,-p. a^S. 
 
120 
 
 beginning of her coming to the crown were kindly and mercifully 
 used, the state of things considered. Some of them were appointed 
 to remain with such of their friends as they themselves chose of. 
 Others were placed, some with bishops, some with deans, and had 
 their diet at their tables, with such convenient lodgings, and walks 
 for their recreation, as did well content them. They that were in 
 the ordinary prisons had such liberty and other commodities as the 
 places would afford, not inconvenient for men that were in their 
 cases." Be it remembered that this is the testimony of Secular 
 Priests living at the time the persecutions are said to have occurred. 
 
 The Secular Priests confined at Wisbeach, enjoyed full liberty : — 
 " Friends sent them venison, wine, and spices. Gentlemen and 
 ladies came to dine, sup and visit them in their chambers. No 
 day passed without a guest. They had leave to go out as they 
 pleased. They became popular with the tradesmen of the town, 
 and with the poor, to whom they liberally contributed a portion of 
 their superfluous alms. The Priests formed themselves into a sort 
 of college. Metham, the intended Archbishop of York, gave lec- 
 tures, it is said, in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Debates 
 were held on ecclesiastical affairs, and an active correspondence was 
 kept up with friends abroad. It was made a place of pilgrimage, 
 as a tenth part of the missionaries — and the most active part- — 
 were here in fact lodged with far more liberty and comfort, and 
 with far more power to carry out the purpose, than those who were 
 hunted over the country from one hiding-place to another. What 
 is still more surprising is that the prisoners were permitted to 
 keep' lads, of ages varying from thirteen to eighteen, as attendants 
 or pages." * 
 
 These Secular Priests then appeal to the Jesuits, Parsons and 
 Creswell, as confessing that : — " In the beginning of her King- 
 dom, she did deal somewhat more gently with Catholics j none 
 were then urged by her or pressed, either to her sect or to the denial 
 of their faith. All things, indeed, did seem to proceed in a far 
 milder course — no great complaints were heard of." And these 
 Secular Priests for themselves state : — " For whilst Her Majesty 
 and the State dealt with the Catholics as you have heard (which 
 
 * See Thomas Grave Law's " Introduction " to A Historical Sketch of the 
 Conflicts hetix'een Jesuits and Seculars. London, 1889, p. xlii. 
 
121 
 
 was full eleven years, no one Catholic being called in question of his life 
 for his conscience all that time), consider with us how some of our 
 profession proceeded with them." And they then set forth the 
 plottings of the Jesuits in this country, which brought upon them 
 the retribution they richly deserved (pp. 39-J9). They conclude 
 by admitting that " these foreign Jesuitical practices had been the 
 cause of all their troubles ; " and that "they might have continued 
 in peace, and none making them afraid, were it not for the 
 treasons and rebellions stirred up by the Jesuits and their party 
 against the Queen and the lawful government of the country." 
 Again I appeal to the testimony of the Roman Catholic Historian, 
 Dodd, who asserts that " they [the Romanists] were entertained by 
 her [the Queen] in the Army, and now and then in the Cabinet, 
 till such times as the misbehaviour of some particular persons 
 [and this is putting their conduct mildly] drew a persecution upon 
 the whole body."* And another Roman Priest, Berington, on the 
 same subject, bears the following testimony: — "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 prerogatives of Papal despotism ; it was 
 not for any tenet of the Catholic faith that they were exposed to 
 persecution."! Bzovius, the Romish "Annalist" and Papal 
 champion, was constrained to admit that there were not any that 
 suffered in Queen Elizabeth's reign except those who taught the 
 dangerous doctrine that the Pope could depose Kings, % and this 
 was published during Elizabeth's reign. Again the same Secular 
 Priests bore testimony : — " If we at home, all of us, both 
 princes and people, had possessed our souls in meekness and 
 humility, honoured Her Majesty, borne the infirmities of the State, 
 suffered all things, and dealt as true Catholic Priests ; if all of us, 
 we say, had thus done, most assuredly the State would have loved 
 us, or at least borne with us.» Where there is one Catholic, there 
 would have been ten ; there had been no speeches amongst 
 
 * Part iv., art. iv,, Tierney's Edit. London, 1839, vol. iii., p. 5. Tiemey 
 was a Romish Priest. 
 
 f Introduction to Memoirs of Panzani, p. 34. Edit. 1793. 
 X De Rom. Pont., cap. xlvi., p. 621. Antwerp, 1601. 
 
122 
 
 US of racks and torments, nor any cause to have used them, 
 for none were ever vexed that way simply for that he was either 
 a Priest or Catholic, but because they were suspected to have had 
 their hands in some of the said most traitorous designments " 
 (p. 72). This testimony is again confirmed by the Roman Mar- 
 tyrologists Verstegan and Bridgwater,* who do not pretend 
 that any of their fellow religionists suffered death for the sake of 
 religion before 1^70, when Elizabeth had reigned eleven years-, 
 that is after the issue of the Bull of Excommunication. This work, 
 too, was published during her reign. Even the noted Jesuit 
 Parsons — for he doubtless was the author of Leicester's Common- 
 wealth — put into the mouth of one of his speakers t : — " I do well 
 remember the first dozen years of Her Majesty's reign, how happy, 
 pleasant and quiet they were, with all manner of comfort and con- 
 solation. There was no mention then of factions in religion, 
 neither was any man much noted or rejected for that cause ; tie 
 suspicion of treason, no talk of bloodshed, no complaint of troubles, 
 miseries or vexation." 
 
 Such being the ample testimony of Romanists themselves as 
 to Elizabeth's alleged Penal laws, I propose briefly to consider 
 the provocations which called them forth. These ^^'ere deliberate 
 acts of treason. " Some of us," wrote the Secular Priests above 
 quoted, " have said many a time, when we have read and heard 
 speeches of Her Majesty's supposed cruelty, — 'Why, my masters, 
 what would you have her do, being resolved as she is in matters of 
 religion, except she should willingly cast off the cares, not only of 
 her state and kingdom, but of her life also and princely estima- 
 tion ?' Yea, there have been amongst us, of our own calling, who 
 have likewise said, that they themselves, knowing what they 
 do know — how, under pretence of religion, the life of Her Majesty 
 and the salvation of the kingdom is aimed at — if they had been of 
 Her Highness's Council, they would have given their consent for 
 the making of very strict and rigorous laws, to the better suppres- 
 sion and preventing of all such Jesuitical and wicked designments " 
 (pp. 67, 68). The Romish Priest, Clark, confessed that the Queen's 
 
 * See Verstegan's Theatrum Crudelitatum Hcenticorum, p. 86. Edit. 1592. 
 f 162. Edit. 1641. 
 
123 
 
 laws ought not to be defamed as tyrannical, " seeing that their [the 
 Jesuit's] treasonable actions were the occasion of them."* When 
 such is the opinion of Romanists themselves|of the period in question, 
 it is too late for Romanists of the present day to put forth a Cobbett 
 to delude us into the supposition that the Jesuit plotters were 
 innocent martyrs for the cause of the so-called ancient religion. 
 
 In the year 1560 a proclamation was issued against Anabaptists, 
 who had begun to spread their poisonous doctrines, and committed 
 sacrilegious depredations. f How did the Jesuits avail themselves 
 of the circumstance ?, Hallam, in his Constitutional History I (cap. 
 iii., vol. i.), tells us that " Priests travelled about the country in 
 various guises to keep alive a flame which the practice of outward 
 conformity was calculated to extinguish. Many of these itinerant 
 priests assumed the character of Protestant preachers ; and it has 
 been said with some truth, not probably without exaggeration, that 
 under the direction of their crafty court they fomented the divisions 
 then springing up, and mingled with the Anabaptists and other 
 sectaries, in hope of exciting dislike to the Establishment, and of 
 instilling their own tenets, slightly disguised, into the minds of the 
 unwary enthusiast;" and Thomas Heath, brother of the deprived 
 Archbishop of York, was seized, a.d. 1568, " well primed with 
 Anabaptist tracts for circulation." 
 
 On May 6th, 1566, in the first year of his Pontificate, Pius V. 
 issued a Bull, whereby he " anathematized all heretics lying, 
 trading or travelling in or amongst the same, wheresoever dis- 
 persed over the face of the whole earth ; " and by the same Bull 
 he " further willed and authorized the wise and learned of our 
 ecclesiastics, expert in divine science, ■ to labour, endeavour, and 
 devise all manner of devices to be devised, to abate, assuage, and 
 confound these heretics, repugnant to our sacred laws, that thereby 
 these heretics may be either recalled to confess their error and 
 acknowledge our ■ jurisdiction of the See of Rome, or that a total 
 infamy may be brought upon them and their posterities by a per- 
 petual discord and contention among themselves, by which means 
 
 * See Foulis's History of Romish Treasons, p. 420. Edit. 1671. 
 
 f Camden's Annals, p. 35. London, 1635. 
 
 J Cap. iii., vol. i., pp. 121, 122, note. Edit. 1846. 
 
124 
 
 they may either speedily perish by God's wrath or continue in 
 eternal difference, to the reproach of Jew, Turk, Heathen, nay to 
 the devils themselves."* This was, indeed, encouraging to Eliza- 
 beth ! " Who, then," exclaim the Secular Priests, " gave the cause 
 that you were troubled ? When her Majesty used you kindly, 
 how treacherously was she dealt with by you ? Did not Pius 
 Quintus practise Her Majesty's subversion ? — she (good lady) 
 never dreaming of any such mischief" (p. 42). There is an im- 
 portant acknowledgment made by the priest Wright to Garnet, the 
 Provincial of the Jesuits, quoted by Sharon Turner (iv., p. 401) 
 from Birk's' Memoirs of Elizabeth. Wright describes Garnet and 
 the Seminary Priests as being all " sworn enemies to Her Majesty, 
 intending, plotting, and procuring her death." He warns them 
 " to desist from such Machiavellian treasons" — "for otherwise," 
 he adds, " I am afraid lest all our priests be rather put to death, for 
 matters of state than religion." In fact, as Walsingham defined it, 
 the Queen distinguished Papists in conscience from Papists in 
 faction. 
 
 Catena, the celebrated Secretary to Cardinal Alessandro, and to 
 the Congregation of Bishops, and to the " Sacred Consulta," in his 
 life of Pius v., informs us that for many years during the earlier 
 part of Elizabeth's reign the Pope had an agent in this country 
 named Roberto Ridolfi, who was sent here " living in the kingdom 
 under pretence of trading as a merchant, that he might excite the 
 inhabitants to a rebellion for the destruction of Elizabeth."! 
 Gabutius records as a fact that the design of the Pope was to take 
 away her life if she would not become a Romanist. The Secular 
 Priests say that Ridolfi was sent by the Pope "to solicit a rebellion 
 under colour of merchandise" (p. 42). Hume describes the 
 danger in which Elizabeth continually lived : — "The assassination 
 of heretical Sovereigns, and of that Princess [Elizabeth] in par- 
 ticular, was represented as the most meritorious of all enterprises, 
 
 * The authority and circumstances of the issue of this Bull are given in 
 Mendham's Life 0/ Pius V., pp. 122, 123. Edit. 1832. And see Sir 
 James Ware's Foxes and Firebrands. Dublin, 1682, P. ii., p. 35. 
 
 t Catena, p. 102. In Roma, 1586 ; and see Gabutius' Vit.Pii V., Lib. iii., 
 c. ix. Antwerp, 1640. 
 
and that they thought that whoever perished in such pious attempts 
 enjoyed, without dispute, the glorious and never-fading crown of 
 martyrdom;"* hence the treasonous conspiracies and murderous 
 designs of Savage, Ballard, Babington, Morgan and others. The 
 case of Parry, hired to assassinate the Queen, recorded by Cobbett 
 himself in his edition of the State trials, I shall have to notice 
 presently. 
 
 In order of date I ought to have mentioned the Statute ^ Eliz. c. i. 
 A.D. 1^63, as one of the alleged Penal Laws of the country. It was 
 enacted " for the preservation of the Queen, and to avoid such 
 hurts and perils as have before time befallen by means of the 
 jurisdiction and power of the See of Rome unjustly claimed 
 within this realm." The offender was to be tried in a constitutional 
 manner in the Queen's Bench. The offence contemplated was 
 " advisedly and willingly offending contrary to law," and was 
 enacted for " the assurance of the Queen's royal power over all 
 estates and subjects within her dominions." 
 
 The claim of Mary Queen of Scots, to the throne of England, 
 was made a plea upon which the Pope and his adherents rested 
 their justification for attempting to dethrone Elizabeth and destroy 
 her kingdom. The master spirit sat at Rome. "The coals," said 
 Jewell, " were kindled here, but the bellows were there, and there 
 he sat — he that blew the fire. We saw the puppets, but the 
 juggler that drew the strings kept himself close." 
 
 We need not enter here on the question of the Queen of Scots. 
 Her conduct, and Elizabeth's measures against her, were purely 
 political, and had nothing whatever to do with the Reformation 
 otherwise than that her case was made a pretext for rebellions and 
 treasons. It has been truly observed that this portion of our 
 history has been so deformed by controversy that there is scarcely 
 a single event of any importance which has not been questioned or 
 distorted to suit the peculiar views of the antagonists or defenders 
 of the Queens respectively. The reader, however, may profit- 
 ably consult Mr. Fronde's able and impartial exposition of the 
 history of this unfortunate Princess in his History of England — 
 
 * History of England, c. x\i., a.n. 158^. Vol. iv., p. 33. Edit. 1851. 
 
126 
 
 reign of Elizabeth. But that such an outcry should be raised 
 against Elizabeth for the execution of the Queen of Scots, and 
 that the execution of Lady Jane Grey (Lady Dudley) by her sister 
 Mary should be passed with scarcely a censure, is manifestly unjust. 
 Several letters passed between Mary Queen of Scots and Pope 
 Pius v., in which she sought his aid, with the assistance of France 
 and Spain, to establish her claim to the throne, and the Pope was 
 most active in his endeavours to further that claim, and in doing so 
 he hoped to re-establish, through her, his authority and the Roman 
 religion in this country. 
 
 In 1569 the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland were 
 incited by one Nicholas Morton, a priest sent by the Pope himself 
 to England for the express purpose of exciting a rebellion to raise 
 Mary Queen of Scots to the throne of England and restore the 
 authority of the Pope and religion as it existed in the previous 
 reign. The Pope addressed a letter to the two, dated from Rome, 
 February 20th, i^'/o,* urging them to rebellion, "to deliver your- 
 selves and that kingdom from the basest servitude of a woman's 
 lust, and to recover them to the primitive obedience of this Holy 
 See," and, he added, "that it may be effected, we will not only 
 assist by performing the offices you desire with Christian princes, 
 but by immediately granting the sum of money which, according 
 to our power, and agreeably to your request, we are able to supply." 
 I draw special attention to the following passage : " But if, in assert- 
 ing the Catholic faith and the authority of the Holy See, you should 
 hazard death and spill your blood, far better is it, for the confes- 
 sion of God, to fly by a compendious and glorious death to eternal 
 life than, living basely and ignominiously, to serve the will of an 
 impotent woman, with the injury of your souls." Though they headed 
 an army, according to Catena, of twelve thousand men, for want of 
 resources they were dispersed in the year 1569, and they paid the 
 penalty for their traitorous designs. We perhaps may hear, of 
 their canonization ! In March, 1570, the Pope wrote to the King 
 of Spain, urging him to take part in the general crusade against 
 
 * See Goubau, Lib. iv., ep. x., p. 290. Antwerp, 1640. The original and 
 translation are given in Mendham's Life of Pius V., pp. 128 and 254. Edit. 
 1832. 
 
127 
 
 England, and to depose Elizabeth, "this same most deceptions 
 woman, or rather disgrace of the Christian Republic." He used 
 similar efforts with France, but that nation was too much occupied 
 with intestine commotions to take an active part in the crusade 
 against England. This was followed by the Bull of " damnation 
 and excommunication of Elizabeth, Queen of England, and her 
 adherents," but which fortunately was issued when the Northern 
 rebellion had been already suppressed. This Bull bore date " jth 
 of the Kalends of March, 1570." The Bull anathematized and 
 excommunicated Elizabeth as a slave of impiety, a heretic and a 
 favourer of heretics. He deposed her, and deprived her of her 
 alleged pretended right to the crown of England, as illegitimate. 
 He absolved all her subjects from their allegiance, and all others 
 from their oaths, and that for ever. He positively enjoined 
 disobedience under penalty of the same anathema and excommuni- 
 cation as were denounced against the Queen, and placed the whole 
 land under his curse and interdict.* This was an open declaration 
 of war against England; and all the Queen's subjects who 
 accepted the Pope's Bull were traitors to their Queen and country. 
 The aggressor was the Pope, not Elizabeth. What right had a 
 foreign priest to interfere with this country's political or religious 
 affairs ? No more than Leo XHI. has now a right to depose 
 Queen Victoria as a heretic. One John Felton was caught in the 
 act of fixing a copy of this Bull on the Bishop of London's Palace 
 gate ; he gloried in the act. He was hanged as a traitor. Leo 
 XIIL has selected the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria to beatify 
 this Felton and several other traitors of the period in question, who 
 are declared to be " martyrs for the cause of Christ." 
 
 The Romish paper, the Tallet, of February 5th, 1887, thus 
 refers to the action of Leo XHI. :— " And who was the first (of 
 these Martyrs) thus privileged ? It will be a surprise to many to 
 hear that the cautious Challoner barely names him in his Martyr- 
 oloay; that he is not mentioned in the Calendar of English 
 Martyrs, published not many years since by a priest of the London 
 
 * Mag. Bull. Rom., Lugd. 1655, Tom. ii., p. 303. I give in the Appendix 
 B. a translation of this Bull. Mr. Mendham, in his Life of Pitts V., gives 
 the original text (London, 1832, pp. 141, 257). 
 
128 
 
 Oratory, and that, if we mistake not, the Bishops of England did 
 not include him among those whose beatification they sought for 
 from the Apostolic See. But what the prudence and caution of his 
 countrymen refrained from proclaiming has ieen proclaimed hy a 
 higher and supreme tribunal ; and the thirteenth Leo, in ranking 
 Blessed John Felton among the martyrs, has but followed the 
 example of the thirteenth Gregory. Roma locuta est, and John 
 Felton, a wealthy gentleman of Southwark, who risked his life — 
 and lost it — for courageously affixing a copy of St. Pius V.'s Bull 
 of excommunication of Queen Elizabeth to the doors of the Bishop 
 of London's residence, must be counted among the army of 
 witnesses who testified by their death to the supremacy of St. 
 Peter and the unity of the Church." 
 
 Mr. Law, formerly a Priest of the Brompton Oratory, in his 
 recent work, A Historical Sketch of the Conflicts between Seculars 
 and Jesuits, London, 1889, p. vii., writes : — " The list of Elizabethan 
 martyrs given in Bishop Challoner's Memoirs of Missionary Priests 
 (1741-42), and generally accepted by Roman Catholics, was 
 approved in the ordinary process instituted by Cardinal Manning 
 in 1874, and by him forwarded to Rome in view of the further 
 canonical steps to be there taken for their Beatification. By an 
 unusual procedure, the Congregation of Rites added to this 
 traditional roll four martyrs, whom, with all others whose martyr- 
 doms were painted on the walls of the English College in 1582 by 
 Circignani, Leo. XIIL Beatified in December, 1886. The four 
 were Plum tree, the Chaplain of the insurgent Earls, who was hanged 
 as a rebel in 1579 ; John Felton, already mentioned ; Dr. Story, the 
 civilian, one of the worst instigators of the Marian persecution, who 
 stoutly refused allegiance to the Queen ; and Thomas Woodhouse, 
 a priest, claimed by the Jesuits, who also, on the strength of 
 Pius's Bull, refused to acknowledge the right of Elizabeth to the 
 Crown. Challoner excluded these men because, in his opinion, 
 they had not suffered purely on religious accounts " (p. vii. note). 
 
 Such is the true spirit of Romanism at the present day ! 
 
 At the same time Philip, King of Spain, at the Pope's instance, 
 determined to send the "professional butcher," the Duke of Alva, 
 into England with all his forces, then in the Low Countries, to 
 
129 
 
 assist the Duke of Norfolk, whom the Pope and Philip had 
 appointed to be at the head of the rebellion to free the Queen of 
 Scots, and '• disinherit " Elizabeth.* A similar request was sent to 
 the King of Portugal, and his assistance begged in the enterprise. 
 The following passage is found in the Pope's letter to Philip of 
 Spain, to which Catena gives the date March jtli, 1570 : — "And 
 what shall we say of the Kingdom of England, formerly so 
 flourishing, into which, — while a woman assuming to be a Queen 
 exercises the crudest tyranny, — as into a kind of sink the filth of 
 every heresy flows, a woman who, having abolished the sacrifice 
 of the most holy Mass, having committed Catholic Bishops to 
 dungeons, having expelled from her councils nobles and honourable 
 men (what is miserable and horrible to be told), calls herself head 
 of the Anglican Church. This same most deceptious woman, or 
 rather disgrace of the Christian Republic, detains as a captive our 
 dearest daughter in Christ, the Queen of Scotland, deprived of her 
 kingdom and all her property, and forces Catholics by her arrogant 
 edicts to profess heresy and deny the true faith; aiming at this 
 one object above all, that no vestige of the Catholic religion 
 should be left in the kingdom." With all this provocation, would 
 any monarch sit quietly, look on, and do nothing to counteract 
 these unchristian and diabolical proceedings of the enraged Roman 
 Papists and others who were living, in fact, out of the kingdom ? 
 The secular priests within the kingdom exclaimed, after enumera- 
 ting these facts : " Are all these things true, and were they not in 
 hand whilst Her Majesty dealt so mercifully with you ? How can 
 you excuse these designments, so unchristian, so unpriestly, so 
 treacherous, and, therefore, so unpriestlike" (p. 43). The Queen, 
 however, allowed more than a year to pass before she called her 
 Parliament together to claim their protection. In April, 157 1, 
 Parliament passed two Acts j by the first (13 Eliz. c. i) it was 
 made treason to deny the Queen's title, or to call her a schismatic, 
 a heretic, or an infidel. The second (13 Eliz. c. 2) was directed 
 against those who should put in force in this country any " Bulls, 
 writings, or instruments and other superstitious things from the 
 
 * See Watson's Considerations, pp. 43-46. 
 
130 
 
 See of Rome.'' These superstitious things were "crosses, 
 pictures, beads, and articles called Agnus Dei," which latter, conse- 
 crated by the Bishop of Rome, were used as talismans, and were 
 supposed to enchant and bewitch the people's affections from 
 their allegiance to their sovereign. I may mention here that the 
 heads of the conspiracy, including Rodolphi, had been imprisoned; 
 they were all subsequently released except the Duke of Norfolk, 
 who had aspired to the hand of Mary, Queen of Scots, and 
 espoused her claim to the throne. Then followed, say the 
 Secular Priests, great restraints " of the prisoners ; but none were 
 put to death upon that occasion, the sword being then only drawn 
 against such Catholics as had risen up actually into open rebellion, 
 wherein we cannot see what her Majesty did that any prince in 
 Christendom in such a case would not have done." Of these two 
 Acts the Secular Priests thus further record their opinion : — "We 
 cannot but confess as reasonable men that the State had great 
 cause to make some laws against us, except they should have 
 showed themselves careless for the continuance of it. But, to the 
 law ; as any would have it never so extreme ; yet, surely, it must be 
 granted that the occasion of it was most outrageous, and, likewise, 
 that the execution of it was not so tragical as many since have 
 written and reported it. For whatsoever was done against us, 
 either upon the pretence of that law, or of any other, would never, 
 we think, have been attempted had not divers other preposterous 
 occasions (besides the causes of that law) daily fallen out amongst 
 us, which procured matters to be urged more severely against us " 
 
 (PP- 44, 45)- 
 
 There is nothing in these Acts which went beyond those 
 passed by Edward III., more than two hundred years before, in 
 order to suppress Papal encroachments, though Edward had not 
 the same provocations or personal dangers to contend with. 
 
 On December 5th, 1571, the Pope applied to Catherine, the 
 Queen Mother of France, to assist in dethroning Elizabeth, to be 
 replaced by Mary ; holding out the advantages that would result to 
 France by the deposition of Elizabeth. 
 
 In J 569-1571, the priest Sander, and the Jesuits, Parsons and 
 Stuckley, set on foot plots for creating a rebellion in Ireland under 
 
131 
 
 the auspices of the Pope {Ibid., p. 46). Sander, shortly after his 
 arrival, addressed a letter to the Roman Catholic Nobility and 
 Gentry of Ireland, in order to stir them up to rebellion. In this 
 letter ' he- abuses them for their loyalty "to a wicked woman, 
 neither begotten in true wedlock, nor esteeming her Christendom, 
 and therefore deprived by the Vicar of Christ, her lawful judge." — 
 Sander in this letter writes : — " See you not that the next Catholic 
 ■ heir to the Crown (for the Pope will take order by God's grace 
 that it shall rest in none other but Catholics) must account all them 
 for traitors that spend their goods in maintaining an heretic against 
 his true rights and title ; " and he further threatens them , that when 
 "the Pope's Lieutenant " should arrive, " bringing the Pope's and 
 other Catholic Princes' aid, they should, for the maintenance 6f 
 heresy, lose their goods, their lands, their honours, and undo their 
 wives, their children, and their houses for ever." * Stuckley found 
 such credit with the Pope Gregory XIV. (Pius V. being then dead), 
 that he flattered that Pontiff by holding out the hope of maJcing his 
 son (or nephew), Bonocompagno, King of Ireland. f A Seminary 
 was opened at Rheims for the education of Jesuit missionaries with 
 the avowed object of sowing discord in England and Ireland, led 
 on by the two distinguished Jesuits, Parsons and Campian. In 
 1572 Sanders' book appeared, wherein he publicly justified the 
 dethronement of the Q.ueen ; and in the same year occurred the 
 barbarous massacre of the Protestants in France. The head of 
 Coligni (the Huguenot leader), after having been presented to the 
 King of France and the Queen Mother, was embalmed and sent to 
 Rome, that the Cardinal of Lorraine and the Pope might have the 
 satisfaction of beholding it. Public rejoicings were made at Rome 
 for this accursed event. A solemn service of thanksgiving was 
 performed, at which the Pope himself assisted ; and, as Bonani 
 says, " that the slaughter was not executed without the help of God 
 and the divine counsel, Gregory inculcated in a medal, struck on the 
 occasion to commemorate the most enormous crime with which the 
 annals of the Christian world had ever been stained, and a painting 
 
 * See Original Letters, illustrative of English History, of H. Ellis, f.r.s., 
 and series, vol. 3. Lend. 1827. 
 ■\ Hume, cap. xliv. ; Camden's Annals, p. 203. London, 1635. 
 
 9* 
 
132 
 
 ■was executed by order of the Pope to commemorate the event."* 
 This was not very re-assuring ! By the machinations of the Guises, 
 a plot to entrap the Queen was treacherously conceived. She was 
 solicited to visit the Queen Mother of France at Jersey, which met 
 the timely rebuke of Lord Burleigh. f Cobbett has the barefaced 
 assurance to assert that, to this time, 1572, the number of 
 Elizabeth's victims was twice as great as those who suffered by the 
 massacres of France, known as the " St. Bartholomew Massacres " 
 [293]. He asserts that the Queen was "daily racking people 
 nearly to death to get secrets from them ; she was daily ripping the 
 bowels out of women, as well as men, for saying or hearing Mass " 
 at this very period [293]. But he prudently withholds the citation 
 of any single example. The statements are simply untrue. 
 
 According to Dodd, the Romish Historian, it was six years before 
 any one suffered under this reign. According to the Calendar, 
 published in 1887 with the imprimatur of Cardinal Manning, the 
 first three, after Felton's case, before mentioned, in 1570, who were 
 executed were Mayne in 1577, and Nelson and Sherwood in 1578, 
 that is nineteen years after the accession of Elizabeth, and seven 
 years after the publication of the Pope's Bull of excommunication. 
 These men were emissary priests sent into this country for the 
 purpose of alluring the people from their allegiance and fomenting 
 sedition ; " they taught that the Queen was a schismatic and a 
 heretic, and therefore to be deposed ; for this they suffered death,":}: 
 in fact, as traitors. 
 
 The Priest Berington, in his Introduction to the Memoir of 
 Gregorio Panxani,^ states that "after the promulgation of the Bull 
 six queries were generally proposed to the Priests who were 
 arraigned," — not, be it observed, proposed to priests indiscrimi- 
 nately, but to those who had been arrested in the commission of 
 
 * Southey's Book of the Church, ch. xv., 4th edit., p. 398. Strype's.^««a/j, 
 vol. ii., pt. I, b. i., c. xviii., p. 242. Oxford, 1824. As to the medal, this is 
 recorded by the Roman numismatician Bonani, Numism. Pontiff. Rom. a temp., 
 Mart, v., Tom. i., p. 336. Rom. 1699. 
 
 t Camden, b. ii., p. 162. 
 
 X Camden, Annals, p. 216. 
 
 § P. 34, note. Edit. 1793. British Museum mark 1126. 
 
^33 
 
 treasonable acts. — " They regarded the import ot that Bull, the 
 deposition of the Queen as pronounced in it, and what should be 
 the conduct of good subjects in reference to both. Few answered, 
 I am sorry to observe, as became loyal Englishmen and faithful 
 citizens. They seemed rather to consider themselves as the subjects 
 of a foreign master, whose sovereignty was paramount and whose 
 will was supreme." And this, too, is the testimony of a Roman 
 priest ! 
 
 It was during the rebellion in Ireland, fostered by the emissaries 
 from the Romish seminaries, that Gregory XIII. renewed the Bull 
 of excommunication against Elizabeth in the same terms as the 
 previous Bull of Pius V. It is dated May 13th, 1580, and in addi- 
 tion it granted "the same plenary indulgence and remission of all 
 sins which those obtained who warred against the Turks and for the 
 recovery of the Holy Land."* The Pope, in fact, declared another 
 crusade or " Holy "War " against England. He appealed to the reli- 
 gious bigotry of the Romish subjects of the Queen, holding out the 
 delusive hope of eternal salvation by the remission of all sins to all 
 who should become rebels and regicides ; and, forsooth, they were 
 first to confess and express contrition ! Confess that they were 
 about to rebel, to become regicides ! for be it understood an Indul- 
 gence is professed to be granted only after confession in the 
 tribunal of Penance. " The story of the Duke of Guise's ' intend- 
 ment,' 1582-54, is fully and candidly told by Father Knox (of the 
 Brompton Oratory) in his introduction to the Letters and Me- 
 morials nf Cardinal Allen (pp. xxxiv.-lxxix). It included a plan 
 for the assassination of Elizabeth (May, 1583) by the hand of 
 a secret Catholic near her person. The proposal, described by 
 F. Knox from the Record Office transcripts, of certain papers in the 
 Vatican archives which had never before been printed, was ap- 
 proved by the Archbishop of Glasgow, by the nuncio at the French 
 Court, by the Cardinal Como, by King Philip, and, as the writer 
 admits 'perhaps by the Pope himself.' " t This was nothing new 
 in the Romish system. Jaurigni and Belthazar Gerard, assassins 
 of the Prince of Orange ; the Dominican Jacques Clemens, John 
 
 * See Wilkins' Concilia Brit., vol. iv., p. 296. London, 1737. 
 t Law's "Introduction" to A Historical Sketch of the Conflicts between 
 J suits and Secularists, 1889, p. 11. 
 
134 
 
 Chatel, and the (ex feuillant) Monk Ravaillac and the other regi- 
 cides of those days, first confessed their intended crimes, and then 
 went on their bloody errands with a pure conscience. Strada tells 
 us himself that Jaurigni dared not undertake his enterprise without 
 having first fortified himself with the celestial bread, and purged his 
 soul by confession at the feet of a Dominican.* No sane man will 
 believe Cobbett that he was sincere when he defended such nefa- 
 rious principles. However pure, according to their estimation, 
 the motives may have been, the means adopted were diabolical. 
 Well might the more orderly of the Roman priesthood exclaim, 
 "that the proceedings held against Her Majesty well weighed, 
 these foreign Jesuitical practices have been the cause of all our 
 troubles. "t An army of Italians and Spaniards was raised, under 
 colour of restoring the Romish religion, but, in fact, with the purpose 
 of raising a rebellion in Ireland. J The Pope also sent a large sum 
 of money through Sander, his Nuncio. These proceedings in 
 Ireland called forth a proclamation, dated January loth, 158 1, " for 
 the recall of all English students from foreign seminaries, and for 
 the banishment of all Jesuits and seminary priests from England." § 
 A few words as to these foreign seminaries. Camden informs 
 us (b. ii., p. 216) : — "Out of these seminaries . first a few young 
 men, and then more as they grew up, entering over-hastily into 
 holy orders, and being instructed in such principles of doctrine as 
 these, were sent forth into divers parts of England and Ireland to 
 administer (as they pretended) the sacraments of the Romish 
 religion, and to preach. But the Queen and her Council found 
 that they were sent underhand to withdraw the subjects from their 
 allegiance and obedience due to their Prince, to bind them by 
 reconciliation to perform the Pope's commandments, to raise 
 intestine rebellions under the seal of confession, and flatly to execute 
 the sentence of Pius Quintus against the Queen : to the end that 
 way might be made for the Pope and the Spaniards, who had 
 
 * See Voltaire, Fhil. Die, Title Confession, p. 73, vol. xxxiv. Paris, 1785. 
 
 f Watson's Considerations, p. 59. 
 
 X Camden's Annals, b. ii., p. 213. 
 
 § Dodd's Church History. Tierney's Edit. 1839, vol. iii., app. No. v. 
 See also Strype's Annals of Eliz., vol. iii., pt. i., b. i., ch. iv., p. 57, 
 Oxford, 1824. 
 
I3i 
 
 of late intended the conquest of England." And the Rev. Mr. 
 Berington, the same Romish priest as I have before quoted, thus 
 expresses his opinion, when recording the establishment of these 
 foreign seminaries by disaffected English priests who had been 
 obliged to leave the country by reason of their treasonable proceed- 
 ings : — " 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 misfor- 
 tunes upon them, and their successors." Speaking of these 
 seminaries abroad from which the persecuted missionaries had 
 emigrated Mr. Berington adds : — " It will not be denied that, 
 from the operation of various causes, our foreign houses soon 
 imbibed an ultramontane spirit, which, as it flattered — and by 
 flattering secured the favour of Rome, so did it offend — and by 
 offending draw down upon 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 the ultramontane spirit fed; and 
 we may too easily discover, in reading their T,^'orks, 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 persecution and imprisonment, and 
 sometimes even to death, it should not excite our wonder."* 
 
 According to the statement of the ex-priest of the Brompton 
 Oratory, T. G. Law, in his Introduction to Bagshaw's book, under 
 the title of Historical Sketch of the Co?iJiicts between the Jesuits and 
 Seculars,^ he attributes to William Allen (Cardinal and refugee), 
 
 I' Memoirs of Panzani, ^c, pp. 20, 23, 24. Edit. 1793. 
 ■\ David Nutt, Strand, 1889, p. vii. 
 
136 
 
 the founding, single-handed, of the Seminary at Douai in i j68 ; and 
 in 1574 he was able to despatch four young priests into England; 
 and before another six months he had sent upwards of a hundred. 
 These men, he says, "were as a rule undistinguished by birth, 
 learning, or abilities. One effect, however, of the foreign emissary 
 was noteworthy. With its offer of board and education free to all 
 comers, it served as a disturbing force upon the universities at 
 home. Young men with Catholic tendencies and ambitions of 
 martyrdom, discontented and restless boys in quest of adventures, 
 students who had got into scrapes at their colleges, ran away 
 abroad. With them went, so Parsons tells us, ' poor serving-men, 
 soldiers and wanderers,' not to speak of others whom curiosity and 
 cupidity led to play the spy and sell their information to the 
 government. All such deserters were welcome to the camp of the 
 large-hearted and unsuspecting Allen. He soon had more in his 
 hands than he could manage." 
 
 Evidence of the seditious instruction given to the Missioners sent 
 forth from these colleges is furnished by the letter of Cardinal 
 d'Ossat to Henry IV. of France, November 26th, 1601, in which 
 the Cardinal writes that "the chief thing attended to in these 
 colleges is to instil into the youths the belief that the King of 
 Spain is the rightful heir to the Crown of England. . . . Those 
 of them who become thorough Spaniards are sent back to England 
 to spread the Spanish political creed, to keep the Spaniards well 
 informed of what is passing in England, and to report upon the 
 best means of subjecting the country to Spain. They are to be 
 ready, if necessary, to suffer martyrdom, not so much for the 
 Catholic as for the Spanish creed."* 
 
 The writings of Cardinal Allen fully bear out the charge that 
 the missionary priests sent out from these foreign Seminaries to 
 England were educated in principles of sedition and rebellion. 
 In his work, entitled A True and Modest Defence of English 
 Catholiques that suffer for their Faith loth at Home and Abroad; 
 against a false, seditious, and scandalous libel — " The Execution of 
 
 * Introduction, Records of English Catholics, vol. i., pp. cvi., cvii. David 
 Nutt, Strand, 1882. Published under the authority of the Brompton 
 Oratorians. 
 
137 
 
 Justice in England," Cardinal Allen writes: "There is no warre 
 in the world so just or honorable, be it civil or foraine, as that 
 which is waged for religion ; we say for the true, ancient Catho- 
 lique, Romane religion ; which by the laws of holie Church and all 
 Christian nations is adjudged to be the onlie true worship of God ; 
 and unto the obedience of which all princes and people have 
 yielded themselves either by othe, vow, or sacraments, or everie of 
 thes wayes. For this it is godlie and honorable to fight in such 
 order and time, as we be warranted in conscience and love, by our 
 supreme pastors and priestes. 
 
 " Likewise when Kinges, that before were infidels, doe enter by 
 baptisme into the Church, they submit their sceptres to Christ, and 
 consequentlie make themselves suhject and punishable, if they revolt 
 from their faith and promise. 
 
 " Upon these conditions, therefore, and no other, Kinges be 
 received of the bishop that in God's behalf anointeth them : which 
 othe and promise being not observed, they breake with God and 
 their people : and their people may, and by order of Christ's 
 supreme minister, their chiefe pastor on earth, must needes breake with 
 them. 
 
 " Finally, the parents that become heretics lose the superiority 
 and dominion they have by law or nature over their own children. 
 Therefore let no man marvel that in case of heresy the sovereign 
 loseth his superiority and right over his people and kingdom . which 
 cannot be a lawful Christian state or commonwealth without due 
 obedience to Christ and to the Church's laws ; but may well consist 
 and not perish at all by change of their prince or king." Through- 
 out the whole of this work Allen maintains, and labours to defend, 
 the deposing power of the Pope.* 
 
 It was in 1581 that the arch-traitor and Jesuit, Campian, a 
 hopeful pupil of one of the foreign seminaries, who, to the last, 
 proclaimed and maintained his treasonable language against the 
 Queen, was executed. " Campian being asked first whether 
 Queen Elizabeth was a lawful Queen refused to answer; then 
 
 * See Lettev addressed to the Catholic Clergy of England, by Sir John Throck- 
 morton (a Roman Catholic). Printed by J. P. Coghlan, 37, Duke Street, 
 London, 1792. 
 
138 
 
 whether he would take part with the Queen or the Pope, if the 
 latter should send forces against the Queen, he openly professed 
 and testified under his hand that he would stand for the Pope. 
 Afterwards, some others also were examined for the same causes, 
 "whereas, in full ten years after the rebellion, there had been no 
 more than five Papists put to death."* Now Campian and the 
 other religious enthusiasts had a perfect right to maintain their own 
 opinions, even as Englishmen, in favour of the Pope ; but holding 
 such opinions, their duty was to hold their peace, if they desired 
 to remain in the country, or to leave it if they preferred the rule of 
 the Pope. They knew the penalty that awaited their treasonable 
 acts. Cobbett has nothing to say in Campian's defence. The 
 open insolence of these Jesuit missionaries was, indeed, so gross, 
 that some of them did not even dissemble the fact that they had 
 returned to England for no other purpose than to absolve all Her 
 Majesty's subjects from their allegiance and obedience, giving 
 absolution under the seal of confession ; acting in all this under the 
 direct authority of the Popejf "telling us," say the Secular Priests, 
 " many fair tales, and alluring us with sundry great promises, all of 
 them mere illusions, falsehoods, and most monstrous instigations 
 and jugglings."J This called forth the Act 33 Eliz. c. i., "An 
 Act to retain the Queen's Majesty's subjects to their due obedi- 
 ence." It declared those to be guilty of high treason whosoever 
 should persuade subjects from their obedience to their Queen, and 
 from the religion established in England, and should propose to 
 reconcile them to the Church of Rome. A fine was imposed on 
 those who should absent themselves from the parish Church, and 
 fines and imprisonment for hearing and saying Mass. Abstractedly 
 it would appear that the remedy was most severe, and fell hardly 
 on innocent persons, and the Act is dwelt upon as an isolated and 
 unprovoked enactment. This was the only method to detect 
 traitors. But even the administration of this law was tempered 
 with mercy. The French historian, Rapin, testifies that "as long 
 as the Court imagined that these men only administered the sacra- 
 ments in private to those of their religion, no notice seemed to be 
 
 ' Camden's ^K«aZs, b. iii., p. 240. 1635. f Camden, h. in., p. 2^1. 
 
 J Watson's Considerations, p. 57. 
 
139 
 
 taken of it."* The urgency and necessity of the times required 
 severe measures. Loyal subjects knew this necessity, and with 
 few exceptions it was only resisted and evaded by the traitorous 
 and disloyal. 
 
 The comprehensive scheme for the subjection of England to 
 Papal rule was disclosed by the discovery of " a Memorial for the 
 Reformation in England," drawn up by the Jesuit, Parsons, and 
 discovered in a closet of King James II., on the flight of that 
 monarch. It was published by the Rev. Dr. Gee, the Chaplain in 
 Ordinary to William and Mary, in the year 1690 (referred to ante 
 p. 113), and is acknowledged a genuine document by Father 
 Clark, the Jesuit editor of the Roman Periodical, the Month, for 
 November, 1889, under the title, "A Jesuit Scheme for the 
 Reformation of England," and the principles and means there pro- 
 posed are recommended for adoption, and he affirms that Parsons' 
 object was " to provide such plans for the future that Catholics 
 may avail themselves of them if the occasion offers of restoring 
 the Church in England." This Memorial proposed the restoration 
 to Romanists of all the Cathedrals, Churches, Universities, 
 Bishoprics, and all ecclesiastical offices in the kingdom ; the 
 restitution of all lands confiscated during the reigns of Henry and 
 Edward ; excusing the Bull of the Pope's confirmation on the plea 
 that, " like a prudent and pious mother, she (the Apostolic See) 
 was content to take of her children what she could get, rather than 
 lose all " ! He points out how heretics are to be dealt with, to be 
 "reduced by reason and sweet means, as Jar as ?nay be;" but 
 " liberty of religion is not to be tolerated to any person, for any 
 cause or respect whatever." "All meetings, assemblies, preach- 
 ing," &c., are to be prohibited. "Apostates and obstinate per- 
 verters," &c., are to be left to be treated by "the wisdom of the 
 Commonwealth " (the secular arm) j the throne to be occupied 
 only by a [Roman] Catholic Prince, to be provided with a " Tem- 
 poral Council" of eminent men of "the Catholic Faith," the Head 
 of the Council to be "the King's Confessor," and the succession 
 to be maintained exclusively in a "Catholic line;" the Parlia- 
 
 * Tindal's Rapin, vol. ix., p. 620. London, 1729. 
 
r40 
 
 ment, both Upper and Lower House, to be exclusively " Catholics." 
 Various Institutions for Tests, and Penal Laws were to be enacted, 
 and all previous Laws prejudicial to the Roman faith to be abro- 
 gated ; a "Council of Reformation" to be instituted, but at first 
 the title of " Inquisition " to be avoided, whose first duty should 
 be to issue an edict " with all severity " " ordering under pain of 
 great punishment that no religious or ecclesiastic whatever do 
 enter into the realm without presenting himself before the 
 Council," and to show cause why he has so come, " and to stand 
 to the determination of the Council for his abode or departure 
 again." The Council, under a Faculty from the Pope, to have the 
 distribution of all livings, "without respect of former possessors;" 
 the establishment of Seminaries and Colleges ; to institute an 
 "Order" of Knights for the suppression of heretics; and to see 
 that all heretical books be burnt ; and lastly, to establish the 
 Inquisition as maintained in " Spain, Italy, and Rome." The 
 system here laid bare to extend to Ireland.* 
 
 The reader has now before him an outline, (want of space com- 
 pels me to limit my notice), of what we as a Protestant nation 
 would have been subjected to, had the Armada scheme succeeded, 
 and England again being placed under subjection to the Pope and 
 Roman Bishops. 
 
 And now let us turn to Cobbett's version. In two short 
 sentences [267-268] he embodies the history of these twenty-three 
 years of Elizabeth's reign ! He first mentions the Act of i Eliz. 
 c. I, wherein he utterly misrepresents that "' ail persons were com- 
 pelled to take the oath of supremacy on pain of death. Thus," he 
 adds, " was a very large part of her people at once condemned to 
 death for adhering to the religion of their Fathers;" and from the 
 first year of her reign, he springs with one bound to the twenty- 
 third, without one single reference to, or a hint at, all the inter- 
 vening plottings, conspiracies, and rebellions above (but briefly) 
 
 * A copy of Dr. Gee's original edition is in the British Museum Library. 
 And the Brompton Oratorians, in their Records of English Catholics, 1882, 
 p. 395, state that a MS. copy of this " Memorial " is now in the archives of 
 the [R.C.] See of Westminster, and another in the Public Library of 
 Douay. 
 
HI 
 
 enumerated, and without giving any dates to guide the reader; as 
 if the two enactments immediately followed one another. He 
 adds : — " Besides this act of monstrous barbarity [i.e. the Act of 
 Supremacy], it was made high treason in a priest to say Mass; it 
 was made high treason in a priest to come into the kingdom from 
 abroad; it was high treason to harbour or to reheve a priest. And 
 on these grounds, and others of a like nature, hundreds upon 
 hundreds were butchered in the most inhuman manner, being first 
 hung up, then cut down alive, their bowels ripped up, and their 
 bodies chopped into quarters ; and this, I again beg you, sensible 
 and just Englishmen, to observe only because the unfortunate 
 persons were too virtuous and sincere to apostatize from the faith, 
 which this Queen had at her coronation, in her coronation oath, 
 solemnly sworn to adhere to and defend." Was there ever such a 
 perversion of truth ? Is it not a mockery to call such a book as 
 Cobbett's a " History of the Reformation " ? The country being 
 overrun by these incendiaries, the Jesuits from abroad, it was only 
 by stringent measures that they could be discovered. But let me 
 again repeat the words of the Secular Priests themselves : — " These 
 foreign Jesuitical practices have been the cause of all our troubles." 
 Cobbett has placed it wholly out of our power to convict him of 
 precise perversions. He has not named one single instance of 
 alleged persecutions for religion ; his charges are all clothed in 
 generalities. He might, however, have quoted the letter he himself 
 has preserved in his own edition of the State Trials, found on the 
 Romanist Parry, who was executed for a design to murder the 
 Queen.* Cobbett gives the original text ; the translation is given 
 by Strype in his Annals of Elizai'eth.f This letter, actually found 
 on his person, was from Cardinal Como, encouraging him to pro- 
 ceed in his intention to murder the Queen, and informing him 
 that it had the entire approbation of the Pope, who granted him 
 " plenary indulgence and remission of all his sins, according to his 
 request." Was this execution an " act of monstrous barbarity " ? 
 Was Parry one of the "unfortunate persons too virtuous and too 
 
 * An. 1584. No. 60, vol. i., col. 1105. 
 
 f Vol. iii,, pt. i., b. i., c. xxi. Oxford, 1824; and see Camden's Annals, 
 b. iii., p. 274. London, 1635. 
 
r42 
 
 sincere to apostatize"? and was he "condemned to death for 
 adhering to the religion of his fathers"? 
 
 Then again, why has Cobbett not mentioned the conspiracy 
 of Somerville and Arden in 1583, whose avowed object was the 
 assassination of the Queen ?* And has he nothing to record of 
 Throgmorton's conspiracy to betray his country to the enemy ?t 
 or of the Jesuit Campian's book, wherein he "exhorted the Queen's 
 women to commit the like against the Queen as Judith had done 
 with commendation against Holof ernes " ?|: — -nor Cardinal Allen's 
 Admonition to "the nobility and people of England and Ireland " 
 exciting to rebellion, speaking of Elizabeth in the most abusive 
 terms? The reader will find an exact reprint of this exceptional 
 document published by the Rev. J. Mendham in 1842. It must 
 be borne in mind that we are now at the period when the alleged 
 cruelties perpetrated by this " ferocious Protestant apostate Eliza- 
 beth," with whose butcheries and other cruelties the cruelties of the 
 Inquisition, the massacres of St. Bartholomew, were nothing in 
 comparison — a mere nothing — were at their highest pitch accord- 
 ing to Cobbett. Well, what was the conduct of the people 
 of England in regard to these traitorous proceedings, these attempts 
 on the life of their Queen, in the midst of these alleged rippings 
 and butcheries ? The nation became so alarmed and excited that they 
 formed associations "the purport of which was to defend the 
 Queen, to revenge her death or any injury that might be committed 
 against her, and to exclude from the throne all claimants, what 
 title soever they might possess, by whose suggestion, or for whose 
 behoof, any violence should be offered to Her Majesty. "§ So 
 imminent was the danger considered that Parliament confirmed 
 the acts of this association ; and further it was deemed expedient, 
 " for the greater security, that a Council of Regency, in case of the 
 Queen's violent death, should be appointed to govern the kingdom, 
 to settle the succession, and to take vengeance for that act of 
 
 * Camden, b. iii., p. 257. f Camden, p. 254. 
 
 % Hid., p. 262. Also Strype's .<4K»a;j, vol. iii., pt. i., b. i., u. 20, p. 358, 
 and c. 23, p. 407. Oxford, 1824. 
 
 § Camden, b. iii., p. 275. Also Hume's Hi$t. of England, ch. 41, vol. iv., 
 p. 25. Edit. 1830. 
 
Hi 
 
 treason " (27 Eliz. c. i) ; and yet at this very time Cobbett asserts 
 that " such were the pecuhar circumstances of the times that this 
 wicked woman escaped, not only for the present but through her 
 long reign, that general hatred from her subjects which her character 
 and deeds so well merited" [321]. It being universally admitted 
 that the Jesuits, who had ever been found the most active in con- 
 spiracies and rebellions, were the instigators of these traitors, we 
 are not surprised that an Act was passed "against Jesuits, seminary 
 priests, and other such like disobedient persons " (27 Eliz. c. ii.). 
 The Preamble of this Act carries its own justification : — 
 
 " Whereas divers persons, called or professed Jesuits, &c. . . . 
 daily do come and are sent into this realm of England ... of 
 purpose . . . not only to withdraw her Highness' subjects from 
 their due obedience to her Majesty, but also to stir up and move 
 seditious rebellion and open hostility within the same her Highness' 
 realms and dominions, to the great endangering of the safety of 
 her most royal person, and to the utter ruin, desolation, and over- 
 throw of the whole realm, if the same be not the sooner, by some 
 good means, foreseen and prevented ; for reformation whereof be 
 it ordained," &c. 
 
 The following abstract of the provisions of this Act is given by 
 
 Hume* : — 
 
 " It was ordained that they should depart the kingdom within 
 forty days [of the ensuing feast of St. John the Baptist] ; that 
 those who should remain beyond that time, or should afterwards 
 return, should be guilty of treason ; that those who harboured or 
 relieved them should be guilty of felony ; that those who were 
 educated in seminaries, if they returned not in six months after 
 notice given, and submitted not themselves to the Queen before a 
 bishop or two justices, should be guilty of treason; and that if 
 any, so submitting themselves, should within ten years approach 
 the Court, or come within ten miles of it, their submission should 
 
 be void." 
 
 Such was the state of exasperation against these foreign con- 
 spiracies, that the law was enforced in some cases with severity. 
 
 * History of England, vol. iv., p. 26. Edit. 1830. 
 
144 
 
 But Cobbett doss Elizabeth great injustice by stigmatizing her 
 individually, on this account, with ferocity or malignity. We have 
 it happily recorded that she expressed great offence at the severity 
 ■with which the magistracy and judges treated the accused : — 
 " Some of those concerned in the cognizance of these matters 
 thought it necessary to publish a paper in their vindication. In 
 this defence they protested the priests had milder usage than they 
 deserved ; that they were never put to the question on the score of 
 their religion, but only when they lay under violent presumptions 
 of practising against their country and prince upon vehement 
 suspicion. . . . But the Queen not being satisfied, com- 
 manded the executioners to forbear tortures, and the judges to 
 refrain putting to death ; and not long after, seventy priests, some 
 of whom were condemned, and all of them under prosecution, were 
 set at liberty and banished."* 
 
 In 1,586 another serious conspiracy against the Queen's life was 
 discovered, headed by Babington, which also was hatched at the 
 foreign seminaries. Those concerned in it taught that the Bull of 
 Pius V. against Elizabeth emanated from the Holy Ghost ; that it was 
 meritorious to take away the life of heretical Princes ; and to perish 
 in the attempt was martyrdom. f Babington's letter to the Scottish 
 Mary discloses the scheme for liberating her, and " dispatching 
 Elizabeth, the usurper of her rights. "J These wretches, on their 
 apprehension, betrayed each other, and disclosed the whole con- 
 spiracy. The fury of the people was beyond bounds. 
 
 If the Pope, who all this time was fanning the flames of rebellion, 
 could prostitute his person and dignity to such measures as I have 
 attempted faintly to describe, he and his partisans have no right to 
 complain of the necessary antagonistic measures. 
 
 The traitors were hanged and quartered and disemboweled — but 
 not for holding the religion of their fathers, unless it be maintained 
 
 * Collier's Eccl. Hist., pt. ii., b. vii,, p. 591. Folio edition. Camden's 
 Annals, b. iii., p. 252. London, 1635. See also Strype's y^nMais, vol. iii., 
 b. i., c. 17, p. 296. Oxford, 1824. 
 
 f Camden, Annals, b. iii., p. 301. 
 
 X See State Trials, vol. i., No. 62, col. 1137 ; and Dodd's Church History. 
 Tierney's edit., 1839. Vol. iii., p. 23. 
 
H5 
 
 that their traitorous conduct formed part of that system. Cobbett 
 says they died for their religion ! To come from foreign parts and 
 dehberately to enter into a conspiracy to murder the Queen, and on 
 being detected to be hanged, was to die for religion ! Cobbett 
 would perpetuate the libel that the crime of regicide was a doctrine 
 of the Roman Church, if only the prince was a heretic! — and 
 Romanists of the present day actually endorse this opinion by the 
 publication and circulation of this book! and their Calendar of 
 Martyrs, edit. 1887, approved by Cardinal Manning, tells us that 
 they "died for Christ's sake ;" and Leo XIII. has selected Queen 
 Victoria's jubilee year to beatify the majority of these traitors I Of 
 course Cobbett keeps out of view the " cause," and only gives the 
 "result; " and to make his case good he is compelled to assert 
 that all these men suffered for the innocent cause of adhering and 
 acting up to their religion ! It was of these very persons the 
 Secular Priests said — " Might not the Queen justly repute them 
 for traitors and deal with them accordingly ? Sure we are that no 
 King or Prince in Christendom would like, or tolerate, any such 
 subjects within his dominions, if possibly he could be rid of 
 them." * I am not justifying the modes adopted of putting them 
 to death ; far from it. It was barbarous, most barbarous ; but not 
 so cruel as burning them alive. But why is the Queen made 
 responsible for the Act ? The people were worked up to a frenzy, 
 and they took a savage vengeance on traitors, who would have 
 murdered their beloved Queen could they have had the opportunity. 
 Cobbett writes as if cruelty was now new to the Christian world 
 and practised alone b}' the Reformers. He knew better ; and the 
 history of Popish persecutions is too well authenticated to be here 
 again recorded. Some of these men had pledged their faith and 
 their lives to assassinate the Queen ; they were convicted on the 
 clearest testimony ; they were treated as traitors, that is — hunged, 
 disembowelled and quartered. Unless it be maintained, and I 
 repeat it, that to murder a so-called heretical Queen is a point of 
 religion, these men, forming only a small part of those who were 
 guilty, thus suffered as traitors ; but what was that death compared 
 
 * Watson's Considerations, p. 53. Reprint, 1831. 
 
 10 
 
146 
 
 to being burnt alive by a slow fire, as were Cranmer, Ridley, 
 and Latimer, and an army of martyrs, for the simple crime of refus- 
 ing to believe in the theological monstrosity of transubstantiation ? 
 Let it be proclaimed from the housetop : — Traitors and would-be 
 regicides suffer death for their religion ! Cobbett says so, and 
 Romanists endorse the theory by a publication of his opinions ! 
 
 Cobbett is lavish in his expressions of indignation that some 
 French Huguenots should " put Havre and Dieppe into the hands 
 of the English" — "an infamous and treacherous proceeding" — 
 " to sell their country under the blasphemous plea of a love of the 
 Gospel " [ay^] ; but he has not one word of condemnation for Sir 
 William Stanley and William Yorke, both Papists, who, in 1587, 
 treacherously surrendered to the Spaniard a fort near Zutphen, in 
 Gelderland, the charge of which had been entrusted to Yorke as 
 Governor. Sir William induced the officers and soldiers of his 
 regiment, 1300 in number, to desert with him, on the plea "that 
 his conscience did not allow him to fight for heretics ; he sent for 
 priests to instruct his regiment, giving out that this should be a 
 seminary regiment of soldiers, which should defend the Romish 
 religion by arms as the seminary priests did by writing." Cardinal 
 Allen, an Englishman, aided and abetted this design ; he sent priests 
 with written instructions, founded on the Bull of Pius V., "both 
 commending the treason, and exciting others to the like perfidious- 
 ness, as if they were not bound to serve nor obey an excommunicated 
 Queen."* Stanley betrayed the trust committed to him by the 
 Earl of Leicester, who had given him the honourable title of 
 knighthood. t 
 
 The same Secular Priests, the loyal Romanists of England, said 
 that this act of disloyalty of Stanley " greatly prejudiced them that 
 were Catholics at home, so was the defence of that disloyalty by 
 that worthy man [Cardinal Allen], but by persuasions, as they 
 thought, of Parsons, greatly disliked of many both wise and 
 learned." They complained that Cardinal Allen sided with the 
 " lewd Jesuits," in teaching that " in all wars which may happen 
 
 * Camden's Annals, b. iii., p. 353. 
 
 -}■ See Watson's Considerations, p. 55 ; and Priest Berington's " Introduc- 
 tion," Life of Panzcmi, p. 52. Edit. 1793. 
 
147 
 
 for religion, every Catholic man is bound, in conscience, to employ 
 his person and forces by the Pope's direction, viz. how far, when 
 and where, either at home or abroad, he may and must break with 
 his temporal sovereign."* What is accounted high treason in a 
 Protestant is deemed a religious virtue in a Papist, who " on pain of 
 damnation is bound to do the like." f This, then, is the confession 
 made by Roman priests themselves of the day ; so that the present 
 Pope — as Pius V. and Gregory XIII. and Clement VIII. have done — 
 has only to declare a crusade against any so-called heretical prince, 
 and, according to Jesuit principles (and on this theory, in which Car- 
 dinal Allen agreed, and on which Sir William Stanley and the troops 
 under him actually acted), every Romanist, "for conscience sake," 
 is bound to turn traitor to his Queen and country. This is a natural 
 and inevitable conclusion, for is not Semper eadem the motto of 
 Rome ? Was this the religion Cobbett would have wished to bring 
 back into this country, and of which he appears as the hired 
 advocate ? Is this the religion Romanists of the present day would 
 desire to encourage by the circulation of this so-called History? 
 But there were in those days, as there are at the present time, 
 honest and conscientious Romanists ; for mark the protest of the 
 Secular Priests. After minutely recounting the series of other 
 traitorous designs to which I have only in part referred, they make 
 the following .comments (p. ^6) — " These things [i.e. these trea- 
 sonable acts] we would not have touched had they not been known 
 in effect to this part of the world, and we thought it our duties to 
 show our own dislikes of them, and to clear Her Majesty (so far as 
 we may) from such imputation of more than barbarous cruelty 
 towards us as the Jesuits in their writings have cast by heaps upon 
 her, they themselves (as well in our consciences and before God) 
 
 * Watson's Considerations, pp. 55, 56. 
 
 f See Letter written by Allen " Imprinted at Antwerpe, 1587." "Wherein 
 is shewed both howe lawful, honorable, and necessarie that action [by Sir 
 William Stanley] was, and also that of others, especially of the English 
 Nation that detayne anie towns, or other places in the Low Countries from 
 the King Catholike, are bound upon pain of damnation to do the like." 
 Edited, with an introduction by T. Heywood for the Chetham Society, 
 1 85 1, and quoted by Law in his Historical Sketch of the conflicts between Jesuits 
 and Seculars, 1889, p. xix, note. 
 
 10 * 
 
148 
 
 having been, from time to time, the very causes of all the cala- 
 mities 'which any of us have endured in England since Her 
 Majesty's reign, which we do not write simply to excuse Her 
 Highness, although we must confess we can be contented to 
 endure much rather than to seek her dishonour, but for that we 
 think few princes living, being persuaded in religion as Her 
 Majesty is, and so provoked as she hath been, would have dealt 
 more mildly with such their subjects (all circumstances considered) 
 than she has done with us." 
 
 The case of Sir William Stanley was the more serious to the 
 country, as he had served the Queen " with singular fidelity and 
 fortitude in the Irish war."* These treacheries, instigated by the 
 " foreign influenced " Jesuits, called forth in this year, 1587, a more 
 stringent Act (29 Eliz. c. 6) " for the more speedy execution of the 
 Statute 23 EHz. c. i, entitled 'An Act to retain the Queen's 
 Majesty's subjects in their due obedience.' " 
 
 It was at this time that the plot of the French Ambassador in 
 England, L'Aubespine, to assassinate the Queen, was discovered. 
 He sought to bribe Stafford, the son of one of the Queen's maids 
 of honour, in which however he failed, and then by " rich bribes " he 
 sought to accomplish his purpose through his secretary Trappy. f 
 But an All- Gracious Providence was watching over Elizabeth ; it 
 was not the Papist's fault that the Queen did not come to a sudden 
 and violent death. 
 
 We now come to the eventful year 1,588, rendered ever memor- 
 able by the invasion of England by the Spaniards with their 
 so-called "Invincible Armada." This, and the imprisonment and 
 execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, are the only two historical 
 incidents of this reign that Cobbett notices : the rest is vituperative 
 declamation. The invasion was an incident too important to pass 
 over. He says:— "The dangers of England were really great ; but 
 though these dangers had been brought upon it solely by Elizabeth's 
 malignity, bad faith, and perfidy" — where is the proof? — 
 " England was still England (continues Cobbett) to her people, and 
 they unanimously rallied round her. On this occasion, and, indeed, 
 
 * Camden, b. iii., p. 233, •(• Camden, p. 336. 
 
149 
 
 on all others when love of country was brought to the test, the 
 Catholics proved that no danger of oppression could make them 
 forget their duty as citizens or as subjects. The intended invasion 
 was prevented by a tremendous storm, which scattered and half 
 destroyed the Spanish fleet, called the Armada, and in all human 
 probability, the invaders would not have succeeded even if no 
 storm had arisen. But, at any rate, there was great danger; no one 
 could be certain of the result ; the Catholics, had they listened to 
 their just resentment, might have greatly added to the danger, and, 
 therefore, their generous conduct merited some relaxation of the 
 cruel treatment which they had hitherto endured under her iron 
 sceptre. No such relaxation took place ; they were still treated 
 with every species of barbarous cruelty ; subjected to an inquisition 
 infinitely more severe than that of Spain [!J ever had, or even 
 ever has been ; and, even on the bare suspicion of disaffection, 
 imprisoned, racked, and not unfrequently put to death" [322-323]. 
 A statement utterly untrue, and he gives no proofs ; but this is all 
 Cobbett thinks proper to say on this momentous subject. It was 
 no fault of the Pope, nor lack of energy and plottings of the Jesuits, 
 that the Romish subjects held to their Queen. The event incon- 
 testably proved that Her Majesty's subjects were peaceable and 
 contented, and would have remained so but for the plottings of 
 these "foreign- influenced Jesuit Priests ;" and these are the words 
 of Dr. O'Connor, a Roman Priest. 
 
 It has been attempted to be proved that this invasion was a 
 political affair of Spain, in which Papists and the Pope had no part, 
 and Cobbett seeks to confirm that impression. Indeed, the 
 Romanist, Dodd, the Church Historian, asserts that this invasion 
 " was entirely the King of Spain's own project, wherein neither the 
 English Catholics nor the See of Rome did any way concern 
 themselves."* That the invasion was instigated by the Pope see 
 Camden's Annalsj for proofs. Further we have undeniable 
 evidence that the Armada expedition was undertaken under the 
 direct patronage and blessing of the Pope. I refer to the Records 
 
 * Tierney's Edition, 1839, vol. iii., p. 28. 
 t B. iii., pp. 358, 359- Edit. 1635. 
 
'5° 
 
 of the English Cotfwlics, ■pnhWshedm London, i882 (David Nutt, 
 370, Strand), under the directions and approbation of Cardinal 
 Manning, by the Fathers of the BR0MPT0>f Oratory, London, 
 with an introduction by Father F. Knox, d.d.. Priest of the 
 Congregation of the Oratorians. The work purports to be a 
 faithful transcript of original documents, with translations, taken 
 from the principal libraries of Europe, notably the archives of 
 Simancas. They exhibit the despatches sent to Philip II., by 
 Count Olivera, Spanish Ambassador at the Roman See, with 
 " a summary of the several points submitted by the Spanish 
 Ambassador for the consideration of the Pope, as well as a Report 
 of the reply made by the Pope to each point." In one of these 
 communications Olivera writes : — 
 
 " His Holiness returns infinite thanks to God that he (the Pope) 
 has been the instrument qf setting in motion his Majesty, to whom he 
 gives many blessings for the zeal with which he is disposed to 
 engage in an undertaking so worthy of the calling of the Christian 
 King." 
 
 The second point submitted was : — 
 
 " That the end and declared ground of the enterprise shall be to 
 bring back that kingdom to the obedience of the Roman Church, 
 and to put in possession of it the Queen of Scotland, who so weW 
 deserves it for having remained firm in the faith in the midst of 
 such calamities." 
 
 We are then informed that the Pope's reply was : — " His Holiness 
 praises and agrees to what His Majesty here promises." 
 
 Philip, we are here informed, applied to the Pope for pecuniary 
 aid. We have then thePope's reply: — " He offers his Majesty, as 
 soon as the expedition has set sail for the enterprise against 
 England, to give 200,000 crowns, and he will give 100,000 more 
 the moment the army has landed in the Island ; and yet further 
 100,000 more at the end of six months ; and in like manner after 
 another six months 100,000 more ; and if the war lasts longer, his 
 Holiness will continue to give each year 200,000 crowns, meaning, 
 by the continuance of the war, that the person (Queen of Scots) 
 who ought to have the kingdom is not yet put in possession 
 of it." 
 
The despatch goes on to state that the Pope was ready to send an 
 army of Itahans "to employ in this enterprise." 
 
 " Besides this he (the Pope) will not fail to excite and animate 
 all the Italian Princes to so glorious and holy an enterprise, which 
 if It turns out prosperously, as with God's favour is hoped, his 
 Holiness' intention is that the Apostolic See should recover and be 
 effectually replaced in possession of the revenue, rights, jurisdiction, 
 and actions which it formerly had in that kingdom before Henry 
 "VIII. apostatized from the faith," and Olivera adds in his despatch 
 February 26th, 1586, " that Catholics of England had several times 
 made an offer to pay whatever was spent in the enterprise." 
 
 The event took place in July, 1588. The expedition had been 
 long in preparation. Sixtus V. was then Pope. He issued a Bull 
 wherein he renewed the sentence of his predecessors Pius V. and 
 Gregory XIII., of the excommunication and deposition of Eliza- 
 beth. He "published in print a crusade against England and 
 Ireland as against the Turks and Infidels, wherein out of the 
 'Treasure of the Church' he gave plenary Indulgences to 
 all that rendered assistance. Whereupon the Marquis of 
 Burgrave, of the House of Austria 5 the Dukes of Pastrana 5 
 Amedus of Savoy ; Vespasian Gonzaga ; John de Medeces, and 
 very many noblemen from all parts gave their names voluntarily 
 to this enterprise."* Cardinal Allen accordingly issued "An 
 admonition to the nobility and people of England and Ireland 
 ' concerning the present wars, marfe /or the execution of his Holiness' 
 sentence by the high and mighty King Catholic of Spain " — " Our 
 said Holy Father, of his benignity and favour to the enterprise, out 
 of the spiritual treasures of the Church committed to his custody 
 and dispensation, granted most liberally to all such as should assist, 
 concur, or help in anywise to the deposition and punishment of 
 the above-named persons [the Queen and her abettors], and to the 
 reformation of these t^fro countries, plenary indulgence and pardon 
 of all their sins, being duly penitent, contrite and confessed, 
 according to the law of God and the usual custom of Christian 
 people." Cardinal Allen's "Declaration of the Sentence and 
 
 * Camden, p. 361. 
 
152 
 
 Deposition of Elizabeth, the Usurper and Pretended Queen of 
 England," is given by the Roman Priest Tierney in the Appendix 
 to Dodd's History* (vol. iii.. No. la), and Mr. Mendham published 
 a reprint of this document in 1842. The "Declaration " was for 
 the most part an abridgment of an address which the Pope himself 
 had commanded Cardinal Allen to prepare for distribution among 
 the people on the arrival of the Spanish Armada. The Roman 
 Priest Tierney gives the following outline of the performance : — 
 " This publication, the most offensive, perhaps, of the many offen- 
 sive libels sent forth by the party to which Allen had attached 
 himself, was printed at Antwerp, and in a tone of the most 
 scurrilous invective denounced the character of the Queen ; 
 pourtrayed her as the offspring of adultery and incest, a heretic and 
 the maintainer of heretics, a persecutor of God's Church, a lasci- 
 vious tyrant, and an unholy perjurer ; and concluded by calling 
 upon all persons, ' if they would avoid the Pope's, the King's, and 
 the other Princes' high indignation,' if they would escape ' the 
 angel's curse and malediction upon the inhabitants of the land of 
 Meroz,' to rise up against a woman odious alike to God and man, 
 to join the liberating army upon its landing, and thus to free them- 
 selves from the disgrace of having ' suffered such a creature, almost 
 thirty years together, to reign both over their bodies and souls, to 
 the extinguishing not only of religion but of all chaste living and 
 honesty.' "t 
 
 This is strong language, which, even a Roman Priest admits, 
 was held towards our Queen. What would have been the fate of 
 a Protestant in Rome or Madrid at that period, had he published 
 such treason against the reigning sovereign ? And although, as we 
 have seen, the Romanist, Dodd, says that the " See of Rome " did 
 not in any way concern itself with the Spanish invasion, he, with 
 marvellous inconsistency, admits that the Pope collected a subsidy 
 of a million crowns, and held it " ready to be paid so soon as the 
 invading army should have landed in England." Philip after his 
 failure applied for this subsidy, but the Pope repudiated ! 
 
 * London, 1839. 
 
 f Tierney's note to Dodd's Church History. Appendix, vol. iii., p. 29- 
 Edit. 1839. 
 
15.5 
 
 That many of the Roman "Catholic" subjects of England were 
 not seduced into sedition was to the credit of themselves and of 
 Elizabeth, and proved, what I have already asserted, that the dis- 
 content and treason were not from within but from without. The 
 description given of these proceedings by the Secular Priests proves 
 this, and merits a place in every history of these eventful times. 
 They say: — "But now we are come to the year 1588, and to that 
 most bloody attempt, not only against her Majesty and our common 
 enemies, butagainst ourselves, all Catholics; nay, against this flourish- 
 ing kingdom and our native country. The memory of such attempt 
 will be (as we trust) an everlasting monument of yesuitical treason 
 and cruelty. For it is apparent, in a treatise penned by the advice of 
 Father Parsons altogether (as we do verily think), that the King of 
 Spain was especially moved and drawn to that intended mischief 
 against us, by the long and daily solicitation of the Jesuits, and other 
 English Catholics beyond the seas affected and altogether given to 
 Jesuitism. And whereas it is well known that the Duke of Medina 
 Sidonia had given it out directly that, if once he might land in Eng- 
 land, both Catholics and heretics that came in his way should be all 
 one to him, his sword could not discern them ; so he might make 
 way for his Master, all was one to him ; yet the said Father Parsons 
 did labour, with all the rhetoric he had, to have persuaded us, upon 
 the supposed arrival of the Spaniard, to have joined with him to 
 our own destruction; telling us many fair tales, and alluring us 
 with sundry great promises, all of them mere illusions, falsehoods, 
 and most traitorous instigations and jugglings. He ascribeth it to 
 error of conscience and want of courage, terming the same an 
 effeminate dastardy, that we had then suffered her Majesty almost 
 thirty years to reign over us. He threatened us with excommuni- 
 cation and utter ruin, both of ourselves and all our posterity, if we 
 did then any longer obey, abet or aid, defend or acknowledge her 
 Highness to be our Queen or Superior, and did not forthwith join 
 ourselves with all our forces to the Spaniards. The good Cardinal, 
 by Parsons' means, is drawn to say, that the Pope had made him 
 Cardinal, intending to send him as his legate for the sweeter 
 managing of this (forsooth !) godly and great affair, and to affirm 
 upon his honour and on the word of a Cardinal that, in the fury of 
 
1,54 
 
 the Spaniards' intended conquest, there should be as great care had 
 of every Catholic and penitent person as possibly could be. And 
 to allure the nobility of this realm, he promised them to become an 
 humble suitor on their behalves, that (so as they show themselves 
 valiant in assisting the King of Spain's forces) they might con- 
 tinue their noble names and families. This Jesuit also telleth all 
 Catholics, the better to comfort them (but indeed to the great 
 scandal for ever of all priesthood), and to show how just and holy 
 the cause was they had in hand, that there were divers priests in 
 the King's army ready to serve every man's spiritual necessity, 
 by confession, council, and all consolation in Christ Jesus. Also 
 he so advanceth the forces of the enemies, and extenuated her 
 Majesty's abilities to withstand them, as he counted the victory 
 obtained in effect before they were landed ; telling us that besides 
 the said great forces, we should be so assisted by the blessed 
 Patrons both in Heaven and Earth, with the guard of all God's 
 holy Angels, with our blessed Saviour himself in the Sovereign 
 Sacrament, and with the daily most holy oblation of Christ's own 
 dear body and blood, as it could not fall out otherwise but that we 
 must needs prevail. Which kind of persuasions, some of them 
 being ridiculous, the most very traitorous, and these last most 
 blasphemous, as tending so greatly to the dishonour of religion, we 
 detest and abhor." 
 
 These same Priests make this further notable admission, that, 
 " in all these Jesuitical and disloyal practices, we doubt not but 
 that the Pope, as a temporal prince, did join and contribute towards 
 this intended invasion." * All this Cobbett characteristically 
 suppresses. But it is not true that the Romanists " were still 
 treated \\-ith every species of barbarous cruelty." That some of 
 these traitors were put to death is true, but who is to blame ? It 
 was not until 1^93 (35 Eliz. c. ii.), five years after the intended 
 invasion, that an additional Act was passed " for the restraining of 
 Popish recusants to some certain place of abode." The declared 
 object of the Act being — "the better to discover and avoiding of 
 such traitorous and most dangerous conspiracies and attempts as 
 
 * Watson's Considerations, p. 59. Reprint, London, 1831. 
 
are daily devised and practised against . . . the Queen's Majesty 
 ... by persons . . . terming themselves Catholics." The 
 Secular Priests sum up what was done for the ten years between 
 1580 and 1590 : — 
 
 "In these ten years last mentioned, from 1580 to 1J90, or 
 but little before, we find her Majesty to be excommunicated by 
 Gregory XIII. M. Sherwin and the rest of our brethren, too 
 much Jesuited, refu^ to answer whether they will take the 
 Queen's part or the Pope's, if he should come by force of arms to 
 assail her in her own kingdom. Parsons and Heywood are found 
 to be practitioners, but especially Parsons. The intention of the 
 Duke of Guise is entertained here and prosecuted; her Majesty's 
 life is sought by treachery; Babington and his companions shoot 
 at the Crown ; Stanley is a treacherer, breaketh his faith, and is 
 defended for so doing. Then followed the invasion ; and, lastly, 
 Parsons' plottings in Spain, and the erection of new seminaries 
 there. Now let us consider how we ourselves all this while have 
 been dealt with. Such of us as remained in prison at Wisbech 
 (and were committed thither, ijSo, and others not long after 
 commiitted also thither, to the number of about thirty-three or 
 thirty-four), continued still in the several times of all the said most 
 wicked designments as we were before, and were never brought 
 into any trouble for them, but lived there, college-like, without any 
 want, and in good reputation with our neighbours that were 
 Catholics about us. It is true that towards the number of fifty (as 
 our memory serveth us) priests and Catholics of all sorts, within the 
 compass of the said ten years, were put to death — we say upon our 
 knowledge (concerning the most of them) — for their consciences, 
 but our adversaries (as they think) do still affirm for treason. 
 Such priests as in their examination were found anything moderate 
 were not so hardly proceeded with, inasmuch as fifty-five (to our 
 remembrance) that by the laws (we acknowledge) might likewise 
 have been put to death were in one year, viz. 1585 (what time 
 great mischiefs were in hand), spared from that extremity, and 
 banished."* 
 
 * Watson's Considerations, pp. 60, 61. 
 
Cobbett represents [the sufferers at this time to be "hundreds 
 upon hundreds " ! 
 
 But Elizabeth's troubles did not cease with the dispersion of the 
 " Invincible Armada." Hume tells us * : — 
 
 " The intrigues of Spain [at this period] were not limited to 
 France and England ; by means of the never-failing pretence of 
 religion, joined to the influence of money, Philip excited new dis- 
 orders in Scotland, and gave fresh alarms fto Elizabeth. George 
 Ker, brother to Lord Newbottle, had been taken while he was 
 passing secretly into Spain, and papers were found about him, by 
 which a dangerous conspiracy of some Catholic noblemen with 
 Philip was discovered. The Earls of Angus, Errol, and Huntly, the 
 heads of three potent families, had entered into a confederacy with 
 the Spanish Monarch, and had stipulated to rouse all their forces, 
 to join them to a body of Spanish troops which Philip promised to 
 send into Scotland ; and, after re-establishing the Catholic religion 
 in the kingdom, to march with their united power in order to effect 
 the same purpose in England." 
 
 " Whilst the said invasion was talked of, and in preparation in 
 Spain, a shorter course was thought of, if it might have had 
 success. Master Hasketwas set on by the Jesuits, 1593, or there- 
 abouts, with Father Parsons' consent or knowledge, to have stirred 
 up the Earl of Derby to rebellion against her Highness. 
 
 " Not long after good Father Holt, and others with him, 
 persuaded an Irishman, one Patrick Collen (as he himself con- 
 fessed) to attempt the laying of his violent hands upon her 
 Majesty." f 
 
 Shortly after, in the year 159.3, it was discovered than Fuentes 
 and Ibarra, who had succeeded Parma in the government of the 
 Netherlands, had bribed the Queen's physician to poison her : — 
 " The Queen complained to Philip of these dishonourable attempts 
 of his ministers, but could obtain no satisfaction. York and 
 Williams, two English traitors, were afterwards executed for a 
 
 * Ch. xliii., vol. iv., p. 121. Edit. 1830; and see Spotswood, p. 391 ; 
 Rymer, Tom. xvi., p. 190. 
 
 ■f Watson's Considerations, p. 64. 
 
157 
 
 conspiracy with Ibarra, equally atrocious."* In September, 1596, 
 Sir Francis Englefield wrote to the King of Spain: — "Without 
 the support and troops of Spain it is scarcely probable that the 
 Catholic religion will ever be restored and established in that 
 country [England]. Even the seminaries, powerful as they ^re 
 in preparing men's minds for a change, must fail to complete 
 their object without the aid of temporary force.'' f " Hereunto 
 we might add the villanous attempt, 1^99, of Edward Squire, 
 animated and drawn thereto (as he confessed) by Walpole, that 
 pernicious Jesuit." J 
 
 The last five years of Elizabeth's reign were disturbed by the 
 rebellion of Tyrone in Ireland. He also proclaimed himself a 
 champion of Rome, and "openly exulted in the present of a 
 phoenix plume, which the Pope, Clement VIII., in order to 
 encourage him in the prosecution of so good a cause, had con- 
 ferred upon him."§ "He was assisted by the Spaniards under 
 d' Aquila, who assumed the title of General in the holy war for the 
 preservation of the Faith in Ireland." \\ In the year 1600, the Pope 
 sent a Bull into Ireland, which is preserved in Wilkins' Concilia^ 
 from the State-paper Office, offering the rebels, and all who 
 should assist them, the same indulgence as was contained in the 
 Bull imported by Sanders in 1580, that they might " more coura- 
 geously and cheerfully endeavour themselves against the heretics; " 
 and just before the Queen's death, this same Clement VIII. issued 
 a Bull, declaring that " none, though never so near in blood, should, 
 after Queen Elizabeth's death, be admitted to the crown, but such 
 an one as would not only tolerate the Roman religion, but would 
 swear to promote and settle it." ** 
 
 It is satisfactory to find that, even at the end of her long reign, 
 
 * Hume, vol. iv., p. 123. Edit. 1830. 
 
 t Dodd's History, by Tierney, iii., p. 49. " All they that take the sword 
 shall perish with the sword " (Matt. xxvi. 52). 
 
 { Watson, p. 64 ; Camden, b. iv., pp. 429, 431, 440. Edit. 1635. 
 
 § Hume, c. xliv., p. 157 ; Camden An. 1599, b. iv., p. 511. 
 
 II Hume, c. xliv., p. 177 ; Camden An. i6oi, b. iv., p. 567. 
 
 ^ Tom. iv., p. 362. London, 1737. 
 
 **i^See Foulis, p. 677, edit. 1671, from Cardinal D'Ossat's Letters. 
 
158 
 
 after such painful and perpetual experience of the restless enmity 
 of the Popes and of their zealous adherents, the Queen Avas still 
 able to distinguish between the " Bull Papists " (as they were 
 called) and the loyal Romanists, as admitted by one of them- 
 selves. I refer to Priest Berington in his " Introduction " to the 
 Life of Panzani, already frequently quoted. He wrote* : — " By a 
 proclamation of November 7th, i6ot, the Queen banished the 
 Jesuits, and such priests as espoused their principles and party, 
 forbidding them, under pain of death, ever to return to England; 
 but to such clergy as would give a true profession of their 
 allegiance, she signified her wish to show favour and indulgence. 
 The circumstance, as an omen portending happiness, was eagerly 
 embraced by some of the leading clergy, and they came forward 
 with a protestation of allegiance, dated January 31st, 1602." 
 
 It should be observed, however, that only thirteen out of four 
 hundred Roman priests then in England signed the document. 
 Its effect on their position among their brethren is also worth 
 noting, as recorded by the same Romish writerf: — " Their act was 
 represented as little less than schismatical ; the University of 
 Louvain gravely pronounced that they had sinned through 
 ignorance and imprudence, but that it was not the sin of absolute 
 heresy ; and Dr. Champney, one of the thirteen, a man of singular 
 endowments, being some years afterwards appointed director to 
 a convent of nuns, was compelled to surrender the important 
 charge on its being notified to his fair penitents that he had signed 
 that horrible protestation." 
 
 I conclude these notices of the reign of Elizabeth by citing some 
 express testimonies to the fact (which few readers, perhaps, will 
 now be incline,d to doubt) that the Romanists who suffered during 
 that period, in the intention of the Legislature, suffered as traitors, 
 and not as professors of a persecuted religion, as repeatedly alleged 
 by Cobbett. Voltaire, who has dedicated a special chapter to the 
 reign of Elizabeth, in his Essay on the Spirit of Nations (c. 19), 
 twice pointedly refers to the fact that not one of the victims of the 
 Roman Church who suffered under this reign suffered on account 
 of his religion. 
 
 * P. 68. Edit, 1753. f Berington, p. 72. 
 
159 
 
 Soon after the conspiracy of Somerville in 1583, a pamphlet was 
 published by Lord Burleigh, entitled, Execution of Justice in the 
 Land, "for maintenance of public and Christian peace, against 
 certain stirrers of sedition and adherents to the traitors and enemies 
 of the realm, without any persecution of them for questions of 
 religion, as is falsely reported and published by these traitors and 
 fosterers of treason." The date is determined by internal evidence ; 
 it may be sufficient to have quoted the title. The tract has been 
 republished under a shorter title, in Bishop Gibson's Preservative 
 SLgainst Popery.* 
 
 At the same time was published a much shorter tract, " against 
 slanderous reports spread abroad in seditious books, letters and 
 libels, thereby to inflame the hearts of our countrymen," entitled : 
 " A declaration of the favourable dealing of Her Majesty's Com- 
 missioners appointed for the examination of certain traitors unjustly 
 reported to be done upon them for matters of religion." f 
 
 In the letter of Walsingham to Mr. Critoy, before cited,! he lays 
 down the following principles as those upon which he finds the 
 Queen's proceedings to have been grounded : — 
 
 " (i.) The one, that consciences are not to be forced, but to be 
 won by the force of truth, with the aid of time, and the use of 
 all good means of instruction and persuasion. 
 
 " (3.) The other, that the causes of conscience, when they exceed 
 their bounds, may grow to be matter of faction— lose their nature ; 
 and that sovereign princes ought distinctly to punish their practices 
 and contempt, though coloured with the pretence of conscience and 
 
 religion." 
 
 He then shows briefly that the Government had really acted on 
 
 these principles. 
 
 And, lastly, I quote from the same tract called Important Con- 
 siderations, &c., written, as I have already stated, by the Secular 
 
 * Vol. xviii., reprint 1849. It is to be found also in the HarUian Mis- 
 cellany (vol. ii.) and Hollinshed's Chronicles (vol. iii.) ; Strype assigns the 
 composition of it to Burleigh, having seen the minutes " m his own hand 
 among his papers " {Annals of Queen Elizabeth, vol. iii., b. 1., ch. 23, p. 408. 
 
 Oxford, 1842). ^ ,, , •• V, , - 
 
 t HoUinshed, vol. iii., p. I357- t ^°^- "- ^°°^ '"' 
 
i6o 
 
 Priests to expose the treasonable conduct of the Jesuits, and to 
 warn the laity against their practices, and which appeared only two 
 years before the death of Elizabeth, and, therefore, maybe regarded 
 as a view of the policy of her whole reign. In addition to the 
 numerous passages I have copiously quoted, I select the following: — 
 " We are fully persuaded in our consciences, and as men who have 
 some experience, that if the Catholics had never sought by indirect 
 means to have vexed her Majesty with their designment against her 
 crown : if the Pope and King of Spain had never plotted with the 
 Duke of Norfolk : if the rebels in the North had never been heard 
 of : if the bull of Pius Quintus had never been known : if the said 
 rebellion had never been justified : if neither Stuckeley nor the 
 Pope had attempted anything against Ireland : if Gregory XIII. 
 had not renewed the said excommunication : if the Jesuits had 
 never come into England : if the Pope and King of Spain had not 
 practised with the Duke of Guise for his attempt against her 
 Majesty: if Parsons and the rest of the Jesuits, with other our 
 countrymen beyond the seas, had never been agents in those 
 traitorous and bloody designments of Throckmorton, Parry, Collen, 
 Yorke, Williams, Squire, and such like : if they had not by their 
 treaties and writings endeavoured to defame their Sovereign and 
 their own country, labouring to have many of their books to be 
 translated into divers languages, thereby to show their own dis- 
 loyalty : if Cardinal Alane and Parsons had not published the 
 renovation of the said bull by Pius Quintus : if thereunto they had 
 not added their scurrilous and unmanly admonition, or rather most 
 profane libel, against her Majesty : if they had not sought by false 
 persuasions and unghostly arguments to have allured the hearts of 
 all Catholics from their allegiance : if the Pope had never been 
 urged by them to have thrust the King of Spain into that barbarous 
 action against the realm : if they themselves, w^ith all the rest of 
 that generation, had not laboured greatly with the said King for the 
 conquest and invasion of this land by the Spaniards, who are known 
 to be the cruellest tyrants that live upon the earth : if in all their 
 whole proceedings they had not from time to time depraved, 
 irritated, and provoked both her Majesty and the State with those 
 and many other such-like their most ungodly and unchristian 
 
i6i 
 
 practices : but on the contrary, if the Popes from time to time had 
 sought her Majesty, by kind offices and gentle persuasions, never 
 ceasing the prosecution of these and such-like courses of humanity 
 and gentleness : if the Catholics and priests beyond the seas had 
 laboured continually the furtherance of their own proceedings in all 
 their works and writings accordingly : if we at home, all of us, 
 both priests and people, had possessed our souls in meekness and 
 humility, honoured her Majesty, borne with the infirmities of the 
 State, suffered all things and death, as true Catholic priests : if all 
 of us (we say) had thus done, most assuredly the State would have 
 loved us, or at least borne with us : where there is one Catholic 
 there would have been ten : there had been no speeches amongst 
 us of racks and torments, nor any cause to have used them ; for 
 none were ever vexed that way simply for that he was either priest or 
 Catholic, but because they were suspected to have had their hands 
 in some of the said traitrous designments .... And, therefore, 
 let us turn over the leaf and take another course than hitherto we 
 have done " (Watson's Considerations, pp. 70-72). " I know not," 
 said the Priest Berington* — from whom I have largely quoted — 
 "I know not who the Secular Priests were that published the 
 Considerations, anno 1601, but their statement shows what at that 
 time was the belief of many ; and it shows how inconsistent with 
 the truth of things our own ideas have generally been." Do not 
 these acknowledgments and facts offer a complete answer to 
 Cobbett's slanderous charges against Elizabeth ? And yet to the 
 present day Roman Priests industriously circulate his libels ! 
 
 No Protestant, I trust, will attempt to justify cruelties or 
 torture. According to Rishton, some are alleged to have suffered 
 in this manner, and these cases are cited as if they were inflicted 
 on Papists on account of their religion. Torture was essentially 
 a Popish process to extort evidence, and extensively practised by 
 Popes, the Inquisition, by Bishops also in the reigns of Henry and 
 Mary. But that is no excuse. It was never a part of the 
 Protestant programme ; but the process is sanctioned by the Roman 
 Canon Law. Father Rivers, the London correspondent of Parsons, 
 
 * Pp. 17s, 176, Edit, as before. 
 
1 62 
 
 n referring to the execution of William] Richardson, states that 
 the " Chief Justice would have put four more to death at Bury, 
 but the Queen forbade it."* Rapin, the French Historian, said 
 that Elizabeth sent for the Judges and " sharply reproved them 
 for having been too severe in the tortures which they made those 
 men suffer." They gave for answer, "That no person had leen 
 made to suffer for his religion, but only for dangerous practices 
 against the Queen and State."t It was retributive justice, but 
 no justification. It was the common practice of the times. But 
 these accusations of torture rest on the veracity of Bartoli, Rishton, 
 and the mendacious Sander. But the Romanist Historian, Dodd, 
 says generally of the Jesuit historians of English affairs, " These 
 writers are not to be relied on ; no impartial judge would think it 
 justice to admit them." In these he includes the names of More 
 and Juvency. "All these Jesuits are suspected of partiality in 
 facts where their interests are concerned. All unprovided with 
 proper memoirs, contradicting original letters, and opposing 
 writers of much greater credit." J 
 
 The events of this reign are unparalleled in history. It was the 
 interposition of an overruling Providence which had protected 
 Elizabeth from " the knavish tricks " of the Jesuits, instigated by 
 four successive Popes. The historical facts I have laid before the 
 reader, to a great extent derived from Roman authorities, totally 
 annihilate the monstrous and wicked calumnies advanced by 
 Cobbett, and propagated by his modern admirers — the Papists of 
 the present day ; and, but for the importance of the subject, I 
 should feel humiliated at the task on which I have been employed, 
 for I feel, to apply an old French proverb, I have employed 
 paving stones to crush a wasp ! 
 
 I have not thought Cobbett's charges against Elizabeth of lewd- 
 ness and immorality worth a passing notice. He has not cited 
 one single instance as an example, but has contented himself with 
 the use of epithets conveying charges which even her bitterest 
 
 * Cal. S. B. Dom. Eliz. cclxxxvi. 52, quoted by Law " Introduction," 
 p. xcix., oi-A Historical Sketch of the Conflicts of Jesuits and Seculars. i88g, 
 j- Tindal's Rapin, vol. ix., p. 36. Edit. 1729. 
 X DoAA's Apology for the Church History of England, p. 42. Edit. 1742. 
 
i63 
 
 enemies have never dared to particularize. I have thought it best 
 to let the foul calumnies pass in silence, with the contempt they 
 deserve, and I conclude this chapter with the following panegyric, 
 which I take from the Preface, by Camden, of the Annals of the 
 History of Elizabeth : — 
 
 "In this worthy Queene, many rare virtues concurred, as wisdom, 
 clemencie, learning, knowledge of tongues, constancie, temperance, 
 chastity, magnanimity, and (which crowneth all the rest) zeale to 
 pietie and true religion. But suppose all these to have been found 
 in some one prince or another besides her ; yet this, which I shall 
 now say of her, hath beene certainly from the creation of man upon 
 earth, and (as a man may well guesse) for ever will be without 
 example, a woman, and (if that be not enough) an unmarried 
 virgin, destitute of all helps of parents, brethren, husband, beset 
 with divers nations — her mortall enemies (while the Pope fretted, 
 the Spaniards threatened, and all her neighbour princes, as many 
 as had sworn to Popery, raged round about her), held the most 
 stout and warlike nation of the English, foure and forty yeares and 
 upwards, not only in awe and duty, but even in peace also, and 
 (which is most of all) in the true worship of God, abolishing Popery 
 and superstition, insomuch as in all England, for so many yeares 
 together, never any mortall man (which is strange to tell) ever 
 heard the trumpet sound the charge to battell, nor ever saw any 
 tumult or sedition, save only a little stirring in the North parts, 
 which, like the bubbles which children blow up into the ayre, though 
 it suddenly swelled and made a glorious shew, yet was it no sooner 
 blowne up, then blowne out, and fell into the eyes of those which, 
 with the blasts of ambition and superstition^ held it up." 
 
 " Her own shall bless her : 
 Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, 
 And hang their heads with sorrow." 
 
 Henry VIII., Act v., Scene iv. 
 
 II 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 • Sit mihi fas audita loqui." — Virgil. 
 
 I HAVE now passed in review the Penal Laws of Queen Elizabeth's 
 reign, and I have laid before the reader their justificationj under 
 circumstances that have not their parallel in the history of any 
 nation. Has there ever been any monarch in Europe who would 
 have dealt so leniently with these traitorous subjects r The traitors 
 of the Elizabethan period were the Nihilists of the present day, 
 with this difference, that the latter act on purely political prin- 
 ciples, the former are now said to have been "Martyrs for the 
 cause of Christ " ; but then, these modern advocates would have 
 to prove that rebellion against the constituted Sovereign of a 
 country and regicide was the religion taught by Jesus Christ. 
 This theory has been preserved and perpetuated in the Roman 
 Church to the present day. Pope Pius V. inaugurated the cam- 
 paign against England by the issue of his Damnation and 
 Excommunication of Elizabeth in 1570. In the year 1712 Pope 
 Clement XL canonized this same Pius V., and among other 
 things expressly for : — " his unhesitating zeal in striking with his 
 dread anathema the impious heretic Elizabeth, the pretended 
 Queen of England, the slave of shameful vices, as a heretic, and 
 the favourer of heretics ; absolving her subjects from their 
 allegiance, and depriving herself, by Pontifical authority, of her 
 pretended right to the throne of England."* In 1887 was issued 
 from the Romish Press " a Calendar of English Martyrs of the 
 i6th and 17th Centuries" under the authority of Cardinal 
 Manning, which included by name and date all who suffered death 
 
 * See Acta Canonizationis Pii V., &c. Romas, 1720. Ex Typ. Vatic. 
 Literse Decretales Clement XI. Junis i, 1712, § 27. 
 
and imprisonment during the reign of Elizabeth, and are declared to 
 have suffered for the cause of Christ ; and Pope Leo XIII. selected 
 the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria to Beatify by far the greater 
 number of these same traitors, and register them as saints in 
 heaven ! 
 
 According to Thomas Grave Law, an ex-Brompton Oratorian 
 priest, in a note to his reprint of Christopher Bagshaws', "True 
 relation of the Faction begun at Wisbech" under the Title His- 
 torical Sketch of the Conflicts between Jesuits and Secular Priests 
 (David Nutt, Strand, 1889), p. vii., says that it was at the instigation 
 and suggestion of Cardinal Manning in 1874, and by him put 
 forward to Rome in view of the further canonical steps to be there 
 taken for the Beatification of these traitors to their Queen and 
 country ! 
 
 Every single Penal Law against Romanists has been erased from 
 our Statute Books, while Rome's cruel Penal Laws remain at the 
 present day stereotyped in their Book of Canon Law. 
 
 In conclusion, let us consider a few facts relating to the law and 
 practice of the Roman Church. From the days of Innocent III. 
 (a.d. 1200), — who, by solemn Bull, confirmed by one of their 
 General Councils, not only consigned every so-called heretic to 
 death, but ordered the secular powers to put his decree into force, 
 —to the end of the reign of Elizabeth, relentless persecution of 
 Protestants, and of all who refused to conform to Papal theories, 
 was authorized and enforced by Bulls of Popes. Compared with 
 these the Penal Laws of Elizabeth's reign are mere trifles. The 
 extirpation of heretics by fire and sword from the face of the 
 earth was sought to be carried out. Going back in our history, 
 the Romish Church had, in England, invited and aided Henry IV. 
 to wrest the crown from Richard II., on a secret compact that 
 he should suppress the Lowlards. He performed his part of the 
 nefarious engagement, by pledging himself to destroy all heretics, 
 and by assenting to the disgraceful Statute which ordered heretics 
 to be burnt. By the Act 2 Henry IV., c. 15 (a.d. 1400), " On the 
 prayer of the Prelates," all heretics who should refuse to abjure 
 were ordered to bs burnt, " that such punishment may strike fear 
 in the minds of others." 
 
1 66 
 
 In 1414 Pope John XXIII. exhorted the King of Bohemia to 
 "root out the errors of our countryman Wickliffe," which was 
 in the next year put in practice by causing Huss to be burned, as 
 a disciple of the English Reformer, and afterwards Jerome of 
 Prague ; and the body of Wickhffe was disinterred, burnt, and his 
 ashes cast into the river. Pope Martin V., in the first year of his 
 Pontificate, issued a Bull denouncing WicklifFe, with Huss and 
 Jerome, as heretics, and called on Sovereigns to march their 
 armies to re-convert or extirpate the Reformers from the earth. 
 
 In 145^ Capistrano was made Papal Legate and Inquisitor, 
 and went to Bohemia to root out heretics by fire and sword. In 
 Campania he burnt eighty-six of their villages. Leo X. wrote to 
 the German Princes exhorting them " to use the last remedies of 
 sword and fire to exterminate Luther and those who followed his 
 doctrine." Clement VII. told his Cardinals that he would "call 
 a Council to re-establish discipline in the Church, and to 
 exterminate heretics.'' In the year 1J30 he declared to the 
 Emperor that neither he nor his Cardinals would consent to any 
 Council being called, but upon condition " that heretics desist from 
 their errors, and conform themselves to the catholicity in the faith, 
 and in obedience to the Mother Church." Paul III. in 1534 
 avowed his object in assenting to the calling of a Council to be 
 "not to investigate heretics but to ensure their extirpation." In 
 1^51 at the re-opening of the Council of Trent it was explained 
 to the assembled prelates that they were met for three objects, the 
 first of which was to extirpate heretics. This determination has 
 been attempted to be carried out by the Roman and Spanish 
 Inquisition ; in the massacre of Protestants in the Netherlands 
 by the Duke of Alva ; in the massacre of Protestants in the 
 South of France, of the Albigenses and Waldenses ; in the 
 Dragonades in France, and the massacre on the eve of St. 
 Bartholomew's day and two successive days. Literally hundreds 
 of thousands of innocent lives were sacrificed on the ground of 
 their religion, to satisfy the ambition and revenge of the Papal 
 alter Deus in terris. It was only the quarrel with each other 
 which prevented the Kings of France and Spain from unitino- 
 with the Pope for the subversion of the Protestant Government 
 
i67 
 
 of England in the reign of Edward VI. Tlie French King, in a 
 letter addressed to Pope Clement VII. (June 23rd, 1533), when 
 taking counsel with him for the extirpation and rooting out 
 heretics, thus as he expressed himself " for the exaltation of His 
 Holiness ' ' — " so that they may not be able to spring up any more 
 in any part of Christendom." 
 
 In the Pope's Bull, which he issued in the September following, 
 he declared that heretics must be considered " as putrid members, 
 and cut off, and extirpated j" — so little did the Church of Rome 
 consider the value of the lives of their fellow Christians ! It must be 
 borne in mind that heresy, with the Roman Church, means the 
 reformed religion, or any system not her own. We know that in 
 the reign of Henry VIII. a Romish Parliament passed an Act to 
 consign to the flames all who denied the Popish doctrine of 
 Transubstantiation, and those who denied other Popish doctrines 
 were to be treated as felons, and put to death. And in the reign 
 of Mary^ Paul IV. urged the Queen to " exterminate heresy and 
 heretics in her kingdom by burnings and persecution," which 
 injunction she too literally obeyed. And, as we have seen, the 
 French Ambassador in England, in a letter dated February 4th, 1555, 
 addressed to his Court on the burning of the first Martyr of 
 Mary's reign, said : — "This day was performed the confirmation 
 of the alliance between the Pope and this Kingdom, by a public 
 and solemn sacrifice of a preaching Doctor named Rogerus, who 
 has been burnt alive for being a Lutheran." 
 
 With these facts painfully evident, what had Elizabeth and the 
 English nation to expect had the Pope succeeded in subjugating 
 England by the aid of the Spanish Armada, manned by members 
 of the Inquisition, supplied with instruments of torture, otherwise 
 than a general massacre of Protestants ? The Jesuit Parsons' 
 " Memorial " proves this. To re-establish Papal authority in 
 this country, I have passed in review some of the leading 
 conspiracies of this reign. "After all the Treasons by English 
 Papists, and their incitements to treason by the Popes, no reason- 
 able man can continue to assert that the Penal Statutes were passed 
 for the sake of bringing about or supporting the Reformation, 
 when it is quite clear that the atrocious determination of Popes to 
 
i68 
 
 extirpate Protestants from Christendom (supported as it was by 
 the confederacy of Roman Catholic States and by the treasonable 
 attempts of English Papists), was the great cause of these 
 enactments." 
 
 " Longa est injuria, longas ambages." — Virgil. 
 
 Having emancipated ourselves from the cruel tyranny and 
 superstitions of Rome, let us : — 
 
 Stand fast, therefore, in the Liberty wherewith 
 Christ has made us free, and be not entangled with 
 the yoke of Bondage. — Gal. v. i. 
 
APPENDIX A. 
 
 " His curses and his blessings 
 Touch me alike ; they are breath I not believe in." 
 
 Henry VI 11., Act it. Scene ii. 
 
 Sentence of Pope Paul III. against Henry VIII.* 
 
 Condemnation and Excommunication of Henry VIII. , King of 
 England, and his Abettors and Accomplices, with the addition of 
 other punishments. 
 
 Paul, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, in perpetual 
 remembrance of the matter. 
 
 I. We, ahhough unworthy, the Vice-gerent on earth of Him 
 who, unchangeable and eternal, governs all things by His provi- 
 dence in admirable order and overruling goodness — and placed in 
 the seat of justice — according also to the prediction of the Prophet 
 Jeremiah in these words : " Behold, I have appointed thee over 
 nations and kingdoms, that thou mayest pull up and destroy, build 
 and plant ; the chief over all the kings of the universe, and all 
 peoples obtaining dominion" — and imitating Him who is loving 
 and merciful, and tempers the punishment prepared for him who 
 incurs it, and does not chastise those whom He sees to be impeni- 
 tent by severe vengeance until He first threatens them, but exerts 
 the full force of His justice against those who continually sin and 
 persevere in sinning, when they pass the bounds of the excess of 
 
 * This is, I believe, the only complete translation that has been published 
 of this famous Bull. It appeared first in my Henry VIII; an Historical 
 Sketch as affecting the Reformation in England (1864). It is as faithful 
 a. rendering of the original (as given in the Magnum Bullarium Romanum 
 (Cherubini), torn. i. pp. 704-708; Lugduni, 1655) ^^ language can make it. 
 The original Latin is a most involved, complex, wearisome, and unscholar- 
 like composition. It is impossible that it could be worse. His 
 " Infallibility's " Latin was of the very lowest order. 
 
mercy, in order that they may, at least through the fear of punish- 
 ment, be compelled to return to a right mind — are strongly urged 
 by the Apostolical anxiety which presses upon us, more diligently 
 to attend to the healthy condition of all persons committed by 
 Heaven to our care ; and more vigorously to oppose the errors and 
 scandals which, through the craftiness of our old enemy, we see to 
 be impending ; and to restrain with becoming severity enormous 
 and scandalous crimes ; and, according to the example of the 
 Apostle, by promptly punishing the disobedience of our flock, so 
 to check the perpetrators thereof by merited correction, that they 
 may repent of having provoked the anger of God, and therefrom 
 others may learn a salutary caution. 
 
 We have lately been informed that Henry, King of England — • 
 although during the pontificate of our predecessor Pope Leo X., 
 of blessed memory, he, impelled by zeal for the Catholic Faith, 
 and by the fervour of his devotion towards the Apostolic See, did, 
 with equaHearning and piety, by a book by him thereon composed 
 and presented to the same Leo, our predecessor, for his examination 
 and approval, refute the errors of divers heretics often condemned 
 by the Apostolic See and sacred councils in times past, and revived 
 very recently in our age by that child of perdition — Martin 
 LcTHER — and on account of such service obtained from the same 
 Leo, our predecessor, in addition to his approbation of the said 
 book and great praise and commendation of King Henry himself, 
 the title of Defender of the Faith — wandering from the right faith 
 and the Apostolical path, and regardless of his own safety, fame, 
 and honour (after having put aside, without any lawful cause, and 
 contrary to the prohibition of the Church, our dearest daughter in 
 Christ, Catherine, Queen of England, a wife illustrious from her 
 own descent, and with whom in the face of the Church he had 
 contracted marriage, and during several years had cohabited, and 
 by whom, during the said marriage, he had several times had 
 offspring), had contracted marriage, in fact, with one Anne Boleyn, 
 an English woman, the said Catherine being still alive — and, 
 proceeding to worse acts, did not blush to enact certain laws or 
 general constitutions by which he compelled, even under the 
 heavy penalty of death, his subjects to hold certain heretical and 
 
schismatical articles, amongst which was even this — " that the 
 Roman Pontiff was not the head of the Church and the Vicar of 
 Christ," and " that he himself was in England the supreme head 
 of the Church." — And not content with these acts, he, being 
 influenced by the Devil to commit sacrilege, seized and imprisoned 
 several prelates and bishops and other ecclesiastical persons, both 
 regular and secular, who were unwilling and boldly refused to side 
 with him, a heretic and schismatic, or to approve and follow the 
 aforesaid Articles, as being contrary to the decrees of the holy 
 Fathers and the statutes of the sacred councils, and also to 
 Evangelical truth itself, as well as other similar condemned 
 articles. In like manner, not content with these acts, by way 
 of adding evil to evil, he with horrible cruelty and detestable 
 tyranny publicly handed over to a miserable death, and beheaded 
 John, Priest-Cardinal of Saint Vitalis, Bishop of Rochester, of 
 blessed memory (whom on account of his firmness in the faith 
 and holiness of life we had promoted to the dignity of the Car- 
 dinalate), because he would not consent to the said heresies and 
 errors ; thereby damnably incurring the heaviest sentences, cen- 
 sures, and punishments of excommunication and anathema, and 
 other punishments, contained in the Letters and Constitutions of 
 Boniface VIII. and Honorius III., of blessed memory, Roman 
 Pontiffs, our predecessors, thereon published, and other penalties 
 against such persons by law enacted ; and thereby rendering him- 
 self unworthy of the kingdom of England and the dominions 
 which he held, and also of the exalted rank of royalty, and the 
 prerogative and honour of the aforesaid title. 
 
 2. Although— from the fact that (as we knew) the same King 
 Henry had remained unmoved by the distinct ecclesiastical censures 
 by which (after the kindest letters and paternal exhortations, and 
 many letters and communications in the first instance, and lastly, 
 judicial sentence) he had been in vain admonished to put away the 
 aforesaid Anne, and to return to cohabitation with the aforesaid 
 Catherine, his true wife ; and imitating the hardness of Pharaoh, 
 for a long time had been, and was, in contempt of the Keys — we 
 saw that it was scarcely possible to hope that he would return to a 
 proper state of mind ; nevertheless — on account of the patern;il 
 
172 
 
 charity with which we had treated him whilst he remained in the 
 obedience and reverence of the aforesaid See, and in order that we 
 might more clearly ascertain whether the report which had reached 
 us (and which, in truth, from respect to King Henry himself, we 
 wished should prove false) was true — we resolved, by abstaining 
 for a time from ulterior proceedings against King Henry himself, 
 more carefully to investigate the truth of this matter. 
 
 3. But since, after due diligence in ascertaining the facts, we 
 have found that the report which, as before mentioned, reached us, 
 is true ; and at the same time (which we relate with grief) that the 
 said King Henry has sunk so low in wickedness as to preclude all 
 hope of his restoration — we, considering that by the old law the 
 man convicted of the crime of adultery was punished with stoning, 
 and the authors of schism were swept away by an exhalation from 
 the earth, and their followers consumed by fire from heaven ; and 
 Elymas, the sorcerer, resisting the ways of the Lord, was con- 
 demned, through the apostle, with eternal severity; and wishing 
 (lest in the rigorous examination an account of the souls of King 
 Henry himself and his subjects, whom we see he is drawing into 
 perdition, be required from us) to provide, so far as is granted to 
 us from above, against King Henry and his accomplices, abettors, 
 adherents and followers, and persons in any manner whatever 
 culpable in the premises — against whom, forasmuch as the afore- 
 said excesses and faults are so manifest and notorious that they 
 cannot by any subterfuge be concealed, we might without further 
 delay proceed to execution — nevertheless, adopting a kinder course, 
 have resolved to proceed in manner underwritten. 
 
 4. Wherefore, after mature deliberation upon these matters with 
 our venerable brothers the Cardinals, and with their advice and 
 assent, we exhort by the bowels of the mercy of our God, the 
 aforesaid King Henry and his accomplices, abettors, adherents, 
 advisers, and followers, also all other persons whomsoever, in any 
 manner culpable in the premises, or in any of them, whether lay or 
 clerical ; all regulars of whatsoever dignity, state, degree, order, 
 condition, pre-eminence, and excellence they may be (whose names 
 and surnames 'we will should be considered as sufficiently expressed, 
 and to the said intent, as if introduced into these presents) ; and 
 
173 
 
 require in the Lord that King Henry entirely abstain from the 
 aforesaid errors, and revoke, declare void, and annul the aforesaid 
 constitutions and laws, as in fact he made them — and that he 
 entirely abstain from compelling his subjects to keep them ; and 
 also from the imprisonment, arrest, and punishment of those who 
 have refused to adhere to or observe the self-same constitutions or 
 laws; and release all prisoners by reason of the premises. 
 
 ^. As to the abettors, adherents, advisers, and followers of the 
 said King Henry in and respecting the premises — We exhort and 
 require that henceforth they do not assist or adhere to or abet King 
 Henry himself in these matters, nor afford him advice, assistance, 
 or favour. 
 
 6. Otherwise, if King Henry and his abettors, adherents, advisers, 
 and followers shall not effectually obey the exhortations and requisi- 
 tions of this kind, we excommunicate King Henry, his abettors, 
 adherents, advisers, and followers, and other the aforesaid guilty 
 parties, by Apostolic authority, and of our certain knowledge, 
 and by the plenitude of Apostolic power, by the tenor of these 
 presents, in virtue of holy obedience and under the sentence of the 
 greater excommunication — from which, even under pretext of any 
 privilege whatever, or of any dispensation, even in the form of the 
 confessional, and whatsoever most etficacious clauses by us and 
 the aforesaid See in any manner whatever granted, and even 
 repeated, {iteratis vicibus innovatis,) persons cannot be absolved, 
 except in the article of death — and then only so, that if any one 
 happens to be absolved and afterwards to recover, unless after 
 recovery he shall effectually obey our admonition and commands, 
 he shall relapse into the same sentence of excommunication ; 
 
 7. And also of rebellion — and as regards King Henry, also of 
 deprivation of his kingdom and aforesaid dominions — and respect- 
 ing him as well as respecting the other aforesaid admonished 
 parties — we by these presents warn, by the penalties hereinbefore 
 and hereinafter written (which we will that they and every of 
 them respectively shall incur if they shall not obey the aforesaid 
 monition and commands), and command them and every of them 
 peremptorily, that King Henry by himself, or by his legal agent 
 duly authorized, do within ninety days ; and his accomplices. 
 
174 
 
 abettors, adherents, advisers, and followers, and other the aforesaid 
 culpable parties, secular and also regular ecclesiastics, do within 
 sixty days personally appear before us for the purpose of legally 
 excusing and defending themselves in the premises ; or otherwise 
 for the purpose of seeing and hearing the acts, and also the defini- 
 tive, declaratory, condemnatory, and deprivative sentence, and the 
 order for execution thereof pronounced, even by name, against all 
 and every those persons whom we thus admonish, so far as may 
 be expedient as to all and every of them. But if King Henry and 
 the other before-mentioned admonished persons shall not within 
 the aforesaid times appointed to them respectively as aforesaid, 
 appear — and if (as we trust will not happen) for three days after 
 the expiration of the aforesaid times they shall with hardened 
 mind endure the aforesaid sentence of excommunication — we 
 augment and successively re-augment the censures themselves ; 
 and pronounce that Henry himself has incurred the penalty of 
 deprivation of his kingdom and aforesaid dominions ; and that 
 both he and also all and every other the aforesaid admonished 
 parties have incurred all and every other the aforesaid penalties ; 
 and they and their effects are for ever to be severed from all the 
 faithful servants of Christ. And if in the mean time he shall 
 die, we by our aforesaid authority and plenary power do declare 
 and decree that he be deprived of ecclesiastical sepulture ; and 
 we strike them with the sword of anathema, malediction, and 
 eternal damnation. 
 
 8. Moreover, we subject to ecclesiastical interdict the properties 
 which King Henry in any manner whatsoever, and by any title, 
 holds, has, or possesses — as long as King Henry and other the 
 aforesaid admonished parties, and every of them, shall remain in 
 other properties not holden, had, or possessed through the said 
 King Henry, and three days after their retirement therefrom — and 
 other properties whatsoever which, after the expiration of the 
 aforesaid periods of time, shall happen to descend to King Henry 
 and other the aforesaid admonished parties, whether they be 
 dominions, cities, lands, castles, villages, towns, metropolitan and 
 other cathedral churches, and other inferior churches ; and also 
 monasteries, priories, houses, convents, and religious and pious 
 
175 
 
 places, of whatever kind, even of the Benedictines, Clunians, 
 Cistercians, Praemonstrants, Preachers, Minors, Carmelites of 
 St. Augustin, and of other orders and congregations, and military- 
 orders whatsoever, being in these dominions, cities, lands, castles, 
 villages, towns, and places ; so that in them during the con- 
 tinuance of this interdict masses and other Divine offices be not 
 performed, even under pretext of any Apostolical indulgence 
 granted to churches, monasteries, priories, houses, convents, 
 places, orders, or persons of whatsoever dignity, except in cases 
 by law permitted ; and even in those cases not otherwise than 
 with closed doors, excommunicated and interdicted persons being 
 excluded. 
 
 9. And let the sons of King Henry, and of his accomplices, 
 abettors, adherents, advisers, followers, and the aforesaid offenders, 
 partake of the penalties as in this case is proper. And we decree 
 and declare that all and every the sons of the same King Henry 
 by the said Anne, and of all and every the other aforesaid parties, 
 born and to be born, and their other descendants, down to that 
 degree to which the laws of punishment in cases of this kind 
 extend (no one excepted and no allowance being made for minority, 
 or sex, or ignorance, or any other cause), be deprived of all digni- 
 ties and honours which in any manner whatever they possess, use, 
 or enjoy ; and also of all privileges, indulgencies, immunities, 
 remissions, and liberties, and all dominions, cities, castles, lands, 
 villages, towns, and places, even held in commendam or put in 
 trust, and which they have, hold, or possess in fee, or on lease, or 
 otherwise, from Roman or other churches, monasteries, and eccle- 
 siastical places, and from secular princes, lords, potentates (even 
 though they be kings and emperors), or from other private or 
 public persons; and of all other goods, movable and immovable, 
 rights and actions. And in like manner we decree and declare, 
 that the said properties, freehold or leasehold, and other what- 
 soever, by them in any manner obtained, do respectively devolve 
 upon the right owners, so that they may freely dispose of them ; 
 and that those persons who shall be ecclesiastics (even though 
 they belong to religious orders), be deprived also of the metro- 
 politan and cathedral churches, and moreover of monasteries, 
 
.76 
 
 priories, governorships and superiorities, dignities, parsonages 
 offices, canonries, prebends, and other ecclesiastical benefices, by 
 them in what manner soever obtained ; and that they be incapable 
 for the future of holding those and the like possessions. And by 
 the like authority and knowledge and plenary power, we declare 
 that those parties so respectively deprived, are henceforth incapaci- 
 tated from holding those and the like possessions vsrhatsoever, 
 and all dignities, honours, administrations and offices, rights and fees. 
 
 10. And we absolve and altogether set free from the aforesaid 
 King or his accomplices, abettors, adherents, advisers, and follo'wers 
 aforesaid, and from the oath of allegiance, vassalage, and all 
 obedience to the King, and other the parties aforesaid, the magis- 
 trates, judges, constables, guardians, and officers of King Henry 
 himself, and of his kingdom, and of all other his dominions, cities, 
 lands, castles, villages, fortresses, citadels, towns, and places, even 
 though in fact by him holden ; and moreover, all communities, 
 universities, colleges, feudatories, vassals, subjects, citizens, inhabit- 
 ants, and also foreigners in fact obeying the said King, as well 
 seculars as ecclesiastics, if any by reason of any temporality 
 recognize King Henry as their superior. These, nevertheless, we 
 command, under the penalty of excommunication, entirely and 
 altogether to abstain from obeying the same King Henry and his 
 officers, judges, and magistrates whomsoever, and not to acknow- 
 ledge them as superiors or submit to their commands. 
 
 1 1 . And in order that others, frightened by their example, may 
 learn to abstain from excesses of this kind, We by the same 
 authority, knowledge, and plenary power, do will and decree, that 
 King Henry and his accomplices, abettors, adherents, advisers, 
 followers, and other parties guilty in the premises (after they have 
 respectively incurred the other before-mentioned penalties, as afore- 
 said), and moreover, their aforesaid descendants, be from that 
 time infamous and not permitted to give evidence ; that they be 
 incapacitated from making or granting wills and codicils or other 
 dispositions, even amongst the living ; and that they be incapaci- 
 tated from succession by will or intestacy ; and also from any 
 jurisdiction or power of judging, or from the office of notary, and 
 from all other legal acts whatsoever ; so that their processes or 
 
'// 
 
 instraments and other acts whatsoever be of no force or validity ; 
 and that no persons be held responsible to them in law, but that 
 they be held responsible to others upon every debt and matter, 
 both civil and criminal. 
 
 12. And nevertheless, under the penalty of excommunication, 
 and other the after-written penalties. We warn all the faithful in 
 Christ to shun, and so far as possible, to cause others to shun, 
 the aforesaid excommunicated, re-excommunicated, interdicted, 
 deprived, accursed, and condemned persons ; and not to have any 
 commerce, conversation, or communion with the same persons, 
 or with the citizens, inhabitants, either sojourners or subjects, and 
 vassals of the aforesaid King, cities, dominions, lands, castles, 
 counties, villages, fortresses, towns, and places aforesaid ; by 
 buying, selling, exchanging, or transacting any kind of merchandise 
 or business ; or to convey or contract for, or cause to be conveyed 
 or contracted for, wine, corn, salt, or other victuals, arms, clothes, 
 wares, or other merchandise, or any goods by sea in their ships, 
 galleys or other vessels, or by land with mules and other animals ; 
 or to receive goods brought by them publicly or privately ; or to 
 presume in any manner to give to persons doing such things, aid, 
 counsel, or favour, publicly or privately, directly or indirectly, 
 under any pretence, by themselves, or by any other person or 
 persons ; but if they do so, let them in like manner by the very 
 act incur in addition to the penalty of excommunication the loss of 
 their wares, victuals, and all conveyed goods, which shall become 
 the property of the captors. 
 
 13. But because it does not appear consistent that those who are 
 employed in divine offices should consort with these men who 
 despise the Church, especially whilst from their obstinacy there 
 seems no hope of amendment — which they cannot do with safety— 
 We command the prelates, abbots, priors, preceptors, superiors, 
 ministers, keepers, guardians, convents, monks, and canons of all 
 and singular the metropolitan and other cathedral and other inferior 
 churches and monasteries, houses, and places of the religious and 
 pious of all denominations ; also of St. Augustin, St. Benedict, the 
 Clunians, Cistercians, Preemonstrants, and Preachers, Minors, 
 Carmelites, and other orders whatsoever, and military orders, even 
 
 12 
 
178 
 
 of the Hospital of Jerusalem, and also the rectors of parochial 
 churches, and all other ecclesiastical persons whatsoever, abiding 
 in the kingdom and dominions aforesaid, under the penalties of 
 excommunication and deprivation of the management and govern- 
 ment of monasteries, dignities, parsonages, administrations, and 
 ofEces, and of canonries, prebends, parochial churches, and other 
 ecclesiastical benefices whatsoever, in "what manner soever qualified, 
 and by them obtained — That, within five days after the expiration 
 of all and singular the periods aforesaid, they quit and depart from 
 the kingdom and dominions themselves — leaving, however, some 
 priests in the churches, the cure of which they have, for administering 
 baptism to little children, and to those dying in penitence, and 
 the other sacraments of the Church which in the time of inter- 
 dict are permitted to be administered. And that they do not return 
 to the kingdom and dominions aforesaid until the parties admonished 
 and the excommunicated, aggravated,* re-aggravated, deprived, 
 accursed, and condemned shall obey the aforesaid monitions, and 
 our commands of this nature, and deserve to obtain the benefit of 
 absolution from censures of this kind, or until the interdict upon 
 the kingdom and dominions aforesaid shall be removed. 
 
 14. Besides — if (notwithstanding the premises) King Henry, his 
 accomplices, abettors, adherents, advisers, and followers aforesaid, 
 shall persevere in their obstinacy, and the stings of conscience shall 
 not restore them to a right state of mind, trusting, perhaps, in their 
 power of arms — -We require and warn all and every dukes, mar- 
 quises, earls, and others whomsoever, both secular and ecclesiastic, 
 even foreigners (etiam forenses) de facto, obeying the said King 
 Henry, under pain of the same excommunication and loss of their 
 goods (which, as aforesaid, shall become the property of the 
 captors), that, laying aside every delay and excuse, they do expel 
 those persons and every of them and their soldiers and stipendiaries, 
 both horsemen and footmen, and others whomsoever, who shall 
 support them with arms, from the kingdom and dominions afore- 
 said, even by force of arms, if necessary ; and that they take 
 care that King Henry and his accomplices, abettors, adherents, 
 
 * Aggravation and re-aggravation are forms of excommunication. 
 
179 
 
 and followers aforesaid, who obey not our commands, do not 
 introduce themselves into the cities, lands, castles, villages, 
 towns, fortresses, and other places of the kingdom and dominion 
 aforesaid — forbidding them, under all and every the penalties 
 aforesaid, from taking, holding, or using, in support of Henry and 
 his accomplices, abettors, adherents, advisers, and followers, and 
 other the aforesaid admonished persons who disobey our commands, 
 arms of any kind, offensive or defensive, machines or engines of 
 war (called artillery) — or from providing any armed men beyond 
 their usual family retinue, or from harbouring or receiving men 
 equipped by King Henry, his accomplices, abettors, adherents, 
 advisers, and followers, or others, in support of the King himself, 
 in any manner whatever, on any occasion or for any cause, by 
 themselves or by any other person or persons, publicly or privately, 
 directly or indirectly — or from affording or causing to be afforded 
 to the said King Henry or his accomplices, abettors, adherents, 
 advisers and followers advice or assistance in any manner what- 
 ever, for any reason or under any pretence, publicly or privately, 
 directly or indirectly, silently or in words, by themselves or by any 
 other or others in the premises, or in any of the premises. 
 
 ij. Moreover, for the purpose of bringing the said King Henry 
 to his senses and obedience to the aforesaid See, we exhort all and 
 singular Christian princes, even those of imperial and regal dignity, 
 by the bowels of mercy of our God (whose cause is at stake), and 
 require them in the Lord ; and we command, under the penalty of 
 excommunication, those who are inferior in rank to emperors and 
 kings (whom, on account of their excellent dignity, we except 
 from censure), that they do not in any manner whatever afford 
 counsel, assistance, or favour to King Henry, his accomplices, 
 abettors, adherents, advisers, and followers, or to any of them, by 
 themselves or by any other person or persons, publicly or privately, 
 directly or indirectly, silently or in words, even under pretext of 
 confederations and obligations, even though confirmed and fre- 
 quently re-confirmed by any kind of oath or other guarantee — 
 from all which obligations and oaths we by these presents do, by 
 the same authority, knowledge, and plenary power, absolve them 
 and every of them — and do decree and declare the confederations 
 
 12 * 
 
i8o 
 
 themselves, both made and hereafter to be made, to be of no forc^ 
 or authority, and to be null, void, broken and ineffectual. And 
 under the same penalty we prohibit such confederations and 
 obligations (so far as therefrom King Henry and his accomplices, 
 abettors, adherents, advisers, and followers aforesaid can in the 
 premises, or any of them, derive benefit directly or indirectly) to 
 be made. And, moreover, if any persons, in any manner whatever, 
 assist them or any of them, We command that they entirely and 
 effectually withdraw themselves from those persons. And if they 
 do not so do after these presents have been published and required 
 to be executed, and the said periods of time have expired, We 
 place under the like ecclesiastical interdict all and singular cities, 
 lands, towns, castles, villages, and other places subject to them ; 
 and we will that such interdict shall continue until the princes 
 themselves have desisted from affording counsel, assistance, or 
 countenance to King Henry and his accomplices, abettors, adhe- 
 rents, advisers, and followers aforesaid. 
 
 1 6. Moreover We in like manner exhort and require the afore- 
 said princes, and all others even serving in the pay of the faithful 
 in Christ, and other persons whomsoever, both by land and sea, 
 who have men under arms — and in virtue of holy obedience We 
 command them, that they rise in arms against King Henry, his 
 accomplices, abettors, adherents, advisers, and followers aforesaid, 
 whilst they remain in the aforesaid errors and in rebellion against 
 the aforesaid See— and that they persecute them and every of them, 
 and force and compel them to return to the unity of the Church 
 and obedience of the aforesaid See — and not only those persons, 
 but also their subjects and vassals, and the natives and inhabitants 
 of their cities, lands, castles, towns, villages, and places, and all and 
 singular other persons who do not obey our aforesaid commands, 
 and who acknowledge in any manner whatever the aforesaid King 
 Henry (after he has incurred the censures and penalties aforesaid) 
 as their lord, even de facto, or presume in any manner to obey 
 him — or who will not expel him and his accomplices, abettors, 
 adherents, advisers, followers, and other disobedient parties afore- 
 said from the kingdom and dominions aforesaid, wherever they find 
 them— and capture their goods, movable and immovable, mer- 
 
I«I 
 
 chandise, moneys, ships, credits, effects, and animals, wheresoever 
 being, even beyond the territory of the aforesaid King Henry. 
 
 17. For We, by the same authority, knowledge, and plenary 
 power, grant to them the full license, power, and authority of 
 converting to their own use the goods, merchandise, ships, effects, 
 and animals aforesaid so taken, and decree that all those things do 
 plenarily appertain and belong to the same captors ; and that all 
 natives of the kingdom and dominions aforesaid, or persons domi- 
 ciled, or in any manner dwelling within them, and not obeying our 
 aforesaid commands (wheresoever they may happen to be taken), 
 shall become the slaves of the captors. And as to this. We extend 
 these present letters to all other persons, of whatsoever dignity, 
 rank, position, order, or condition, who shall presume to supply 
 to King Henry himself, or his accomplices, abettors, adherents, 
 advisers, and followers, victuals, arms, or moneys, or to hold 
 intercourse with them, or afford them assistance, advice, or favour, 
 by themselves or by any other person or persons, publicly or 
 privately, directly or indirectly, in any manner contrary to the 
 tenor of these presents. 
 
 18. And in order that these presents may be better known to 
 those whom they concern. We, by these same presents, do order 
 and command all and singular patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, 
 and prelates of patriarchal, metropolitan, and other cathedral and 
 collegiate churches, chapters, and other ecclesiastical persons, 
 seculars and regulars, of whatsoever orders, and also all and singular 
 professors, even of mendicant orders, exempt and not exempt, 
 wheresoever settled, — under the penalty of incurring, ipso facto, 
 excommunication and deprivation of their churches, monasteries, 
 and other ecclesiastical benefices, also of their degrees and offices, 
 and benefit of privileges and indulgences, even in any manner 
 emanating from the aforesaid See— that they and every of them 
 (if and after they have been required by force of these presents) 
 do, within three days immediately following, publicly declare the 
 aforesaid King Henry and all and singular others who have 
 incurred the aforesaid censures and penalties — in their churches 
 on Sundays and other festivals, whilst the' greater part of the 
 congregation has therein assembled for divine service, with the 
 
banner of the cross, bells rung, and candles lighted and afterwards 
 extinguished and thrown down upon the ground and trampled 
 upon, and with the other ceremonies in like cases observed — to bs 
 excommunicated, and that they do cause and command them to be 
 so declared by others, and to be strictly shunned by all. And 
 moreover, that under the aforesaid censures and penalties, they do 
 cause these present letters, or their transcript, made in the under- 
 written form — within the space of three days after (as is aforesaid) 
 they have been required — to be published and fixed up in their 
 churches, monasteries, convents, and other places. 
 
 19. And We will that all and every persons, of whatsoever 
 position, rank, condition, pre-eminence, dignity, or excellence they 
 may be, who by themselves or by any other person or persons, 
 publicly or privately, directly or indirectly, shall prevent the present 
 letters or their transcripts, copies, or exemplifications from being 
 read, fixed up, and published in their cities, lands, castles, towns, 
 villages, and places, shall incur, ipso facto, the same censures and 
 penalties. 
 
 20. And in order that King Henry and his accomplices, abettors, 
 adherents, advisers, and followers, and others whom the premises 
 concern, may not be able to pretend ignorance of these same 
 presents and their contents — We do command, that these letters 
 themselves (in which by the like authority, knowledge, and plenary 
 power, on account of the notoriety of the fact, we supply all and 
 singular defects, both of law and of fact, also of solemnities and of 
 processes, and citations omitted, even if there be such respecting 
 which there ought to be special and express mention made) shall be 
 affixed to and published upon the doors of the Church of the 
 Prince of the Apostles and of the Apostolical Chancery in the city, 
 (rfe urbe et in partibus,) and in the provinces, to and upon the 
 doors of the collegiate church of the Blessed Mary of Bruges and 
 Tournay, and the parochial church of Dunkirk, towns in the 
 Morinensian diocese ; and we decree that the publication of the 
 same letters so made shall be binding upon King Henry and his 
 accomplices, abettors, adherents, advisers, and followers, and all 
 and singular the other persons whom the letters themselves in any 
 manner whatever concern, to the same extent as if the letters 
 
i83 
 
 themselves had been read [and shown to them, since it is not 
 credible that those things which are so openly done can remain 
 unknown to them. 
 
 21. But since it would be difficult for the present letters to be 
 brought to every place to which it would be necessary — We do 
 will and by the aforesaid authority decree, that the same credit be 
 everywhere given to their transcripts (made by the hand of a 
 public notary or printed in the holy city and sanctioned by the 
 seal of some appointed person of ecclesiastical dignity), as would 
 be given to the original letters, if they were exhibited and shown. 
 
 22. Let, therefore, no man infringe, or by rash daring contravert 
 this book, of our monition, aggravation,* re-aggravation, declaration, 
 percussion, supposition, disqualification, absolution, liberation, 
 requisition, inhibition, exportation, exception, prohibition, con- 
 cession, extension of suppletion, commands, will, and decrees ; 
 and if any one shall presume to attempt this, let him know that 
 he will incur the anger of Almighty God and of the blessed Peter 
 and Paul, his Apostles. 
 
 Given at Rome, at St. Mark, in the year of the Incarnation 
 of our Lord 1535, the third day, before the calends of 
 September, the first year of our Pontificate. 
 
 * These are ecclesiastical terms, relating to various kinds of punish- 
 ment, not capable of satisfactory translation. 
 
BULL, or Order for Execution of the preceding Bull of Pope 
 Paul III. against Ki?tg Henry VIIL* 
 
 Paul, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, in perpetual 
 memory of the matter. 
 
 Seeing that our Redeemer willed that Peter, who had denied 
 Him, should preside over the Universal Church, in order that he 
 might, from his own fault learn that he ought to pity others, it is 
 not unreasonable that the Roman Pontiff, who is in dignity the 
 successor of Peter himself, should also be his successor in the 
 office of exercising mercy. But when mercy is exercised towards 
 a man, who thereupon becomes more insolent and more obstinate, 
 and draws others with him to perdition, it is the duty of the 
 Roman Pontiff, laying aside mercy towards him, to employ all 
 severity, in order that the diseased member may be so separated 
 from the body that the remaining members may remain safe, 
 without fear of contagion ; especially when, after the employ- 
 ment of various remedies and the consumption of much time, 
 experience itself proves that the disease daily increases more 
 and more. 
 
 I. On a former occasion, when it was reported to us that Henry, 
 King of England, over and above those offences which concerned 
 his marriage de facto, rashly contracted against the prohibition of 
 the Church, had published certain laws or general constitutions, 
 drawing away his subjects to heresy and schism, and had caused 
 John, of blessed memory, by the title of St. Vitahs, Priest-Cardinal 
 of Rochester, to be publicly condemned and capitally punished ; 
 and several other prelates, and also other ecclesiastical persons, 
 who refused to adopt this kind of heresy and schism, to be con- 
 signed to prison — We (although those parties who reported to us 
 such matters were such that no doubt could be entertained respect- 
 ing the truth of their statements) wishing, nevertheless, from 
 
 * The publication of the preceding Bull had been suspended. 
 
respect to'wards King Henry himself (for whom, before he fell 
 into such acts of madness, we entertained peculiar affection), that 
 these reports should be found false, obtained further information 
 respecting them, and finding that the report brought to us was 
 true, in order that we might not fail in our duty, determined to 
 proceed against him according to the form of certain of our letters, 
 the purport of which was as follows — 
 
 [Here follows the original Bull, set out in full. J 
 
 2. But when afterwards We had resolved that we ought to 
 proceed to execution of the said letters, several princes and other 
 illustrious persons persuaded us to abstain for some time from 
 execution, under the expectation that meanwhile King Henry 
 himself would return to a right mind and repent; and we, who, 
 according to the feelings of human nature, easily believed what we 
 desired, suspended the said execution, hoping (as hope had been 
 given to us) that from the suspension there would follow amend- 
 ment and repentance, and not perseverance and obstinacy and a 
 greater amount of madness. 
 
 3. Seeing, therefore, that repentance and amendment (which for 
 nearly three years we expected) not only did not afterwards follow, 
 but that King Henry himself daily more and more hardened him- 
 self in cruelty and rashness, and even broke out into new crimes, 
 inasmuch as, not content with the cruel butchery of living prelates 
 and priests, he did not fear to exercise his ferocity even towards 
 the dead, and those also whom the Universal Church for many 
 centuries had worshipped as saints ; for he ordered the remains of 
 St. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury (whose bones were in the 
 said kingdom of England, especially on account of the innumerable 
 miracles there worked by Almighty God, preserved with the 
 greatest veneration in a golden chest, in the city of Canterbury), 
 after, in oreater contem.pt of religion, he had caused St. Thomas 
 himself to be summoned to trial, and to be condemned as con- 
 tumacious and declared a traitor — to be exhumed and burned, and^ 
 his ashes scattered to the wind — surpassing the cruelty of all 
 nations, since not even in war do victorious enemies commit 
 cruelty upon the bodies of the dead.* In addition to all these 
 
 * This is a startling proposition to be advanced by a Bishop of the 
 
1 86 
 
 actSj he took to his own use the gifts presented by the Hberahty of 
 various kings, even English kings, and other princes, and appended 
 to the chest itself, which were man)' in number, and of very great 
 value. And not thinking that thereby he had inflicted sufficient 
 injury upon religion, he robbed the monastery in the said city, 
 
 Roman Church. Had he forgotten the order that was issued by the 
 Council of Constance, a.d. 1415, that Wiclif's " body and bones, if they 
 might be discerned and known from the bodies of other faithful, should be 
 taken from the ground and thrown far away from the burial of any church, 
 according to the canon laws and decrees " ? (See Fuller's Church History, 
 p. 170, folio edition.) This order was given thirty years after Wiclif's 
 death. In accordance with this decree, though not till thirteen years after 
 it was pronounced, the remains of Wiclif (of course, such of them as could 
 be discerned) were disinterred and burned, and the ashes cast into the 
 adjoining brook, called the Swift (Le Bas, Life of Wiclif, London, 1832, 
 p. 317). But how vain are man's imaginings ! " The brook," adds Fuller, 
 " did convey his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the 
 narrow seas ; they into the ocean. And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the 
 emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all over the world." 
 
 But this happened in England, where it might be pleaded that " infalli- 
 bility " in such heretical atmosphere became impaired. But had "his 
 Holiness" looked at home, he would have found a parallel incident in 
 the history of one of his own predecessors, "of happy memory." Pope 
 Stephen succeeded Pope Formosus a.d. 8g6. For reasons unnecessary to 
 be here entered upon, he exhibited an unexampled fury against the memory 
 and remains of his predecessor. Solon, a heathen legislator, enacted a 
 law to forbid the Athenians to speak ill of the dead. But the vicar-general 
 of God outraged, in this respect, the laws of earth and heaven. Stephen 
 unearthed the mouldering body of Formosus, which, robed in pontifical 
 ornaments, he placed before a Roman Council that he had assembled. He 
 then asked the lifeless pontiff why, being Bishop of Porto, he had, contrary 
 to the canons, usurped the Roman see. The body probably made no 
 unnecessary reply. The pontiff then stripped the bloated corpse, and 
 amputated its head and two fingers of its right hand, being those raised in 
 act of ordination of priests. The disinterred and mutilated carcass, dis- 
 poiled of its dress and mangled in a shocking manner, he threw, without 
 any funeral honours or solemnity, into the Tiber. He rescinded his acts, 
 and declared his ordinations irregular and invalid. Such was the atrocity 
 perpetrated by the 'Viceroy of Heaven, and approved and sanctioned by a 
 holy Roman council. We presume we may apply to Paul III. the title 
 " of unhappy memory," otherwise he would not have been so ready to 
 stigmatize the act complained of in so sweeping a manner. 
 
i87 
 
 dedicated to Saint Augustin (from whom the English had received 
 the Christian faith *) of all its treasures, which were many and 
 great ; f and as he had transformed himself into a beast, so also 
 he chose to honour beasts as his companions, namely, by intro- 
 ducing wild animals into the said monastery, after expelling the 
 monks — a kind of cruelty unheard of, and abominated not only by 
 Christians, but even by Turks. 
 
 4. Wherefore, seeing that this disease cannot be cured by any 
 physician, however skilful, by any treatment other than amputation 
 of the diseased member, nor would that kind of treatment avail 
 were it not that our cause is the cause of God,J we have fully 
 resolved no longer to delay proceeding to the publication, and 
 afterwards, under God's guidance, to the execution of the said 
 letters ; which we have postponed until this time, in order that 
 King Henry and his accomplices, abettors, adherents, advisers, and 
 followers might be able to clear themselves, even respecting the 
 excesses by him most recently perpetrated, within the periods of 
 time to them for other matters limited by our aforesaid letters, or 
 otherwise incur the penalties mentioned in such letters. And 
 seeing that we have heard from credible persons that if the publica- 
 tion of the original and of these present letters were made at 
 Dieppe, in the diocese of Rouen, or Boulogne, in the diocese of 
 Amiens, towns in the kingdom of France, or in the city of St. 
 
 Andrew, or in the town of {oppido Callistren.), in the diocese 
 
 of St. Andrew, in the kingdom of Scotland, or at Tuam or Ferns, 
 cities or dioceses in the dominion of Ireland, the tenor of the 
 letters would come to the knowledge of Henry and the others 
 whom they concern (especially the English), not only as easily as 
 if the publication were made in the places named in the said letters, 
 but more easily, We, being willing to make due provision in this 
 respect, do, by the aforesaid motion, knowledge, and plenary power, 
 
 * The reader will not have forgotten what has been said above on 
 this subject. 
 
 + Here the truth comesout. England was the " puteus inexhaustus ," inex- 
 haustible well, referred to by Matthew Paris, into which the Pope used 
 to let down his bucket, until the rope was rudely cut by Henry! 
 
 + " Absque eo quod nos apud Deum causam hanc nostram efflciatnus." 
 
decree that the publication of the letters above cited (to which, 
 citation and to the originals themselves, as to the validity of pub- 
 lication or execution of these presents, we will that credit be given), 
 in two of the places mentioned in the present letters — in other 
 respects made according to the tenor of the above-cited and of 
 these present letters — even if this kind of publication is not made 
 in places beyond the Court of Rome mentioned in the said 
 recited letters — shall be binding upon King Henry and the other 
 parties concerned, especially the English, to the same extent as if 
 the letters had been known to King Henry and other the aforesaid 
 parties, especially the English, personally. 
 
 5. And that the same credit be given to transcripts of these 
 presents made in the manner expressed in the before-cited letters, 
 both in and out of courts of justice, as would be given to the 
 originals if they were exhibited or shown ; 
 
 6. The Apostolic Constitutions and ordinances, and all other 
 matters whatsoever, to the contrary thereof notwithstanding. 
 
 7. Let no man, therefore, infringe, or by rash attempt contravene, 
 this book of our decree and will. But if any one shall presume to 
 attempt this, let him know that he will incur the indignation of 
 Almighty God and the blessed Peter and Paul, his Apostles. 
 
 Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of the Incarnation 
 of our Lord 1538, the sixteenth day before the Kalends of 
 January, the fifth year of our Pontificate. 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 Sentence op Pope Pius V. against Queen Elizabeth.* 
 
 ' The curse causeless shall not come."— Prau. xxvi. 2. 
 
 The Damnation and Excommunication of Elizabeth, Queen of Eng- 
 land, and her adherents, with an addition of other punishments. 
 " Pius, Bishop, servant of the servants of God,t for a perpetual 
 memorial of the matter. 
 
 " He that reigneth on high, to whom is given all power in heaven 
 and earth, committed the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, 
 out of which there is no salvation, to one only upon earth, namely, 
 to Peter, the prince of the Apostles, and to Peter's successors, the 
 Bishops of Rome, to be governed in plenitude of power. Him 
 alone He made prince over all people, and all kingdoms, to pluck 
 up, destroy, scatter, consume, plant and build, that he may retain 
 the faithful, who are knit togetlier with the bond of charity [?], in 
 the unity of spirit, and present them spotless and unblamable to their 
 Saviour. 
 
 " In discharge of which function, we, who are by God's goodness 
 called to the government of the aforesaid Church, spare no pains, 
 labouring with all earnestness that unity, and the Catholic religion, 
 which its author has, for the trial of her children's faith, and for 
 our amendment, suffered to struggle with such furious storms, 
 may be preserved uncorrupt. But the number of the ungodly has 
 
 * Magnum BuUarium Romanum. Luxemburgi, 1727. Tom. ii., p. 324. 
 An. 1570. I have adopted the Rev. J. Mendhara's translation, as given in 
 his Life of Pope Pius V. London, 1832, pp. 141 et seqq. He gives the 
 original text in an appendix, p. 256 et seqq. 
 
 t The irony of speech ! The affectation of humility ! " Servant of 
 servants." 
 
lyo 
 
 obtained such power, that now there is no place in the world which 
 they have not endeavoured to corrupt with their most wicked doc- 
 trines. Amongst others, EWzaheth, the pretended Queen of England, a 
 slave of wickedness, lending to it her assistance; with whom, as in 
 a sanctuary, the most pernicious of all men have found a refuge. 
 This very woman, having seized on the kingdom, and monstrously 
 usurping the place of the supreme head of the Church in all 
 England, and the chief authority and jurisdiction of it, has reduced 
 the said kingdom to miserable destruction, which was then newly 
 restored to the Catholic faith, and a good condition. 
 
 " For having by a strong hand prohibited the exercise of the true 
 religion, which Mary, lawful Queen, of famous memory, had, by 
 the help of this See, restored, after it had been overthrown by 
 Henry VIII., a revolter from it ; and following and embracing the 
 errors of heretics, she hath removed the royal council, consisting of 
 the English nobility, and filled it with obscure men, heretics, 
 oppressed those who embraced the Catholic faith, restored impious 
 preachers, ministers of iniijuity, abolished the sacrifice of the 
 mass, prayers, fastings, distinction of meats, unmarried life,* 
 and the Catholic rites. Books containing manifest heresies 
 
 * It was this same Pope Pius V. who inveighed against the utter corrup- 
 tion of Roman Priests in Germany. In the 4th Epistle of the ist Book 
 (and I quote from Goubeau's Edit., Antwerp, 1640), addressed to the Arch- 
 bishop of Saltsburg, Pius wrote "that he had been informed by the best 
 authority on the spot, that the greater part of the beneficed and dignified 
 clergy in Germanj', who ought to set the best example without fear of God 
 or man, kept concubines openly, and introduced them into churches and 
 public places like lawful wives, giving them titles of their own dignities and 
 offices; that from the contempt thus brought upon the clergy by them- 
 selves, they had lost all authority, and hence the increase of heresy which 
 can never be respected till the abominable vice of concubinage is extir- 
 pated." In a letter numbered nine, to the Archbishop of Cambray, the 
 Pope asserted : — "The corrupt and depraved morals of the clergy to be the 
 cause of heresies." The 12th Epistle denounced the corrupt lives of the 
 German Prelates, " who, forgetful of their duty and their own salvation, 
 converted the revenues of the churches to the indulgence of their pleasures, 
 luxury and vanities." In Book ii., letter 14, the Pope inveighs against the 
 ignorant and corrupt morals of the Bohemians; and in the 20th Epistle of 
 the same book he charges " the clergy as depraved by the daily practice of 
 
191 
 
 and impious mysteries and institutions by herself entertained 
 and observed according to the prescription of Calvin, she hath 
 commanded to be read and observed throughout her kingdom by 
 all her subjects; daring to eject from their churches. and bene- 
 fices> bishops, rectors of churches, and other Catholic priests ; and 
 to bestow them and other church livings upon heretics, and to 
 determine ecclesiastic causes ; prohibited the prelates, clergy, and 
 people to acknowledge the Church of Rome, or to obey its precepts 
 or canonical sanctions ; compelled most of them to submit to her 
 wicked laws, and to abjure the authority and obedience of the 
 Bishop of Rome, and to acknowledge her to be the sole mistress in 
 temporals and spirituals, and this b)' oath ; imposed penalties and 
 punishments upon those who obeyed not, and exacted them of 
 those who persevered in the unity of faith and their obedience ; 
 and cast the Catholic prelates and rectors of churches into prison, 
 where many of them being exhausted with continual languor and 
 sorrow, miserably ended their lives. All which things since they 
 are manifest and notorious to all nations, and by the gravest testi- 
 mony of very many so substantially proved, that there is no place 
 at all left for excuse, defence or evasion. 
 
 "We, seeing that impieties and wickednesses are multiplied 
 upon one another, and, moreover, that the persecutions of the 
 faithful, and affliction for religion increase every day in weight, 
 through the instigation and means of the said Elizabeth — because 
 we understand her mind to be so stubborn and hardened, that 
 she has not only contemned the godly requests and admonition 
 of Catholic princes for her healing and conversion, but has not 
 even permitted the nuncios of this See to cross the seas into 
 England — being of necessity constrained to betake ourselves to the 
 weapons of justice against her, are not able to assuage our sorrow 
 that we are induced to inflict punishment upon one to whose 
 ancestors the whole state of Christendom has been so bounden. 
 Supported therefore by his authority, whose pleasure it was to 
 vice." Notwithstanding all this moral depravity the Pope did not excom- 
 municate these abandoned Priests, for the simple reason, that in the 
 estimation of the Church of Rome it is a greater sin to deny the Roman 
 faith than to be viciously immoral. 
 
192 
 
 place us, although unequal to so great a burthen, on this supreme 
 throne of justice, we do, out of the fulness of our apostolic power, 
 declare the aforesaid Elizabeth, being heretic, and a favourer of 
 heretics, and her adherents in the matters aforesaid, to have 
 incurred the sentence of anathema, and to be cut off from the 
 unity of the body of Christ.* 
 
 " And moreover we do declare Her to be deprived of her pre- 
 tended title to the kingdom aforesaid, and of all dominion, dignity and 
 privilege whatsoever. 
 
 "And also the nobility, subjects and people of the said kingdom, 
 and all others who have in any manner sworn to her, to be for 
 ever absolved from any such oath, and all kind of duty, fidelity and 
 obedience, as we do by authority of these presents absolve them 
 and do deprive the same Elizabeth of her pretended title to the 
 kingdom, and of all other things aforesaid. And we do command 
 and interdict all and every the noblemen, subjects, people and 
 others aforesaid, that they presume not to obey her, or her moni- 
 tions, mandates, and laws; and those who shall do the contrary 
 we do involve in the same sentence of anathema. 
 
 " And because it were a matter of too much difficulty to convey 
 these presents to all places where it shall be needful, our will is , 
 that the copies of it, under a public notary's hand and seal, with 
 the seal of an ecclesiastic prelate, or of his court, shall carry alto- 
 gether the same credit with all people, judicial and extra-judicial, 
 as these presents should do if they were exhibited and shown. 
 
 " Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of the incarnation of 
 our Lord 1570, the 5th of the Kalends of March, and the 
 fifth year of oar Pontificate." 
 
 * We read in the Book of Canon Law of the Roman Church even of the 
 present day :— " We judge that they are not murderers who, burning with 
 zeal for their Catholic mother against the excommunicated, should happen 
 to kill any of them " [Can. Excommunicatorum, xlvii., Caus. xxiii., qu. v.). 
 
 U, NORMAN AND SON, PRINTERS, HART STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON. 
 
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