A WARNING TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND.  
A Discovery of the ends and designs of the Popish Party both abroad, and at home, in the raising and fomenting our late War, and still-continuing troubles: In an ORATION made to the general Assembly of the French Clergy in Paris,  
By Monsieur Jaques du Perron Bishop of Angolesme, and Grand Almosner to the Queen of England.  
Translated out of a Manuscript Copy, obtained from a good hand in France, and now published for the opening their eyes that hate not the Truth, and that desire to be thankful for such a DISCOVERY.  
And for Caution to those, to whom the Divine Providence hath entrusted the transaction of Affairs, that they may most accurately take heed there be a sound foundation laid, of the so Generally longed-for Peace of the KINGDOM.  
Sed si populus iste vult decipi decipiatur.  
London Printed for R.W. 1647.   

A Discourse made on the behalf of the Queen of England, in the General Assembly of the Clergy at Paris, concerning the present Affairs of the Catholic, Religion in the Kingdom of England: By Monsieur Jaques du Perron Bishop of Angolesme, Grand Almosner to Her Majesty.  
IF the King of Great Britain be constrained by the necessity and exigency of his Affairs, to come to an Accommodation with his Rebelled Subjects, as he will at last be enforced, and that in a very short time, if He receive not speedy and effectual succours, That Accommodation will necessarily bring with it, the total destruction of the Catholic Religion in that Kingdom. For as the first and principal Pretext, which the Parliamentarians serve themselves off, to dress and colour over their Rebellion withal, and to Animate, Arm, and Unite all the Subjects together against their Lawful Sovereign, hath been, to make them believe that he was a Catholic, and that he would introduce, and bring the Catholic Religion into that Kingdom; And as the first Article of all the Treaties that have been set on foot, and put forward by them hitherto, hath always been, that of the Ruin and Extermination of the Catholics; it is not to be doubted, they will never conclude any Accord or Agreement with their Prince, but upon that rigorous Condition, that the little Catholicism that yet remains there, should for ever be Banished from thence, and that all the Arms and Forces of England and Scotland shall be joined together (as they have long since resolved amongst themselves, and published in Print) to execute this unhappy and wicked design plainly, that is to Massacre and cut the throats of all the poor Catholics, as they have already begun to do in divers places; And to drown and extinguish for ever in their blood, the Remainders and relics of Religion, not only in England and Scotland, but also in Ireland, where they have been almost all preserved in the Orthodox belief, notwithstanding all the persecutions that have been raised against them for these hundred years last passed.  
Now the destruction of Monarchy in England, and the Establishment of a Republic, and especially of a Puritan Republic, which is the end that the Parliamentarians aim at, carrieth with it the greatest prejudice that may be to the Catholic Religion: for the Extent of it will not be only in England, in Scotland, or in Ireland, but in all other parts of Christendom. For if this Popular and Puritan State, shall once be form in these three great Kingdoms, and after that shall Unite itself with the Heretics of Germany, Holland, and France, as is most agreeable to all Maxims of State, Religion, and Interest, and which to effect, they are especially concerned, and which is a design, which the Parliamentarians had form in their minds from the instant of their Revolt, and of which they now spare not to make a clear and open profession: All these powers thus United by the Interests of State, and of Religion, the most strict and sacred bonds of humane society, will render themselves so formidable to all the rest of Christendom, as they will be able in succession of time (if God shall not mightily interpose his hand) to undermine, and utterly to ruin all the Catholics. And this is that which the Parliamentarians hope to come unto at last, when they shall have rooted up Monarchy from among themselves, for they hate the Church, yet more than they hate Royalty. And is it not to be feared, that if the Catholics of other Countries, shall show themselves so little sensible of the ruin of Religion in England, and shall not be ready to give their assistance for the maintenance and preservation of the same, that God by his just judgement should permit that themselves should fall into the same unhappiness and misery of Schism and Heresy, from which they have had no heart to preserve and defend their brethren, and their neighbours? And is it not to be feared that God to punish our regardlesnes, & looseness in the things of his service, and of his glory, and our little zeal for the Augmentation, and Conservation of the Catholic Religion, should permit the same Catholic Religion to be wholly ruined, and rooted out of the rest of those countries', in which it yet continueth in Europe, as in the Ages past, to chastise the sins of those that lived before us, he hath permitted that it should be wholly destroyed, in all Asia, Africa, and the greatest part of Europe itself, and to transplant it wholly into America, and that new world, which were the greatest unhappiness that could befall us; and which we ought to endeavour to hinder by all the means we can, all the days of our lives?  
The King of England hath promised by a Letter which he hath written to the Queen his spouse, to revoke and repeal all those Laws which have at any time been made against the Catholics in England, in case he can receive from the Catholics any assistance, to put him into a Condition of power and Authority to be able to do it. There is now no danger to declare this promise, which hath been kept secret hitherto: for that the Parliamentarians having surprised the Copy of the said Letter, have Printed and published the same, to render the King the most odious to the People that they can; & to render the Catholics the most suspects. And were not this now the greatest good that could possible come to the Catholic Religion? For were not this to give and establish in a sort, the liberty of Catholic Religion in England? which if it were once established there, it is most certain that we should shortly see the greatest part of that Country reunited to the Church: for there are now already a fourth part, yea, even near a third part, who are Catholics, either secret or open; There is one other third part, who are held in Schism, only from the apprehension of temporal punishment, and the loss of their goods, and by the fear of the Laws, which being once revoked, as the King of England promiseth now they shall, in case he can be assisted, they would also presently embrace the Catholic faith. And who can tell whether the divine providence hath not permitted that the King of England should fall into those difficulties, and extremities, into which he is now reduced, to the end, that being pressed by the necessity and exigency of his Affairs, he might take this good resolution, which God no doubt hath inspired him with for the advantage of his Church? And who knows whether when this King hath been so seasonably and sensibly engaged and obliged by the Catholics, God may not take that occasion to touch his heart, and open his eyes to the light of the faith?  
The second consideration, which ought to carry you more effectually, and particularly to this assistance beyond the rest of the Church, is your particular interest, that is to say, the danger in which you are, in regard of your vicinity to England, as being nearer than any other Catholic kingdom; so as when Heresy shall have ruined Religion in England, it may with greatest speed, pass over to destroy it also in France.  
Res tua tunc agitur, paries cum proximus ardet. For we know of certain knowledge, that this is the design and scope of the Parliamentarians; and that this is all the hope and the only refuge of the Huguenots; upon this hope it is, that they travel with so great diligence and vehemency, to help forward, and to publish the advantages of the Parliamentarians; 'Tis upon this hope they Contribute so great sums 
* That the Reader be not mistaken in this particular, he is to take notice, that the Orator useth this as an Argument, to provoke the French Clergy to a full contribution to the Queen in Emulation of the Huguenots; wherein he imposeth upon them, there never having been so much as one penny ever levied by them, or sent into England, for the use of the Parliament.  which they levy upon themselves, and secretly convey into England. And truly this their hope perhaps is not so vain nor ill grounded, as some may be ready to imagine: for if the Huguenots at their first birth, and when they began to appear in this Kingdom, being only upheld by the protection of some petty Heretical Princes of Germany, made themselves in short time so considerable, as they were able to set on foot at divers times such Prodigious Armies, to give an hundred and an hundred encounters with our forces, to gain many signal Victories, to take a great number of the best Towns of this Kingdom, to keep whole Provinces entire, and to ruin and destroy wherever they came the Catholic Religion, of which we see yet, the lamentable marks and scars in all parts of this Kingdom, but principally in the Dioceses of Guienne and Languedoc; what will it be, when beside the succours of the Heretics of Germany (who are now incomparably more powerful than they were in those times,) they shall be assisted by the Puritans of England, Scotland and Ireland, united in one body of a Republic, the most formidable of all Christendom? certainly it must be avowed, that all those evils with which they have afflicted the Church of France in the times past, are nothing, in comparrison of those with which we are threatened for the future. The truth is, the Huguenots have been very much weakened, but they have not been yet entirely rooted out, they are yet in as great number, and have as great animosity against us as ever; we have taken indeed from them their Towns, and strong places, but their hatred toward us remains, and their desire of Revenge still lives, and they attend but for an occasion to make the same appear, which can never be presented to them more favourably, then by the establishment of a Puritan Republic in England; and therefore, if this shall ever come to pass, as without all doubt it will come to pass one day, if it be not presently and effectually hindered, we shall see again in France, the Churches ruined, Sepulchers profaned, the ashes of the dead cast into the wind, as they have done even to some of our Kings and others. Behold, this is that which the Huguenots of France promise us, this is that which the Parliamentarians of England prepare for us, in case they can finish their work with their King and their Queen. Shall it be said to posterity? Shall it be said to the shame of Catholics, and particularly to the oprobry of the Clergy of France, that the Huguenots of France contributed so joyfully and freely, great sums for the aid of the Parliamentarians, that is to say, for the enemies of God, of the holy. Church his spouse, of your dignities and sacred Character? shall it be said that they have made great Collections to send into England, to help to destroy, and root up from the foundation the Kingdom of jesus Christ, and to advance yet further, and set up there the Kingdom of Satan; hoping when that shall be effected to their minds, to do the same thing here in France: and that the Catholics, and especially the ecclesiastics, who live only upon the Patrimony of jesus Christ, and who have protested in their Ordination in the face and presence of the whole Church, that they would renounce all the perishable possessions of this world, and to have none other Inheritance than the Lord, no other Possession than jesus Christ, (Dominus pars haereditatis meae & calicis mei) should not a little retrench and abridge themselves in some small thing, whereby to help and assist the setting up of the Kingdom of the same Lord and the same jesus Christ in England, and to preserve to him the Inheritance which he hath there purchased to himself, at the Price of his own most precious blood, and with that of so many Martyrs, and by consequence inevitable, to preserve unto him here in France that kingdom, which he hath here possessed for these sixteen hundred years?  
I conclude this discourse with one consideration, which respects you yet more particularly than the rest of the Church, in regard of the quality you bear as French. A Consideration nevertheless which the Queen of England hath even commanded me to suppress, conceiving the Interest of her own person, and that of her children, of so small consideration, as she dares not mingle them with the Interests of Religion. Notwithstanding it seemed to me, that I could not omit it without breach of Piety and good Nature that is, to consider a little the eminent peril and danger, wherein the Queen of England and her children now are, to fall into a more deplorable and miserable condition then ever persons of their birth and quality were reduced unto: to see on the one side six young Princes and Princesses, the tenderness of whose age, is yet within the verge & Limit of Innocence; Princes, which are the grandchildren, Nephews, and Cousin Germans of our Kings; Princes, who derive their birth and blood from twenty or two and twenty Kings of England, and from twelve or fifteen Kings of Scotland, and who are generally allied to all the Crowned heads of Christendom, and of whom for that cause, it may as justly be said, as of the children of the Emperors of Constantinople of old, that they were engendered of Purple, 
Cum Majestate creatos,  
Nullaque privatae passos contagia sortis.  Born in the glory and midst of the splendour of Sovereign Majesty; nourished and brought up upon the Royal Throne, in hopes to command one day great and powerful Nations: To see them I say now at the very point of being despoiled of three great Kingdoms, which so many of their Ancestors have left them from hand to hand, as a well-assured patrimony; to be constrained to leave their native Country now in their tender Age, and to wander in strange countries as vagabonds to seek the security of their lives and persons, and even there to eat that bread, which they cannot eat in their own house, and amongst their own Subjects and Citizens, is a thing, that none who hath aught of the tenderness of a man left in him can speak or think of without tears.  In Servitutem cadere de Regno grave est 
Was the saying of a despoiled Prince in the Tragic Poet; to see on the other side a most Catholic Princess, whose veins contain and hold, and in which there runs along the precious blood of our St. Lewis, which is not only the life of her body, but also animates, and impregnates her heart with the same sentments of Piety, which hath acquired to that great Saint a Crown of Glory in the Heavens, & a shrine in our Temples; A Princess, who in imitation of that most imitable Saint, hath set up the Altars, and the true worship of God in England, and hath caused the Catholic Religion again to grow and triumph there, with all the splendour and glory imaginable, for the space of 15 or 16 years, in despite of all the opposition that Heresy could make against it, and that after it had been continually oppressed and persecuted for the space of an hundred years: yea, so far had this proceeded, as there hath been even in the chief City of the Kingdom, a Covent of Capuchin Fathers, Preaching, Catechising, and Confessing every day publicly, and that not only in French, but also in English, administering the Sacraments, & Celebrating divine service with as much solemnity and liberty, & I durst even say in proportion, with as great affluence of people, as in any Church in Paris, The King saying nothing to it, nor any of the Ministers of State, or Justice of that Kingdom daring to impeach or hinder it, especially for these last ten years; yea, even so far, that there hath been seen to the Admiration of all Christendom, that which hath not been seen since the time of the Schism, and that which none could have dared ever to hope to see again, namely, Residents from the Court of England at Rome, to Treat there with the Pope of the affairs of Religion, and Reciprocally three Nuntios from the Pope in the Court of England, namely, the Seigniours, Gregory Panzani, Bishop of Mileto in Italy, Georgio Coneo, a Scottish man by Nation, but a Domestic of the last Pope, and of the Cardinal Barbarini, and Signior Rossetti, who was made Cardinal at his going out of England, all these Negotiating in the said Court, during the space of seven or eight years, with as much liberty, yea, even familiarity, as in the Court of any other Catholic Prince whatsoever: and all this by the conduct, zeal, and credit of the Queen of England, who by these sweet steps walked fairly on toward the Conversion of that Kingdom, and which it seemed, we might speedily have hoped for, after so happy and prosperous beginnings (but our sins have turned away that unexpected happiness) a Princess, who hath given a confidence to the poor English Catholics, to come forth from their retirements, where they remained shut up in obscurity, and to appear in the light with their faces erected, to profess and exercise their Religion with all assurance; to aspire after, and actually obtain Offices and Charges in the Court and State, after they had been for the space of an age without liberty of breathing, or rather sighing in secret; a Princess, who by her Alms, or rather by her immense Liberalities (of which I can give Testimony, for that the most part thereof passed through my hands,) hath restored life to many entire families, (yea, even of the most Noble of England) who had been despoiled of all their Estates for the cause of Religion, & who were upon the point to die by a cruel and lingering famine; yet notwithstanding, we may see at this day this Princess (of so excellent merit, and who hath so deeply obliged all Catholics) hath been twice chased from her own Kingdom, and forced to fly from the cruelty of her enemies with infinite labour and peril, and that within 14 days after her delivery of a child, who not content to have prosecuted her criminally, and to death, in their Parliament, by their devilish Calumnies they have persecuted her in this her flight, pursuing her both by sea and land, with Cannon discharged, (one shot of which came into her ship) thinking to interrupt the course of her flight, and to make her fall into the hands of her enemies, who followed her at the distance of musket shot, other shot being made against a little house where she was retired, entering the Chamber of her Lady of Honour, and of her maids of Honour, and killed some persons of her train; so as this poor Princess was forced for the saving of her life, with all speed to rise and fly 5 or 600 paces thence, without having the leisure to put on her clothes, and this on foot, being within night, and in the deep of Winter, in the midst of snow and frost, (it being in the month of February) and to go hid herself in a ditch, and behind a little rising ground, to put herself under that shelter from the Cannon, which continually played for the space of two whole hours, the bullets flying over her head, and falling down at the feet of her Majesty, the Rebels having no respect either to her person, or yet to her sex, which hath always found commiseration & pity in the most wild and savage spirits, nor yet regarding her long sickness, which had brought her even within two fingers of death; neither yet the Royal Character which she bears, which hath been wont to find Veneration among Subjects, even the most revolted; nor the blood of France of which she is descended, and which is now redoubted and reverenced throughout the world; to see her now deprived of that, which of all things in the world (on this side God) is most dear unto her, namely, the King her husband, and the Princes her children, and that which Augments her troubles & anxieties, even to infinite, is the continual apprehensions and fear in which she is, lest the chance of war should cause them to fall into the hands of their enemies, who no doubt would forthwith imbrue their sacrilegious hands in the Royal blood; to see her at the very point now, in the flower of her age, about 35 or 36 years, to be reduced (she and all her family) into a prodigious calamity, into which she had been already fallen, as to her own person, had it not been hindered by the charity that hath been extended to her by the King and Queen. Lastly, to see this Princess suffer all this for the most just cause in the World, and that which hath made all our Saints and Martyrs, that is to say, for that she is a Catholic, and reestablished, and made to flourish again the Catholic Religion in England: behold this is all her Crime, in the opinion of the Parliamentarians, this the only fault of which they can convince her, and of which they have declared her guilty by all their Printed Pamphlets, after they had with greatest malice and diligence made a more accurate sear●n into her whole life, then into the life of the most wicked Malefactor, even of those who are guilty of treason itself. And this seems to me to be a motive that should so much more excite us to Contribution in this cause, for that it depends upon us for succour and relief. It is not without the greatest regret, and with very much unwillingness and shame, that she is brought to this point to ask and importune your aid: but her own Affairs, and the whole Catholic cause, especially in England, are at present come to that State, that she believed it was her duty on this occasion, even to offer some violence to her own disposition, to overcome the greatness of her spirit, and to put out, and lay by, all sense of that shame, confusion, and repugnancy, which hath hitherto deterred her.  Ne● turpe putat quid quid miseros fortuna jubet. 
She knows your hearts so filled and flaming with the zeal of the Catholic Religion, she knows that you are so deeply affectionate to the Royal blood of our Kings, she knows you so Christianlike charitable, and tenderly compassionate to the miseries of all afflicted, even those of lowest quality and condition, how much mote then of Crowned heads (whereof herself is one) cast down into, and overwhelmed in the Abyss, & bottom of all manner of misery & unhappiness, that she believes it cannot be a thing unacceptable to offer you this an occasion, (the most glorious before men, and most meritorious before God) to give to all Christendom a public Demonstration, that these good and laudable dispositions do dwell and work in you. For how can you ever better employ your Liberality and your Alms, then to hinder the progress of Heresy, to advance Religion, and to retire out of a total ruin all the Catholics of England? to deliver from misery, from alms & from beggary itself (I make no difficulty to use these terms, for that the Queen of England hath held it no dishonour to use them, and to write them with her own hand in the memorial which she gave me of those things, which I should represent unto you on her part) to deliver therefore I say, from alms and beggary, a Queen, and Princes who are the children of those who have founded and endowed our benefices, and who have bestowed them upon us?  
The assistance which the Queen of England desires of you, is, what in your own prudence you think fit, both for the sums you shall lend, and of the manner of furnishing thereof, whether at one entire payment, or at divers, as being desirous to be as little but then some to the Clergy as she can: which also she desires not in free and pure gift, but only by way of Loan, and that only until God shall please to restore her affairs into some better estate. This, if you shall do, you will have a great part of the glory of the happy re-establishment of the Catholic Religion and of Monarchy in the Kingdom of England, you shall be the cause of the salvation spiritual and temporal of an infinite number of persons, who now stretch forth their hands unto you out of the midst of their perils, and from the darkness of their prisons, imploring your assistance, as doth also all the remainder of the poor Catholic Church in England, no more now triumphant as I have sometimes seen it, no more simply militant, but if I may so say, suffering, persecuted, expiring & dying, which implore your assistance by the mouth of their Queen, and by me: And who by their prayers and tears, and it may be also by their blood, (if God shall give them grace to consummate their Martyrdom by the loss of their lives) will draw down upon you the benedictions of heaven, and will cause you to merit immortal praises among men, and a crown of glory to Eternity.  
This Speech was made the 19 of February, 46.  
FJNJS.