Le franc discourse.  
A Discourse, presented of late to the French King, in answer of sundry requests made unto him, for the restoring of the jesuits into france, as well by their friends abroad, & at home, as by themselves in diuers Petitionarie books.  
Written in French this present year, 1602. and faithfully Englished.  
Printed Anno. Domini. 1602.   

¶ To all true catholics and other her majesties loving Subiects.  
THE Printer saith, we must be short: briefly therefore thus. The reports which the jesuits give out amongst their adherents: do in some points not much displease vs. Though we cannot haue( if they prove true) what we desired: yet haue we so much, as makes their harts to groan. We are( as they say) acquit in Rome from schism. burn then your book Ma. Lyster: which you writ against vs. Tichborne, Hadddock, array, or whosoever gave information, that we were condemned in Rome for schismatics, to speak plain English, lied. And you R. Archpt Garnet, jones, & all the sort of you, blushy for shane:( it is some sign of grace) in that you were so peremptory, to lay so false an imputation vpon vs. It appeareth now, that you shewed therein neither iudgement, nor learning: but what spite, & malice, let the world judge. But more particularly to you Ma. Archp: Is it not reason, that you should with tears bewail your rashness: in condemning the censure of Paris? It is something, that you haue so gross a foil: but that is not sufficient. What injury also haue you done to your Canonists, whose testimonies you perverted triumphantly? Could neither your own reading, nor your deere Fathers illuminations, their familiarity with GOD, the companions of Iesus, better direct you? Behold( good Readers) your Apostles, your Masters, your Pilots, your Leaders.  
Our faculties are judged( as we also hear) to haue been validae ab initio, sufficient from the beginning, that first we received them. Repent then in like maner Ma. provincial. Your words were blasphemous, when you writ: that it was sin to entreat us, or help us to say mass: and that they, who should receive the Sacrament at our hands, seemed to receive povson. How ridiculous also haue then your featherlesse bolts been ( Ma. Archp:) which full blindly( God knoweth) you haue shot about in every corner at us? Many Edicts, and prohibitions you haue published Magistraliter to vex us: but with more boldness, then discretion, as now you may see. And for you Ma. Parsons: hath he so indeed? Durst his holiness check you? Could not the Spanish ambassadors prevent such a disgrace? But hold up your head man. Though our Archp: shall be no more bound( as they say) to depend vpon your lips: yet you know him to be a trusty Roger unto you, and your crew. What he was before commanded to do, he will now perform of his own accord. As good never a whit, as never the better: as long as he sitteth at the helm.  
Yea,( but say you) my Maisters: who must still govern the seminaries? Wee hope we shall curb you well enough. Besides, my children, or subiects, the fellowes of Iesus, shall remain amongst you in spite of your harts. Good words Father, Christ Iesus, and your brood, fellow and fellow-like? Good fellewes, wee assure you. But must you govern still our seminaries? keep thē your children from them, deere catholics: except you intend purposely to haue them trained up in treason, if they may haue their wills. You must remain amongst vs. We are heartily sorry for it: and that in two respects. First, because you are their mediate head: and such a head, as we suspect is either mad, or lately become addle. Why man: what mean you, by the Propositions sent us lately out of France? You haue forsooth a Reformation in hand: whereunto the counsel of Trent must yield homage. All must be squared to the Apostles times. It is well said good friar. The apportioning of every clergy mans part, to live upon: cometh within the Rules of your new discipline. And what then shall become of his holiness estate? Must he haue no larger a portion, to maintain him with, then S. Peter had? Blocks( you will say:) I onely speak of England. By your good favour Ma. friar, you also affirm, that after you haue done your pleasure in England: all other churches elsewhere, must conform themselves to ours. Certainly, the man is either not well in his wits: or else wee shall haue R. P. shortly transformed into T. C. But of these points, you shall hear more before it be long. Secondly: how many jesuits of your humour in England, so many vassals & sworn friends to the King of spain: and consequently so many enemies to her majesty, her state, and kingdom: nay wee know not, how many else wee may join with them, jesuited secular priests, lay jesuits, and all other catholics, that will be advised by them, and follow their precepts. But must you remain here? tell us truly: indeed wee feared as much. And therefore we thought it our duties, to acquaint both you( good Readers) and all the rest of her majesties true subiects( be their religion otherwise how it shal) with the jesuits catechism( lately published) & with this present Treatise: that seeing wee cannot prevail, to haue them all called hence, wee might make it apparent to all( that will not hoodwinke themselves wilfully) what is to be looked for at their hands. A jesuit is a jesuit, wheresoever he become. neither may England expect less, then France hath felt: if they continue amongst us, and be not better hamperd, then yet they are. We wish, and desire with our harts, that all true hearted Englishmen, and especially they, who are in authority, will be pleased to consider seriously of the things, which wee haue written tending to this purpose: and withall( for this time) to read and observe( if not this whole discourse yet) the 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. pages thereof. GOD preserve this realm from their Spanish designments: her majesty from their Clements, Barrieres, and Ehuds, of the jesuitical inspiration: the good estate of the catholic church from their frantic deformations: us poor secular priests from their malicious practices: and you all true catholics from the leaven of such Pharisees. Amen.  
Yours to do you faithful service in our functions.   

The Errata.  
page. 44, line 8, for of our Nation, red of their Nation.  
page. 82, line 25, for Bull, read libel.  
page. 85, line 6, for Spaniard, read Sauoyan.  
page. 108, line 1, for prove, read procure.  
page. 112, line, 21. red gloried in it, & since their banishment also, as hath &c.  
page. 130, line 23, read haue of the murder of our late, &c.   

A free, and faithful Discourse, written to the King, touching the Restoring of the jesuits, which is so earnestly sought, and sued for at his hands.  
THE many Petitions sundry wise presented unto your majesty in favour of the jesuits, and the many reasons alleged unto you against them, cannot but breed in your mind much doubt, and distraction. upon this ground I conceived, that it might be some contentation to your Highnesse, to see in brief what I haue laid down on either part, stepping over many points of small moment, and insisting onely upon such as are of weight, & able to move the hart of a mighty Prince in a cause of high importance, & requiring present and speedy resolution.  
It is most true( my gracious sovereign) that by restoring the jesuits, you shall give great contentment to a number of catholics within your realm, who esteem them men of special use and service for the rooting up of these new opinions in Religion, and moreover bind and assure unto you, the greatest part of my Lords the cardinals, who much favour, and affect them as for sundry other respects, so especially in regard of their exceeding travails undertaken for the spreading, and enlargement through the whole world as well of the catholic Religion, as of the power, and authority of the Holy Sea. They are men fit for action, industrious, vigilant, & valiant, to whom the Pulpit rests greatly indebted for coming in so dangerous, and troublesone a season.  
These are the main, and principal reasons, which may sway your majesty on the one side; as for that point, which is alleged touching their Instructing of youth, it deserves not almost to be thought vpon: in as much as( all things rightly weighed) they haue in truth done more hurt, then good to learning. My reason is this in a word.  
Before their coming into france, all the wits of best hope, all the youth of best breeding, were always brought up in the university of Paris, where were seen continually twenty, or thirty thousand students between French & foreigners. This famous multitude drew thether all the excellent Schollers, all the notable men of Europe, some to show themselves, others to benefit themselves. The public Lectures founded by francis the first, were for ten yeeres before their coming sued for, and supplied by the worthiest Schollers of those times. At that time were red in the college of Cambray alone, more excellent & learned Lectures in one month, then haue been since in a whole year throughout all the university, taking the jesuits also into the number. Who finding means to plant themselves by degrees in all the chief cities of the realm, haue thereby intercepted & cut off the springs, from whence issued this great multitude of students, & therewithal quiter extinguished an other essential good, which spread itself to all the young fry, that were brought up at Paris, who grew to more purity of speech, civility of manners, and conformity of mind to the geneall state and government, then since that time they haue done, never setting foot out of their several Countries.  
One point more, I must not forget, which was likewise noted by the university of Padua, in their Complaint exhibited in anno 91. against the jesuits, before the signiory of Venice, at which time they were inhibited to red to any, but those of their own society: the point is this. That the main scope of their own studies being divinity, they use to substitute over all their forms( the first onely excepted) none but young Punies, fitter( God wot) to be taught, then to teach: insomuch as our youth continuing until 15. or 16. under the hands of such raw, and ignorant fellowes seldom or never grow to be of any eminent note, or attain( as we see) to any excellency in their professions. This was apparently proved in anno 94. what time the Uniuersity preferred their Complaint against them. They endeavoured to find out some worthy Lawyer, of their own Schollers, to whom they might commit the Defence of their cause:( which might perhaps haue been some help to their matter) they found out a number as well young practitioners, as ancient Pleaders, who had been trained up in their schools, but not a man of them all thought able to sustain the burden of so weighty a cause: and in the end, they were fain to haue recourse to another, without doubt, an excellent Lawyer, but never any scholar of theirs. They bring up their Schollers, rather to contemplation, then to study, and action. Likewise for physic, a learned profession, and full of deep knowledge, how many rare men do we see of this profession, that haue been their Schollers? As for humanity, and the mystery of the tongues, therein are they less conversant. Will you haue the truth, their proper element is divinity, that's their faculty, that's their field: therein are they expert: and to that purpose they cull out in the very bud, the most pregnant & sharp wits, & look who once comes under their fingers, hardly gets away again: by means whereof, their Order becomes a confusion of several nations: moreover, they take a course to help and further one another, and by conference to haue use of one anothers studies: In conclusion all the world must aclowledge them to be kings in this faculty, the queen of all Faculties.  
In saying that they are not skilled in the depth, & mystery of the Tongues, my meaning is not to deny, but that in their number may be found men of some reasonable knowledge in humanity, but this I say, that we may not look to find amongst them any, comparable to those four ornaments of france, the peers of learning, so acknowledged, and confessed over the whole world, of whom there are three yet living, and the fourth also suruiues in his better part. All the jesuits that ever were, are scarce worthy to be accounted so much as Schollers to any one of these four, and I am certain the wiser sort of them will confess as much: mary their answer will be, that it is not their study; & that the mark they aim at, is Diuimtie, as in truth it is.  
furthermore we are to observe, that those amongst them, who attain to any extraordinary knowledge that way, busy not their brains any longer with the Instructing of youth, but presently betake themselves to the study of divinity, wherein being prompted, and assisted by the best pains of the greatest men amongst them, they fall a practising with their pens: and do good service( we must confess) for the maintenance of our catholic Religion against the writings of our Aduersaries.  
And certainly this plentiful number of theirs, hath yielded some one or two excellent in this kind, who flourish in an elegant phrase, a confident style, lofty passions, good method, and a thousand pleasing points of Art: in conclusion( if I bee able to judge) the two Petitions by them presented to your majesty, are two exquisite pieces, wherein whatsoever our great Maisters of the Art of rhetoric, haue left in precept, is carefully put in practile. To give thē their due, I see not howe their cause could haue been better defended.  
As then it cannot be doubted, but that their painful endeavours in the study of divinity, haue incensed those of the pretended Reformed Religion against them, so can it not be denied, but that there are diuers things not in their actions only, but even in their doctrine itself, which make them odious to many good catholics, every way as sound, and zealous as themselves. I will insist onely vpon one point( for I may not abuse your Princely audience) but such a point as is well woorthy your audience, none more worthy, in as much as your whole state depends thereon.  
It may please your majesty to understand, that amongst the Sorbonists there haue stepped forth at times, yet but seldom times, some who being overswayed, and carried away by the colourable reasons of those, who at Rome haue published Treatises touching the power of the Keys, haue assayed to set this doctrine on foot, That the Pope had power to excommunicate Kings, and absolve subiects from their oath of allegiance. But such Positions haue been no sooner broached, but presently condemned, as schismatical, as well by the whole body of the Sorbone, authorised generally by the Church of france, as also by the Decrees of your Court of Parlement, the two chief safeguards of your predecessors to shield them from all practices, intended against them.  
The Popes are for the most part( as at this present) men of great integrity, and well affencted to the realm of france, in remenbrance of those great benefits, which the Holy sea hath heretofore received from your majesties crown: nevertheless, there happen such to be chosen otherwhiles, as do wholly incline in affection to the Spanish party.  
If this mischief should happen, and that the people were persuaded in conscience, that their King might be lawfully excommunicated, & themselves discharged of their oath of allegiance, questionless our kings would be in great jeopardy, to see themselves quiter dispossessed of their sovereignty and state, and should in truth hold their Crownes but by courtesy and favour, depending vpon the pleasure, or displeasure of whomsoever it should please my Lords the Cardinals, to promote to the Sea; the most part whereof are possessed of rich benefice in the duchy of Milan, in the kingdom of Naples, and moreover in spain itself. This were not to be an imperial King, but a Viceroy, a king in name, but in effect a Lieutenant general, such as were those petty Kings, whom the Romans were wont to crown, and vncrowne at their pleasure. All that ever lived since christianity first set footing within this land, haue evermore detested this opinion, as the most pestilent that could be infused into the mindes of Subiects, and the most repugnant to the word of GOD, who tells us, that his kingdom is not of this world. Vpon which text Saint Augustine hath 
John. 18  these words. harken ye Iewes and Gentiles, 
Transl. 115. in loan.  hearken all earthly kingdoms, I prejudice not your sovereignty in this world. And S. Luke, Chap. 12. One of the company said master, command my brother to divide the inheritance with me; and he said unto them, Man who made me a judge, or a deuider betwixt you?  
Vpon which place Saint Bernard comments in this manner. They which maintain 
●●b. 1, de consid.  that opinion[ speaking of the contrary] shall never be able to show, that any of the Apostles did sit at any time as a judge, or umpire, or a deuider of Land between man and man. To conclude, I read that the Apostles haue been judged by others, but that ever they sate to judge others, I never red. Erit illud, non fuit, that may be in time to come, but never yet hath been.  
Vpon these infallible grounds, and infinite others( which for brevity I omit) hath the Sorbone, and in the Sorbone the whole Church of france, evermore concluded this Position to be schismatical: That the Pope had power to excommunicate our Kings, or any way to proceed against their Most Christian▪ majesties. And John Tanquerel was in the year 1561. adiudged by sentence of the Parliament to make open submission, and to ask forgiveness of the King, for presuming to insert the said Proposition amongst his Theses,( abeit he openly protested, that he did it not but by way of disputation) and escaped very hardly from being condemned to die for it. It fell out happily for him, that the King was but eleven yeeres old, had he been but 14. it had certainly cost him his life.  
When I say that the Sorbone hath ever condemned this Position, I mean, ever until such time as the jesuits had trained and bread up a great part of the students in their Lectures of divinity, which they read daily in their college. For to say truth, in the year 1589, when the Bull of excommunication against the late King was brought into france, and the question propounded in the Sorbone, Whether the Pope had power to excommunicate the King or no, presently the most ancient Doctors as Faber the Syndic, Camus, Chabot, Faber the Curat of S. Paules, Chauagna●, and all the rest of the elder sort, men of the soundest heads, and harts stoutly opposed, and withstood it. But the pack was made sure. For the younger crew, who had all of them been the jesuits auditors in divinity, as Boucher, Pigenat, Varadier, Semelle, Culli, Aubour, and a number of others, carried it by voices, both against the word of GOD, and all the ancient Canons of france.  
That it is the opinion of the jesuits, that the Pope hath power to excommunicate Kings, to free their subiects from the oath of allegiance, to deprive them of their sceptre, their crown, and state, it cannot be denied: inasmuch as they themselves being by the university of Paris, charged with this pestilent and pernicious doctrine, are so far from denying it, as that in their apology, written with deliberation, in the year 1595, by the general aduise of the whole society, entitled La veritè Defendue, that is, The defence of the truth against the Pleadings of anthony Arnald, in the 70. page. they use these very words. Thou needest not to prove that Kings are, or ought to be sole temporal Lords in their own realms, seeing that the Pope( as I haue said) pretends no title to this sovereignty, except it be to reform, as a Father, nay as a judge, those who otherwise would be pernicious to the Church. For in this case he not onely may, but ought to show himself their superior both for their good, & the good of the realm. This Exception I know, makes thee half mad: I see it goes mightily against thy stomach, yet there is no remedy, it must down with thee, and thou moreover must aclowledge thyself to be void both of sense and conscience in denying it. For first of all it is for the behoof and the good of Princes, who for the most part are sooner bridled, or brought to their duties for fear of their temporal estate, which they evermore hold deere,( although they be wicked) then of their spiritual, whereof they make light account, unless they be religious, which is not universally seen in them all. For this cause did God menace the Kings of Israell if they disobeyed his commandments, rather to deprive them of their temporal Kingdoms, then to exclude them from eternal life, which he confirmed by practise upon the first King, whom he bereaved of his sceptre and kingdom.  
The jesuits perceiving that all the Canons of the Church of france, and all the Decrees of your majesties Parlement, are directly opposite to this pernicious doctrine, which they by little and little instil into the minds of the people,( being therewith in former times altogether unacquainted) they are driven to this plunge, to say that the histories of our Kings, which we bring for instance, are but examples of disobedience, or Rebellion against the holy sea. These are their words. Art thou so ill 
La verity defend. page. 64. 65. et 66. of the first impression.  advised, art thou so unworthy a child of thy mother france, as to city out of the French Chronicles, examples of rebellion, blemishing thereby the glory of our Kings, and of our common mother?  
And about two pages after, in a King whatsoever is, is eminent, be it good, or evil, if he employ his power to do ill, there is no way to bridle and restrain him, but by an eminent power: for which cause hath this sword been practised, and put in ure in the person of diuers Kings, and in diuers kingdoms: and albeit the practise haue not always succeeded, yet might it always haue done, If the subiects had been well disposed, or prepared aforehand.  
Was ever any thing more plainly delivered, and yet was ever any thing more flatly repugnant to the word and will of God? Gods will is, when he sends us virtuous Kings, that wee render him thanksgiving, when he sends us bad and wicked Kings, yet that we praise his Name notwithstanding, being certainly persuaded, that he doth it for the best, to wean us thereby from the love of the world, that wee may with the more willingness and alacrity depart 
Baruc. 1.  therewith. 
1. Pet. 2.   
It is God onely, who seateth Kings in their thrones, it is he onely, who by taking them to himself( at his own good pleasure) is able to remove them. The keys which he committed to S. Peter, & to our Holy Fathers his successors, haue relation onely to the kingdom of heaven, and no way to terrestrial kingdoms. himself while he sojourned here upon earth, did he ever, out of his omnipotency, offer to chastise Kings, and to tread upon their Diadems? No: quiter contrary, his whole life was but an opened book, and story of humility, neither hath he put any other sword into the hands of his Apostles, to plant his faith withall. He said unto them, The Kings of the Nations bear rule over thē, and they which exercise authority among 
Luke, 22,  them, are called Gracious Lords, so shal it not be amongst you.  
It was no part of Gods will, that either S. Peter, or our Holy fathers his successors, should take more upon them, then himself had done: neither in truth did the ancient Bishops ever attempt it. If others of later time take a contrary course, they do therein abuse their authority, and are in no wise to be obeied. This hath ever been the iudgement of the Church of france, excommunicating all those that avouched the contrary, as authors of a barbarous & most accursed doctrine, which endeavouring by impiety to make men religious, doth evermore beget a world of murders, firing of houses, ravishment of wives, rapes of virgins, making whole cities desolate, and whole Countries desert. This is the gulf of gulfs, the sea of abominations; we haue tasted it to the utmost.  
And yet for all this do the jesuits grow daily more obstinate in this opinion, persuading us( if at least wee will be persuaded) that the Bulls of Rome, haue power to depose all the Kings of the earth, and to deprive them of their temporal state and sovereignty.  
Agreeable thereunto is that which Father Bellarmine a jesuit, now cardinal, writeth vpon this argument: In regard of 
1. Controu.  the persons,( saith he) the Pope, as Pope, cannot 
3. li. 5. ca. 6.  ( though there be just cause) by his ordinary power depose civil Princes in that manner as he deposeth Bishops, that is, as their ordinary Judge: but as a supreme and sovereign Prince in cases spiritual, he may( if need so require for the saving of souls) translate kingdoms, take them from one, and give them to another, as we will prove. And in the eight chapter, for proof hereof he allegeth all their violent, and tyrannous proceedings directly opposed to the word of God, and through all histories detested, and abhorred: the sequel whereof plainly sheweth that the chief strengthening, and establishment of the Turkish Empire proceedeth from the outrageous civil wars amongst the Christians, caused by such usurpations, which haue made Europe on all sides from East to West, to bathe herself in the blood of her own children.  
S. Ambrose kept himself far enough from touching( so much as in thought) the sceptre, crown, or temporal estate of the Emperour, or from discharging any subject whatsoever of his oath of allegiance: neither in truth could he haue done it, without flatly impugning the commandments of God. That which he did, was but a sharp admonition or reproof, to signify & make known the grievous quality of the trespass.  
Furthermore, I must not forget to note, that the same 
* 1. Controu. 3. lib. 5. ca. 7  Bellarmine, and the same jesuits, in their aforesaid 
* La veri. descend. page. 42. of the last impress.  apology, do uphold, and endeavour to approve the common extravagant, viz. unam sanctam, de maioritate et obedientia, which hath been heretofore condemned in france. By virtue of which extravagant, though the Pope forgetting himself should serve from iustice, and attempt more, then he had warrant to do, yet are men bound, to yield obedience thereunto, and God only may judge of his doings. Insomuch as in case the Pope should injuriously and contrary to all right, shoot his thunderbolts against a King,( as we haue seen the like practised in anno 89, in the person of our deceased master, a most devout catholic) yet, if wee believe the jesuits, no man living may enter into iudgement of the matter, as being forbidden us, and reserved onely to GOD: In the mean time must this King in the view of all his subiects, nay by his subiects themselves, be dispossessed of his crown and state, and into his throne may step any other, whom it shall please that supreme power to assign, which is authorised by Bellarmines warrant, to translate kingdoms, to take them from one, and to give them to another. The very terms used by Tanquerell,( Regno et dignitatibus priuare potest: he may take from them their crown and dignity) which were condemned by that famous sentence of the Parlement. Yet was not Tanquerell so audacious to avouch, that the Pope having taken it from one, might give it to another.  
Father Bellarmine the Iesuite goes a step further. For he peremptorily affirms, 
* In the Tractat: de exemptione clericorum. Printed with the Treatise of Indulgence. 1599  that all the clergy of the realm, are exempted from being your subiects. A position as flat contradictory to the express word of God, and to the Canons of the Church of france, as the residue that hath been spoken. Yet doth he stoutly maintain it, labouring by mere Sophistry to avoyde that saying of S. paul, Let every soul be subject to the higher powers, for there is no 
Rom. 13.  power but of God, and the powers which are, are ordained by GOD. And a little after. Therefore we must be obedient, not only to avoyde their anger, but also for conscience sake. For this cause also you pay tribute, for they are the ministers of God, appoynted to that end. whereupon S. Chrysostome noteth, that those words are not spoken only in regard of the Laïty, but likewise of the clergy, of religious persons, nay of the Apostles themselves.  
moreover, the same Father Bellarmine strives to defeat those words of S. Peter. Submit yourselves to all manner ordinance of man, for the Lords sake, whether it bee unto 
1. Pet. 8.  the King, as unto the superior, or unto gouernours, as those which are sent by him.  
Whereunto Bellarmine amongst other things answereth: that at that time it was necessary with all diligence to admonish the Christians, to perform obedience to their kings, for fear least the preaching of the gospel might otherwise haue been hindered.  
What is this, but to make our Christian Religion, a religion of mere Impostors, a Religion of Matchiauelists, pretending at the first, that our kingdom is not of this world, all of us, as well of the clergy, as other, live in obedience to Kings and Gouernours: But afterwards having once gotten the wind, and seized the sword into our own hand, then to change our note clean contrary, and in presumptuous manner to arrogate to ourselves, that which almighty God hath reserved as his own prerogative over the Kings of Israell, & all other whatsoever. indeed this is right the jesuits religion, these be their policies, this is the path they tread, to insinuate or get footing within a realm: but Christian religion keeps a far other course, it speaks sincerely, and vnfainedly, without cloaking, without colouring, without dissembling: it neither withdraweth, nor embezeleth any subject whatsoever from his Prince, as doth the religion of the jesuits. For mark I beseech you, Bellarmines conclusion, in the 271. page. of the said Tractat: De exemptione cleric: You will say perhaps, this were a wrong done to Princes, if against their will they were deprived of their right, which they had over clergy men, before they were of the clergy. Whereunto I answer: that there is no wrong done them: inasmuch as a man in using his own right, doth no man wrong. But who so chooseth that calling, which he iudgeth most fitting, and agreeable to his disposition, he useth but his own right, although it follow accidentally, that the Prince is deprived of his subject.  
This is not to stand long hammering about the matter: This is to make short work, and to tell you in a word, that look how many clergy men your majesty hath, so many subiects hath the Pope in France. And to that effect in the 255. page. he hath these very words: The Pope hath exempted all the clergy, from the subiection of their secular Princes, whereupon it followeth, that as concerning the clergy, they are not sovereign Princes. This is( my liege) in good French, to erect another state within the state, and another kingdom within your kingdom. For proof of which doctrine, flatly repugnant to Christian religion, he frames a Simile, in the same place, & tells us: This is all one, as if a King should make over some part of his realm into the subiection of another, and in so doing, either by the law of arms, or some other just title should forfeit a part of his sovereignty. Adding withall, that the establishing of this his Position, is of more dangerous consequence to Princes, then the loss of a main battle, or of an entire province might be. And he saith truly, for the malady is within our bowels, and they that are already lost, do by their close confessions many times draw & inveigle others; to the subversion of that monarchy, under which they were born. And whereas( saith he) wee are sometimes famed to stoop to the civil Magistrate, it is 
page. 268. de exemp. clear.  but perforce, as being constrained to strike sail: but this case infereth no consequence. They affirm moreover, that the constitutions of Princes, although they contain nothing repugnant to the scripture, nor to the Canons and sacred Decrees, yet do they not bind the clergy, farther then ad directionem, non ad coactionem, to inform them, but not to enforce them. They bee their own words, page. 269, agreeing with that which followeth page. 271. that subiects after they are entred into the clergy, are no longer subiects to the secular Prince, who forthwith looseth & forfeits them. And in truth it is a clear case, that he is no longer a subject, who can no longer be enforced to yield obedience to the laws.  
These heresies( my Liege) were once wholly rooted out of your realm of france, but these fellowes begin to sow them thick again, and haue found the means cunningly to convey this 
* De exemp cleric.  Treatise into france, together with that of Indulgences, shuffling it in amongst the press, that it might pass unregarded.  
Of this Position, viz. That those who are entred into the clergy, are no longer subiects, followeth a strange consequence, to wit, that they may conspire & practise against their King, and yet not incur the guilt of treason. This is delivered in express terms, in the aphorisms of confession, written by the Iesuite, Emanuel Sa, vpon the word Clericus. The rebellion of a clergy man against his King, ●s not Treason, because he is exempted from being the Kings subject. And vpon the word Princeps they do more manifestly declare, how far they disagree from the word of God, who enjoineth us with patience to tolerate evil Princes, being seated 
Pet 2.  in the throne of their ancestors, as being given us by his own hand. But what say these men? A King may be deposed by the State in case of tyranny, or if he govern not as he ought, or for any other just cause, and another may be chosen by the greater part of the commons. Howbeit some are of opinion, that he may not be deposed but onely for tyranny.  
Where first of all wee may note their bad meanings, to leave a point of that consequence at large, and vndetermined, and yet who knows whether they do it in policy, or no, that they may be at choice to hold either the one or the other part, according as shall best fit their desires, and designs. Secondly, what is more dissonant from Christian religion, then to leave it to the liberty of the people, to judge of the good, or ill government of their Prince, & to make them believe, that without peril to their conscience, & offence to God, they may, either depose him from his crown, or deprive him of his life? provided always that the greater part be of that mind. A clause most important, for if the lesser part were of that brainsick opinion, then might they fortune to perish in the attempt; and what pitty were it to loose a company so well disposed to Iesuitisme, that is, to hunt their Lord and master out of his proper inheritance, crying after him, Atyrant, Atyrant? And this is the reason, why Pardo the Inquisitor of Anwerp, in the very end of that book dated 1597, allows it this commendation, that it was like to yield great fruit, and commodity, and God knows whether it were not in his thought, that the greatest commodity it could yield to his master, was to help forward the destruction of your kingdom, with whom at that time he was at mortal wars. Furthermore, the same jesuits, in those aphorisms of Confession,( which they daily beate into the mindes of the people) add hereunto vpon the word Tyrannus, He which governeth tyrannicallie a kingdom, whereof he is rightfully possessed, cannot be deposed, but by authority of a Parlement: but sentence being once given, the next at hand may execute it. And he may be deposed even by those his subiects, that haue sworn perpetual obedience to him, in case, after admonition, he do not reform himself.  
I leave it to your majesties consideration whether this doctrine touch you neerlie, or no. certain I am it imports not so much to the whole world besides, as it doth to you alone, and to your posterity. france is your own inheritance, which you hold onely by God & by your sword. If the world should continue ten thousand yeeres longer, and your posterity as long( as wee are to wish it might) it ought in right to reign continually over france, neither shall any Pope,( as some of them may fortune to be enemies to your house) ever haue authority to absolve so much as one Frenchman, from that allegiance, which he shall owe to your succession. But if these Positions may once creep in amongst us, then shall your posterity wear the crown, and enjoy the sceptre so long, as shall stand with the pleasure of the Holy Sea, and no longer.  
Out of this first principle is deduced a second, whereupon I see much written on both sides, but none comes near the mark. Some affirm that the jesuits counsel men to murder Kings, but they do them wrong. For they( God wot) clean contrariwise serve and obey Kings, and many times also with hearty affection: but mark their distinction. They hold that, such as are excommunicate by the Pope, are no longer Kings, but Tyrants, and what they comment vpon the word Tyrannus, your majesty hath already heard. In brief, grant but their first proposition, & the second will follow of necessity. For allow the Pope power to intermeddle with the sceptres and temporal estates of Kings,( according to the jesuits doctrine) then is it clear that a King,( being once by his holiness declared excommunicate) remaines a private person, and no longer King: and if he offer obstinately to continue his reign, he is to be held a Tyrant. whosoever will yield them the former proposition, shall be drawn perforce to the latter. That libel written by John Guignard a jesuit with his own hand,( as he acknowledged in the open Court of Parlement, both the chambers being assembled) contained both these Propositions, but under most insolent and outrageous terms. For among other things, he breaks forth into these words, That cruel Nero, was slain by a Clement, and that 
* The late king used many times to go on procession in the habit of a monk.  counterfeit Muncke, was dispatched by the hand of a true Muncke. This heroical act performed by james Clement, as a gift of the holy Spirit, ( so termed by our divines) was worthily commended by the late Prior of the jacobins, Burgoin a Confessor and Martyr. The crown of france, may and ought to be translated from the house of Bourbon, unto some other: & the 
* A term given the king that now is, by the Leaguers for that he was born at Biarne, a town in Gascoine.  Biarnois( although converted to the catholic faith) shall be more favourably dealt withall then he deserves, if receiving a shaven crown in exchange, he be recluded into some strict covent, there to do penance for all the miseries he hath brought upon france, and to render thankes to God, that had given him the grace to aclowledge him before his death. And if without arms he cannot be deposed, let men take arms against him, if by war it cannot be accomplished, let him be murdered. Your majesty may see the original copy, it is well worth the sight.  
moreover, Ambrose Varade was Rector of their college at Paris, chosen by themselves, as one of the honestest men in their Order, and is at this day in as great credite amongst them, as ever he was. Yet if your Highnesse please but to sand for a copy of Barrieres arraignment, you shall there read, that this Varade was the man, who( the next month after your majesties happy conversion) did animate the said Barriere, to go and sheathe his two-edged knife in your breast, binding him thereunto by the Sacrament, and assuring him by the living God, that he could not do a more meritorious act, and that he should therefore be carried by Angels into paradise. If this be not true, Varades might do well to come in an clear himself in Court: he was in this town what time your majesty entred it, and some few dayes after, but he lay close all the while, and stolen away disguised; taking his course to Rome, where now he lives in as high estimation among the jesuits, as is possible. It is an easy matter to deny any thing in words, but deeds are of greater validity, and confute words.  
Varades then being detected of this cruel and detestable crime, should haue been brought unto you piniond by the jesuits themselves, to receive due punishment, for examples sake, if they had not been all of his mind. But when as quiter contrary, they honor him( as you see) more then ever they did, & stick not at this day, to register his name among the worthiest persons of their Order, wee may conclude that in respect of their wish, will, and affection, they did all of thē encourage Barriere, by the mouth, and mediation of Varades, and that this parricide was not particular in him, but general in them all. It is a practise grounded upon their main principle, from the execution whereof they expect their chief credit, and commendation, as hereafter shall be shewed.  
If you ask me, where it is that Varades is by them yet at this day recond for one of the worthiest persons of their Order, I must refer you to the 
* Of the first ●mpression.  265. page. De la veritè defendue, published a whole year after Varades fled. What haue not many worthy persons of this society endured? Who knoweth not( to speak of our country of france) the indignities which haue been offered, and the slanderous reproaches which haue been uttered against John Maldonat, Aimond Augier, Claudius matthew, james Tyrius, & at this present against james Commolet, Bernard Rouillet, and Ambrose Varades? Where by the way we must note, that these men are with them extolled for notable Martyrs, as having suffered marvelous afflictions. This is as proper, and as charitable a speech, as when they term the Complaint of the university of Paris against them in the year 64, a cruel persecution. A strange abuse of the word. It were a far more proper speech, to call those outrageous, and bloody wars, which were by the jesuits kindled through all parts of the realm, The persecution of all the good subiects of france.  
But if Barriere had been a scholar of the jesuits, nuzzled, & trained up in their doctrine, he would hardly haue been brought to appeach Varades. For they believe it to be present damnation, to reveal to the Magistrate, who they were that wrought or incited them to such attempts. And this is a third Proposition, which followeth out of the first, and second. For if the Pope may lawfully excommunicate Kings, and that being excommunicate, it is a good, and meritorious deed to murder them, then doth it follow of congruence, that the party ought constantly to endure martyrdom therefore, and not to procure their death, who set him the ready way to everlasting life. These Propositions are linked and combined together, they hang all by one thread. And this is the reason, why Chastell forbore to accuse any one of the jesuits in particular; For, having resolved, to stab you in the throat with his knife, and believing,( as he professed) that the act was lawful and meritorious, it follows, that he believed, he should be certainly damned, if he discovered the party, who( in his erroneous opinion) had directed him the way to Paradise. And yet see how God, the Protector of Princes, is wont to draw the truth from out of their mouths, that most of all endeavour to cover, and conceal it. For these are the very words of Chastels examination, whereof your majesty may see the original, which shall be avouched and justified for true, by more then thirty of my lords the Presidents, and Counsellors of the Parlement, whose testimony is a thousand-folde of more validity, then whatsoever the parties can allege in their own cause.  
Being demanded, where he learnt this new divinity? he answered, he learned it by philosophy. Being demanded if he studied philosophy in the jesuits college. he answered he did, and that under Father Gueret, with whom he had been two yeeres and a half. Being demanded, if he had not been in the Chamber of Meditations, into which the jesuits used to bring the most notorious sinners, there to behold the pictures of many deiuls in diuers terrible shapes, under pretence to reduce them to a better life, in truth to affright their minds, and incite them by such terrors to do some notable service. He answered, that he had been oftentimes in the said chamber. Being demanded, by whom he had been persuaded to kill the King. He answered, that he had heard in diuers places, that it was to be held for a most true principle, that it was lawful to kill the King, and that they, who said it, called him a Tyrant. being demanded whether this argument of killing the King, were not ordinary with the jesuits. he answered, that he had heard them say, that it was lawful to kill the King, & that he was out of the Church, and that he was not to be obeyed, nor held for King, until he were absolved by the Pope.  
again being demanded in the great chamber( my Lords the Presidents & Counsellors thereof and of the Tournelle being assembled) he made the same answers, & did in especial propound, & maintain that maxim, viz. that it was lawful to kill Kings, & in particular, the King now reigning, who was not in the Church( as he affirmed) because he had not the Popes approbations.  
whosoever should read the petitions, which the jesuits haue presented unto your majesty, would suppose that Chastell never touched, or accused them at all: so confidently do they stand in denial of the truth. But I know not, what greater accusation can be devised, or what weightier crime they can be charged withall, then to haue bewitched & possessed the tender souls of young youth, with so desperate a doctrine, as carrieth them on to the slaughter of their Prince.  
With this agreeth that which wee read in the Confession of William Parry, made at his death, that Benedetto Palmio a Iesuite, first caused him to undertake that resolution for the murder of the queen, & that afterwards one Wats a Priest, to whom he imparted it, dissuaded him from the attempt, telling him the act was damnable: whereupon, seeing this contrariety of opinions, he repaired to hannibal Codretto a Iesuite, to be confessed, who told him, it could not be but this Wats was an heretic: for the true Church made no question, but that Kings, excommunicated by the Pope, were ipso facto, Tyrants, and therfore ought to be slain. Likewise the Commenter, vpon that book, which is called the Epitome of Confessions, otherwise the 7. book of the Decretals, page. 308, after he hath commended the jesuits, all he can,( as they haue many commendable parts, we must confess) at last, for the close and upshot of al their praises, he adds this, 
* They assault tyrants, they weed the cokle out of the Lords field.  Tyrannos aggrediuntur, lolium ab agro Dominico euellunt. Your majesty may read the book, you will easily make construction of this piece of latin, I haue heard you interpret much harder in my dayes.  
To be short, there is no man can doubt, but by this weeding the cockle out of the lords field,( wherein he commendeth them to be so expert, and so resolute) is meant the dispatching, and making riddance of those, who by the Bulls of Rome, are declared excommunicate, whom they term all by the name of Tyrants, what religion so ever they profess.  
And certainly all the world can witness, that the late King was always a most earnest catholic, and no man but knoweth, how well( and that by many particular benefits) he deserved of the Church; yet after the sentence of excommunication was at Rome declared against him, Father Commolet, and Father Bernard,( both which are by the jesuits in their afore-named apology even at this day extolled and deïfied) and generally the whole company of the jesuits, never afforded him better title to his dying day, then the names of Tyrant, Holofernes, Moab, Nero, & such like, which practise suiteth very fitly with their definition of a Tyrant above specified.  
At Christmas in 1593, your majesty was converted catholic, yet notwithstanding at Bartilmewtide following, the same Commolet, used these words in the pulpit. Wee stand in need of an Ehud, be he monk, or soldier, or shepherd, it matters not, but wee stand in need of an Ehud. And not long after, having advertisement that the matter was informed against, he secretly conveyed himself away. This can be no more denied, then the fact of Varades, which yet they labour to cover & disguise, affirming that Barriere indeed disclosed his intent unto him: mary Varades made him answer, that he, being a Priest, might not give him any counsel in the matter. Say there were nothing but this, was not this in other words to say, You should about it without more talk, let your words be fewer, & your deeds more?  
But if your majesty please to send for the trial and confession of Barriere, you shal there find, that Varades, Rector of the jesuits, confirmed him, encouraged him, and bound him by the blessed Sacrament, to strike the stroke resolutely, & courageously. Once certain it is, your majesty never escaped a greater danger in your life. And what wonderful triumph would they haue made, think you, at your death, who shewed such excessive ioy at the slaughter of the late King, proudly insulting over his Hearse, by letters dispersed into al parts of the world, and for the greater glory, printed by them at Rome? These are inserted amongst their solemn, and annual Letters, page. 305, and are thus translated. The same day that the King expelled us out of Bourdeaux, was he expelled out of his life. The report was, that he sent us to 
* A town in Guienne, 5. leagues distant from Bourdeaux.  S. Macaries, with an intent to cut all our throats there, had not his own been cut first. The report of this news, strooke our aduersaries into a wonderful amazement.  
I never was possessed with greater admiration in my life, thē when I red this branch of their Letters. For who could ever haue believed, that Christians, much less Religions persons, would haue openly professed such rancour, such enmity so immortal, as death is self could not determine? Nature teacheth us to haue remorse, and commiseration of our enemies, when wee see them lye breathless upon the earth: they cease to be enemies, when once they cease to be. But to tread vpon the dead corpse of their master, of their liege-Lord, of their King, of the foremost King of christendom, and thereupon to sound victory & triumph, can there be, or be imagined any impiety, any inhumanity, any cruelty comparable to this?  
It is true, the poor Prince had no feeling of this outrage, neither indeed was it done to him so much, as to your majesty, and to any whatsoever he be, that bears the name of a Frenchman: this I am sure, he felt and tasted a deep portion of that poison of the League, which was tempered by Claudius matthew, a jesuit, who died in italy about the end of 88, being surfeited with his continual travails into spain, italy, Swizzerland, germany, & the low Countries also,( after the death of monsieur) for the contriving, knitting, and fortifying of this great, and horrible confederacie against the late King, and the whole line, and family of Bourbon: Guignard a jesuit hath written it, and your majesty hath red it, That the crown of france, might 〈◇〉 ought to be translated from the house of Bourbon to some other. Furthermore, they that understand the whole secret of the League, spare not with open mouth to speak it, that the Father jesuits, were the true Fathers & founders of the League, and consequently answerable for the death of all those, who were swallowed in that vast gulphe, by thē set open: I will recite you a brief story, which shall clear this point of all controversy.  
There is no man but knows, the purpose and designment of the 
* Sixteen gouernours chosen, during the rebellion by the seditious multitude within Paris, to rule the city.  sixteen, who by a Letter, which was intercepted, made tender of the city of Paris to the King of spain. And whether go these sixteen to choose them a President of that their bloody counsel? Went they not directly to the jesuits, who commended unto them Father Otho Pigenat? This is confessed by themselves in their apology, printed at Paris: mary they pretend, it was to mitigate and alloy the humour of the sixteen. Some man perhaps would answer, that this was, to quench fire with oil, to turn a Iesuite among a crew of seditious persons. For my part I say not so, I say the sixteen did in truth need a bridle, & not a spur, and that the onely course to bring their designs to the mark they shot at, was to temper their extreme & outrageous violence. But in the mean time, who seeth not a wonderful correspondency, and agreement between these sixteen executioners( for by what fitter name can I call them? seeing with their own hands they hanged up the chief President of the Parlement, the onely President that remained at Paris) who seeth not I say, a singular correspondence of those sixteen, with this society of jesuits, since they desired to haue a jesuit for their President, above any other of the clergy, or Laïty?  
moreover, who knows not that from the beginning of the year 85, their colleges both at Paris and else-where, were the common retreits for al those that laboured the advancement of the Spanish affairs. Thether were the packets addressed, there opened, and from thence dispersed: that they had daily intercourse with the Spanish ambassador Mendoza, and those that succeeded him at Paris, and generally with the Agents & Factors for king Phillips causes, in all the good towns where they remained. Your majesty knows it, no man better.  
The troth is( my liege) they allege, that you are now united in so strait a league of amity with the king of spain, as that these objections ought rather to make for them, then against them, inasmuch as your majesty affects none more entirely, then those who bear a hearty and entire affection to the Spaniard. This speech may happily come now in season, but I assure you, I thought it strange to hear this speech following, to fall from their pens at that time, when wee were in the chief heat of our wars with the Spanish king. in 
* La veri. defend. page. 129. of the first impress.  Charles the ninths dayes the Spaniards were not spoken of but in the better part: but the heretics in hatred, not of our nation,( for then ought they to carry a deeper hate to the English and to the almains, who haue heaped more mischiefs upon france, then any other Nation) but of their Religion, haue endeavoured to make them odious under pretence of the state. This me thinks was something too much, to discover and unmask, their love to the Spaniard, at such a time, when vpon the borders of picardy, thousands of Frenchmen perished by their swords. Me thinks their Fatherhoods should not suffer themselves to be so much transported either by their own affection, or by the general vow of their Order, as to forget in what place they were bread and born, & not to be touched with the least feeling of the woeful calamities of their Country, especially they being catholics, whom the Spaniards thus slaughtered in great multitudes, without all remorse, or respect either of age, or sex.  
This( me thinks) savours of a hart too savage, and degenerate, to speak so largely in defence of them, who at the same instant were bathing their hands in the blood of our countrymen, and those catholics also. What though the Spaniards give these Fathers respect, honour, & reverence above ordinary, though they bind them by many special benefits, and singular favours, though they entitle them by the name of Apostles( as they themselves do publish in their writings) yet ought they not for all this( especially in france) to use the same style of them in the heat of war, as in the time of peace.  
In the Petition which they afterwards preferred to your majesty, they haue dilated this argument, though with greater liberty of speech, yet with more reason, then at that time. Their words are these. And whereas they challenge us to be Spanish: that was an accusation, fashioned in the forge of of time, and it bare a good test in that season,( onely in respect of the season) that is, while the war continued between france, and spain. In those dayes it was an odious name, a name full of suspicion and hate: but now, that that your Most Christian majesty hath knit the fast knot of a sacred peace with his catholic highnes, and that the French is brother to the Spaniard, and the Spaniard to the French, now is this challenge out of date, it is unseasonable, it is unreasonable.  
And yet( my liege) to tell you true, this I observe( besides the too evident proof, which we haue formerly had thereof) that through out all these glorious and painted speeches, they still discover their harts to be mightily engaged to the king of Spain. The troth is, they haue an earnest desire to deliver your majesty of all iealousy, and distrust thereof, and to that purpose employ the utmost of their art: yet notwithstanding, a man shall perceive, they would not at any hand, but your subiects should take notice, that they remain true devoted servants to king Phillip, presuming that this opinion, makes greatly to the aduancement of his affairs. Which when I compare with the sentence of the Inquisition, disannulling the Determination of the Sorbone pronounced against the jesuits in anno 54,( as themselves are wont to vaunt:) as also with their first foundation erected by a Spanish captain: and moreover with those words, which are contained in the 
* Vita Ignatij. Printed at antwerp in anno 1587, page., 403.  Legend of their said patron: Wee ought earnestly & uncessantly to pray to his heavenly majesty, that it would please him in health, and happiness, long to prosper the catholic king Phillip, who by his hereditary, and incomparable piety, and devotion, his singular wisdom, his incredible vigilancy, his pvissance, infinitely exceeding any Princes, that is, or ever was in the world, standeth as a bulwark for the defence of the catholic Religion. And this he doth, not only by his forces, which haue ever been invincible, but by the means also of his Famous Court of the Inquisition, which studieth day and night for the good of the catholic religion.  
When, I say, I compare all these points together, it makes me sorely to mistrust( I must confess it to your Highnesse) that if misfortune should kindle any fresh coals of war, betwixt your majesty and the Spaniard, you should haue these false brethren ready, underhand to perform you al the lewd and bad offices that could be devised. In the mean time, be sure, they are not idle; but continually pursue the advancement, & increase of their doctrine above mentioned, wherein they professed, in the year 89, they had taken mighty pains with answerable profit & success.[ And we find it too true] For such a Bull as the last, had it been addressed against 
* The late kings father.  King henry the second, it could not haue shaken the least town in france: which notwithding, by the help of the jesuits, and their almost thirty yeres travails, procured the death of his son, who would haue made it but a mockery, as his predecessors had done before him. Is it not wonderful, that an army of two hundred thousand men, could not haue been able to effect so much against our late King, as about two hundred jesuits haue done, by disposing his subiects, that is, by drying up their natural sap in such sort, as the fire took at the first touch: whereas before that time, al France was an Ocean, whereinto these kind of thunderbolts no sooner fell, but they fell out.  
True it is, that as long as your majesty and your successors shall continue in good terms with the Holy sea, the main fruit & effect of this doctrine will not appear. And you are to hope, that you may always so continue, but times to come can promise no assurance, and thatis the reason, that in time of peace, you set men a work to fortify your frontier towns. It is almost impossible, that the keys, for three successions together, should escape the hands of a Spanish partaker, there being so many such in the number of the cardinals: if that should happen( give me leave to tell your majesty freely & without dissimulation) your crown, sceptre, & kingdom, would come to this jump: if there fortund more of your subiects to cleave to the jesuits opinion, then to the contrary, if their faction were the stronger, thē farewell crown, and kingdom: if theirs were the weaker, you should indeed continue ●n your sovereignty, but not without the confusion of many your subiects, and the effusion of much blood, as well sound, as corrupt.  
furthermore, your majesty is to consider, that this doctrine of Excommunication, carries with it at this present, more danger, and peril to our realm, then in former times, when we had 
* sicily, Naples, & Milan, which haue sometimes been subject to the French king.  territories, & sorces in italy: by means whereof we wear at hand to succour the Pope, in case he might be forced to do any thing to our prejudice. But as now the case stands, a Viceroy of Naples, with the Spanish partakers, that are within Rome, hold the Holy Fathers neck under their girdle, who might be thrice besieged, and sacked, before we could come half way to the rescue. Another inconvenience is, that Rome was never able to sustain itself, but by the supply of come from sicily, their granarie.  
And amongst the rest, this point deserves special observation, that the jesuits, being guilty to themselves, of what peril their doctrine is to the state of Princes, are careful and wary not to discover it, when first they creep, & insinuate into a State: but having once got firm footing, then do they spread it by degrees from hand to hand amongst the people, who are by nature ouer-apt, and prove to receive this poison. For what can sound more plausibly to the minds of a multitude, then to be released of that bond of subjection, whereunto they are by their birth tied, & engaged? I know that men of understanding forget not that excellent saying of the Philosopher, That for a man to live in subiection to his Prince, is true, and perfect liberty: and the laws both of Nature and Nations, do teach and tie us to serve, and honour that Prince, under whose government we first enjoyed the light of the Sun: and that no flesh and blood is able to dispense us, for that obedience, whereunder God himself hath bound and concluded us: but for one well disposed mind, that is thus persuaded, you shall find three that are of a contrary opinion, and the mischief is, that commonly the stoutest, the most resolute, & desperate fellowes, are soonest carried down this steep, and head-long discent; and a small number of such stirring spirits, prove too hard for a multitude of others. Haue we not had experience hereof? I am verily persuaded, that when the late king was first proclaimed Tyrant in Paris, vpon pretence that he was excommunicate by the Pope, and therefore to be expelled his kingdom, the city afforded two for one, that were of a contrary belief, and would gladly haue seen him reign peaceably in the louvre, and a dozen of those rebellious malcontents hanged at the 
* The place of execution within Paris.  grieve. But they stood staring one vpon another: they wanted courage, they wanted not strength. So haue three theeues many times by surprisal robd half a score Merchants. They that keep the beaten road, and continue in their natural obedience, take their rest in the night, and follow their business in the day: whereas contrariwise, such as labour to exchange their old master for a new, such as study to overturn the State, they haue their assemblies by night, hold their secret parlies, increase their strength daily: they haue no business else to intend,( for they live in the mean time vpon their secret pensions) so that in the end, they suddenly surprise the contrary side. He that first layeth hand on his weapon, hath the advantage.  
This then being so, that the jesuits, firmly uphold these dangerous Positions, and scatter thē throughout the world( as hath been shown) I assure your majesty, the danger of suffering this doctrine to take roote, seems to me( I must confess) to ouer-ballance all those considerations, that may be alleged to the contrary. For as for overthrowing the New opinions in Religion, we may say, and say truly, that as during the first fifty yeeres, the opinions of Luther & calvin were stoutly proposed, preached, and published, so for these five, & twenty, or thirty yeeres, they haue been notably confuted, both by word, & writings, such as for depth of learning, haue by infinite degrees exceeded all, that ever were set forth by men of former times. And ourselves can testify, that the best, & most sufficient amongst them, are daily reclaimed into the bosom of the Church: A matter that( in my opinion) should work in us all, exceeding comfort, and contentment. For these blessed conversions are not forced with the rack, with tortures, or with terror of death: as is the manner of the Spanish Inquisition,( unto which, and to the forces of Castile, the jesuits wholly attribute the preservation of the catholic religion, as hath been formerly declared:) but by the sword of the spirit, and the everlasting word, mildly delivered by our Doctors, Pastors, and reverent Bishops, whom I esteem no whit inferior, for learning, to the jesuits, although they sometimes borrow their arguments, which are in truth very sound and substantial.  
And albeit the jesuits haue sometimes furthered such conversions, yet this I will say, that they are not( in my iudgement) so fortunate herein, as are the Bishops, and Doctors of our Church. Their carriage is so austere, and so far different from the nature of our French Nation, as it difasteth men at the first encounter. They converse and company so much with Spaniards, & withal frame themselves so precisely to the imitation of their Paetron( a Spaniard born) that their looks, their presence, their fashion, and behaviour, carry with them too great asemblance of severity.  
Who so desires to cure a sick person, must apply himself to his humour, and call about him such Physicians, as the patient can fancy and affect. Such are not the jesuits to Frenchmen: They haue in so furious maner thundered out such intolerable blasphemies against the deceased King, as the horror therof doth to this day retain an impression in mens minds. Frenchmen haue a certain inclination by nature, to love their Prince: and that causeth their harts suddenly to rise, and start within their breasts, when they hear such outrageous speeches uttered against their kings. I once sent them word,( for I once loved them well, if not too well) by a close copartner of theirs, with whom I had talk about their doings: that I was sorry to see them so furiously enraged against a dead man, and that the services, which this unfortunate Prince had performed to the Church in his life time, having in her quarrel so often times, in such a number of battailes, in so many sieges, adventured his dearest blood, might( me thought) deserve at least to haue his memory spared, when he was dead: They made him answer, there was some reason in that he said, but the time required another course, for now or never was the season, to settle and establish the catholic religion quiter thorough france. I soon aimed at the meaning thereof, to wit, that they were determined, to work the people into a dislike with the present government, under which they had so long lived, persuading them to change their natural Lord for a new, and utterly to extirpate the race & family of Bourbon. And when I afterwards, beholded the 
* received into Paris by the sixteen, where they remained 3. yeres.  garrisons of Castilians, and Neapolitans within Paris, I took that to be an entrance to the accomplishment of their former answer: and to be plain( my liege) I made reckoning, the game had been at an end, & that your majesty was never like to set foot within Paris; judging that the smaller towns would be fain in the end to strike sail to the greater.  
But God who hath always had a singular care of this kingdom, the first christened kingdom in the world, hath otherwise disposed it, and hath by plain miracle, in despite of your enemies, seated you in quiet possession of all this spacious Empire, and to heap up the measure of your happiness, hath given you a beauteous, a noble, and a virtuous princess, and within ten months,( fore-stalling both our wishes, and our expectations) a true and lively Image of yourself.  
The care for this young Prince, more then for your own person, exciteth your Highnes, with mature deliberation to consult of all the important affairs of your State, in which number, this point touching the Restoring of the jesuits, may subtilely claim a place.  
In this consultation, one of these three courses must be resolved vpon; either to yield the jesuits absolute contentment to their desires, or to make them yield absolute obedience to your Decrees: or else to 
* That is, neither to restore them wholly into France, nor to remove them out of Bourdeaux & Tholouse, where they yet remain.  let matters rest in such condition as now they are.  
I will first enter into examination of the last branch, because it bears at first sight the most plausible show, yet is in truth the least questionable: it being a clear case, that the jesuits are, either wholly to be restored, or to be enforced, wholly to yield obedience to your Decree. If it be just, and commodious for your state, that they be permitted to stay, then is it reason they should remain as inhabitants, and not as exiles: if otherwise, then let them be gone, and not be suffered, by their contumacy to give example of rebellion, as they haue done too long. The Lacedemonian state, was wont to direct out but a small scroll of Parchment, less then your little finger, & their command was instantly to be put in execution. It is a matter of absolute necessity, that your Highnesse be obeied as well at Bourdeaux and Tholouse, as at Paris and Fontaine-bleau. You want no servants in those places, and whatsoever you shall command, like a King, and absolute lord, will be executed, make you no doubt.  
If the jesuits be incommodious to your state, then suffer thē not to take any deep roote in those two provinces. The three which this year may be plucked up with one hand, will the next year ask both: and the third, will need a mattock, and an axe. This neighbouring vpon spain, gives us just cause of suspicion & iealousy. They haue been always charged to be Spanish; they haue declared it in the whole course of their actions, the older this complaint hath been, the truer, and 〈◇〉 it seems to be. They haue been ch●sed out of the residue of the Land, and do you not see, how they entrench themselves anew in those two provinces, adjoining unto spain, from whence they had their first original? what example of lowliness & obedience call you this?  
If in any part of your realm, they should be least suffered to fortify, it is in such a frontier, as is situate far from our Sun, and near to the climate of Madrill: A man would judge, that spain sets in, to back them: or that they retire thether of purpose to barricado, & strengthen themselves against your majesty, as who should say, You haue driven us out of Paris and other places, but your arms are too short to force us any further. Can this be born? I cannot tel how certain 
* Of Bourdeux & Thoouse.  Bourgomaisters( so reputed) who haue been sometimes trained up under their discipline, and fitted to their humour & appetite, and who now so stoutly undertake the matter on their behalf, I know not( I say) how they conceive of it: but they must know, that they owe as much obedience to your majesty, as the meanest vassal in Paris, none excepted. This is too high a presumption, this is to open a contempt. Your want of issue hath hitherto made them hold you in neglect,( to use the words of an ancient Emperour) now make them know, that they shall owe their allegiance to you, and your posterity for ever, and it will make the proudest of them all to tremble. The remembrance of a trespass done to the Father, never dies in the son.  
It remaines then( my liege) that either the jesuits must yield obedience to your Decree, or else that your Decree must be disannulled: behold the Gordian knot, of this consultation. Many will rejoice at the first, & many likewise at the second. To speak my opinion, your majesty is not( as I think) so much to respect, what will be pleasing to this, or that particular humour, as what is just, and commodious to the whole. You cannot so carry yourself herein, but that you shall glad many, & grieve many: yet must you resolve one way, and not always float, and waver between both. What safer anchoring can a man rest vpon, then commodity, and iustice: wherein also honesty is comprised?  
1. As touching iustice, God hath committed it into the hands of Kings: The Kings your predecessors( my liege) haue from all antiquity here of disburdened themselves vpon the conscience of their 
a The high Court of iu●tice at Pa●is,( as the Kings bench ●s with us, & ●ot as our ●arlement, ●he assembly of the 3. e●tates) wher●n there sit ●s Iudges, ●n weighty ●auses, 12. ●eeres, six Ecclesiasti●all, & six ●emporall: ●● ordinary ●asess there ●re other ●udges sub●rdained. In several provinces.  Parlement of Paris, & since for the multitude of causes, they haue ordained ( b) seven other Parlements. But the Court of peers, hath ever retained( as it was meet and requisite it should) the power, and prerogative, to decide all matters, that concern the general state. This Bench is furnished with many worthy persons, and such as are infinitely practised in all sorts of causes, but above al, in the determination, & iudgement of matters criminal. For if any men living do proceed thereunto, with exact and ripe knowledge of the whole cause, without doubt it is they: And there was never man yet called in question, but if he knew himself to be clear, would crave them for his Iudges before any other. Your majesty can partly testify as much.  

c The whole proceeding of ●he Parlement of Pa●is against ●he jesuits.  It is not since last day, that this Parlement hath received Complaints against the jesuits: for in the year 64, they heard no less then ten Lawyers pleading against them al at one time: amongst whom he that was advocate for the state,( a very worthy man, and a most loyal seruant to his master, as ever was any) did at that time,( a strange, & wonderful thing to tell) prognosticate, and foretell, all their actions and proceedings, which since that time haue in our knowledge been verified, and accomplished. When men afterwards saw al those things fall out true in practise, which he had prophesied; as first the overthrow of the university, being by them brought down from thirty to three thousand scholars,( as before was shewed) & that the subiects began by little, & little, to shrink from the obedience due to their natural Prince, & to fix their eyes vpon a new Loadstar: it made them begin to murmur, and say thus to themselves( for the jesuits had by this time made their faction strong and were grown terrible amongst us) all this was foretold us by Mesnil, the kings advocate, but we would neither believe him, nor the Sorbone, which at the same time also prophesied, that this society was ordained for destruction, not for edification, & was like to breed great trouble and annoyance to temporal Princes. They are the precise words of the Decree: Your majesty if you please, may see the original.  
But when they beholded all order of government overthrown, the reins of obedience cut in sunder, the Magistrates imprisoned, and some of them massacred, the multitude like Lions broken loose, making spoil and havoc of all honest people, & then these holy Fathers sounding the trumpet to this multitude, and here Commolet, there Bernard, vomiting out a world of blasphemies against their King, against their liege Lord, and on the other side glorifying the King of spain, declaiming in his praise, setting him forth for the mightiest Monarch in the world, of greater pvissance, of larger dominions, then the romans ever were: that he would never forsake them, he held them( forsooth) so deere, onely they should take courage, & know their own strength: being confident, that his succours for men, money, & victuals should never fail them: Then in truth all well minded subiects, who had any impression of the Flower de luke remaining in their harts, began to be touched with deep repentance, that they had not in time given ear to these Cassandraes: but repentance came too late.  
When your majesty had reduced Paris under your obedience, it was expected of all hands, that you should instantly haue hunted out all those bad servitors, who had with their envenomed cups, poisoned a great part of your subiects, and with open face declared themselves sworn enemies to the King deceased, and yourself. But your majesty, in your singular wisdom, thought it good, to let the matter remain in the handling of the Court. The university, which( not without just cause) imputed their overthrow in particular,( besides the general ruin of the State) to this society of the jesuits, preferred their Complaint into the Parlement, in May 94. The secular clergy of Paris did the like. The cause was pleaded in Court, 
* á huis clos▪  but yet privately, which was no small benefit to the jesuits: for if the doors had been set open, the greatest part of that, they were charged withall would haue been witnessed by the whole Assistants; and fresh supply of matters, was like daily to haue come in, during those many dayes, that the cause was in hearing.  
In this mean time, happened that stroke which God turned away from your throat, and used your teeth for a defence against it. No man made question, from whence this stroke was sent, especially after knowledge, that the actor was a scholar of the jesuits nurturing, of whom he learnt( as himself confessed) that the King was as yet out of the bosom of the Church, & therefore ought to be slain, as appears by his deposition in open Court. And in truth, this desperate, and accursed resolution, could spring from no other roote, but from those barbarous, and savage Positions before remembered. Such conceptions are not engendered by the ordinary course of nature, especially in the harts of French-men, who are far remote from Affrica, and never saw any Monsters, before the jesuits were scene in france. Our soil produceth no such venomous plant of itself, it cannot be, but some, or other hath sown it amongst vs.  
upon this confession they sent to the jesuits college, where amongst other things, was found a discourse, penned by Father Guignard, and written with his own hand; containing in it, the sap & marrow of all this barbarous, this bloody, this prodigious doctrine. This whole practise jumped with that which had been prophesied, but not believed in anno 64, & with other predictions thē newly foretold. The court proceedeth, to a full, & solemn trial( in the assembly of the two chambers.) Guignard openly acknowledgeth this to be his own hand writing, & Chastell likewise confessed it, in presence of the whole Bench, to be the jesuits ordinary & familiar talk, that the king was still out of the Church,( albeit he were turned catholic,) in as much as the excommunication stood still in force: & that therefore he ought to be slain: which in all points concurred with that which Guignard wrote, if without force he cannot be deposed, then let men take arms against him: if by arms it cannot be accomplished, then let him be slain.  
upon these proceedings, what milder course could the Parlement aduise on, then to assent to the Request of the university: God himself seeming by a kind of miracle, to show himself as judge in the cause, by setting forth( without further mischief) to the view of the world, the truth of that which had at several times been prophesied against that society, and which their cunning sleights, their smooth glosings, and their feigned pretence of piety & zeal, had charmed us from apprehending so steadfastly, as to take a speedy course for their riddance from amongst vs.  
Thus vpon full knowledge of the cause, the Parlement of Paris, pronounceth Sentence, by which they are awarded to depart the whole Land, and your subiects prohibited to sand their sons to any of their colleges without the realm: Which is a clause of special importance: the execution whereof not being looked unto, your majesty shall reap but half the benefit of this Sentence. For how studious and careful will they be, to ground such children, as shal be sent them, in these dangerous principles, & to impose it, as a charge upon their conscience, to season others with the same licquour? You are born in hand( my liege) that it is a matter merely impossible, to enforce the execution of this branch, and that men cannot be kept from sending their children out of the Land unto the jesuits: it is not so; you shal find it a matter of the easiest performance in the world. For let there be a penalty of a thousand crownes inflicted for the first time,( the one mo●●ie thereof to accrue to the informer) and the same to be doubled, as often as the Decree shal be broken, you shal not see a man that will dare to transgress it. And is not here a matter of wonderful difficulty, that it should deserve to be accounted impossible?  
By an other Sentence, is Guignard adiudged to die: his horrible blasphemies against the deceased King, whose subject and vassal he was, and his brainsick doctrine against your majesty, would not permit his life be spared, without the hazard and pertill of yours. This Edict carried, in all mens opinions, so great a weight of iustice, so great a force of necessity, as it was no sooner published, but 
* Anno 1594  put in execution through all jurisdictions, save onely in 
* In Languedoc.  Tholouse and 
* In Guienna.  Bourdeaux. For Tholouse there was reason, it standing as yet in terms of disobedience with your majesty, not being reduced until april in 96. As for 
* In Guienna.  Bourdeaux, it was at that time replenished with most devout catholics( but most vowed enemies to the Spaniards, and the jesuits, their upholders) who thirsted after nothing more, then to see thē hunted out of Guienne, as they had been out of all other parts of the realm. But the jesuits, having speedy intelligence of this Edict, given out against them, had soon( as their wonted maner is) by means of their confederates, raised a mighty, & a strong faction in again, and Perigueux, where the embers of the fire of rebellion, were as yet burning hote. There they caused to be framed diuers invective Libels, but in so insolent, & intolerable a style, as is not possible for any man to conceive, that hath not been aforetimes acquainted with the pen of a jesuit. For in brief, all the Courts that had adiudged them to exile, what were they but a crew of heretics, that had overruled your majesty to publish this Edict? You shall hear thē speak it. The enemies of the Cathelicke, apostolic, and roman religion, haue possessed your majesty, with false, and famed suggestions, to bring them into hatred, and iealousy with you, and with your State: and without form, or shadow of trial, or entering into any due examination of the cause, haue condemned them to exile, & banishment. Did the Parlement of france ever receive so foul, so unworthy, so slanderous an imputation, such a vile indignity? and not content with this, they proceeded further, and broke out into threats, telling us in their petitions, that wee should see an alteration in our state for this gear: and that wee must not think such an earthquake could be, without some change vpon it.  
In francis the firsts dayes, such a petition I will not say( for who durst once haue entertained a thought of such a one) but one that had come near it almost in a word, would haue cost him his life, that should haue been so audacious, as to present it. This extreme presumption, this insolency, these braues, these outrages, proceeding from them, and their brood, infected with their poison,( the effect whereof is, to set light by Princes, and by their laws, and Magistrates) gave marvelous offence to your majesties servants, who were thoroughly resolved, to take such order, as your majesty should be obeied: and not to suffer your Edict to be contemned, and controlled. But the great number of towns, which as yet stood out, and were supplied by the city of Tholouse, caused them in wisdom to haue patience for a time. They found, that the rage, & fury of your enemies, who as yet bare their sword drawn against you, was not able to hold out for any time, inasmuch as they grew scanted of their means, and that then order would be easily taken, for the execution of this Sentence: howbeit as we see, sundry respects, & occurrences haue delayed, and put it off till this day: And this( my liege) is the plain, and vndisguised truth of the whole carriage of this matter: this hath been the proceeding, and iudgement of your Court against the jesuits, executed in part, and in part pntermitted.  
It is not unknown to your majesty, that the strength of all States, consisteth in the maintenance, and execution of such Edicts, as are concluded in their supreme Courts. When we take in hand to reverse them, it behoveth us to proceed therein with great advisement & circumspection: it is a work of high attempt, and of no small, nor slender consequence. All Edicts bear your name in their forehead, they cannot be violated, without wounding the majesty royal, whose judgements ought to be irrevocable, and unchangeable.  
Besides all this( my liege) in this assembly of both the Chambers,( whom they challenge for heretics) they are not able to name so much as one man, that is not a most sound catholic, without the least suspicion to the contrary. They haue been these seven yeeres in sifting, and searching into their lives, let them say, were they ever able to challenge any one of them? Then what a sely, and frivolous allegation is it, to say, they of the new opinion hate us? I grant it to be true, but what were they of the new opinion able to do in this assembly? As much as in the consistory of Rome: I speak it confidently, not a jot more.  
Yet they will not so give it over: they say the whole Parlement hated them. I would know the reason? Is it, because they came not to 
* The Parlement of Paris was removed to Tours in 1589. during the rebellion.  Tours? Howe could they hate the jesuits for that cause, when as the best part of the 
* Being detained for fear of the Leaguers, insomuch as th● King was fain to appoint new to supply their places at Tours.  Presidents themselves, never stirred foot out of Paris? Is it because the jesuits are sound catholics? Much less: inasmuch as the Iudges of the Parlement, are every way as sound as they, and without touch, or taint of heresy. Then whats the cause they should thus malice you? Assuredly, you are able to supply no answer, that may bear the least colour in the world, except you say they hate us, because wee were the fountain of all the miseries & calamities that haue fallen vpon France. Let that be true, yet I say that this allegation of hatred, can stand you in no stead. If Catiline had been apprehended, should he not haue found any at Rome upright, and impartial enough to be his Iudges? without question he should. And yet I dare say, the whole Senate, and all good Common-welths men besides, counted him the fire-brand of their country. Belike we should set up a new Court of peers, to sit in iudgement vpon Traytors, & those that further the practices and attempts of strangers.  
Where by the way( my liege) I will give you this Item( which you will allow me, I know, to be most true) that if all your subiects had born good affection to the jesuits, or had they born the like affection to your majesty, as the jesuits did, the jesuits had not at this time presented you with so many goodly petitions as they haue done, you had never come within the louvre. Haue they the face to deny this? If they haue, yet will not your majesty conclude with me notwithstanding? their last shift( and that a strange one) is this: that not knowing what to pretend against the iustice of this Sentence, they are driven to say: If Chastell did charge us with this matter, or if we were guiltic, & culpable therein, why were we not put to death? I answer; They measure other mens harts by their own. For having themselves sate Presidents in that bloody 
* Of the sixteen, whereof a jesuit was President.  counsel, which to make their tyranny dreadful, put an infinite number of persons to death, they judge that, measuring it by their own courses, they were worthy a more severe and rigorous punishment. But will you know the cause, why they were not put to death? It was, because they had neither Spaniards, nor jesuits for their Iudges, who at the Terceras in one day, and vpon one scaffoid, cut off the heads of eight, and twenty Esquires, and two and fifty Gentlemen, all Frenchmen, & hanged up 500. gray Friers, or such like religious persons, for preaching in the behalf of the King of Portugall. Wee in france hate and detest those cruelties, we ever sway and incline to pity, so it be not cruel pitty. To take the lives of so many persons, had been cruelty, & to harbour those amongst us, who had caused, and committed so many barbarous outrages,( beating their brains indeed about nothing else) had been another extreme cruelty. What third course then remained, but to banish them? It is an excellent saying of Tacitus. My lords, if you consider the monstrous villainies of these men, hanging were too easy a punishment for them: but I can aduise you a means, how you shall never repent you, for having been either too remiss, or too rigorous: Banish them all.  
moreover, the jesuits not having what else to exclaim against this Sentence, so behoveful, and necessary for the state of france, break into this speech,( mark I beseech you, how far their rage, & frenzy doth transport them) 
* La veri. def. page. 183.  The Parlement of Paris, is no longer at Paris. Where is it then? Where is this famous Parlement of Paris, so much renowned, so much admired thorough all france, thorough all foreign countries? Is it at Madrill? Is it thether that you will appeal from the King, and his Parlement? Is it there, that you will triumphantly overthrow this notable Edict, as once you did the Decree of the Sorbone, in anno 54?  
mark( my liege) note I beseech you, the peremptorines, the insolency, the intolerable presumption of these men, to dare to avouch in france, that the Parlelement of the peers of france, is no more in france, the Parlement of Paris, is no longer at Paris. But how can we expect, that these men should spare this Court of sovereign Iustice, since they subornd 
* Barriete.  villains with two edged knives, to work the destruction of their Soueraignes themselves?  
Vpon these premises I conclude it to be just, most just, yea iustice itself, to enforce the execution of the sentence of the Parlement. You cannot err in following this path, a path beaten by all your predecessors, who haue been jealous of nothing so much, as of the execution of the Decrees of their Parlement. Otherwise, what assurance could they build, that their children, which they haue left sometimes in the cradle, sometimes in the womb, should command after them over so many large provinces, without the power of their iustice, which is the arm, and stay of their sceptre, the support of their crown, and the prop, & pillar of their succession. Therefore whatsoever he be, that shall aduise, or move your majesty to weaken the Edicts of your Parlement, vpon an important matter of your State, did never duly ponder the consequence, the weight, the sequel, of such a dead. You must never look to haue any thing firm, or stable in the world, after you haue once dejected, disabled, & overthrown, this the greatest support of your greatness: your main & strongest sortresse, both against the rebellions of your subiects, and the attempts of strangers. So much for the iustice of this act, let us now come to the commodity and profit thereof.  
2. Who is so blind, as not to see, that this Sentence, ought to be reckoned as one of the special blessings that God ever bestowed vpon you? If their Seminarie or nursery, 
Chastell wounded the King nine months after his entry into Paris.  were able in nine months to yield an instrument, to act their murderous plots, how many was it like to haue produced in the space of seven yeeres? There is great odds between the going of a hundred paces, and of eight hundred miles. When 
From the jesuits college to the louvre.  a man hath leisure to ruminate, and to aduise with his pillowe, he oftentimes relenteth, and changeth his purpose: one good minute is sufficient, & there be( as the proverb goes) four, and twenty houres in the day: But when in the same heat of blood, in the self same fury, issuing forth of that hellish Chamber of Meditations, he may in an instant be in your bosom, there lies the danger( my liege) this is an apparent, 
All this hath relation to Barriere: vide less. Cate. lib. 3. cap. 6.  and imminent peril. He needs not lodge at any inn by the way, there can no advertisement be sent from Lions( your majesty knows what I mean) he cannot be descried by his tongue, nor described by his apparel: there will no intelligence come, no pictures will be sent you from any place abroad: the resolution is no sooner taken, but performed in an instant: And who doubts but such a mischief, the nearer it is, the more it is to be feared? To go one step further, let us conjecture by their former carriage, what fruit wee may expect from them in times to come.  
In the first place( my liege) it seems most reasonable, that your majesty assent to that branch of their petition: viz: That the 
* The saying of Lewes the 12. first duke of Orleans, & after King of france.  King of france, reuenge not the quarrels of the Duke of Orleans: that is, of the King of Nauare. This demand is full of equity: for whatsoever they haue wrought against your majesty, by the commandment of the late king, ought not to be construed to their hurt: nay I will go further, it ought to make for their good: they did it in regard of the service of their king you were not their King at that time. Neither to say truth, was this matter ever mentioned in their accusations. But this is an ordinary trick with them, to feign monsters to themselves, & subdue them when they haue done. It was never laid to their charge, and had it been, yet would it haue had no hearing in your Parlement. No, they took a clean contrary course: for amongst a multitude of other matters, they entred into particular examination, how the jesuits had behaved themselves towards the late King: concluding, that if they had well, and faithfully served him in his extremity, and distresses, albeit it had been against his own son( if he had had a son) they deserved praise & commendation for their labour. The late King, was no king of Nauarre, he was no Duke of Orleans, he was king of france: I will not add that he was besides their kind benefactor, and their special favourer in all their causes,( little suspecting, God wot, what horrible mischiefs, they in the mean time complotted against him) for in saying he was King of france, I conclude all: he was their sovereign, they were his natural subiects, & tied in allegiance to him, what soever he had been,( and yet lived there ever a more gracious Prince?) but let us see, haue they acquitted themselves of this allegiance? haue they served him loyallie, or haue they not lewdly betrayed him? this is the pith of the controversy: here you must close, and not hour-glass aloof off, seeking out large fields of plausible common places, therein to display the colours of your rhetoric: you must come to the point of this objection. Listen well what I say, my maisters; it is not a Duke of Orleans, or a King of Nauarre, that I speak of, I speak of your own King: Let us hear, haue ye acquitted yourselves of your duty, to this your sovereign Prince, your kind sovereign, your gracious King, who held you in such high estimation, who ever used you with such exceeding courtesy, & kindness, both in word, and action? I am wisely occupied, to ask them this question: they will answer me at leisure: and to say truth, what can they answer, which your majesty shall not be able of your own knowledge to control, & convince? I appeal no further for witness, then to your highnesse, what words the late King uttered of them. I dare say it, there was never Prince complained more, nor more cause had to complain of the treasons of his subiects, then this good King. And did he not, howsoever of a mild, gracious, & too too gentle disposition, did he not( I say) cause them to be expelled his city of 
* In anno 1589, but they afterwards replanted themselves.  Bourdeaux: the onely men amongst all his subiects, whom he ever proceeded so so severely against. An intallible sign, that they had beyond all mean, and measure provoked, and incensed him. But how can any man make question hereof? Haue we already forgotten, that it was justified unto him by good evidence in writing, that the jesuits were the original founders of the League. They were the men, who by their Syrens songs, had hereunto be witched men of all conditions, from the highest to the lowest, who knit, & contrived this confederacie against the State; and at Rome laboured the Excommunication tooth, and nail against your majesty, & afterwards made the bruit of that thunderbolt to be heard in france, having thereunto prepared the minds of your subiects with this accursed persuasion, that the King was liable to the sentence of Excommunication, and that being excommunicate, he was no longer King, but a Tyrant, and usurper, and they discharged of their oath of allegiance? And who is so blinded with prejudice, but that he plainly seeth, that if james Clement had not tasted of this poisonous doctrine, he would never haue given way to such a thought, as to undertake the murder of his sovereign, of his liege lord, of his natural Prince? Was it not this damnable opinion, settled, and engrafted in his hart, which encouraged him to sheathe his knife in the belly of the Lords anointed, which gave strength to his arm, to redouble the blow, he being certainly persuaded, that this heroical act,( as Guignard terms it) would bear him directly into Paradise? Is it the ston, or shaft, that commits the murder, or is it he, that sends it? Who is( I say) so wilfully, or ignorantly blinded, but he knoweth & must confess, that when the jesuits first set footing in this realm, the harts of all our countrymen were so far estranged from these heresies,( for I can call them no better; and to speak truly, what heresies can there be more dangerous, then these?) as that it was hard amongst a million of men, to find one, who would ever haue entertained so much as a thought that way? Contrariwise, our ancestors marched over the Mountaines, and made passage through italy, to 
* ●●●iface the 8. for excommunicating Phil. le bel.  take him prisoner, who offered to excommunicate the King of the Flower de luke, and enjoined that presumptuous Prelate, to open shane, & submission, who scattered the first sparks of this fire amongst vs. To conclude, before the jesuits came to nest in france, the harts of our countrymen were most estranged from these accursed Positions.  
The 
* Wherewith the jesuits are charged.  apology of james Clement( say they) is fathered by Boucher. It may well be so. Boucher knows, he shall never come at Paris to answer it:( the sentence of death given against 
* For saving amongst other things, that the king might be excommunicated, which Boucher also, with other Sorbonists, determined, page. 15. of this book.  Guignard, implieth his comdemnation) the jesuits live in expectation daily to be received, Boucher then doth but the part of a friend, to take it upon him: and a faster, and more assured friend then Boucher, the jesuits never had: and there was reason for it, he passed the whole course of his studies in divinity under thē: as all the university can witness. But not to dwell longer upon that point, let us take a view of the Bull itself, let us open this damnable apology, and examine the ground, and subject thereof, what is it, but this, that the King may lawfully be excommunicate, and his subiects freed from their oath of allegiance? And what else do the jesuits preach, what other string do they harp vpon through all their books, before alleged? furthermore, what is the last close of this book, but that wee labour to find out an Ebud? and who taught him that lesson, but 
* Before pag● 38.  Commolet and Guignard: who writeth thus, If without force he cannot be deposed, let men take arms against him, if by war it cannot be accomplished, let him be slain. And a little before, this heroical act performed by james Clement, as a gift of the holy Ghost,( so termed by our Diuïnes) hath been worthily commended. &c. Let us take a better survey of these words our divines: who may these divines be? Is it S. Augustine, or S. Bernard, or those other fathers, men spotless in life, & matchless in learning? No such matter: I haue shewed you the contrary. Who are they then? They are forsooth, the reverend Fathers the jesuits: men of a higher rank( I wiss) then they. These are 
* Before, page. 45, & Ies. Catechi. lib. 1. cap. 9.  Apostles, they are received into the society and company of Iesus: alas the other, which I name ere-while, are but his poor, & humble servants, not worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoe: And for an upshot, this Father Guignard, who wrote these Positions, with a pen of steel dipped in the blood of our Kings, is by them 
* page. 266. of the Apol. of jac. Clement.  lamented, as a great loss: and what doth this Defence of murtherers contain in it, more savouring of madness, & lunacy, then these points I haue name? But let the jesuits answer me to this: if they did not give allowance to that apology, would they suffer it to be sold publicly in dovay? would they allow it currant passage in that place? For my part. I would not give counsel to touch the life of the King of spain, sooner would I lose mine own: no I am so far from it, as I maintain, that whosoever shall attempt against the life of a King, shall undoubtedly receive damnation for his hire. It is an attempt against the majesty of God, who hath established him as his Vicegerent.  
indeed wee must confess, the jesuits cannot bar this apology from being openly sold in dovay, and carried about from inn to inn, to be put away to Frenchmen which travail that way. Alas, these poor religious persons can bear no stroke in such towns, as are subject to the house of Austria: they are not reckoned of in those places( God wot.) I will tell you a strange thing, and it is true. There is no man but knows, how hard it is for a Frenchman to get entrance into the Castle of Milan: and when all is done, he must pass under the name of a Spaniard, and at his peril to, if he chance to be discovered. Yet this I will say, that let all the French jesuits, that remain at this day in Guienne, & Languedoc, present themselves before the gates, & let but one jesuit of Milan avouch them of his knowledge, to be jesuits, they shal presently haue the bridge let down, and the great gates set wide open to receive them. Such a singular virtue hath the die and tincture of Iesuitisme, as that it drowns all natural colours whatsoever. And in truth, to what persons living are the Spaniards more indebted, then to this society? who haue undertaken such toils, and travails for the advancement, & increase of their Empire, as they, whom onely they haue to 
union de Portugal fol. 197. ●.  thank for the kingdom of Portugall, as their own history doth aclowledge?  
But from whence proceeds this moil affection of the jesuits unto spain? The cause is two-fold. The first taken from their original, which was Spanish, & that was it, that first engrafted in them this ardent affection, wherein they haue been by tradition from hand to hand, nou●risht, bread, and trained up. Secondly, they set it down for a principle, that the Turkish Empire, can never be brought to final overthrow, but by some monarch of christendom, and casting their eyes round about, they see none in their opinion comparable, for wealth, pvissance, and possessions, unto the house of Austria, in whose hands it the whole Empire, part of germany, and the Low Countries, the better half of italy, all spain, and the East and West Indies: besides that they esteem the king of Spain the onely man, able to reduce all christendom to the catholic religion.  
No man knows better, then your majesty, how far the designs of the house of Austria tend and aspire, who promise to themselves no less, then the jesuits wish them. Three 
* The King of spain, the Duke of savoy, & the Archduke.  Brothers by alliance, do enclose & compass you on all sides, from of Bayonne to Calice, they represent a 
* A King spain feigned to haue three bodies,  told by Hercules.  Geryon: but so long as their close confederates, who win them into the good opinion of your subiects, so long I say, as these be sent packing out of your realm, you shal haue no cause to stand in fear of the former. Geryon was King of spain, but he met 
Hercules Gallicus, or Ogmius: Lucian in Here.  with a Hercules of Gaule. Your majesty knows, that the fable of the Toiane horse, was invented to no other end, but to teach us first, that fifty close enemies in a State, shall be able to effect that in one night, which fifty thousand open enemies cannot achieve in ten yeeres. And secondlie, that there are evermore some, that perceive 
La●●oon, & Cassandia in Troy.  these close enemies, but their admonitions are never regarded.  
This hath been hitherto truly verified in our state: for there was never any thing foretold, touching the jesuits, and their designments, but hath justly fallen out: yet was there never any of those predictions believed, until the blow was felt.  
But to win new credite to their cause, they allege two things: 1. that they are a great number: 2. that they haue done great service to certain Princes. For the first, I understand not to what purpose this muster of their numbers may serve, unless it be to scar, and affright vs. And I protest, I am afraid of them within the realm: but out of the realm, I do not fear, that their great numbers, will ever come to besiege Bayonne: provided there be none of them left at Bourdeaux, to deprive us of our sense, and of the use of our hands.  
Perhaps they will pretend, that this fruitful increase of their number, is an argument of Gods blessing vpon their society: but this were both a dangerous, and an absurd consequence. For it will be a long time, ere they come to equal the number of the 
* Sent into france by their king a Pagan, to muther S. Lewes: whence all martherers haue been since called Assasins. Ies Catech. 3. lib. Annal de Fran. fol. 1236. b.  Arsacides, or 
b Murtherers.  Assasins, men of their own stamp: to omit the Arians, the Albigenses, the Iewes, and mahometans. This is the common argument of the Lutherans, which the jesuits haue refeled, and will they now draw it in, to serve their own turn? This were an incongruity.  
As for their services performed to certain Princes; there was never question made of their wit and ability: but what is there more dangerous in the world, then an extraordinary wit bent vpon mischief? Then whereto serves so many great words of their sufficiency, did ever any man say, they were fools? They are able to do good service, who doubts it? but it must be to those, who shall haue the good hap to continue always in grace & favour with the Pope: and to haue no difference with the house of Austria: for in this case, whosoever put his trust in the jesuits, let him be sure at first, or last, they will show him a juggling trick.  
If your majesty please to read but the Orations of the Polonian Gentleman made in their Senate, you shal there see an Iliade of tumults, and civil wars, amongst the Christians, which inhabit those large and vast 
* See Ies Cat lib. 3. ca. 1:  Countries( extending from the North to the East) stirred and excited by the onely means of the jesuits, who haue there caused of late more battels to be fought, then had been in five hundred yeeres before. Your majesty hath some experience of their doings in this point, if you please to call them to mind: once certain I am, we need not go from home to seek examples, we ourselves may serve but too well for example to other nations. I would to God we had not such just cause to complain, and fear, as wee haue: which yet we cannot but double, when wee consider the Constitutions of their Order, and the tenor of their Bulls, by virtue whereof they are sworn to obey they general, 
* Summa constit. pa. 307  per omnia et in omnibus, as to Christ, himself, if he were here in person. answer me then, if God himself should command us any thing, ought wee not to do it, though it were for Abraham to kill his own son Isaac? Who seeth not, that when a poor selie wretch, that hath been bread up in these Positions of the excommunicaton of kings, shal be shut up into this chamber of Meditations, and a second Varades bring him a commandment from his general, to murder his sovereign, being near at hand: who seeth not I say, but he will undertake it, steadfastly believing, that otherwise he should be damned, and his soul be cast into utter perdition, for disobedience to his general? But admit, that ten, twenty, or thirty refuse it, there needs but one to accomplish this woeful and lamentable act. Assuredly( my liege) it seems very strange to me, that these men, who are so earnest with your majesty in their behalf, should not set before their eyes, what themselves haue seen & tasted heretofore: or weigh with themselves, that if a second misfortune should happen, both they, and their whole race, should for ever be infamous throughout france. I would wish them to think upon it, and to remember, that nothing is so easily hide from sight, as a lewd purpose, and that it is not in the power of man, to sound the hart, & inward thought, God having reserved that secret to himself; and why will they then put it upon so desperate a plunge?  
If notwithstanding all this, any of them shall obstinately continue their importunity,( as my trust is they will not) yet consider I beseech you, that their faces never felt the jesuits knives, that they were not the mark Barriere shot at: thorough with yourself, that some of their solicitors may be engaged in the cause, having many ways to employ the jesuits in those places where they live: some also there may be that think france would continue too long without civil wars, if these trumpets, and firebrands of fedition were not called home again. All of them haue an eye to their particular ends: every man respects his private good. It stands your majesty in hand to assure your estate to yourself, and your posterity, against all maner of storms, tempests, and thunderclaps whatsoever.  
Yea but( say they) the Pope is become a mediator in this behalf, he desires it, he would haue it so, and will you deny him that request, being so many ways beholding to his holiness? I answer diversly hereunto. 1. First of all, that his Holinesse will not subscribe to their doings, that shal endeavour to persuade your majesty, to a matter so hurtful to your state, pretending for their reason, his request, at whose hands you haue received so many extraordinary favours. For what greater burden, then a bes●●e,( saith an ancient Writer) if it bind me to do that, which may harm my estate? And another more elegantly: If a man in respect of his former benefits, haue required me to do any thing, that hath turned to my hurt, he hath not onely forfeited his due thanks, but moreover, hath given me just cause of complaint. A King of france were reduced to a miserable condition, if he had no means to aclowledge a pleasure, but by setting his state and Country on fire. 2. Secondlie, I precisely deny, that his holiness, would haue is so. He wishes france too well, he knows that himself must depart the world: but this society, shall by succession be continued to all perpetuity, so that when they shall break forth upon us, he shall not be here to rescue and relieve vs.  
The Philosopher saith that to know whether a man will a thing, or no, it must be in his power not to will it. And who seeth not, that the Pope hath not power, to deny the jesuits, whatsoever letters they shall sue for at his hands? Else what would my L. the Cardinals say, who favour the proceedings of the Spanish king, from whom some of them receive yearly pensions? Would they not in bitter manner complain, that such men( forsooth) were forsaken in their need, who undertake so wearisome travails for the advancement of the holy sea? I conclude then that his holiness is constrained to sign all their demands, & will forced, is no will. 3. I will go one step further, admit the Pope would haue 
* A town of the French kings, in dauphin near to Auignion.  Valentia joined to the county of 
c Which be longeth to the Pope, sometimes the sea of the papacy  Auignion, I demand, whether it would be granted, or no? Assuredly it would not. And doth not that, which toucheth your general State, import more, then ten Valentias? 4. Fourthly, I haue been taught, that the Decrees of our Parlement frustrate all such Bulls, as may prejudice the liberties, and Canons of the Church of france, or the Edicts and ordinances of our King, or the Decrees of our said Parlement, but I never yet learnt, that the Popes will might reverse the Decrees of our Parlement.  
What course is then to be taken in this matter? The course is plain & easy: that his Holinesse be fully informed of those weighty reasons, which enforce an absolute necessity of putting the aforesaid Sentence of the Parlement in execution. Amongst which there is one very memorable, not heretofore remembered: that indeed other companies, and societies, did in those times, afford here and there a man, who behaved themselves in vile, and outrageous manner against their sovereign, and therein matched the jesuits to the full. They marched( I say) hand in hand with the foremost of them: if the one strained his throat with thundering against the King, the other spared not his: whereof now the jesuits can well remember us, they play the Orators therein, they reach that string to the highest note; their books and Petitions, contain wholly discourses of that subject; the sum whereof is, if we had a deep hand in those undutiful actions, be you sure there were of other Orders, who cam not far behind vs. But yet in all this they come not to the point: no, they will none of that, that is slipped over in silence: that in all other Orders, though some there were, who bare a vehement affection to spain, yet there were others, which did worthy service at Tours, Caen, Renes, Angiers, Chalon, and those other few towns of note, which remained under the obedience of our late King. These good men, worthily deserving the name of Christians, of catholics, of Religious persons, ceased not in their pulpits,( the seats of truth, & not of leasing, of comfortable instructions, and not of contumelious invectives) to confute, and overthrow, that mischievous doctrine of rebellion, which the jesuits, built and set up in their daily Sermons within the revolted cities. But this is wonderful, this is that memorable point, that in the whole troope of the jesuits, there was not one found,( one is a small number) & yet I say again there was not one, that from 
* When the rebellion began against the last king.  89 to 
* what time the king that now is, entred Paris.  94, was heard to let fall one word, that might be strained to the good of his Prince, or country: but evermore vehement in behalf of the Spaniard, and to qualify the hard conceit of his government. What can any man reply hereunto? Who can deny this to haue been a general, a terrible, a monstrous, a hellish conspiracy? and now having mist their mark, they take us belike for marvelous sely sots, if they hope, wee will keep them still in store, that at the next opportunity, having taken better aim, they may destroy both us and our State together.  
True it is( my liege) that to rid you of all fear, and feeling, they frame two allegations: One is, that they are mightily reformed, they are not the men, they were, when your majesty saw them, they are none of those, that wrought you so many displeasures. Secondly, it is alleged, that if they were willing to harm your majesty, yet they want force to effect it.  
For proof of the first, they make ostentation of a solemn 
* 1. Ies. Catech. lib. 3. ca. 13.  Decree concluded amongst them, that they shall no more intermeddle in matters of State. But let us see, what date this Decree bears; they say of anno 93. Hath your majesty then already forgotten, that since that time, they haue practised twice against your life? Behold the performance of this glorious Decree, do not we know the general exception of all their statutes: unless it be for the good of the Church, an exception, that extends as far, as they list to strain it? But will you understand, how they are resolved, not to intermeddle any more with the State, & the good respect thy carry towards it? do but peruse their aforesaid apology, given out under the title of The defence of the 
La veri. def.  truth, and in the 229 page. you shall meet with these words. But what kind of creature is this same State? Let us behold her face, that the jesuits may no more intermeddle in her affairs, and thereby incur the heavy displeasure of her jealous friends, and favourites. And in the 231. page., Let these good catholics be advised, what they say, accusing the jesuits for intermeddling in too many matters, & let them take heed, that they themselves overthrow not the state, by making so light account of their religion, and that in seeking the quiet, & peace of the earth, they both miss of it, & lose besides the peace of heaven.  
Is it possible, in a more insolent, and presumptuous manner, to profess, that they will continue more then ever heretofore, to work the ruin and overthrow of the State, whose face they say they know not? And they haue reason, for they never harboured in their harts any other project, but the subversion of States, disauthorizing of Magistrates, and seducing of subiects from their allegiance. moreover, you hear how they proclaim themselves sworn enemies to all that are friends to peace. Neither must it be forgotten, that in the very same page. 229. to make odious to the people, all such as wish the safety of your state, your crown, & sceptre, they haue framed a new term, calling them 
* Estatiens.  Statemongers. During their tempestuous reign, they termed us Politicians, they dare no longer meddle with that word, it hath been too often 
* By the Edict of Pacification.  called in: they coin a how of the same stamp. An ordinary trick with their Fatherhoods.  
Your majesty seeth then, in what sort the jesuits accomplish this painted Decree, which notwithstanding they oppose as a shield against all objections what soever. But who ever heard, that any man was so simplo, to build vpon such promises, or to ground assurance vpon the like Decrees, or resolutions? It would bear as likely a show, if the pirates should sand word to the Merchants, that they haue in a general synod, concluded to rove or rob no more, & that they may now safely give thē leave to sail in consort with them. A pretty tale to tell a child. And who is so ignorant in the course of matters abroad, as that he knows not, how the jesuits are as great, if not greater entermedlers, then ever they were? we need not go far for instance: 
* In some towns in the low countries, as dovay, Valencienne, Turayne.  our very next neighbours groan under their tyranny, and study for nothing else, but how to be delivered of them.  
But to digress no farther from our purpose, I would fain know, if the jesuits were admitted into these quarters again, who should be their controller, or overseer? who could haue intelligence what messengers went to and fro to their colleges, what secret assemblies were there holden, what counsels were there given: who seeth not, that they must forthwith haue the rains as loose, as in the year 88? I will yet say more, albeit men should discover their close packing against the State, yet who, think you would be forward to detect thē to the Magistrate? who would not rather fear to see the year 89 return again, and himself once more subject to their importable yoke, especially seeing them restored after their banishment?  
But when they find it so difficult a matter to persuade your majesty, that there can be any want of ill will in a jesuit, they fly to the second point, that their power will not serve, to harm a Prince of your pvissance. And the better to dispose your Highnes to the belief of this Article, they are not forgetful throughout all their petitions, to extol and sound out your victories, and to that effect they translate into French, all the ancient Panegyrics, that be. Men are naturally delighted to hear their happiness, their puislance, the assurance of their State, and their childrens, and in a word, to hear their whole praises spoken. And in truth, when I hear such, as hold you as dear as their own lives, such as love you, with an unfeigned zeal, and affection: it rejoiceth me, I say, when I hear such men advance your marshal atchieuements, and your victories above the clouds. It is the due of virtue, it is her food & nourishment, it is her first foundation, it is her fairest recompense. But let us be wary( my liege) let us be jealous, howe wee lend our ears to the enchaunting praises of our enemies.  
ancient Writers haue recorded, that the most subtle kind of Sorcerers, bewitched by praising. Let us take heed of these Syrens, that tickle the ears with their sweet harmony, thereby to bring the sailors asleep, while their Bark splits vpon a rock. do you not( my liege) when you hear such sugared words flow from their mouths, do you not( I say) call to your remenbrance the wound which you received in your own mouth by a graft of their Seminarie? When you see these flowers of eloquence proceed from their pens, are you not thereby put in mind, that by force thereof, their Rector confirmed, & encouraged Barriere. Oh my liege, they can well set out in their Petition, how the famous Orator of Rome, extolled( the clemency, I will not call it, which is so long commendable, as it is joined with discretion, otherwise i● it no virtue,) but the foolish lenity of Iulius Caesar, howe( I say) he extolled it above his two, and fifty victories; but they leave out the conclusion of the story, they tell you not how Tully with his pleasant language, rocked Caesar so fast a sleep, as that in the mean while, he called about him from exile, all the deadliest enemies he had, who soon after slew him with their poiniards, whom neither Mars, nor Bellona, nor millions of armed soldiers, were able to annoy. Suffer yourself to be trained in like manner, and they will spare you no more, then the other did Caesar. And then will they be as forward to sound the triumph, as the same Orator was, who afterwards exclaimed: A few haue strooken Caesar with their weapons, but all haue slain him with their wishes.  
Your majesty( I know) will reply, that this great Emperour was an usurper: I answer again, that one skin of Romish parchment( according to the jesuits doctrine) is able to make you a Tyrant: a doctrine which they profess, & glory in at this day, neither will they deny it hereafter, unless their general,( a Spaniard born, as his 4. predecessors haue been) allow them a dispensation ad cautelam, to cover their doctrine, thereby to work their return into france. But very hardly will they bee brought, so much to bite in their tongues, as to say, the Pope hath not power to excommunicate, and censure Kings, and to discharge their Subiects of their oath of allegiance, ●●r howe shall they then reconcile their writings? These contradictions would supply matter of fresh accusation, and new evidence against them.  
But to return to our purpose. It is alleged( my gracious sovereign) that you are so surely seated in your state, so feared, and redoubted, as all things tremble under your might, and alas what hurt can you take from this poor society? This bears a faire show, and so much the fairer, being as it is for the most part true, to our exceeding ioy, and contentment, and to their grief and deadly discomfort. But first of all( my liege) weigh this, that these men, who so highly set forth your power, haue maintained, and kept their footing in two provinces of your realm, in despite of your power of your Edict, of the Decrees of your Parlement. I know, of late they haue had a kind of discharge, but it was long ere they had it. furthermore, it may please your majesty to remember, that in May 84, the late King was firmly seated in the inheritance of his Brother, his Father, and his grandfather, he was supported and strengthened by a Brother, that had store of men at command; and yet within four yeeres after, the jesuits drove him out of the louvre: I say the jesuits, the rest were but the arms, & the legs; they were the head; they guided the bark; who knows it better then your majesty?  
And yet( my liege) freely to utter what I think; though I would be loth to add to your just fears, as neither would I diminish them at all( howbeit of the two, the latter is the more dangerous: for distrust is a wholesome drug in matter of a State, you haue often tried it, and it hath proved well with you) therefore( I say) freely to acquaint your highnes with my thoughts, I do not believe, that in your dayes,( the number whereof God increase, to equal those you haue already past) the jesuits shall haue free scope to play their parts on open stage: and yet I think,( and I make no doubt, but your majesty will join in opinion with me) that it lies not in your power, nor the power of all your Parlements to hinder them, but that in all places, where they come, they will with a light, and chary hand( as if they touched it not) sheade into the harts of your subiects their poisonous opinions, concerning the point, and power of excommunication. This then is one Hurt, which you may take from them, and that no light, nor mean one, but of great, nay greatest import: for what greater can there be, then that which in less perhaps then four yeeres, may lose your Highnes a million of subiects? O what a dangerous infection is this? This I say is a mischief, which will happen in your own dayes, during your own reign, how vigilant, or circumspectly an eye soever you bear vpon their actions, you shall not be able to prevent it, think vpon it I beseech you.  
their Agents propound certain cautions, and I wot not what restraints, or limitations: their Agents abuse you. Let us see what these cautions be, show us thē, lay them down vpon the Carpet. What? shall not the jesuits be allowed conference with any? Shall they be recluded from the sight and company of men? To what use shal they then serve? Shall they not instruct our youth? And yet this is the onely colour which their chief spokesmen are wont to pretend: albeit in very truth, they haue half eclipsed the beams of learning, which great king Frances, the patron of all good literature, restored in france,( and there is no remedy for this evil, but by taking away the cause thereof throughout the realm.) They shall haue our youth then under their tutoring: If be admitted, how can we think to hinder them, from seasoning their scholars with all those pestilent documents, whereof wee haue spoken?  
But admit, they be not restored to the liberty of a college, yet can you not abbridge their ancient consorts( the dregs & sink of cities) from coming at them. And God knows, what strange effects novelties breed in france. God knows what trumpets, what fore-runners are already come, God knows how they would sound victory, and advance their ensigns again. Shut up their gates you will not, to bar men from all recourse unto them: the pretext of piety will never be to seek: moreover, with what importunity is your highnesse like to be daily assaulted, as well from within, as from without your realm, for the calling in of these Orders, & restraints, which are now proposed onely for a colour, to make way for their entrance. They that now so busily offer these conditions, will be the first that shal open their mouths, for the revoking of them, and for the entire restoring of the jesuits. This is it, they whisper into the jesuits ears, accept of this onward, get but yourselves in again, let us once make a breach in the Edict, and take you no thought for the rest. How many solicitors will they find in their presence, who haue such a number to sue for them in their absence? And then shal your majesty want the main shield of that Decree of Parlement, which would be kept inviolate: for what fairer excuse can you haue, to answer all importunity withall? & this shield being once broken, what shall you haue then to allege, why they should not be restored to as ample liberty, as they enjoyed in 88? unless peradventure you say, they be dangerous people. Oh my liege, why do you not now say it? Haue you not in fresh memory, examples enowe of their doings? If you haue not, do but look out at your window, you can hardly be in any part of your realm, whence you may not behold infinite ruins of houses, which they haue brought to ashes, innumerable Orphans, which haue reduced to beggary. Doth not this move your hart? I know it doth: your hart 〈◇〉 tender, not to feel the touch hereof. But their Agents hold you fast by the throat: haue you no arms to free yourself? Oh my liege, this is but a hundreth part of the mischief, they are like to prove, even in your dayes. If your majesty lose this leaf of paper in some corner of your Closet, and fortune hereafter to find it again, you shall then witness whether I haue spoken truth, or no.  
But grant, they will not dare to mutter, so long as they shall behold your face, ought the wisdom and foresight of a Prince, to extend no further, then his own time, especially having issue, to succeed him? Men in time of health( my liege) feel not many blind infirmities, which in sickness grieve and pain them. So fares it with great States, & policies: for when by such accidents, as pleaseth GOD to sand, they come to be distempered, a number of sick, and crazed humours, then break forth, which during the health, and flourishing estate thereof, were never perceived. These are the times, these are the opportunities, which the jesuits shly await, and attend: and never fail to lay hold on them, when they fall. If they be not able at the first assault to force the place, they double their strength at the second, & again redouble it at the third. perseverance carries it in all things. The defendants haue not always the same spirit, and courage to resist.  
What more dangerous disease, then a relapse, which yet is the more inexcusable, being occasioned by our own default, but most of all, when wee knew before hand, by what means this mischief was like to grow, and had no care to prevent it. God grant I may prove a false prophet, but my hart presageth, that the jesuits will in the end, reduce this whole country into ashes: wee haue once already seen it on a light fire, they kindled it, they brought it to so terrible a blaze, as that it was seen from Asia. We had then as it fortuned, a Prince of rare perfection, exceeding courageous, an expert soldier, wonderful vigilant, all iron to endure labour, all steel in warlike encounters, who for that time, smotherd those flames: but GOD giveth not at all times such worthy Princes, especially, in the vigour of their yeres. And who seeth not that at the first sunset of this reign, that fire ill put out, will break forth anew into greater flames, then ever before, and utterly destroy, and consume our children. Ah my poor infants, it is your case that I lament, as for myself, my declining age doth exempt me from this fear.  
me thinks( my liege) I hear one whisper in your ear to this effect: It is true, these allegations are avouched to your majesty under writing, and carry no small probability with them, yet can I not conceive, howe the jesuits could make so large offers of service to your majesty, if their doctrine were such indeed, as wee hear it said to be. And it may be, he that speaks this, speaks it from the truth of his hart, & out of an honest meaning, as, I am persuaded, the most part of those, that appear in their cause, know not the truth of these matters, which I haue recited; for if they did, they would bee as earnest suitors to your Highnesse, to commmaund the absolute execution of the Edict, as now they are importunate solicitors to haue it infringed. Behold then the clear manifestation of the simplo truth.  
When the jesuits, presented to your majesty those petitions, so gloriously set forth, so full of smooth insinuation, so fraught with alluring persuasion, so flowing with sweet and elegant phrase, you stood at that time, in good condition with the Pope. What reason might then dissuade them from offering you their service? What had they else to say? was it their course, still to proclaim themselves your vowed & capital enemies? Was that the way to Paris? But do you not observe this( my liege) that in the whole volumes of their petitions,( though otherwise unreasonable long) they haue not lanced, no not so much as touched this point of the question, this knot of the controversy, this doctrine so pernicious, to wit, whether they do not beleeue, and accordingly teach, that the Pope hath power to excommunicate kings, and to enter-meddle with their crownes, which is the ground, & foundation of all the murders that haue been either acted, or attempted in Europe, and the spring, and fountain, of all the calamities, which we haue endured, since this damnable doctrine began to be so currently dispersed amongst vs. This is the point( my Maisters, you that frame those elegant Orations) this is the issue, wherein you are to join, and not to tel us a story, what obedience subiects owe naturally to their Prince. A strange novelty forsooth! but haue you not your exception at hand? And what is that? Mary that[ we owe obedience to Kings] so far forth as they be not excommunicate by the Pope, who hath power to unloose all their subiects from their oath of allegiance. This is the hindge of the whole cause: answer us hereunto directly, without equivocation: is it true, that you bring this exception, or are you wrongfully charged ther-withall? But why do I loose time, in demanding what they hold in this point? You haue their books, they are laden with this doctrine, they call, and beate upon no other point but this. From what fountain haue issued all the miseries which wee haue endured, if not from this? Are we senseless, trow you? Who caused the Excommunication against the late King to be received in france in 89, which without the jesuits help, had taken no better effect, then the other of 
* Against the King that now is, which was condemned by the Par●ement then holden at Tours, to be ●u●nt open●y by the executioner.  91 did in Tours, where there were no jesuitical spirits, no harts engaged to the Spaniards? do wee not see that they are, and ever haue been so far from denying this doctrine, as that contrariwise they haue gloried in it, as hath been declared in the beginning of this discourse? But do wee take them to be so void of iudgement, as in their Petitions, to touch this string? It should then appear, they had not well learned their rhetoric, which teacheth to ouer-slip in silence those objections, which wee are not well able to answer: the reader doth not always give such heedful attention, such a matter is soon forgotten: if we answer any thing near it, it sufficeth. And had ever Orator better proof with a point of art, then the jesuits with this? Who did ever give your majesty notice, that they past over the main point of the cause? or had you ever this caveat given you, that the jesuits bring their words but half way out, that they speak not plain French, that they gloze with you, now you are in terms of amity with the Pope; but tell you not, what they would do, if God should so afflict us, as to call the Pope that now is, and to raise up in his stead, a 
* Who excommunicated Philip de bel.  Boniface the eight, a 
* Who interdited Charles the 6. and his realm.  Bennet the 13, or a 
c Who excommunicated Lewes the 12.  Iulius the second, to sand forth the like excommunications, as were by them thundered out against our Kings, the most Christian, the most catholic, and the most ancient kings of christendom? We haue sufficient knowledge( my liege) by all their writings, by the whole course of their actions, and by their open profession in the pulpit, that at one such clap( if their words might carry credite) they would make you, or any of your successors, a king without subiects, a Lord without land, a private person, accursed, and given over, a spectacle of misery, an outcast, & an exile, in a word, such a one, as they were once in good hope to haue made, and indeed had made you, and the late King, if all the catholics in france had been sound jesuits, such as you are now counseled to make them, by recalling these Apostles, thoroughly to instruct the Fathers, and deeply to imprint into the mindes of their children this article of belief, that you, & your whole posterity, may with one Bull, be for ever removed from the throne of 
* From whom this King is descended.  S. Lewes.  
But what shall I need to insist upon reasons, when I can instance by examples, such as may touch your majesty to the quick? I know( my liege) you haue learnt and gone thorough a number of histories,( you haue in my hearing recounted many, which some that went for great clerks, had never heard tell of) but though you had never learnt more then this, yet this I am sure you haue learnt, which I will briefly recite, for it cannot be thought, but that you haue quiter forgotten it. In the year 1512, Katherine, queen of Nauarre, had nine and twenty yeeres enjoyed her kingdom, descended unto her by the death of Fraunces Phoebus, her brother, and successively from a number of Kings her ancestors: shee had been eighteen yeeres crwoned with John d'Albret, the king her husband, in 
* The chief city of Navarre.  Pampelune: God had given them issue, one son, & three daughters: their realm was in so flourishing estate, and of such pvissance, as evermore it put the Castilians and Arragonians to the worst. At this time they were in firm league with them both, and in fast, & ancient alliance with the crown of france, exceedingly beloved of Lewes the twelfth, a mighty King, and a gallant warrior, to be short, all Europe, to any mans iudgement durst not haue thought of making any attempt vpon thē: notwithstanding, in that year of 1512, did the 
* Iulius Secundus.  Pope, in malice to the French Nation, shoot forth his boult of Excommunication, against these Princes, absolved their subiects from their oath of allegiance, and abandoned their realm for a pray to him that could first seize it: as is the ordinary style of their Excommunications. By force of the same Bull was 
* Lewes the twelfth.  our King jointly excommunicate, as 
* In anno 1510.  before time he had been. But what sequel had it? For the French, there was not one man of them that did so much as stagger in their allegiance; but clean contrary( mark I beseech you my liege, the good disposition we had by nature, until our teeth were set on edge with the jesuits doctrine: the observation hereof, will give you the better light, to judge how great a wounde they haue made in your realm) clean contrary, I say, all our ancestors then living, not one excepted, doubled their resolution, to serve and follow their King, maugre the malice that Pope Iulius bare him, and did so inflame their zeal & affection toward their Prince, as they were in a manner fond of his sight, calling him, their Father, their Protector, their good King, to be short, the title of Pater patriae, is to this day annexed to his name, & so shall continue for ever.  
On the otherside what ensued in Nauarre? The King & queen called a Parlement, at Tudelle: there did the subiects firmly resolve to abide in their allegiance to the death, notwithstanding the Popes thunderbolts. But within a while after, there stepped forth a crew of seditious fellowes, discontented persons, men of a shipwrecked & desperate estate, & thirsting after change, who notwithstanding haue evermore at hand the mask and pretext of religion, so as, to hear them speak, you would take thē for the onely catholics in the world: these fellowes, I say, began to sprinkle amongst the people, the doctrine before mentioned, which since that time we haue seen powred out in france by the ministration of the jesuits. But what was the issue hereof in Nauarre? This: that this seditious crew, strooke all the residue of the subiects into a dead palsy, took from them the use of their arms, and legs, some by force of Religion, some by fear of their threats, and menaces: insomuch as these Princes( your majesties great grandfather, and grandmother) were 
* When the King of spain, came to invade them, by warrant of the Bull.  left in the midst of their subiects without subiects, in the midst of their servants without seruants, in the midst of their army, without soldiers. To conclude, there was never revolt heard of, never treason committed, so foul, so shameful, so miserable: the poor Princes being driven, with their four infants,( from one of which your majesty is descended) to fly for safeguard into France: a skin of parchment having effected that in the space of an hour, which all Arragon & Castile, were not able to atchiene in a thousand yeeres. For a Prince to be driven out of his realm, having been first broken and discomfited in three, or four main battailes, is a case which affords variety of example, and thereby supplies some comfort; but to see himself driven by force out of his kingdom, & not a subject of his, once to draw his sword in his quarrel, and all under the shadow of religion, this exceeds all the sorrows, all the discomforts, all the miseries, which either the world can exemplify, or mans wit can imagine.  
The year following, viz. 1513, our king, touched with a just compassion to see a King and a queen, for his sake, clean thrust out of their kingdom, prepared an army, which marched over the Pyrenaean mountaines, directly to Pampelune, charging the same so close, as that Lisle, Villiers, and Cannay, advanced their colours upon the walls, but it was defended with such resolution within, as they were forced to retire, without doing any good. About eight yeeres after, at the instance of the said Albret king of Nauarre, king Fraunces sent a second army, which by force possessed Pampelune, but it was soon after regained by the Spaniard. In this service, Jgnatius Loyola, one of the Captaines of the Spanish companies, behaved himself very valiantly, albeit his valour 
* Vita Ignat●● in the beginning.  cost him at that time one of his legs, besides that the other was grievously wounded.  
This captain is the Patron and founder of the jesuits, and mark( I beseech you my liege) whether the disciples haue not at an inch followed their Maisters footsteps: whether they haue not continued their fervent affection towards the kingdom of Castile, & their vehement hatred towards the realm of france. Their Patron was a great means to retain the Nauarrians under the Spanish yoke, and his followers haue set the liberty of france upon the desperate chance of one battle: I say of one: for wee could not haue lost one battle, without losing your highnesse, inasmuch as you would never fly to any other retreat, but to the standard of the Flower de luke: and then losing you, who seeth not, that france, had been in the same condition, that Nauarre, is, remaining like a Gally-slaue under the yoke of spain, working at their oars, & fettered in their chains?  
Let us proceed one point further. Their patron was a chief commander in the Spanish garrison within Pampelune: and his followers likewise planted, and upheld for the space of three yeres, a Spanish garrison in Paris. But al this is nothing to that, which now I come to touch. The disciples of this Loyola, foreseing out of their sharp, and piercing iudgement, that the 
* The King hat now is.  grandchild of this King, & this queen,( so miserablie turned out of their inheritance) would one day become the terror of Spain, haue left nothing undone, which could fall into the imagination of the most vowed, and mortal enemies in the world, for the extirpation of this young branch. And seeing him in despite of their malice, mounted into the throne of S. Lewes, they haue redoubled both their fear, and their practices against his person & State, powring out in full measure vpon his people the same poison, which had before times been the principal mean of the loss of Nauarre, and which could never haue been brought into france, but by these politic, and presumptuous Mountebanks.  
No part of these proceedings is unknown to this heir of queen catherine●, & yet notwithstanding, I know not what influence, or malevolent aspect, as fatal, & inevitable to france, as to Nauarre, hath in a manner ouer-wrought him to harbour these sectaries of Loyola in his realm, out of which, by solemn sentence of his High Courts, they haue been banished, and expelled. Can any man beleeue so strange a story, that a Prince, after he hath so many yeeres encountered the lions skin, should in the end suffer himself to be surprised with the Foxes case?  
But the world yields not every day a Iulius secundus. True. neither affords it every day a crown to lose. But there needs not every day a Iulius, one will suffice for all, provided he find the French as well prepared, and disposed as he did the Nauarrians. O my gracious sovereign, enter( I beseech you) into a serious consideration, of this which now I shall deliver. The 
* Against Lewes the 12.  Excommunication of Iulius, could not make one town in france to shrink: the 
* Against the late King.  excommunication of Sixtus, caused a revolt in Paris, Lions, Roane, Tholouse, Marseilles, Amiens, Narbonne, Orleans, Bourges, Nantes, Troyes, Digeon, and infinite others.  
Howe think you by the jesuits? Are they not worthy Champions? Are they not gallant fellowes? If in thirty yeeres space, they haue profited so well, what would they haue done in continuance of time, having already shaken, and weakened so many consciences, having seasoned with their doctrine such a number of young students, who daily grew into charge of souls? Whence is it, that in all societies, the ancienter sort haue been for the most part your loyal subiects, and the younger almost all your professed enemies? Whence is it, that wee haue so often seen the son directly opposite in opinion to his Father, but that the ancient sort did never suck this milk of Iesuitisme?  
But will your majesty beleeue, that they can be so audacious, as to glory and vaunt, how great, and ghastly a wound they haue made in the harts of your subiects, which they enlarge, tear wider, and make bigger from day to day? I need but to make recital of those words, which I formerly copied out of their apology. And therefore we see that this sword hath been practised, & put in ure in the person of many Kings, & in many kingdoms. And albeit the practise hath not always succeeded, yet might it always haue done, if the subiects had been well prepared thereunto. Doth this need an interpreter? doth he not tell you: Frenchmen were not in ancient times well prepared to revolt from their Kings at the first thunderclap of excommunication; but contrariwise, they redoubled their love, and allegiance towards them; but in thirty yeeres space we had wrought and prepared so great, and so good a number of them, as wee were in a near possibility to obtain a full conquest. If by our policy, and the mediation of our many friends abroad, wee can but maintain our footing in france, wee will so thoroughly dispose & prepare their mindes, as that the next time wee doubt not to sound an absolute triumph.  
Surely your majesties posterity shall stand greatly bound unto you, if you so miserable enthrall, & in danger them to the lust and humour of the next Spanish partaker, that shall be advanced to the Holy sea: by restoring those, who are so hardy, and presumptuous, to sow this schismatical doctrine, and which is more, to glory in it, to proclaim it openly, to publish it commonly, and thereby to keep the main business continually on foot. To what purpose doth your majesty so cherish that young infant in the cradle, if in the mean while you bring in these Masons, to raise strong forts within his realm, that at the first sound of the trumpet, all his subiects may be strooken into as great an amazement of their sences, into as great a numnes of their joints, in a word, that they may be found as well prepared or disposed, as the Nauarrians were in 1512? Is it not enough that this doctrine hath lost him Pampelune, unless it rob him of Paris also?  
True it is, that the jesuits in their Petitions offer sureties, to warrant, & secure you, and yours, from all danger whatsoever. I must tell your majesty, I never yet heard, that sureties haue been taken in case of a crown: and to speak uprightly, before what Iudges shal he sue, or convent them, being himself driven out of doors, and destitute of all place of refuge, and abode? But we must apply ourselves to their conditions. Well then, let us accept of their sureties, provided they be of substance, & ability to acquit the forfeiture, else is their offer frivolous, and to no purpose. Let us see, what these sureties shall be. Amongst your subiects, it is impossible to find any of wealth sufficient: for their estate cannot be the thousanth part of the whole, which is to be secured. Amongst strangers whom can they nominate of worth, to countervail the realm of france? I understand their minds( my liege) the pledge, & surety which they will tender your majesty for their faith, and allegiance, must be the King of spain, who is ready to become bound for them, body for body. He is of infinite wealth, he is mighty in possessions, he is deeply in love with france, then what exception can you take to him?  
So then we are thorough for the security, let us now think of the residue. How will your majesty dispose of that pillar, which stands before your palace, in whose marble sides, is recorded to posterity, the affection of this populous nation of the jesuits towards their good King, towards their great King, their deliverer, who the selfsame year had freed their necks from the Spanish yoke? A pillar more honourable, & more glorious, then those of trajan, and Antoninus, which stand in spite of time, sacred to immortality. Will you leave it standing, and yet do contrary to that which yourself haue decreed by the Sentence, therein engraven? What will the world say, when they shall read the contrary, to that which they see? Is this that famous Parlement of france? their Decrees are written in Marble, but in effect they are set at nought, they are trodden in the dust. Surely this were too too dishonourable.  
What is thē to be done? The first work you do, you must race down this pillar. Howe? race it down? lives there a man so impious, as to suggest this damnable counsel? yourself to destroy the monuments of your worthiest, and most renowned victories? to taint your name and memory with the blot of fear, and faint hart? that as wee celebrate one of our famous Kings, for the first which broke in sunder the yoke of the roman Empire, under which the miserable Gaules had many yeeres languished: so clean contrary, our Chronicles may point you out to all afterages, for the first, which bowing to the beck, and command of Rome, shal with your own hands, rend of your Laurels, whither your garlands, and miserablie deface the memorials of your prowess, and honourable deserts towards your realm, towards your city of Paris, the seat of this large Empire, the glory of Europe, & the wonder of the world.  
Oh my liege, what could the general of the jesuits wish for more? If a main army of Spaniards under the leading of his Subiects, & the rest of the sixteen, their associates, should enter Paris by the breach, would they not begin with the defacing of this pillar? Shall france then under your reign, and by your command receive the foulest infamy, and most shameful foil, that it could suffer from the insolency of the Spaniards?  
If the day following your majesties happy conversion at S. Denis, there should haue come an Angel from heaven, & haue used this speech to you: The jesuits, and the Spanish garrison, which they haue placed within this great city,( pointing to Paris) & which they therein maintain and continue, by preaching them into the love and favour of the people, are the only lets that bar thee from entering it. All true Frenchmen wish thy entrance, and enter thou shalt, in despite of these recreants, and that speedily. Nine months after, these fellowes will attempt thy death, but they shal not be able to effect it; that great God of heaven, will put by the blow, and cause the murderer to confess, that the accursed Lectures of the jesuits, and their ordinary speeches against thee, did violently bear & spur him forward to strike this stroke: which his confession GOD will haue to be verified, and confirmed by their own hand writings. For this cause shall they all be banished, but after seven yeeres, thou shalt restablish them again, to the subversion of thy realm, and confusion of thy whole race.  
If, I say, an angel from heaven had foretold you this, would your majesty haue believed it? Assuredly you would not: the latter point, depending upon your own will, would haue seemed so strange, & unprobable. And yet notwithstanding, consider( if you please) in howe near terms you haue stood to the fulfilling, and accomplishment hereof: having so soon forgotten, what mischief these men haue wrought you, and are in possibility to work you daily; who spare not to call our ancient Kings rebels, because they haue not thrown their diadems, & sceptres to the ground, vpon the first bruit of an excommunication sent forth against them: and who by consequence of this their brainsick doctrine, haue made an infinite number beleeue, that our king deceased, was a Tyrant, and a rebel, which persuasion was undoubtedly the cause of his death.  
O my gracious sovereign, do you not in your imagination seem to behold the tall, pale, heavy, and sorrowful image, of that great Prince, your deere brother, such as he was, when grievously wounded, and all begored in blood, he witnessed towards you the affection of a Father, until the very last gasp of his life, holding you fast embraced in his arms, in the midst of his army, which was bedewed with tears, & inflamed with reuenge? he is in heaven, he is in blessed estate, he gave his life for the liberty of his country, & to free his children from the yoke of strangers: he beholds your actions from above. And will you cancel the Decrees of his Court, established against these particides, 
* Before, page. 80. & 81.  who occasioned him to be stal●d, when he lived, who haue wounded him since his death, by sounding out this acclamation in al parts of Europe: the same day, that he expelled us out of Bourdeaux, was he expelled out of his life. The report was, he sent us to S. Macaries, with an intent there to cut all our throats, had not his own been cut first. It is not one Iesuite alone, it is the whole body of the jesuits in gross, that by their annual, and solemn letters, proclaim this triumph over all Europe:( what speak I of Europe?) over all the world, where they haue their colonies: there they show at this day, the woeful effects of their dangerous Positions; there( I say) they hang forth as an ensign of their victory, the bloody shirt of our slaughtered king, the proud spoils of the foremost king in the world, strooken deade with those thunderbolts, which they caused to break forth in France, where, before their coming, they never had power to do hurt. And would your majesty take from us the onely comfort, which remaineth to ourselves, and the onely monument, and remembrance, which our posterity shall haue of our late King, of our deceased master? Alas, my poor master, my unhappy sovereign, though by other means I be not able to express my zeal, yet at the least will I poure over thy hearse, these latest tears, these last lamentations, of thy most humble servant, of thy most faithful subject. peradventure they may be assisted with the sighs of a million of Frenchmen, who will vouchsafe to read me, if not in this age, yet in times to come. For why should not these sobs, why should not these groans of mine continue, as long as there shall any true Frenchmen remain in the world?  
If our fore-fathers had swallowed this poisonous doctrine of excommunicating kings, and of the power to translate kingdoms, this great succession had never descended to your majesty, it had long since been wrested out of the hands of your predecessors. The banishment of the jesuits is the death of this accursed doctrine, and the death of this doctrine, is the life, glory, and beauty of your royal house. They which shal tell you the contrary, would see it willingly overthrown: your majesty knoweth it, & knowing it, if you do not prevent it, you undermine the foundation of your own State, in steede of strengthening and assuring it.  
The magnanimity, and noble courage of a 
* The king that now is, at the battle of Ivry.  worthy King, doth not onely shine in the field, in the head of a dangerous battle, lending courage to his nobles, and covered over with a plume of feathers, to make himself a mark for the enemy, bidding defiance to their valour, and to their forest of pikes, whereinto he breaks like a slash of lightning; but is as much, and much more seen in consultations of the weighty, & important affairs of his State, wherein prudent circumspection ought to bear sway, but so as there be banished all doubt of displeasing, all fear of offending. Such weakness is vnsuting to your majesty, it is unworthy a King of france, though not of your prowess. A King of france is subject to no control, but to Gods only. Let your majesty respect, what is just, and commodious, for yourself, for your succession, for your state, and aim at nothing else.  
It is just, that the Decrees of your Parlement, of your high Parlement, of the Parlement of france, should be executed, & accomplished in France: therein consisteth the principal strength, and sinews of your State. Who is it then, that would persuade your majesty, yourself to cut off your own right arm? Will you know the truth? It is King Phillip, under borrowed names, that desireth, that pursueth, that persuadeth it. He is your brother, it is true, but he hath a dangerous counsel: he is young, he is ambitious, and he is powerful: he knows right well, that he wrongfully detains from you, the 
* The late King of spain, by his testament restored Nauarre to the king of france.  inheritance 
Nauarre.  of Queen Katherine: this worm did gnaw his fathers conscience vpon his death-bed. In his life time he flattered himself with the authority of Pope Iulius: but when he saw that he was going to appear before his great master, before the great judge, the horror of it made his hair stand upright on his head: then could neither the slatteries of his Inquisition, nor the soothings of the jesuits, secure him against his own knowledge, & conscience, he could not but utter it, he could not but confess it by his testament, thereby to give ease, & appeasement to that hell, to those flames, to those torments. But so far is his son from performing his Fathers will, as that he harboureth a world of incredible designs to the contrary: france is the only rub in his way. Then what an advantage were it for him, to haue always within the hart of this great kingdom, men so fast and firm to him, so ready, & resolved to execute whatsoever he can wish, howe dangerous soever? Howe great a furtherance were it to his designments, to retain amongst us such spials, so vigilant, so adventurous, and withall, of such notorious secrecy, as whosoever shal incline to practise against the State, be he French or Stranger, he will never doubt to haue recourse unto them. In other societies a man may mistake one for another, and so miscarry: so did Barriere. For had he discovered himself to none but to the jesuits, without all doubt your majesty had been surprised. What did the rollers ever in france, or the Humiliati in italy, or the covent Friers in spain like unto this?  
The power and might of a King, is infinite great, I grant it, under proviso it be accompanied with wisdom and foresight,( the chief virtue that can reign in a Prince.) Great & main oversights once committed, do very hardly, or not at all, admit any cure. What man will hereafter undertake any matter( think you) against the jesuits, let thē conspire never so much against your State, or person. Who will ever be their accuser? who will give evidence: who will be judge against them?  
For the first time there be perhaps that will oppose, lewd and dangerous persons: but when they see themselves forsaken, when they see these serpents lurking about their houses, which are one day likely to destroy and devour their children, this makes their harts to faint, this quails their courage: so as within a while, men by little and little frame themselves to the times, every one applieth and disposeth himself thereunto.( A most dangerous word for Princes.)  
If the late King were now amongst us, he were able to say somewhat to this point, this great 
* Of harbouring the jesuits.  oversight, hath sent him where now he is. Oh my liege, make use of his example, take pattern by your neighbour Princes. mark whether ever Charles the fift, or his son, those famous politicians, those notable Statesmen, would see their servitors discouraged, or dismayed: mark whether ever they drove them to sue for the favour of those, whom they had made their enemies for the behoof of the State. See if ever they entertained any, whom they had reason to mistrust.  
If your majesty did but call to mind the first foundation of the jesuits, their original, their increase, the place from whence they sprung, me thinks you should presently conceive a detestation of their sect. But having tasted these cruel fruits of their Seminarie, fully answering the wishes of your deadliest enemies, and now being delivered by a solemn Sentence of your Parlement, from this perilous & pernicious faction, what show of reason, what colour can you haue, yourself to restore murtherers into your State, sedition amongst your subiects, factions, and partialities into your provinces, which since the banishment of the jesuits, haue seen more quiet, and peaceable dayes, then they had done in thirty yeeres before?  
God loues not to be tempted, his hand hath twice protected your majesty, from their bloody attempts: he hath furnished you with so many good Prelates, & Doctors on all hands, with so many learned, & devout Religious of all Orders, men full of piety, knowledge, duty, & loyalty towards your majesty, a thousand times more fit for the advancement of our catholic religion, then they that are infected with this dangerous heresy, grounded upon the power to change kingdoms, and to take them from one, and transfer them to another: and why will you so slenderly regard the favor, which he out of his heavenly bounty hath extended towards you, snatching you out of the very grave, and out of the arms of death? a death by them much desited, wished, and practised, wholly endeavouring to bury france, together with her two last Kings, all in a tomb? do you not fear( my liege) to provoke his wrath, who will be admired in his providence, and praised in his bounty, and protection? do you not beleeue that he sate as President in the midst of that honourable assembly, of that great Court, the most sacred Court of the world, being met in consultation of matters, that concerned the life of their Prince, & the preservation of his State? And will you cancel this their Decree? Oh( my liege) what do you know, whether you owe your breath to that Decree? what can you tell, whether GOD hath used it as a mean to preserve you alive until this present? whether he hath made it a wall between you, and the assaults of your privy enemies? Are you able to search the depth of his judgements? can you sound the bottom of his counsels? know you not that they are unsearchable, that they are bottomless?  
The mighty God, who from above beholdeth the deep dissembling, the smooth hypocrisy, and the secret venom, which the jesuits foster within their breasts, this great God( I say) who knoweth their ancient purpose, essentially rooted in their veins, which is, to deface the glory of this realm, and monarchy, give your majesty grace, rightly to discern & distinguish the friends of Alexander, from the fautors of the jesuits: and by giuing commandment for the absolute execution of that your solemn Edict, to let all Christendom know, that you are as skilful by wisdom to safeguard yourself from the subtle practices, and secret vnderminings of your enemies, as you are able by valour to break, scatter, and confounded their armies, and open hostilities.