"see their country ravaged by the Spaniards; and "the address which they published at that time, " is one of the most beautiful and affecting com"positions of the age,-Yet there was still danger "in the country, when thousands would have wel"comed the Spaniards with their thumbscrews and "instruments of torture."* Magna est veritas et prævalebit !!! Here, You yourself admit explicitly, that the bull of Pius V. was disregarded by the Catholic nobility and the Catholic gentry!!! But, to answer Your question,-It is most clear, that whatever might have been the danger of the country from jacobinical principles, at the time You mention, it was not to be inferred that the danger had wholly subsided, because the nobility and gentry had shown a good spirit. But if the whole body of the people of England had shown a good spirit, and the jacobinical principles had been confined to England's continental enemies, and a few expatriated adventurers, a sanguinary and grinding legislation, which affected an immense portion of the English nation, would have been a monstrous cruelty, a savage injustice. Then, to apply the case You have supposed, to the measures of Elizabeth,-if a good spirit had been shown by the nobility and gentry only and a ge "Mr. Spence, Argyle's servant, is again tortured by the "thumbscrews, a new invention, and discovered by Generals "Dalyell and Drummond, who saw them in Muscovy."--Extracts from Chronological Notes of Scottish Affairs, from 1680 to 1701, taken from the Diary of Lord Fountainhall,-inserted in Forsyth's Antiquarian Repository, Vol. I. p. 365. nerally bad spirit had been shown by the remainder of the people, strong laws to coerce that bad spirit would have been proper. But, in the conduct of the Catholics at the time of which we are speaking, there was no such diversity of conduct; clergy and laity, the high and the highest, the low and the lowest, displayed the same good spirit. Loyalty pure, animated and exulting loyalty, was the spirit of ALL. Thus historian describes it. How every was this loyalty, this pure, animated, and exulting loyalty of the Catholics rewarded? By imprisonment, confiscation, torture, hanging and ripping up alive. Between the defeat of the Armada, and the death of Elizabeth, 100 priests were hanged and embowelled. -- The cruel inattention of Elizabeth to the loyal spirit which her Catholic subjects thus universally displayed, and the barbarity of her subsequent legislation in their regard, are shocking. I am not apprised of any writer but yourself, whe has approved them. 66 2. You say to me, (page 234),-" You make a solemn appeal to Mr. Southey, in which You compare the persecutions by Protestants to those by the Romanists, and again leave us to infer, "that both being once equally guilty, our mutual reproaches on this head ought to cease." answer "as solemnly as you address us :" I "We,"-You say," have no infallibility to "defend." We,-I say, have no infallibility, spiritual or temporal to defend, which teaches, or which is authorized to teach, either the duty or the lawfulness of persecution. If by an impossible supposition,--the Pope and a general council should propound to us the doctrine of religious intolerance, as an article of faith, or the execution of it as a religious or moral duty, we should laugh at their monstrous folly, and say, as our ancestors did to Pope Boniface, when he required Edward the First to abstain from his claim upon the Scottish crown, "We do not, we will not, we cannot, and we ought not to "do it."* "We," You say," have no principle of "persecution to resign." We,-I say,-neither have nor ever had any principle of persecution to resign. We detest and disclaim every such principle absolutely, and without any qualification. You, then say,-" Unless the decree of the "Council of Lateran, and the article of the "Council of Trent, which sanctions all former councils, be repealed, the Protestant nation which "confers power on the Romanists, will be guilty "of a dereliction of its first duty." Then,—I say,—the Protestant nation of England may, in this very moment, confer power upon the Romanists without any derilection of duty: the canon to which You refer,-if that canon ever existed,-is, I have demonstrated,-gone, to the grave of all the Capulets. • Historical Memoirs of the English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics, Ch. VII. Vol. I. p. 46. 3.--In Your last page but one, You accuse me of sophistry and disingenuousness.-Knowing the fallibility of poor human reason, I dare not absolutely affirm, that, I have never been guilty of sophistry: I believe that I have not :-If I have, all who know me, know, that it has been unintentionally. Of disingenuousness I aver myself perfectly innocent. If I felt myself guilty of it, my grey hairs would soon descend with sorrow to the grave. XV. 7. I have now reached the close of your fifteenth letter. In our view of the legislation of queen Elizabeth, in respect to her Roman Catholic subjects, we are completely at issue: You describe the general allegiance of the body of the Roman Catholics to have been unsound;-You think, that their allegiance being thus universally unsound, the laws which treated them all as great delinquents, and which required no other evidence of their delinquency, than proof of their refusal of the oath of supremacy, were founded in morality and justice :— You think that, generally speaking, they had fair trials:--Youdo not condemn the inflictions of the torture upon them ;;-and You approve all the other severities with which they were treated, or, at least the general system of them,-as justified by necessity. I think that the allegiance of the body, with a very small exception, was sound. That the number of those who composed this exception was in considerable, and of no real importance; still, that it would have justified the queen in adopting strong precautionary measures; but that, she was most unjustifiable in treating the whole body of Roman Catholics as delinquents in allegiance, and in making the mere proof of a refusal of the oath of supremacy, evidence of treason; I also think that the trials of them were wholly irregular; the use of torture execrable; and the other severities, used in their regard, abominably cruel. In my Historical Memoirs,* I have shown the condition of the Roman Catholics under Elizabeth, and at the close of the reign of James I: I shall insert it at the end of my next letter: it will fully show what You approve, and I condemn. In this place I shall shortly state the number of the Catholics who were hanged and embowelled, and the condition of those who were permitted to live. The total number of those who were hanged and embowelled amounted to 204. In this list no priest is included, who was executed for any plot, real or imaginary, except eleven, who were executed for the pretended plot at Rheims or Rome; a plot which was so daring a forgery, that even Camden, the eulogizing biographer of Elizabeth, allows the sufferers to have been political victims. Of the 204, 15 were executed for denying the queen's supremacy 126 63 204 for the exercise of priestly functions; for being reconciled to the Catholic faith, or assisting priests. * Vol. II. Ch. LII. |