AN HUMBLE SUPPLICATION TO HER MAJESTY.  
Printed, Anno Do. 1595.   

AN HUMBLE SUPPLICATION TO HER MAJESTY.  
MOST MIGHTY and most merciful, most feared, and best beloved Princes, they are at the bottom of a helpless misery, whom both a condemned estate maketh common objects of abuse, and an unpitied oppression barreth from discovering their griefs to those, that only are able to afford them remedy. Every one trampleth upon their ruin, whom a Prince's disgrace hath once overthrown. Sovereign favours being the best foundations of subjects fortunes, and their dislikes the steepest downe-falles to all unhappiness. Yet a Prince supplying the room, and resembling the person of Almighty GOD, should be so indifferent an arbitrator in all causes, that neither any greatness should bear down justice, nor any means be excluded from mercy; and therefore an humble confidence in your Majesty's goodness, (perfect in all Princely duties, & the only shot anchor of our just hopes) induced us to lay open our manifold extremities, which heretofore (as it seemeth) hath been scarcely heard, less believed, and nothing regarded. And though our condition be so desolate, that we can neither be freed from outward misery, but by becoming inwardly more miserable, nor complain of our troubles, but our very complaints are punished: yet an infamed life, being to free minds more irksome than an innocent death, we had rather put our uttermost hazards to your highness clemency, them seem with our silence to give credit to our obliques: to which if we do not, it may be imagined we cannot answer.  
There hath been of late published to our undeserved reproach, so strange a proclamation, that it hath made your most affied Subjects doubtful what to believe: sith they see so apparent and uncurable truths, countenanced with so Reverend authority, & warranted with the most Sacred sight of their most honoured Queen: the due respect that every one carrieth to your gracious person, acquitteth you in their knowledge, from any meaning to have falsehood masked under the veil of your Majesty: yet when they see your Sovereign style so abased, to the authorizing of fictions, that the Magistrates of the whole realm, most generally soothe things so directly disproved by common sense, and contrary to their own, and all men's knowledge, it cannot be but a torment to their Christian minds: yea, and it must make them of force justly to scorn that any Subject should dare in so high a degree, to blemish both his Princes, and her officers credits, as to draw them to aver his plain and inexcusable lesing: for what can they think, but this to be either a racking of public authority to private pusposes, who being yet ripe to reveal their own dangerous grounds, are forced to borrow these deluding shadows, or an open condemnation of your majesties actions, as though they bore themselves upon so unjust and lawless motives as could not able them for righteous, but by begging relief of these counterfeit illusions.  
We verily presume that none of your majesties Honourable Council, would either show so little accquaintance with the Prince's style, as to deliver in your name a discourse so full farced with contumelious terms, as better suited a declamorous tongue, than your highness pen, or be so lightly affected to the regard of your Honour, as to defile it with the touch of so many false assertions: yet all men justly marvel that any Inditor durst adventure to disgorge their private ill will, rather than to observe decency in so public a thing: yea they lament their own case, when these abuses make uncertain what to credit in serious points, importing their Country, & their own safeties, when they see in this (which seemeth to be but a Prologue to future Tragedies) the strongest foundation to human belief, applied in all men's minds to support mere improbabilites. And though the injury offered to your Majesty, and merely concerning your Realm, might in equity challenge all men's pens to warn you of so perilous courses: yet sith Priests and Catholics, are the marks chiefly shot at, we ask humbly leave of your Majesty and Council, to show how choleric the humour was towards us, that cared not though the arrow hit your highness Honour in the way, so the head thereof might enter into our hearts. It is an easy thing to be a true Prophet, in foreseeing how this necessary clearing will be aggravated to your Majesty with heinous words, sith those that would dislodge us out of all good opinions, will doubtless endeavour to fulfil any such Prophecy: but now we humble our Petitions to your care of innocency, that it may arm your ears against such partial appeachers, and incline you to measure your censure with equity.  
To make therefore our entry with the unfavorable terms, wherein we are often and generally called unnatural Subjects, we desire to have it decided by your majesties own arbitrement, whether we have justly deserved to wear so base a livery: if we live at home as Catholics professing our name, and refusing to profess a contrary Religion, we can neither keep our places in the Inns of Court, but we are imprisoned for recusancy, impoverished, troubled, & defamed. And yet if we leave all and seek free use of our conscience, depart the Realm taking such helps as the Charity of other countries affordeth us, we are straight reckoned for unnatural Subjects.  
It is rather an unnatural thing to disobey the author of nature for any creature, in forsaking the faith by which we hope only to be saved, and yet we must do this to the wilful murdering of our souls: or if we refuse it, be we at home or abroad, by these hard censures we are proclaimed unnatural. All bonds both of nature & grace invite us to love God, and our Country more than our lives, and our neighbours as ourselves: which if we observe in the highest degree, we hope what other title soever we deserve, we shall at the least be deemed not to serve from the rules of Native courtesy: we are in so mighty & warrantable proofs assured by all Antiquity, that our Catholic Faith is the only truth, (to which all that have been, or shall be saved, must owe their fidelity) that we think it a worthy purchase, for the perseverance in the same to forfeit our best fortunes, & engage our lives to the great cruelties, them by revolting from it, to enter league with error, & to make our souls the price of infernal pain, if then we esteem it at a higher rate than our lives, believing that out of it, neither God can be truly served, nor any soul saved: so if we seek with our deepest perils to plant it in our Realm, and to win souls from misbelief unto it, we think that we owe a most sincere, and natural love to our Country: for even by Christ's own testimony, no man's Charity reacheth to any higher point, then to yield his life for the benefit of his friend. And if others that so deeply touch us for unnatural creatures, would with as much diligence have searched out the truth by an indifferent trial, between the learned on both sides, as they have with violence martyred, and oppressed us, they would happily think themselves more unnatural, for having misled infinite souls into endless perdition, then us that with the sweat of our dearest blood, seek to glean a few scattered ears, the silly relics of their infortunate harvest. And if our due care of our Country be such, that to rear the least fallen soul amongst your majesties Subjects from a fatal lapse, we are contented to pay our lives for the ransom, how much better should we think them bestowed, if so high a pennyworth as your GRACIOUS SELF, or the whole Realm might be the gains of our dearest purchase.  
But though they that hunt this fault in us, might best be their own pray (faith being the strongest of true and natural fidelity: yet must we be accounted unnatural, being balanced in their affections, that draw all causes of compassion to motives of cruelty, and make their condemning reports, the contraries of our dutiful meanings with the like spirit, still breathing more ill will, than truth: He termeth the Right Honourable the Lord Cardinal Archbishop Allen, and Father Parsons (both learned & reverent men) two seditious heads, looking happily through such eyes, as judge all men by their own colours, & what cause have they given to this slanderer, unless it be counted sedition to gather the ruins of God's afflicted Church, and to have provided Sanctuaries, for persecuted & succourless souls: which forced at home, either to live with a gored conscience, or to lie open to continual vexations, rather choose to leave their country then their Catholic Religion. It was no sedition for many in Queen Mary's time, to be harboured in Geneva, maintained them by those that now envy against us. It is no sedition to admit such multitudes of strangers, as for their faith swarm into England, out of all countries. It is thought Charity to aid the Stats of Flaunders in the behalf of Religion. It is extolled in your Majesty as an Honourable favour to protect the Portugal, and S. Horatio Palanisine: but if we (whose case at home) in respect of our faith is more miserable than any Protestants in any other Countries, have chosen two venerable men to procure us some refuge, from our domestical scourges, where we may follow our studies, and exercise Piety, straight your Majesty (though induced to practise the same courtesy to others) is informed against them as seditious heads. So true it is, the same thing is not itself in divers persons, & yet as God almighty and the world is our witness, nothing in those Seminaries, is either intended, or practised, but the relief and good education of such forsaken men, as from the storm of our English shore, fly thither for a calm road, that perfected in the course of learning & virtue, they may return to offer their blood for the recovery of souls: As for the baseness of their births, which among other like points▪ is interlaced with as impertinent, as scornful a parenthesis, as a fitter note for the penners, than for your majesties observation.  
I mean not to dwell long upon it, for the thing neither importeth any offence to God, not crime against your Majesty, nor greatly abaseth them, whom excellent virtue, the only true measure of worthiness hath ennobled. Yet this without disparagement to any may truly be avoided, that the cardinals grace, is of as good & ancient a house, & every way as worshipfully allied as some of the highest Counselours were in their meaner fortunes, till your majesties favours, and their rare abilities, made them steps to climb into their present honours. And whether he might of likelihood have carried as high a sail if the time had equally secunded him with favourable gales, I leave to their judgements who are privy to his present estate, greater than England can afford to any clergy man. For your Majesty being as able to know, & we less willing to use the excellency of your subjects, than other Princes, it may be justly presumed, that he might as well have entered into credit at home, if his Faith had not drawn his foot from the first step, as with strangers in a foreign country, where neither familiarity with the Peers, nor acquaintance with the Prince but the only fame of his worthiness, sent an admiration & love of him into their hearts, & whosoever considereth the manner of his advancement, being created Cardinal alone, out of the ordinary times, (a prerogative seldom yielded but to special persons, who marketh his wisdom to have been in such reverence, that in Pope Greg. the 14. his sickness, he was thought fittest among the Cardinals, to be vizgerent in spiritual causes: who is ignorant of the small cause of our country, by laws, libels, & other means, seeking to undermine the Pope's Sea (hath given him to reward her subjects, with so high promotions: who finally weigheth the adventures of our Council, to hinder his preferment, and darken his virtues with hard information, shall easily believe the man to be of rare perfections, that having no other wings to bear his credit, but learning and virtue, could reach to so high points of favour, notwithstanding so mighty lets. As for Father Parsons he having placed the uttermost of his ambition, in contempt of honour, & the highest of his wealth in voluntary poverty: will easily acknowledge his birth to have been of more honest than great parents: yet were they not so mean, but that they were able to afford him such education, as might have made his good parts a way to no small preferment. And albeit his credit be great with the K. of Spain, yet did he never Usurp the Title of the kings CONFESSOR, as as this inditor would persuade your Majesty, though some of the simple sort of our English soldiers, in the Galleys, upon error and ignorance, muttered some such speeches amongst themselves. As for other Priests how many of them are Knights & Esquires sons, as otherwise both to worshipful and noble houses alleyed, & heirs to fair revenues, let their own friends and Parents dispersed through the whole Realm bear witness. This only we may say in answer of our objected baseness, that in the small number of the Catholic Priests of our Nation, (which reacheth not to the tenth of the Protestant Ministry) there are very near as many, yea happily more Gentleman, then in all the other Clergy of the whole Realm.  
Now whereas we are most uncourteously called a multitude of dissolute youngmen, we desire no other evidence to disprove this accusation, than an indifferent censure: For first before our departure out of the Realm, we must resolve to abandon our Country friends, and all such comforts, as naturally all men seek and find in their native Country. We must relinquish all possibilities of favour, riches, and credit. We must limit our minds to the restrained and severe course of the SOCIETY OF JESUS, or the Seminaries, where the place is in exile, the rules strict, the government austere, our wills broken, the least fault chastised, & a most absolute virtue exacted. And who can imagine those to be so desolute humours, who this determine to abridge themselves of all actions, of disolutenes, and to imprison their affections within the presinct of a regular and strait order, and lest happily it may be imagined that we say more than in proof we find, it is known to thousands, and daily seen, and witnessed by travelers, that we are there tie to so prezise terms in diet, apparel, exercise, & all other things, that we are much more shortened of our scope, then in any College of our English Universities. I omit the prayer, fasting, haircloth, and other chastisements of the body, which being voluntary, yet usual; are to any if not more then partial judges, invincible grounds against this slander, of being dissolute: but let our entertainment at our return, be a final overthrow of this false imposition: for who can think them dissolute, that being by the Laws, by examples by common experience taught, with what bloody conflicts they are here to encounter, & how many fears, daingers, and agonies, both in life; and death, they undoubtedly expect, (are notwithstanding contented) for reclaiming of souls unto God's fold, willing to yield their bodies to the hazard of all those miseries foreseen, and foreknown, and advisedly chosen before all worldly contentments.  
But it may be that some, unacquainted with our states, will measure our minds, by our apparel, (being as we confess) more agreeable oftentimes, to the common fashion, than to the grave attire that seemeth our calling, neither is our habit, or behaviour so ruffianlike, or disordered, (as this inditor, ever forgetting truth, when he remembreth us, would willingly have it imagined) but in this we must yield our reason, (sith we cannot reform the inconvenience) till your Majesty think it good to licence us without danger, to exercise our functions, much-more mighty is the salvation of our souls, than the external decency of our apparel, which though it be necessary in time and place, yet is it not so essential a point, as for the care thereof, to neglect the charge of God's flock, & the safety of our own lives: David upon just cause feigned him mad, but his madness was an effect of perfect wisdom, and reason the guide of his seeming folly. judith laying aside her haircloth, and widows weed, disguised herself in such ornaments, as were fitter to allure lascivious eyes, them to bear witness of her sober mind. And if God added grace & beauty to her youthful dresses, to further her just revenge upon her enemies, much more may we hope he will allow a less disguise in us, to revive the souls of our dearest friends. It is no sure argument of inward beauty, to be vain in show, seeing a modest and an humble mind, may be shadowed under the glorious & courtly robes of a virtuous Hester. And if angels for the benefit of bodies have suited their shapes, to the requests of their Ministers: now appearing like soldiers, as to josua: now like travailers, as to Toby: now like gracious youths, as to Lot: yea if Christ as the occasion required, seemed to the two Disciples a Pilgrim, & to Saint Marie Magdalene a Gardener, why may not we for the winning of souls, (which as God is our witness is the only cause of our coming) frame our behaviour and attire, to the necessity of our days, as we read the ancient bishops did, in the persecution of the Vandals, this therefore cannot be esteemed a just presumption of a dissolute mind in us, whom not any will to such fineness, but a desire of safety enforceth us to wear the liveries of the time.  
Now whereas the heavy adversaries of our good names, hath abused your majesties ears with a truthless surmise, that we should avoid the Realm for lack of living, we humbly resign his folly, to the correction of your highness wisdom, for to whom can it seem probable, that we fly for lack of living, of whom many have vowed all, willingly acepted a voluntary poverty, leaving that we had, without either hope, or care of getting more, our wealth being now in well-doing, and our passions, our best possessions, is it like that for want of living any would enter into a course, wherein without possibility of preferment they were in apparent hazard to lose their lives: are any fled for such poverty, that at the least they could not have lived in service, with more ease and less labour, than they tie themselves unto, in a most straight life, where they do more by a willing obedience than they should have been put unto in a hired subjection, or are they of such quality, and of so many pleasing parts, that they can in these severe times win men with peril of their Lives, Lands, and Posterities, to entertain and comfort them, and could they not have found without plunging themselves in the Sea of dangers, some more easy means for a competent maintenance, then to beg it out of so many exegents, and to wring it through so grievous oppressions, and why should these fears of wants pinch them more than infinite others, whom they left behind them? They are men of as pregnant wits, as delivered tongues, as mature judgements, as most of the Inns of Court, or Universities where they lived: yea, they were already stepped so far into promotion, that they needed not to have doubted, nothing less than lack of living, divers of them having been Proctors of University, Fellows & Officers of Colleges, and likely to 〈◊〉 rise● to 〈◊〉 higher pre-eminency. To vomit those that hau●. Revennewes, and Annuities of they own, besides the allowance and kindred, with rich & most wealthy families. It pleaseth further this unfriendly informer (who seemeth best pleased with displeasing us) to derive our departure from a conscience guilty, of crimes committed, being still himself in the likeness of his speeches, as void of verity, as full of ill will: for if Priests at their arraignment, be in manner charged with Original sin, many of them having been scarcely borne, at the rising in the North, which is always a common place to declaim against them. If all the notorious faults, that may any way concern Catholics, are made ordinary inditements, to condemn those that never heard of them, till they come to the bar: how much would any fault of their own be objected, yea and multiplied in the urging, if any such could have been found: but yet none was ever touched for any thing committed before his departure, as all testimonies may depose, and the very records testify in our behalf, and to prevent any iust grounds of this oblique, the superiors (not ignorant how many eyes are busied in watching for the least advantage against us) make diligent scrutiny, for the perfect notice of their virtue, whom they admit to Priesthood, who being for the most part among many of their own houses, or standing in the Universities, could not cloak any great enormity from notice: yea the very age of the greater part (they going ever very young) is a warrant to quite them from any such offence, as should force them to fly their Country. And as for the rest, which are of riper years, they have been so notified for their moral life, that they have made common report their harbinger, to take up their due rooms, in every man's good opinion. In sum this being an approved accusation, delivered by one that in the same discourse, hath empanalled an inquest of untruths, to find out him in this also guilty of falsehood, it needeth no other answer, but a wise censure of the Reader: But now most merciful Princess licence our too much wronged innocency, to relate the sharpest doubt of this unkind adversary, joined with those three odious terms of fugitives, rebels, and traitors, & dipped as deep in the bitterness of gall, as he would have it enter into our dearest blood: And first we crave most humbly but the right of Christians belief of our oath, which is the only Certificate to make our thoughts undoubted; upon hope whereof we oppose our guiltless hearts against these tiles, as our best armour of proof, protesting upon our souls and salvation, and calling Almighty God and his Angels to witness, that as we hope to have any benefit by the most precious wounds, and death of our Lord JESUS CHRIST: the whole and only intent of our coming into this Realm, is no other; but to labour for the salvation of souls, and in peaceable and quiet sort, to confirm them in the ancient Catholic faith, in the which their forefathers lived & died, these thousand four hundred years, out of which we undoubtedly believe it is impossible that any soul should be saved.  
This from the sincerest of our thoughts, before the throne of God, we must truly profess, intending if no other remedy may be had, to let your Majesty seal it with the best blood that our faithful, & faultless hearts can afford. And if any be so hardened in a set incredulity, as rather to condemn us to perjury, than to clear us upon so deep an oath, we will make reason his guide into our intentions, by which if he think us not as much perished in our wits, as he supposeth us to be in our fidelity, he shall easily see the truth of our protestation: for first, treason being an offence that carrieth with itself a stain of infamy, as can never be taken out, and maketh them that commit it dead, & unpardonable persons. Who can imagine any so foolish, desperate, as to incur so reproachful a crime full of certain perils having no other possible mark for his hope, but the uttermost of worldly evils. And if any one should chance to be so far distracted from his sense, and to throw himself into so bottomless a destruction: Yet that so many, and so learned, & so grave men, as daily suffer for their coming in Priests, would cast away their labours, lives and credittes, for nothing but a cruel and eternal reproach; our bitterest enemy would never deem it likely, and what other enticement should allure us to be traitors, not any persuasion that ourselves can compass so great an exploit, (there being scarce 300. catholic priests of our nation in the whole world; a silly army to subdue so great a Monarchy) not any confidence in Catholic assistance, whom none is so mad to think able to do such an enterprise, being few in number, dispuruied of muniton, narrowly watched by Officers, restrained in their liberties, impovirished in their goods, & disabled in all provisions. Not the imagination to be advanced by foreign power: for than we would rather expect the conquest, till the time and opportunity were ripe, for us to enter upon our hopes, than so venturously to press upon the sword of our enemies, and hazard not only our future expectations, but our present safeties, we would rather live abroad, though it were with as hard shifts, as those that now possess honourable rooms did once at Ceneva: then leopard our welfare, to so many so known and unevitable harms, which we are more likely soon to feel, than so long to eschew. And if we were to come as rebels into the Realm, our education in Colleges should be answerable to the qualities, we should be trained in martial exercises, busied in public and civil affairs, hardened to the field, & made to the weapon: whereas 1000 ears and eyes are witnesses, that our studies are nothing else but Philosophy & divinity, our teachers religious men, acquainted with no other knowledge but learning and virtue, all our warlike preparations, the wresting for our wills, the mortifying of our bodies, and a continual warfare with Nature, to get the victory over ourselves: and for other schoolepoints of sedition, wherein this our hard friend findeth us to be instructed, Almighty God is our witness, that we neither learn nor teach any, having only had in our studies, the common end that all men shot at, namely to attain such knowledge, that might be an ornament to our functions, a help to our conversations, & a benefit to our country. But if by these Schoolepoints of sedition be meant that religion which there we are taught: and here we profess this meaning answereth itself: For this cannot be any way treasonable to your majesties estate, unless that it be esteemed offensive, which was the faith of all your royal ancestors, these 1400 years, is the faith of the greatest part of Christendom, and for the defence whereof your majesties most worthy father, attained the glorious title of defender of the Faith. But whatsoever this informer meant by his schoolepoints of sedition, we hope that your highness censure, will free us from the thing itself, sith neither likelihood to effectuate any hope at home, nor any likeness of our education abroad, can in your wisdom seem to argue us guilty of any rebellious intentions. Let this further be an assured proof to the contrary, that sith we are so religiously addicted to the end of our coming, that for the atchiving thereof, we recount our torments, triumphs, & our deaths a glory: If this end were the overthrow of your Majesty: or if your displeasing had been the point, that with so many bleeding wounds, we have witnessed to be so dear unto us, we would with the loss of fewer lives, have perfitted our purposes, and long ere this have brought the cards to an unfortunate shuffling: for whosoever hath contented his own life, is Master of another's: and he that is resolute to spend his blood, will rather seek to sell it for the intended price, then with a fruitless affection cast it away for nothing.  
No no, most Gracious SOVEREIGN, Heaven and Earth shall witness with us in the dreadful day of doom, that our breasts never harboured such horrible treasons, and that the end of our coming is the salvation of souls, not the murdering of bodies, we being rather willing to die, then to contribute the least hair of our head to the latter, and not so willing to live, as to shed the best blood in our bodies: for the first, give then (O most gracious Queen) wise men leave to see, that they show themselves no less disloyal to your Majesty, than envious to us: that durst divulge these Fables under the name of your Highness, making their Prince the patroness of their feigned, and devised falsehood.  
Now with what shadow or likelie-hood, can it sink into any sound belief? that we come with ample authority, to persuade your majesties Subjects to renounce their duties, and to bind them with oaths & Sacraments, to forswear their natural allegence to their Princess highness, & to yield all their powers to the Spanish Princes forces: for to say we do it upon hope, to be enriched with those possessions that others now enjoy, hath but small semblance of probabilities, considering how much likelier we are to inherit your RACKS, and possess your place of EXECUTION, then to survive the present incombences of spiritual livings, or to live to see any dignities at the KING of SPAIN his disposition, and sith both the daily Martyrdoms of many before our eyes, and our own evident and hourly dangers, can not but kill in us all such aspiring fantasies, if any mind were so m●dd●, as to sell his soul at so base a rate.  
Let it be scanned with equity, how little seeming of truth it carrieth, that so many should upon so improbable and uncertain expectations, offer their lives to most probable and certain shipwrecks. And can any imagine us to be so simple, that we cannot see how impossible it is for Catholics to do the king any good, though they were as much bend that way as their accusers would have it thought: do we not see that they are scattered one among thousands, and at all such accurrants so well watched, and so ill provided: that to wish them to stir in the kings behalf, were to train them to their undoing, & to expose them to a general massacer by domestical fury, and what better advocate can plead for us in this case, than your majesties own experience, who in the last attempt of the king, found none more forward to do all duties, and liberally to stretch their abilities, than Catholics were in your highness defence, and though they were ceased for men and money, far above their revenues, and so fleeced of their armour and weapons, that they were left unfurnished, for their own savegards: yet were they so far from mutining, or touch of disloyalty, that they willingly yielded more, than any other of their quality, which doubtless if Priests had sworn them with oaths, or bound them with Sacraments, to the contrary they would never have done: sith they venture both lives and liberties, for other charitable works of far less weight, than the avoiding of the damnable sins, of perjury and sacrilege. It is also well known even unto the Coiners of these untrue surmises, that if the King should come so slenderly provided, as to need the handful of Catholics helps, (who neither have countenance, charge, nor authority in the common wealth) your Majesty need not greatly fear, sith it were impossible he should be strong, to whom so weak, and bootless a succour should be necessary. And to what effect should we then persuade Catholics to leave their obedience to your Highness, sith it can neither benefit us, nor avail them: but rather draw upon us, both a manifest subversion: yea did we not rather strengthen them in their duties, and so confirm them in patience, that with conscience and religious fear they restrained nature. It were impossible for flesh & blood to digest the unmerciful usage that they suffer by such persons, whose baseness dubleth the injury of their abuse: for who, if it were not more than the fear of man that hath held them, would not rather die upon the enemies that sought their blood, (as for men of ill mind it were no hard matter) than to live to continual death, & to leave the authors of their evils behind them, to triumph over their ruins, and to send after them more of their dearest friends. What gentleman could endure the peremptory & insolent imperiousness of a company of greedy & manerlesse mates, which still are praying upon Catholics, as if they were common booties, & ransack them day & night, braving them under their own roofs, with such surliness, as if every castaway were allowed to be unto them an absolute Prince. But happily because we desire to recover the lapsed, & confirm the standing in the ancient faith of their forefathers, it may be presumed that this is a withdrawing from your majesties obedience. But if indifferency may be one of the jury, disloyalty shall never be found the sequel of any article of our Religion, which more than any other, tieth us to a most exact submission to your Temporal authority, and to all points of allegiance, that either now in Catholics Countries, or ever before in Catholics times were acknowledged to be due to any Christian Prince: do not now Catholics governed by the Princip●les of their faith, yield in respect thereof with a known mildness, their goods, liberties, lands, & lives, and do they not with a most resolute patience obey a scourging, and afflicting hand.  
Then how much more would they be willing to double their duties and increase their serviceable affections to your Highness, if they sound but the like clemency that other subjects enjoy, and were not made (as now they are) common steels for every merciless and flint-hearted, to strike out upon them the sparks of their fury.  
It is a point of the Catholic faith, (defended by us against Sectaries of these days) like subjects are bound in conscience under pain of forfeting their right, in Heaven, and in incurring the guilt of eternal torments, to obey the just Laws of their Princes, which both the Protestants and Puritans deny, with their father and master Calvin. And therefore if we were not pressed to that, which by the general verdict of allegiance, was judged breach of the Law of God: we should never give your Majesty the least cause of displeasure, for (excepting these points) which if unpartial audience were allowed, we could prove to employ the endless misery & damnation of our souls, in all other civil and temporal respects, we are so submitted and pliable, as any of your majesties best beloved subjects. If then your highness would vouchsafe to behold our case, with an 〈◊〉 eye, and not to view us in the mirror of a misse-informed mind, we would not doubt, but that your excellent wisdom would find more grounds even in policy, and in the due care of your safety, to incline your gracious favour towards us, still enthralled in our present unhappiness. But it may be, that some more willing to rip up old faults, than to admit any clearing of them, when in their hearts they have already condemned us to all punishments, will here bring in Ballard's, and Babingtons', matters against us, as a Goliath to overthrow all other proofs of our good meanings. To this first we answer, that it were a hard course to reprove all Prophets for one Saul, all Protestants for one Wyatt, all Priests and Catholics for one Ballard and Babington.  
Your majesties sister reigned not the sixth part of your time, & yet sundry rebellions were attempted by the Protestant faction against her, in that short space, as every Chronicle can witness: whereas in this your majesties prosperous reign of 35. years in all England, the Catholics never rose but once in open field to have won the freedom of conscience, which the Protestants in those few years laboured with so many mutinies: for as for Parrie, he never professed in like, nor action to be a Catholic: yea, and he took it offencively with signification of his mind, in hot words, that some upon surmise, had so named him, and therefore howsoever he might by aspiring thoughts, or mercenary mutinies, be by any foreign enemy used to evil practices, it cannot justly be laid against us, whom neither privity nor consent to his intentions, can any way touch: and as for the action of Babington, that was rather a snare to entrap them, than any devise of their own, sith it was both plotted, furthered, and finished, by S. Francis Walsingham, & his other complices, who laid & hatched all the particulars thereof, as they thought it would best fall out to the discredit of catholics, & cutting of the Queen of Scots: for first it is to be known to all, that Poolie being Sir F. Walsinghams' man, and thoroughly seasoned to his masters tooth, was the chief instrument to contrive and prosecute the matter, to draw into the net such green wits, as (fearing the general oppression, and partly angled with golden hooks) might easily be over wrought by M Secretary subtle & sifting wit: for Poolie masking his secret intentions under the face of Religion, and abusing with irreligious Hypocrisy all Rites & Sacraments, to borrow the false opinion of a Catholic, still feeding the poor gentlemen with his master's baits, and he holding the line in his hand, suffered them like silly fishes to play themselves upon the hook, till they were thoroughly fastened, that then he might strike at his own pleasure, and be sure to draw them to a certain destruction. And though none were so deep in the very bottom of that conspiracy as Poolie himself, yet was he not so much as indicted of any crime, but after a little large imprisonment (more for policy than for any punishment) set at liberty, & in more credit than ever he was before: for it being a set match, & he having so well performed his evil part (though to please Babes.) A stroke was given to beat him, yet doubtless he was largely fed in privy pay, as so Christian policy did best deserve. It is also known by Phillips the deciphers letters to his party practitioner, G. Gifford, in whose chest and chamber they were taken at Paris, & by G. Giffords' own examination, that these Gentlemen were bought and sold, being drawn blindfold, to be workers of their overthrow, and carry with silly Isaac the fire, in which they themselves were to be sacrificed. And sure it is, that all the letters that fed them with foreign hopes, all the devices that wrought them into homebred imaginations, sprung all out of the Fountain of Sir FRANCIS WALSINGHAMS' fine head: for GILBERT GIFFORD having some years before been Master Secretary's intelligencer, (as the date of Phillippes Letter unto him discovered) when the matter was once on foot in England, was made the mean to follow it in France among certain of the Scottish Queen's friends, more apt to enter, then able to go through great dissignements, where he knowing of the letters, and the course how they were conveyed, discovered all to M. Secretary, to whom also he brought divers of the like tenor, written partly to the Queen, partly to Babington, at his own coming into England: whereas more than 3. months before, the council would seem to know these intentions: and when by often resort to Sir Francis Walsinghams' house, in private sort he had taken of him privy directions, to make his course the more plausible for his proceedings in France, he practised here with the French Ambassadors Mounsieur Catanense, whom then he knew to be very well affected both to the Scottish Queen, & to the Duke of Guyes, & though he were a man of more than ordinary discourse: yet with so forsworn an hypocrisy, and so deep perjuries, did Gifford over reach him, that when the train was discovered, some of the Gentlemen enraged with so great impiety, said that though it were a great part of the Gospel that an English man would be true, they should hardly believe it, for that Devil Giffordes sake, as in their passion they termed him: But so it was that hearts wit far too good for so bad an owner, & newly refined by M. Secretary's forge, won so much credit, that he being commended and believed, as his desire was, he went over to entreat by means with the Duke of Guise, and such others as were thought fit to be taken in, as stales to countenance the matter, and to put the Gentlemen in vain expectations, till the thread were spun to the intended length. And so far was this unfortunate wretch given over to desperate malice, that first to possess him more of M. Secretaries good opinion, and to show his aptness to be used in such exploits, he dedicated to him, a book of his own compiling, breathing such Infamies, and Atheisms, as best became the spirit of so perjured and Apostata: and on the other side, to shun the suspicion of being M. Secretaries bad instrument in this unchristian policy, he was himself confessed, purposely Graduated, and as it is thought made Priest: so impious were the means to wrest the poor Gentlemen from their duties, to their confusion. Phillip's also, who was M. Secretaries right hand, held correspondent with Gilbert Gifford, still keeping the ice from breaking, till they were all upon it, whom they meant to drown in the same destruction. And to draw the Queen of Scots into the better opinion of this designment, whom experience had taught to suspect so dangerous motions. The matter was with continual and secret meetings very seriously urged with her agents in France, in whom it is feared they relied too much affiance: but whether for love to their Master, they were apt to entertain any hope of her delivery, or for league with M. Secretary, too ready to build upon his foundations, they induced the Queen to like of their good will, that were willing to adventure their states and lives to do her service, and as things were by these inventions, ripening in France: so Poolie no less diligently plied the matter at home, continually conversing with Ballard, & the gentlemen, & labouring to draw more coneys in to the hay. It is strange to mark with what cunning the grave and wiser sort of Catholics, were sounded a far off, not by revealing any direct intention: but so nicely glancing at general points, with ifs & andes, that they never understood the language, till effects did construe these roving speeches: yet when so much of their disposition was known, by their unwillingness to hear, & peremtorines in cutting off the Officers of such discourses, there was no less care used to conceal these purposes from them, than there had been cunning to search out how they would deem of them: for it was feared, their wisdom would have found out the fraud, & untimely have lanced an unripe impostume. It is further known that the copy of that letter which Babbington sent to the Queen of Scots, was brought ready penned by Poolie, from M. Secretary: the answer whereof, was the principal grounds of the Queen's condemnation. There was also found in Sir Francis Walsinghams' accounts after his decease, a note of 7000. pounds bestowed upon Nato & Curlie, who being the Queen's Secretaries, framed such an answer as might best serve for a bloody time, & fit his intention that rewarded them with so liberal a fee. This made Phillippes so bold to advise Gifford by his Letters, that if he came in any suspicion of detecting the Queen, he should lay it either to Nato, or Curlie, whose shoulders being bolstered with so large bags, he thought would be best able to bear the burden away: It is also certain that Barnard (● M. Secretaries undoubted agent) went over into France about this practice, there free passages being warranted with all security: when they had been there so long, that Barnard might look into these proceedings, that in those Countries were actors in the matter, he returned again with Ballard, and having a large Commission from Sir Francis Walsingham, to take what manner of horses he would, out of any Gentleman's Park, or Pasture, and of other unusual liberties, he went with Ballard into the North, there he sought with what sleights he could, to have won divers Gentlemen, making Ballards' credit his countenance, and drawing the poor men unwittingly to be the occasion of his own and others ruin. In the end having cusoned another to get a Letter of commendations to the Lord Prior of Scotland: he sifted out of him what he could, & taking with him a Letter touching this matter, he brought it with all the intelligence and success of his malicious Pilgrimage, to the Council. And though he were thus inward and conversant with Ballard, carrying him to sundry Gentlemen of account, to feel & tempt them about this action, and to draw them into the desired compass: yea though himself were a motion to some, to enter into it, pretending that he had over reached M. Secretary, in getting that Commission: yet was he never called to the bar, but hired to stay a time in restraint, with such a recompense for his service, as might be well perceived to be large, by his liberal spending, & plenty in prison, he being otherwise a hungry and needy merchant, without either trade or living to maintain such expenses: and how privy S. Frau. was to the whole course of the gentlemen's actions, and to the certain period of the time, wherein all his endeavours would come to the full point, may be gathered by this, that being by a Priest that was to be banished sued unto for 20. days respite to dispatch his business: first repeating the number, and pausing a while with himself. No saith he, you shall have but 14. for if I should grant you any more, it would be to your hindrance, as you shall hear hereafter: wherein he said true, for much about that time, was public notice taken of Babbingtons' matter, all ways were watched, infinite houses searched, hews & cries raised, frights bruited in the people's ears, and all men's eyes filled with a smoke, as though the whole Realm had been on fire, whereas in truth, that was but the hissing of a few green twigs, of their own building, which they might without any such uproar have quenched with a handful of water, but that made not so much for their purpose as this buggish terrible shows: and thought they were so well acquainted with all the gentlemen's hearts, that they might every hour in the day or night, have drawn them in the net like a covey of partridges. Yet forsooth, must some of them be suffered purposely to flee that they might have the better colour to make those general demonstrations of a needle's fear. john Savage likewise when he came to the Court, was so well known to be a chicken of that feather, that two Pensioners were charged to have an eye unto him, and to watch so long as he stayed there, and yet was he suffered to go up and down, and usually to haunt the presence, till all irons were hot that were laid in the fire, to fear the credit of poor Catholics, and to give the Queen of Scots her deaths wound: it was also noted, that after Ballard was enchanted with Poolies' charms, he became a stainger to all Jesuits and other Priests, being limited by the politic rules of his promptor, to such company as Master Secretary knew to be of divine sights, to see through so many mists, as he by his instruments had already cast before their eyes, the Gentlemen were also throughly charmed, to keep their councils from the wiser and mature sort of Catholics, whom there was no hope to make them parties. Of which john Charnocke at the bar said the reason to be because the older, the colder, yet the true ground was a special promise of Master Secretary to keep the thread out of their hands that would soon have unwounde it to the bottom, for what man that had but known the first syllable of policy, would think it a likely course for them, to alter the whole state of so great a kingdom to quite contrary Religion and government, that neither had power to back them, (as then there was none ready, nor helps at home to support them) being all but private gentlemen, (neither of wealth, nor sufficient credit for such a matter) to carry with them any great numbers, who would not have pitied their indiscretion, that intending so great an alteration, thought it a fit way to go pickeing here & there one, as if such plots in so many young tongues could lie hidden so long, as to give them respite to glean a sufficient army. And for men that pleadged their heads in so dangerous attempts, to be so credulous, as to rest their hopes upon so flitting & fair promises of foreign helps, without the certainty of such preparation of ships & men, as might come in due time to follow their beginnings, was a most childish sight. And therefore for any man of experience that had looked to it, there would have offered itself a just suspicion, that the plot was rather a train to entrap the actors in it, than a mean to effect that intended by it. For though they had cut off some of the Council: yea, and dismantled the realm of your sacred majesty, (which Gods goodness neither would, nor we hope will permit) yet had their purpose been far from any semblance of their desired issue, for than they must have proclaimed either the Queen of Scots, or at least by some means have sought her delivery, & consequently have notified to the world that for her rising was your majesties going down. And what a tide of resistance would this notice have done, none can be so silly but he must needs see. For first by the oath of association, all the Nobility had been bound, to persist her to death, which many without an oath would otherwise have been apt enough to do. The crown also being left without any declared owner, a fair goal for them that run first at it, no doubt but diverse competitors would have hindered her course, to have made her hopes-way to so fair an aim. Then the act of PARLIAMENT excluding strangers from the Crown, (as she by diverse means was divoulged to be) would also have added danger to her claim, especially considering the ancient & deep rooted dislike, between the Scottish and the English, no small motive to a popular mutiny: but most of all her vehemency in the Catholic religion, (against which both the Nobility, Clergy, & commons were most violently bend) would have made them ready in that respect, to take heed of the least of these lets, to exclude her from the Crown, and to translate the title to some other more suitable, to their belief. All which impediments meeting so full with every eye, that did but look towards them, must needs have made any in reason to conclude it an impossibility for these gentlemen to have compassed their drift, which also they might easily have discerned, had they not been bewitched with master secretaties fine devices, & deluded with his spies, cozening letters and messages from foreign parts, for the Spanish fleet was not ready in two years after, and in France, (more than a few that in Gascoine were employed against the Hugonits) there was no kind of provision by sea, nor land, yea the king was then known to be so sure a friend to England, and so sharp an enemy to the Guisian party, in which the Queen's affiance was only fastined, that he would never have suffered her hopes to have had 〈◊〉 by any French assistants. And from Scotland they never looked for any aid, knowing that if they were not every way blind, how the king was wholly carried a way with an English bias, and so settled in the possession of the Crown, and in the bent of the contrary faith, that what soever he might have attempted for himself, it was never likely he would have followed their designment, of which the principal scope was the alteration of Religion. And he that in respect of his belief, refused with the Infant of Spain, the present possession of the Lowe-Countries assistance for the challenging of his other titles, and promised to be proclaimed heir, if the Spanish king should fail, was doubtless much better armed against their slender persuasions which could never have tempted him with such glorious offers. Finally the weakness of their beginning was an apparent proof that it was conceived and bred by them that would be sure to bring it to an abortion, and never suffer it to prevail to any other purpose, but to make us more hateful, and to bereave your Majesty of your more infamed than faulty cozen.  
Thus much Gracious Sovereign, is your Highness drawn by these indirect courses, to use your unwilling sword, against your less favoured, then faithful Subjects, and put in ungrounded fears of their disloyalty, who are of themselves so far from defiling their hearts with any treasonable thoughts, that their heavy enemies had no other ways to dismount them from their best deserving, buy by violenting them too evil; by these sinister inventions we know your majesties mind to be, from yielding your Royal assent to so ugly shifts, you ever binding your desires to the limits of virtue, and measuring your Regality, more by will to save, then by power to kill. Yet it cannot but afflict us, to see your highness ears so guarded against our complaints, and possessed with their persuasions, that most malign us, that we can have no other orators for your gracious favours, than the tongues that cannot afford us any favourable word. It hath been always the policy of our adversaries, to keep us aloof from revealing our unjust oppressions, lest they should incline your mercy to pity us, and they so arm your Highness with so hard informations against us, that they make our very suit for lenity seem an offensive motion: yet sith we must either speak or die, seeing so many slights are put in ure to bury us quick in all miseries, we hope God will make our petitions weigh into your heart, and win your clemency to consider our distress. Notwithstanding the slanders that are published against us: and if we may make our benefit of that which others have used to our greatest harms, we think that very act of Babington, may insure your Highness of the impossibility of Catholics to be drawn to rebellion, for when our oppressions were heaviest, our deaths ordinary, and so fine wits busied to draw us into the foil, yet was there not in all England in so long time found out above one Priest, and he one of the meanest, and few more than a dozen Lay-men, that could be won to stoop to these odious lures. Let not therefore this more prejudice us than so open threats, and direct menacings of the whole state, have endamaged others, sith of our side, there followed no effect, & our numbers were less likely to hurt (not arriving to a score) than these that dared your majesties Sceptre with many thousands, but because we like God-Almighties fools, (as some scornfully call us) lay our shoulders under every load, and are contented to make patience the only salve for all sores: many that see, are willing to use the awe of conscience, for the warrant to tread us down, whereas they presume not to meddle with others, although more fatal to your highness estate, knowing that if they should make them partners, but of half our afflictions, they would seem to bewray more impatient stomachs, for if the working of their spirits be so vehement, as with so little fear and so much solemnity to proclaim a new Christ and king of the earth, adding the crest of an usurped Messias to countenance, the challenge of human sovereignty. If being so freely permitted to use their consciences to themselves, and to enjoy their honours, offices, and favours in the common wealth, without any taste of your scourges, they notwithstanding sparkle not such tokens of a concealed flame, it can not choose but be seen and known, how much more cause there is, to look into their actions, and to fear their attempts, than to wreak so much anger upon us, that were never chargeable with so huge enormities. And yet the death of one man shut up in a silent oblivion, that open offer of uproar, & most blasphemous impiety against God and your Majesty, though it be generally known that there were more favourers and 〈◊〉 of that parti than could be ever charged with Babingtons' offence.  
We speak not this to incense your Majesty against others, being so well acquainted with the smart of our own punishments, to wish any Christian to be partaker of our pains. Our only intent is, most humbly to entreat, that if so impatient a zeal, accompanied with seditious words and actions, was so easily finished and remitted in the chastisement of one, your Highness in clemency, would not suffer so many innocent Priests & Catholics, to be so cruelly and continually martyred, who never incurred so enormous crimes. And sith we daily in our lives, & always at our executions unfeignedly pray for your Majesty, sith at our deaths we always protest upon our souls our clearness from treason, & our dutiful & loyal minds, subscribing our protestation, with our dearest blood. Let us not most merciful Sovereign be thus daily plunged deeper into new disgraces, and still proclaimed and murdered for traitors. Let us not be so esteemed for Godless and desperate monsters, as to spend our last breath in bootless perjuries, or at our greatest need of God's favour, to sacrifice to the devil our final vows, what reason then can move us so damnably to dissemble, when our expired date cutteth off all hopes, our death the end of evils, hath in this world no after fears, and a resolute contempt of our own lives, excludeth all thoughts of meaner lives, yea if any hope, fear, or love carry any sway, (as doubtless there doth in all Christian minds) it is a hope to be saved, a fear to be damned, alone to God, to his truth, & our endless well-doing, all which in that dreadful moment, (whereupon dependeth our whole eternity) can never be motives unto us, to send our forsworn souls headlong to hell-fire. But let us proceed in our necessary defence, as the inditor doth in his false accusations, (we are charged for the easiar 〈◊〉 of unnatural people, weak of understanding to yield to our persuasions) to have brought Bulls, & Indulgences pretending to promise Heaven, or cursing damnation to hell. It was but a foreign supply for want of true facts, to fasten upon this fond conclusion being so far from truth, and so full of incongruity, that every novice in our faith, can reprove it for error. I omit the reproachful terms of unnatural and weak understanding, most injuriously fathered upon such a Prince's pen, whom a Royal mind hath taught, not to stain her paper, or blemish her style, with those and so many other base and reviling words, as are pestered together in this proclamation. I report all men to their eyes, and ears for answer to these slanders, whether (the soule-rightes excepted) in all temporal duties, Catholics be not as natural to their Prince, as beneficial to their neighbours, as regular in themselves, as any other subjects, yielding the uttermost of all that is exacted in Subsidies, Persons, Men, and Munition, besides the patient loss of our Goods and Lands for their Recusansie.  
Let it be read in letters of experience, whether Catholics be of shallow brain, or of so weak understanding, that they would be carried away with these imaginary Bulls, promising heaven, and threatening hell, of which Catholics ears never heard before.  
This world can witness, that in Divinity, Law, and Physic, and all other faculties and functions, either of Piety, or policy, all England, I may say all Christendom, scarce knoweth any men more renowned than our ENGLISH Catholics, (without vanity be it spoken in a just defence) but though they were not such Sallomons for wisdom, as some others take themselves to be, yet they be allowed ordinary sense and intendment, which if it be but so much, as may serve them to tell over the Articles of their Creed, it is enough to be known that no bull can promise Heaven, or threaten Hell, but for keeping or breaking Gods Commandments.  
judge then, (most Sovereign LADY) whether that it be not too great an indignation to see the sacred name of our Noble QUEEN, which next to God's word should be honoured among the most impregnable testimonies of truth, to be with undeserved abuse by any subject subscribed to these most vain, and so impossible fictions.  
Who likewise (but meaning to make his PRINCE'S pain a spring of untruths) would against the certain knowledge of so many and so infinite people, as well seers as hearers, even as from your MAJESTY: that no PRIEST in Indicted, Arreined, or Executed for Religion: sith it is so often, and in every Sessions seen, that unless we ourselves should confess manifestly that we were PRIESTS, no other treasonable crime, could be justly proved against us, and for this (how far it is from deserving this odious title) your Majesty may easily gather, for that all Christendom hath these fifteen hundred years honoured for Pastors and governors of their souls, those that now are more than unfavourably termed Traitors, yea if to be a Priest made by the authority of the See of Rome, & present within your highness dominions, be a just title of treason. If they that harbour, relive, or receive any such, be worthy to be deemed felons: then all the glorious Saints of this Land whose Doctrine and virtue God Almighty confirmed with many miracles, were no better than traitors, and their abettors felons. Then DAMIANUS and FUGATIUS, that first brought Christianity in King LUCIUS his time, 1400. years past: then Saint AUGUSTINE & his companions that converted our Realm in Saint GREGORY'S time were, who in the compass of treason, sith their functions and ours were all one equally divided from the Sea of Rome, from whence they were directly by the Pope's Elutherius and Gregory sent into this kingdom being Priests, and Religious men, as all antiquity doth witness, yea all the Churches and places of piety, (chief ornaments of this Noble Realm) all the Charters and Endowments bestowed upon Priests & Religious persons, & yet registered in the ancient laws are but monuments of felony, & favourers of treason. And if it should please God to allot the day of general resurrection in your majesties time, (a thing not impossible as uncertain) what would so many Millions of Prelates, Pastors, and Religious people think, that both honoured and blessed this kingdom with the holiness of their life, and excellency of their learning: much would they rest amazed, to see their Relics burned, their memories defaced, and all their Monasteries dedicated once to piety, prayer, and chastity: now either buried in their ruins, or profaned by unfitting uses: but more would they muse to find their Priesthood reckoned for treason, and the relief of Priests condemned for felony; these being the two principal testimonies of devotion, that their ages were acquainted with: yea, what would your majesties Predecessors, and Fathers, with the Peers & people of your Realm think, when they should see themselves in terms of felony by the censure of your laws, for erecting bishoprics, and endowing Churches, founding Colleges, and some other like places, for the honouring and maintaining of Priests, & Religious men: yea and for giving their Ghostly Father in way of relief, but a cup of cold water, though it were at the very point of death when they needed spiritual comfort, being to abandon their mortal bodies: and though the Priests at that time were not made since the first year of your majesties reign, which is the only point which excludeth them from the statute, yet were they all such Priests, or Abbetors of them, as were consecrated by authority derived from the Sea of Rome, (as all registers do record) and present within your majesties realm, which are the only material points, for which we have been, or can be condemned: for the Sea of Rome remaining in the self-same state, still endued with the same authority, and neither the manner of our creation, or Priesthood itself, is any thing altered from that it was. Why should it be more treasonable to be made Priests, in the midsummer day of your first year, them the next day before, or the last of Queen Mary's Reign, for neither doth the Pope, nor any other Bishop by making us Priests claim or get any more authority in our Realm, than they of Basill or Geneva, by making Protestants Ministers, nor we by receiving our orders from him, acknowledge in him a mite worthy of authority, more than every lay-man doth through all Christendom: & as for oaths & promises in receiving Holy Orders, we neither take nor plight any but one common to the Priests of all Nations, which is a solemn vow of perpetual Chastity, a thing rather pleasing then offensive to a virtuous Queen, who hath for herself made choice of a single life. And who then can find any cullourable pretence to verify this slander more grievous to us then death itself, that we are not condemned and executed for Religion, but for treason: we being always arraigned & cast upon this statute of coming into England, being since the first of your majesties Reign, made Priests by the authority of the Sea of Rome: for what can be meant by Religion, if it be not a point, yea and a chief point thereof to receive a Sacrament of the CATHOLIC CHURCH (as we acknowledge Priesthood to be) of the chief PASTOR and PRELATE thereof, from whence we can prove all lawful Priesthood to have descended this fifteen hundred years, & to avouch us Traitors for coming into England, or remaining here is an injury without ground, sith in this respect, the statute could not touch us (setting priesthood aside) many coming and going at their pleasure, without such supposal of treason: But it is our coming in as Priests, that is so highly condemned, & therefore our Priesthood and nothing else punished by this law: And howbeit the chief devisers of this, & all the like decrees (ever seeking to attain their drifts, against religion under some other pretence) exempted the QUEEN MARIE Priests, from the compass of this Statute, by a limitation of time: yet was that but a colour to inveigle such eyes, as either through carelessness would not look, or through weakness could not reach to their final intentions, and little regarded that a few old & feeble men, whom neither age, by course of nature, or they by any other acts might soon cut off, so the seed might be extinguished & a new supply of posterity prevented, which by this Law (though in vain) they purposed to do. Be it therefore never so much mistitled with the undeserved name of treason, the 〈◊〉 reproach cannot cover the truth from your Majesties best deserving insight, which by this cannot but apparently see, that it is, it was, and ever will be religion, for which we expose our blood to the hazard of these laws, & for the benefit of souls, yield our bodies to all extremities. It may be also easily gathered by the weakest wits, what huge treasons they be, for which we be condemned, sith at all our araignements and deaths, we are offered, that once going to church, should wipe away the heinousness of this treason: a courtesy never mentioned to true traitors, & a sufficient proof it was a religious fault, that is so easily cleared by a religious action: yet we must with just complaint of most unjust proceeding acknowledge, that at the bar many things, (whereof not so much as our thoughts were ever guilty) are beside our Priesthood, partly by indictment, partly by some in office laid to our charge, and yet so naked of proofs, or of any likely conjectures, that we can never be condemned of any thing, but our own confession of Priesthood: and hereof the last arraignment of three Priests at Westminster, even since the Proclamation, gave such an ample notice, as the Lord chief justice said; that though many things had been urged, yet was he to pronounce sentence of death against them, only upon the statute of coming into England, being made Priests after the Roman order, since the first of her majesties reign: yet it hath been some time objected against Priests, that they should pretend to kill your sacred Majesty: a thing so contrary to their calling, so far from their thoughts, so wide of all policy, that whosoever will afford reason her right, cannot with reason think them so foolish to wish, much less to work such a thing, every way odious, no way beneficial. We come to shed our own blood, and not to seek the effusion of others blood. The weapons of our warfare are Spiritual not offensive, and we carry our desires, so high lifted above savage and brutish purposes, that we rather hope to make our own Martyrdom, steps to a glorious eternity, than our deaths, our purchase of eternal dishonour. And who but men unwilling to have us thought owners of our right wits, would abuse your majesties authority, to soothe up so great unlikelie-hoodes, sith none can be so ignorant, how pernicious it were for PRIESTS & catholics, to lose the protection of your majesties Highness, and to forego present sureties, for uncertain changes. For if any would bequeath his blood to so brutish a fact: if he were not as much enemy to all men, as to himself, he would at the least have some appearance of benefit, that might be supposed to ensue to those, for whose good, he would be thought to have cast away his life: but none that looketh but a step before him, into future accidents, can think it any way available unto us, to be bereaved of your Majesty: sith that our hopes are now bend, not upon any ●●pected happiness, but only upon a more intolerable misery. And although our cause at this present be so hard, that it is the next degree to extremity: yet we see things hang in so doubtful terms, that the death of your Majesty would be an alarmed to infinite uproars, and likelier to breed all men to a general calamity, than CATHOLICS any cause of comfort: and therefore us to seek it, were not only an impiety to our Country, but a tyranny to ourselves, who of all others were surest to find the fiercest encounters of the popular people's fury, & though we could, (as then no man possible can) find a privy or secret harbour from the common storms:) yet whom should we look upon that may promise us any hope or comfort of bettering our fortunes, sith the likeliest to succeed, are further from our Religion, than your Majesty ever was, and likelier to charge us with a heavier hand, then to lighten the burden, wherewith we are already bruised, and both your majesties Sex inclined to piety, and the mildness of your own disposition, rather wrested by others, then prone of itself, too angry resolution, maketh us more willing to languish in this quartan of our lingering cumbers, then to hazard ourselves to those extreme fits, that might happily be caused by the heat of men, more warlike and less pitying minds: for now our dispairefull estate is much like unto a weak and tender Castle, besieged with many enemies, and continually battered and beaten with shot, in which though the abode be amongst many accounted most dangerous and distresseful, yet without it there is nothing but certain miseries, rest you therefore assured (most Gracious Sovereign) sith we are devoted to so hard a destiny, that we neither dare hope for any cause of contentment, or end of unhappiness, we had rather trust to the softness of your merciful hand, (and next to God) to rest to the height of your possibilities, in your favour and clemency, than by any unnatural violen●● against Gods anointed to seek the ruin of your Realm, and draw upon ourselves the extremest of worldly harms, in this only we crave admittance of our 〈◊〉 requests, that evil informers rob not our words of due belief, nor draw your wisdom to their frivolous fears, wholly grounded in mere fictions, and purposely devised to our ignominy. Now whereas he imposeth on some to have said, that they would take part with the Army of the Pope, against our Realm, it is a most unlikely thing, unless it were proceeded out of some frail tongue by force of torture, that was rather willing to say what they seemed to require, than to abide the hell of their intolerable torments, for such is now our forlorn estate, that we are not only prisoners, at every promoters pleasure, and common steps for every one to tread upon: but men so neglected by our Superiors, and so left to the rage of pitiless persons, that contrary to the course of all Christian laws, we are by extremest torments forced to 〈◊〉 our very thoughts. It is not enough to confess that we are Priests: (for it is seldom denied) but we must be urged upon the torture with other odious interogations, far from our knowledge, much further from our action. We are compelled to accuse those whom our conscience assureth to be innocent, and to cause their overthrow by our confessions, to whose souls we 〈◊〉 Pastors, and they the fosterers of our bodies. And if we do not, because without untruths and injuries we cannot answer, we are so unmercifuly tormented, that our deaths, (though as full of pangs as hanging, drawing, and unboweling us quick can make them) are unto us rather remedies, than further revenges, more releasing then increasing our miseries. Some are hanged by the hands eight or nine hours, yea twelve hours together, till not only their wits, but even their senses fail them, & when the soul (weary of so painful an harbour, is ready to depart, then apply the cruel comforts & revive us, only to martyr us with more deaths, for est 'zounds they hang us in the same manner, trying our ears with such questions, which either we cannot, because we know not, or without damning of our souls we may not 〈◊〉; some are whipped naked so long, and with such excess, that our enemies unwilling to give constancy the right name, said that no man without the help of the devil, could with such undauntedness suffer so much. Some besides their torments have been forced to be continually bo●●ed & clothed many weeks together, pined in their ●yet, consumed with varmine, and almost stifled with stench, and kept from sleep, till they were past the use of reason, and then examined upon the advantage, when they could scarce give an account of their own names. Some have been tortured in those parts, that it is almost a torture to Christian ears to hear it, let it then be judged, what it was to Chaste and Modest men to endure it, the shame being no less offensive to their mind, than the pain, though most excessive to their bodies; diverse have been thrown into unsavoury and dark dungeons, and brought so near starving, that some for famine have licked the very moisture of the walls. Some have been so far consumed, that they were hardly recovered of life. What unsufferable agonies we have been put unto upon the Rack, it is not possible to express, the feeling so far exceedeth all speech. Some with instruments have been rolled up together like a ball, and so crushed that the blood sprouted out at diverse parts of their bodies.  
To omit diverse other cruelties, better known by their particular names, to the Racke-Miasters, and Executioners, then to us, though too well acquainted with the experience of their smarts. It is not possible to keep any reckoning of the ordinary punishments of BRIDEWELL, now made the common purgatory of PRIESTS and CATHOLICS, as grinding in the mill, being beaten like slaves, and other outrageous usages: for to these we are most cruelly enforced at the discretion of such, as being to all other despised, underlings, take their only felicity in laying their greedy commandments, & showing their authority upon us, to whom every warder, jailor, and Porter, is an unresisted Lord.  
Thus (most excellent Princes) are we used, yea thus are we unhumanely abused, for being Priests, & of our forefather's faith, and of purpose to wring out of us some odious speeches, which might serve at our arraignments for stales to the people, to make them imagine greater matters than can be proved: whereas neither evil meaning, nor truth, but torture only was guide to the tongue that spoke them, within so hard conflicts of flesh & blood, with so bitter convulsions, is apt to utter any thing to abridge the sharpness and severity of the pain. Such undoubtedly were the words alleged of taking part with the army of the Popes, against our Realm, if they ever issued out of priests mouths, or else they were spoken by some unskilful Lay-man, that knowing not how to answer such captious questions, and for reverence of the chief Pastor of GOD'S Church, not daring to say that he would not take part against him, had rather venture his life, by saying too much, than hazard his conscience in not answering sufficient. But the ignorance of one must not measure the meanings of all, whom knowledge of our deaths teaches answers far different from his, and maketh us ready to defend our Realm, as the Catholic subjects, of you majesties ancestors, or any other Princes were, or ever shall be. For did we carry so traitorous minds as our enemies give out, we could not possible be so cowardly or foolish, as to suffer these tyrannies for nothing, being otherwise resolved to die, and knowing the heads and hands from whence these cruelties proceed, without your majesties privities. But as with patience and mildness we hitherto have, and hereafter mean to endure our scourges, having no way deserved them, but by seeking the salvation of souls, and praying for their good that torment us, so in answer of this point, do we assure your Majesty, that what army soever should come against you, we will rather yield our breasts to be broached by our enemies sword, than use our sword to the effusion of our Country blood. But let us now come to the confusion of some that would avouch Cardinal Allen to be Pope, and Father Parsons to the king of Spain, to have showed certain scrolls of the names of catholics, and to have tempted him to renew the war, by promising many thousands that should be in England ready to aid them, concerning which there needeth no more to be said, but that the penitents that made the confession, knew well enough that they were not with their right ghostly father, or else they would never have committed such a sacrilege, abusing the Sacraments with such untruths. For we are assured by their notice, who were more internal & conversant with them both, than the authors of this confession ever could be, that they are sufficiently informed of the estates of Catholics, the one by experience, the other by continual reports of those that go over. And therefore neither in policy, in which they are no punies, nor honesty on which their creeit doth lie, would they deliver such follies into Prince's ears, which all protestants hearing by so many attorneys, (as all protestants do) were able to disprove them of falsehood, for neither are the restraints, and number of Catholics so secret, nor the course to suppress them so unknown, but every Prince seeth it an impossibility for them to do any thing, being as before is showed, so naked and needy, & every way so unprovided. Neither would they in discretion, (if they were as they are not) the motioners of the Kings coming, feed them with a vain hope of them, whom they at least knew to be a kind of broken reeds, sith the more help he expecteth,, the less he would bring, & happily build a maimed plot upon a false supposal, to his second overthrow: and if this preparation be greater than ever, why should he than trust to our less ability, & the Laws daily weakening our strength, & time hourly increaseth his more than he did at the first assault, when not any Priest nor Catholic in England, was acquainted with his coming, nor sure of his intent, till the common voice bruited it, & our provisions ascertained his purposes, & unless they were our enemies they would not in common wisdom show scrolls of our names, or promise our assistance, sith they knew not how ready our adversaries at home would be upon less matters to seek our subversion, yea though they should as we are sure they will not (pass so fond promises) yet could not Catholics but hazard all their estates in their uncertainties of foreign war, seeing specially his last overthrow, & knowing the enterprise to be such, that either the King must stand upon the strength of his own force, or the sorry addition of their impotent succour, which can never enable him to contrive his endeavours. Finally, both Cardinal Allen, and Father Parsons, are known generally to be men of excellent gifts, and no such novices in the knowledge of Prince's intelligencers, as in the weighty points of alteration of States, & invasion of Kingdoms, to presume to delude them with impudent assertions, known to themselves to be false, as the informer acknowledgeth this to be. And if effects, the most infallible testimonies of intentions, may bear the deserved credit against naked & unprovided words of this partial Inditor, Father Parsons hath by evident demonstrations of a loyal mind, sufficiently cleared himself from such undue suspicions: for having by his wisdom & rare parts, purchased more than ordinary credit with the King of Spain. All that have been eye witnesses of his proceedings, can avouch, that he hath used the king's favour every way to the benefit, but no way to the prejudice of your majesties subjects. The soldiers that in your service lost their liberties, and expected no other entertainment, but the customary pay of professed hostility, was by his means an intercession, not only pardoned their lives, but with new apparel & money in their purses, enfranchised to their full liberties, either to stay in the Country, if they so fancied, or to return to their own, if they were so better pleased; yea whereas by long continued breaches, between Spain and England, the name of an Englishman was in most parts of those kingdoms, far less loved then known: he hath used such means for the mitigation of their enmity towards us, that now we are no less welcome amongst them, and more charitably used, then in most other Nations: whereof not only the quiet of Merchants, the admittance of our Students, even in the heart of our Realm, (both things unusual in so jealous and suspicious times) but the singular courtesy towards their professed & known enemies, who are actually taken in a violent enterprise against them, gave proof to your Majesty, witnessing how much Father Parsons hath qualified the dislikes, that wars bringeth forth: for even the Athalantado or chief Governor of the Galleys of spain, to make manifest that neither the king, nor his Nobles had in the heat of their Martial broils, lost the feeling of their ancient League with our Country, sent into the Galleys of our English Captains, the plate and meat from their own table, that the world by these friendliness know, how much better they can use their enemies, than some of your majesties unworthy Magistrates, your natural subjects, and loyal friends. And though it rest not in a private man's power, to stay the endeavours of so mighty a Prince, in so general, and important an enterprise, as is war with England. Yet this without presumption may be truly said, that if ever he should prevail in that designment, (as the casualties of war are most uncertain, and only over ruled by God) Father PARSONS assisted with Cardinal ALLENS authority, hath done that in our Country's behalf, for which his most bitter enemies, & generally all your majesties Subjects, shall have cause to thank him for his serviceable endeavours; so far hath he inclined fury to clemency, and rage to compassion. The confi●ent therefore that gave out these confessions, did it but to soothe up such credulous auditors as they knew very apt to entertain any rumours against the credit of catholics, hoping of likelihood to sell them these fables for some benefit of more importance.  
No no most GRACIOUS Sovereign, it is not the authority of two private men, that can carry away Princes, so ready to employ the many forces, if they have not motives of greater consequence: and whosoever considereth our surprising of the kings Towns in Flaunders, or invading his Countries in Spain, and Portugal, our assisting his enemies against his daughter's right in Britain, our continnal intercepting his treasure, warring with his fleets, and annoying▪ his Indies: shall find other causes of his coming, even since his last repulse, than the slender hope of a few beggarly Catholics, or the faint persuasion of two banished men. It is also no small injury that is offered to your Highness, in making your SACRED hand, guided by such thoughts as scorn to have untruths the patron of your actions, to seem the Author of this Sentence: That many men of wealth professing in your realm a contrary religion, are known not to be impeached for the same, either in their lives, lands, goods, or liberties, but only by paying a pecuniary sum, as a penalty for the time, that there refuse to come to Churches. If this be as truly, as confidently spoken, why were the venerable Prelates, and other Priests, and Gentlemen deprived of their livings, and pined in Wisbiche: why are all the principal Catholics committed to Elye, known to the ministers, then to Banbury, afterwards to their own houses with a short compass about them, being now only let loose to verify a part of this proclamation, and to be easilier ensnared in the perils thereof, to which every child may see, they are more subject at home, than they would be in prison, and if they chance not to be so wary not to be entrapped, effects will soon prove, (if your majesties favour prevent not the intention of others, that this liberty was) for a purpose, just at the coming forth of the proclamation granted, sith order will soon be taken, that they shall not surfeit of being so long free, and if this saying be true, that none are troubled for religion, what keepeth at this hour at London, York, and other places, great numbers of many poor Catholics in prison, some of them languishing away with the commodities of their enclosure, have by a patient death obtained the best liberty, others yet after many years endurance, for no other cause but for Religion, being offered liberty if they would go to Church. Pining still in painful restraint, witnesseth to the world, with their lingering miseries, the manifest falseness of this assertion Was it not punishment for Religion, when a company of Honourable & Worshipful Ladies and Gentlewomen were most uncivilly led through Cheapside, with their Priests before them, only for hearing MASS, and that before Priesthood was enacted to be Treason. Is not that very statute a most heavy oppression, now when the most of these Queen MARY'S Fathers that are left, are become so old and impotent, that they can not possibly supply catholics special necessities, to make it by Law felony to receive young Priests. Are not catholics shortened by this means from such helps to which their conscience and Religion bindeth them, a torment to virtuous minds, more afflictive than any outward punishment? Are they not by this tied to this wounding and bitter choice, either to live like Heathens without the Rites of Christian and necessary SACRAMENTS, for their soul's health, or to purchase them at the rigorous price of hazarding their Liberties, Lives, Lands, and Posterities, as in case of felony. In points also of our credit, how deeply we are incurred in respect of our Religion, how many experiences make it most manifest? We are made the common Theme of every railing declaymer, abused without means or hope of remedy, by every wretch with most infamous names: no tongue so forsworn, but it is of credit against us: none so true, but it is thought false in our defence; our slanders are common works for idle presses, and our credits are daily sold at the Stationer's staules, every Libeler repairing his wants, with impairing our honours, being sure that when all other matters fail, any Pamphlets against us shall ever be welcomed, with seen, as allowed. If we keep Hospitality we are censured to be too popular: if we forbear, we hoard up money for secret purposes: if we be merry, we are ●de with foreign hopes: if sad, we are 〈◊〉- content with the state at home: If we subscribe to Articles, it must be called Hypocrisy: if we refuse disloyalty, in some we are measured by the eyes and tongues, of such whom we can no way please, but by being miserable: yea, the very name of a Catholic, as they in their new Testament term it a Papist, is so known a vantage for every one, that either oweth them money, or offereth them injury, that they can neither claim their right, nor right their wrongs: but their adversaries strait leaving the mainepointe, pleadeth against them for their recusancy. And thus traversing their suits, often causeth their persons to be committed to prison. If any displeasing accident fall out, whereof the authors are either unknown or ashamed, Catholics are made common Fathers to such infamous Orphans, as though none were so fit sluices as they, to let out of every man's sink, these unsavoury reproaches: not so much but the casual fires that sometimes happen in London, the late uproars between Gentlemen & aprentises, were laid to our charge, though the occasioners of both were known so well that the report against us, could not but issue from an undeserved malice: yea Hacket a man so far from our Faith, as Infidelity itself, and a little before so notorious a Puritan, that he was of chief reckoning among them; when his blasphemies grew so great, his articles so impious, that they made Christians ears to glow, and his adherents to blush: then was he posted over to us for a Papist, and so named to vulgar sort; so common a practice it is to bestow upon us, the infamies of all offenders. I omit the uniformed shame and contempt, that the very laws lay upon us, condemning the chief function of our Religion, partly for treasonable, partly for punishable faults: And pretending an ancient faith honoured in all former ages, to be so detestable a thing, that it should by a solemn Statute be thought necessary to make it treason, to persuade any unto it. I leave the slanders forged against Priests, after their Executions, purposely reserved till the parties were passed answering, & then dewlged to make them hateful. It were infinite to lay before your majesties eyes, all the crosses that in this world we bear: which to men, whom either gentry or nobility maketh tender over their honours, cannot be but most bitter corrisives: for they neither dare revenge their own quarrels for fear of double offence to god & your highness, nor hope to have redress in ordinary course, so far hath disfavour excluded them, from all needful remedies: yet must your Majesty be informed, (so uncharitable are our enemies) that we suffer nothing for Religion, whom only in respect of Religion these neglected miseries have made most contemptible every one doing us wrong, to please our superiors, whom they see careless in yielding us any right. Now how undutiful an impeachment it was to the credit of your majesties words & writings, to publish under your Sovereign title, that Catholics for Religion are not impeached in their goods or lands, I leave to effects to prove. And what is our recusancy, or refusal, to be present at their protestants service, but a mere matter of conscience, for as there is none so known, or usual a way to distinguish any religion from other, as the external rites and Sacraments peculiar to every one, so can none more effectually deny his own than by making open confession of a contrary speech by his assistance & present at the solemnities & service proper to it. For not only he that denieth Christ in his heart, but he also that denieth or is ashamed of him, shall in the latter day be denied of him before his Angels. And seeing men judge best of our minds, by our actions, we cannot possibly give any greater proof unto them, that we are no Catholics, than if we join with Protestants, in their Churches & service, by which, as than most certain and special marks, they themselves are known to be of that opinion. We therefore, not gainsaid by Calvin, Melancihon, or any other learned Protestant, in this esteem of voluntary presents, of any in or at the service of a contrary sect, a denial of his faith before men which being by Christ expressly prohibited cannot but be judged a mere matter of conscience, & religion, & as such a one as is by us refused, sith neither pleasure nor policy could otherways withhold us, our refusal redounding to our so great trouble and disadvantage, for first there are twenty pounds by the month exacted of such as are to pay it after thirteen months by the year, an account unusual in all other causes, as the laws commonly read Printed and practised witnesseth, and multitudes of the unabler sort of catholics daily feel, that all their goods, & third part of their lands are ceased on, for their recusancy that cannot yearly pay thirteenscore pounds for the same. And this is so perscribed, & performed with such rigour, that it is in the leases of Protestants hands by a special proviso, ordained that recusants should not be so much as tenants to their own lands, so severely is their religion punished in that behalf: yea & this law hath been so severely executed, that whereas poor farmers and husbandmen, had but one Cow for themselves, & many children to live upon it, that for their recusancy hath been taken from them, & where both kine & cattle were wanting, they have taken their coverlets, sheets, & blankets from their beds, their victuals & poor provision from their houses, not sparing so much as the very glass from their windows, when they found nothing else to serve their turns withal, which most pitiful abuses poor souls both in the North & other countries, have been continually cumbered, no complaints taking place, where these outrages were, rather commended for good services, than rebuked for misdemeanours. So irrevocably are we condemned to a servile bondage. And if your Majesty did but know what other extreme penury & desolation, they ordinarily feel, your merciful heart, never hardened to see lamentable spoils would rather have the laws repealed, than the execution so intolerable. It is not possible to express in words the continual hell we suffer by the merciless searching & storming of pursuivants & such needy officers, that care not by whose fall they rise, not having any deserts or other degrees, to climb to the height of their ambition, but by the punishment & pains of poor Catholics. They water their fountains with the showers of our tenderest veins, & build their houses with the ruins of ours, tempering the mortar of their foundations, with our innocent blood: our livings are but snares for the owner's lives, commonly made the fee of ery mercenary mouth, that can by sounding our disgraces into credulous ears, procure themselves warrants to seize upon our substance. They make our wills before we be sick, bequeathing to their own uses, what share they like, & by displanting our offspring adopt themselves to be heirs of our lands, begging & broking for them, as if we were either condemned for fools, or in perpetual minority, & not contented with our wealth, they persecute our lives, never thinking their possession sure, till the assurance be seasoned with our death. So easy it is for our enemies to quench their angry thirst in our blood: yea we are made so common forage for all hungry cattle, that even the thieves with scutchins & counterfeit warrants, have under the pretence of pursuivants spoiled us in our houses, having the officers to assist them in their robberies, so ready they are at every one's call, to practise their authority to our vexation, and so well known it is to every way cannoneer how openly Catholics lie to the pray. And though some very few find more favour being able to follow it with golden petitions, yet all the rest, whose meaner estates cannot reach the charge of such costly friends, are made common blots, open to every chance of the dice, to give entry to their adversaries, by their displeasing their own servants & tennantes crowing over them, and vaunting that every pawn may give their mate to their highest fortune: for be he never so base that playeth with them, with the least advantage, he is sure that many will back him in it, and have the trick with a sure help, though it be the son that taketh against his father, or any faulty drudge that for fear of correction accuseth his master. It were infinite to set down the labyrinth of our afflictions, in which, what way soever we go, it is but a losing of ourselves & a winding of us further into an endless course of calamities. Let this suffice, that now so heavy is the hand of our superiors against us, that we generally are accounted men, whom it is a credit to pursue, a disgrace to protect, a commodity to spoil, again to torture, & a glory to kill. We presume that your Majesty seldom or never heareth the truth of our persecutions, your lenity and tenderness being known to be so professed an enemy to these cruelties, that you would never permit their countenance, if they were but expressed to your highness as they are practised upon us: yet sith we can bring the ruin of our houses, the consumption of our goods, the poverty of our estates, & the weeping eyes of our desolate families, for palpable witnesses of the truth of these complaints. Let us not be so far exiled out of the limets of all compassions, as besides all other evils to have it confirmed with your majesties hand, that we suffer no punishment for religion, suffering in proof all punishments, for nothing else: we have been long enough cut from all comforts, & stinted by an endless task of sorrows growing in griefs, as we grow in years, one misery oretaketh another, as though every one were but in earnest of a harder payment; we have some small hope that our continued patience, and quiet effusion of our bloodat your majesties feet, would have kindled some spark of remorse towards us: but still we see that we are not yet at the depth of our misfortunes, we must yet tread the restless maze of new agreevance, sith we perceive by this Proclamation, that our cause is too far for being pitied, that it is not so much as known, where it can only be redressed: yet sith help never cometh too late, to so helpless creatures, who daily are drawn nearly to the brink of a general destruction, which some that give aim to your Majesty, seem willing that you should discharge upon us: we are forced to dewlge our petitions by many mouths to open unto your Highness our humble suits: for neither ourselves to present them in person (being terrified by the precedent of imprisonment, that last attempted it) nor having the favour of any such patron, as would be willing to make himself our mediator to your Majesty: we are forced to commit it to the multitude, hoping that among so many, that shall peruse this short & true relation of our troubles, GOD will touch some merciful heart, to let your highness understand the extremity of them, which if we were once sure to have been effectually performed, we might either set up our rest, ●n an unflexable sentence of misery, which we hope shall never proceed from so easy and gracious a judge, as your sacred self, or either expect some lenity to allay the anger of our smart, a thing more incident unto the mild temper of so excellent a mind. In the mean season, we humbly crave pardon of this forced defence, & necessary supplication, which was extorted from us by open & unsupportable untruths, no less needful for your majesty to know, them for us to disprove; employing the undeserved touch of your majesties word, & plaining the direct path, to our intended subversion; Accept it therefore (most merciful Princess) and all our humble duties & faiths with it, which with most loyal thoughts, & serviceable resolulutions, are unfeignedly betrothed to your majesties defence. God of his infinite goodness prosper and preserve you to his glory, your subjects comfort, and your own, both temporal and eternal happiness. December 14. Anno. 1595. FINIS.