II. BOOK formidable as the disciples of the old man of the Syrian mountains, who seems to have been in the recollection of some of the successors of their founder. Within eighty-six years after their foundation, they had rooted themselves in every quarter of the globe, which, as if its imperial masters, they divided into Jesuit provinces: and that society which received the papal bull for its foundation, on condition that it should not exceed sixty members, could then enumerate nearly sixteen thousand as the amount of its admitted members; affiliated to each other and to their chiefs with unalterable fidelity and secrecy; sworn to obey him with unrepenting and never criticising devotion; and moving to every place and action with an unhesitating speed, which they themselves compared to the rapid and irresistible lightning. To spread Christianity among the vinces; Sicily, two; Sardinia, one; Spain, France and Germany, each 67 The picture is lightning darting, with the words 'Societas et XXXI. heathen, was the operation of the moveable wings CHAP. of their enlarging body; but to combat the reformers and their Reformation in Europe, in every shape and by every means, and at every hazard, was the peculiar battle for which their members zealously prepared themselves, and to which their leaders urged and missioned the self-devoting bands. At that period, one of the most unfortunate tendencies of the human mind in the highest ranks, was a recklessness of human slaughter, and the use and patronage of assassination. This propensity became more dreadful in its practice, when the consecrated orders of life both urged and taught it. We find the cardinal Granville, Philip's minister of state, secretly promoting the murder of the prince of Orange; and the same 69 Missiones expedita.' Imago, 324. Another engraved emblem ingeniously implies some of their effecting means. It is a mirror, with the motto Omnibus, omnia.' ib. p. 452. Their engraved image of their prompt obedience to the pope is, a shepherd inciting and sending out his dog, with Emicat ad initium pastores,' p. 322. Another of this sort, for the comparisons which it implies, approaches impiety: It is the Deity giving commands to his angels. p. 325. 68 The Imago avows this, Luthero cum suis opponitur Ignatius et societas,' p. 552; and cites the words of the bull of Gregory XIII. in their support, Fines societatis, fidei propagatio et defensio,' ib.; but they pursued the warfare so implacably as to contrast themselves with Luther and the Protestants, with this manifest and coarse untruth, That infamous apostate, from corners and the lowest dregs of the people, brought forward into the field not only men illiterate, but notorious for their impiety and infamous life, and for the corruption of their morals-the foulest harpies of the sacred pages. On the other hand, our society of Jesuits opposes to this a noble legion, ready and quick in hand and tongue.' Imago, 552. Now certainly the patrons of the Reformation comprized some of the noblest, greatest, most learned, and most intelligent persons and minds of Europe, at the time when this sentence was written. In his intercepted letter from Madrid, of 6 July 1580, to the provost Morillez, he censures the agent who had mentioned the band imperial contre l'Orangie.' 'He can no more keep a secret than a woman. It is not a band imperial, but the kings: 25 or 30,000 crowns will be paid to him, qui le donnera vif ou mort; c'est contre lui seul II. BOOK direful principle was patronised by Jesuits of high name, and was avowedly meditated by some to be put in action against Elizabeth. The individual who made this acknowlegement, indicated, by the phrases of his allusions, the extent of the combination, as well as the personal nature of its object.7° The destroying consequences to the Protestant cause every where, if the queen of England could be removed, were stated by this Jesuit in his confidential disclosure;" evincing her to have been indeed the rock of safety, at that time, to the Reformation, in all its European establishments."2 que l'on s'addresse; a reçu argent pour faire depescher l'Orangier et est encores après.' p. 8 and 10. 70 Sir Francis Walsingham furnishes us with an instance of this, in his dispatch of 2 March 1572: 'Of late I caused one, under the color of a Catholic, to repair unto one Darbishire, an English JeSUIT, in Paris, for that I understood there is a concurrency of intelligence between him and those of Lorraine, as also with those of the Scottish queen's faction. The party I sent did seem to bewail the evil success that the late practices took in Scotland, especially for that Mather's enterprise was also discovered. To this the JESUIT answered, that the evil handling of matters was the cause that they took no better effect; 'notwithstanding,' said he, 'be of good comfort, and assure yourself THERE ARE MORE MATHERS IN ENGLAND THAN ONE, who will not admit [omit,] when time shall conveniently serve, to adventure their lives in seeking to acquit us of that lewd woman,' meaning her majesty. For,' saith he, if she were gone, then would the hedge lie open, whereby the good queen that now is prisoner, in whom resteth the PRESENT right of this crown, should easily enjoy the same; for beside that all the Catholics within the realm of England are at her devotion, there are divers heretics that are well affected towards her. I tell you truly, she lacketh no friends in the English court. As for her liberty, there are some good men that will venture a joint to bring it to pass.' Lett. in Cab. p. 173. "He added, 'For if she were once possessed of the crown of England, it will be the only way and mean to reform ALL CHRISTENDOM, in reducing them to the Catholic faith. Therefore you must think that there are more heads occupied in this matter than English heads. There are more ways to the wood than one. Therefore be of good courage, and ere ever one year be at an end you shall know more.' Cabala, ib. p. 172, 3. Mather's plot, see before, in this History, p. 265. 72 Walsingham justly said at the close of his letter, 'Her majesty may see how much they build upon the possibility of that dangerous woman, whose life is a step unto her majesty's death; for that they XXXI. But the principles and conduct of the Jesuit frater- CHAP. nity, under its government by Aquaviva, were more publicly manifested in France in a later part of Elizabeth's reign. On 27th December 1595, Henry IV. was stabbed in his mouth by a young scholar of the Jesuit college at Clermont, who had aimed at his throat; but the king, happening to lean forward at the moment, received the blow on his upper lip." This per son's examination disclosed his education under the repute her for an undoubtable successor, or rather, which is more danger, for a right inheritor.' Lett. ib. p. 173. It is a curious fact, and it indicates what a real anomaly of dissenting and discordant parties the name and external frame of the Roman Catholic church embraces in its apparent, tho but nominal and political unity, that the THREE FIRST GENERALS of the JESUITS were attacked by the Spanish inquisition. IGNATIUS, the sainted founder, was arrested, in 1527, at Salamanca, as a fanatic, and an illuminati, and for 22 days was kept in confinement. He was also three times denounced as a heretic. Llorente's Hist. Inq. 371, 2. LAINEZ, the second general, was denounced to the inquisition as suspected of Lutheranism, and of the heresy of the illuminati, ib. 365; but, being at Rome, he succeeded in evading the jurisdiction of the Spanish tribunal. ib. 366. ST. FRANCIS DE BORGIA, the third general, who succeeded Lainez in 1565, and died 1572, was accused as favoring the heresy of the illuminati, and only escaped the prisons of the inquisition by hastening to Rome, as soon as he heard that his person was to be secured. His treatise on Christian Works was twice placed in the inquisitorial index, as a denounced book, in 1559 and in 1583. Llor. Hist. p. 373. Several other Catholic saints and their works are also mentioned by Llorente, as denounced by the inquisition. So that either they or the tribunal were heretical, and yet both pass for sound Catholics -evidently shewing that sects and dissenters, in some respects or other, abound as much in the Romish as in the Protestant churches; but by not throwing off the name, a public semblance of unity is preserved, amid real discrepancy and continual battle; as the Jesuits also proved in their attack on the Jansenists. 73 The king stooped at the moment to embrace a gentleman kneeling to him, whom he was much attached to. Chatel had aimed his knife at the throat, because he thought the dress on other parts might not have been penetrated. He said he did it because it would be useful a la religion Catholique apostolique et Romaine.' He was 19 years of age. Recit. du Proced. Mercure Jes. p. 473-5. II. BOOK Jesuits," and that he had learnt from his preceptors that it would be a laudable act to kill a heretic king whom the pope had not approved of."5 A sufficient force was dispatched to the college; and among the papers found there, some writings of the Jesuit priest Guignard were secured," in which treasonable doctrines of the same sort had been deliberately penned by this individual," who acknowleged them to be his MSS.78 Both he and Chatel were tried and executed." Gueret, another 74 He had been three years with the Jesuits; and the last time under the Jesuit father Gueret. ib. 476. He thought the deed would lessen his pains when in a state of damnation, which he expected to be his lot. Being asked if he had been put by the Jesuits in their chamber of meditations, which was furnished with pictures of many devils of different but terrifying figures, and to which the fathers were accustomed to send the greatest sinners, under pretence of bringing them to a better life, but really to shake their spirits, and to urge them by such admonitions a faire quelque grand cas; he answered, that he had often been in this chamber of meditations.' p. 479. 75 He said he had heard then, that it was praiseworthy to kill the king that he was out of the church: that he was not to be obeyed, nor to be deemed king, until he had been approved of by the pope.' ib. p. 479. 76 Mercure Jesuite, p. 480. 77 His regret that Henry IV. had not been killed at the massacre of St. Bartholomew, was thus expressed: If they had opened la veine basilique, the royal vein, we should not have had the fever en chaud mal that we have since experienced.' p. 480. The assassination of Henry III. was called an heroical action, done by J. Clement, asa gift of the Holy Spirit. It has been justly praised by Bourgoing, the prior of the jacobins.' p. 481. A cruel Nero has been killed by a Clement, a pretended monk, dispatched by the hand of a true monk.' p. 480. 'The finest anagram made on the dead tyrant, was the 'Vilain Herodes.' ib. Henry le Valois is convertible into these words: If we cannot depose without war, let us have war: if we cannot make war, qu'on le fasse mourir,'' that the crown of France may and ought to be transferred from the Bourbon family to another. That the Bearnois [Henry IV.] tho converted to the Catholic faith, would be treated more mildly than he deserved, if a monk's crown were given to him in some convent, where he might do penance.' ib. In the same MSS. Elizabeth was styled une louve d'Angleterre ;' the she wolf of England. 78 Guignard interrogé sur iceux a lui representer a recogneu les avoir composez et ecrits de sa main.' ib. 482. 6 79 Jean Chatel, on 29 Dec. 1595, and Guignard, 7 January following. The arrêts' for their execution, stating their offences and condemnations, are in Mercure Jes. 482-5. |