CHAP. XXXII. FIRST ENTRANCE OF THE JESUITS INTO ENGLAND-SEVERE XXXII. IT T was at Midsummer 1580, that Jesuits came into CHAP. England for the prosecution of those objects for which their English pupils had been trained.' The two first entered privily; travelled up and down secretly over the country, and to popish gentlemen's houses in disguised habits; sometimes of soldiers, sometimes of gentlemen, sometimes as ministers, and sometimes as apparators, lustily performing what they had in charge.' Of these two, Parsons, who was constituted superior, a man of seditious and turbulent spirit, brake so far forth with the papists about deposing the queen, that some of them thought to have delivered him into the magistrates hands.' The queen about the same time issued a proclamation, commanding those who had children or relations beyond the seas, to recall them; and forbidding 6 ' Campian and Parsons led the way. Campian had been missioned by the Jesuits at Rome to Bohemia for eight years; after which he was sent to England, and passing first to Rheims to confer with Allen, entered our island 24 June 1580. Ribad. p. 508, 9. 2 Camden Eliz. p. 217, 18. The number of names they assumed as they shifted their appearances, we see from Garnett's indictment. This Jesuit came into England in 1586. He lived here under the several appellations of Wally, Darcy, Roberts, Farmer and Phillips. State Trials, v. 1. p. 240. BOOK 3 any to receive into their houses seminary priests or Jesuits, on pain of being proceeded against as the favorers and supporters of rebellious and seditious persons. The entrance and progress of the Seminarists and Jesuits, were managed with great address and secrecy; but the privy council obtained such information of their number and practices, as to deem it necessary to apply for the aid of parliament, to repress the growing mischief. A statute of great severity was enacted for this purpose,* and was enforced on several persons afterwards, who chose, in prosecution of their own purposes, to violate its provisions and to dare its punishment. It was a melancholy truth, arising from the dire necessity of the case, that the features of the national laws became unusually stern; and their execution fatal to the lives of many; and that the government assumed a conduct of rigor, suspicion, and punishment towards its Catholic subjects. But it is clear that the 3 Camd. 217. Sanders de Schis. p. 441-3. The official document charges them with coming with special mandates from the pope, to withdraw the subjects from their legal obedience, and to instigate them to something by which the public peace would be disturbed. Sand. p. 442. 4 On 23 Nov. 1584, the statute was passed, which, reciting, "That Jesuits, seminary priests, and other priests made such beyond the seas, have been sent, and daily come into England, of purpose, as hath appeared, as well by sundry of their own confessions as by other proofs, to withdraw subjects from obedience, and to stir up rebellion and sedition and open hostility,' ordered all such who had been ordained since Midsummer 1559, to depart the realm within 40 days, or as soon as wind and weather served; and no others to come into England, under the penalties of high treason. It was also made felony to receive such, knowing them to be so. Englishmen brought up in any foreign seminary, were to return within six months, and take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, or to be reckoned traitors. None were to send money to any Jesuit or seminary priest, nor their children, beyond seas, without a licence; and to know of such Jesuit and priest, and not to discover them, was to be subject to fine and imprisonment. Stat. 27 Eliz. c. 2. 5 XXXII. harshness and severity were reluctantly resorted to: CHAP. and no one who wilfully enters a country in direct contradiction to its established laws, and therefore in defiance of them, has a right to complain of their penal inflictions. He voluntarily incurs the evil, which he braves and suffers from; and it was the peculiar character of these laws, that they were defensive; not attacking measures. The proscription did not precede the offence, nor the penal law the disturbing mischief which compelled it into existence. The warfare was neither desired nor provoked by Elizabeth. Her inveterate enemies chose to assail her with mysterious conspiracy and undermining rebellion; and then had the ingenuity and the " When the popish faction published in print, that the bishop of Rome and Spaniard had conspired together to conquer England, of purpose to give courage to their party, and terrify the rest,' the queen published an admonitory edict, declaring that she had attempted nothing against any prince, but for the preservation of her own kingdom, nor had invaded the provinces of any other, tho often provoked and invited.' She exhorted her faithful subjects to continue immoveable in their allegiance: and the rest, she commanded not to provoke the severity of justice; for she would no longer offend in such sort, that by sparing the bad, she should be cruel against herself and her good subjects.' Camd. 218. 6. "One of these is the Jesuit Ribadineira, who, with all the facts before him, chose in 1594 to write, that all the miseries which the Catholic church had suffered from Gentiles, Arians, Goths, Vandals, Lombards, Mahometans, Hussians, and Huguenots, or from any other diabolical sect of heretics and pagans, might be seen as in a mirror, in this persecution of Elizabeth. p. 534. He then subjoins, The cause of their death was their confession of the Catholic faith, and not recognizing the queen's supremacy.' p. 538. But he admits that the English government published that this was not the true cause of their death; but, that they had devised, at Rheims and Rome, the death of the queen, and conspired against the kingdom, and were procuring other princes to invade it and to usurp the crown.' ib. p. 538. He is pleased to add, 'These things they sought to prove by false witnesses, hired and paid!!' ib. His own connections in his society and its records, and his papal friends, and their published books, must have taught him to know, that the charge of the English cabinet was not untrue; tho later writers may have repeated such II. BOOK Up to this hour, Elizabeth is considered by most, if not by all Catholics, both laity and clergy, as a queen de facto, and not de jure; as one reigning without right, and against right; and in theory, therefore, an illegitimate usurper. heresy, as Philip Augustus confiscated to himself all John's Norman dominions, as those of his liege vassal.' p. 306. The popes may punish the felony of the English as their vassals.' p. 309. Have not the princes of the world a most corrupted judgment, to suffer these seeds of a state poison to live?' ib. Such were the doctrines and writings of the papal supporters, by which the life and crown of Elizabeth were assailed in 1588. That these doctrines were no verbal theories or merely papal declamations; but were acted upon even by the Romish laity, whenever they promoted a lay object, we repeatedly find in the documents of this period. One instance is now before my eye. In February 1585, the earl of Derby went as ambassador to Paris, from Elizabeth to Henry III., to invest him with the order of the garter, and who received him magnificently. But Thomas Morgan, the agent of the queen of Scots at Paris, resolved, if possible, to counteract this cordial and honorable reception. He reported what he had done for that purpose, to Mary, on 25 Feb.: To the end that the English should want some part of the honor they expect, I thought good to intimate secretly into the heads of the cardinals and good prelates of the church, THE SENTENCE OF EXCOMMUNICATION denounced by Pius V. against her of England, which sithence is yet in force; and was never revoked: and so I alleged, that the said cardinals and prelates might not assist with their presence any ceremony, which is put to favor the excommunicate: and for the maintenance hereof, I have delivered among them a true copy of the said sentence.' Four cardina's and many prelates met to debate on this insidious piece of malice, and thereupon the cardinal of Bourbon declared, that he thought not with his presence to assist and honor the negotiations of the queen of England. Lett. in Murd. p. 468. Now Pius V. had been dead thirteen years. This was written only the year before Mary's trial, and evinces the light in which she and her confidential agents considered Elizabeth, and the spirit in which they were acting towards this queen. It was with this person that Babington, in the July following, concerted his plot to assassinate Elizabeth; and Morgan recommended both the plot and plotter to Mary, by his letter to the queen, of 26 July 1585, printed in Murdin, p. 453. CHAP. XXXII. FIRST ENTRANCE OF THE JESUITS INTO ENGLAND-SEVERE 6 XXXII. It was at Midsummer 1580, that Jesuits came into CHAP. England for the prosecution of those objects for which their English pupils had been trained.' The two first entered privily; travelled up and down secretly over the country, and to popish gentlemen's houses in disguised habits; sometimes of soldiers, sometimes of gentlemen, sometimes as ministers, and sometimes as apparators, lustily performing what they had in charge.' Of these two, Parsons, who was constituted superior, a man of seditious and turbulent spirit, brake so far forth with the papists about deposing the queen, that some of them thought to have delivered him into the magistrates hands.” The queen about the same time issued a proclamation, commanding those who had children or relations beyond the seas, to recall them; and forbidding 1 Campian and Parsons led the way. Campian had been missioned by the Jesuits at Rome to Bohemia for eight years; after which he was sent to England, and passing first to Rheims to confer with Allen, entered our island 24 June 1580. Ribad. p. 508, 9. 2 Camden Eliz. p. 217, 18. The number of names they assumed as they shifted their appearances, we see from Garnett's indictment. This Jesuit came into England in 1586. He lived here under the several appellations of Wally, Darcy, Roberts, Farmer and Phillips. State Trials, v. 1. p. 240. |