the next Carrier. And so bon nute1 to your Noddishippe. Yours to command as your owne for two or three cudgellings at all times. CUTBERT CURRIKNAVE the younger. MARTIN'S EPITAPH. (From 'A Monthe's Minde.') Hic jacet, ut pinus, O vos Martinistae, Quorum dux fuit iste, 1 Good-night. VII ROBERT PARSONS [Robert Parsons, or Persons (1546 1610), after being a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, where he had serious quarrels with the master, went abroad, and joined the Church of Rome in 1574, and in the following year entered upon his noviciate as a Jesuit. In 1580 Father Parsons was sent back to England disguised as a soldier in a buff coat: he went about the country, made many important converts, and set up a secret printing-press at East Ham near London. It was here that the Brief Discours was printed in the same year. The press was very active for a time, producing among other books the Decem Rationes of Campian; but in July 1581 Campian was captured, and Parsons had to escape to Normandy. He became a great political intriguer, and continually pressed Philip of Spain to invade England, his Spanish policy being the cause of a split among the English Roman Catholics. But he withstood all the attacks of the secular priests, and ended his days at the English College in Rome, of which he had been Rector thirteen years. Parsons was an extraordinarily able and active man, and the embodiment of all that the word Jesuit is supposed to mean: a born intriguer, with unusual diplomatic gifts and opportunities, he was devoted to his cause and blameless in private life. His Book of Christian Exercise was so famous as to have been edited (with 'corruptions' omitted) by Bunny an Anglican, who dedicated it to the Archbishop of York in 1584. His Memorial of the Reformation was also re-edited by an Anglican, Gee a chaplain to James II., as a warning against Jesuitry. At the time when Parsons issued the Brief Discours from his Press at East Ham, the laws against Papists were being enforced with great severity. Proclamations had been made against all who harboured priests, and the country was full of spies. In December several priests were captured and tortured, and the prisons were filled with Romanist recusants. In January 1581 a session of Parliament was convoked to find a remedy for the poison of the Jesuits'; and the Act of March 18th made it treason to be reconciled to the Roman Church, or to be absolved by a priest, while it largely increased the fines for recusancy. There was therefore every inducement for a Romanist to cloak his religion by outward conformity; and a Roman secular priest, Dr Alban Langdale, issued an anonymous tract in favour of the lawfulness of going to church as an outward act of obedience. Thereupon Parsons produced the Brief Discours, under the pseudonym of John Howlet: boldly prefacing it with an epistle dedicatory to Queen Elizabeth.] From 'A BRIEF DISCOURS contayning certayne Reasons why Catholiques refuse to goe to Church,' 1580. The Answer of a Vertuous and Lerned Man to A Gentleman in England, towching the late imprisonment of Catholiques ther. K THE Vew of your late letters (my dere and worshipful frind) brought unto me some sorowe and much comfort. The sorowe proceeded of the woful and aflicted case of my pore countrie so pityfullye set downe by youre penn unto myne eye, wherin (as you writ) so many greate Gentlemen of worshipp are imprisoned for there conscience and relygion of late, so many good howses broken up, so mani hows holders dispersed and fled away, so many yonge Gentlemen and servantes unprovided, so many pore people destitute, so many wyves discoyned from there husbandes, so many children berefte of ther parentes, suche fleeinge, suche runninge, such shuttinge up in prisons, such pitifull abidinge hunger, thirst, and cold in prison, as you describe, dolefull for us to heare heere, but more rufull for you to behold ther, and all this for different opinions in religion, a miserie not accustomed to fal in our fathers dayes, upon that noble realme. But as these were causes of some sorow, so was it no meane comforte unto me, to consider that in these wicked and loosse times of ours, wherein there is no feelinge or sence of vertue leafte, but all men enwrapped in the love of Godes professed enemie the world, 1 A pitifull description of England at this daye. followinge with all force, and full sayle, the vanities and ambition of the same: that their should be fownde in Ingland so many gentlemen both for their yeares, livinges, and other habilities,1 as fit to be as vayne as the reste, yet so precyse in matters of religion, and so respective to their consciences, as that they wil prefer their soul before ther body, and gods cause before theyr owne ease, na that they will rather venture both body and goodes, lyfe, landes, libertye and all, then they wil doe any thinge contrary to theyr consciences whereby they must be iudged at the last daye. This is suche a thing, as it must nedes bring comforte to all men, and can iustly greve none, excepte the common enemy the devil him selfe. For as for strangers, they must needes be edefied therewith: as for Inglish men, they must needes be incoraged therby. And as for the Princes hir selfe, shee cannot but be comforted therein, assuringe hir selfe that yf these men doe sticke so firmly unto theyr consciences and fayth sworne unto God in theyr othe of baptisme: then wil they as firmely for the same conscience, stik unto hir Maiestie, if occasion should serve, in keepinge theyre secondary faythe and allegeance, sworne unto 1 A rare matter of comfort. |