1605 fore, the better to discover and secure the affections of his catholic subjects, he was put upon a method, which, as it was imagined, would be very serviceable to that purpose; though, indeed, it was of no other use, than to render them more contemptible and more ob To shew in what manner James, in spite of his declarations, was really affected on the subject of these laws, I will conclude this note with the following extract from the journals of the house of commons: "February 7. The lords propounded more strict articles than did arise from this house. "The king's meditation, touching these articles ; "The ground-in repressing of heresies in spiritual causes, the sting of the law to the heresy. "Three sorts,-10. Papists, old, rooted, and rotten : 2o. Novelists, the greatest danger: 3o. The youth, the future tense of the papists. "The first, like queen Mary's priests, small hope to reclaim them. Rather superstitious than seditious-To be disarmed-No place of magistracy-Left to the old laws. "The second, apostates. Most malignant-To be sifted by oaths both before and after-Law of reconcilement to extend to other countries, as well as in England. "The third,-Take care of marriages and christenings-Nip them in budThe beginning of procreation the action-Priests in hold to be banished within a time-After that, the law to be executed with all severity" (Journals, i. 265).-Such was the manner, in which James could really goad the cruelty of that parliament, whose violence he was pretending to have checked!-T.] [This, indeed, was the motive assigned by James himself for the contrivance of the oath. "What a monstrous, rare, nay, never-heard-of treacherous attempt," says he, "was plotted, within these few years, here in England, for the destruction of me, my bed-fellow, and our posterity, the whole house of parliament, and a great number of good subjects, of all sorts and degrees, is so famous already through the whole world by the infamy thereof, as it is needless to be repeated or published any more; the horror of the sin itself doth so loudly proclaim it. *** What proceeded hereupon is likewise notorious to the whole world; our justice only taking hold upon the offenders, and that in as honourable and public a form of trial as ever was used in this kingdom. "For, although the only reason they gave, for plotting so heinous an attempt, was the zeal they carried to the Romish religion, yet were never any other of that profession the worse used for that cause; as by our gracious proclamation, immediately after the discovery of the said fact, doth plainly appear only, at the next sitting down again of parliament, were there laws made, setting down some such orders as were thought fit for preventing the like mischief for the time to come; amongst which, a form of oath was framed, to be taken by all my subjects, whereby they should make clear profession of their resolution faithfully to persist in obedience unto me, according to their natural allegiance, -to the end that I might hereby make a separation, not only between all my good subjects in general, and unfaithful traitors that intended to withdraw themselves from my obedience, but, specially, to make a separation between so many of my subjects who, although they were otherwise popishly affected, yet retained in their hearts the print of their natural duty to their sovereign, and those who, being carried away with the like fanatical zeal that the powder traitors were, could not contain themselves within the bounds of their natural allegiance, but thought diversity of religion a safe pretext for all kind of treasons and rebellions against their sovereign. Which godly and wise intent God did noxious to the penalty of the laws. The method proposed was the form of an oath, which was to be the test of civil allegiance. But then it was drawn up in such ambiguous terms, that a tender conscience, the best disposed towards paying civil allegiance, could not digest it. The wording of the oath was chiefly committed to archbishop Bancroft, who, with the assistance of Christopher Perkins, a renegado jesuit,' so calculated bless with success accordingly: for very many of my subjects that were popishly affected, as well priests as laics, did freely take the same oath; whereby they both gave me occasion to think the better of their fidelity, and likewise freed themselves of that heavy slander, that, although they were fellow-professors of one religion with the powder traitors, yet they were not joined with them in treasonable courses against their sovereign; whereby all quiet-minded papists were put out of despair, and I gave a good proof that I intended no persecution against them for conscience' cause, but only desired to be secured of them for civil obedience, which, for conscience' cause, they were bound to perform (Apologie for the oath, 1-4). How James could have ventured to write this is scarcely conceivable. Had the oath, with the accompanying penalty of premunire for its refusal, been the only addition made by the monarch to the penal statutes, there might have been some colourable pretext for his assertion: but, when the reader shall look back to the long and frightful code described in the preceding note; when he shall call to mind the fact, that, of the provisions there embodied, some of the most intolerant were suggested by James himself; and when, above all, he shall remember that the parties who took the oath were freed only from the single penalty attached to its refusal, and were still liable to all and each of the remaining pains and forfeitures prescribed by the recent statutes, he will not only condemn the king of dishonesty in his present declaration, but will also, perhaps, be tempted to question the veracity of that statement, which would assign a benevolent or an innocent motive to the introduction of the oath.-T.] 1 [Wood, Fasti Oxon. i. 95.-Yet, as soon as the oath was mentioned, before it had been finally adopted by parliament, and consequently before he could have known what it really contained, father Persons addressed a memorial to Bellarmine, declaring that it was taken from the writings of the appellant priests, and requesting the cardinal not only to compel Cecil and Champney, two of the appellants, who were then at Rome, to subscribe and send to England a written protestation against it, but also to exert his influence in procuring a formal sentence, declaring the doctrine, which denied the temporal authority of the pope, to be false and heretical. The reason assigned for the proposed method of proceeding with Cecil and Champney is curious. It is not the doctrine contained, or supposed to be contained, in the oath; it is not the necessity of counteracting the effects of their alleged writings on the subject; but it is, that the king will be thereby induced to withdraw the partial indulgence, which he is supposed to have conceded to some of the clergy, and, on this subject, at least, will have an equal motive for unsparing severity against all :-"accioche, visto (il scritto) del rè e delli suoi consiglieri, intendessero che tutti sacerdoti sono del medesimo parere in questa materia, e cosi non potrébbono perseguitare Puni più che l'altri, per questa causa.' ." See the Memorial, in the Appendix, No. XXIII.-It is dated in Rome, on the 18th of May, 1606: the bill containing the oath was not passed in London until nine days afterwards. -T] the whole to the designs of the ministry, that they met with the desired effect; which was, first, to divide the catholics about the lawfulness of the oath; secondly, to expose them to daily prosecutions in case of refusal, and, in consequence of this, to misrepresent them, as disaffected persons, and of unsound principles in regard of civil government.' When this oath was first imposed 1 [The reader has already seen the oath in the statute printed in the appendix (No. XX.). If we may believe Bancroft (Widdrington's New Year's Gift to Catholics, 11, 33, 34), it was intended to be framed in accordance with the Protestation of Allegiance, drawn up and presented to Elizabeth by Dr. Bishop and his companions, in 1603 (See this History, iii. 55). But the prelate and his assistant, Perkins, were not content with a simple denial of the deposing power, attributed by some theologians to the pope they placed the doctrine which maintained it in the same category as that of murdering a deprived king: they characterised both as "impious, heretical, and damnable"; and, by this means, they furnished the opponents of the oath with a plausible pretext for refusing it. At the same time, it must not be concealed, that the real objection to the oath, on the part of the pontiff and his adherents, was, not to the terms in which the deposing power was denied, but to the rejection itself of that temporal superiority, which had been claimed by the Roman see. They maintained that the right, under certain circumstances, of dethroning an heretical prince, was included in that general commission of superintendence, which the chief pastor had received from Christ. Hence, to reject the temporal authority of the pontiff, was, in their eyes, to reject the ordinance of God; to question his absolute power to dispose of kingdoms for the benefit of religion, was rather to broach a heresy, than to hazard an opinion (Bellarm. de Rom. Pont. lib. v. c. 1); and there can be little doubt, therefore, that, even if the catholics had petitioned, and James had listened to their petition, for the removal of the obnoxious epithets to which I have referred, sufficient would still have been found in the disclaimer of the doctrine itself, to call down the denunciations of its foreign opponents on the oath. "Most certain it is," says Bellarmine, as translated by the king, in his Apologie," that, in whatsoever words the oath is conceived by the adversaries of the faith in that kingdom, it tends to this end, that the authority of the head of the church, in England, may be transferred from the successor of St. Peter to the successor of king Henry the Eighth " (Letter to Blackwell, in Apologie, 38). In the same manner, Persons, writing from Rome, and referring to an assertion of James, with which the reader is already acquainted, thus expresses himself:-" As for that multitude of priests and laics, which, he saith, have freely taken the oath,' as their freedom was that which now I have mentioned" (the freedom of the merchant, who casts his goods overboard in a storm, to save his vessel), "and a principal motive, as may be presumed, the desire they had to give his majesty satisfaction, and deliver themselves and others, so much as lay in them, from that inference of disloyal meaning, which, upon the denial thereof, some do use to make, so I cannot but in charity assure myself that they, being catholics, took the said oath (for so much as concerneth the pope's authority in dealing with temporal princes) in some such lawful sense and interpretation, as, being by them expressed and accepted by the magistrate, may stand with the integrity and sincerity of true catholic doctrine and faith, to wit, that the pope hath not authority, without just cause, to proceed against them. *** To deny simply and absolutely that the pope, as supreme pastor of the catholic church, hath any July 5, upon the catholics, which was in the year 1606, 1606 several persons of authority and distinction, both among the ecclesiastics and laity, had frequent meetings about it. Mr. Blackwell, the archpriest, with several of the clergy and laity who paid a great deference to his learning and judgment, submitted to the oath. Of the same opinion was father Preston, a learned benedictine monk, and superior of his order, who drew several of his brethren after him. Soon after, the case being drawn up, and a copy of the oath sent to Rome, two briefs, or apostolic letters, were directed by his holiness to the English catholics; whereby the oath was declared to be unlawful. Several, indeed, recanted upon this intimation: but still there was a party, that not only stood by their former resolution, but confirmed the practice by learned treatises, they published upon the subject; which were replied to, as well by English mis authority left him by Christ, either directly or indirectly, with cause or without cause, in never so great a necessity, or for never so great and public an utility of the christian religion, to proceed against any prince whatsoever temporally, for his restraint or amendment, or to permit other princes to do the same, this, I suppose, was never their meaning that took the oath; for that they should thereby contradict the general consent of all catholic divines, and confess that God's providence, for the conservation and preservation of his church and kingdom upon earth, had been defectuous " (Judgment of a Catholic Englishman, n. 30, 31). 66 I will add a passage from another writer, which, though of a later date, still shews distinctly where the real objections lay. It occurs in a letter addressed by father Wilford, at Rome, to the well-known father Leander:-" I fear,” says he, some other form of oath must be thought upon, whereby his majesty may abundantly and superabundantly, if anything can superabound in this kind, be secured of his subjects' fidelity, and yet there be no entrenching upon subjects' conscience, nor the authority of this seat, which, having stood for her rights so many ages, in the cause of deposing princes, will be very unwilling to permit the oath, as the words lie, although glossed with another intention. *** Take heed of meddling with deponibility of princes, for that article will never pass here" (Clarendon Papers, i. 272). [Itought, however, to be remarked, that, if we may believe James himself, though he was careful to oppose the temporal claims of the Roman see, he was not less solicitous to abstain from trenching on its really spiritual authority. He tells us that, when the oath was first discussed in the commons, a clause was inserted, denying the authority of the pope to excommunicate princes; that this was mentioned to him; but that, satisfied with a rejection of the deposing power, he immediately caused the passage to be struck out:-" So careful was I," says he, "that nothing should be contained in this oath, except the profession of natural allegiance, and civil and temporal obedience, with a promise to resist to all contrary uncivil violence." Premonition to the Apologie, 9.-T.] sioners of a contrary sentiment, as by several foreign divines, who took part in the quarrel.' This controversy 1 [Some remarks are necessary in this place. 1°. By Blackwell's having "submitted to the oath," Dodd can mean no more than that he pronounced in favour of its lawfulness. He did not take it, until the following year. 2o. Father Preston is the person who, in the controversy concerning the oath, is generally known as Roger Widdrington. He was at first opposed to the doctrine of the oath; but afterwards became the principal writer in its defence, and was the author of several works, which will be mentioned in his life. * * 30. Though parliament had been prorogued on the twenty-seventh of May, it was not until the twenty-fifth of June that the statutes, mentioned in a preceding note, were published. Of the catholics, some, who had already prepared to fly from the coming storm, hastened to seek an asylum, or to find their last home, on a foreign shore: others, unable to remove, or unwilling to shrink from the trial, remained to animate each other for the approaching conflict; while hundreds, roused into energy by the very cruelty that was intended to oppress them, flung aside the indifference which had hitherto concealed their belief, and boldly avowed their religion to the world. "Quant aux pauvres catholiques d'ici, * il est incroyable du grand nombre qu'il y en a encore, et de la resolution en laquelle sont la plupart, de tout souffrir, plutôt que de déserter la religion, et désemparer" (Boderie, i. 121). "Beaucoup de catholiques se préparent à s'en aller: voire y en a de si vieux, que je vois ne chercher qu' une terre étrangere pour s'enterrer; et néanmoins si en reste-t-il encore un si grand nombre, qui ne s'étonnent point de toutes ses menaces, que c'est certes chose admirable. Je n'eusse jamais cru qu'il se fût encore trouvé tant de ferveur et tant de zéle en notre religion. Particuliérement, la plupart des dames de qualité sont catholiques, et n'y en a pas une qui ne cache chez elle un prêtre, qui sert pour elle et pour tous autres que bon lui semble" (Ibid. 161, 162). "Hier seulement ils publierent et mirent en vente les actes de leur parlement, étant impossible qu'ils ne causent de grands désespoirs, et, par conséquent, de très périlleuses résolutions. Car tant s'en faut que cela fasse perdre cœur aux dits catholiques, qu'il semble qu'ils s'en animent davantage; et au lieu de retirer de la dite religion ceux qui sont reconnus d'en être, il s'en declare, tous les jours, qui ne le paroissoient point auparavant" (Ibid. 177, 178). * * * But though the general body of the catholics was thus resolute, there wanted not individuals, who, to escape the penalties, were willing to comply with many of the provisions, of the new statutes. Of the unlawfulness of attending the worship of the established church, there was little question: but the subject of the oath was more doubtful; and to decide its real merits necessarily became a matter of the highest consequence. Unfortunately, the clergy themselves were divided in their opinions. Some maintained that the oath might be taken as it stood: others thought that reservations or protestations might be adopted, to save the authority of the pope: while a third party, firm in its resolution to submit to no compromise, loudly condemned both its principles and its object, and declared that no conditional acceptation could render it lawful. At first, and before it was published, the archpriest himself was among the most violent of its opponents. It was in vain that Holtby, who had succeeded Garnet as superior of the jesuits, sought to moderate his impetuosity: it was in vain that Mush and others of the clergy suggested the expedient of a conference, or prayed that the matter might be referred to the decision of the holy see. some time, he continued to resist every effort, whether of reason or of persuasion: but suddenly a new light seemed to flash upon his mind, and he at once For |