[232] Strype's Parker, 375.
[233] Strype's Annals, ii. 644.
[234] State Trials, i. 1050; from the Phœnix Britannicus.
[235] Id. 1078; Butler's English Catholics, i. 184, 244; Lingard, vii. 182, whose remarks are just and candid. A tract, of which I have only seen an Italian translation, printed at Macerata in 1585, entitled "Historia del glorioso martirio di diciotto sacerdoti e un secolare, fatti morire in Inghilterra per la confessione e difensione della fede cattolica," by no means asserts that he acknowledged Elizabeth to be queen de jure, but rather that he refused to give an opinion as to her right. He prayed, however, for her as a queen. "Io ho pregato, e prego per lei. All' ora il Signor Howardo li domandò per qual regina egli pregasse, se per Elisabetta? Al quale rispose, Si, per Elisabetta." Mr. Butler quotes this tract in English.
The trials and deaths of Campian and his associates are told in the continuation of Holingshed, with a savageness and bigotry which, I am very sure, no scribe for the Inquisition could have surpassed. P. 456. But it is plain, even from this account, that Campian owned Elizabeth as queen. See particularly p. 488, for the insulting manner in which this writer describes the pious fortitude of these butchered ecclesiastics.
[236] Strype, ii. 637; Butler's Eng. Catholics, i. 196. The Earl of Southampton asked Mary's ambassador, Bishop Lesley, whether, after the bull, he could in conscience obey Elizabeth. Lesley answered, that as long as she was the stronger he ought to obey her. Murden, p. 30. The writer quoted before by the name of Andreas Philopater (Persons, translated by Cresswell, according to Mr. Butler, vol. iii. p. 236), after justifying at length the resistance of the League to Henry IV., adds the following remarkable paragraph: "Hinc etiam infert universa theologorum et jurisconsultorum schola, et est certum et de fide, quemcunque principem christianum, si a religione catholicâ manifestè deflexerit, et alios avocare voluerit, excidere statim omni potestate et dignitate, ex ipsâ vi juris tum divini tum humani, hocque ante omnem sententiam supremi pastoris ac judicis contra ipsum prolatam; et subditos quoscunque liberos esse ab omni juramenti obligatione, quod ei de obedientiâ tanquam principi legitimo præstitissent, posseque et debere (si vires habeant) istiusmodi hominem, tanquam apostatam, hæreticum, ac Christi domini desertorem, et inimicum reipublicæ suæ, hostemque ex hominum christianorum dominatu ejicere, ne alios inficiat, vel suo exemplo aut imperio a fide avertat."—P. 149. He quotes four authorities for this in the margin, from the works of divines or canonists.
This broad duty, however, of expelling a heretic sovereign, he qualifies by two conditions; first, that the subjects should have the power, "ut vires habeant idoneas ad hoc subditi;" secondly, that the heresy be undeniable. There can, in truth, be no doubt that the allegiance professed to the queen by the seminary priests and jesuits, and, as far as their influence extended, by all catholics, was with this reservation—till they should be strong enough to throw it off. See the same tract, p. 229. But after all, when we come fairly to consider it, is not this the case with every disaffected party in every state? a good reason for watchfulness, but none for extermination.
[237] Rishton and Ribadeneira. See in Lingard, note U, a specification of the different kinds of torture used in this reign.
The government did not pretend to deny the employment of torture. But the puritans, eager as they were to exert the utmost severity of the law against the professors of the old religion, had more regard to civil liberty than to approve such a violation of it. Beal, clerk of the council, wrote, about 1585, a vehement book against the ecclesiastical system, from which Whitgift picks out various enormous propositions, as he thinks them; one of which is, "that he condemns, without exception of any cause, racking of grievous offenders, as being cruel, barbarous, contrary to law, and unto the liberty of English subjects." Strype's Whitgift, p. 212.
[238] The persecution of catholics in England was made use of as an argument against permitting Henry IV. to reign in France, as appears by the title of a tract published in 1586: "Advertissement des catholiques, Anglois aux François catholiques, du danger où ils sont de perdre leur religion et d'expérimenter, comme en Angleterre, la cruauté des ministres, s'ils reçoivent à la couronne un roy qui soit hérétique." It is in the British Museum.