A REMONSTRANCE OF THE MOST GRACIOUS KING JAMES I. KING OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, and IRELAND, Defender of the Faith, etc. FOR THE RIGHT OF KINGS, AND THE independence of their Crowns. AGAINST AN ORATION OF the most Illustrious Card. of PERRON, pronounced in the Chamber of the third Estate. jan. 15. 1615.  
Translated out of his majesties French Copy.  
PRINTED BY CANTRELL LEG, Printer to the University of Cambridge. 1616.   

THE PREFACE.  
I Have no humour to play the Curious in a foreign Commonwealth, or, unrequested, to carry any hand in my neighbour's affairs. It hath more congruity with Royal dignity, whereof God hath given me the honour, to prescribe Laws at home for my Subjects, rather than to furnish foreign Kingdoms and people with counsels. Howbeit, my late entire affection to K. Henry IV. of happy memory, my most honoured brother, and my exceeding sorrow for the most detestable parricide acted upon the sacred person of a King, so complete in all heroical and Princely virtues; as also the remembrance of my own dangers, incurred by the practice of conspiracies flowing from the same source, hath wrought me to sympathise with my friends in their grievous occurrents: no doubt so much more dangerous, as they are less apprehended and felt of Kings themselves, even when the danger hangeth over their own heads. Upon whom, in case the power and virtue of my advertisements be not able effectually to work, at least many millions of children and people yet unborn, shall bear me witness, that in these dangers of the highest nature and strain, I have not been defective: and that neither the subversions of States, nor the murders of Kings, which may unhappily betide hereafter, shall have so free passage in the world for want of timely advertisement before. For touching my particular, my rest is up, that one of the maine for which God hath advanced me upon the lofty stage of the supreme Throne, is, that my words uttered from so eminent a place for God's honour most shamefully traduced and vilified in his own Deputies and Lieutenants, might with greater facility be conceived.  
Now touching France; fair was the hope which I conceived of the States assembled in Parliament at Paris. That calling to mind the murders of their Noble Kings, and the wars of the League which followed the Pope's fulminations, as when a great storm of hail poureth down after a thunder-cracke, and a world of writings addressed to justify the parricides & the dethroning of Kings, would have joined heads, hearts, and hands together, to hammer out some apt and wholesome remedy against so many fearful attempts and practices. To my hope was added no little joy, when I was given to understand the third Estate had preferred an Article or Bill, the tenor and substance whereof was concerning the means whereby the people might be unwitched of this pernicious opinion; That Popes may toss the French King his Throne like a tennis ball, and that kill of Kings is an act meritorious to the purchase of the crown of Martyrdom. But in fine, the project was encountered with success clean contrary to expectation. For this Article of the third Estate, like a sigh of liberty breathing her last, served only so much the more to enthrall the Crown, and to make the bondage more grievous and sensible then before. Even as those medicines which work no ease to the patient, do leave the disease in much worse terms: so this remedy invented and tendered by the third Estate, did only exasperate the present malady of the State: for so much as the operation and virtue of the wholesome remedy was overmatched with peccant humours, then stirred by the force of thwarting and crossing opposition. Yea much better had it been, the matter had not been stirred at all, then after it was once on foot and in motion, to give the Truth leave to lie gasping and sprawling under the violence of a foreign faction. For the opinion by which the Crowns of Kings are made subject unto the Pope's will and power, was then avowed in a most Honourable Assembly by the averment of a Prelate in great authority, and of no less learning. He did not plead the cause as a private person, but as one by representation that stood for the whole body of the Clergy. Was there applauded, and seconded with approbation of the Nobility. No resolution taken to the contrary, or in bar to his plea. After praises and thanks from the Pope, followed the printing of his eloquent harangue or Oration, made in full Parliament: a set discourse, maintaining Kings to be deposeable by the Pope, if he speak the word. The said Oration was not only printed with the King's privilege, but was likewise addressed to me by the author and Orator himself; who presupposed the reading thereof would forsooth drive me to say, Lord Cardinal, in this high subject your Honour hath satisfied me to the full. All this poised in the balance of equal judgement, why may not I truly and freely affirm, the said Estates assembled in Parliament have set Royal Majesty upon a doubtful chance, or left it resting upon uncertain terms: and that now, if the doctrine there maintained by the Clergy should bear any palm, it may lawfully be doubted, who is King in France? For I make no question, he is but a titular King that reigneth only at an others discretion, and whose Princely head the Pope hath power to bare of his Regal Crown. In temporal matters, how can one be Sovereign, that may be fleeced of all his temporalties by any superior power? But let men at a near sight mark the pith and marrow of the Article proposed by the third Estate, and they shall soon perceive the skilful Architects thereof aimed only to make their King a true and real King, to be recognized for Sovereign within his own Realm, and that killing their King might no longer pass the muster of works acceptable to God.  
But by the vehement instance and strong current of the Clergy and Nobles, this was borne down as a pernicious Article, as a cause of schism, as a gate which openeth to all sorts of heresies: yea there it was maintained tooth and nail, that in case the doctrine of this Article might go for currant doctrine, it must follow, that for many ages passed in sequence, the Church hath been the kingdom of Antichrist, and the synagogue of Satan. The Pope upon so good issue of the cause, had reason, I trow, to address his letters of triumph unto the Nobility and Clergy, who had so far approved themselves faithful to his Holiness; and to vaunt withal, that he had nipped Christian Kings in the Crown, that he had given them check with mate, through the magnanimous resolution of this courageous Nobility, by whose brave making head the third Estate had been so valiantly forced to give ground. In a scornful reproach he qualified the Deputies of the third Estate, nebulones ex foece plebis, a sort or a number of knaves, 
I have received advertisement from divers parts, that in the Pope's letters to the Nobility these words were extant, howsoever they have been left out in the impression, & razed out of the copies of the said letters.  the very dregs of the base vulgar, a pack of people presuming to personate well affected Subjects and men of deep understanding, and to read their masters a learned lecture. Now it is no wonder, that, in so good an office and loyal carriage towards their King, the third Estate hath outgone the Clergy. For the Clergy deny themselves to have any rank among the Subjects of the King: they stand for a Sovereign out of the kingdom, to whom as to the Lord Paramount they owe suit and service: they are bound to advance that Monarchy, to the body whereof they properly appertain as parts or members, as elsewhere I have written more at large. But for the Nobility, the King's right arm, to prostitute and set as it were to sale the dignity of their King, as if the arm should give a thrust unto the head; I say for the Nobility to hold and maintain even in Parliament, their King is liable to deposition by any foreign power or Potentate, may it not pass among the strangest miracles and rarest wonders of the world? For that once granted, this consequence is good and necessary; That in case the King, once lawfully deposed, shall stand upon the defensive and hold out for his right, he may then lawfully be murdered. Let me then here freely profess my opinion, and this it is: That now the French Nobility may seem to have some reason to disrobe themselves of their titles, and to transfer them by resignation unto the third Estate. For that body of the third Estate alone hath carried a right noble heart: in as much as they could neither be tickled with promises, nor terrified by threatenings, from resolute standing to those fundamental points & reasons of State, which most concern the honour of their King, and the security of his person.  
Of all the Clergy, the man that hath most abandoned, or set his own honour to sale, the man to whom France is least obliged, is the Lord Cardinal of Perron: a man otherwise inferior to few in matter of learning, and in the grace of a sweet style. This man in two several Orations, whereof the one was pronounced before the Nobility, the other had audience before the third Estate, hath set his best wits on work, to draw that doctrine into all hatred and infamy, which teacheth Kings to be indeposeable by the Pope. To this purpose he terms the same doctrine, a breeder of schisms, a gate that openeth to make way, and to give entrance unto all heresies; in brief, a doctrine to be held in so high a degree of detestation, that rather than he and his fellow-Bishops will yield to the signing thereof, they will be contented like Martyrs to burn at a stake. At which resolution, or obstinacy rather in his opinion, I am in a manner amazed, more than I can be moved for the like bravado in many other: for as much as he was many years together, a follower of the late King, even when the King followed a contrary Religion, and was deposed by the Pope: as also because not long before, in a certain Assembly holden at the jacobins in Paris, he withstood the Pope's Nuntio to his face, when the said Nuntio laboured to make this doctrine, touching the Pope's temporal Sovereignty, pass for an Article of faith. But in both Orations, he singeth a contrary song, and from his own mouth passeth sentence of condemnation against his former course and profession. I suppose, not without solid judgement: as one that herein hath well accommodated himself to the times. For as in the reign of the late King, he durst not offer to broach this doctrine (such was his fore-wit:) so now he is bold to proclaim and publish it in Parliament under the reign of the said King's son: whose tender years and late succession to the Crown, do make him lie the more open to injuries, and the more facile to be circumvented. Such is now his after wisdom.  
Of these two Orations, that made in presence of the Nobility he hath, for fear of incurring the Pope's displeasure, cautelously suppressed. For therein he hath been somewhat prodigal in affirming this doctrine, maintained by the Clergy, to be but problematical; and in taking upon him to avouch, that Catholics of my Kingdom are bound to yield me the honour of obedience. Whereas on the other side he is not ignorant, how this doctrine of deposing Princes and Kings the Pope holdeth for merely necessary, and approveth not by any means allegiance to be performed unto me by the Catholics of my Kingdom. Yea if credit may be given unto the abridgement of his other Oration published, wherein he parallels the Pope's power in receiving honours in the name of the Church, with the power of the Venetian Duke in receiving honours in the name of that most renowned Republic; no marvel that when this Oration was dispatched to the press, he commanded the same to be gelded of this clause and other like, for fear of giving his Holiness any offensive distaste.  
His pleasure therefore was and content withal, that his Oration imparted to the third Estate, should be put in print, and of his courtesy he vouchsafed to address unto me a copy of the same. Which after I had perused, I forthwith well perceived, what and how great discrepance there is between one man that perorateth from the ingenuous and sincere disposition of a sound heart, and an other that flaunteth in flourishing speech with inward checks of his own conscience. For every where he contradicts himself, and seems to be afraid lest men should pick out his right meaning.  
First, 
In 12. several passages the L. Card. seemeth to speak against his own conscience.  he grants this Question is not hitherto decided by the holy Scriptures, or by the Decrees of the ancient Church, or by the analogy of other Ecclesiastical proceedings: and nevertheless he confidently doth affirm, that whosoever maintain this doctrine to be wicked and abominable, 
Pag. 85.  that Popes have no power to put Kings by their supreme Thrones, they teach men to believe, there hath not been any Church for many ages past, and that indeed the Church is the very Synagogue of Antichrist.  
Secondly, he exhorts his hearers to hold this doctrine at least for problematical, and not necessary: and yet herein he calls them to all humble submission unto the judgement of the Pope and Clergy, by whom the cause hath been already put out of all question, as out of all hunger and cold.  
Thirdly, he doth aver, in case this Article be authorized, it makes the Pope in good consequence to be the Antichrist: 
Pag. 99  and yet he grants that many of the French are tolerated by the Pope to dissent in this point from his Holiness; provided, their doctrine be not proposed as necessary, and material to faith. As if the Pope in any sort gave toleration to hold any doctrine contrary to his own, and most of all that doctrine which by consequence infers himself to be the Antichrist.  
Fourthly, he protesteth forwardness to undergo the flames of Martyrdom, rather than to sign this doctrine, which teacheth Kings Crowns to sit faster on their heads, then to be stirred by any Papal power whatsoever: and yet saith withal, the Pope winketh at the French, by his toleration to hold this dogmatical point for problematical. And by this means, the Martyrdom that he affecteth in this cause, will prove but a problematical Martyrdom, whereof question might grow very well, whether it were to be mustered with grievous crimes, or with frenetical passions of the brain, or with deserved punishments.  
Fiftly, he denounceth Anathema, dischargeth maledictions like haile-shot, against parricides of Kings: and yet elsewhere he lays himself open to speak of Kings only so long as they stand Kings. But who doth not know that a King deposed is no longer King? And so that limb of Satan, which murdered Henry III. then unkinged by the Pope, did not stab a King to death.  
Sixtly, he doth not allow a King to be made away by murder: and yet he thinks it not much out of the way, to take away all means whereby he might be able to stand in defence of his life.  
Seventhly, 
Pag. 95. 97.  he abhorreth killing of Kings by apposted throat-cutting, for fear least body and soul should perish in the same instant: and yet he doth not mislike their kill in a pitched field, and to have them slaughtered in a set battle. For he presupposeth, no doubt out of his charitable mind, that by this means the soul of a poor King so dispatched out of the way shall instantly fly up to heaven.  
Eightly, he saith a King deposed retaineth still a certain internal habitude and politic impression, by virtue and efficacy whereof he may, being once reform and become a new man, be restored to the lawful use and practise of Regality. Whereby he would bear us in hand, that when a foreign Prince hath invaded and ravenously seized the Kingdom into his hands, he will not only take pity of his predecessor to save his life, but will also prove so kindhearted, upon sight of his repentance, to restore his kingdom without fraud or guile.  
Ninthly, he saith every where in his Discourse, that he dealeth not in the cause, otherwise then as a problematical discourser, and without any resolution one way or other: and yet with might and main he contends for the opinion, that leaves the States and Crowns of Kings controulable by the Pope: refutes objections, propounds the authority of Popes and Councils, by name the Lateran Council under Innocent III. as also the consent of the Church. And to cross the Church's judgement, is, in his opinion to bring in schism, and to leave the world without a Church for many hundred years together: which (to my understanding) is to speak with resolution, and without all hesitation.  
Tenthly, he acknowledgeth none other cause of sufficient validity for the deposing of a King, besides heresy, apostasy, and infidelity: nevertheless that Popes have power to displace Kings for heresy and apostasy, he proveth by examples of Kings whom the Pope hath kerbed with deposition, not for heresy, but for matrimonial causes, for civil pretences, and for lack of capacity.  
eleventhly, he allegeth every where passages, as well of holy Scripture as of the Fathers and modern histories; but so impertinent, and with so little truth, as hereafter we shall cause to appear, that for a man of his deep learning and knowledge, it seemeth not possible so to speak out of his judgement.  
Lastly, whereas all this hath been huddled and heaped together into one mass, to curry with the Pope: yet he suffereth diverse points to fall from his lips, which may well distaste his Holiness in the highest degree. As by name, where he prefers the authority of the Council before that of the Pope, and makes his judgement inferior to the judgement of the French; as in fit place hereafter shall be showed. Again, where he representeth to his hearers the decrees of Popes and Councils already passed concerning this noble subject: and yet affirms that he doth not debate the question, but as a Questionist, and without resolution. As if a Cardinal should be afraid to be positive, and to speak in peremptory strains, after Popes and Councils have once decided the Question. Or as if a man should perorate upon hazard, in a cause for the honour whereof he would make no difficulty to suffer Martyrdom. Add hereunto, that his Lordship hath always taken the contrary part heretofore, and this total must needs arise, that before the third Estate, his lips looked one way, and his conscience another.  
All these points, by the discourse which is to follow, and by the ripping up of his Oration (which by God's assistance I will undertake) tending to the reproach of Kings, and the subversion of Kingdoms, I confidently speak it, shall be made manifest. Yet do I not conceive it can any way make for my honour, to enter the lists against a Cardinal. For I am not ignorant how far a Cardinal's Hat, cometh under the Crown & Sceptre of a King. For well I wot unto what sublimity the Scripture hath exalted Kings, when it styles them Gods: Whereas the dignity of a Cardinal is but a late upstart invention of man; 
In the Preface to my Apology.  as I have elsewhere proved. But I have embarked myself in this action, moved thereunto; first by the common interest of Kings in the cause itself: Then by the L. Cardinal, who speaketh not in this Oration as a private person, but as one representing the body of the Clergy and Nobility, by whom the cause hath been won, and the garland borne away from the third Estate. Again, by mine own particular: because he is pleased to take me up for a sour of dissension, and a persecutor, under whom the Church is hardly able to fetch her breath; yea, for one by whom the Catholics of my Kingdom are compelled to endure all sorts of punishment: and withal he terms this Article of the third Estate, a monster with a fishes tail that came swimming out of England. Last of all, by the present state of France; because France being now reduced to so miserable terms, that it is now become a crime for a Frenchman to stand for his King; it is a necessary duty of her neighbours to speak in her cause, and to make trial whether they can put life into the truth now dying, and ready to be buried by the power of violence, that it may resound and ring again from remote regions.  
I have no purpose once to touch many pretty toys which the ridges of his whole book are sowed withal. Such are his allegations of Pericles, Agesilaus, Aristotle, Minos, the Druids, the French Ladies, Hannibal, Pindarus, and Poetical fables. All resembling the red and blue flowers that pester the corn when it standeth in the fields, where they are more noisome to the growing crop, then beautiful to the beholding eye. Such petty matters, nothing at all beseemed the dignity of the Assembly, and of the main subject, or of the Orator himself. For it was no Decorum to enter the Stage with a Pericles in his mouth, but with the sacred Name of God: nor should he have marshaled the passage of a Royal Poet, after the example of an heathen Orator.  
Neither will I give any touch to his conceit of the Roman conquests, 
Pag. 4.  which the L. Cardinal bestoweth in the list of God's graces and temporal blessings, as a recompense of their zeal to the service and worship of Idols. As if God were a recompencer of wickedness, or as if the forcible eiecting of tenants out of their frames and other possessions, might be reckoned among the blessings of God.  
Nor to that of the Milesian Virgins, 
Pag. 7. & 8  dragged starre-naked after they were dead; which the L. Cardinal draws into his discourse for an example of the eternal torments denounced by the Laws Ecclesiastical, to be inflicted after this life.  
Nor to his exposition of the word problematical: 
Pag. 13.  where he giveth to understand that by problematical, he meaneth such things as are of no necessity to matter of faith; and in case men shall believe the contradictory of the said points, they are not bound for such belief, to undergo the solemn curse of the Church, and the loss of communion. 
Arist. 1. top. cap 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, sound both one thing. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, provided the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or utrùm, do stand before, as, Vtrùm homo sit animal.  Whereas Aristotle, of whom all Schools have borrowed their terms, hath taught us that every proposition is called a Problem, when it is propounded in a formal doubt, though in it proper nature it contains a necessary truth, concerning the matter thereof. As for example, to say in form of question, Whether is there but one God? or, Whether is man a creature endued with reason? By which examples it is plain, that propositions in problematically form, do not forego the necessity of their nature; and that many times the contradictory binds the believers thereof to Anathema and loss of communion. There is a confused heap or bundle of otherlike toys, which my purpose is to pass over in silence, that I may now come to cast anchor, as it were in the very bottom and substance of the cause.   


HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE    

A REMONSTRANCE OF THE MOST GRACIOUS King of Great BRITAIN, FRANCE, and IRELAND, Defender of the Faith, etc. FOR THE RIGHT OF KINGS, AND the independency of their Crowns: AGAINST AN ORATION OF the most Illustrious Cardinal of PERRON, pronounced in the Chamber of the third Estate. The 15. of januar. 1615.  
THE L. Cardinal even in the first passage of his Oration, hath laid a firm foundation, That Ecclesiastics in France are more deeply obliged to the King, than the Nobility, and third Estate. His reason: Because the Clergy do sweetly enjoy their dignities and promotions, with all their infinite wealth, of the King's mere grace, without all danger, and with fair immunities; whereas the other two Orders hold their offices by a chargeable and burdensome title or tenure, even to the great expense of their blood, & of their substance. But see now, how loose and weak a frame he hath erected and pinned together, upon his firm and solid foundation: Ergo, the third Estate is to lay all care to provide remedies against apposted cutthroats, upon the Clergy: & the said remedies (as he boldly affirms) must be derived from the laws of conscience, which may carry an effectual acting or operative efficacy upon the soul, & nor from civil or temporal punishments. Now this consequence limpeth like a lame cripple after the premises. For it is no usual & common matter, to see men that are deepest in obligation, perform their duties and covenants with most fidelity. Again, were it granted the Clergy had well hitherto demonstrated their careful watching over the life and honour of their Prince; yet is it not for spiritual punishments thundered by Ecclesiastics, to bind the hands of the civil Magistrate, nor to stop the current of temporal punishments: which ordinarily do carry a greater force and virtue to the bridling of the wicked, than the apprehension of God's judgement.  
The third Estate therefore, by whom all the Officers of France are properly represented, as to whom the administration of justice and protection of the King's rights and Honour doth appertain, can deserve no blame in carrying so watchful an eye, by their wholesome remedy to provide for the safety of the King, and for the dignity of his Crown. For if the Clergy shall not stand to their tackle, but shrink when it cometh to the push of their duty; who shall charge themselves with careful foresight and prevention of mischiefs? Shall not the people? Now, have not all the calamities, which the third Estate have sought providently to prevent; have they not all sprung from the Clergy, as from their proper and natural fountain? From whence did the last civil wars, wherein a world of blood was not more profusely then prodigiously and unnaturally spilled, and wherein the parricide of King Henry III was impiously and abominably committed: from whence did those bloody wars proceed, but from the deposing of the said King by the Head of the Church? Were they not Prelates, Curates, and Confessors; were they not Ecclesiastics, who partly by seditious preachments, and partly by secret confessions, powered many a jar of oil upon this flame? Was not he that killed the forenamed King, was not he one of the Clergy? Was not Guignard a jesuit? Was not john Chastel brought up in the same school? Did not Ravaillac that monster of men, upon interrogatories made at his examination; among the rest, by whom he had been so diabolically tempted and stirred up to his most execrable attempt and act of extreme horror: did not the refer his examiners to the Sermons made the Lent next before, where they might be satisfied concerning the causes of his abominable undertaking and execution? Are not Bellarmine, Eudaemonoiohannes, Suarez, Becanus, Mariana, with such other monsters, who teach the doctrine of parricides, uphold the craft of janus-like equivocations in Courts of justice, and in secret confessions: are they not all Clerics? are not all their books approved and allowed, as it were by a corporation or gross company of Doctors, with their signs manuel to the said books? What were the heads, the chief promoters, the complices of the powder-conspiracie in my Kingdom? were they not Ecclesiastics? Hath not Faux by name, a confederate of the same demned crew; hath not he stoutly stood to the gunner's part, which then he was to act in that most doleful Tragedy, with asseveration of a conscience well assured and settled, touching the lawfulness of his enterprise? Did he not yield this reason? to wit, because he had been armed with instruction of musket proof in the case, before he made passage over from the Low Countries? Is it not also the general belief of that Order, that Clerics are exempted from the condition of Subjects to the King? Nay, is it not confessed by the L. Cardinal himself, 
Pag. 7.  that King-killers have engaged themselves to undertake the detestable act of parricide under a false credence of Religion, as being instructed by their schoolmasters in Religion? And who were they but Ecclesiastical persons? All this presupposed as matter of truth, I draw this conclusion: Howsoever no small number of the French Clergy may perhaps bear the affection of loving Subjects to their King, and may not suffer the clerical character to deface the impression of natural allegiance; yet, for so much as the Order of Clerics is dipped in a deeper die, and beareth a worse tincture of dangerous practices then the other Orders; the third Estate had been greatly wanting to their excellent providence and wisdom, if they should have relinquished and transferred the care of designments and projects for the life of their King, and the safety of his Crown, to the Clergy alone. Moreover, the Clergy standeth bound to refer the judgement of all matters in controversy, to the sentence of the Pope, in this cause being a party, and one that pretendeth Crowns to depend upon his Mitre. What hope then might the third Estate conceive, that his Holiness would pass against his own cause, when his judgement of the controversy had been sundry times before published and testified to the world? And whereas the plot or model of remedies projected by the third Estate, and the King's Officers, hath not proved sortable in the event: was it because the said remedies were not good and lawful? No verily: but because the Clergy refused to become contributors of their duty & means to the grand service. Likewise, for that after the burning of books, addressed to justify rebellious people, traitors, and parricides of Kings; nevertheless the authors of the said books are winked at, and backed with favour. Lastly, for that some wretched parricides drink off the cup of public justice; whereas to the firebrands of sedition, the sowers of this abominable doctrine, no man saith so much as black is their eye.  
It sufficiently appeareth, as I suppose, by the former passage, that his Lordship exhorting the third Estate to refer the whole care of this Regal cause unto the Clergy, hath tacked his frame of weak joints and tenons to a very worthy but wrong foundation. 
Pag. 9  Howbeit, he laboureth to fortify his exhortation with a more weak & feeble reason. For to make good his project he affirms, that matters and maxims out of all doubt & question, may not be shuffled together with points in controversy. Now his rules indubitable are two: The first, It is not lawful to murder Kings for any cause whatsoever. This he confirmeth by the example of Saul (as he saith) deposed from his Throne, whose life or limbs David nevertheless durst not once hurt or wrong for his life. Likewise he confirms the same by a Decree of the Council held at Constance. 
Conc. Constan. Sess. 15.  His other point indubitable. The Kings of France are Sovereign's in all Temporal Sovereignty, within the French Kingdom, and hold not by fealty either of the Pope, as having received or obliged their Crowns upon such tenure and condition, or of any other Prince in the whole world. Which point, nevertheless he takes not for certain and indubitable, but only according to human and historical certainty. Now a third point he makes to be so full of controversy, and so far within the circle of disputable questions, as it may not be drawn into the rank of classical and authentical points, for fear of making a certain point doubtful, by shuffling and jumbling therewith some point in controversy. Now the question so disputable, as he pretendeth, is this. A Christian Prince breaks his oath solemnly taken to God, both to live and to die in the Catholic Religion. Say this Prince turns Arrian, or Mahometan, falls to proclaim open war, and to wage battle with jesus Christ. Whether may such a Prince be declared to have lost his Kingdom, and who shall declare the Subjects of such a Prince to be quit of their oath of allegiance? The L. Cardinal holds the affirmative, and makes no bones to maintain, that all other parts of the Catholic Church, yea the French Church even from the first birth of her Theological Schools, to Calvins' time and teaching, have professed that such a Prince may be lawfully removed from his Throne by the Pope, and by the Council: and suppose the contrary doctrine were the very Quintessence or spirit of truth, yet might it not in case of faith be urged and pressed otherwise then by way of problematical disceptation. That is the sum of his Lordsh▪ ample discourse. The refuting whereof, I am constrained to put off, and refer unto an other place; because he hath served us with the same dishes over & over again. There we shall see the L. Cardinal maketh way to the dispatching of Kings after deposition: that Saul was not deposed, as he hath presumed: that in the Council of Constance there is nothing to the purpose of murdering Sovereign Princes: that his Lordship, supposing the French King may be deprived of his Crown by a superior power, doth not hold his liege Lord to be Sovereign in France: that by the position of the French Church from age to age, the Kings of France are not subject unto any censure of deposition by the Pope: that his Holiness hath no just and lawful pretence to produce, that any Christian King holds of him by fealty, or is obliged to do the Pope homage for his Crown.  
Well then, for the purpose: he dwelleth only upon the third point pretended questionable, and this he affirmeth: If any shall condemn, or wrap under the solemn curse, the abettors of the Pope's power to vnking lawful and Sovereign Kings; the same shall run upon four dangerous rocks of apparent incongruities and absurdities.  
First, he shall offer to force and entangle the consciences of many devout persons: For he shall bind them to believe and swear that doctrine, the contrary whereof is believed of the whole Church, and hath been believed by their predecessors.  
Secondly, he shall overturn from top to bottom the sacred authority of holy Church, and shall set open a gate unto all sorts of heresy, by allowing lay-people a bold liberty to be judges in causes of religion and faith. For what is that degree of boldness, but open usurping of the Priesthood; what is it but putting of profane hands into the Ark; what is it but laying of unholy fingers upon the holy Censor for perfumes?  
Thirdly, he shall make way to a schism, not possible to be put by and avoided by any human providence. For this doctrine being held and professed by all other Catholics; how can we declare it repugnant unto God's word; how can we hold it impious; how can we account it detestable, but we shall renounce communion with the head and other members of the Church; yea, we shall confess the Church in all ages to have been the Synagogue of Satan, and the spouse of the Devil?  
Lastly, by working the establishment of this Article, which worketh an establishment of King's Crowns; He shall not only work the intended remedy for the danger of Kings, out of all the virtue and efficacy thereof, by weakening of doctrine out of all controversy, in packing it up with a disputable question; but likewise in stead of securing the life and estate of Kings, he shall draw both into far greater hazards, by the train or sequence of wars, and other calamities which usually wait and attend on schisms.  
The L. Cardinal spends his whole discourse in confirmation of these four heads, which we now intent to sift in order, and demonstratively to prove that all the said inconveniences are mere nullities, matters of imagination, and built upon false presuppositions. But before we come to the main, the reader is to be informed and advertised, that his Lordship setteth a false gloss upon the question; and propounds the case not only contrary to the truth of the subject in controversy, but also to the Popes own mind and meaning. For he restrains the Pope's power to depose Kings only to cases of heresy, Apostasy, and persecuting of the Church; whereas Popes extend their power to a further distance. They depose Princes for infringing, or in any sort diminishing the privileges of Monasteries: witness Gregory the first in the pretended charter granted to the abbey of S. Medard at Soissons, the said charter being annexed to his Epistles in the rear. The same he testifieth in his Epistle to Senator, by name the 10. of the eleventh book. They depose for natural dullness and lack of capacity, whether inbred and true indeed, or only pretended and imagined: witness the glorious vaunt of Gregory VII. that Childeric King of France was hoisted out of his Throne by Pope Zacharie, Not so much for his wicked life, 
Caus. 15. Can. Alius. Qu. 6.  as for his unableness to bear the weighty burden of so great a Kingdom. They depose for collating of Benefices and Prebends: witness the great quarrels and sore contentions between Pope Innocent III. and john King of England: as also between Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII. They depose for adulteries and matrimonial suits: witness Philip. 1. for the repudiating or casting off his lawful wife Bertha, and marrying in her place with Bertrade wife to the Earl of Anjou. Finally, fain would I learn into what heresy or degree of Apostasy, 
Paul. Aemil. in Phil. 3.  either Henry IU. or Freder. Barbarossa, or Frederic 2. Emperors were fallen, when they were smitten with Papal fulminations even to the deprivation of their Imperial Thrones. What? was it for heresy or Apostasy that Pope Martin IV. bore so hard a hand against Peter King of Arragon, that he acquitted and released the Arragonnois from their oath of allegiance to Peter their lawful King? Was it for heresy or Apostasy, for arianism or Mahumetisme, that Lewis XII. so good a King and Father of his Country, was put down by julius the TWO? Was it for heresy or Apostasy, that Sixtus 5. usurped a power against Henry III. even so far as to denounce him unkingd; the issue whereof was the parricide of that good King, and the most woeful desolation of a most flourishing Kingdom? But his Lordship best liked to work upon that ground, which to the outward show & appearance, is the most beautiful cause that can be alleged for the dishonouring of Kings by the weapon of deposition: making himself to believe that he acted the part of an Orator before personages not much acquainted with ancient and modern histories, and such as little understood the state of the question then in hand. It had therefore been a good warrant for his Lordship, to have brought some authentical instrument from the Pope, whereby the French might have been secured, that his Holiness renounceth all other causes avouchable for the degrading of Kings; and that he will henceforth rest in the case of heresy, for the turning of Kings out of their freehold: as also that his Holiness by the same or like instrument, might have certified his pleasure, that he will not hereafter make himself judge, whether Kings be tainted with damnable heresy, or free from heretical infection. For that were to make himself both judge and plaintiff, that it might be in his power to call that doctrine heretical, which is pure orthodox: and all for this end, to make himself master of the Kingdom, and there to settle a Successor, who receiving the Crown of the Pope's free gift and grant, might be tied thereby to depend altogether upon his Holiness. Hath not Pope Boniface VIII. declared in his proud letters all those to be heretics, that dare undertake to affirm, the collating of Prebends appertaineth to the King? It was that Pope's gross error, not in the fact, but in the right. The like crime forsooth was by Popes imputed to the unhappy Emperor Henry IU. And what was the issue of the said imputation? The son is instigated thereby to rebel against his father, and to impeach the interment of his dead corpse, who never in his life had beat his brains to trouble the sweet waters of Theological fountains. 
Annal. Boio.  It is recorded by Aventine, 
Lib. 3.  that Bishop Virgilius was declared heretic, 
Iwanen.  for teaching the position of Antipodes. 
Episcop.  The Bull Exurge, marching in the rear of the last Lateran Council, sets down this position for one of Luther's heresies, 
Optima poenitentia nova vita.  A new life is the best repentance. Among the crimes which the Council of Constance charged Pope john XXIII. withal, one was this: 
Conc. Constan. Sess. 2.  that he denied the immortality of the soul, and that so much was publicly, manifestly, and notoriously known. Now if the Pope shall be carried by the stream of these or the like errors, and in his heretical pravity shall depose a King of the contrary opinion, I shall hardly be persuaded, the said King is lawfully deposed.  

The first Inconvenience examined.  
THE first inconvenience growing (in the Cardinal his conceit) by entertaining the Article of the third Estate (whereby the Kings of France are declared to be indeposeable by any superior power spiritual or temporal) is this: It offereth force to the conscience, under the penalty of Anathema, to condemn a doctrine believed and practised in the Church, in the continual current of the last eleven hundred years. In these words he maketh a secret confession, that in the first five hundred years, the same doctrine was neither apprehended by faith, nor approved by practice. Wherein, to my understanding, the L. Cardinal voluntarily giveth over the suit. For the Church in the time of the Apostles, their disciples, and successors, for 500 years together, was no more ignorant what authority the Church is to challenge over Emperors and Kings, then at any time since in any succeeding age: in which as pride hath still flowed to the height of a full Sea, so purity of religion and manners hath kept for the most part at a low watermarke. Which point is the rather to be considered, for that during the first 500 years, the Church groaned under the heavy burden, both of heathen Emperors, and of heretical Kings; the Visigot Kings in Spain, and the Vandals in Africa. Of whose displeasure the Pope had small reason or cause to stand in any fear, being so remote from their dominions, and no way under the lee of their Sovereignty.  
But let us come to see, what aid the L. Cardinal hath amassed and piled together out of later histories: provided we still bear in mind, that our question is not of popular tumults, nor of the rebellion of subjects making insurrections out of their own discontented spirits and brainsick humours, nor of lawful Excommunications, nor of Canonical censures and reprehensions; but only of a juridical sentence of deposition, pronounced by the Pope, as armed with ordinary and lawful power to depose, against a Sovereign Prince.  
Now then; 
Exampl. 1. pag. 18. Evag. hist.  The L. Cardinal sets on, and gives the first charge with Anastasius the Emperor, 
Eccles. lib. 3. cap. 32.  whom Euphemius Patriarch of Constantinople would never acknowledge for Emperor: (that is to say, would never consent he should be created Emperor by the help of his voice or suffrage) except he would first subscribe to the Chalcedon Creed: notwithstanding the great Empress and Senate sought by violent courses and practices to make him yield. And when afterward the said Emperor, contrary to his oath taken, played the relapse by falling into his former heresy, and became a persecutor; he was first admonished, and then excommunicated by Symmachus Bishop of Rome. To this the L. Cardinal adds, that when the said Emperor was minded to chop the poison of his heretical assertions into the public forms of divine service, than the people of Constantinople made an uproar against Anastasius their Emperor; and one of his Commanders by force of arms, constrained him to call back certain Bishops whom he had sent into banishments before.  
In this first example the L. Cardinal by his good leave, neither comes close to the question, nor salutes it a far off. Euphemius was not Bishop of Rome: Anastasius was not deposed by Euphemius; the Patriarch only made no way to the creating of Anastasius. The sudden commotion of the base multitude makes nothing, the rebellion of a Greek Commander makes less, for the authorizing of the Pope to depose a Sovereign Prince. The Greek Emperor was excommunicated by Pope Symmachus: who knows whether that be true or forged? For the Pope himself is the only witness here produced by the Lord Cardinal upon the point: and who knows not how false, how suppositious, the writings and Epistles of the ancient Popes are justly esteemed? But grant it a truth; yet Anastasius excommunicated by Pope Symmachus, is not Anastasius deposed by Pope Symmachus. And to make a full answer, I say further, that excommunication denounced by a foreign Bishop, against a party not being within the limits of his jurisdiction, or one of his own flock, was not any bar to the party from the communion of the Church, but only a kind of publication, that he the said Bishop in his particular, would hold no further communion with any such party.  
For proof whereof, I produce the Canons of the Councils held at Carthage. In one of the said Canons it is thus provided and ordained; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
* Nomocan. Africa. Can. 77. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  If any Bishop shall wilfully absent himself from the usual and accustomed Synods, let him not be admitted to the communion of other Churches, but let him only use the benefit and liberty of his own Church. In an other of the same Canons thus; 
* Can. 81. eiusd. Nomo. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  If a Bishop shall insinuate himself to make a conveyance of his Monastery, and the ordering thereof unto a Monk of any other Cloister; let him be cut off, let him be separated from the communion with other Churches, and content himself to live in the communion of his own flock. In the same sense Hilarius Bishop of Poitiers excommunicated Liberius Bishop of Rome, 
Anathema tibi à me Liberi. Faber. in frag. Hilarij.  for subscribing to the Arrian Confession. In the same sense, john Bishop of Antioch excommunicated Celestine of Rome, and Cyrill of Alexandria, Bishops; for proceeding to sentence against Nestorius, without staying his coming to answer in his own cause. In the same sense likewise, Victor Bishop of Rome did cut off all the Bishops of the East, not from the communion of their own flocks, but from communion with Victor and the Roman Church. What resemblance, what agreement, what proportion, between this course of excommunication, and that way of unjust fulmination which the Popes of Rome have usurped against Kings, but yet certain long courses of time after that ancient course?  
And this may stand for a full answer likewise to the example of Clotharius. 
Exampl. 2.  This ancient King of the French, fearing the censures of Pope Agapetus, erected the territory of Yuetot unto the title of a Kingdom, by way of satisfaction for murdering of Gualther, Lord of Yuetot. For this example the L. Cardinal hath ransacked records of 900. years antiquity and upward; in which times it were no hard piece of work to show, that Popes would not have any hand, nor so much as a finger in the affairs and acts of the French Kings. Gregory of Tours that lived in the same age, hath recorded many acts of excess, and violent injuries done against Bishops by their Kings, and namely against Praetextatus Bishop of Rouen; for any of which injurious pranks then played, the Bishop of Rome durst not reprove the said Kings with due remonstrance. But see here the words of Gregory himself to King Chilperic: If any of us, O King, shall serve from the path of justice, him thou hast power to punish: But in case thou shalt at any time transgress the lines of equity, who shall once touch thee with reproof? To thee we speak, but are never heeded and regarded, except it be thy pleasure: and be thou not pleased, who shall challenge thy greatness, but he that justly challengeth to be justice itself? The good Bishop, notwithstanding these humble remonstrances, was but roughly entreated, and packed into exile, being banished into the Isle of Gernseye. But I am not minded to make any deep search or inquisition, into the titles of the Lords of Yuetot: whose honourable privileges and titles are the most honourable badges and cognisances of their ancestors, and of some remarkable service done to the Crown of France: so far I take them to differ from a satisfaction for sin. And for the purpose I only affirm, that were the credit of this history beyond all exception, yet makes it nothing to the present question, wherein the power of deposing, and not of excommunicating, supreme Kings is debated. And suppose the King by charter granted the said privileges for fear of excommunication; how is it proved thereby, that Pope Agapetus had lawful and ordinary power to deprive him of his Crown? Nay, doubtless it was rather a means to elevate and advance the dignity of the Crown of France, and to style the French King, a King of Kings, as one that was able to give the quality of King, to all the rest of the Nobles and Gentry of his Kingdom. Doth not some part of the Spanish King's greatness, consist in creating of his Great?  
In the next place followeth Gregory I. who in the 10. Epistle of the 11. book, 
Exam. 3. pag. 22.  confirming the privileges of the Hospital at Augustodunum in Bourgongne, prohibiteth all Kings and Prelates whatsoever, to infringe or diminish the said privileges, in whole or in part. His formal and express words be these: If any King, Prelate, judge, or any other secular person, informed of this our constitution, shall presume to go or do contrary thereunto, let him be cast down from his power and dignity. I answer; the Lord Cardinal here wrongs himself very much, in taking imprecations for Decrees. Might not even the meanest of the people use the same tenor of words, and say? If any shall touch the life, or the most sacred Majesty of our Kings, be he Emperor, or be he Pope, let him be accursed; let him fall from his eminent place of authority, let him lose his dignity; let him tumble into beggary, diseases, and all kinds of calamities? I forbear to show how easy a matter it is for Monks, to forge titles after their own humour, and to their own liking, for the upholding and maintaining of their privileges. As for the purpose, the same Gregory citeth in the end of his Epistles an other privilege, of the like stuff and stamp to the former, granted to the Abbey of S. Medard at Soissons. It is fenced with a like clause to the other. But of how great untruth, and of how little weight it is, the very date that it beareth makes manifest proof: For it runs, Dated the year of our Lord's Incarnation 593. the 11. Indiction; whereas the 10. Indiction agreeth to the year 593. Besides, it was not Gregory's manner to date his Epistles according to the year of the Lord. Again, the said privilege was signed by the Bishops of Alexandria and Carthage, who never knew (as may well be thought) whether any such Abbey of S. Medard, or city of Soissons, was ever built in the world. Moreover, they signed in the thickest of a crowd as it were of Italian Bishops. Lastly, he that shall read in this Gregory's Epistles, with what spirit of reverence and humility he speaketh of Emperors, will hardly believe that ever he armed himself with authority to give or to take away Kingdoms. He styles himself 
* 
Epist. 6. l. 3 Ego autem indignus pietatis ●uae servus.  
Ego verò haec Dominis meis loquens, quid sum nisi pul vis & vermis? Ibid.  
Ego quidem ●●ssioni subiectus, etc. Ep. 61. l. 2.   the emperors unworthy servant: presuming to speak unto his Lord, when he knows himself to be but dust and a very worm. He professeth subjection unto the emperors commands, even to the publishing of a certain Law of the Emperors, which in his judgement somewhat jarred and justled with God's Law: as elsewhere I have spoken more at large.  
The L. Cardinal next bringeth upon the stage justinian 2. He, 
Examp. 4.  being in some choler with Sergius Bishop of Rome, because he would not favour the erroneous Synod of Canstantinople, would have caused the Bishop to be apprehended by his Constable Zacharias. But by the Roman Militia, (that is, the troops which the Emperor than had in Italy) Zacharias was repulsed and hindered from his design, even with opprobrious & reproachful terms. His Lordship must have my shallowness excused, if I reach not his intent by this allegation; wherein I see not one word of deposing from the Empire, or of any sentence pronounced by the Pope.  
Here are now 712. years expired after the birth of jesus Christ: in all which long tract of time, the L. Cardinal hath not light upon any instance, which might make for his purpose with never so little show. For the example of the Emperor Philippicus, 
Examp. 5.  by the Cardinal alleged next in sequence, belongeth to the year 713. And thus lies the history: This Emperor Philippicus Bardanes, was a professed enemy to the worshipping of Images, and commanded them to be broken in pieces. In that very time the Roman Empire was overthrown in the West, and sore shaken by the Saracens in the East. Beside those miseries, the Emperor was also encumbered with a civil and intestine war. The greatest part of Italy was then seized by the Lombard's, and the Emperor in Italy had nothing left save only the Exarchat of Ravenna, and the Duchy of Rome, then half abandoned by reason of the emperors want of forces. Pope Constantine gripes this occasion whereon to ground his greatness, and to shake off the yoke of the Emperor his Lord: Undertakes against Philippicus the cause of Images: By a Council declares the Emperor heretic▪ Prohibits his rescripts or coin to be received, and to go currant in Rome: Forbids his Imperial statue to be set up in the Temple, according to ancient custom: The tumult groweth to a height: The Pope is principal promoter of the tumult: In the heat of the tumult the Exarche of Ravenna looseth his life. Here see now the mutiny of a subject against his Prince, to pull from him by force and violence a city of his Empire. But who seeth in all this any sentence of deposition from the Imperial dignity? Nay, the Pope then miss the cushion, and was disappointed utterly of his purpose. The city of Rome stood firm, and continued still in their obedience to the Emperor.  
About some 12. years after, 
Examp. 6.  the Emperor Leo Isauricus (whom the Lord of Perron calleth Iconoclast) falls to fight it out at sharp, and to prosecute worshippers of Images with all extremity. Upon this occasion, Pope Gregory 2. then treading in the steps of his predecessor, when he perceived the city of Rome to be but weakly provided of men or munition, and the Emperor to have his hands full in other places, found such means to make the city rise in rebellious arms against the Emperor, that he made himself in short time master thereof. Thus far the L. Card. whereunto my answer for satisfaction is; that degrading an Emperor from his Imperial dignity, and reducing a city to revolt against her Master, that a man at last may carry the piece himself, and make himself Lord thereof, are two several actions of special difference. If the freehold of the city had been conveyed to some other by the Pope depriving the Emperor, as proprietary thereof, this example might have challenged some credit at least in show: but so to invade the city to his own use, and so to seize on the right and authority of another, what is it but open rebellion, and notorious ambition? For it is far from Ecclesiastical censure, when the spiritual Pastor of souls forsooth, pulls the cloak of a poor sinner from his back by violence, or cuts his purse, and thereby appropriates an other man's goods to his private use. It is to be observed withal, that when the Emperors were not of sufficient strength, and Popes had power to beard and to brave Emperors, than these Papal practices were first set on foot. This Emperor notwithstanding, turned head and pecked again: his Lieutenant entered Rome, and Gregory 3. successor to this Gregory 2. was glad to honour the same Emperor with style and title of his Lord: witness two several Epistles of the said Gregory 3. written to Boniface, and subscribed in this form: 
Data 10.  Dated the tenth Calends of December: 
Cal. Decem imperant Dom. pijssimo Augusto Leone, à Deo coronato, magno Imp. anno decimo Imperij eius.  In the reign of our most pious and religious Lord, Angustus Leo, crowned of God, the great Emperor, in the tenth year of his reign.  
The L. Cardinal with no less abuse allegeth Pope Zacharie, by whom the French, as he affirmeth, were absolved of the oath of allegiance, 
Examp. 7.  wherein they stood bound to Childeric their King. And for this instance, he standeth upon the testimony of Paulus Aemilius, and du Tillet, a pair of late writers. But by authors more near that age wherein Childeric reigned, it is more truly testified, that it was a free and voluntary act of the French, only ask the advise of Pope Zacharie, but requiring neither leave nor absolution. Ado Bishop of Vienna, in his Chronicles hath it after this manner: The French, following the Counsel of Ambassadors, and of Pope Zachary, elected Pepin their King, and established him in the Kingdom. Trithemius in his abridgement of Annals, thus: Childeric, as one unfit for government, was turned out of his Kingdom, with common consent of the Estates and Peers of the Realm, so advised by Zacharie Pope of Rome. Godfridus of Viterbe in the 17. part of his Chronicle; and Guaguin in the life of Pepin, affirm the same. And was it not an easy matter to work Pepin by counsel to lay hold on the Kingdom, when he could not be hindered from fastening on the Crown, and had already seized it in effect, howsoever he had not yet attained to the name of King? Moreover, the rudeness of that Nation, then wanting knowledge and Schools either of divinity, or of Academical sciences, was a kind of spur to make them run for counsel over the mountains: which nevertheless in a cause of such nature, they required not as necessary, but only as decent and for fashion sake. The Pope also for his part was well apaid, by this means to draw Pepin unto his part; as one that stood in some need of his aid against the Lombard's; and the more, because his Lord the Emperor of Constantinople was then brought so low, that he was not able to send him sufficient aid, for the defence of his territories against his enemies. But had Zacharie (to deal plainly) not stood upon the respect of his own commodity, more than upon the regard of God's fear; he would never have given counsel unto the servant, under the pretended colour of his Masters dull spirit, so to turn rebel against his Master. The Laws provide Guardians, or overseers, for such as are not well in their wits; they never deprive and spoil them of their estate: they punish crimes, but not diseases and infirmities by nature. Yea, in France it is a very ancient custom, when the King is troubled in his wits to establish a Regent, who for the time of the King's disability, may bear the burden of the kingdoms affairs. So was the practice of that State in the case of Charles 6. when he fell into a frenzy; whom the Pope notwithstanding his most grievous and sharp fits, never offered to degrade. And to be short, what reason, what equity will bear the children to be punished for the father's debility? Yet such punishment was laid upon Childerics whole race and house; who by this practice were all disinherited of the Kingdom. But shall we now take some view, of the L. Cardinal's excuse for this exemplary fact? 
Pag. 25.  The cause of Childerics deposing, (as the L. Cardinal saith) did nearly concern and touch Religion. For Childerics imbecility brought all France into danger, to suffer a most woeful shipwreck of Christian religion, upon the barbarous and hostile invasion of the Saracens. Admit now this reason had been of just weight and value, yet consideration should have been taken, whether some one or other of that Royallstemme, and of the Kings own successors nearest of blood, was not of better capacity to rule and manage that mighty State. The fear of uncertain and accidental mischief, should not have driven them to sly unto the certain mischief of actual and effectual deposition. They should rather have set before their eyes the example of Charles Martel, this Pippins father; who in a far more eminent danger, when the Saracens had already mastered, and subdued a great part of France, valiantly encountered, and withal defeated the Saracens; ruled the Kingdom under the title of Steward of the King's house, the principal Officer of the Crown; without affecting or aspiring to the Throne for all that great step of advantage, especially when the Saracens were quite broken, and no longer dreadful to the French Nation.  
In our own Scotland, the sway of the Kingdom was in the hand of Walls, during the time of Bruse his imprisonment in England, who then was lawful heir to the Crown. This Walls or Vallas had the whole power of the Kingdom at his beck and command. His edicts and ordinances to this day stand in full force. By the deadly hatred of Bruse his mortal enemy, it may be conjectured, that he might have been provoked and inflamed with desire to truss the Kingdom in his talons. And notwithstanding all these incitements, he never assumed or usurped other title to himself, then of Governor or Administrator of the Kingdom. The reason. He had not been brought up in this new doctrine and late discipline, whereby the Church is endowed with power to give and to take away Crowns. But now (as the L. Cardinal would bear the world in hand) the state of Kings is brought to a very dead lift. The Pope forsooth must send his Physicians, to know by way of inspection or some other course of Art, whether the King's brain be cracked or found: and in case there be found any debility of wit and reason in the King, than the Pope must remove and translate the Crown, from the weaker brain to a stronger: and for the acting of the stratagem, the name of Religion must be pretended. Ho, these heretics begin to crawl in the Kingdom: order must be taken they be not suffered by their multitudes and swarms, like locusts or caterpillars to pester and poison the whole Realm. Or in a case of matrimony, thus: Ho, marriage is a Sacrament: touch the Order of Matrimony, and Religion is wounded. By this devise not only the King's vices, but likewise his natural diseases and infirmities are fetched into the circle of Religion; and the L. Cardinal hath not done himself right, in restraining the Pope's power to depose Kings, unto the cafes of heresy, Apostasy, and persecution of the Church.  
In the next place followeth Leo III. who by setting the Imperial Crown upon the head of Charles, absolved all the subjects in the West, of their obedience to the Greek Emperors, if the L. of Perron might be credited in this example. But indeed it is crowded among the rest by a sly trick, and clean contrary to the naked truth of all histories. For it shall never be justified by good history, that so much as one single person or man (I say not one Country, or one people) was then wrought or won by the Pope, to change his copy and Lord, or from a subject of the Greek Emperors, to turn subject unto Charlemagne. Let me see but one Town that Charlemagne recovered from the Greek Emperors, by his right and title to his Empire in the West: No, the Greek Emperors had taken their farewell of the West Empire long before. And therefore to neck this upon the tally of Pope Leo his Acts, that he took away the West from the Greek Emperor, it is even as if one should say, that in this age the Pope takes the Dukedom of Milan from the French Kings, or the city of Rome from the Emperors of Germany, because their predecessors in former ages had been right Lords and governors of them both. It is one of the Pope's ordinary and solemn practices to take away, much after the manner of his giving. For as he giveth what he hath not in his right and power to give, or bestoweth upon others what is already their own: even so he taketh away from Kings and Emperors the possessions which they have not in present hold and possession. After this manner he takes the West from the Greek Emperors, when they hold nothing in the West, and lay no claim to any city or town of the West Empire. And what shall we call this way of deprivation, but spoiling a naked man of his garments, and killing a man already dead? True it is, the Imperial Crown was then set on charlemaine's head by Leo the Pope: did Leo therefore give him the Empire? No more than a Bishop that crowns a King, at his Royal and solemn consecration doth give him the Kingdom. For shall the Pope himself take the Popedom from the Bishop of Ostia as of his gift, because the crowning of the Pope is an office of long time peculiar to the Ostian Bishop? It was the custom of Emperors, to be crowned Kings of Italy by the hands of the Archbishop of Milan: did he therefore give the kingdom of Italy to the said Emperors? And to return unto Charlemagne; If the Pope had conveyed the Empire to him by free and gracious donation, the Pope doubtless in the solemnity of his coronation, would never have performed unto his own creature, an Emperor of his own making, the duties of adoration, as Ado that lived in the same age hath left it on record: 
Perfectis laudibus, à pontifice more Principum antiquorum adoratus est.  After the solemn praises ended (saith Ado) the chief Bishop honoured him with adoration, according to the custom of ancient Princes. The same is likewise put down by Aventine, in the 4. book of his Annals of Bavaria. 
Aventinus Annalium Boiorum lib. 4. post haec ab eodem Pontifice ut caeteri veterum Principum, more maiorum adoratus est Magnus.  The like by the Precedent Fauchet in his antiquities: and by Mons. Petau Councillor in the Court of Parliament at Paris, in his preface before the Chronicles of Eusebius, Hierome, and Sigebert. It was therefore the people of Rome that called this Charles the Great unto the Imperial dignity, and cast on him the title of Empeerour. So testifieth Sigebert upon the year 801. 
Sigeb. ad an. 801.  All the Romans with one general voice and consent, ring out acclamations of Imperial praises to the Emperor, they crown him by the hands of Leo the Pope, they give him the style of Caesar and Augustus. 
Maria. Scotus lib. 3.  Marianus Scotus hath as much in effect: 
Annalium.  Charles was then called Augustus by the Romans. 
Plat. in vita Leon. 3.  And so Platina. After the solemn service, Leo declareth and proclaimeth Charles Emperor, according to the public decree and general request of the people of Rome. 
Avent. Annal. Boio. lib. 4. Imperium transferre iure suo in Germanos, Carolumque tacito Senatus consulto plebiscitoque d●cernunt.  Aventine, and Sigonius in his 4. book of the Kingdom of Italy witness the same. Nevertheless to gratify the L. Cardinal: Suppose Pope Leo dispossessed the Greek Emperors of the West Empire. What was the cause? what infamous act had they done? what profane and irreligious crime had they committed? Nicephorus and Irene, who reigned in the Greek Empire in charlemaine's time, were not reputed by the Pope, or taken for heretics. How then? The L. Cardinal helpeth at a pinch, and putteth us in mind, that Constantine and Leo, predecessors to the said Emperors, had been poisoned with heresy, and stained with persecution. Here then behold an Orthodox Prince deposed. For what cause? for heresy forsooth, not in himself but in some of his predecessors long before. An admirable case. For I am of a contrary mind, that he was worthy of double honour, in restoring and setting up the truth again, which under his predecessors had endured oppression, and suffered persecution. Doubtless Pope Silvester was greatly overseen, and played not well the Pope, when he winked at Constantine the Great, and cast him not down from his Imperial Throne, for the strange infidelity and paganism of Diocletian, of Maximian, and Maxentius, whom Constantine succeeded in the Empire.  
From this example the L. of Perron passeth to Fulke Archbishop of Reims: 
Examp. 9 pag. 27.  by whom Charles the Simple was threatened with Excommunication, and refusing to continue any longer in the fidelity and allegiance of a subject. To what purpose is this example? For who can be ignorant, that all ages have brought forth turbulent and stirring spirits, men altogether forgetful of respect and observance towards their Kings, especially when the world finds them shallow and simple-witted, like unto this Prince? But in this example, where is there so much as one word of the Pope, or the deposing of Kings? 
Examp. 10. pag. 28.   
Here the L. Cardinal chaps in the example of Philip 1. King of France, but mangled, and strangely disguised, as hereafter shall be showed.  
At last he leadeth us to Gregory VII. surnamed Hildebrand, 
Exam. 11. An. 1076.  the scourge of Emperors, the firebrand of war, the scorn of his age. This Pope, after he had (in the spirit of pride, and in the very height of all audaciousness) thundered the sentence of excommunication and deposition, against the Emperor Henry 4. after he had enterprised this act without all precedent example: after he had filled all Europe with blood: this Pope, I say, sunk down under the weight of his affairs, and died as a fugitive at Salerne, overwhelmed with discontent and sorrow of heart. Here lying at the point of giving up the ghost, calling unto him (as it is in Sigebert) a certain Cardinal whom he much favoured, 
Sigeb. ad an. 1085.  He confesseth to God, and Saint Peter, and the whole Church, that he had been greatly defective in the Pastor all charge committed to his care; and that by the devils instigation, he had kindled the fire of God's wrath and hatred against mankind. Then he sent his Confessor to the Emperor, and to the whole Church to pray for his pardon, because he perceived that his life was at an end. Likewise Cardinal Benno that lived in the said Gregory's time, doth testify, That so soon as he was risen out of his Chair to excommunicate the Emperor from his Cathedral seat: by the will of God the said Cathedral seat, new made of strong board or plank, did crack and cleave into many pieces or parts: to manifest how great and terrible schisms had been sowed against the Church of Christ, by an excommunication of so dangerous consequence, pronounced by the man that had sit judge therein. Now to bring and allege the example of such a man, who by attempting an act which never any man had the heart or face to attempt before, hath condemned all his predecessors of cowardice, or at least of ignorance; what is it else, but even to send us to the school of mighty robbers, and to seek to correct and reform ancient virtues by late vices. 
Otho frisingen's. in vita Hen. 4. lib. 4. cap. 31.  Which Otho Frisingensis calling into his own private consideration, he durst freely profess, that he had not read of any Emperor before this Henry the 4. excommunicated or driven out of his Imperial Throne and Kingdom by the chief Bishop of Rome. But if this quarrel may be tried and fought out with weapons of examples, I leave any indifferent reader to judge what examples ought in the cause to be of chiefest authority and weight: whether late examples of Kings deposed by Popes, for the most part never taking the intended effect; or ancient examples of Popes actually and effectually thrust out of their thrones by Emperors and Kings.  
The Emperor Constantius expelled Liberius Bishop of Rome out of the city, 
Theo. lib. 2.  banished him as far as Beroe, 
Hist. cap. 16.  and placed Foelix in his room. Indeed Constantius was an Arrian, and therein used no less impious than unjust proceeding. Nevertheless the ancient Fathers of the Church, do not blame Constantius for his hard and sharp dealing with a chief Bishop, over whom he had no lawful power, but only as an enemy to the Orthodox faith, and one that raged with extreme rigour of persecution against innocent believers.  
In the reign of Valentinian the 1. and year of the Lord 367. the contention between Damasus and Vrsicinus competitors for the Bishopric, 
Ammia. lib. 27.  filled the city of Rome with a bloody sedition, in which were wickedly and cruelly murdered 137. persons. 
Decret. dist. 79.  To meet with such turbulent actions, Honorius made a law extant in the decretals, the words whereof be these; If it shall happen henceforth by the temerity of competitors, that any two Bishops be elected to the See, we straightly charge and command, that neither of both shall sit in the said, See. By virtue of this Law, 
Platina.  the same Honorius in the year 420. expelled Bonifacius and Eulalius, competitors and Antipopes out of Rome, 
Sigebertus.  though not long after he revoked Bonifacius, and settled him in the Papal See.  
Theodoric the Goth King of Italy, 
Anastatius.  sent john Bishop of Rome Ambassador to the Emperor justinian, 
Platina.  called him home again, 
Lib. Pontisi.  and clapped him up in the close prison, 
Diaconus.  where he starved to death. By the same King, Peter Bishop of Altine was dispatched to Rome, to hear the cause and examine the process of Pope Symmachus, then indicted and accused of sundry crimes.  
King Theodatus about the year 537. had the service of Pope Agapetus, as his Ambassador to the Emperor justinian, upon a treaty of peace. Agapetus dying in the time of that seruicc, Syluerius is made Bishop by Theodatus. Not long after, Syluerius is driven out by Belisarius the Emperor his Lieutenant, and sent into banishment. After Syluerius next succeed Vigilius, who with currant coin purchased the Popedom of Belisarius. The Emperor justinian sends for Vigilius to Constantinople, and receives him there with great honour. Soon after, the Emperor takes offence at his freeness in speaking his mind, commands him to be beaten with stripes in manner to death, and with a rope about his neck to be drawn through the city like a thief, as Platina relates the history. Nicephorus in his 26. book, and 17. chapter, comes very near the same relation.  
The Emperor Constantius, in the year 654. caused Pope Martin to be bound with chains, 
〈…〉 Sigeberius.  & banished him into Chersonesus, where he ended his life. The Popes in that age writing to the Emperors, used none but submissive terms, by way of most humble supplications; made profession of bowing the knee before their sacred Majesties, and of executing their commands with entire obedience; paid to the emperors twenty pound weight of gold for their investiture; which tribute was afterward released and remitted, 
justin. Authent. 123. cap. 3.  by Constantine the Bearded, to Pope Agatho, in the year 679. as I have observed in an other place.  
Nay further, even when the power and riches of the Popes was grown to great height, by the most profuse and immense munificence of Charlemagne and Lewis his son; the Emperors of the West did not relinquish and give over the making and unmaking of Popes, as they saw cause. Pope ' Adrian 1. willingly submitted his neck to this yoke: and made this Law to be passed in a Council, that in Charlemagne should rest all right and power for the Pope's election, and for the government of the Papal See. This Constitution is inserted in the Decretals, Dist. 63. Can. 
* Note that in the same Dist. the Can. of Greg. 4. beginning with Cum Hadrianus secundus, is false and supposititious because Greg. 4. wa● Pope long before Hadri. 2.  Hadrianus, and was confirmed by the practice of many years.  
In the year of the L. 963. the Emperor Otho took away the Popedom from john 13. and placed Leo 8. in his room. In like manner, john 14. Gregory 5. and Silvester 2. were seated in the Papal Throne by the Otho's.  
The Emperor Henry 2. in the year 1007. deposed three Popes, namely, Benedict 9 Silvester 3. and Gregory 6. whom Platina doth not stick to call, 
Tria tcterrima monstra.  three most detestable and vile monsters. This custom continued, this practice stood in force for divers ages, even until the times of Gregory 7. by whom the whole West was tossed and turmoiled with lamentable wars, which plagued the world, and the Empire by name with intolerable troubles and mischiefs. For after the said Gregorian wars, the Empire fell from bad to worse, and so went on to decay, till Emperors at last were driven to beg, and receive the Imperial Crown of the Pope.  
The Kingdom of France met not with so rude entreaty, but was dealt withal by courses of a milder temper. Gregory 4. about the year of the Lord 832. was the first Pope that persuaded himself to use the censure of Excommunication against a King of France. This Pope having a hand in the troublesome factions of the Realm, was nothing backward to side with the sons of Lewis, surnamed the Courteous, by wicked conspiracy entering into a desperate course and complot against Lewis their own Father: as witnesseth Sigebert in these words, Pope Gregory coming into France, joined himself to the sons against the Emperor their Father. 
Bo●he●. Decret. Eccles. Gallican. lib. 2. tit. 16.  But Annals of the very same times; and he that furbushed Aimonius, a religious of S. benedict's order, do testify, that all the Bishops of France fell upon this resolution; by no means to rest in the Pope's pleasure, or to give any place unto his design: and chose, In case the Pope should proceed to excommunication of their King, he should return out of France to Rome an excommunicate person himself. The Chronicle of S. Denis hath words in this form: The Lord Apostolical returned answer, that he was not come into France for any other purpose, but only to excommunicate the King and his Bishops, if they would be in any sort opposite unto the sons of Lewis, or disobedient unto the will and pleasure of his Holiness. The Prelates informed hereof made answer, that in this case they would never yield obedience to the Excommunication of the said Bishops: because it was contrary to the authority and advise of the ancient Canons.  
After these times, Pope Nicholas, 1. deprived King Lotharius of communion (for in those times not a word of deposing) to make him repudiate or quit Valdrada, and to resume or take again Thetberga his former wife. The articles framed by the French upon this point, are to be found in the writings of Hincmarus Archbishop of Reims, and are of this purport; that in the judgement of men both learned and wise, it is an overruled case, that as the King whatsoever he shall do, ought not by his own Bishops to be excommunicated, even so no foreign Bishop hath power to sit for his judge: because the King is to be subject only unto God, and his Imperial authority, who alone had the all-sufficient power to settle him in his Kingdom. Moreover, the Clergy addressed letters of answer unto the same Pope, full of stinging and bitter terms, with speeches of great scorn and contempt, as they are set down by Aventine in his Annals of Bavaria, 
Annal. Boio. lib. 4.  not forbearing to call him thief, wolf, and tyrant.  
When Pope Hadrian took upon him like a Lord, to command Charles the Bald upon pain of interdiction, that he should suffer the Kingdom of Lotharius to be fully and entirely conveyed and conferred upon Lewis his son; the same Hinemarus, a man of great authority and estimation in that age, sent his letters containing sundry remonstrances touching that subject. Among other matters thus he writeth, The Ecclesiastics and Seculars of the Kingdom assembled at Reims, have affirmed and now do affirm by way of reproach, vpbrading, & exprobration, that never was the like mandate sent before from the See of Rome to any of our predecessors. And a little after: The chief Bishops of the Apostolic See, or any other Bishops of the greatest authority and holiness, never withdrew themselves from the presence, from the reverend salutation, or from the conference of Emperors and Kings, whether heretics, or schismiticks and Tyrants: As Constantius the Arrian, Julianus the Apostata, and Maxmius the tyrant. And yet a little after; Wherefore if the Apostolic Lord be minded to seek peace, let him seek it so, that he stir no brawls, and breed no quarrels. For we are no such babes to believe, that we can or ever shall attain to God's Kingdom, unless we receive him for our King in earth, whom God himself recommendeth to us from heaven. It is added by Hincmarus in the same place, that by the said Bishops and Lords Temporal, such threatening words were blown forth, as he is afraid once to speak and utter. As for the King himself, what reckoning he made of the Pope's mandates, it appeareth by the Kings own letters addressed to Pope Hadrianus, as we may read every where in the Epistles of Hincmarus. For there, after King Charles hath taxed and challenged the Pope of pride, and hit him in the teeth with a spirit of usurpation, he breaketh out into these words: What hell hath cast up this law so cross and preposterous? what infernal gulf hath disgorged this law out of the darkest and obscurest dens? a law quite contrary and altogether repugnant unto the beaten way showed us in the holy Scriptures, etc. Yea, he flatly and peremptorily forbids the Pope, except he mean or desire to be recompensed with dishonour and contempt, to send any more the like mandates, either to himself, or to his Bishops.  
Under the reign of Hugo Capetus and Robert his son, a Council now extant in all men's hands, was held and celebrated at Reims by the King's authority. There Arnulphus Bishop of Orleans, than Prolocutor and Speaker of the Council, calls the Pope Antichrist, and lets not also to paint him forth like a monster: as well for the deformed and ugly vices of that unholy See, which then were in their exaltation, as also because the Pope then won with presents, and namely with certain goodly horses, then presented to his Holiness, took part against the King, with Arnulphus Bishop of Reims, then dispossed of his Pastoral charge.  
When Philip 1. had repudiated his wife Bertha, daughter to the Earl of Holland, and in her place had also taken to wife Bertrade the wife of Fulco Earl of Anjou yet being alive; he was excommunicated, and his Kingdom interdicted by Vrbanus then Pope, (though he was then bearded with an Antipope) as the L. Cardinal here giveth us to understand. But his Lordship hath skipped over two principal points recorded in the history. The first is, that Philip was not deposed by the Pope: whereupon it is to be inferred, that in this passage there is nothing material to make for the Pope's power against a King's Throne and Sceptre. The other point is, that by the censures of the Pope, the course of obedience due to the King before was not interrupted, nor the King disavowed, refused, or disclaimed: but on the contrary, that Ivo of Chartres taking Pope Vrbanus part, was punished for his presumption, despoiled of his estate, and kept in prison: whereof he makes complaint himself in his 19 and 20. Epistles. The L. Cardinal beside, in my understanding, for his Master's honour, should have made no words of interdicting the whole Kingdom. For when the Pope, to give a King chastisement, doth interdict his Kingdom, he makes the people to bear the punishment of the King's offence. For during the time of interdiction, the Church doors through the whole Kingdom are kept continually shut and locked up: public service is intermitted in all places: bells every where silent: Sacraments not administered to the people: bodies of the dead so prostituted and abandoned, that none dares bury the said bodies in holy ground. More, it is believed, that a man dying under the curse of the interdict, (without some special indulgence or privilege) is for ever damned and adjudged to eternal punishments, as one that dieth out of the communion of the Church. Put case then the interdict holdeth and continueth for many years together; alas, how many millions of poor souls are damned, and go to hell for an others offence? For what can, or what may the faltlesse and innocent people do withal, if the King will repudiate his wife, and she yet living, join himself in matrimony to an other?  
The Lord Cardinal after Philip the 1. produceth Philippus Augustus, 
Examp. 12.  who having renounced his wife Ingeberga daughter to the King of Denmark, and marrying with Agnes daughter to the Duke of Moravia, was by Pope Innocent the third interdicted himself and his whole Kingdom. But his Lordship was not pleased to insert withal, what is averred in the Chronicle of Saint Denis: that Pope Celestinus 3. sent forth two Legates at once upon this errand: 
Bochei. pag. 320.  Who being come into to the assembly and general Council of all the French Prelates, became like dumb dogs that can not bark, so as they could not bring the service which they had undertaken to any good pass, because they stood in a bodily fear of their own hides. Not long after, the Cardinal of Capua was in the like taking: For he durst not bring the Realm within the limits of the interdict, before he was got out of the limits of the Kingdom. The King herewith incensed, thrust all the Prelates that had given consent unto these proceedings out of their Sees, confiscated their goods, etc. To the same effect is that which we read in Math. Paris. After the Pope had given his Majesty to understand by the Cardinal of Anagnia, that his Kingdom should be interdicted, unless he would be reconciled to the King of England▪ the King returned the Pope this answer, that he was not in any sort afraid of the Pope's sentence, for as much as it could not be grounded upon any equity of the cause: and added withal, that it did no way appertain unto the Church of Rome to sentence Kings, especially the King of France. And this was done, saith johannes Tilius Register in Court of Parliament at Paris, by the counsel of the French Barons.  
Most notable is the example of Philip the Fair, and hits the bird in the right eye. In the year 1032. the Pope dispatched the Archbishop of Narbona with mandates into France, commanding the King to release the Bishop of Apamia then detained in prison, for contumelious words tending to the King's defamation, and spoken to the Kings own head. In very deed this Pope had conceived a secret grudge, and no light displeasure against King Philip before: namely, because the King had taken upon him the collation of benefices, and other Ecclesiastical dignities. Upon which occasion the Pope sent letters to the King of this tenor and style: Fear God, and keep his commandments: We would have thee know, that in spiritual and temporal causes thou art subject unto ourself: that collating of benefices and prebends doth not in any sort appertain to thy office and place: that, in case as keeper of the spiritualties, thou have the custody of benefices and prebends in thy hand when they become void, thou shalt by sequestration reserve the fruits of the same, to the use and benefit of the next incumbents and successors: and in case thou hast heretofore collated any, we ordain the said collations to be merely void: and so far as herein thou hast proceeded to the fact, we revoke the said collations. We hold them for heretics whosoever are not of this belief. A Legate comes to Paris, and brings these braving letters: By some of the King's faithful servants they are violently snatched and pulled out of the Legates hands: by the Earl of Artois they are cast into the fire. The good King answers the Pope, and pays him in as good coin as he had sent. Philip by the grace of God King of the French, to Boniface calling and bearing himself the Sovereign Bishop, little greeting or none at all. May thy exceeding sottishness understand, that in temporal causes we are not subject unto any mortal and earthly creature: that collating of benefices and prebends, by Regal right appertaineth to our office and place: that appropriating their fruits when they become void, belongeth to ourself alone during their vacancy: that all collations by us heretofore made, or to be made hereafter, shall stand in force: that in the validity and virtue of the said collations, we will ever courageously defend and maintain, all Incumbents and possessors of benefices and prebends so by us collated. We hold them all for sots and senseless, whosoever are not of this belief. The Pope incensed herewith excommunicates the King: but no man dares publish that censure, or become bearer thereof. The King notwithstanding the said proceedings of the Pope, assembles his Prelates, Barons, and Knights at Paris: asks the whole assembly, of whom they hold their Fees, with all other the Temporalties of the Church. They make answer with one voice, that in the said matters they disclaim the Pope, and know none other Lord beside his Majesty. Mean while the Pope worketh with Germany and the Low Countries, to stir them up against France. But Philip sendeth William of Nogaret into Italy. William by the direction and aid of Sciarra Columnensis, takes the Pope at Anagnia, mounts him upon a lean ill-favoured jade, carries him prisoner to Rome; where overcome with choler, anguish, and great indignation, he takes his last leave of the Popedom and his life. All this notwithstanding, the King presently after, from the successors of Boniface receives very ample and gracious Bulls, in which the memory of all the former passages and actions is utterly abolished. 
Extravag.  Witness the Epistle of Clement 5. wherein this King is honoured with praises, 
Meruit.  for a pious and religious Prince, and his Kingdom is restored to the former estate. In that age the French Nobility carried other manner of spirits, than the modern and present Nobility do: I mean those by whom the L. Cardinal was applauded and assisted in his Oration. Yea, in those former times the Prelates of the Realm stood better affected towards their King, than the L. Cardinal himself now standeth: who could find none other way to dally with, and to shift off this pregnant example, but by plain glozing, that heresy and Apostasy was no ground of that question, or subject of that controversy. Wherein he not only condemns the Pope, as one that proceeded against Philip without a just cause and good ground; but likewise gives the Pope the lie, who, in his goodly letters but a little above recited, hath enrolled Philip in the list of heretics. He saith moreover, that indeed the knot of the question was touching the Pope's pretence, in challenging to himself the temporal Soveraingntie of France, that is to say, in qualifying himself King of France. But indeed and indeed no such matter to be found. His whole pretence was the collating of benefices, and to perch above the King to crow over his Crown in Temporal causes. At which pretence his Holiness yet aimeth, still attributing and and challenging to himself plenary power to depose the King. Now if the L. Cardinal shall yet proceed to cavil, that Boniface 8. was taken by the French for an usurper, and no lawful Pope, but for one that crept into the Papacy by fraud and simony; he must be pleased to set down positively who was Pope, seeing that Boniface then sat not in the Papal chair. To conclude, If he that creepeth and stealeth into the Papacy by simony, by canuases or labouring of suffrages under hand, or by bribery, be not lawful Pope; I dare be bold to profess, there will hardly be found two lawful Popes in the three last ages.  
Pope Benedict in the year 1408. being in choler with Charles 6. because Charles had bridled and kerbed the gainful exactions and extortions of the Pope's Court, 
See the treatise of Charles du Moulin contrà paruas Datas, wherein he reporteth a notable Decree of the Court under Charles 6.  by which the Realm of France had been exhausted of their treasure, sent an excommunicatorie Bull into France, against Charles the King, and all his Princes. The University of Paris made request or motion that his Bull might be mangled, and Pope Benedict himself, by some called Petrus de Luna, might be declared heretic, schismatic, 
Theodoric.  and perturber of the peace. 
N●emens. in nemore union. Tract. 6. & somnium viridarij.  The said Bull was mangled and rend in pieces, according to the petition of the University, by Decree of Court upon the 10. of june, 1408. Ten days after, the Court rising at eleven in the morning, two Bulbearers of the said excommuncaitorie censure underwent ignominious punishment upon the Palace or great Hall stairs. From thence were lead to the Lovure in such manner as they had been brought from thence before: drawn in two tumbrells, clad in coats of painted linen, wore paper-mytres on their heads, were proclaimed with sound of trumpet, and every where disgraced with public derision. So little reckoning was made of the Pope's thundering canons in those days. And what would they have done, if the said Bulls had imported sentence of deposition against King Charles?  
The French Church assembled at Tours in the year 1510. decreed that Lewis XII. might with safe conscience contemn the abusive Bulls, and unjust censures of Pope Julius the II. and by arms might withstand the Pope's usurpations, in case he should proceed to excommunicate or depose the King. More, by a Council holden at Pisa, this Lewis declared the Pope to be fallen from the Popedom, and coined crowns with a stamp of this inscription, I will destroy the name of Babylon. To this the L. of Perron makes answer, that all this was done by the French, as acknowledging these jars to have sprung not from the fountain of Religion, but from passion of state. Wherein he condemneth Pope julius, for giving so great scope unto his public censures, as to serve his ambition, and not rather to advance Religion. He secretly teacheth us beside, that when the Pope undertakes to depose the King of France, than the French are to sit as judges concerning the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the cause; and in case they shall find the cause to be unlawful, then to disannul his judgements, and to scoff at his thunderbolts.  
john d' Albret King of Navarre, whose Realm was given by the foresaid Pope to Ferdinand King of Arragon, was also wrapped and entangled with strict bands of deposition. Now if the French had been touched with no better feeling of affection to their King, than the subjects of Navarre were to the Navarrois; doubtless France had sought a new Lord, by virtue of the Popes (as the L. Cardinal himself doth acknowledge and confess) unjust sentence. But behold, to make the said sentence against john d' Albret seem the less contrary to equity, the L. Cardinal pretends, the Pope's donation was not indeed the principal cause, 
Pag. 5●.  howsoever Ferdinand himself made it his pretence. But his Lor. gives this for the principal cause: that john d' Albret had quitted his alliance made with condition; that in case the Kings of Navarre should infringe the said alliance, and break the league, than the Kingdom of Navarre should return to the Crown of Arragon. This condition, between Kings never made, and without all show of probability, serveth to none other purpose from the Cardinal's mouth, but only to insinuate and work a perrswasion in his King, that he hath no right nor lawful pretension to the Crown of Navarre: and whatsoever he now holdeth in the said Kingdom of Navarre, is none of his own, but by usurpation and unlawful possession. Thus his Lordship French-born, makes himself an Advocate for the Spanish King, against his own King, and King of the French: who shall be fain, as he ought (if this advocates plea may take place) to draw his title and style of King of Navarre out of his Royal titles, and to acknowledge that all the great endeavours of his predecessors to recover the said Kingdom, were dishonourable and unjust. Is it possible, that in the very heart and head City of France, a spirit & tongue so licentious can be brooked? What, shall so great blasphemy (as it were) of the King's freehold, be powered forth in so honourable an assembly, without punishment or fine? what, without any contradiction for the King's right, and on the King's behalf? I may perhaps confess the indignity might be the better borne, and the pretence alleged might pass for a poor excuse, if it served his purpose never so little. For how doth all this touch or come near the question? in which the Pope's usurpation in the deposing of Kings, and the resolution of the French in resisting this tyrannical practice, is the proper issue of the cause: both which points are never a whit more of the less consequence and importance, howsoever Ferdinand in his own justification stood upon the foresaid pretence. Thus much is confessed, and we ask no more: Pope julius took the Kingdom from the one, and gave it unto the other: the French thereupon resisted the Pope, and declared him to be fallen from the Papacy.  
This noble spirit and courage of the French, in maintaining the dignity and honour of their King's Crowns, bred those ancient customs, which in the sequence of many ages have been observed and kept in use. This for one: That no Legate of the Pope, nor any of his rescripts nor mandates, 
Pag. 26.  are admitted and received in France, 
Nisi de consensu Regis Christianissimi.  without licence from the King: and unless the Legate impart his faculties to the King's Attorney General, to be perused and verified in Court of Parliament: where they are to be tied by certain modifications & restrictions, unto such points as are not derogatory from the King's right, from the liberties of the Church, and from the ordinances of the Kingdom. 
Bochellus.  When Cardinal Balva, contrary to this ancient form, entered France in the year 1484. and there without leave of the King did execute the Office, and speed certain Acts of the Pope's Legate; the Court upon motion made by the King's Attorney General, decreed a Commission, to be informed against him by two Councillors of the said Court, and inhibited his further proceeding to use any faculty or power of the Pope's Legate, upon pain of being proclaimed rebel.  
In the year 1561. johannes Tanquerellus Bachelor in Divinity, by order of the Court was condemned to make open confession, 
Indiscretè ac inconsideratè.  that he had indiscreetly and rashly without consideration defended this proposition, The Pope is the Vicar of Christ, a Monarch that hath power both spiritual and secular, and he may deprive Princes, which rebel against his commandments, of their dignities. Which proposition, howsoever he protested that he had propounded the same only to be argued, 
Doctrinaliter tantùm & non iuridicè.  and not judicially to be determined in the affirmative, Tanquerellus nevertheless was compelled openly to recant. Here the L. Cardinal answers; The history of Tanquerellus is from the matter, because his proposition treateth neither of heresy nor of infidelity: but I answer, the said proposition treateth of both, for as much as it maketh mention of disobedience to the Pope. For I suppose he will not deny, that whosoever shall stand out in heresy, contrary to the Pope's monitory proceedings, he shall show but poor and simple obedience to the Pope. Moreover, the case is clear by the former examples, that no Pope will suffer his power to cast down Kings, to be restrained unto the cause of heresy and infidelity.  
In the heat of the last wars, raised by that holy-prophane League, admonitory Bulls were sent by Pope Gregory 14. from Rome, Anno 1591. By these Bull's King Henry 4. as an heretic and relapse, was declared incapable of the Crown of France, and his Kingdom was exposed to havoc and spoil. The Court of Parliament being assembled at Tours the 5. of August, decreed the said admonitory Bulls to be canceled, torn in pieces, and cast into a great fire by the hand of the public executioner. The Arrest itself or Decree is of this tenor: The Court duly pondering and approving the concluding and unanswearable reasons of the King's Attorney General, hath declared, and by these present doth declare, the admonitory Bulls given at Rome the 1. of March 1591. to be of no validity, abusive, seditious, damnable, full of impiety and impostures, contrary to the holy decrees, rights, franchises, and liberties of the French Church: doth ordain the Copies of the said Bulls, sealed with the seal of Marsilius Landrianus, and signed Septilius Lamprius, to be rend in pieces by the public executioner, and by him to be burnt in a great fire to be made for such purpose, before the great gates of the common Hall or Palace, etc. Then even then the L. of Perron was firm for the better part, and stood for his King against Gregory the Pope, notwithstanding the crime of heresy pretended against Henry his Lord.  
All the former examples by us alleged, are drawn out of the times after Schools of Divinity were established in France. For I thought good to bond myself within those doles and limits of time, which the L. Card. himself hath set. Who goeth not sincerely to work and in good earnest, where he telleth us there be three instances (as if we had no more) objected against Papal power, to remove Kings out of their chairs of State: by name, the example of Philip the Fair, 
Pag. 47.  of Lewis XII. and of Tanquerellus. For in very truth all the former examples by us produced, are no less pregnant and evident, howsoever the L. Cardinal hath been pleased to conceal them all for fear of hurting his cause.  
Nay, France even in the days of her sorest servitude, was never unfurnished of great Divines, by whom this usurped pow-of the Pope, over the Temporalties and Crowns of Kings, hath been utterly misliked and condemned.  
Robert Earl of Flanders was commanded by Pope Paschall 2. to persecute with fire and sword the Clergy of Liege, who then adhered and stood to the cause of the Emperor Henry 4. whom the Pope had ignominiously deposed. Robert by the Pope's order and command, was to handle the Clergy of Liege in like sort as before he had served the Clergy of Cambray, who by the said Earl had been cruelly stripped both of goods and life. The Pope promised the said Earl and his army pardon of their sins for the said execution. The Clergy of Liege addressed answer to the Pope at large. They cried out upon the Church of Rome, and called her Babylon. Told the Pope home, that God hath commanded to give unto Cesar that which is Caesar's: that every soul must be subject unto the superior powers: that no man is exempted out of this precept: and that every oath of allegiance is to be kept inviolable: yea, that hereof they themselves are not ignorant, in as much as they by a new schism, and new traditions, making a separation and rent of the priesthood from the Kingdom, do promise to absolve of perjury, such as have perfidiously forsworn themselves against their King. And whereas by way of despite and in opprobrious manner, they were excommunicated by the Pope, they gave his Holiness to understand, that David's heart had uttered a good matter, but Paschals heart had spewed up sordid and railing words, like old bawds and spinsters or websters of linen, when they scold and brawl one with an other. Finally, they rejected his Papal excommunication, as a sentence given without discretion. This was the voice and free speech of that Clergy, in the life time of their noble Emperor. But after he was thrust out of the Empire by the rebellion of his own son, instigated and stirred up thereunto by the Pope's persuasion and practice, and was brought unto a miserable death; it is no matter of wonder, that for the safeguard of their life, the said Clergy were driven to sue unto the Pope for their pardon.  
Hildebert Bishop of Caenomanum upon the river of Sartre, 
Bibliotheca Patrum.  living under the reign of King Philip the first, affirmeth in his Epistles 40. and 75. that Kings are to be admonished and instructed, 
Tom. 3.  rather than punished: to be dealt with by counsel, rather than by command, by doctrine and instruction, rather than by correction. For no such sword belongeth to the Church, because the sword of the Church is Ecclesiastical discipline, 
D● consider ib. 1. cap. 6.  and nothing else. Bernard writeth to Pope Eugenius after this manner: Whosoever they be that are of this mind and opinion, shall never be able to make proof, that any one of the Apostles did ever sit in quality of judge or Divider of lands. I read where they have stood to be judged, but never where they sat down to give judgement. Again, Your authority stretcheth unto crimes, not unto possessions: because you have received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, not in regard of possessions, but of crimes, to keep all that plead by covin or collusion, and not lawful possessors, out of the heavenly kingdom. A little after: These base things of the earth are judged by the Kings and Princes of this world: wherefore do you thrust your sickle into an others harvest? wherefore do you incraach and intrude upon an others limits? Elsewhere. The Apostles are directly forbid to make themselves Lords and rulers. 
Lib. 2. cap. 6.  Go thou then, and being a Lord usurp Apostleship, or being an Apostle usurp Lordship. If thou needs wilt have both, doubtless thou shalt have neither.  
johannes Maior Doctor of Paris: 
Dist. 24. quaest. 3.  The Sovereign Bishop hath no temporal authority over Kings. The reason. Because it follows (the contrary being once granted) that Kings are the Pope's vassals. Now let other men judge, whether he that hath power to dipossesse Kings of all their Temporalties, hath not likewise authority over their Temporalties.  
The same Author: 
Comment. in l. 4. Sent.  The Pope hath no manner of title over the French or Spanish Kings in temporal matters. 
Dist. 24. fol. 214.  Where it is further added, That Pope Innocent 3. hath been pleased to testify, that Kings of France in Temporal causes do acknowledge no superior. For so the Pope excused himself to a certain Lord of Montpellier, who in stead of suing to the King, had petitioned to the Pope for a dispensation for his bastard. But perhaps (as be speaketh) it will be alleged out of the gloss, that he acknowledgeth no superior by fact, and yet ought by right. But I tell you the gloss is an Aurelian gloss, which mars the text. Amongst other arguments, Mayor brings this for one: This opinion ministereth matter unto Popes, to take away an others Empire by force and violence: which the Pope shall never bring to pass, as we read of Boniface 8. against Philip the Fair. Saith beside, That from hence proceed wars, in time of which many outrageous mischiefs are done, and that Gerson calls them egregious flatterers by whom such opinion is maintained. In the same place Maior denies that Childeric was deposed by Pope Zacharie: The word, He deposed, saith Mayor, is not so to be understood, as it is taken at the first blush or sight; but he deposed, is thus expounded in the gloss, He gave his consent unto those by whom he was deposed.  
john of Paris: 
De potest. Regia & Papali. cap. 10.  Were it granted that Christ was armed with Temporal power, yet he committed no such power to Peter. A little after: The power of Kings is the highest power upon earth: in Temporal causes it hath no superior power above itself, no more than the Pope hath in spiritual matters. This author saith indeed, the Pope hath power to excommunicate the King; but he speaketh not of any power in the Pope to put down the King from his regal dignity and authority. He only saith, When a Prince is once excommunicated, he may accidentally or by occasion be deposed: because his precedent excommunication, incites the people to disarm him of all secular dignity & power. The same john on the other side holdeth opinion; that in the Emperor there is invested a power to depose the Pope, in case the Pope shall abuse his power.  
Almainus Doctor of the Sorbonic school: 
Almain. de potest. Eccl. & Laica.  It is essential in the Laye-power to inflict civil punishment, 
Quest. 2. cap. 8.  as death, banishment, and privation or loss of goods. But according to divine institution, the power Ecclesiastical can lay no such punishment upon delinquents: 
De dominio naturali civili & Eccl. 5. ult. pars.  nay more, not lay in prison, as to some Doctors it seemeth probable: but stretcheth and reacheth only to spiritual punishment, as namely to excommunication: all other punishments inflicted by the spiritual power, are merely by the Law positive. If then Ecclesiastical power by God's Law hath no authority to deprive any private man of his goods; how dares the Pope and his flatterers build their power to deprive Kings of their sceptres upon the word of God?  
The same author in an other place: Be it granted that Constantine had power to give the Empire unto the Pope; 
Quaest. 1. de potest. Eccles. & laic. c. 12. & 14.  yet is it not hereupon to be inferred, that Popes have authority over the Kingdom of France; because that Kingdom was never subject unto Constantine. For the King of France never had any superior in Temporal matters. A little after: It is not in any place to be found, that God hath given the Pope power to make and unmake Temporal Kings.  
He maintaineth elsewhere, 
Quaest. 2. c. 8. & sic non deposuit autoritatiue.  that Zacharie did not depose Childeric, but only consented to his deposing; and so deposed him not as by authority. In the same book, taking up the words of Occam, whom he styles the Doctor: 
Quae. 3. c. 2.  The Emperor is the Pope's Lord in things Temporal, 
Quaest. 1 1. c●●. Sacerd  and the Pope calls him Lord, as it is witnessed in the body of the Text. The Lord Cardinal hath dissembled and concealed these words of Doctor Almainus, with many like places: and hath been pleased to allege Almainus reciting occam's authority, in stead of quoting Almainus himself in those passages, where he speaketh as out of his own opinion, and in his own words. A notable piece of sly and cunning conveyance. For what heresy may not be fathered and fastened upon S. Augustine, or S. Hierome, if they should be deemed to approve all the passages which they allege out of other authors. And that is the reason wherefore the L. Cardinal doth not allege his testimonies whole and perfect, as they are couched in their proper texts, but clipped and curtailed. Thus he dealeth even in the first passage or testimony of Almainus; he brings it in mangled and pared: he hides and conceals the words added by Almainus, to contradict & cross the words going before. For Almainus makes this addition and supply; Howsoever some other Doctors do stand for the negative, and teach the Pope hath power only to declare that Kings and Princes are to be deposed. And so much appeareth by this reason; because this ample and Sovereign power of the Pope, might give him occasion to be puffed up with great pride, and the same fullness of power might prove extremely hurtful to the subjects, etc.  
The same Almainus brings in occam's opinion in express terms deciding the question, 
Quaest. 2. de potest. Eccl. & Laic. cap. 12.  and there joins his own opinion with Occams. The Doctor's opinion, saith Almainus, doth simply carry the most probability; that a Pope hath no power, neither by excommunication, nor by any other means, to dedepose a Prince from his Imperial and Royal dignity. 
In cap. 9 10 & 11.  And a little before, having maintained the Greek Empire was never transported by the Pope to the Germans, and that when the Pope crowns the Emperor, he doth not give him the Empire, no more than the Archbishop of Reims when he crowns the King of France, doth give him the Kingdom; he draws this conclusion according to occam's opinion: I deny that an Emperor is bound by oath to promise the Pope allegiance. On the other side, if the Pope hold any Temporal possessions, he is bound to swear allegiance unto the Emperor, and to pay him tribute. The said Occam alleged by Almainus doth further aver, that justinian was acknowledged by the Pope for his superior in Temporal causes: for as much as diverse laws which the Pope is bound to keep and observe, were enacted by justinian; as by name the law of prescription for an hundred years: which law standeth yet in force against the Bishop of Rome. And to the end that all men may clearly see, how great distance there is between occam's opinion and the L. Cardinals, who towards the end of his Oration, exhorts his hearers at no hand to dissent from the Pope; take you here a view of Occams own words, as they are alleged by Almainus: 
Quest▪ ●. cap. 14.  The Doctor assoyles the arguments of Pope Jnnocent, by which the Pope would prove out of these words of Christ, Whatsoever thou shalt bind, etc. that fullness of power in Temporal matters, belongeth to the Sovereign Bishop. For Innocent saith, Whatsoever, excepteth nothing. But Occam assoyles Innocents' authority, as not only false, but also heretical; and saith withal, that many things are spoken by Jnnocent, which by his leave savour and smell of heresy, etc.  
The L. Cardinal with less fidelity allegeth two places out of Thomas his Sum. 
Pag. 40.  The first, in the Second of his Second, Quest. 10. Art. 10. in the body of the Article. In which place (let it be narrowly examined) Thomas will easily be found to speak, not of the subjection of believing subjects under Infidel Kings, as the Lord Cardinal pretendeth, but of believing servants that live under Masters, whether jews or Infidels. As when a jew keepeth servants which profess jesus Christ; or as when some of the faithful kept in Caesar's house: who are not considered by Thomas as they were subjects of the Empire, but as they were servants of the family. The other place is taken out of Quest. 11. and 2. art. in the body of the article: where no such matter as the L. Cardinal allegeth can be found.  
With like fidelity he taketh Gerson in hand: 
Pag. 44.  who indeed in his book of Ecclesiastical power, and 12. Consider. doth affirm, When the abuse of secular power redoundeth to manifest impugning of the faith, and blaspheming of the Creator; then shall it not be amiss to have recourse unto the last branch of this 12. Consider. where, in such case as aforesaid, a certain regitive, directive, regulative, and ordinative authority is committed to the Ecclesiastical power. His very words: which make no mention at all of deposing, or of any compulsive power over Sovereign Princes. For that form of rule and government whereof Gerson speaketh, is exercised by Ecclesiastical censures & excommunications; not by loss of goods, of Kingdoms, or of Empires. This place than is wrested by the L. Cardinal to a contrary sense. Neither should his Lordship have omitted, that Gerson, in the question of King's subjection in Temporal matters, or of the dependence of their Crowns upon the Pope's power, excepteth always the King of France: witness that which Gerson a little before the place alleged by the Cardinal hath plainly affirmed: Now since Peter's time, saith Gerson, all Imperial, Regal, and Secular power is not immediately to draw virtue and strength from the Sovereign Bishop: as in this manner the most Christian King of France hath no Superior, nor acknowledgeth any such upon the face of the earth. Now here need no great sharpness of wit for the searching out of this deep mystery; that if the Pope hath power to give or take away Crowns for any cause or any pretended occasion whatsoever, the Crown of France must needs depend upon the Pope.  
But for as much as we are now hit in with Gerson, 
Pag. 108. 109. 119. where the Card. takes Char. 7. for Charl. 6.  we will examine the L. Cardinal's allegations towards the end of his Oration, taken out of Gersons famous Oration made before Charles 6. for the University of Paris: where he brings in Gerson to affirm, That killing a Tyrant is a sacrifice acceptable to God. But Gerson (let it be diligently noted) there speaketh not in his own person: he there brings in sedition speaking the words. Of which words uttered by sedition, and other like speeches, you shall now hear what judgement Gerson himself hath given. When sedition had spoken with such a furious voice, I turned away my face as if I had been smitten with death, to show that I was not able to endure her madness any longer. And indeed when dissimulation on the one side, and sedition on the other, had suggested the devices of two contrary extremes, he brings forth Discretion as a judge, keeping the mean between both extremes, and uttering those words which the L. Cardinal allegeth against himself. If the head, (saith Gerson) or some other member of the civil body, should grow to so desperate a pass, that it would gulp and swallow down the deadly poison of tyranny; every member in his place, with all power possible for him to raise by expedient means, and such as might prevent a greater inconvenience, should set himself against so mad a purpose, and so deadly practice: For if the head be grieved with some light pain, it is not fit for the hand to smite the head: no, that were but a foolish and a mad part. Nor is the hand forthwith to chop off or separate the head from the body, but rather to cure the head with good speech and other means, like a skilful and wise Physician. Yea nothing would be more cruel or more void of reason, then to seek to stop the strong and violent stream of tyranny by sedition. These words, me think, do make very strongly and expressly against butchering even of Tyrannical Kings. And whereas a little after the said passage, he teacheth to expel Tyranny, he hath not a word of expelling the Tyrant, but only of breaking and shaking off the yoke of Tyranny. Yet for all that, he would not have the remedies for the repressing of Tyranny, to be fetched from the Pope, who presumeth to degrade Kings, but from Philosophers, Lawyers, Divines, and personages of good conversation. It appeareth now by all that hath been said before, that whereas Gerson in the 7 Considerate. against Flatterers, doth affirm: Whensoever the Prince doth manifestly pursue and prosecute his natural subjects, and show himself obstinately bend with notorious injustice, to vex them of set purpose, and with full consent, so far as to the fact; then this rule and law of Nature doth take place, It is lawful to resist and repel force by force; and that sentence of Seneca, There is no sacrifice more acceptable to God, than a Tyrant offered in sacrifice; the words, Doth take place, are so to be understood, as he speaketh in an other passage, to wit, with or amongst seditious persons. Or else the words, doth take place, do only signify, is put in practice. And so Gerson there speaketh not as out of his own judgement.  
His Lordship also should not have balked and left out Sigebertus, who with more reason might have passed for French, than Thomas and Occam, whom he putteth upon us for French. Sigebertus in his Chronicle upon the year 1088. speaking of the emperors deposing by the Pope, hath words of this tenor: This heresy was not crept out of the shell in those days, that his Priests, who hath said to the King, Apostata, and maketh an hypocrite to rule for the sins of the people, should teach the people they owe no subjection unto wicked Kings, nor any allegiance, notwithstanding they have taken the oath of allegiance.  
Now after the L. Card. hath coursed in this manner through the histories of the last ages (which in case they all made for his purpose, do lack the weight of authority) in stead of searching the will of God in the sacred Oracles of his word, and standing upon examples of the ancient Church; at last leaving the troup of his own allegations, he betakes himself to the sharpening and rebating of the points of his adversaries weapons.  
For the purpose, he brings in his adversaries, 
Pag. 52. & sequentib.  the champions of King's Crowns, and makes them to speak out of his own mouth (for his L. saith it will be objected) after this manner: It may come to pass, that Popes either carried with passion, or misled by sinister information, may without just cause fasten upon Kings the imputation of heresy or apostasy. Then for King-deposers he frames this answer: That by heresy they understand notorious heresy, and formerly condemned by sentence of the Church. Moreover, in case the Pope hath erred in the fact, it is the Clergies part adhering to their King, to make remonstrances unto the Pope, and to require the cause may be referred to the judgement of a full Council, the French Church then and there being present. Now in this answer, 
Aduer. Barclaium.  the L. Cardinal is of an other mind than Bellarmine his brother Cardinal. For he goes thus far: That a Prince condemned by unjust sentence of the Pope, ought nevertheless to quit his Kingdom, and that his Pastors unjust sentence shall not redound to his detriment; provided that he give way to the said sentence, and show himself not refractory, but stay the time in patience, until the holy Father shall renounce his error, and revoke his foresaid unjust sentence. In which case these two material points are to be presupposed. The one, That he who now hath seized the Kingdom of the Prince displaced, will forthwith (if the Pope shall solicit and intercede) return the Kingdom to the hand of the late possessor. The other, That in the interim the Prince unjustly deposed, shall not need to fear the bloody murderers merciless blade and weapon. But on the other side, the Pope's power of so large a size, as Bellarmine hath shaped, is no whit pleasing to the L. Cardinal's eye. For in case the King should be unjustly deposed by the Pope not well informed, he is not of the mind the Kingdom should stoop to the Pope's behests, but will rather have the Kingdom to deal by remonstrance, and to refer the cause unto the Council. Wherein he makes the Council to be of more absolute and supreme authority than the Pope: a strain to which the holy Father will never lend his ear. And yet doubtless, the Council required in this case must be universal; wherein the French, for so much as they stand firm for their King and his cause, can be no judges: and in that regard the L. Cardinal requireth only the presence of the French Church. Who seeth not here into what pickle the French cause is brought by this means? The Bishops of Italy forsooth, of Spain, of Sicily, of Germany, the subjects of Sovereign's many times at professed or privy enmity with France, shall have the cause compromitted & referred to their judgement, whether the Kingdom of France shall drive out her Kings, and shall kindle the flames of seditious troubles, in the very heart and bowels of the Realm. But is it not possible, that a King may lack the love of his own subjects, and they taking the vantage of that occasion, may put him to his trumps in his own Kingdom? Is it not possible, that calumniations whereby a credulous Pope hath been seduced, may in like manner deceive some great part of a credulous people? Is it not possible, that one part of the people may cleave to the Pope's faction, an other may hold and stand out for the King's rightful cause, and civil wars may be kindled by the spleen of these two sides? Is it not possible, that his Holiness will not rest in the remonstrances of the French, & will yet further pursue his cause? And whereas now a days a General Council cannot be held, except it be called and assembled by the Pope's authority; is it credible, the Pope will take order for the convocation of a Council, by whom he shall be judged? And how can the Pope be Precedent in a Council, where himself is the party impleaded? and to whom the sifting of his own sentence is referred, as it were to committees, to examine whether it was denounced according to Law, or against justice? But in the mean time, whilst all these remonstrances and addresses of the Council are on foot; behold, the Royal Majesty of the King hangeth as it were by loose gimmals, and must stay the judgement of the Council to whom it is referred. Well: what if the Council should hap to be two or three years in assembling, and to continue or hold eighteen years, like the Council of Trent; should not poor France, I beseech you, be reduced to a very bad plight? should she not be in a very wise and warm taking? To be short; His Lordship's whole speech for the untying of this knot, not only surmounteth possibility, but is stuffed with ridiculous toys. This I make manifest by his addition in the same passage: If the Pope deceived in fact, shall rashly and unjustly declare the King to be an heretic; then the Pope's declaration shall not be seconded with actual deposition, unless the Realm shall consent unto the King's deposing. What needs any man to be instructed in this doctrine? Who doth not know, that a King, so long as he is upheld and maintained in his Kingdom by his people, cannot actually and effectually be deposed from his Throne? He that speaketh such language and phrase, in effect saith, and saith no more than this: A King is never deprived of his Crown, so long as he can keep his Crown on his head: a King is never turned and stripped naked, so long as he can keep his clothes on his back: a King is never deposed, so long as he can make the stronger party and side against his enemies: in brief, a King is King, and shall still remain King, so long as he can hold the possession of his Kingdom, and sit fast in his Chair of Estate. Howbeit, let us here by the way, take notice of these words uttered by his Lordship: That for the deposing of a King, the consent of the people must be obtained: For by these words the people are exalted above the King, and are made the judges of the Kings deposing.  
But here is yet a greater matter: 
Can. Si Papa, Dist. 40.  For that Popes may err in faith, 
Nisi sit à fide devius.  it is acknowledged by Popes themselves: For some of them have condemned Pope Honorius for a Monothelite: S. Hierome, and S. Hilarius, and S. Athanasius do testify, that Pope Liberius started aside, and subscribed to arianism: Pope john 23. was condemned in the Council of Constance, for maintaining there is neither hell nor heaven. diverse other Popes have been tainted with error in faith. If therefore any Pope heretical in himself, shall depose an Orthodox King for heresy; can it be imagined, that he which boasts himself to bear all divine and human laws in the privy coffer or casket of his breast, 
Omnia iura in scrinio pectoris.  will stoop to the remonstrances of the French, and veil to the reasons which they shall propound, though never so justifiable, and of never so great validity? And how can he, that may be infected with damnable heresy (when himself is not always free from heresy) be a judge of heresy in a King? In this question some are of opinion, that as a man, the Pope may fall into error, but not as Pope. Very good: I demand then upon the matter, wherefore the Pope doth not instruct and reform the man? or wherefore the man doth not require the Pope's instructions? But whether a King be deposed by that man the Pope, or by that Pope the man, is it not all one? is he not deposed? Others affirm, the Pope may err in a question of the fact, but not in a question of the right. An egregious gullery and imposture. For if he may be ignorant whether jesus Christ died for our sins, doubtless he may also be to seek, whether we should repose all our trust and assured confidence in the death of Christ. Consider with me the Prophets of old: They were all inspired and taught of God, to admonish and reprove the Kings of judah and Israel: they neither erred in matter of fact, nor in point of right: they were as far from being blinded and fetched over by deceitful calumniations, as from being seduced by the painted show of corrupt and false doctrine. As they never trod awry in matter of faith; so they never whetted the edge of their tongue or style against the faultless. Had it not been a trim device in their times, to say, that as Esay and as Daniel they might have sunk into heresy, but not as Prophets? For doubtless in this case, that Esay would have taken counsel of the Prophet which was himself. To be short; If Kings are only so long to be taken for Kings, until they shall be declared heretics, and shall be deposed by the Pope; they continually stand in extreme danger, to undergo a very heavy and unjust sentence. Their safest way were to know nothing, and to believe by proxy; lest, if they should happen to talk of God, or to think of religion, they should be drawn for heretics into the Pope's Inquisition.  
All the examples hitherto produced by the L. Cardinal on a row, are of a latter date, they lack weight, are drawn from the time of bondage, and make the Popes themselves witnesss in their own cause. They descant not upon the point of deposition, but only strike out and sound the notes of excommunication and interdiction, which make nothing at all to the music of the question. And therefore he telleth us (in kindness as I take it) more oftentimes then once or twice, that he speaketh only of the fact; as one that doth acknowledge himself to be out of the right. He relates things done, but never what should be done: which, as the judicious know, is to teach nothing.   

The second Jnconuenience examined.  
THE second Inconvenience like to grow, 
Pag. 86.  (as the Lord Cardinal seemeth to be half afraid) if the Article of the third Estate might have passed with approbation, is couched in these words: Lay-men shall by authority be strengthened with power, to judge in matters of Religion; as also to determine the doctrine comprised in the said Article to have requisite conformity with God's word: yea they shall have it in their hands to compel Ecclesiastics by necessity, to swear, preach, and teach the opinion of the one side, as also by Sermons and public writings to impugn the other. This inconvenience he aggravateth with swelling words, and breaketh out into these vehement exclamations: O reproach, O scandal, O gate set open to a world of heresies. He therefore laboureth both by reasons, & by authorities of holy Scripture, to make such usurped power of Laics, a fowl, shameful, and odious practice. In the whole, his Lordship toils himself in vain, and maketh suppositions of castles in the air. For in preferring this Article, the third Estate have born themselves not as judges or umpires, but altogether as petitioners: requesting the said Article might be received into the number of the Parliament books, to be presented unto the King and his Counsel, unto whom in all humility they referred the judgement of the said Article; conceiving all good hope the Clergy and Nobility would be pleased to join for the furtherance of their humble petition. They were not so ignorant of State-matters, or so unmindful of their own places and charges, to bear themselves in hand, that a petition put up and preferred by the third Estate, can carry the force of a Law or Statute, so long as the other two Orders withstand the same, and so long as the King himself holds back his Royal consent. Besides, the said Article was not propounded as a point of religious doctrine; but for ever after to remain and continue a fundamental Law of the Commonwealth and State itself, the due care whereof was put into their hands, and committed to their trust. If the King had ratified the said Article with Royal consent, and had commanded the Clergy to put in execution the contents thereof; it had been their duty to see the Kings will and pleasure fulfilled, as they are subjects bound to give him aid in all things, which may any way serve to procure the safety of his life, and the tranquillity of his Kingdom. Which if the Clergy had performed to the uttermost of their power, they had not showed obedience as underlings, unto the third Estate, but unto the King alone: by whom such command had been imposed, upon suggestion of his faithful subjects, made the more watchful by the negligence of the Clergy; whom they perceive to be linked with stricter bands unto the Pope, than they are unto their King. Here then the Cardinal fights with mere shadows, and moves a doubt whereof his adversaries have not so much as once thought in a dream. But yet, according to his great dexterity and nimbleness of spirit, by this device he cunningly takes upon him to give the King a lesson with more liberty: making semblance to direct his masked Oration to the Deputies of the people, when he shooteth in effect, and pricketh at his King, the Princes also and Lords of his Counsel, whom the Cardinal compriseth under the name of Laics; whose judgement (it is not unlikely) was apprehended much better by the Clergy, than the judgement of the third Estate. Now these are the men whom he termeth intruders into other men's charges, and such as open a gate for I wot not how many legions of heresies, to rush into the Church. For if it be proper to the Clergy and their Head, to judge in this cause of the Right of Kings; then the King himself, his Princes, and Nobility, are debarred and wiped of all judgement in the same cause, no less than the representative body of the people.  
Well then, 
Pag. 61.  the L▪ Cardinal showers down like hail sundry places and testimonies of Scripture, where the people are commanded to have their Pastors in singular love, and to bear them all respects of due observance. Be it so; yet are the said passages of Scripture no bar to the people, for their vigilant circumspection, to preserve the life and Crown of their Prince, against all the wicked enterprises of men stirred up by the Clergy, who have their Head out of the Kingdom, and hold themselves to be none of the King's subjects: a thing never spoken by the sacrificing Priests and Prelates, mentioned in the passages alleged by the Lord Cardinal. He likewise produceth two Christian Emperors, 
Pag. 62.  Constantine and Valentinian by name; the first refusing to meddle with judgement in Episcopal causes: the other forbearing to judge of subtle Questions in Divinity, with protestation, that He would never be so curious, to dive into the streams, or sound the bottom of so deep matters. But who doth not know, that working and providing for the King's indemnity and safety, is neither Episcopal cause, nor matter of curious and subtle inquisition? The same answer meets with all the rest of the places produced by the L. Cardinal out of the Fathers. And that one for example, out of Gregory Nazianzenus, 
Orat. ad cives timore perculsos.  is not cited by the Cardinal with fair dealing. For Gregory doth not board the Emperor himself, but his Deputy or L. Precedent, on this manner: 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  For we also are in authority and place of a Ruler, we have command aswell as yourself: whereas the L. Cardinal with fowl play, turns the place in these terms, We also are Emperors. Which words can bear no such interpretation, as well because he to whom the Bishop then spoke, was not of Imperial dignity; as also because if the Bishop himself, a Bishop of so small a city as Nazianzum, had qualified himself Emperor, he should have passed all the bounds of modesty, and had showed himself arrogant above measure. For as touching subjection due to Christian Emperors, he freely acknowledgeth a little before, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  that himself and his people are subject unto the superior powers, yea bound to pay them tribute. The history of the same Gregory's life doth testify, that he was drawn by the Arrians before the Consul's judgement seat, and from thence returned acquitted, without either stripes or any other kind of contumelious entreaty and use: yet now at last up starts a Prelate, who dares make this good Father vaunt himself to be an Emperor. It is willingly granted, that Emperors never challenged, never arrogated, to be Sovereign judges in controversies of doctrine and faith; nevertheless it is clearer than the suns light at high noon, that for moderation at Synods, for determinations and orders established in Councils, and for the discipline of the Church, they have made a good and a full use of their Imperial authority. The 1. Council held at Constantinople, bears this title or inscription; 
Vide Canon's Graecoes à Tilio editos.  The dedication of the holy Synod to the most religious Emperor Theodosius the Great, to whose will and pleasure they have submitted these Canons by them addressed and established in Council. And there they also beseech the Emperor, to confirm and approve the said Canons. The like hath been done by the Council of Trullo, by whom the Canons of the fifth and sixth Councils were put forth and published. This was not done, because Emperors took upon them to be infallible judges of doctrine; but only that Emperors might see and judge, whether Bishops (who feel the prick of ambition as other men do) did propound nothing in their Convocations and Consultations, but most of all in their Determinations, to undermine the emperors authority, to disturb the tranquillity of the Commonwealth, and to cross the determinations of precedent Councils. Now to take the cognizance of such matters out of the King's hand or power; what is it but even to transform the King into a standing image, to wring and wrest him out of all care of himself and his Kingly charge, yea to bring him down to this basest condition, to become only an executioner, and (which I scorn to speak) the unhappy hangman of the Clergies will, without any further cognizance, not so much as of matters which most nearly touch himself, and his Royal estate?  
I grant it is for Divinity Schools, to judge how far the power of the Keys doth stretch: I grant again, that Clerics both may, and aught also to display the colours and ensigns of their censures against Princes, who violating their public and solemn oath, do raise and make open war against jesus Christ: I grant yet again, that in this case they need not admit Laics to be of their counsel, nor allow them any scope or liberty of judgement. Yet all this makes no bar to Clerics, for extending the power of their keys, many times a whole degree further than they ought; and when they are pleased, to make use of their said power, to deprive the people of their goods, or the Prince of his Crown: all this doth not hinder Prince or people from taking care for the preservation of their own rights and estates, nor from requiring Clerics to show their cards, and produce their Charts, and to make demonstration by Scripture, that such power as they assume and challenge, is given them from God. For to leave the Pope absolute judge in the same cause wherein he is a party, and (which is the strongest rampire and bulwark, yea the most glorious and eminent point of his domination) to arm him with power to unhorsed Kings out of their feats; what is it else but even to draw them into a state of despair, for every winning the day, or prevailing in their honourable and rightful cause?  
It is moreover granted, if a King shall command any thing directly contrary to God's word, and tending to the subverting of the Church; that Clerics in this case ought not only to dispense with subjects for their obedience, but also expressly to forbid their obedience: For it is always better to obey God then man. Howbeit in all other matters, whereby the glory and majesty of God is not impeached or impaired, it is the duty of Clerics to ply the people with wholesome exhortation to constant obedience, and to avert by earnest dissuasions the said people from tumultuous revolt and seditious insurrection. This practice under the Pagan Emperors, was held and followed by the ancient Christians; by whose godly zeal and patience in bearing the yoke, the Church in times past grew and flourished in her happy and plentiful increase, far greater than Popery shall ever purchase and attain unto by all her cunning devices and sleights: as namely by degrading of Kings, by interdicting of Kingdoms, by apposted murders, and by Diabolical trains of Gunne-powder-mines.  
The places of Scripture alleged in order by the Cardinal, 
Pag. 66.  in favour of those that stand for the Pope's claim of power and authority to depose Kings, are cited with no more sincerity than the former: They allege (these are his words) that Samuel deposed King Saul, or declared him to be deposed, because he had violated the laws of the jews religion. His Lordship avoucheth elsewhere, that Saul was deposed, because he had sought profanely to usurp the holy Priesthood. Both false, and contrary to the tenor of truth in the sacred history. For Saul was never deposed, according to the sense of the word (I mean, depose) in the present question: to wit, as deposing is taken for despoiling the King of his Royal dignity, and reducing the King to the condition of a private person: But Saul held the title of King, and continued in possession of his Kingdom, even to his dying day. Yea, 
1. Sam. 23. 20. & 24. 15. & 2.  the Scripture styles him King, even to the periodical and last day of his life, by the testimony of David himself, 
Sam. 2. 5.  who both by God's promise, and by precedent unction, was then heir apparent as it were to the Crown, in a manner then ready to gird and adorn the temples of his head. For if Samuel, by God's commandment, had then actually removed Saul from his Throne, doubtless the whole Church of Israel had committed a gross error, in taking and honouring Saul for their King after such deposition: doubtless the Prophet Samuel himself, making known the Lord's ordinance unto the people, would have enjoined them by strict prohibition, to call him no longer the King of Israel: doubtless David would never have held his hand from the throat of Saul, for this respect and consideration, 
1. Sam. 26. 11.  because he was the Lords anointed. For if Saul had lost his Kingly authority, from that instant when Samuel gave him knowledge of his rejection; then David, lest otherwise the body of the Kingdom should want a Royal Head, was to begin his Reign, and to bear the Royal Sceptre in the very same instant: which were to charge the holy Scriptures with untruth, in as much as the sacred history begins the computation of the years of David's reign, from the day of Saul's death. True it is, that in the 2. Sam. cap. 15. Saul was denounced by Gods own sentence, a man rejected, and as it were excommunicated out of the Kingdom, that he should not rule and reign any longer as King over Israel; nevertheless the said sentence was not put in execution, before the day when God, executing upon Saul an exemplary judgement, did strike him with death. From whence it is manifest and clear, that when David was anointed King by Samuel, 
1. Sam. 16. 13.  that action was only a promise, and a testimony of the choice, which God had made of David for succession immediately after Saul; and not a present establishment, investment, or installment of David in the Kingdom. We read the like in 1. King. cap. 19 where God commandeth Elias the Prophet, to anoint Hasael King of Syria. For can any man be so blind and ignorant in the sacred History, to believe the Prophets of Israel established, or sacred the Kings of Syria? For this cause, 
2. Sam. 2. 4.  when David was actually established in the Kingdom, he was anointed the second time.  
In the next place he brings in the Pope's champions using these words; 
1. K●●. 12.  Rehoboam was deposed by Ahiah the Prophet, from his Royal right over the ten Tribes of Israel, because his father Solomon had played the Apostata, in falling from the Law of God. This I say also, is more than the truth of the sacred history doth afford. For Ahiah never spoke to Rehoboam (for aught we read,) nor brought unto him any message from the Lord. As for the passage quoted by the L. Cardinal out of Reg. 3. chap. 11. it hath not reference to the time of Rehoboams' reign, but rather indeed to Salomon's time: nor doth it carry the face of a judicatory sentence for the Kings deposing, but rather of a Prophetical prediction. For how could Rehoboam, before he was made King, be deprived of the Kingdom? Last of all, but worst of all; to allege this passage for an example of a just sentence in matter of deposing a King, is to approve the disloyal treachery of a servant against his master, and the rebellion of jeroboam branded in Scripture with a mark of perpetual infamy for his wickedness and impiety.  
He goes on with an other example of no more truth: 
1. Kin. 19  King Achab was deposed by Elias the Prophet, because he embraced false religion, and worshipped false gods. False too like the former; King Achab lost his Crown and his life both together. The Scripture, that speaketh not according to man's fancy, but according to the truth, doth extend and number the years of Achabs' reign, to the time of his death. Predictions of a King's ruin, are no sentences of deposition. Elias never gave the subjects of Achab absolution from their oath of obedience; never gave them the least inkling of any such absolution; never set up, or placed any other King in Achabs' Throne.  
That of the L. Cardinal a little after, 
Pag. 68  is no less untrue: That King Vzziah was driven from the conversation of the people by Azarias the Priest, and thereby the administration of his Kingdom was left no longer in his power. Not so: 
2. Chro. 26.  For when God had smitten Vzziah with leprosy in his forehead, he withdrew himself, or went out into an house apart, for fear of infecting such as were whole by his contagious disease. The high Priest smote him not with any sentence of deposition, or denounced him suspended from the administration of his Kingdom. No: the days of his reign are numbered in Scripture, to the day of his death. And whereas the Priest, according to the Law in the 13. of Leuit. judged the King to be unclean; he gave sentence against him, not as against a criminal person, and thereby within the compass of deposition; but as against a diseased body. For the Law inflicteth punishments, not upon diseases, but upon crimes. Hereupon, whereas it is recorded by josephus in his Antiquities, 
Antiq. l. 9 cap. 11.  that Vzziah lead a private, and in a manner, a solitary life; the said author doth not mean, that Vzziah was deposed, but only that he disburdened himself of care to manage the public affairs.  
The example of Mattathias, 
Pag. 69.  by whom the jews were stirred up to rebel against Antiochus, is no better worth. For in that example we find no sentence of deposition, but only an heartening and commotion of a people then grievously afflicted and oppressed. He that makes himself the ringleader of conspiracy against a King, doth not forthwith assume the person, or take up the office and charge of a judge, in form of law, and juridically to deprive a King of his Regal rights, and Royal prerogatives. Mattathias was chief of that conspiracy, not in quality of Priest, but of chieftain, or leader in war, and a man the best qualified of all the people. Things acted by the sudden violence of the base vulgar, must not stand for laws, nor yet for proofs and arguments of ordinary power, such as the Pope challengeth to himself, and appropriateth to his triple-Crowne.  
These be our solid answers: 
Pag. 67.  we disclaim the light armour which the L. Cardinal is pleased to furnish us withal, forsooth to recreate himself, in rebating the points of such weapons, as he hath vouchsafed to put into our hands. Now it will be worth our labour to beat by his thrusts, fetched from the ordinary mission of the new Testament, from leprosy, stones, and locks of wool. A leech no doubt of admirable skill, one that for subjecting the Crowns of Kings unto the Pope, is able to extract arguments out of stones; yea, out of the leprosy, and the dry scab, only forsooth because heresy is a kind of leprosy, and an heretic hath some affinity with a leper. But may not his Quoniam, be as fitly applied to any contagious & inveterate vice of the mind beside heresy? 
Pag. 66.  His warning-peice therefore is discharged to purpose, whereby he notifies that he pretendeth to handle nothing with resolution. For indeed upon so weak arguments, a resolution is but ill-favouredly and weakly grounded.  
His bulwarks thus beaten down, 
Pag. 69.  let us now view the strength of our own. First, he makes us to fortify on this manner: They that are for the negative, do allege the authority of S. Paul; Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers: For whosoever resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And likewise that of S. Peter, Submit yourselves, whether it be unto the King, as unto the superior, or unto governors, etc. Upon these passages, and the like, they infer, that obedience is due to Kings by the Law of God, and not dispensable by any spiritual or temporal authority. Thus he brings us in with our first weapon. But here the very chief sinew and strength of our argument, he doth wittingly baulk, and of purpose conceal. To wit, That all the Emperors of whom the said holy Apostles have made any mention in their divine Epistles, were professed enemies to Christ, Pagans, Infidels, fearful and bloody Tyrants: to whom notwithstanding every soul, and therefore the Bishop of Rome for one, is commanded to submit himself, and to profess subjection. Thus much Chrysostome hath expressly taught in his Hom. 23. upon the Epistle to the Romans; The Apostle gives this commandment unto all: even to Priests also, and cloistered Monks, not only to secular: be thou an Apostle, an Evangelist, a Prophet, etc. Besides, it is here worthy to be noted, that howsoever the Apostles rule is general, and therefore bindeth all the faithful in equal bands; yet is it particularly, directly, and of purpose addressed to the Church of Rome by S. Paul, as by one who in the spirit of an Apostle did foresee, that rebellion against Princes was to rise and spring from the city of Rome. Now in case the Head of that Church by warrant of any privilege, contained in the most holy Register of God's holy word, is exempted from the binding power of this general precept or rule; did it not become his Lordship to show by the book, that it is a book case, and to lay it forth before that honourable assembly, who no doubt expected & waited to hear when it might fall from his learned lips? But in stead of any such authentical and canonical confirmation, he flieth to a sleight shift, and with a cavil is bold to affirm the foundation, laid by those of our side, doth no way touch the knot of the controversy. Let us hear him speak: It is not in controversy, whether obedience be due to Kings by God's Law, so long as they are Kings, or acknowledged for Kings: but our point controverted, is whether by God's Law it be required, that he who hath been once recognized and received for King by the body of Estates, can at any time be taken and reputed as no King, that is to say, can do no manner of act whereby he may lose his right, and so cease to be saluted King. This answer of the L. Cardinal is the rare devise, evasion, and starting hole of the Jesuits. In whose ears of delicate and tender touch, King-killing soundeth very harsh: but forsooth to un-king a King first, and then to give him the stab, that is a point of just and true descant. For to kill a King, once unkinged by deposition, is not killing of a King. For the present I have one of that jesuitical Order in prison, who hath face enough to speak this language of Ashdod, and to maintain this doctrine of the Jesuits Colleges. The L. Cardinal harps upon the same string. He can like subjection and obedience to the King, whilst he sitteth King: but his Holiness must have all power, and give order withal, to hoist him out of his Royal seat. I therefore now answer, that in very deed the former passages of S. Paul and S. Peter should come nothing near the question, if the state of the question were such as he brings it, made and forged in his own shop. But certes the state of the question is not, whether a King may do some act, by reason whereof he may fall from his right, or may not any longer be acknowledged for King. For all our contention is, concerning the Pope's power to un-authorize Princes: whereas in the question framed and fitted by the L. Card. not a word of the Pope. For were it granted and agreed on both sides, that a King by election might fall from his Kingdom, yet still the knot of the question would hold, whether he can be dispossessed of his Regal authority, by any power in the Pope; and whether the Pope hath such fullness of power, to strip a King of those Royal robes, rights, and revenues of the Crown, which were never given him by the Pope; as also by what authority of holy Scripture, the Pope is able to bear out himself in this power, and to make it good.  
But here the L. Cardinal stoutly saith in his own defence by way of rejoinder; 
Pag. 71.  As one text hath, Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers; in like manner an other text hath, Obey your Prelates, and be subject unto your Pastors: for they watch over your souls, as men that shall give an account for your souls. This reason is void of reason, and makes against himself. For may not Prelates be obeyed and honoured, without Kings be deposed? If Prelates preach the doctrine of the Gospel, will they in the pulpit stir up subjects to rebel against Kings? Moreover, whereas the universal Church in these days is divided into so many discrepant parts, that now Prelates neither do nor can draw all one way; is it not exceeding hard, keeping our obedience towards God, to honour them all at once with due obedience? Nay; is not here offered unto me a dart out of the L. Cardinal's armory, to cast at himself? For as God chargeth all men with obedience to Kings, and yet from that commandment of God, the Lord Cardinal would not have it inferred, that Kings have power to degrade Ecclesiastical Prelates: even so God giveth charge to obey Prelates, yet doth it not follow from hence, that Prelates have power to depose Kings. These two degrees of obedience agree well together, and are each of them bounded with peculiar and proper limits.  
But for so much as in this point, we have on our side the whole ancient Church, which, albeit she lived and groaned for many ages together under heathen Emperors, heretics, and persecutors, did never so much as whisper a word about rebelling and falling from their Sovereign Lords, and was never by any mortal creature freed from the oath of allegiance to the Emperor; the Cardinal is not unwilling to grant, that ancient Christians in those times were bound to perform such fidelity & allegiance, for as much as the Church (the Cardinal for shame durst not say the Pope) then had not absolved them of their oath. No doubt a pleasant dream, or a merry conceit rather, to imagine the Bishop of Rome was armed with power to take away the Empire of the world from Nero, or Claudius, or Domitianus; to whom it was not known, whether the city of Rome had any Bishop at all. Is it not a master-iest, of a strain most ridiculous, to presuppose the Grand-masters and absolute Lords of the whole world, had a sent so dull, that they were not able to smell out, and to nose things under their own noses? that they saw so little with other men's eyes and their own, that within their capital city, they could not spy that Sovereign armed with ordinary and lawful authority to degrade, and to turn them out of their renowned Empire? Doubtless the said Emperors, vassals belike of the Pope's Empire, are to be held excused for not acknowledging and honouring the Pope in quality of their Lord, as became his vassals; because they did not know there was any such power in the world, as aftertimes have magnified and adored under the quality of Pope. For the Bishops of Rome in those times, were of no greater authority, power, and means, than some of the Bishops are in these days within my Kingdoms.  
But certes those Popes of that primitive age, thought it not expedient in the said times to draw their swords: they exercised their power in a more mild and soft kind of carriage toward those miserable Emperors, for three several reasons alleged by the L. Cardinal.  
The first: because the Bishops than durst not by their censures whet and provoke those Emperors, for fear of plunging the Church in a Sea of persecutions. But if I be not clean void of common sense, this reason serveth to charge not only the Bishops of Rome, but all the ancient professors of Christ beside, with deep dissimulation and hypocrisy. For it is all one as if he had professed, that all their obedience to their Sovereigns, was but counterfeit, and extorted, or wrung out of them by force: that all the submissive supplications of the ancient Fathers, the assured testimonies and pledges of their allegiance, humility, and patience, were but certain forms of disguised speech, proceeding not freely from the suggestions of fidelity, but faintly and feignedly, or at least from the strong twitches & violent convulsions of fear. Whereupon it follows, that all their torments and punishments, even to the death, are wrongfully honoured with the title, and crowned with the crown of Martyrdom; because their patience proceeded not from their own free choice and election, but was taught by the force of necessity, as by compulsion: and whereas they had not mutinously and rebelliously risen in arms, to assuage the scorching heat and burning flames of tyrannical persecutors, it was not for want of will, but for lack of power. Which false and forged imputation, the Fathers have cleared themselves of in their writings. 
Tert. Apol. cap. 37.  Tertullian in his Apologet: All places are full of Christians, 
Hesterni sumus, & omnia vestra implevimus.  the cities, isles, castles, burroughs, armies, etc. If we that are so infinite a power, and multitude of men, had broken from you into some remote nook or corner of the world, the cities no doubt had become naked and solitary: there had been a dreadful and horrible silence over the face of the whole Empire: the great Emperors had been driven to seek out new cities, and to discover new nations, over whom to bear Sovereign sway and rule: there had remained more enemies to the State, than subjects and friends. 
Cypr. cont. Demetr.  Cyprian also against Demetrianus: None of us all, howsoever we are a people mighty and without number, have made resistance against any of your unjust and wrongful actions, executed with all violence; neither have sought by rebellious arms, or by any other sinister practices, to cry quittance with you at any time for the righting of ourselves. Certain it is, that under julianus, the whole Empire in a manner professed the Christian Religion; yea, that his Lieutenants and great Commanders, as jovinianus, and Valentinianus by name, professed Christ. Which two Princes not long after attained to the Imperial dignity, but might have solicited the Pope sooner to degrade julianus from the Imperial Throne. For say that julians' whole army had renounced the Christian Religion: (as the L. Cardinal against all show and appearance of truth would bear us in hand, and contrary to the general voice of the said whole army, making this profession with one consent when julian was dead, 
Socr. lib. 3. cap. 19  We are all Christians:) yet Italy then persisting in the faith of Christ, 
Theod. lib. 4▪ cap. 1.  and the army of julian then lying quartered in Persia, 
Sozom. lib. 6. cap. 1.  the utmost limit of the Empire to the East, the Bishop of Rome had fit opportunity to draw the sword of his authority (if he had then any such sword hanging at his Pontifical side) to make julian feel the sharp edge of his weapon, and thereby to pull him down from the stately perch of the Roman Empire. I say moreover, that by this general and sudden profession of the whole Caesarian army, We are all Christians, it is clearly testified, that if his army or soldiers were then addicted to Paganism, it was wrought by compulsion, and clean contrary to their settled persuasion before: and then it follows, that with greater patience they would have borne the deposing of julian, then if he had suffered them to use the liberty of their conscience. To be short in the matter; S. Augustine makes all whole, and by his testimony doth evince, that julians' army persevered in the faith of Christ. The soldiers of Christ served a heathen Emperor: 
August●n Psal. 124.  But when the cause of Christ was called in question, they acknowledged none but Christ in heaven: When the Emperor would have them to serve, and to perfume his idols with frankincense, they gave obedience to God, rather than to the Emperor. After which words, the very same words alleged by the L. Cardinal against himself do follow: 
Pag. 81.  They did then distinguish between the Lord eternal, and the Lord temporal: nevertheless they were subject unto the Lord temporal, for the Lord eternal. It was therefore to pay God his duty of obedience, and not for fear to incense the Emperor, or to draw persecution upon the Church (as the L. Cardinal would make us believe) that Christians of the Primitive Church and Bishops by their censures, durst not anger and provoke their Emperors. But his Lordship by his coloured pretences doth manifestly provoke and stir up the people to rebellion, so soon as they know their own strength to bear out a rebellious practice. Whereupon it follows, that in case their conspiracy shall take no good effect, all the blame and fault must lie, not in their disloyalty and treason, but in the bad choice of their times for the best advantage, and in the want of taking a true sight of their own weakness. Let stirring spirits be trained up in such practical precepts, let desperate wits be seasoned with such rules of discipline; and what need we, or how can we wonder they contrive powder— conspiracies, and practise the damnable art of parricides?  
After julian, his Lordship falls upon Valentinian the younger, who maintaining arianism with great and open violence, might have been deposed by the Christians from his Empire, and yet (say we) they never dreamed of any such practice. 
Pag. 82.  Here the L. Cardinal maketh answer: The Christians moved with respect unto the fresh memory both of the brother and father, as also unto the weak estate of the sons young years, abstained from all counsels and courses of sharper effect and operation. To which answer I reply: these are but frivolous conjectures, devised and framed to tickle his own fancy. For had Valentinianus the younger been the son of an Arrian, and had then also attained to threescore years of age, they would never have borne themselves in other fashion than they did, towards their Emperor. Then the Cardinal goeth on: The people would not abandon the factious and seditious party, but were so firm or obstinate rather for the faction, that Valentinian for fear of the tumultuous uproars was constrained to give way, and was threatened by the soldiers, that except he would adhere unto the Catholics, they would yield him no assistance, nor stand for his party. Now this answer of the L. Cardinal makes nothing to the purpose, concerning the Pope's power to pull down Kings from their stately nest. Let us take notice of his proper consequence. Valentinian was afraid of the popular tumult at Milan: the Pope therefore hath power to curb heretical Kings by deposition. Now mark what distance is between Rome and Milan, what difference between the people of Milan, and the Bishop of Rome; between a popular tumult, and a judicatory sentence; between fact and right, things done by the people or soldiers of Milan, and things to be done according to right and law by the Bishop of Rome; the same distance, the same difference (if not far greater) is between the L. Cardinal's antecedent and his consequent, between his reason, and the main cause or argument which we have in hand. The mad commotion of the people was not here so much to be regarded, as the sad instruction of the Pastor, of their good and godly Pastor S. Ambrose, so far from heartening the people of Milan to rebel, that being Bishop of Milan, he offered himself to suffer Martyrdom: If the Emperor abuse his Imperial authority, (for so Theodoret hath recited his words) to tyrannize thereby, here am I ready to suffer death. And what resistance he made against his L. Emperor, was only by way of supplication in these terms: We beseech thee, O Augustus, as humble suppliants; we offer no resistance: we are not in fear, but we fly to supplication. 
Epist. lib. 5.  Again, If my patrimony be your mark, 
Epist. 33.  enter upon my patrimony: if my body, I will go and meet my torments. Shall I be dragged to prison or to death? I will take delight in both. Item, in his Oration to Auxentius: I can afflict my soul with sorrow, 
Epist. lib. 5.  I can lament, I can send forth grievous groans: My weapons against either of both, soldiers or Goths, are tears: A Priest hath none other weapons of defence: I neither can resist, nor ought in any other manner to make resistance.  
justinian Emperor in his old age fell into the heresy of the Aphthartodocites. Against justinian, though few they were that favoured him in that heresy, the Bishop of Rome never darted with violence any sentence of Excommunication, interdiction, or deposition.  
The Ostrogot Kings in Italy, the Visigot in Spain, the Vandal in Africa were all addicted to the Arrian impiety, and some of them cruelly persecuted the true professors. The Visigot and Vandal were no neighbours to Italy. The Pope thereby had the less cause to fear the stings of those wasps, if they had been angered. The Pope for all that never had the humour to wrestle or justle with any of the said Kings in the cause of deposing them from their Thrones. But especially the times when the Vandals in Africa, and the Goths in Italy by Belisarius and Narses, professors of the Orthodox faith, were tired with long wars, and at last were utterly defeated in bloody battles, are to be considered. Then were the times or never, for the Pope to unsheath his weapons, and to un-case his arrows of deposition; then were the times to draw them out of his quiver, and to shoot at all such Arrian Heads: then were the times by dispensations to release their subjects of their oaths, by that peremptory means to aid and strengthen the Catholic cause. But in that age the said weapons were not known to have been hammered in the Pontifical forge.  
Gregory I. made his boasts, that he was able to ruin the Lombard's, (for many years together sworn enemies to the Bishops of Rome) their state present, and the hope of all their future prosperity. But he telleth us, that by the fear of God before his eyes and in his heart, he was bridled and restrained from any such intent, as elsewhere we have observed: 
In Apol. pro iuram. fidel.  If I would have meddled with practising and procuring the death of the Lombard's, 
His own words. lib. 7. Epist. 1.  the whole nation of the Lombard's at this day had been robbed of their Kings, Dukes, Earls, they had been reduced to the terms of extreme confusion. He might at least have deposed their King, (if the credit of the L. Cardinal's judgement be currant) without polluting or staining his own conscience.  
What can we term this assertion of the L. Cardinal, but open charging the most ancient Bishops of Rome with cruelty, when they would not succour the Church of Christ oppressed by tyrants, whose oppression they had power to repress by deposing the oppressors. Is it credible, that jesus Christ hath given a Commission to S. Peter and his successors for so many ages, without any power to execute their Commission, or to make any use thereof by practice? Is it credible, that he hath given them a sword to be kept in the scabbard, without drawing once in a thousand years? Is it credible, that in the times when Popes were most debauched, abandoning themselves to all sorts of corrupt and vicious courses, as it testified by their own flatterers and best affected servants; is it credible that in those times they began to understand the virtue and strength of their Commission? For if either fear or lack of power, was the cause of holding their hands, and voluntary binding of themselves to the peace or good behaviour: wherefore is not some one Pope at least produced, who hath complained that he was hindered from executing the power that Christ had conferred upon his Pontifical See? Wherefore is not some one of the ancient and holy Fathers alleged, by whom the Pope hath been advised and exhorted to take courage, to stand upon the vigour and sinews of his Papal Office, to unsheath and unease his bolts of thunder against ungodly Princes, and grievous enemies to the Church? wherefore living under Christian and gracious Emperors, have they not made known the reasons, why they were hindered from drawing the pretended sword; least long custom of not using the sword so many ages, might make it so to rust in the scabbard, that when there should be occasion to use the said sword, it could not be drawn at all; and lest so long custom of not using the same, should confirm prescription to their greater prejudice? If weakness be a just let, how is it come to pass, that Popes have enterprised to depose Philip the Fair, Lewis the XII. and Elizabeth my predecessor of happy memory; (to let pass others) in whom experience hath well proved, how great inequality was between their strengths? Yea, for the most part from thence grow most grievous troubles and wars, which justly recoil and light upon his own head; as happened to Gregory the VII. and Boniface the VIII. This no doubt is the reason, wherefore the Pope never sets in (for fear of such inconveniences) to blast a King with lightning and thunder of deposition, but when he perceives the troubled waters of the Kingdom by some strong faction settled in his Estate; or when the King is confined, and bordered by some Prince more potent, who thirsteth after the prey, & is ever gaping for some occasion to pick a quarrel. The King standing in such estate, is it not as easy for the Pope to pull him down, as it is for a man with one hand to thrust down a tottering wall, when the groundsil is rotten, the studs unpind and nodding or bending towards the ground? But if the King shall bear down and break the faction within the Realm; if he shall get withal the upper hand of his enemies out of the Kingdom; then the holy Father presents him with pardons never sued for, never asked; and in a father's indulgence forsooth, gives him leave still to hold the Kingdom, that he was not able by all his force to wrest and wring out of his hand, no more than the club of Hercules out of his fist. How many worthy Princes, incensed by the Pope, to conspire against Sovereign Lords their Masters, and by open rebellion to work some change in their Estates, have miscarried in the action, with loss of life, or honour, or both? For example; Rodulphus Duke of Suevia was egged on by the Pope, against Henry FOUR of that name, Emperor. How many massacres, how many desolations of cities and towns, how many bloody battles ensued thereupon? Let histories be searched, let just accounts be taken, and beside sieges laid to cities, it will appear by true computation, that Henry FOUR and Frederic the I. fought above threescore battles, in defence of their own right against enemies of the Empire, stirred up to arms by the Popes of Rome. How much Christian blood was then split in these bloody battles, it passeth man's wit, pen, or tongue to express. And to give a little touch unto matters at home; doth not his Holiness understand right well the weakness of Papists in my Kingdom? Doth not his Holiness nevertheless animate my Papists to rebellion, and forbid my Papists to take the oath of allegiance? Doth not his Holiness by this means draw (so much as in him lieth) persecution upon the backs of my Papists as upon rebels, and expose their life as it were upon the open stall, to be sold at a very easy price? All these examples, either joint or several, are manifest and evident proofs, that fear to draw mischief and persecution upon the Church, hath not barred the Popes from thundering against Emperors and Kings, whensoever they conceived any hope, by their fulminations to advance their greatness.  
Last of all; I refer the matter to the most possessed with prejudice, even the very adversaries, whether this doctrine, by which people are trained up in subjection unto Infidel or heretical Kings, until the subjects be of sufficient strength to mate their Kings, to expel their Kings, and to depose them from their Kingdoms, doth not incense the Turkish Emperors and other Infidel Princes, to root out all the Christians that draw in their yoke, as people that wait only for a fit occasion to rebel, and to take themselves engaged for obedience to their Lords, only by constraint and servile fear. Let us therefore now conclude with Ozius, in that famous Epistle speaking to Constantius an Arrian heretic: 
Apud A. then. in Epist. ad solitar. vitam agentes.  As he that by secret practice or open violence would bereave thee of thy Empire, should violate God's ordinance: so be thou touched with fear, lest, by usurping authority over Church matters, thou tumble not headlong into some heinous crime. Where this holy Bishop hath not vouchsafed to insert and mention the L. Cardinal's exception; to wit, the right of the Church always excepted and saved, when she shall be of sufficient strength to shake off the yoke of Emperors. Neither speaks the same holy Bishop of private persons alone, or men of some particular condition and calling; but he setteth down a general rule for all degrees, never to impeach Imperial Majesty upon any pretext whatsoever.  
As his Lordship's first reason drawn from weakness is exceeding weak: 
The 2. reas.  so is that which the L. Cardinal takes up in the next place: 
Pag. 77.  He telleth us there is very great difference between Pagan Emperors, and Christian Princes: Pagan Emperors who never did homage to Christ, who never were by their subjects received, with condition to acknowledge perpetual subjection unto the Empire of Christ; who never were bound by oath and mutual contract between Prince and subject. Christian Princes who slide back by Apostasy, degenerate by arianism, or fall away by Mahometisme. Touching the latter of these two, (as his Lordship saith) If they shall as it were take an oath, and make a vow contrary to their first oath and vow made and taken when they were installed, and contrary to the condition under which they received the Sceptre of their Fathers; if they withal shall turn persecutors of the Catholic religion; touching these I say, the L. Cardinal holds, that without question they may be removed from their Kingdoms. He telleth us not by whom, but every where he meaneth by the Pope. Touching Kings deposed by the Pope under pretence of stupidity, as Childeric; or of matrimonial causes, as Philip I. or for collating of benefices, as Philip the Fair; not one word. By that point he easily glideth, and shuffles it up in silence, for fear of distasting the Pope on the one side, or his auditors on the other.  
Now in alleging this reason, his Lordship makes all the world a witness, that in deposing of Kings, the Pope hath no eye of regard to the benefit and security of the Church. For such Princes as never sucked other milk then that of Infidelity, and persecution of Religion, are no less noisome and pernicious vermin to the Church, then if they had sucked of the Church's breasts. And as for the greatness of the sin or offence, it seems to me there is very little difference in the matter. For a Prince that never did swear any religious obedience to jesus Christ, is bound no less to such obedience, then if he had taken a solemn oath. As the son that rebelliously stands up against his father, is in equal degree of sin, whether he hath sworn or not sworn obedience to his father: because he is bound to such obedience, not by any voluntary contract or covenant, but by the law of Nature. The commandment of God to kiss the Son, 
Psal. 2.  whom the Father hath confirmed and ratified King of Kings, doth equally bind all Kings, as well Pagans as Christians. On the other side, who denies, who doubts, that Constantius Emperor at his first step or entrance into the Empire, did not swear and bind himself by solemn vow, to keep the rules and to maintain the precepts of the Orthodox faith, or that he did not receive his father's Empire upon such condition? This notwithstanding, the Bishop of Rome pulled not Constantius from his Imperial throne, but Constantius removed the Bishop of Rome from his Papal See. And were it so, that an oath taken by a King at his consecration, and after violated, is a sufficient cause for the Pope to depose an Apostate or heretical Prince; then by good consequence the Pope may in like sort depose a King, who being neither dead in Apostasy, nor sick of heresy, doth neglect only the due administration of justice to his loyal subjects. For his oath taken at consecration importeth likewise, that he shall minister justice to his people. A point wherein the holy Father is held short by the L. Cardinal, who dares prescribe new laws to the Pope, and presumes to limit his fullness of power, within certain meres and headlands, extending the Pope's power only to the deposing of Christian Kings, when they turn apostates forsaking the Catholic faith; and not such Princes as never breathed any thing but pure Paganism, and never served under the colours of jesus Christ. Mean while his Lordship forgets, that King Attabaliba was deposed by the Pope from his Kingdom of Peru, and the said Kingdom was conferred upon the King of Spain, though the said poor King of Peru, never forsook his heathen superstition; and though the turning of him out of his terrestrial Kingdom was no way to convert him unto the faith of Christ. Yea his Lordship a little after telleth us himself, 
Pag. 77.  that Be the Turks possession in the conquests that he maketh over Christians never so ancient, yet by no long tract of time whatsoever, can he gain so much as a thumbs breadth of prescription: that is to say, the Turk for all that is but a disseisor, one that violently and wilfully keeps an other man from his own, and by good right may be dispossessed of the same: whereas notwithstanding the Turkish Emperors never favoured nor savoured Christianity. Let us run over the examples of Kings whom the Pope hath dared and presumed to depose; and hardly will any one be found, of whom it may be truly avouched, that he hath taken an oath contrary to his oath of subjection to jesus Christ, or that he hath wilfully cast himself into Apostatical defection.  
And certes to any man that weighs the matter with due consideration, it will be found apparently false, that Kings of France have been received of their subjects at any time, with condition to serve jesus Christ. They were actually Kings before they came forth to the solemnity of their sacring, before they used any stipulation or promise to their subjects. For in hereditary Kingdoms, (nothing more certain, nothing more uncontrollable) the King's death instantly maketh livery and seisin of the Royalty, to his next successor. Nor is it material to reply, that a King succeeding by right of inheritance, takes an oath in the person of his predecessor. For every oath is personal, proper to the person by whom it is taken: and to God no living creature can swear, that his own son or his heir shall prove an honest man. Well may the father, and with great solemnity, promise that he will exhort his heir apparent with all his power and the best of his endeavours, to fear God and to practise piety. If the father's oath be agreeable to the duties of godliness, the son is bound thereby, whether he take an oath, or take none. On the other side, if the father's oath come from the puddles of impiety, the son is bound thereby to go the contrary way. If the father's oath concern things of indifferent nature, and such as by the variety or change of times, become either pernicious or impossible; than it is free for the King's next successor and heir, prudently to fit and proportion his laws unto the times present, and to the best benefit of the Commonwealth.  
When I call these things to mind with some attention, I am out of all doubt his Lordship is very much to seek, in the right sense and nature of his King's oath taken at his Coronation, to defend the Church and to persevere in the Catholic faith. For what is more unlike and less credible than this conceit, that after Clovis had reigned 15. years in the state of Paganism, and then received holy Baptism, he should become Christian upon this condition, That in case he should afterward revolt from the faith, it should then be in the power of the Church, to turn him out of his Kingdom? But had any such conditional stipulation been made by Clovis, in very good earnest and truth; yet would he never have intended, that his deposing should be the act of the Roman Bishop, but rather of those (whether Peers, or people, or whole body of the State) by whom he had been advanced to the Kingdom. Let us hear the truth, and this is the truth: It is far from the customary use in France, for their Kings to take any such oath, or to use any such stipulation with their subjects. If any King or Prince wheresoever, doth use an oath or solemn promise in these express terms, Let me lose my Kingdom, or my life, be that day my last both for life and reign, when I shall first revolt from the Christian religion: by these words he calleth upon God for vengeance, he useth imprecation against his own head: but he makes not his Crown to stoop by this means, to any power in the Pope, or in the Church, or in the people.  
And touching inscriptions upon coins, of which point his Lordship speaketh by the way; verily the nature of the money or coin (the stamping and minting whereof is one of the marks of the Prince his dignity and Sovereignty) is not changed by bearing the letters of Christ's name, on the reverse or on the front. Such characters of Christ's name, are advertisements and instructions to the people, that in showing and yielding obedience unto the King, they are obedient unto Christ; and those Princes likewise, who are so well advised to have the most sacred names inscribed and printed in their coins, do take and acknowledge jesus Christ for supreme King of Kings. The said holy characters are no representation or profession, that any King's Crown dependeth upon the Church, or can be taken away by the Pope. The L. Cardinal indeed so beareth us in hand. But he inverts the words of jesus Christ, and wrings them out of the right joint. For Christ without all ambiguity and circumlocution, by the image and inscription of the money, doth directly and expressly prove Caesar to be free from subjection, and entirely Sovereign. Now if such a supreme and Sovereign Prince, at any time shall bandy and combine against God, and thereby shall become a rebellious and perfidious Prince; doubtless for such disloyalty he shall deserve, that God would take from him all hope of life eternal: and yet hereby neither Pope nor people hath reason to be puffed up, in their power to deprive him of his temporal Kingdom.  
The L. Cardinal saith beside: 
Pag. 76.  The champions of the Pope's power to depose Kings, do expound that commandment of S. Paul, whereby every soul is made subject unto the superior powers, to be a provisional precept or caution accommodated to the times; and to stand in force, only until the Church was grown in strength unto such a scantling, that it might be in the power of the faithful, without shaking the pillars of Christian state, to stand in the breach, and cautelously to provide that none but Christian Princes might be received: according to the Law in Deut. Thou shalt make thee a King from among thy brethren. The reason whereupon they ground is this: Because Paul saith, It is a shame for Christians to be judged under unjust Infidels, in matters or business, which they had one against an other. For which inconvenience, justinian after provided by Law; when he ordained that no Infidel nor heretic might be admitted to the administration of justice in the Commonwealth.  
In which words of the Cardinal, the word Received, is to be observed especially and above the rest. For by chopping in that word, he doth nimbly and with a trick of legier-de-main, transform or change the very state of the question. For the question or issue of the cause, is not about receiving, establishing, or choosing a Prince; (as in those Nations where the Kingdom goes by election) but about doing homage to the Prince, when God hath settled him in the Kingdom, and hath cast it upon a Prince by hereditary succession. For that which is written, Thou shalt make thee a King, doth no way concern and touch the people of France in these days: because the making of their King hath not of long time been tied to their election. The passage therefore in Deuteron▪ makes nothing to the purpose; no more than doth justinian's law. For it is our free and voluntary confession, that a Christian Prince is to have special care of the Laws, and to provide that no unbeliever be made Lord Cheife-Iustice of the Land, that no Infidel be put in trust with administration of justice to the people. But here the issue doth not direct us to speak of Delegates, of subordinate Magistrates, and such as are in Commission from the Prince, but of the supreme Prince himself, the Sovereign Magistrate ordained by nature, and confirmed by succession. Our question is, whether such a Prince can be unthroned by the Pope, by whom he was not placed in the Throne; and whether the Pope can despoil such a Prince, of that Royalty which was never given him by the Pope, under any pretended colour and imputation of heresy, of stupidity, or infringing the privileges of Monasteries, or transgressing the laws and lines of holy matrimony.  
Now that Saint Paul's commandment which bindeth every soul in the bands of subjection unto the higher powers, is no precept given by way of proviso, and only to serve the times, but a standing and a perpetual rule, it is hereby more than manifest. S. Paul hath grounded this commandment upon certain reasons, not only constant and permanent by their proper nature, but likewise necessary for every state, condition, and revolution of the times. His reasons; Because all powers are ordained of God: because resisting of powers is resisting the ordinance of God: because the Magistrate bears the sword to execute justice: because obedience and subjection to the Magistrate is necessary, not only for fear of his wrath, or fear of punishment, but also for conscience sake. It is therefore a case grounded upon conscience, it is not a law devised by human wisdom; it is not fashionable to the qualities of the times. Apostolical instructions for the right informing of manners, are not changeable according to times and seasons. To use the L. Cardinal's language, and to follow his fancy in the matter, is to make way for two pestiferous mischiefs: First, let it be free and lawful for Christians, to hold the commanding rules of God for provisional cautions, and what follows? Men are lead into the broad way of impiety, and the whole Scripture is wiped of all authority. Then again, for the other mischief: The glorious triumphs of most blessed Martyrs in their unspeakable torments and sufferings, by the L. cardinals position shall be judged unworthy to wear the title and Crown of Martyrdom. How so? Because (according to his new fiction) they have given place to the violence and fury of heathen Magistrates, not in obedience to the necessary and certain commandment of God, but rather to a provisional direction, accommodated to the humours of the times. And therefore the L. Cardinal hath used none other clay wherewith to daub over his devise, but plain falsification of holy Scripture. For he makes the Apostle say to the Corinthians, It is a shame for Christians to be judged under unbelieving Magistrates: whereas in that whole context of Paul, there is no such matter. For when the Apostle saith, I speak it even to your shame; 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  he doth not say it is a shame for a believer to be judged under an Infidel, but he makes them ashamed of their ungodly course, and unchristian practice, that in suing and impleading one an other, they laid their actions of contention in the Courts of unbelieving judges. The shame was not in bearing that yoke which God had charged their necks withal, but in devouring and eating up one an other with writs of habeas corpus, and with other processes; as also in uncovering the shame, in laying open the shameful parts and pranks played by Christians, before Infidels, to the great scandal of the Church. Here I say the L. Cardinal is taken in a trick of manifest falsification. If therefore a King when he falls to play the heretic, deserveth to be deposed; why shall not a Cardinal when he falls to play the juggler with holy Scripture, deserve to be disrobed?  
Mean while the indifferent Reader is to consider, how greatly this doctrine is prejudicial, and how full of danger, to Christians living under heretical or Pagan Princes. For make it once known to the Emperor of Turks, let him once get never so little a smack of this doctrine; that Christians living under his Empire do take God's commandment, for obedience to Princes whom they count Infidels, to be only a provisional precept for a time, and wait every hour for all occasions to shake off the yoke of his bondage; doubtless he will never spare with all speed to root the whole stock, with all the arms and branches of Christians, out of his dominions. Add hereunto the L. cardinals former determination; that possession kept never so long by the Turk in his Conquests over Christians, gains him not by so long tract of time one inch of prescription; and it will appear, that his Lordship puts the Turkish Emperor in mind, and by his instruction leads the said Emperor as it were by the hand, to have no manner of affiance in his Christian subjects; and withal to afflict his poor Christians with all sorts of most grievous and cruel torments. In this regard the poor Christians of Graecia and Syria, must needs be very little beholden to his Lordship. As for myself, and my Popish subjects, to whom I am no less than an heretic forsooth; am not I by this doctrine of the Cardinal, pricked and whetted against my natural inclination, to turn clemency into rigour; seeing that by his doctrine my subjects are made to believe, they owe me subjection only by way of proviso, and with waiting the occasion to work my utter destruction and final ruin? the rather, because Turks, miscreants, and heretics are mashalled by the Cardinal in the same rank; and heretics are counted worse, yea more justly deposeable, than Turks and Infidels, as irreligious breakers and violaters of their oath? Who seeth not here how great indignity is offered to me a Christian King? paralleled with Infidels, reputed worse than a Turk, taken for an usurper of my Kingdoms, reckoned a Prince, to whom subjects owe a forced obedience by way of provision, until they shall have means to shake off the yoke, and to bare my temples of the Crown, which never can be pulled from the sacred Head, but with loss of the head itself?  
Touching the wars undertaken by the French, English, and Germans, in their expedition for jerusalem, it appears by the issue and event of the said wars, that God approved them not for honourable. That expedition was a devise and invention of the Pope, whereby he might come to be enfeoffed in the Kingdoms of Christian Princes. For then all such of the French, English, or Germans, as undertook the Crusade, became the Pope's mere vassals. Then all robbers by the high way side, adulterers, cutthroats, and base bankrupts, were exempted from the Secular and Civil power, their causes were sped in Consistorian Courts, so soon as they had gotten the Cross on their cassocks or coat-armours, and had vowed to serve in the expedition for the Levant. Then for the Pope's pleasure and at his commandment, whole countries were emptied of their Nobles and common soldiers. Then they made long marches into the Levant. For what purpose? Only to die upon the points of the Saracens pikes, or by the edge of their barbarous courtelasses, battleaxes, falchions, and other weapons, without any benefit and advantage to themselves or others. Then the Nobles were driven to sell their goodly Manors, and ancient domains to the Churchmen, at under prizes and low rates; the very root from which a great part of the Church and Church-mens revenues hath sprung and grown to so great height. 
See the Bull of Innoc. 3. at the end of the Later. Conc.  Then, to be short, his most bountiful Holiness gave to any of the riffe-raffe-ranke, that would undertake this expedition into the Holy land, a free and full pardon for all his sins, besides a degree of glory above the vulgar in the Celestial Paradise. Military virtue, I confess, is commendable and honourable; provided it be employed for justice, and that generous nobleness of valiant spirits be not under a colour and shadow of piety, fetched over with some casts or devices of Italian cunning.  
Now let us observe the wisdom of the L. Cardinal through this whole discourse. His Lordship is pleased in his Oration, to cite certain few passages of Scripture, culls and picks them out for the most graceful in show: leaves out of his list whole troops of honourable witnesses, upon whose testimony, the Popes themselves and their principal adherents do build his power to depose Kings, and to give order for all Temporal causes. Take a sight of their best and most honourable witnesses. Peter said to Christ, See here two swords; and Christ answered, It is sufficient. Christ said to Peter, 
jer. 1.  Put up thy sword into thy sheath. God said to jeremy, I have established thee over Nations and Kingdoms. 
1. Cor. 2.  Paul said to the Corinthians, The spiritual man discerneth all things. Christ said to his Apostles, Whatsoever ye shall lose upon earth: by which words the Pope hath power forsooth to lose the oath of allegiance. Moses said, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 
Extavag. unam Sanctam.  Upon these passages, Pope Boniface 8. grappling and tugging with Philip the Fair, doth build his Temporal power. Other Popes and Papists avouch the like authorities. Christ said of himself, All things are given to me of my Father, and all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. The Devils said, If thou cast us out, send us into this herd of swine. Christ said to his Disciples, Ye shall find the colt of an ass bound, lose it and bring it unto me. By these places the adversaries prove, that Christ disposed of Temporal matters; and infer thereupon, why not Christ's Vicar as well as Christ himself. The places and testimonies now following are very express: In stead of thy fathers shall be thy children: 
Psal. 45.  thou shalt make them Princes through all the earth. Item, jesus Christ not only commanded Peter to feed his lambs; but said also to Peter, Arise, kill, and eat: the pleasant gloss, the rare invention of the L. Cardinal Baronius. 
joh. 12.  Christ said to the people, If I were lift up from the earth, I will draw all things unto me. Who lets, what hinders this place from fitting the Pope? Paul said to the Corinthians, Know ye not that we shall judge the Angels? how much more than the things that pertain unto this life? A little after, Have not we power to eat? These are the chief passages, on which as upon main arches, the roof of Papal Monarchy, concerning Temporal causes, hath rested for three or four ages past. And yet his Lordship durst not repose any confidence in their firm standing to bear up the said roof of Temporal Monarchy, for fear of making his auditors to burst with laughter. A wise part without question, if his Lordship had not defiled his lips before, with a more ridiculous argument drawn from the leprosy and dry scab.  
Let us now by way of comparison behold jesus Christ paying tribute unto Caesar, and the Pope making Caesar to pay him tribute: jesus Christ persuading the jews to pay tribute unto an heathen Emperor, and the Pope dispensing with subjects for their obedience to Christian Emperors: jesus Christ refusing to arbitrate a controversy of inheritance partable between two private parties, and the Pope thrusting in himself without warrant or Commission to be absolute judge in the deposing of Kings: jesus Christ professing that his Kingdom is not of this world, and the Pope establishing himself in a terrene Empire. In like manner the Apostles forsaking all their goods to follow Christ, and the Pope robbing Christians of their goods; the Apostles persecuted by Pagan Emperors, and the Pope now setting his foot on the very throat of Christian Emperors, then proudly treading Imperial Crowns under his feet. By this comparison, the L. Cardinal's allegation of Scripture in favour of his Master the Pope, is but a kind of puppet-play, to make jesus Christ a mocking stock, rather than to satisfy his auditors with any sound precepts and wholesome instructions. Hereof he seemeth to give some inkling himself. For after he hath been plentiful in citing authorities of Scripture, and of new Doctors, which make for the Pope's power to depose Kings; at last he comes in with a fair and open confession, 
Pag. 85.  that neither by divine Oracles, nor by honourable antiquity, this controversy hath been yet determined: and so pulls down in a word with one hand, the frame of work that he had built and set up before with an other: discovering withal the reluctation and privy checks of his own conscience.  
There yet remaineth one objection, the knot whereof the L. Cardinal in a manner sweateth to untie. 
Pag. 84.  His words be these: The champions for the negative fly to the analogy of other proceedings and practices in the Church. They affirm that private persons, masters or owners of goods and possessions among the common people, are not deprived of their goods for heresy; and consequently that Princes much more should not for the same crime be deprived of their estates. For answer to this reason, he brings in the defendants of deposition, speaking after this manner: In the Kingdom of France the strict execution of laws decreed in Court against heretics, is favourably suspended and stopped, for the preservation of peace and public tranquillity. He saith elsewhere, connivence is used towards these heretics in regard of their multitude, because a notable part of the French Nation and State is made all of heretics. I suppose that out of special charity, he would have those heretics of his own making, forewarned what courteous use and entreaty they are to expect; when he affirmeth that execution of the laws is but suspended. For indeed suspensions hold but for a time. But in a cause of that nature and importance, I dare promise myself, that my most honoured Brother the King of France, will make use of other counsel: will rather seek the amity of his neighbour Princes, and the peace of his Kingdom: will bear in mind the great and faithful service of those, who in matter of religion descent from his Majesty, as of the only men that have preserved and saved the Crown for the King his Father, of most glorious memory. I am persuaded my Brother of France will believe, that his liege people pretended by the L. Cardinal to be heretics, are not half so bad as my Roman Catholic subjects, who by secret practices under-mine my life, serve a foreign Sovereign, are discharged by his Bulls of their obedience due to me their natural Sovereign, are bound (by the maxims and rules published and maintained in favour of the Pope, before this full and famous assembly of the Estate at Paris; if the said maxims be of any weight and authority) to hold me for no lawful King, are there taught and instructed that Paul's commandment concerning subjection unto the higher powers, adverse to their professed religion, is only a provisional precept, framed to the times, and watching for the opportunity to shake off the yoke. All which notwithstanding, I deal with such Romane-Catholiks by the rules and ways of Princely clemency; their heinous and pernicious error, in effect no less than the capital crime of high treason, I use to call some disease or distemper of the mind. Last of all, I believe my said Brother of France will set down in his tables, as in record, how little he standeth engaged to the Lord Cardinal in this behalf. For those of the reformed Religion profess and proclaim, that next under God, they owe their preservation and safety to the wisdom and benignity of their Kings. But now comes the Cardinal, and he seeks to steal this persuasion out of their hearts: He tells them in open Parliament, and without any going about bushes, that all their welfare and security standeth in their multitude, and in the fear which others conceive to trouble the State, by the strict execution of laws against heretics.  
He addeth moreover, 
Note by the way that here the Church of Rome is called a sect.  that In case a third sect should peep out and grow up in France, the professors thereof should suffer confiscation of their goods, with loss of life itself: as hath been practised at Geneva against servetus, and in England against Arrians. My answer is this, That punishments for heretics, duly and according to law convicted, are set down by decrees of the civil Magistrate, bearing rule in the country where the said heretics inhabit, and not by any ordinances of the Pope. I say withal, the L. Cardinal hath no reason to match and parallel the Reformed Churches with servetus and the Arrians. For those heretics were powerfully convicted by God's word, and lawfully condemned by the ancient General Councils, where they were permitted and admitted to plead their own cause in person. But as for the truth professed by me, and those of the reformed religion, it was never yet hissed out of the Schools, nor cast out of any Council, (like some Parliament bills) where both sides have been heard with like indifferency. Yea, what Council soever hath been offered unto us in these latter times, it hath been proposed with certain presuppositions: as, That his Holiness (being a party in the cause, and consequently to come under judgement as it were to the bar upon his trial) shall be the judge of Assize with Commission of oyer and determiner: it shall be celebrated in a city of no safe access, without safe conduct or convoy to come or go at pleasure, and without danger: it shall be assembled of such persons with free suffrage and voice, as uphold this rule, (which they have already put in practice against john Hus and Hierom of Prage) that faith given, and oath taken to an heretic, must not be observed.  
Now then to resume our former matter; If the Pope hitherto hath never presumed, for pretended heresy to confiscate by sentence, either the lands or the goods of private persons, or common people of the French Nation, wherefore should he dare to dispossess Kings of their Royal Thrones? wherefore takes he more upon him over Kings, then over private persons? wherefore shall the sacred heads of Kings be more churlishly, uncivilly, and rigorously handled, than the hoods of the meanest people? Here the L. Cardinal in stead of a direct answer, breaks out of the lists, alleging clean from the purpose examples of heretics punished, not by the Pope, but by the civil Magistrate of the Country. But Bellarmine speaks to the point with a more free and open heart: he is absolute and resolute in this opinion, that his Holiness hath plenary power to dispose all Temporal estates and matters in the whole world: I am confident (saith Bellarmine) and I speak it with assurance, 
Contr. Barclaium. cap. 27.  that our Lord jesus Christ in the days of his mortality, had power to dispose of all Temporal things; yea, to strip Sovereign Kings and absolute Lords of their Kingdoms and Seignories: and without all doubt hath granted and left even the same power unto his Vicar, to make use thereof whensoever he shall think it necessary for the salvation of souls. And so his Lordship speaketh without exception of any thing at all. For who doth not know, that jesus Christ had power to dispose no less of private men's possessions, then of whole Realms and Kingdoms at his pleasure, if it had been his pleasure to display the ensigns of his power? The same fullness of power is likewise in the Pope. In good time: belike his Holiness is the sole heir of Christ, in whole and in part. The last Lateran Council fineth a Laic that speaketh blasphemy, 
Sess. 9  for the first offence (if he be a gentleman) at 25. ducats, and at 50. for the second. It presupposeth and taketh it for granted, that the Church may rifle and ransack the purses of private men, and cast lots for their goods. The Council of Trent diggeth as deep for the same vein of gold and silver. It ordains; That Emperors, 
Sess. 25 cap. 19  Kings, Dukes, Princes, and Lords of cities, castles, and territories holding of the Church, in case they shall assign any place within their limits or liberties for the duel between two Christians, shall be deprived of the said city, castle, or place, where such duel shall be performed, they holding the said place of the Church by any kind of tenure: that all other Estates held in fee where the like offence shall be committed, shall forthwith fall and become forfeited to their immediate and next Lords: that all goods, possessions, and estates, as well of the combatants themselves, as of their seconds shall be confiscate. This Council doth necessarily presuppose, it lieth in the hand and power of the Church, to dispose of all the lands and estates, held in fee throughout all Christendom; (because the Church forsooth can take from one, and give unto an other all estates held in fee whatsoever, as well such as hold of the Church, as of secular Lords) and to make ordinances for the confiscation of all private persons goods. By this Canon the Kingdom of Naples hath need to look well unto itself. For one duel it may fall into the Exchequer of the Roman Church: because that Kingdom payeth a Relief to the Church, as a Royalty or signory that holdeth in fee of the said Church. And in France there is not one Lordship, not one Manor, not one farm which the Pope by this means cannot shift over to a new Lord. His Lordship therefore had carried himself and the cause much better, if in stead of seeking such idle shifts, he had by a more large assertion maintained the Pope's power to dispose of private men's possessions, with no less right and authority then of Kingdoms. For what colour of reason can be given, for making the Pope Lord of the whole, and not of the parts? for making him Lord of the forest in gross, and not of the trees in parcel? for making him Lord of the whole house, and not of the parlour or the dining chamber?  
His Lordship allegeth yet an other reason, but of no better weight: Between the power of private owners over their goods, and the power of Kings over their estates, there is no little difference. For the goods of private persons are ordained for their owners, and Princes for the benefit of their Commonwealths. Hear me now answer. If this Cardinal-reason hath any force to infer, that a King may lawfully be deprived of his Kingdom for heresy, but a private person cannot for the same crime be turned out of his mansion house; than it shall follow by the same reason, that a Father for the same cause may be deprived of all power over his children, but a private owner cannot be deprived of his goods in the like case: because goods are ordained for the benefit and comfort of their owners, but fathers are ordained for the good and benefit of their children. But most certain it is, that Kings representing the image of God in earth and God's place, have a better and closer seat in their chairs of Estate, than any private persons have in the saddle of their inheritances and patrimonies, which are daily seen for sleight causes, to flit and to fall into the hands of new Lords. Whereas a Prince being the Head, cannot be loosed in the proper joint, nor dismounted; like a cannon when the carriage thereof is unlocked, without a sore shaking and a most grievous dislocation of all the members, yea without subverting the whole body of the State, whereby private persons without number are enwrapped together in the same ruin: even as the lower shrubs and other brush-wood are crushed in pieces altogether by the fall of a great oak. But suppose his Lordship's reason were somewhat ponderous and solid withal, yet a King (which would not be forgotten) is endowed not only with the Kingdom, but also with ancient desmenes and Crowne-lands, for which none can be so simple to say, the King was ordained and created King; which nevertheless he looseth when he looseth his Crown. Admit again this reason were of some pith, to make mighty Kings more easily deposeable then private persons from their patrimonies; yet all this makes nothing for the deriving and fetching of deposition from the Pope's Consistory. What he never conferred, by what right or power can he claim to take away?  
But see here no doubt a sharp and subtle difference put by the L. Cardinal between a Kingdom, and the goods of private persons. Goods, as his Lordship saith, are without life: they can be constrained by no force, by no example, by no inducement of their owners to lose eternal life: Subjects by their Princes may. Now I am of this contrary belief, That an heretical owner, or master of a family, hath greater power and means withal, to seduce his own servants and children, than a Prince hath to pervert his own subjects; and yet for the contagion of heresy, and for corrupt religion, children are not removed from their parents, nor servants are taken away from their masters. Histories abound with examples of most flourishing Churches, under a Prince of contrary religion. And if things without life or soul are with less danger left in an heretics hands; why then shall not an heretical King with more facility and less danger keep his Crown, his Royal charge, his lands, his customs, his imposts? etc. For will any man, except he be out of his wits, affirm these things to have any life or soul? Or why shall it be counted folly, to leave a sword in the hand of a mad Bedlam? Is not a sword also without life and soul? For my part, I should rather be of this mind; that possession of things without reason, is more dangerous and pernicious in the hands of an evil Master, than the possession of things endued with life and reason. For things without life lack both reason and judgement, how to exempt and free themselves from being instruments in evil and wicked actions, from being employed to ungodly and abominable uses. I will not deny, that an heretical Prince is a plague, a pernicious and mortal sickness to the souls of his subjects. But a breach made by one mischief, must not be filled up with a greater inconvenience. An error must not be shocked and shouldered with disloyalty, nor heresy with perjury, nor impiety with sedition and armed rebellion against God and the King. God, who useth to try and to school his Church, will never forsake his Church: nor hath need to protect his Church by any proditorious and prodigious practices of perfidious Christians. For he makes his Church to be like the burning bush. In the midst of the fire and flames of persecutions, he will provide that she shall not be consumed, because he standeth in the midst of his Church. And suppose there may be some just cause for the French, to play the rebels against their King; yet will it not follow, that such rebellious motions are to be raised by the bellows of the Roman Bishop, to whose Pastoral charge and office it is nothing proper, to intermeddle in the civil affairs of foreign Kingdoms.  
Here is the sum and substance of the L. Cardinal's whole discourse, touching his pretence of the second inconvenience. Which discourse he hath closed with a remarkable confession: to wit, that neither by the authority of holy Scripture, nor by the testimony and verdict of the Primitive Church, there hath been any full decision of this question. In regard whereof he falleth into admiration, that Lay-people have gone so far in audaciousness, as to labour that a doubtful doctrine might for ever pass currant, and be taken for a new article of faith. What a shame, what a reproach is this? how full of scandal? for so his Lordship is pleased to cry out. This breaks into the severals and enclosures of the Church: this lets in whole herds of heresies to graze in her green and sweet pastures. On the other side, without any such Rhetorical outcries, I simply affirm: It is a reproach, a scandal, a crime of rebellion, for a subject having his full charge and load of benefits, in the new spring of his Kings tender age, his King-fathers' blood yet reeking, and upon the point of an address for a double match with Spain; in so honourable an assembly, to seek the thraldom of his King's Crown, to play the captious in cavilling about causes of his Kings deposing, to give his former life the lie with shame enough in his old age, and to make himself a common byword, under the name of a problematical Martyr; one that offers himself to faggot and fire for a point of doctrine but problematically handled, that is, distrustfully and only by way of doubtful and questionable discourse: yea for a point of doctrine, in which the French (as he pretendeth) are permitted to thwart and cross his Holiness in judgement, provided they speak in it as in a point not certain and necessary, but only doubtful and probable.   

The third Jnconvenience examined.  
THE third Inconvenience pretended by the L. Cardinal to grow by admitting this Article of the third Estate, 
Pag. 87.  is flourished in these colours: It would breed and bring forth an open and unavoideable schism against his Holiness, and the rest of the whole Ecclesiastical body. For thereby the doctrine long approved and ratified by the Pope and the rest of the Church, should now be taxed and condemned of impious and most detestable consequence; yea the Pope and the Church, even in faith and in points of salvation, should be reputed and believed to be erroneously persuaded. Hereupon his Lordship gives himself a large scope of the rains, to frame his elegant amplifications against schisms and schismatics.  
Now to mount so high, and to fly in such place upon the wings of amplification for this Inconvenience, what is it else but magnifically to report and imagine a mischief by many degrees greater than the mischief is? The L. Cardinal is in a great error, if he make himself believe, that other nations will make a rent or separation from the communion of the French, because the French stand to it tooth and nail, that French Crowns are not liable or obnoxious to Papal deposition; howsoever there is no schism that importeth not separation of communion. The most illustrious Republic of Venice, hath embarked herself in this quarrel against his Holiness▪ hath played her prize, and carried away the weapons with great honour. Doth she, notwithstanding her triumph in the cause, forbear to participate with all her neighbours in the same Sacraments? doth she live in schism with all the rest of the Roman Church? No such matter. When the L. Cardinal himself not many years past, maintained the King's cause, and stood honourably for the King's right against the Pope's Temporal usurpations, did he then take other Churches to be schismatical, or the rotten members of Antichrist? Believe it who list, I believe my Creed. Nay, his Lordship telleth us himself a little after, that his Holiness gives the French free scope, to maintain either the affirmative or negative of this question. And will his Holiness hold them schismatics, that dissent from his opinion and judgement in a subject or cause esteemed problematical? far be it from his Holiness. The King of Spain, reputed the Pope's right arm, never gave the Pope cause by any act or other declaration, to conceive that he acknowledged himself deposeable by the Pope for heresy, or Tyranny, or stupidity. But being well assured the Pope standeth in greater fear of his arm, than he doth of the Pope's head and shoulders, he never troubles his own head about our question. More, when the book of Cardinal Baronius was come forth, in which book the Kingdom of Naples is decried and publicly discredited (like false money) touching the quality of a Kingdom, and attributed to the King of Spain, not as true proprietary thereof, but only as an Estate held in fee of the Roman Church; the King made no bones to condemn and to banish the said book out of his dominions. The holy Father was contented to put up his Catholic Sons proceeding to the cardinals disgrace, never opened his mouth against the King, never declared or noted the King to be schismatical. He waits perhaps for some fitter opportunity; when the Kingdom of Spain groaning under the burdens of intestine dissensions and troubles, he may without any danger to himself give the Catholic King a Bishop's mate. Yea, the L. Cardinal himself is better seen in the humours and inclinations of the Christian world, then to be grossly persuaded, that in the Kingdom of Spain, and in the very heart of Rome itself there be not many, which either make it but a jest, or else take it in fowl scorn, to hear the Pope's power over the Crowns of Kings once named: especially since the Venetian Republic hath put his Holiness to the worse in the same cause, and cast him in Law.  
What needed the L. Cardinal then, by casting up such mounts and trenches, by heaping one amplification upon an other, to make schism look with such a terrible and hideous aspect? Who knows not how great an offence, how heinous a crime it is to quarter, not jesus Christ's coat, but his body, which is the Church? And what needed such terrifying of the Church with ugliness of schism, whereof there is neither colourable show, nor possibility?  
The next ugly monster, after schism, shaped by the L. Cardinal in the third supposed and pretended inconvenience, is heresy. His Lordship saith for the purpose: 
Pag. 89.  By this Article we are cast headlong into a manifest heresy, as binding us to confess, that for many ages past the Catholic Church hath been banished out of the whole world. For if the champions of the doctrine contrary to this Article, do hold an impious and a detestable opinion, repugnant unto God's word; then doubtless the Pope for so many hundred years expired, hath not been the head of the Church, but an heretic and the Antichrist. He addeth moreover; That the Church long ago hath lost her name of Catholic, and that in France there hath no Church flourished, nor so much as appeared these many and more than many years: for as much as all the French Doctors for many years together have stood for the contrary opinion. We can erect and set up no trophy more honourable for heretics in token of their victory, then to avow that Christ's visible Kingdom is perished from the face of the earth, and that for so many hundred years there hath not been any Temple of God, nor any spouse of Christ, but every where, and all the world over, the Kingdom of Antichrist, the Synagogue of Satan, the spouse of the Devil, hath mightily prevailed and borne all the sway. Lastly, what stronger engines can these heretics wish or desire, for the battering and the demolishing of transubstantiation, of auricular confession, and other like towers of our Catholic religion, then if it should be granted the Church hath decided the said points without any authority? etc.  
Me thinks the Lord Cardinal in the whole draft and course of these words, doth seek not a little to blemish the honour of his Church, and to mark his religion with a black coal. For the whole frame of his mother-Church is very easy to be shaken, if by the establishing of this Article she shall come to final ruin and shall become the Synagove of Satan. Likewise, Kings are brought into a very miserable state and condition, if their Sovereignty shall not stand, if they shall not be without danger of deposition, but by the total ruin of the Church, and by holding the Pope, whom they serve, to be Antichrist. The L. Cardinal himself (let him be well sifted) herein doth not credit his own words. For doth not his Lordship tell us plain, that neither by divine testimony, nor by any sentence of the ancient Church, the knot of this controversy hath been untied? again, that some of the French, by the Pope's favourable indulgence, are licenced or tolerated to say their mind, to deliver their opinion of this question, though contrary to the judgement of his Holiness; provided they hold it only as problematical, and not as necessary? What? Can there be any assurance for the Pope, that he is not Antichrist; for the Church of Rome, that she is not a Synagogue of Satan, when a man's assurance is grounded upon wavering and wild uncertanties, without Canon of scripture, without consent or countenance of antiquity, and in a cause which the Pope with good leave suffereth some to toss with winds of problematical opinion? It hath been showed before, that by God's word, whereof small reckoning perhaps is made, by venerable antiquity, and by the French Church in those times when the Pope's power was mounted aloft, the doctrine which teaches deposing of Kings by the Pope, hath been checked and countermanded. What, did the French in those days believe, the Church was then swallowed up, and no where visible or extant in the world? No verily. Those that make the Pope of Sovereign authority for matters of faith, are not persuaded that in this cause they are bound absolutely to believe and credit his doctrine. Why so? Because they take it not for any decree or determination of faith; but for a point pertaining to the mysteries of State, and a pillar of the Pope's Temporal Monarchy; who hath not received any promise from God, that in causes of this nature he shall not err. For they hold, that error by no means can crawl or scramble up to the Papal See, so highly mounted; but grant ambition can scale the highest walls, and climb the loftiest pinnacles of the same See. They hold withal, that in a case of so special advantage to the Pope, whereby he is made King of Kings, and as it were the paymaster or distributer of Crowns, it is against all reason that he should sit as judge, to carve out Kingdoms for his own share. To be short, let his Lordship be assured that he meets with notorious blocke-heads, more blunt witted then a whetstone, when they are drawn to believe by his persuasion, that whosoever believes the Pope hath no right nor power to put Kings beside their Thrones, to give and take away Crowns, are all excluded and barred out of the heavenly Kingdom.  
But now follows a worse matter: For they whom the Cardinal reproachfully calls heretics, have wrought and won his Lordship (as to me seemeth) to plead their cause at the bar, and to betray his own cause to these heretics. For what is it in his Lordship, but plain playing the Praevaricator, when he crieth so loud, that by admitting and establishing of this Article, the doctrine of cake-incarnation and privy Confession to a Priest, is utterly subverted? Let us hear his reason, and willingly accept of the truth from his lips. The Articles (as his Lordship granteth) of Transubstantiation, auricular Confession, and the Pope's power to depose Kings, are all grounded alike upon the same authority. Now he hath acknowledged the Article of the Pope's power to depose Kings, is not decided by the Scripture, nor by the ancient Church, but within the compass of certain ages past, by the authority of Popes and Councils. Then he goes on well, and infers with good reason, that in case the point of the Pope's power be weakened, than the other two points must needs be shaken, and easily overthrown. So that he doth confess the monstrous birth of the breaden-God, and the blind Sacrament or vain fantasy of auricular confession, are no more conveyed into the Church by pipes from the springs of sacred Scripture, or from the rivers of the ancient Church, then that other point of the Pope's power over Kings and their Crowns. Very good: For were they indeed derived from either of those two heads, that is to say, were they grounded upon the foundation of the first or second authority; then they could never be shaken by the downfall of the Pope's power to depose Kings. I am well assured, that for using so good a reason, the world will hold his Lordship in suspicion, that he still hath some smack of his father's discipline and instruction, who in times past had the honour to be a Minister of the holy Gospel.  
Howbeit he playeth not fair, nor useth sincere dealing in his proceeding against such as he calls heretics; when he casts in their dish, and bears them in hand they frowardly wrangle for the invisibility of the Church in earth. For indeed the matter is nothing so. They freely acknowledge a visible Church. For howsoever the assembly of Gods elect, doth make a body not discernible by man's eye: yet we assuredly believe, and gladly profess, there never wanted a visible Church in the world; yet only visible to such as make a part of the same. All that are without see no more but men, they do not see the said men to be the true Church. We believe moreover of the universal Church visible, that it is composed of many particular Churches, whereof some are better fined and more clean from lees and dregs than other: and withal, we deny the purest Churches to be always the greatest and most visible.   

The fourth and last Inconvenience examined.  
THE Lord Cardinal before he looketh into the last Inconvenience, useth a certain preamble of his own life past, and services done to the Kings, Henry the III. and FOUR Touching the latter of which two Kings, his Lordship saith in a strain of boasting, after this manner: I, by the grace of God, or the grace of God by me rather, reduced him to the Catholic religion. I obtained at Rome his absolution of Pope Clement 8. I reconciled him to the holy See. Touching the first of these points; I say the time, the occasions, and the foresaid Kings necessary affairs do sufficiently testify, that he was induced to change his mind, and to alter his religion, upon the strength of other manner of arguments then Theological schools, or the persuasions of the L. Cardinal's fluent Rhetoric, do usually afford, or could possibly suggest. Moreover, who doth not know, that in affairs of so high nature and consequence, resolutions once taken, Princes are to proceed with instructions by a formal course? As for the King's absolution, pretended to be purchased of Clement 8. by the L. Cardinal's good service; it had been the part of so great a Cardinal, for the honour of his King, of the Realm, and of his own place, to have buried that piece of his notable service in perpetual silence, and in the dark night of eternal oblivion. For in this matter of reconcilement, it is not unknown to the world, how shamefully and basely he prostituted the inviolable dignity of his King, when his Lordship representing the person of his King, and couching on the ground, by way of sufficient penance, was glad (as I have noted in the Preface to my Apology) to have his venerable shoulders gracefully saluted with stripes, and reverently worshipped with bastonadoes of a Pontificial cudgel. Which graceful, or disgraceful blemish rather, it pleased Pope Clement of his rare clemency, to grace yet with a higher degree of spiritual graces: in giving the L. Cardinal than Bishop of Eureux, a certain quantity of holy grains, crosses, and medals, or little plates of silver, or some other metal, to hang about the neck, or to be born about against some evil. Which treasures of the Pope's grace, whosoever should graciously and reverently kiss, they should without fail purchase unto themselves a pardon for one hundred years. These feat and pretty gugawes for children, were no doubt a special comfort unto the good King's heart, after his Majesty had been handsomely basted upon the L. Bishop's back. But with what face can his Lordship brag, that he prevailed with Pope Clement for the King's absolution? The late Duke of Nevers, not long before had solicited his Holiness, with all earnest and humble instance to the same purpose; howsoever, the King's affairs then seeming desperate in the Pope's eye, he was licenced to depart for France, without any due and gracious respect unto his errand. But so soon as the Pope received intelligence, of the King's fortunes growing to the full, and the affairs of the League to be in the wane, and the principal cities, the strongest places of garrison through all France to strike tops and tops gallant, and to hale the King; then the holy Ghost in good time inspired the holy Father with a holy desire and tender affection, to receive this poor wandering sheep again into the flock of Christ, and bosom of holy Church. His Holiness had reason. For he feared by his obstinate severity to provoke the patience of the French, and to drive that Nation (as they had many times threatened before) then to put in execution their ancient design; which was, to shake off the Pope, and to set up some of their own tribes or kindreds for Patriarch over the French Church. But let his Lordship vouchsafe to search the secret of his own bosom, and no doubt he will not stick to acknowledge, that before he stirred one foot out of France, he had good assurance of the good success and issue of his honourable embassage.  
Now the hearers thus prepared by his Preface, the L. Cardinal proceedeth in his purpose; namely to make proof, how this Article of the third Estate, wherein doubtful and questionable matters are mingled and confounded with certain and indubitable principles, doth so debilitate and weaken the sinews and virtue of any remedy intended for the danger of Kings, as it maketh all remedies and receipts prescribed for that purpose, to become altogether unprofitable, and without effect. He yields this reason, (take it forsooth upon my warrant) a reason full of pith and substance: The only remedy against parricides, is to thunder the solemn curses of the Church, and the punishments to be inflicted after death: which points, if they be not grounded upon infallible authority, will never be settled in men's persuasions with any certain assurance. Now in the solemn curses of the Church, no man can attain to the said assurance, if things not denied be mingled with points not granted, and not consented unto by the Universal Church. By a thing not denied and not contested, the L. Cardinal means prohibiting and condemning of King-killing: & by points contested, he means denying of the Pope's power to depose Kings.  
In this whole discourse, I find neither pith of argument, nor course of proof; but only a cast of the L. cardinals office by way of counsel: whereunto I make this answer. If there be in this Article of the third Estate any point, wherein all are not of one mind and the same judgement; in whom lieth all the blame, from whence rises the doubt, but from the Popes and Popish parasites, by whom the certainty of the said point hath been cunningly removed and conveyed away, and must be restored again by public authority? Now the way to restore certainty unto a point, which against reason is called into doubt and question, is to make it up in one mass, or to tie it up in the same bundle, with other certain points of the same nature.  
Here I am forced to summon the consciences of men, to make some stand or stay upon this point, and with me to enter into deep consideration, how great and unvanquishable force is ever found in the truth. For these two questions, Whether Kings may lawfully be made away by assassins waged and hired for the act; and Whether the Pope hath lawful power to chase Kings out of their Thrones, are by the L. Cardinals own confession, in so full aspect of conjunction, that if either be brought under any degree of doubt, the other also is fetched within the same compass. In which words he directly pointeth as with a finger to the very true source of the main mischief, and to the basilique and liver vein, infected with pestilential blood, inflamed to the destruction of basilical Princes by detestable parricide. For whosoever shall confidently believe that Popes are not armed with power to depose Kings; will believe with no less confidence and assurance, it is not lawful by sudden assaults to fly at their throats. For are not all desperate villains persuaded, when they are hired to murder Kings, that in doing so damnable a feat, they do it for a piece of notable and extraordinary service to the Pope? This maxim therefore is to be held for a principle unmovable and indubitable; that, If subjects desire the life of their Kings to be secured; they must not yield the Pope one inch of power, to deprive their Kings of their Thrones and Crowns, by deposing their Kings.  
The Lord Cardinal testifieth no less himself in these words: If those monsters of men, and furies of hell, by whom the lifeblood of our two last Kings was let out, had ever been acquainted with Laws Ecclesiastical, they might have read themselves adjudged by the Council of Constance to express damnation. For in these words, the L. Cardinal preferreth a bill of indictment to cast his Holiness; who, upon the commencing of the Leaguers wars, in stead of giving order for the publishing of the said Ecclesiastical Laws for the restraining of all parricidical practices and attempts, fell to the terror of his fulminations, which not long after were seconded and ratified by the most audacious and bloody murder of King Henry III. In like manner, the whole Clergy of France are wrapped up by the L. Cardinal's words, and involved in the peril of the said indictment. For in stead of preaching the said Ecclesiastical Laws, by which all King-killing is inhibited; the Priests taught, vented, and published nothing but rebellion; and when the people in great devotion came to power their confessions into the Priest's ears; then the Priests, with a kind of counterbuff in the second place when their turn was come, and with greater devotion, powered blood into the ears of the people: out of which root grew the terror of those cruel wars, and the horrible parricide of that good King.  
But let us here take some near sight of these Ecclesiastical Laws, whereby subjects are inhibited to kill, or desperately to dispatch their Kings out of the way. The L. Cardinal, for full payment of all scores upon this reckoning, layeth down the credit of the Council at Constance, which nevertheless affordeth not one mite of true and current payment. The truth of the history may be taken from this brief relation. john Duke of Burgundy, procured Lewis Duke of Orleans to be murdered in Paris. To justify and make good this bloody act, he produced a certain petimaster, one called by the name of john Petit. This little john caused nine propositions to be given forth or set up, to be discussed in the famous University of Paris. The sum of all to this purpose: It is lawful, just, and honourable, for every subject or private person, either by open force and violence, or by deceit and secret lying in wait, or by some witty stratagem, or by any other way of fact, to kill a Tyrant practising against his King and other higher powers: yea the King ought in reason, to give him a pension or stipend, that hath killed any person disloyal to his Prince. The words of Petits first proposition be these: It is lawful for every subject, 
Gerson.  without any command or commission from the higher powers, by all the Laws of nature, of man, and of God himself, to kill or cause to be killed any Tyrant, who either by a covetous and greedy desire, or by fraud, by divination upon casting of lots, by double and treacherous dealing, doth plot or practise against his King's corporal health, or the health of his higher powers. In the third proposition: It is lawful for every subject, honourable and meritorious, to kill the said Tyrant, or cause him to be killed as a Traitor, disloyal and treacherous to his King. In the sixth proposition: The King is to appoint a salary and recompense for him that hath killed such a Tyrant, or hath caused him to be killed. These propositions of johannes Parvus, were condemned by the Council of Constance, as impious, and tending to the scandal of the Church. Now then, whereas the said Council no doubt understood the name or word Tyrant in the same sense, wherein it was taken by johannes Parvus; certain it is, the Council was not of any such judgement or mind, to condemn one that should kill a King or Sovereign Prince; but one that by treason, and without commandment should kill a subject, rebelling and practising against his King. For john Petit had undertaken to justify the making away of the Duke of Orleans to be a lawful act, and calls that Duke a Tyrant, albeit he was no Sovereign Prince; as all the above recited words of john Petit do testify, that he speaketh of such a Tyrant, as being in state of subjection rebelleth against his free and absolute Prince. So that whosoever shall narrowly search and look into the mind and meaning of the said Council, shall easily perceive, that by their decrees the safety of Kings was not confirmed but weakened, not augmented but diminished: for as much as they inhibited private persons to kill a subject, attempting by wicked counsels and practices to make away his King.  
But be it granted, the Council of Constance is flat and altogether direct against King-killers. For I am not unwilling to be persuaded, that had the question than touched the murdering of Sovereign Princes, the said Council would have passed a sound and holy decree. But, I say, this granted, what shield of defence is hereby reached to Kings, to ward or beat off the thrusts of a murderer's weapon, and to save or secure their life? seeing the L. Cardinal, building upon the subtle devise and shift of the Jesuits, hath taught us out of their Schools, that by Kings are understood Kings in esse, not yet fallen from the supreme degree of Sovereign Royalty. For being once deposed by the Pope, (say the Jesuits) they are no longer Kings, but are fallen from the rights of Sovereign dignity; and consequently to make strip and waste of their blood, is not forsooth to make strip and waste of Royal blood. These jesuitical masters, in the file of their words are so supple and so limber, that by leaving still in their speech some starting hole or other, they are able by the same, as by a postern or back-door, to make an escape.  
Mean while the Readers are here to note (for well they may) a trick of monstrous and most wicked cunning. The L. Cardinal contends for the bridling and hampering of King-killers by the Laws Ecclesiastical. Now it might be presumed, that so reverend and learned a Cardinal intending to make use of Ecclesiastical laws, by virtue whereof the life of Kings may be secured, would fill his mouth and garnish the point with divine Oracles, that we might the more gladly and willingly give him the hearing, when he speaks as one furnished with sufficient weight and authority of sacred Scripture. But behold, in stead of the authentical and most ancient word, he propounds the decree of a late-born Council at Constance, neither for the Pope's tooth, nor any way coming near the point in controversy. And suppose it were pertinent unto the purpose, the L. Cardinal beareth in his hand a fork of distinction, with two tines or teeth to bear off, nay to shift off and to avoid the matter with mere dalliance. The shortest and nearest way (in some sort of respects) to establish a false opinion, is to charge or set upon it with false and with ridiculous reasons. The like way to work the overthrow of true doctrine, is to rest or ground it upon frivolous reasons or authorities of stubble-weight. For example; if we should thus argue for the immortality of the soul with Plato: 
In Phaedone.  The swan singeth before her death; ergo, the soul is immortal. Or thus with certain seduced Christians: The Pope hath ordained the word of God to be authentical: ergo, all credit must be given to divine Scripture. Upon the spurkies or hooks of such ridiculous arguments and frivolous reasons, the L. Cardinal hangs the life and safety of Kings.  
With like artificial devices he pretendeth to have the infamous murders, and apposted cutting of King's throats in extreme detestation; and yet by deposing them from their Princely dignities, by degrading them from their supreme and Sovereign authorities, he brings their sacred heads to the butcher's block. For a King deposed by the Pope, (let no man doubt) will not leave any stone unremoved, nor any means and ways unattempted, nor any forces or powers of men unlevied or unhired, to defend himself and his Regal dignity, to repress and bring under his rebellious people, by the Pope discharged of their allegiance. In this perplexity of the public affairs, in these tempestuous perturbations of the State, with what perils is the King not besieged and assaulted? His head is exposed to the chances of war; his life a fair mark to the insidious practices of a thousand traitors; his Royal person obvious to the dreadful storm of angry fortune, to the deadly malice, to the fatal and mortal weapons of his enemies. The reason: He is presupposed to be lawfully and orderly stripped of his Kingdom. Will he yet hold the stern of his Royal estate? Then is he necessarily taken for a Tyrant, reputed an usurper, and his life is exposed to the spoil. For the public laws make it lawful and free, for any private person to enterprise against an usurper of the Kingdom: 
In reos Maiestatis, & publicos hostes omnis homo miles est. Ter. apol. cap. 2.  Every man, saith Tertullian, is a soldier, to bear arms against all Traitors and public enemies. Take from a King the title of lawful King, you take from him the warrant of his life, and the weapons whereby he is maintained in greater security, then by his Royal Guard armed with swords and halberds, through whose wards and ranks, a desperate villain will make himself an easy passage, being master of an other man's life, because he is prodigal and careless of his own. Such therefore as pretend so much pity towards Kings, to abhor the bloody opening of their liver-veine, and yet withal to approve their hoisting out of the Royal dignity; are just in the vain and humour of those that say, Let us not kill the King, but let us disarm the King that he may die a violent death: let us not deprive him of life, but of the means to defend his life: let us not strangle the King and stop his vital breath, so long as he remaineth King; O that were impious, O that were horrible and abominable; but let him be deposed, and then whosoever shall run him through the body with a weapon up to the very hilts, shall not bear the guilt of a King-killer. All this must be understood to be spoken of Kings, who after they are despoiled of Regality, by sentence of deposition given by the Pope, are able to arm themselves, and by valiant arms do defend their Sovereign rights. But in case the King, blasted with Roman lightning, and stricken with Papal thunder, shall actually and speedily be smitten down from his high Throne of Regality, with present loss of his Kingdom; I believe it is almost impossible for him to warrant his own life, who was not able to warrant his own Kingdom. Let a cat be thrown from a high roof to the bottom of a cellour or vault, she lighteth on her feet, and runneth away without taking any harm. A King is not like a cat, howsoever a cat may look upon a King: he cannot fall from the lofty pinnacle of Royalty, to light on his feet upon the hard pavement of a private state, without crushing all his bones in pieces. It hath been the lot of very few Emperors and Kings, to outlive their Empire. For men ascend to the lofty Throne of Kings, with a soft and easy pace, by certain steps and degrees; there be no stately stairs to come down, they tumble head and heels together when they fall. He that hath once gripped another's Kingdom, thinks himself in little safety, so long as he shall of his courtesy suffer his disseised predecessor to draw his breath. And say that some Princes, after their fall from their Thrones, have escaped both point and edge of the Tyrant's weapon; yet have they wandered like miserable fugitives in foreign countries, or else have been condemned like captives to perpetual imprisonment at home, a thousandfold worse and more lamentable than death itself. Dyonisius the Tyrant of Syracuse, from a great King in Sicily turned Schoolmaster in Corinth. It was the only calling & kind of life, that as he thought bearing some resemblance of rule and government, might recreate his mind, as an image or picture of his former Sovereignty over men. This Dyonisius was the only man (to my knowledge) that had a humour to laugh after the loss of a Kingdom, and in the state of a Pedant or governor of children, merrily to jest and to scorn his former state and condition of a King. In this my Kingdom of England, sundry Kings have seen the walls as it were of their Princely fortress dismantled, razed, and beaten down. By name, Edward and Richard, both II. and Henry VI all which Kings were most cruelly murdered in prison. In the reign of Edward III. by act of Parliament, whosoever shall imagine, (that is the very word of the Statute) or machinate the King's death, are declared guilty of rebellion and high treason. The learned judges of the Land, grounding upon this law of Edward the third, have ever since reputed and judged them traitors according to Law, that have dared only to whisper or talk softly between the teeth, of deposing the King. For they count it a clear case, that no Crown can be taken from a King's head, without loss of Head and Crown together, sooner or later.  
The L. Cardinal therefore in this most weighty and serious point doth merely dally, and flout after a sort, when he tells us, The Church doth not intermeddle with releasing of subjects, 
Pag. 95.  and knocking off their irons of obedience, but only before the Ecclesiastical tribunal seat; and that besides this double censure, of absolution to subjects, and excommunication to the Prince, the Church imposeth none other penalty. Under pretence of which two censures, so far is the Church (as the L. Cardinal pretendeth) from consenting that any man so censured should be touched for his life, that she utterly abhorreth all murder whatsoever; but especially all sudden and unprepenced murders, for fear of casting away both body and soul; which often in sudden murders go both one way. It hath been made manifest before, that all such proscription and setting forth of Kings to port-sale, hath always for the train thereof, either some violent and bloody death, or some other mischief more intolerable than death itself. What are we the better, that parricides of Kings are neither set on, nor approved by the Church in their abominable actions; when she layeth such plots, and taketh such courses, as necessarily do infer the cutting of their throats? In the next place be it noted, that his Lordship against all reason, reckons the absolving of subjects from the oath of allegiance, in the rank of penalties awarded and enjoined before the Ecclesiastical tribunal seat. For this penalty is not Ecclesiastical, but Civil, and consequently not triable in Ecclesiastical Courts, without usurping upon the civil Magistrate. But I wonder with what face the Lord Cardinal can say, the Church never consenteth to any practice against his life, whom she hath once chastised with severe censures. For can his Lordship be ignorant, what is written by Pope Vrbanus, 
Can. excom. Caus 23. Quaest. 6.  Can. Excommunicatorum. We take them not in any wise to be manslayers, who in a certain heat of zeal towards the Catholic Church their Mother, shall happen to kill an excomunicate person. More, if the Pope doth not approve and like the practice of King-killing, wherefore hath not his Holiness imposed some severe censure upon the book of Mariana the jesuit (by whom parricides are commended, nay highly extolled) when his Holiness hath been pleased to take the pains, to censure and call in some other of Mariana's books? Again, wherefore did his Holiness advise himself, to censure the decree of the Court of Parliament in Paris against john Chastell? Wherefore did he suffer Garnet and Oldcorne my powder-miners, both by books and pictures vendible under his nose in Rome, to be enrolled in the Canon of holy Martyrs? And when he saw two great Kings murdered one after an other, wherefore by some public declaration did not his Holiness testify to all Christendom, his inward sense and true apprehension of so great misfortune, as all Europe had just cause to lament on the behalf of France? Wherefore did not his Holiness publish some Law or Pontificial decree, to provide for the security of Kings in time to come? True it is that he censured Becanus his book. But wherefore? That by a captious and slight censure, he might prevent a more exact and rigorous decree of the Sorbon School. For the Pope's check to Becanus, was only a general censure and touch, without any particular specification of matter touching the life of Kings. About some two months after, the said book was printed again, with a dedication to the Pope's Nuntio in Germany; yet without any alteration, save only of two articles containing the absolute power of the people over Kings. In recompense and for a countercheck whereof, three or four articles were inserted into the said book, touching the Pope's power over Kings; articlcs no less wicked and injurious to Regal rights; nay more injurious than any of the other clauses, whereof just cause of exception and complaint had been given before. If I would collect and heap up examples of ancient Emperors, (as of Henry IU. whose dead corpse felt the rage and fury of the Pope; or of Frederic 2. against whom the Pope was not ashamed to whet and kindle the Sultan; or of Queen Elizabeth our Predecessor, of glorious memory, whose life was divers times assaulted by privy murderers, expressly dispatched from Rome for that holy service) if I would gather up other examples of the same stamp, which I have laid forth in my Apology for the oath of allegiance; I could make it more clear than daylight, how far the L. Cardinal's words are discrepant from the truth, where his Lordship out of most rare confidence is bold to avow, 
Pag. 97.  That never any Pope went so far, as to give consent or counsel for the desperate murdering of Princes. That which already hath been alleged may suffice to convince his Lordship: I mean, that his Holiness by deposing of Kings, doth lead them directly to their graves and tombs.  
The Cardinal himself seemeth to take some notice hereof. The Church (as he speaketh) abhorreth sudden and unprepensed murders above the rest. 
Pag. 95.  Doth not his Lordship in this phrase of speech acknowledge, that murders committed by open force, are not so much disavowed or disclaimed by the Church? A little after he speaks not in the teeth, as before, but with full and open mouth: that he doth not dislike a King once deposed by the Pope, should be pursued with open war. Whereupon it follows, that in war the King may be lawfully slain. No doubt a remarkable degree of his Lordship's clemency. A King shall be better entreated and more mildly dealt withal, if he be slain by the shot of an harquebus or caleever in the field, then if he be stabbed by the stroke or thrust of a knife in his chamber: or if at a siege of some city he be blown up with a mine, then by a mine made, and a train of gunpowder laid under his Palace or Parliament house in time of peace. His reason: Forsooth, because in sudden murders, oftentimes the soul & the body perish both together. O singular bounty, and rare clemency! provokers, instigators, strong puffers and blowers of parricides, in merciful compassion of the soul, become unmerciful and shameful murderers of the body. This device may well claim and challenge kindred of Mariana the jesuits invention. For he liketh not at any hand the poisoning of a Tyrant by his meat or drink; for fear lest he taking the poison with his own hand, and swallowing or gulping it down in his meat or drink so taken, should be found felo de se, (as the common Lawyer speaketh) or culpable of his own death. But Mariana likes better, to have a Tyrant poisoned by his chair, or by his apparel and robes, after the example of the Mauritanian Kings; that being so poisoned only by scent, or by contact, he may not be found guilty of selfe-fellonie, and the soul of the poor Tyrant in her flight out of the body may be innocent. O hellhounds, O diabolical wretches, O infernal monsters! Did they only suspect and imagine, that either in Kings there is any remainder of Kingly courage, or in their subjects any spark left of ancient liberty; they durst as soon eat their nails, or tear their own flesh from the bones, as once broach the vessel of this Diabolical device. How long then, how long shall Kings whom the Lord hath called his Anointed, Kings the breathing images of God upon earth; Kings that with a wry or frowning look, are able to crush these earth-worms in pieces; how long shall they suffer this viperous brood, scotfree and without punishment, to spit in their faces? how long, the Majesty of God in their person and Royal Majesty to be so notoriously vilified, so dishonourably trampled under foot?  
The L. Cardinal boards us with a like manifest jest, and notably trifles; first, distinguishing between Tyrants by administration, and Tyrants by usurpation; then showing that he by no means doth approve those profane and heathenish Laws, whereby secret practices and conspiracies against a Tyrant by administration are permitted. His reason. Because after deposition there is a certain habitude to Royal dignity, and as it were a kind of politic character inherent in Kings, by which they are discerned from persons merely private, or the common sort of people; and the obstacle, cross-bar, or spar once removed and taken out of the way, the said Kings deposed are at length reinvested and endowed again with lawful use of Royal dignity, and with lawful administration of the Kingdom. Is it possible that his Lordship can speak and utter these words according to the inward persuasion of his heart? I believe it not. For admit a King cast out of his Kingdom were sure to escape with life; yet being once reduced to a private state of life, after he hath wound or wrought himself out of deadly danger, so far he is from holding or retaining any remainder of dignity or politic impression, that on the contrary he falleth into greater contempt and misery, then if he had been a very peasant by birth, and had never held or governed the stern of Royal estate. What fowl is more beautiful than the peacock? Let her be plumed and bereft of her feathers; what owl, what jackdaw more ridiculous, more without all pleasant fashion? The homely souter, the infamous catchpol, the base tinker, the rude artificer, the pack-horse-porter, then living in Rome with liberty, when Valentinian was detained captive by Saporas the Persian King, was more happy than that Roman Emperor. And in case the Lord Cardinal himself should be so happy (I should say so unfortunate) to be stripped of all his dignities and Ecclesiastical promotions; would it not redound to his Lordship's wonderful consolation, that in his greatest extremity, in the lowest of his bareness and nakedness, he still retaineth a certain habitual right and character of a Cardinal, whereby to recover the loss of his former dignities and honours? when he beholds these prints and impressions of his foresaid honours; would it not make him the more willing and glad, to forsake the back of his venerable mule, to use his Cardinal's foot-cloth no longer, but ever after like a Cardinal in print and character, to walk on foot?  
But let us examine his Lordship's consolation of Kings, thrust out of their kingdoms by the Pope for heresy. The obstacle (as the L. Cardinal speaketh) being taken away; that is to say, when the King shall be reform; this habitual right and character yet inherent in the person of a King, restores him to the lawful administration of his Kingdom. I take this to be but a cold comfort. For here his Lordship doth only presuppose, and not prove, that after a King is thrust out of his Throne, when he shall repent and turn true Roman Catholic, the other by whom he hath been cast out, and by force disseised, will recall him to the Royal seat, and faithfully settle him again in his ancient right, as one that rejoiceth for the recovery of such a lost sheep. But I should rather fear, the new King would press and stand upon other terms; as a term of years for a trial, whether the repentance of the King displaced be true and sound to the core, or counterfeit, dissembled, and painted holiness; for the words, the sorrowful and heavy looks, the sad and formal gestures, of men pretending repentance, are not always to be taken, to be respected, to be credited. Again, I should fear the afflicted King might be charged and borne down too, that albeit he hath renounced his former heresy, he hath stumbled since at an other stone, and run the ship of his faith against some other rock of new heretical pravity. Or I should yet fear, he might be made to believe, that heresy maketh a deeper impression, and a character more indelible in the person, then is the other politic character of Regal Majesty. Alas, good Kings! in how hard, in how miserable a state do they stand? Once deposed, and ever barred of repentance. As if the 'scapes and errors of Kings, were all sins against the Holy Ghost, or sins unto death, for which it is not lawful to pray. Falls a private person? he may be set up, and new established. Falls a King? is a King deposed? his repentance is ever fruitless, ever unprofitable. Hath a private person a train of servants? He can not be deprived of any one without his privity and consent. Hath a King millions of subjects? He may be deprived by the Pope of a third part, when his Holiness will have them turn Clerics or enter cloisters, without ask the King leave: & so of subjects they may be made nonsubiects.  
But I question yet further. A King falling into heresy, is deposed by the Pope; his son stands pure Catholic. The Regal seat is empty. Who shall succeed in the deposed King's place? Shall a stranger be preferred by the Pope? That were to do the innocent son egregious and notorious wrong. Shall the son himself? That were a more injurious part in the son against his father. For if the son be touched with any fear of God, or moved with any reverence towards his Father, he will diligently and seriously take heed, that he put not his Father by the Kingdom, by whose means he himself is borne to a Kingdom. Nor will he tread in the steps of Henry V. Emperor, who by the Pope's instigation, expelled and chased his aged father out of the Imperial dignity. Much less will he hearken to the voice & advise of Doctor Suares the jesuit; 
Lib. 6. cap. 4. Si papa Regem deponat, ab illis tantum p●terit, expelli vel interfici, quibus ipse id commiserit.  who, in his book written against myself, a book applauded and approved of many Doctors, after he hath like a Doctor of the chair, pronounced, That a King deposed by the Pope, cannot be lawfully expelled or killed, but only by such as the Pope hath charged with such execution: falleth to add a little after: If the Pope shall declare a King to be an heretic, and fallen from the Kingdom, without making further declaration touching execution; that is to say, without giving express charge unto any to make away the King: then the lawful successor being a Catholic, hath power to do the feat; and if he shall refuse, or if there shall be none such, than it appertaineth to the commonalty or body of the Kingdom. A most detestable sentence. For in hereditary Kingdoms, who is the King's lawful successor, but his son? The son then by this doctrine, shall embrew his hands in his own father's blood, so soon as he shall be deposed by the Pope. A matter so much the nearer and more deeply to be apprehended, because the said most outrageous book flieth like a furious mastiff directly at my throat, and withal instilleth such precepts into the tender disposition of my son, as if hereafter he shall become a Roman Catholic, so soon as the Pope shall give me the lift out of my Throne, shall bind him forthwith to make effusion of his own father's blood. Such is the religion of these Reverend Fathers, the pillars of the Pontificial Monarchy. In comparison of whose religion and holiness, all the impiety that ever was among the Infidels, and all the barbarous cruelty that ever was among the Cannibals, may pass henceforth in the Christian world for pure clemency and humanity. These things ought his Lordship to have pondered, rather than to babble of habitudes and politic characters, which to the common people are like the Bergamasque or the wild-Irish form of speech, and pass their understanding.  
All these things are nothing in a manner, if we compare them with the last clause, which is the closer, and as it were the upshot of his Lordship's discourse. For therein he laboureth to persuade concerning this Article, framed to bridle the Pope's tyrannical power over Kings, if it should receive gracious entertainment, and general approbation; That it would breed great danger, and work effects of pernicious consequence unto Kings. The reason: because it would prove an introduction to schism; and schism would stir up civil wars, contempt of Kings, distempered inclinations and motions to entrap their life; and which is worst of all, the fierce wrath of God, inflicting all sorts of calamities. An admirable paradox, and able to strike men stone-blind: that his Holiness must have power to depose Kings, for the better security and safeguard of their life; that when their Crowns are made subject unto an others will and pleasure, than they are come to the highest altitude and elevation of honour; that for the only warrant of their life, their supreme and absolute greatness must be depressed; that for the longer keeping of their Crowns, an other must pluck the Crown from their heads. As if it should be said, Would they not be stripped naked by an other? the best way is, for themselves to untruss, for themselves to put off all, and to go naked of their own accord. Will they keep their Sovereignty in safety for ever? The best way is to let an other have their Sovereign authority and supreme Estate in his power. But I have been ever of this mind, that when my goods are at no man's command or disposing but mine own, than they are truly and certainly mine own. It may be this error is grown upon me and other Princes, for lack of brains: whereupon it may be feared, or at least conjectured, the Pope means to shave our crowns, and thrust us into some cloister, there to hold rank in the brotherhood of good King Childeric. For as much then as my dull capacity doth not serve me to reach or comprehend the pith of this admirable reason, I have thought good to seek and to use the instruction of old and learned experience, which teacheth no such matter: by name, that civil wars and fearful perturbations of State in any nation of the world, have at any time grown from this faithful credulity of subjects, that Popes in right have no power, to wrest and lift Kings out of their dignities and possessions. On the other side, by establishing the contrary maxims, to yoke and hamper the people with Pontificial tyranny, what rebellious troubles and stirs, what extreme desolations hath England been forced to fear and feel, in the reign of my Predecessors Henry II. john, and Henry III? These be the maxims and principles, which under the Emperor Henry IU. and Frederic the I. made all Europe flow with channels and streams of blood, like a river with water, while the Saracens by their incursions and victories overflowed, and in a manner drowned the honour of the Christian name in the East. These be the maxims and principles, which made way for the wars of the last League into France; by which the very bowels of that most famous and flourishing Kingdom were set on such a combustion, that France herself was brought within two fingers breadth of bondage to an other Nation, and the death of her two last Kings most villainously and traitorously accomplished. The Lord Cardinal then giving these diabolical maxims for means to secure the life and estate of Kings, speaketh as if he would give men counsel to dry themselves in the river, when they come as wet as a water spaniel out of a pond; or to warm themselves by the light of the Moon, when they are starnaked, and well near frozen to death.   

The Conclusion of the Lord of Perron examined.  
AFTER the L. Cardinal hath stoutly showed the strength of his arm, and the deep skill of his head in fortification; at last he leaves his lofty scaffolds, and falls to work nearer the ground, with more easy tools of humble prayers and gentle exhortations. The sum of the whole is this: He adiures his auditors never to forge remedies, never so to provide for the temporal safety of Kings, as thereby to work their final falling from eternal salvation: never to make any rent or rupture in the unity of the Church, in this corrupt age infected with pestilent heresies, which already having made so great a breach in the walls of France, will no doubt double their strength by the dissensions, divisions, and schisms of Catholics. If this infectious plague shall still increase and grow to a carbuncle, it can by no means poison religion; without bringing Kings to their winding sheets and woeful hearses. The first rollers of that stone of offence, aimed at no other mark, then to make an ignominious and lamentable rent in the Church. He thinks the Deputies of the third Estate, had neither head nor first hand in contriving this Article; but holds it rather a new device and subtle invention, suggested by persons, which being already cut off by their own practices from the body of the Roman Church, have likewise inveigled and ensnared some that bear the name of catholics, with some other Ecclesiastics; and under a fair pretence and goodly cloak, by name, the service of the King, have surprised and played upon their simplicity. These men (as the Cardinal saith) do imitate Julian the Apostata, who to bring the Christians to idolatrous worship of false gods, commanded the idols of jupiter and Venus to be intermingled with Imperial statues, and other Images of Christian Emperors, etc. Then after certain Rhetorical flourishes, his Lord ship falls to prosecute his former course, and cries out of this Article; A monster having the tail of a fish, as if it came cutting the narrow Seas out of England. For in full effect it is downright the English oath; saving that indeed the oath of England runneth in a more mild form, and a more moderate strain. And here he suddenly takes occasion to make some digression. For out of the way, and clean from the matter, he entereth into some purpose of my praise and commendation. He courteously forsooth is pleased to grace me with knowledge of learning, and with civil virtues. He seemeth chiefly to rejoice in his own behalf, and to give me thanks, that I have done him the honour to enter the lists of Theological dispute against his Lordship. Howbeit he twitches and carp at me withal, as at one that soweth seeds of dissension and schism amongst Roman catholics. And yet he would seem to qualify the matter, and to make all whole again, by saying, That in so doing I am persuaded I do no more than my duty requires. But now (as his Lordship follows the point) it standeth neither with godliness, nor with equity, nor with reason, that Acts made, that Statutes, Decrees, and Ordinances ratified for the State and Government of England, should be thrust for binding Laws upon the Kingdom of France: nor that Catholics, and much less that Ecclesiastics, to the end they may live in safety, and freely enjoy their privileges or immunities in France, should be forced to believe, and by oath to seal the same points, which English Catholics to the end they may purchase liberty only to breath, nay sorrowfully to sigh rather, are constrained to allow and to avow beside. And whereas in England there is no small number of Catholics, that lack not constant and resolute minds to endure all sorts of punishment, rather than to take that oath of allegiance; will there not be found an other manner of number in France, armed with no less constancy and Christian resolution? There will, most honourable Auditors, there will without all doubt: and we all that are of Episcopal dignity will sooner suffer Martyrdom in the cause. Then out of the super-abundance and over-weight of his Lordship's goodness, he closely coucheth and conveyeth a certain distasteful opposition between me and his King; with praises and thanks to God, that his King is not delighted, and takes no pleasure to make Martyrs.  
All this Artificial and swelling discourse like unto puff-paste, if it be viewed at a near distance, will be found like a bladder full of wind, without any solidity of substantial matter. For the Deputies of the third Estate were never so void of understanding, to believe that by providing for the life and safety of their King they should thrust him headlong into eternal damnation. Their brains were never so much blasted, so far benumbed, to dream the soul of their King cannot mount up to heaven, except he be dismounted from his Princely Throne upon earth, whensoever the Pope shall hold up his finger.  
And whereas he is bold to pronounce, that heretics of France do make their benefit and advantage of this division; that speech is grounded upon this proposition; That professors of the Christian Religion reform (which is to say, purged and cleansed of all Popish dregs) are heretics in fact, and aught so to be reputed in right. Which proposition his Lordship will never sound and sufficiently make good, before his Holiness hath compiled an other Gospel, or hath forged an other Bible at his Pontificial anvil. The L. Cardinal undertook to read me a lecture upon that argument; but ever since hath played Mum-budget, and hath put himself to silence, like one at a Nonplus in his enterprise. There be three years already gone and passed, since his Lordship began to shape some answer to a certain writing dispatched by me in few days. With forming and reforming, with filing and polishing, with labouring and licking his answer over and over again, with reiterated extractions and calcinations, it may be conjectured that all his Lordship's labour and cost is long since evaporated and vanished in the air. Howbeit, as well the friendly conference of a King, (for I will not call it a contention) as also the dignity, excellency, and importance of the matter, long since deserved, and as long since required the publishing of some or other answer. His Lordship's long silence will never be imputed to lack of capacity, wherewith who knoweth not how abundantly he is furnished; but rather to well advised agnition of his own working and building upon a weak foundation.  
But let us return unto these heretics, that make so great gain by the disagreement of Catholics. It is no part of their duty to aim at sowing of dissensions; but rather to intend and attend their faithful performance of service to their King. If some be pleased, and others offended, when so good and loyal duties are sincerely discharged; it is for all good subjects to grieve and to be sorry, that when they speak for the safety of their King and honour of the truth, it is their hard hap to leave any at all unsatisfied. But suppose the said heretics were the Authors of this Article preferred by the third Estate. What need they to conceal their names in that regard? What need they to disclaim the credit of such a worthy act? Would it not redound to their perpetual honour, to be the only subjects that kept watch over the King's life and Crown, that stood sentinel, and walked the rounds for the preservation of his Princely diadem, when all other had no more touch, no more feeling thereof then so many stones? And what need the Deputies for the third Estate, to receive instructions from foreign Kingdoms, concerning a cause of that nature; when there was no want of domestical examples, and the French histories were plentiful in that argument? What need they to gape for this reformed doctrine, to come swimming with a fishes tail out of an Island to the main continent, when they had before their eyes the murders of two Kings, with diverse civil wars, and many Arrests of Court, all tending to insinuate and suggest the introduction of the same remedy? Suggestions are needless from abroad, when the mischief is felt at home. It seems to me that his Lordship in smoothing and tickling the Deputies for the third Estate, doth no less than wring and wrong their great sufficiency with contumely and outrageous abuse: as if they were not furnished with sufficient foresight, & with loyal affection towards their King, for the preservation of his life and honour, if the remedy were not beaten into their heads by those of the Religion, reputed heretics.  
Touching myself, ranged by his Lordship in the same rank with sowers of dissension; I take my God to witness, and my own conscience, that I never dreamed of any such unchristian project. It hath been hitherto my ordinary course to follow honest counsels, and to walk in open ways. I never wont myself to holes and corners, to crafty shifts, but evermore to plain and open designs. I need not hide mine intentions for fear of any mortal man, that puffeth breath of life out of his nostrils. Nor in any sort do I purpose, to set julian the Apostata before mine eyes, as a pattern for me to follow. julian of a Christian became a Pagan: I profess the same faith of Christ still, which I have ever professed: julian went about his designs with crafty conveyances; I never with any of his captious and cunning sleights: julian forced his subjects to infidelity against jesus Christ; I labour to induce my subjects unto such terms of loyalty towards myself, as jesus Christ hath prescribed and taught in his word. But how far I differ from julian, it is to be seen more at large in my answer to Bellarmine's Epistles written to Blackwell; from whence the Lord Cardinal borrowing this example, it might well have beseemed his Lordship to borrow likewise my answer from the same place.  
Now as it moves me nothing at all, to be drawn by his Lordship into suspicions of this nature and quality: so by the praises, that he rocks me withal, I will never be lulled asleep. To commend a man for his knowledge, and withal to take from him the fear of God, is to admire a soldier for his goodly head of hair or his curled locks, and withal to call him base coward, fainthearted and freshwater soldier. Knowledge, wit, and learning in an heretic, are of none other use and service, but only to make him the more culpable, and consequently obnoxious to the more grievous punishments. All virtues turn to vices, when they become the servants of impiety. The handmaids which the Sovereign Lady Wisdom calleth to be of her train in the 9 Proverb. are moral virtues, and human sciences; which then become pernicious, when they run away from their Sovereign Lady-Mistris, and put over themselves in service to the Devil. What difference is between two men, both alike wanting the knowledge of God; the one fnrnished with arts and civil virtues, the other brutishly barbarous and of a deformed life, or of profane manners? What is the difference between these two? I make this the only difference: the first goeth to hell with a better grace, and falleth into perdition with more facility, than the second. But he becometh exceedingly wicked, even threefold and fourfold abominable, if he wast his treasure and stock of civil virtues in persecuting the Church of Christ: and if that may be laid in his dish which was cast in Caesar's teeth, that in plain soberness and well-settled temper, he attempts the ruin of the Commonwealth, which from a drunken sot might receive perhaps a more easy fall. In brief, I scorn all garlands of praises, which are not ever green; but being dry and withered for want of sap and radical moisture, do flag about barbarous Prince's brows. I defy and renounce those praises, which fit me no more than they fit a Mahumetane King of Morocco. I contest against all praises which grace me with petty accessories, but rob me of the principal, that one thing necessary; namely, the fear and knowledge of my God: unto whose Majesty alone, I have devoted my sceptre, my sword, my pen, my whole industry, my whole self, with all that is mine in whole and in part. I do it, I do it in all humble acknowledgement of his unspeakable mercy and favour, who hath vouchsafed to deliver me from the erroneous way of this age, to deliver my Kingdom from the Pope's tyrannical yoke, under which it hath lain in times past most grievously oppressed. My Kingdom where God is now purely served, and called upon in a tongue which all the vulgar understand. My Kingdom, where the people may now read the Scriptures without any special privilege from the Apostolic See, and with no less liberty than the people of Ephesus, of Rome, and of Corinth did read the holy Epistles, written to their Churches by S. Paul. My Kingdom, where the people now pay no longer any tribute by the poll for Papal indulgences, as they did about an hundred years past, 
Aliquot annis post, Apostolicae sedis nuncius in Angliam ad colligendum S. Petri vectigal missus. Onu●phri in vit Paul. 4. Vide & Math. Paris.  and are no longer compelled to the mart, for pardons beyond the Seas and Mountains, but have them now freely offered from God, by the doctrine of the Gospel preached at home, within their own several parishes and jurisdictions. If the Churches of my Kingdom, in the L. Cardinal's account, be miserable for these causes and the like; let him dream on, and talk his pleasure: for my part I will ever advowe, that more worth is our misery then all his felicity. For the rest, it shall by God's grace be my daily endeavour and serious care, to pass my days in shaping to myself such a course of life, that without shameful calumniating of my person, it shall not rest in the tip of any tongue, to touch my life with just reprehension or blame. Nor am I so privy to mine own guiltiness, as to think my state so desperate, so deplorable, as Popes have made their own. For some of them have been so open-hearted and so tongue-free, to pronounce that Popes themselves, the key-bearers of Heaven and hell, 
Onup. de vitis Pontif. in vit. Mar. 2. doth testify, that Marcel also after Adrian 4. used these words: Non video quo modo qui locum hunc altisses. tenent, salvari possint.  cannot be saved. Two Popes, reckoned among the best of the whole bunch or pack, namely, Adrian IU. and Marcelline II. have both sung one and the same note; that in their understanding they could not conceive any reason why, or any means how those that sway the Popedom can be partakers of salvation. But for my particular, grounding my faith upon the promises of God contained in the Gospel, I do confidently and assuredly believe, that repenting me of my sins, and reposing my whole trust in the merits of jesus Christ, I shall obtain forgiveness of my sins through his Name. Nor do I fear, that I am now, or shall be hereafter cast out of the Church's lap and bosom; that I now have or hereafter shall have no right to the Church as a putrefied member thereof, so long as I do or shall cleave to Christ jesus, the Head of the Church: the appellation and name whereof, serveth in this corrupt age, as a cloak to cover a thousand new inventions; and now no longer signifies the assembly of the faithful, or such as believe in jesus Christ according to his word, but a certain glorious ostentation and Temporal Monarchy, whereof the Pope forsooth is the supreme head.  
But if the L. Cardinal by assured and certain knowledge (as perhaps he may by common fame) did understand the horrible conspiracies that have been plotted and contrived, not against my person and life alone, but also against my whole stock: if he rightly knew and were inly persuaded, of how many fowl perjuries and wicked treasons, diverse Ecclesiastical persons have been lawfully convicted: in stead of charging me with false imputations, that I suffer not my Catholics to fetch a sigh, or to draw their breath; and that I thrust my Catholics upon the sharp edge of punishment in every kind; he would, and might well, rather wonder, how I myself, after so many dangers run, after so many proditorious snares escaped, do yet fetch my own breath, and yet practise Princely clemency towards the said catholics, notorious transgressors of divine and human laws. If the French King in the heart of his Kingdom, should nourish and foster such a nest of stinging hornets and busy wasps, I mean such a pack of subjects, denying his absolute Sovereignty, as many Roman Catholics of my Kingdom do mine: it may well be doubted, whether the L. Cardinal would advise his King still to feather the nest of the said catholics, still to keep them warm, still to bear them with an easy and a gentle hand. It may well be doubted, whether his Lordship would extol their constancy, that would have the courage to sheathe up their swords in his King's bowels, or blow up his King with gunpowder, into the neither station of the lowest region. It may well be doubted, whether he would endure that Orator, who (like as himself hath done) should stir up others to suffer Martyrdom after such examples, and to imitate parricides and traitors in their constancy. The scope then of the L. Cardinal, in striking the sweet strings, and sounding the pleasant notes of praises, which fain he would fill mine ears withal; is only by his excellent skill in the music of Oratory, to bewitch the hearts of my subjects, to infatuate their minds, to settle them in a resolution to deprive me of my life. The reason: Because the plotters and practisers against my life, are honoured and rewarded with a glorious name of Martyrs: their constancy (what else?) is admired, when they suffer death for treason. Whereas hitherto during the time of my whole reign to this day, (I speak it in the word of a King, and truth itself shall make good the King's word) no man hath lost his life, no man hath endured the Rack, no man hath suffered corporal punishment in other kinds, merely or simply, or in any degree of respect, for his conscience in matter of religion; but for wicked conspiring against my life, or Estate, or Royal dignity; or else for some notorious crime, or some obstinate and wilful disobedience. Of which traitorous and viperous brood, I commanded one to be hanged by the neck of late in Scotland: a jesuit of intolerable impudency, who at his arraignment and public trial, stiffly maintained, that I have robbed the Pope of his right, and have no manner of right in the possession of my Kingdom. His Lordship therefore in offering himself to Martyrdom, after the rare example of catholics, as he saith suffering all sort of punishment in my Kingdom, doth plainly profess himself a follower of traitors and parricides. These be the Worthies, these the heroical spirits, these the honourable Captains and Colonels, whose virtuous parts never sufficiently magnified and praised, his Lordship propoundeth for imitation to the French Bishops. O the name of Martyrs, in old times a sacred name! how is it now derided and scoffed? how is it in these days filthily profaned? O you the whole choir and holy company of Apostles, who have sealed the truth with your dearest blood! how much are you disparaged? how unfitly are you paragoned and matched, when traitors, bloody butchers, and King-killers are made your assistants, and of the same Quorum; or to speak in milder terms, when you are coupled with Martyrs that suffer for maintaining the Temporal rites of the Pope's Empire? with Bishops that offer themselves to a problematical Martyrdom, for a point decided neither by the authorities of your Spirit-inspired pens, nor by the ancient and venerable testimony of the Primitive Church? for a point which they dare not undertake to teach, otherwise then by a doubtful, cold, fearful way of discourse, and altogether without resolution. In good sooth, I take the Cardinal for a parsonage of a quicker spirit and clearer sight, (let his Lordship hold me excused) then to persuade myself, that in these matters his tongue and his heart, his pen and his inward judgement, have any concord or correspondence one with another. For being very much against his mind (as he doth confess) thrust into the office of an Advocate to plead this cause; he suffered himself to be carried (after his engagement) with some heat, to utter some things against his conscience murmuring and grumbling the contrary within; and to affirm some other things with confidence, whereof he had not been otherwise informed, then only by vain and lying report. Of which rank is that bold assertion of his Lordship; That many catholics in England, rather than they would subscribe to the oath of allegiance in the form thereof, have undergone all sorts of punishment. For in England (as we have truly given the whole Christian world to understand in our Preface to the Apology) there is but one form or kind of punishment ordained for all sorts of traitors.  
Hath not his Lordship now graced me with goodly testimonials of praise and commendation? Am I not by his praises proclaimed a Tyrant, as it were inebriated with blood of the Saints, and a famous Engineer of torments for my Catholics? To this exhortation for the suffering of Martyrdom, in imitation of my English traitors and parricides, if we shall add; how craftily and subtly he makes the Kings of England to hold of the Pope by fealty, and their Kingdom in bondage to the Pope by Temporal recognisance; it shall easily appear, that his holy-water of praises wherewith I am so reverently besprinkled, is a composition extracted out of a dram of honey and a pound of gall, first steeped in a strong decoction of bitter wormwood, or of the wild gourd called Coloquintida. For after he hath in the beginning of his Oration, 
Pag. 10.  spoken of Kings that owe fealty to the Pope, and are not Sovereigns in the highest degree of Temporal supremacy within their Kingdoms; to explain his mind and meaning the better, he marshal's the Kings of England a little after in the same rank. His words be these; When King john of England, not yet bound in any temporal recognisance to the Pope, had expelled his Bishops, etc. His Lordship means, that King john became so bound to the Pope not long after. And what may this meaning be, but in plain terms and broad speech, to call me usurper and unlawful King? For the feudatory, or he that holdeth a Manor by fealty, when he doth not his homage, with all suit and service that he owes to the Lord Paramount, doth fall from the property of his fee. This reproach of the L. Cardinals, is seconded with an other of Bellarmine's his brother Cardinal; That Ireland was given to the Kings of England by the Pope. The best is that his most reverend Lordship hath not showed, who it was that gave Ireland to the Pope.  
And touching john King of England, thus in brief stands the whole matter. Between Henry 2. and the Pope had passed sundry bickerments, about collating of Ecclesiastical dignities. john the son, after his father's death, reneweth, undertaketh, and pursueth the same quarrel. Driveth certain English Bishops out of the Kingdom, for defending the Pope's insolent usurpation upon his Royal prerogative, and Regal rights. showeth such Princely courage and resolution in those times, when all that stood and suffered for the Pope's Temporal pretensions against Kings, were enrolled Martyrs or Confessors. The Pope takes the matter in fowl scorn, and great indignation; shuts the King by his excommunicatory Bulls out of the Church; stirs up his Barons, for other causes the King's heavy friends, to rise in arms; gives the Kingdom of England (like a masterless man turned over to a new master) to Philippus Augustus' King of France; binds Philip to make a conquest of England by the sword, or else no bargain, or else no gift; promises Philip, in recompense of his travel and Royal expenses in that conquest, full absolution and a general pardon at large for all his sins: to be short, cuts King john out so much work and makes him keep so many irons in the fire for his work, that he had none other way, none other means to pacify the Pope's high displeasure, to correct or qualify the malignity of the Pope's choleric humour, by whom he was then so entangled in the Pope's toils, but by yielding himself to become the Pope's vassal, and his Kingdom feudatary or to hold by fealty of the Papal See. By this means his Crown is made tributary, all his people liable to payment of taxes by the poll for a certain yearly tribute, and he is blessed with a pardon for all his sins. Whether King john was moved to do this dishonourable act upon any devotion, or inflamed with any zeal of Religion; or enforced by the unresistible weapons of necessity, who can be so blind, that he doth not well see and clearly perceive? For to purchase his own freedom from this bondage to the Pope; what could he be unwilling to do, that was willing to bring his Kingdom under the yoke of Amirales Murmelinus a Mahometan Prince, than King of Granado and Barbaria? The Pope after that, sent a Legate into England. The King now the Pope's vassal, and holding his Crown of the Pope, like a man that holds his land of an other by Knight's service, or by homage and fealty, doth fair homage for his Crown to the Pope's Legate, and layeth down at his feet a great mass of the purest gold in coin. The reverend Legate, in token of his Master's Sovereignty, with more than usual pride falls to kicking and spurning the treasure, no doubt with a pair of most holy feet. Not only so; but likewise at solemn feasts is easily entreated to take the King's chair of Estate. Here I would fain know the Lord Cardinal's opinion; whether these actions of the Pope were just or unjust, lawful or unlawful, according to right or against all right and reason. If he will say against right; it is then clear, that against right his Lordship hath made way to this example: if according to right; let him then make it known, from whence or from whom this power was derived and conveyed to the Pope, whereby he makes himself Sovereign Lord of Temporalties in that Kingdom, where neither he nor any of his predecessors ever pretended any right, or laid any claim to Temporal matters before. Are such pranks to be played by the Pontificial Bishop? Is this an act of Holiness, to set a Kingdom on fire by the flaming brands of sedition? to dismember and quarter a Kingdom with intestine wars; only to this end, that a King once reduced to the lowest degree of misery, might be lifted by his Holiness out of his Royal prerogative, the very soul and life of his Royal Estate? When began this Papal power? In what age began the Pope to practise this power? What! have the ancient Canons, (for the Scripture in this question beareth no palm) have the Canons of the ancient Church, imposed any such satisfaction upon a sinner, that of veraigne and free King, he should become vassal to his ghostly Father; that he should make himself together with all his people and subjects tributaries to a Bishop, that shall rifle a whole Nation of their coin, that shall receive homage of a King, and make a King his vassal? What! Shall not a sinner be quitted of his faults, except his Pastor turn robber, and one that goeth about to get a booty? except he make his Pastor a feoffee in his whole Estate, and suffer himself under a shadow of penance to freeze naked, to be turned out of all his goods and possessions of inheritance? But be it granted, admit his Holiness robs one Prince of his rights and revenues, to confer the same upon an other: were it not an high degree of Tyranny to finger an other man's estate, and to give that away to a third, which the second hath no right, no lawful authority to give? Well, if the Pope then shall become his own carver in the rights of an other; if he shall make his own coffers to swell with an others revenues, if he shall deck and array his own back in the spoils of a sinner, with whom in absolution he maketh peace, and taketh truce; what can this be else, but running into further degrees of wickedness and mischief? what can this be else, but heaping of robbery upon fraud, and impiety upon robbery? For by such deceitful, crafty, and cunning practices, the nature of the Pontificial Sea, merely spiritual, is changed into the Kings-bench-Court, merely temporal: the Bishop's chair is changed into a Monarch's Throne. And not only so; but beside, the sinner's repentance is changed into a snare or pitfall of cozening deceit; and Saint Peter's net is changed into a casting-net or a flew, to fish for all the wealth of most flourishing Kingdoms. Moreover, the King (a hard case) is driven by such wiles and subtleties, to work impossibilities, to act more than is lawful or within the compass of his power to practise. For the King neither may in right, nor can by power trans-nature his Crown, impair the Majesty of his Kingdom, or leave his Royal dignity less free to his heir apparent, or next successor, than he received the same of his predecessor. Much less, by any dishonourable capitulations, by any unworthy contracts, degrade his posterity, bring his people under the grievous burden of tributes and taxes to a foreign Prince. Lest of all, make them tributary to a Priest: unto whom it no way appertaineth to have any hand in the civil affairs of Kings, or to distain & vnhallow their Crowns. And therefore when the Pope dispatched his Nuntio to Philippus Augustus, requesting the King to avert Lewis his son from laying any claim to the Kingdom of England; Philip answered the Legate (as we have it in Math. Paris;) No King, no Prince can abienate or give away his Kingdom, but by consent of his Barons, bound by Knight's service to defend the said Kingdom: and in case the Pope shall stand for the contrary error, his Holiness shall give to Kingdoms a most pernicious example. By the same Authorit is testified, that King john became odious to his subjects, for such dishonourable and unworthy enthralling of his Crown and Kingdom. Therefore the Pope's right pretended to the Crown of England, which is nothing else but a ridiculous usurpation, hath long ago vanished into smoke, and required not so much as the drawing of one sword to snatch and pull it by violence out of his hands. For the Pope's power lying altogether in a certain wild and wandering conceit or opinion of men, and being only an imaginary castle in the air, built by pride, and underpropped by superstition, is very speedily dispersed upon the first rising and appearing of the truth in her glorious brightness. There is none so very a dolt or blockhead to deny, that in case this right of the Pope over England, is grounded upon God's word, than his Holiness may challenge the like right over all other Kingdoms: because all other Kingdoms, Crowns, and Sceptres are subject alike to God's word. For what privilege, what charter, what evidence can France fetch out of the Rolls, or any other treasury of her monuments or records, to show that she oweth less subjection to God then England? Or was this yoke of bondage then brought upon the English Nation; was it a prerogative, whereby they might more easily come to the liberty of the sons of God? Or were the people of England persuaded, that for all their substance, wealth, and life bestowed on the Pope, his Holiness by way of exchange returned them better weight and measure of spiritual graces? It is ridiculous, only to conceive these to yes in thought; and yet with such ridiculous, with such toys in conceit, his Lordship feeds and entertains his auditors.  
From this point he falleth to an other bout and fling at his heretics, 
Pag. 105.  with whom he played no fair play before: There is not one Synod of ministers (as he saith) which would willingly subscribe to this Article, whereunto we should be bound to swear. But herein his Lordship shooteth far from the mark. This Article is approved and preached by the Ministers of my Kingdom. It is likewise preached by those of France, and if need be (I assure myself) will be signed by all the Ministers of the French Church.  
The L. Cardinal proceedeth, (for he meaneth not so soon to give over these heretics: All their Consistories believe it as their Creed; that if Catholic Princes at any time shall offer force unto their conscience, than they are dispensed withal for their oath of allegiance. Hence are these modifications and restrictions, tossed so much in their mouths; Provided the King force us not in our conscience. Hence are these exceptions in the profession of their faith; Provided the Sovereign power and authority of God, be not in any sort violated or infringed. I am not able to conceive what engine can be framed of these materials, for the bearing of Kings out of their eminent seats, by any lawful authority or power in the Pope. For say, those of the Religion should be tainted with some like error; how can that be any shelter of excuse for those of the Romish Church, to undermine or to dig up the Thrones of their Kings? But in this allegation of the Lord Cardinal, there is nothing at all, which doth not jump just and accord to a hair with the Article of the third Estate, and with obedience due to the King. For they do not profess, that in case the King shall command them to do any act contrary to their conscience, they would fly at his throat, would make any attempt against his life, would refuse to pay their taxations, or to defend him in the wars. They make no profession of deposing the King, or discharging the people from the oath of allegiance tendered to the King: which is the very point or issue of the matter in controversy, and the main mischief, against which the third Estate hath been most worthily careful to provide a wholesome remedy by this Article. There is a world of difference between the terms of disobedience, and of deposition. It is one thing to disobey the King's command in matters prohibited by divine laws, and yet in all other matters to perform full subjection unto the King. It is another thing of a far higher degree or strain of disloyalty, to bare the King of his Royal robes, throne, and sceptre, and when he is thus far disgraced, to degrade him and to put him from his degree and place of a King. If the holy Father should charge the L. Cardinal to do some act repugnant in his own knowledge to the Law of God, I will religiously, and according to the rule of charity presume, that his Lordship in this case would stand out against his Holiness, and notwithstanding would still acknowledge him to be Pope.  
His Lordship yet prosecutes and follows his former purpose: Hence are those arms which they have oftentimes borne against Kings, when Kings practised to take away the liberty of their conscience and Religion. Hence are those turbulent Commotions and seditions by them raised, as well in the Law-countryes' against the King of Spain, as in Swethland against the Catholic King of Polonia. Besides, he casteth junius Brutus, Buchananus, Barclaius, and Gerson in our teeth. To what end all this? I see not how it can be available to authorize the deposing of Kings, especially the Pope's power to depose. And yet his Lordship here doth outface (by his leave) and bear down the truth. For I could never yet learn by any good and true intelligence, that in France those of the Religion took arms at any time against their King. In the first civil wars they stood only upon their guard: they stood only to their lawful wards and locks of defence: they armed not, nor took the field before they were pursued with fire and sword, burnt up and slaughtered. Besides, Religion was neither the root nor the rind of those intestine troubles. The true ground of the quarrel was this: During the minority of King Francis 2. the Protestants of France were a refuge and succour to the Princes of the blood, when they were kept from the King's presence, and by the over pouring power of their enemies, were no better then plain driven and chased from the Court. I mean, the Grandfather of the King now reigning, and the Grandfather of the Prince of Condé, when they had no place of safe retreat. In regard of which worthy and honourable service, it may seem the French King hath reason to have the Protestants in his gracious remembrance. With other commotion or insurrection, the Protestants are not justly to be charged. But on the contrary, certain it is that King Henry III. raised and sent forth several armies against the Protestants, to ruin and root them out of the Kingdom: howbeit, so soon as they perceived the said King was brought into dangerous terms, they ran with great speed and special fidelity to the King's rescue and succour, in the present danger. Certain it is, that by their good service the said King was delivered, from a most extreme and imminent peril of his life in the city of Tours. Certain it is, they never abandoned that Henry 3. nor his next successor Henry 4. in all the heat of revolts and rebellions, raised in the greatest part of the Kingdom by the Pope, and the more part of the Clergy: but stood to the said Kings in all their battles, to bear up the Crown then tottering and ready to fall. Certain it is, that even the heads and principals of those by whom the late King deceased was pursued with all extremities, at this day do enjoy the fruit of all the good services done to the King by the said Protestants. And they are now disgraced, kept under, exposed to public hatred. What, for kindling coals of questions and controversies about Religion? Forsooth, not so: but because if they might have equal and indifferent dealing, if credit might be given to their faithful advertisements, the Crown of their Kings should be no longer pinned to the Pope's flie-flap; in France there should be no French exempted from subjection to the French King; causes of benefices or of matrimony, should be no longer citable and summonable to the Romish Court; and the Kingdom should be no longer tributary under the colour of annates, the first fruits of Benefices after the remove or death of the Incumbent, and other like impositions.  
But why do I speak so much in the behalf of the French Protestants? The Lord Cardinal himself quittes them of this blame, when he telleth us this doctrine for the deposing of Kings by the Pope's mace or verge, had credit and authority through all France, until Calvin's time. Doth not his Lordship underhand confess by these words, that Kings had been always before Calvin's time, the more dishonoured, and the worse served? Item, that Protestants, whom his Lordship calls heretics, by the light of holy Scripture made the world then and ever since to see the right of Kings, oppressed so long before? As for those of the Low Countries, and the subjects of Swethland, I have little to say of their case, because it is not within ordinary compass, and indeed serveth nothing to the purpose. These Nations, besides the cause of Religion, do stand upon certain reasons of State, which I will not here take upon me like a judge to determine or to sift.  
junius Brutus, whom the L. Cardinal objecteth, is an author unknown; and perhaps of purpose patched up by some Romanist, with a wily deceit to draw the reformed Religion into hatred with Christian Princes.  
Buchanan I reckon and rank among Poets, not among Divines, classical or common. If the man hath burst out here and there into some terms of excess, or speech of bad temper; that must be imputed to the violence of his humour, and heat of his spirit, not in any wise to the rules and conclusions of true Religion, rightly by him conceived before.  
Barclaius alleged by the Cardinal, meddles not with deposing of Kings; but deals with disavowing them for Kings, when they shall renounce the right of Royalty, and of their own accord give over the Kingdom. Now he that leaves it in the King's choice, either to hold or to give over his Crown, leaves it not in the Pope's power to take away the Kingdom.  
Of Gerson obtruded by the Cardinal, we have spoken sufficiently before. Where it hath been showed how Gerson is disguised, masked, and perverted by his Lordsh. In brief, I take not upon me to justify and make good all the sayings of particular authors. We glory (and well we may) that our religion affordeth no rules of rebellion: nor any dispensation to subjects for the oath of their allegiance: and that none of our Churches give entertainment unto such monstrous and abominable principles of disloyalty.  
If any of the French, otherwise persuaded in former times, 
Richerius.  now having altered and changed his judgement, doth contend for the Sovereignty of Kings against Papal usurpation; he doubtless, for winding himself out of the Labyrinth of an error so intricate and pernicious, deserveth great honour and special praise. He is worthy to hold a place of dignity above the L. Cardinal: who hath quitted and betrayed his former judgement, which was holy and just. Their motions are contrary, their marks are opposite. The one reclineth from evil to good, the other declineth from good to evil.  
At last his Lordship cometh to the close of his Oration, and binds up his whole harangue with a feat wreath of praises, proper to his King. He styles the King the eldest Son of the Church, a young shoot of the lily, which King Solomon in all his Royalty was not able to match. He leads us by the hand into the pleasant meadows of Histories, there to learn upon the very first sight and view, That so long, so oft as the Kings of France embraced union, and kept good terms of concord with Popes and the Apostolic See; so long as the spouse of the Church was pastured and fed among the lilies, all sorts of spiritual & temporal graces abundantly showered upon their Crowns, and upon their people: On the contrary, when they made any rent or separation from the most holy See; then the lilies were pricked and almost choked with sharp thorns; they began to droop, to stoop, and to bear their beautiful heads down to the very ground, under the strong flaws and gusts of boisterous winds and tempests.  
My answer to this flourishing close and upshot, shall beno less apert than apt. It savours not of good and faithful service, to smooth and stroke the King's head with a soft hand of oiled speech, and in the mean time to take away the Crown from his head, and to defile it with dirt. But let us try the cause by evidence of History, yea by the voice and verdict of experience; to see whether the glorious beauty of the French lilies, hath been at any time blasted, and thereupon hath faded, by starting aside, and making separation from the holy See. Under the reign of King Philip the Fair, France was blessed with peace and prosperity, notwithstanding some outrageous acts done against the Papal See, and contumelious crying quittance by King Philip with the Pope. Lewis 12. in ranged battle defeated the armies of Pope julius 2. and his Confederates: proclaimed the said Pope to be fallen from the Popedom: stamped certain coins and pieces of gold with a dishonourable mot, even to Rome itself, Rome is Babylon: yet so much was Lewis loved and honoured of his people, that by a peculiar title he was called, the Father of the Country. Greater blessings of God, greater outward peace and plenty, greater inward peace with spiritual and celestial treasures, were never heaped upon my Great Britain, then have been since my Great Britain became Great in the greatest and chiefest respect of all; to wit, since my Great Britain hath shaken off the Pope's yoke; since she hath refused to receive and to entertain the Pope's Legates, employed to collect S. Peter's tribute or peterpence; since the Kings of England, my Great Britain, have not been the Pope's vassals to do him homage for their Crown, and have no more felt the lashings, the scourge of base and beggarly Monks. Of Holland, Zealand, and Friesland, what need I speak? yet a word and no more. Were they not a kind of naked and bare people, of small value, before God lighted the torch of the Gospel, and advanced it in those Nations? were they not an ill fed and scragged people, in comparison of the inestimable wealth and prosperity (both in all military actions and mechanical trades, in traffic as merchants, in marting as men of war, in long navigation for discovery) to which they are now raised and mounted by the merciful blessing of God, since the darkness of Popery hath been scattered, and the bright Sun of the Gospel hath shined in those Countries? Behold the Venetian Republic. Hath she now less beauty, less glory, less peace and prosperity, since she lately fell to bicker and contend with the Pope? since she hath wrung out of the Pope's hand, the one of his two swords? since she hath plumed and shaked his Temporal dominion? On the contrary; after the French Kings had honoured the Popes, with munificent grants and gifts of all the cities and territories, lands and possessions, which they now hold in Italy, and the ancient Earldom of Avignon in France for an overplus; were they not rudely recompensed, and homely handled by their most ingrateful fee-farmers and copyholders? Have not Popes forged a donation of Constantine, of purpose to blot out all memory of Pippins and charlemagne donation? Have they not vexed and troubled the State? have they not whetted the sons of Lewis the Courteous against their own Father, whose life was a pattern and example of innocency? Have they not by their infinite exactions, robbed and scoured the Kingdom of all their treasure? Were not the Kings of France, driven to stop their violent courses by the pragmatical sanction? Did they not sundry times interdict the Kingdom, degrade the Kings, solicit the neighbour-Princes to invade and lay hold on the Kingdom, and stir up the people against the King, whereby a gate was opened to a world of troubles and parricides? Did not Ravaillac render this reason for his monstrous & horrible attempt, That King Henry had a design to war with God, because he had a design to take arms against his Holiness, who is God? This makes me to wonder, what moved the L. Cardinal to marshal the last civil wars and motions in France, in the rank of examples of unhappy separation from the Pope; when the Pope himself was the trumpeter of the same troublesome motions. If the Pope had been wronged and offended by the French King, or his people, and the Kingdom of France had been scourged with pestilence, or famine, or some other calamity by foreign enemies; it might have been taken in probability, as a vengeance of God for some injury done unto his Vicar. But his Holiness being the root, the ground, the master-workman and artificer of all these mischiefs; how can it be said, that God punisheth any injury done to the Pope? but rather that his Holiness doth revenge his own quarrel; and which is worst of all, when his Holiness hath no just cause of quarrel or offence. Now then; to exhort a Nation (as the L. Cardinal hath done) by the remembrance of former calamities, to curry favour with the Pope, and to hold a strict union with his Holiness, is no exhortation to bear the Pope any respect of love, or of reverence, but rather a rubbing of memory, and a calling to mind of those grievous calamities, whereof the Pope hath been the only occasion. It is also a threatening and obtruding of the Pope's terrible thunderbolts, which never scorched nor parched any skin, (except cravens and meticulous bodies) and have brought many great showers of blessings upon my Kingdom.  
As for France, if she hath enjoyed prosperity in the times of her good agreement with Popes, it is because the Pope seeks the amity of Princes that are in prosperity, have the means to curb his pretensions, and to put him to some plunge. King's are not in prosperity, because the Pope holds amity with Kings; but his Holiness useth all devices, and seeketh all means to have amity with Kings, because he sees them flourish and sail with prosperous winds. The swallow is no cause, but a companion of the spring: the Pope is no worker of a Kingdom's felicity, but a wooer of Kings when they sit in felicities lap: he is no founder, but a follower of their good fortunes. On the other side: let a Kingdom fall into some grievous disaster or calamity, let civil wars boil in the bowels of the Kingdom; civil wars no less dangerous to the State, then fearful and grievous to the people; who riseth sooner than the Pope, who rusheth sooner into the troubled streams then the Pope, who thrusteth himself sooner into the heat of the quarrel then the Pope, who runneth sooner to raise his gain by the public wrack then the Pope, and all under colour of a heart wounded and bleeding for the salvation of souls? If the lawful King happen to be foiled, to be oppressed, and thereupon the State by his fall to get a new master by the Pope's practice; then the said new-master must hold the Kingdom as of the Pope's free gift, and rule or guide the stern of the State at his beck, and by his instruction. If the first and right Lord, in despite of all the Pope's fulminations and fireworks, shall get the honourable day, and upper hand of his enemies; then the holy Father with a cheerful and pleasant grace, yea with fatherly gratulation, opens the rich cabinet of his jewels, I mean the treasury of his indulgences, and falls now to dandle and cocker the King in his fatherly lap, whose throat if he could, he would have cut not long before.  
This pestilent mischief hath now a long time taken root, and is grown to a great head in the Christian world, through the secret but just judgement of God; by whom Christian Kings have been smitten with a spirit of dizziness. Christian Kings, who for many ages past have lived in ignorance, without any sound instruction, without any true sense and right feeling of their own right and power: whilst under a shadow of Religion and false cloak of piety, their Kingdoms have been overburdened, yea overborne with tributes, and their Crowns made to stoop even to miserable bondage. That God in whose hand the hearts of Kings are poised, and at his pleasure turned as the watercourses; that mighty God alone, in his good time, is able to rouse them out of so deep a slumber, and to take order (their drowsy fits once over and shaken off with heroical spirits) that Popes hereafter shall play no more upon their patience, nor presume to put bits and snaffles in their noble mouths, to the binding up of their power with weak scruples, like mighty bulls lead about by little children with a small twisted thread. To that God, that King of Kings I devote my sceptre; at his feet in all humbleness I lay down my Crown; to his holy decrees and commands I will ever be a faithful servant, and in his battles a faithful champion. To conclude; in this just cause and quarrel, I dare send the challenge, and will require no second, to maintain as a defendant of honour, that my brother-Princes and myself, whom God hath advanced upon the Throne of Sovereign Majesty and supreme dignity, do hold the Royal dignity of his Majesty alone; to whose service, as a most humble homager and vassal, I consecreate all the glory, honour, splendour, and lustre of my earthly Kingdoms.  
FINIS.