THE HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND

SHOWING HOW THAT EVENT HAS IMPOVERISHED THE MAIN BODY OF THE PEOPLE
IN THOSE COUNTRIES

IN A SERIES OF LETTERS ADDRESSED TO ALL SENSIBLE AND JUST ENGLISHMEN

By

WILLIAM COBBETT


LETTER I.
INTRODUCTION.

Kensington, 29th November, 1824

MY FRIENDS,

1.  WE have recently seen a rescript from the King to the Bishops,
the object of which was, to cause them to call upon their Clergy to
cause collections of money to be made in the several parishes
throughout England, for the purpose of promoting what is called the
"religious education" of the people. The Bishops, in conveying their
instructions, on this subject, to their Clergy, direct them to send
the money thus collected to a Mr. JOSHUA WATSON, in London, who, it
seems, is the Treasurer of this religious education concern, and who
is, or lately was, a wine and spirit dealer, in Mincing-lane,
Fenchurch-street. This same Mr. WATSON is also the head man of a
society, called the "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge." The
present Bishop of Winchester, in his first charge to the Clergy of
his diocese, says, that this society is the "correct expounder of
evangelical truth, and firm supporter of the established Church;" and
he accordingly strongly recommends that the publications put forth by
this society be put into the hands of the scholars of those schools,
to promote which, the above-mentioned collections were made by royal
authority.

2.  We shall, further on, have an opportunity of asking what sort of
a Clergy this must be, who, while they swallow, in England and
Ireland, about eight millions a year, call upon their parishioners
for money to be sent to a wine and spirit merchant, that he may cause
the children of the country to have a "religious education." But not
to stop, at present, for this purpose, pray observe, my friends, that
this society for "promoting Christian knowledge" is continually
putting forth publications, the object of which is to make the people
of England believe that the Catholic religion is "idolatrous and
damnable;" and that, of course, the one-third part of the whole of
our fellow subjects are idolaters, and are destined to eternal
perdition, and that they, of course, ought not to enjoy the same
rights that we Protestants enjoy. These calumniators know well, that
this same Catholic religion was, for nine hundred years, the only
Christian religion known to our forefathers. This is a fact which
they cannot disguise from intelligent persons; and, therefore, they,
like the Protestant Clergy, are constantly applauding the change
which took place about two hundred years ago, and which change goes
by the name of the REFORMATION.

3.  Before we proceed further, let us clearly understand the meaning
of these words: CATHOLIC, PROTESTANT, and REFORMATION. CATHOLIC means
universal, and the religion, which takes this epithet, was called
universal, because all Christian people of every nation acknowledged
it to be the only true religion, and because they all acknowledged
one and the same head of the Church, and this was the POPE, who,
though he generally resided at Rome, was the head of the Church in
England, in France, in Spain, and, in short, in every part of the
world where the Christian religion was professed. But, there came a
time, when some nations, or, rather, parts of some nations, cast off
the authority of the POPE, and, of course, no longer acknowledged him
as the head of the Christian Church. These nations or parts of
nations, declared, or protested, against the authority of their
former head, and also against the doctrines of that Church, which,
until now, had been the only Christian Church. They, therefore,
called themselves Protestors, or PROTESTANTS; and this is now the
appellation given to all who are not Catholics. As to the word
REFORMATION, it means, an alteration for the better; and it would
have been hard indeed if the makers of this great alteration could
not have contrived to give it a good name,

4.  Now, my friends, a fair and honest inquiry will teach us, that
this was an alteration greatly for the worse; that the "REFORMATION,"
as it is called, was engendered in beastly lust, brought forth in
hypocrisy and perfidy, and cherished and fed by plunder, devastation,
and by rivers of innocent English and Irish blood; and that, as to
its more remote consequences, they are, some of them, now before as
in that misery, that beggary, that nakedness, that hunger, that
everlasting wrangling and spite, which now stare us in the face and
stun our ears at every turn, and which the "Reformation" has given us
in exchange for the ease and happiness and harmony and Christian
charity, enjoyed so abundantly, and for so many ages, by our Catholic
forefathers.

5.  Were there, for the entering on this inquiry, no motive other
than that of a bare love of justice, that motive alone would, I hope,
be sufficient with the far greater part of Englishmen. But, besides
this abstract motive, there is another of great and pressing
practical importance. A full third part of our fellow-subjects are
still Catholics; and when we consider, that the principles of the
"Reformation" are put forward as the ground for excluding them from
their civil rights, and also as the ground for treating them in a
manner the most scornful, despiteful and cruel; when we consider,
that it is not in human nature for men to endure such treatment,
without wishing for, and without seeking, opportunities for taking
vengeance; when we consider the present formidable attitude of
foreign nations, naturally our foes, and how necessary it is that we
should all be cordially united in order to preserve the independence
of our country; when we consider, that such union is utterly
impossible as long as one-third part of the people are treated as
outcasts, because, and only because, they have in spite of two
hundred years of persecutions unparalleled, adhered to the religion
of their and of our fathers: when we consider these things, that fair
and honest inquiry, on which a bare love of justice might well induce
us to enter, presses itself upon us as a duty which we owe ourselves,
our children, and our country.

6.  If you will follow me in this inquiry, I will first show you how
this thing called the "Reformation" began; what it arose out of; and
then I will show you its progress, how it marched on, plundering,
devastating, inflicting torments on the people, and shedding their
innocent blood. I will trace it downward through all its stages,
until I show you its natural result, in the schemes of Parson
MALTHUS, in the OUNDLE PLAN of Lord John Russell's recommending, in
the present misery indescribable of the labouring classes in England
and Ireland, and in that odious and detestable system, which has made
Jews and paper-money makers the real owners of a large part of the
estates in this kingdom.

7.  But, before I enter on this series of deeds and of consequences,
it is necessary to offer you some observations of a more general
nature, and calculated to make us doubt, at least, of the truth of
what we have heard against the Catholic religion. Our minds have been
so completely filled with the abuse of this religion. that, at first,
we can hardly bring ourselves to listen to any thing said in defence
of it, or, in apology for it. Those whom you will, by-and-by, find in
possession of the spoils of the Catholic Church, and, indeed, of
those of the Catholic nobles and gentlemen, not forgetting those of
the poor; these persons have always had the strongest possible motive
for causing the people to be brought up in the belief, that the
Catholic religion was, and is, something to inspire us with horror.
From our very infancy, on the knees of our mothers, we have been
taught to believe, that to be a Catholic was to be a false, cruel,
and bloody wretch; and "popery and slavery" have been rung in our
ears, till, whether we looked on the Catholics in their private or
their public capacity, we have inevitably come to the conclusion,
that they were every thing that was vicious and vile.

8.  But you may say, why should any body, and particularly our
countrymen, take such pains to deceive us? Why should they, for so
many years take the trouble to write and publish books of all sizes,
from big folios down to halfpenny tracts, in order to make us think
ill of this Catholic religion? Now, my friends, take an instance in
answer to this way. The immense property of the Catholic Church in
Ireland, in which, mind, the poor had a share, was taken from the
Catholics and given to the Protestant Bishops and Parsons. These have
never been able to change the religion of the main body of the people
of that country; and there these Bishops and Parsons are enjoying the
immense revenues without having scarcely any flocks. This produces
great discontents, makes the country continually in a state of
ferment, causes enormous expenses to England, and exposes the whole
kingdom to great danger in case of war. Now, if those who enjoy these
revenues, and their close connections in this country, had not made
us believe, that there was something very bad, wicked and hostile in
the Catholic religion, should we not, long ago, have asked why they
put us to all this expense for keeping that religion down? They never
told us, and they never tell us, that this Catholic religion was the
only religion known to our own forefathers for nine hundred years. If
they had told us this, we should have said, that it could not
possibly have been so very bad a religion, and that it would be
better to leave the Irish people still to enjoy it; and that, since
there were scarcely any Protestant folks, it would be better for us
all, if the Church revenues were to go again to the original owners!

9.  Ah! my friends! here we have the real motive for all the abuse,
all the hideous calumnies that have been heaped upon the Catholic
religion, and upon all that numerous body of our fellow-subjects who
adhere to that ancient faith. When you think of the power of this
motive, you will not be surprised at the great and incessant pains
that have been taken to deceive us. Even the Scripture itself has
been perverted in order to blacken the Catholics. In books of all
sizes, and from the pulpit of every church, we have been taught from
our infancy, that the "beast, the man of sin, and the scarlet whore,"
mentioned in the Revelations, were names which God himself had given
to the POPE; and we have all been taught to believe of the Catholic
Church, that her worship was "idolatrous," and that her doctrines
were "damnable."

10.  Now let us put a plain question or two to ourselves, and to
these our teachers; and we shall quickly be able to form a just
estimate of the modesty, sincerity, and consistency of these revilers
of the Catholic religion. They will not, because they cannot, deny,
that this religion was the ONLY CHRISTIAN religion in the world for
fifteen hundred years after the death of Christ. They may say,
indeed, that for the first three hundred years there was no POPE
seated at Rome. But, then, for twelve hundred years there had been;
and, during that period, all the nations of Europe, and some part of
America, had become Christian, and all acknowledged the POPE as their
head in religious matters; and, in short, there was no other
Christian Church known in the world, nor had any other ever been
thought of. Can we believe, then, that Christ, who died to save
sinners, who sent forth his gospel as the means of their salvation,
would have suffered a false Christian religion, and no other than a
false Christian religion. to be known amongst men all this while?
Will these modest assailants of the faith of their and our ancestors
assert to our faces, that, for twelve hundred years at least, there
were no true Christians in the world? Will they tell us, that Christ,
who promised to be with the teachers of his word to the end of the
world, wholly left them, and gave up hundreds upon hundreds of
millions of people to be led in darkness to their eternal perdition
by one whom his inspired followers had denominated the "man of sin
and the scarlet whore"? Will they, indeed, dare to tell us, that
Christ gave up the world wholly to "Antichrist" for twelve hundred
years? Yet this they must do; they must thus stand forward with bold
and unblushing blasphemy; or they must confess themselves guilty of
the most atrocious calumny against the Catholic religion.

11.  Then, coming nearer home, and closer to our own bosoms; our
ancestors became Christians about six hundred years after the death
of Christ. And how did they become Christians? Who first pronounced
the name of Christ to this land? Who converted the English from
Paganism to Christianity? Some Protestant saint, doubtless, warm from
a victory like that of SKIBBEREEN. Oh, no! The work was begun,
continued, and ended by the POPES, one of whom sent over some Monks,
(of whom we shall see more by-and-by), who settled at CANTERBURY, and
from whose beginnings the Christian religion spread, like the grain
of mustard seed, rapidly over the land. Whatever, therefore, any
other part of the world might have known of Christianity before the
POPE became the settled and acknowledged head of the Church, England,
at any rate, never had known of any Christian religion other than
that at the head of which was the POPE; and in this religion with the
POPE at its head, England continued to be firmly fixed for nine
hundred years.

12. What, then: will our kind teachers tell us, that it was the
"scarlet whore" and "Antichrist" who brought the glad tidings of the
gospel into England? Will they tell us, too, that all the millions
and hundreds of millions of English people, who died during those
nine hundred years, expired without the smallest chance of salvation?
Will they tell us, that all our fathers, who first built our
churches, and whose flesh and bones form the earth for many feet deep
in all the church-yards; will they tell us, that all these are now
howling in the regions of the damned? Nature beats at our bosom, and
bids us shudder at the impious, the horrid thought! Yet, this, even
this, these presumptuous men must tell us; or they must confess their
base calumny, in calling the POPE  "Antichrist." and the Catholic
worship  "idolatrous" and its doctrines "damnable."

13.  But. coming to the present time, the days in which we ourselves
live; if we look round the world, we shall find that now, even now,
about nine-tenths of all those who profess to be Christians are
Catholics. What, then: has Christ suffered "Antichrist" to reign
almost wholly uninterrupted even unto this day? Has Christ made the
Protestant Church? Did he suggest the "Reformation?" And does he,
after all, then, suffer the followers of "Antichrist" to outnumber
his own followers nine to one? But, in this view of the matter, how
lucky have been the Clergy of our Protestant Church, established by
law! Her flock does not, if fairly counted, contain one-five-
hundredth part of the number of those who are Catholics; while,
observe, her Clergy receive more, not only than all the Clergy of all
the Catholic nations, but more than all the Clergy of all the
Christian people in the world, Catholics and Protestants all put
together! She calls herself a Church "by law established." She never
omits this part of her title. She calls herself "holy," "godly," and
a good deal besides. She calls her ministers "reverend," and her
worship and doctrines "evangelical." She talks very much about her
reliance for support upon her "founder" (as she calls him) Christ;
but, in stating her claims and her qualities, she never fails to
conclude with, "by LAW established." This "law," however, sometimes
wants the bayonet to enforce it; and her tithes are not unfrequently
collected by the help of soldiers, under the command of her
ministers, whom the law has made Justices of the Peace!

14. To return; are we to believe, then, that Christ has, even unto
this day, abandoned nine-tenths of the people of Europe to
"Antichrist?" Are we to believe, that, if this "law-established"
religion had been the religion of Christ, and the Catholic religion
that of "Antichrist:" if this had been the case, are we to believe,
that the "law-established" religion, that our "holy religion," as
George Rose used to call it, while his grasping paw was deep in our
purses; if this had been the case, are we to believe that the "law-
established" religion, that the "holy religion" of John Bowles, the
Dutch Commissioner; are we to believe, that that "holy religion" (the
fruits of which we behold in those worthy sons of the church, VITAL
CHRISTIANITY and JOCELYN RODEN) would, at the end of two hundred
years, have been able to count only one member for about every five
hundred members (taking all Christendom together) of that Church
against which the "law" Church protested and still protests?

15.  Away, then, my friends, with this foul abuse of the Catholic
religion, which, after all, is the religion of about nine-tenths of
all the Christians in the world! Away with this shameful calumny, the
sole object of which is, and always has been, to secure a quiet
possession of the spoils of the Catholic Church, and of the poor;
for, we shall, by-and-by, clearly see how the poor were despoiled at
the same time that the Church was.

16.  But, there remains to be noticed, in this place, an instance or
two of the consistency of these revilers of the Catholic Church and
faith. We shall, in due time, see how the Protestants, the moment
they began their "Reformation," were split up into dozens and scores
of sects, each condemning the other to eternal flames. But, I will
here speak only of the "Church of England," as it is called, "by law
established." Now, we know very well, that we, who belong to this
Protestant Church, believe, or profess to believe, that the NEW
TESTAMENT, as printed and distributed amongst us, contains the true
and genuine "word of God:" that it contains the "words of eternal
life;" that it points out to us the means, and the only means, by
which we can possibly be saved from everlasting fire. This is what we
believe. Now, how did we come by this New Testament? Who gave us this
real and genuine "word of God?" From whom did we receive these "words
of eternal life?" Come, JOSHUA WATSON, wine and spirit merchant, and
teacher of religion to the people of England: come, JOSHUA, answer
these questions! They are questions of great importance; because, if
this be the book, and the only book, which contains instructions
relative to the means of saving our souls, it is manifest, that it is
a matter of deep interest to us, who it was that this book came from
to us, through what channel we received it, and what proof we have of
its authenticity.

17.  Oh! JOSHUA WATSON! Alas! wine and spirit merchant, who art at
the head of a Society "for promoting Christian Knowledge," which
Society the Bishop of Winchester calls the "correct expounder of
evangelical truth, and the firm supporter" of the law-established
Church: oh! JOSHUA, teacher of religion to the people of England, who
pay six or eight millions a-year to the Parsons who employ thee to do
this teaching; oh! JOSHUA, what a shocking thing it is, that we
Protestants should have received the NEW TESTAMENT; this real and
genuine "word of God;" these "words of eternal life;" this book that
points out to us the means, and the only means, of salvation: what a
shocking fact, that we should have received this book from that POPE
and that CATHOLIC CHURCH, to make us believe that the first of whom
is the whore of Babylon, and that the worship of the last is
idolatrous and her doctrines damnable, you, JOSHUA, and your Society
"for promoting Christian Knowledge," are now, at this very moment,
publishing and pushing into circulation no less than seventeen
different books and tracts!

18.  After the death of Christ, there was a long space of time before
the gospel was put into any thing like its present shape. It was
preached in several countries, and churches were established in these
countries, long before the written gospel was known much of, or, at
least, long before it was made use of as a guide to the Christian
churches. At the end of about four hundred years, the written gospels
were laid before a council of the Catholic Church, of which the POPE
was the head. But there were several gospels besides those of
MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE and JOHN! Several other of the apostles, or early
disciples, had written gospels. All these, long after the death of
the authors, were, as I have just said, laid before a council of the
Catholic Church; and that council determined which of the gospels
were genuine and which not. It retained the four gospels of MATTHEW,
MARK, LUKE and JOHN; it determined that these four should be received
and believed in, and that all the rest should be rejected.

19.  So that here JOSHUA WATSON's Society is without any other
gospel; without any other word of God; without any guide to eternal
life; without any other than that which that Society, well all the
rest of us, have received from a church which that Society calls
"idolatrous," and the head of which it calls "the beast, the man of
sin, the scarlet whore, and Antichrist"! To a pretty state, then, do
we reduce ourselves by giving in to this foul-mouthed calumny against
the Catholic Church: to a pretty state do we reduce ourselves by our
tame and stupid listening to those who calumniate the Catholic
Church, because they live on the spoils of it. To a pretty state do
we come, when we, if we still listen to these calumniators, proclaim
to the world, that our only hope of salvation rests on promises
contained in a book, which we have received from the Scarlet Whores
and of the authenticity of which we have no voucher other than that
Scarlet Whore and that Church, whose worship is "idolatrous" and
whose doctrines are "damnable."

20.  This is pretty complete; but still this, which applies to all
Protestants, is not enough of inconsistency to satisfy the law-Church
of Enzland. That Church has a Liturgy in great part made up of the
Catholic service; but, there are the two creeds, the Nicene and
Athanasian. The first was composed and promulgated by a Council of
the Catholic Church and the POPE; and, the second was adopted, and
ordered to be used, by another Council of that Church, with the POPE
at its head. Must not a Parson of this law-Church be pretty impudent,
then, to call the POPE "Antichrist," and to call the Catholic Church
"idolatrous?" Pretty impudent, indeed; but we do not, even yet, see
the grossest inconsistency of all.

21. To our law-Church PRAYER-BOOK there is a CALENDAR prefixed, and,
in this Calendar there are, under different days of the year, certain
names of holy men and women. Their names are put here in order that
their anniversaries may be attended to, and religiously attended to,
by the people. Now, who are those holy persons? Some Protestant
Saints to be sure? Not one! What, not saint Luther, nor saint
Cranmer, nor saint Edward the Sixth, nor the "VIRGIN" saint
Elizabeth? Not a soul of them; but, a whole list of POPES, Catholic
BISHOPS, and Catholic holy persons, female as well as male. Several
virgins; but not the "VIRGIN Queen;" nor any one of the Protestant
race. At first sight, this seems odd; for, this CALENDAR was made by
Act of Parliament. But, the truth is, it was necessary to preserve
some of the names, so long revered by the people, in order to keep
them in better humour, and to lead them by degrees into the new
religion. At any rate, here is the Prayer-Book, holding up for our
respect and reverence a whole list of POPES and of other persons
belonging to the Catholic Church, while those who teach us to read
and to repeat the conntents of this same Prayer-Book, are incessantly
dinning in our ears, that the POPES have all been "Antichrists," and
that their Church was, and is, idolatrous in its worship and damnable
in its doctrines!

22.  JUDGE BAYLEY (one of the present twelve Judges) has, I have
heard, written a Commentary on the Common Prayer-Book. I should like
to know what the Judge says about these Catholic Saints (and no
others) being placed in this Protestant Calendar. We shall, in due
time, see the curious way in which this Prayer-Book was first made,
and how it was new-modelled from time to time. But, here it is now,
even to this day, with the Catholic Saints in the Calendar, whence it
seems, that, even down to the reign of Charles II., when the last
"improvement" was made in it, there had not appeared any Protestant
Saint to supply the place of the old Catholic ones.

23.  But there is still a dilemma for these revilers of the Catholic
religion. We swear on the four Evangelists! And these, mind, we get
from the POPE and a Council of the Catholic Church. So that, if the
POPE be "Antichrist," that is to say, if those who have taught us to
abuse and abhor the Catholics; if those be not the falsest and most
malignant wretches that ever breathed, here are we swearing upon a
book handed down to us by  "Antichrist "? And, as if the
inconsistencies and absurdities springing out of this Protestant
calumny were to have no end, that "Christianity," which the judges
say, "is part and parcel of the law of the land;" that Christianity
is no other than what is taught in this same NEW TESTAMENT. Take the
New Testament away, and there is not a particle of this "part and
parcel" left. What is our situation; what a figure does this part and
parcel of the law of the land make, with a dozen of persons in gaol
for offending against it; what a figure does it make, if we adopt the
abuse and falsehood of the revilers of the Catholic Church! What a
figure does that "part and parcel" make, if we follow our teachers;
if we follow JOSHUA WATSON's Society; if we follow every brawler from
every tub in the country, and say that the POPE (from whom we got the
"part and parcel") is "Antichrist" and the "scarlet whore"!

24.  Enough! Ay, and much more than enough to make us sorely repent
of having so long been the dupes of the crafty and selfish revilers
of the religion of our fathers. Were there ever presumption,
impudence, inconsistency and insincerity equal to those of which we
have just taken a view? When we thus open our eyes and look into the
matter, we are astonished at, and ashamed of, our credulity; and,
this more especially when we reflect, that the far greater part of us
have suffered ourselves to be misled by men not possessing a tenth
part of our own capacity; by a set of low-minded greedy creatures;
but indefatigable; never losing sight of the spoil; and, day after
day, and year after year, close at the ears of the people from their
very childhood, din, din, din, incessantly, until, from mere habit,
the monstrous lie got sucked in for gospel-truth. Had the lie been
attended with no consequences, it might have been merely laughed at,
as all men of sense laugh at the old silly lie about the late King
having "made the Judges independent of the Crown." But, there have
been consequences, and those most dreadful. By the means of the great
Protestant lie, the Catholics and Protestants have been kept in a
constant state of hostile feeling towards each other; and both, but
particularly the former, have been, in one shape or another,
oppressed and plundered for ages, with impunity to the oppressors and
plunderers.

25.  Having now shown, that the censure heaped on the religion of our
forefathers is not only unjust, but absurd and monstrous; having
shown that there could be no good reason for altering the religion of
England from Catholic to Protestant; having exposed the vile and
selfish calumniators, and duly prepared the mind of every just person
for that fair and honest inquiry, of which I spoke in paragraph 4;
having done this, I should now enter on that inquiry, and show, in
the first place, how this "Reforma tion," as it is called, "was
engendered by beastly lust;" but, there is yet one topic to be
touched on in this preliminary Number of my little Work.

26.  Truth has, with regard to this subject, made great progress in
the public mind, in England, within the last dozen years. Men are not
now to be carried away by the cry of "No-Popery," and the "Church in
danger." Parson HAY, at Manchester, Parson DENT, at Northallerton,
and their like all over the country, have greatly enlightened us.
Parson MORRIT, at Skibbereen, has done great good in this work of
enlightening. Nor must we forget a Right Reverend Protestant Father
in God, who certainly did more in the opening of eyes than any Bishop
that I ever before heard of. So that it is now by no means rare to
hear Protestants allow, that, as to faith, as to morals, as to
salvation, the Catholic religion is quite good enough; and, a very
large part of the people of England are forward to declare, that the
Catholics have been most barbarously treated, and that it is time
that they had justice done them.

27.  But, with all these just notions, there exists, amongst
Protestants in general, an opinion that the Catholic religion is
unfavourable to civil liberty, and also unfavourable to the producing
and the exerting of genius and talent. As to the former, I shall, in
the course of this work, find a suitable place for proving, by the
melancholy experience of this country, that a total want of civil
liberty was unknown in England, as long as its religion was Catholic;
and, that the moment it lost the protection of the POPE, its kings
and nobles became horrid tyrants, and its people the most abject and
most ill-treated of slaves. This I shall prove in due time and place;
and I beg you, my friends, to bear in mind, that I pledge myself to
this proof.

28.  And now to the other charge against the Catholic religion;
namely, that it is unfavourable to the producing of genius and
talent, and to the causing of them to be exerted. I am going, in a
minute, to prove, that this charge is not only false, but
ridiculously and most stupidly false; but, before I do this, let me
observe, that this charge comes from the same source with all the
other charges against the Catholics. "Monkish ignorance and
superstition" is a phrase that you find in every Protestant
historian, from the reign of the "VIRGIN" Elizabeth to the present
hour. It has, with time, become a sort of magpie-saying, like
"glorious revolution," "happy constitution," "good old king," "envy
of surrounding nations," and the like. But there has always, false as
the notion will presently be proved to be, there has always been a
very sufficient motive for inculcating it. BLACKSTONE, for instance,
in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, never lets slip an
opportunity to rail against "Monkish ignorance and superstition."
BLACKSTONE was no fool. At the very time when he was writing these
Commentaries, and reading them to the students at Oxford, he was, and
he knew it, LIVING upon the spoils of the Catholic Church, and the
spoils of the Catholic gentry, and also, of the poor! He knew that
well. He knew that, if every one had had his due, he would not have
been fattening where he was. He knew, besides, that all who heard his
lectures were aware of the spoils that he was wallowing in. These
considerations wae quite suffcient to induce him to abuse the
Catholic Church, and to affect to look back with contempt to Catholic
times.

29.  For cool, placid, unruffled impudence, there has been no people
in the world to equal the "Reformation" gentry; and BLACKSTONE seems
to have inherited this quality in a direct line from some altar-
robber of the reign of that sweet young Protestant saint, Edward the
Sixth. If BLACKSTONE had not actually felt the spoils of the
Catholics sticking to his ribs, he would have recollected, that all
those things which he was eulogising, magna charta, trial by jury,
the offices of sheriff, justice of the peace, constable, and all the
rest of it, arose in days of  "monkish ignorance and superstition."
If his head had not been rendered muddy by his gormandizing on the
spoils of the Catholic Church, he would have remembered, that
FORTESCUE and that that greatest of all our lawyers, LITTLETON, were
born, bred, lived and died in the days of "monkish ignorance and
superstition." But, did not this BLACKSTONE know, that the very roof,
under which he was abusing our Catholic forefathers, was made by
these forefathers? Did he not, when he looked up to that roof, or, 
when he beheld any of those noble buildings, which, in defiance of
time, still tell us what those forefathers were; did he not, when he
beheld any of these, feel that he was a pigmy in mind, compared with
those whom he had the impudence to abuse?

30.  When we hear some Jew, or Orange-man, or parson-justice, or
Jocelyn saint, talk about "monkish ignorance and superstition," we
turn from him with silent contempt: but, BLACKSTONE is to be treated
in another manner. It was at OXFORD where he wrote, and where he was
reading, his Commentaries. He well knew, that the foundations for
learning at Oxford were laid, and brought to perfection, not only in
monkish times, but, in great part, by monks. He knew, "that the
Abbeys were public schools for education,  each of them having one or
more persons set apart to instruct the youth of the neighbourhood
without any expense to the parents." He knew, that "each of the
greater  monasteries had a peculiar residence in the universities;
and, whereas there were, in those times, nearly THREE HUNDRED HALLS
and PRIVATE SCHOOLS at Oxford, besides the colleges, there were not
above EIGHT remaining towards the middle of the 17th century."
[Phillips' Life of Cardinal Pole, Part I. p. 220.] That is to say, in
about a hundred years after the enlightening "Reformation" began. At
this time (1824) there are, I am informed, only FIVE halls remaining,
and not a single school.

31.  I shall, in another place, have to show more fully the folly,
and, indeed, the baseness, of railing against the monastic
institutions generally; but, I must here confine myself to this
charge against the Catholic religion, of being unfavourable to
genius, talent, and, in short, to the powers of the mind. It is a
strange notion; and one can hardly hear it mentioned without
suspecting, that, somehow or other, there is plunder at the bottom of
the apparently nothing but stupid idea. Those who put forward this
piece of rare impudence do not favour us with reasons for believing
that the Catholic religion has any such tendency. They content
themselves with the bare assertion, not supposing that it admits of
anything like disproof. They look upon it as assertion against
assertion; and, in a question which depends on mere hardness of
mouth, they know that their triumph is secure. But, this is a
question that does admit of proof, and a very good proof too. The
"Reformation," in England, was pretty nearly completed by the year
1600. By that time all the "monkish ignorance and superstition" were
swept away. The monasteries were all pretty nearly knocked down,
young Saint Edward's people had robbed all the altars, and the
"VIRGIN" Queen had put the finishing hand to the pillage. So that all
was, in 1600, become as Protestant as heart could wish. Very well;
the kingdom of France remained buried in "monkish ignorance and
superstition" until the year 1787: that is to say, 187 years after
happy England stood in a blaze of Protestant light! Now, then, if we
carefully examine into the number of men remarkable for great powers
of mind, men famed for their knowledge or genius; if we carefully
examine into the number of such men produced by France in these 187
years, and the number of such men produced by England, Scotland and
Ireland, during the same period; if we do this, we shall get at a
pretty good foundation for judging of the effects of the two
religions with regard to their influence on knowledge, genius, and
what is generally called learning.

32.  "Oh, no!" exclaim the fire-shovels. "France is a great deal
bigger, and contains more people, than these Islands; and this is not
fair play!" Do not be frightened, good fire-shovels. According to
your own account, these Islands contain twenty-one millions; and the
French say, that they have thirty millions. Therefore, when we have
got the numbers, we will make an allowance of one-third in our favour
accordingly. If, for instance, the French have not three famous men
to every two of ours, then I shall confess, that the law-established
Church. and its family of Muggletonians, Cameronians, Jumpers,
Unitarians, Shakers, Quakers, and the rest of the Protestant litter,
are more favourable to knowledge and genius, than is the Catholic
Church.

33.  But how are we to ascertain these numbers? Very well. I shall
refer to a work which has a place in every  good library in the
kingdom; I mean, the "UNIVERSAL, HISTORICAL, CRITICAL, AND
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY." This work, which is every where received
as authority as to facts, contains lists of persons of all nations,
celebrated for their published works. But, then, to have a place in
these lists, the person must have been really distinguished; his or
her works must have been considered as worthy of universal notice.
From these lists I shall take my numbers, as before proposed. It will
not be necessary to go into all the arts and sciences: eight or nine
will be sufficient. It may be as well, perhaps, to take the ITALIANS
as well as the French; for we all know that they were living in most
shocking "monkish ignorance and superstition;" and that they, poor,
unfortunate, and un plundered souls, are so living unto this very
day!

34.  Here, then, is the statement; and you have only to observe, that
the figures represent the number of persons who were famous for the
art or science opposite the name of which the figures are placed. The
period is, from the year 1600 to 1787, during which period France was
under what young GEORGE Ross calls the "dark despotism of the
Catholic Church," and what BLACKSTONE calls "monkish ignorance and
superstition;" and, during the same period, these Islands were in a
blaze of light, set forth by LUTHER, CRANMER, KNOX, and their
followers. Here, then, is the statement:



England,
Scotland and
Ireland
France.
Italy.
Writers on Law
6
51
9
Mathematicians
17
52
15
Physicians and
Surgeons
13
72
21
Writers on
Natural History
6
33
11
Historians
21
139
22
Dramatic
Writers
19
66
6
Grammarians
7
42
2
Poets
38
157
34
Painters
5
64
44

132
676
164


35.  Here is that very "SCALE," which a modest Scotch writer spoke of
the other day, when he told the public, that, "Throughout Europe,
Protestants rank higher in the scale of intellect than Catholics, and
that Catholics in the neighbourhood of Protestantants are more
intellectual than those at a distance from them." This is a fine
specimen of upstart Protestant impudence. The above "scale" is,
however, a complete answer to it. Allow one-third more to the French,
on account of their superior populousness, and then there will remain
to them 451 to our 132! So that they had, man for man, three and a
half times as much intellect as we, though they are buried, all the
while, in "monkish ignorance and superstition," and though they had
no Protestant neighbours to catch the intellect from! Even the
Italians surpass us in this rivalship for intellect; for, their
population is not equal to that of which we boast, and their number
of men of mind considerably exceeds that of ours. But, do I not, all
this while, misunderstand the matter? And, by intellect, does not the
Scotchman mean the capacity to make, not books and pictures, but
checks, bills, bonds, exchequer-bills, inimitable notes, and the
like? Does he not mean loan-jobbing and stock-jobbing, insurance-
broking, annuities at ten per cent., kite-flying, and all the
"intellectual" proceedings of Change Alley; not, by any means,
forgetting works like those of ASLETT and FAUNTLEROY? Ah! in that
case, I confess that he is right. On this scale Protestants do rank
high indeed! And I should think it next to impossible for a Catholic
to live in their neighbour hood without being much "more
intellectual;" that is to say, much more of a Jewish knave, than if
he lived at a distance from them.

36.  Here, then, my friends, sensible and just Englishmen, I close
this introductory Letter. I have shown you how grossly we have been
deceived, even from our very infancy. I have shown you, not only the
injustice, but the absurdity of the abuse heaped by our interested
deluders on the religion of their and our fathers, I have shown you
enough to convince you, that there was no obviously just cause for an
alteration in the religion of our country. I have, I dare say,
awakened in your minds, a strong desire to know how it came to pass,
then, that this alteration was made; and, in the following Letters,
it shall be my anxious endeavour fully to gratify this desire. But,
observe, my chief object is to show, that this alteration made the
main body of the people poor and miserable, compared with what they
were before; that it impoverished and degraded them; that it
banished, at once, that "Old English Hospitality," of which we have
since known nothing but the name; and that, in lieu of that
hospitality, it gave us pauperism, a thing, the very name of which
was never before known in England.







LETTER II.

ORIGIN OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH, IN ENGLAND, DOWN TO THE TIME OF THE
"REFORMATION."
BEGINNING OF THE "REFORMATION" BY KING HENRY VIII.

Kensington, 30th December, 1824.

My FRIENDS,

37.  It was not a reformation but a devastation, of England, which
was, at the time when this event took place, the happiest Country,
perhaps, that the world had ever seen; and, it is my chief business
to show, that this devastation impoverished and degraded the main
body of the people. But, in order that you may see this devastation
in its true light, and that you may feel a just portion of
indignation against the devastators, and against their eulogists of
the present day, it is necessary, first, that you take a correct view
of the things on which their devastating powers were exercised.

38.  The far greater part of those books, which are called "Histories
of England," are little better than romances. They treat of battles,
negotiations, intrigues of courts, amours of kings, queens and
nobles: they contain the gossip and scandal of former times, and very
little else, There are histories of England, like that of Dr.
GOLDSMITH, for the use of young persons; but, no young person, who
has read them through, knows any more, of any possible use, than he
or she knew before. The great use of history, is, to teach us how
laws, usages and institutions arose, what were their effects on the
people, how they promoted public happiness, or otherwise; and these
things are precisely what the greater part of historians, as they
call themselves, seem to think of no consequence.

39.  We never understand the nature and constituent parts of a thing
so well as when we ourselves have made the thing: next to making it,
is the seeing of it made: but, if we have neither of these
advantages, we ought, at least, if possible, to get at a true
description of the origin of the thing and of the manner in which it
was put together. I have to speak to you of the Catholic Church
generally; then of the Church in England, under which head I shall
have to speak of the parish churches, the monasteries, the tithes,
and other revenues of the Church. It is, therefore, necessary that I
explain to you how the Catholic Church arose; and how churches,
monasteries, tithes and other church revenues came to be in England.
When you have this information, you will well understand what it was
which was devastated by Henry VIII. and the "Reformation" people.
And, I am satisfied, that, when you have read this one Number of my
little work, you will know more about your country than you have
learned, or ever will learn, from the reading of hundreds of those
bulky volumes, called "Histories of England."

40.  The Catholic Church originated with Jesus Christ himself. He
selected PETER to be head of his Church. This Apostle's name was
SIMON; but, his Master called him PETER, which means a stone or rock;
and he said, "on this rock will I build my church." Look at the
Gospel of Saint Matthew, xvi. 18, 19, and at that of Saint John, xxi.
15, and onward; and you will see, that we must deny the truth of the
Scriptures, or acknowledge, that here was a head of the Church
promised for all generations.

41.  Saint PETER died a martyr at Rome in about 60 years after the
birth of Christ. But another supplied his place; and there is the
most satisfactory evidence, that the chain of succession has remained
unbroken from that day to this. When I said in paragraph 10, that it
might be said, that there was no POPE seated at Rome for the first
three hundred years, I by no means meant to admit the fact; but to
get rid of a pretence which, at any rate, could not apply to England,
which was converted to Christianity by missionaries sent by a POPE,
the successor of other Popes, who had been seated at Rome for
hundreds of years. The truth is, that, from the persecutions which,
for the first three hundred years, the Church underwent, the Chief
Bishops, successors of Saint Peter, had not always the means of
openly maintaining their supremacy; but they always existed; there
was always a Chief Bishop, and his supremacy was always acknowledged
by the Church; that is to say, by all the Christians then in the
world.

42.  Of later date, the Chief Bishop has been called, in our
language, the POPE, and, in the French., PAPE. In the Latin he is
called PAPA, which is an union and abbreviation of the two Latin
words Pater Patrum which means Father of Fathers. Hence comes the
appellation of papa, which children of all Christian nations give to
their fathers; an appellation of the highest respect and most ardent
and sincere affection. Thus, then, the POPE, each as he succeeded to
his office, became the Chief or Head of the Church; and his supreme
power and authority were acknowledged, as I have observed in
paragraph 3, by all the bishops, and all the teachers of
Christianity, in all the nations where that religion existed. The
POPE was, and is, assisted by a body of persons called CARDINALS, or
Great Councillors: and at various and numerous times, COUNCILS of the
Church have been held, in order to discuss and settle matters of deep
interest to the unity and well-being of the Church. These Councils
have been held in the countries of Christendom. Many were held in
England. The POPES themselves have been taken promiscuously from men
of all the Christian nations. POPE ADRIAN IV. was an Englishman, the
son of a very poor labouring man; but having become a servant in a
monastery, he was there taught, and became himself a monk. In time he
grew famous for his learning, his talents and piety, and at last
became the head of the Church.

43.  The POPEDOM, or office of POPE, continued in existence through
all the great and repeated revolutions of kingdoms and empires. The
Roman Empire, which was at the height of its glory at the beginning
of the Christian era, and which extended, indeed, nearly over the
whole of Europe, and part of Africa and Asia, crumbled all to pieces;
yet the Popedom remained; and at the time when the devastation,
commonly called the "Reformation," of England began, there had been,
during the fifteen hundred years, about two hundred and sixty Popes,
following each other in due and unbroken succession.

44.  The History of the Church in England, down to the time of the
"Reformation," is a matter of deep interest to us. A mere look at it,
a bare sketch of the principal facts, wil show how false, how unjust,
how ungrateful those have been who have vilified the Catholic Church,
its Popes, its Monks, and its Priests. It is supposed, by some, and,
indeed, with good authorities on their side, that the Christian
religion was partially introduced into England so early as the second
century after Christ. But we know for a certainty, that it was
introduced effectually in the year 596; that is to say, 923 years
before Henry VIII. began to destroy it.

45.  England, at the time when this religion was introduced, was
governed by seven kings, and that state was called the HEPTARCHY. The
people of the whole country were PAGANS. Yes, my friends, our
ancestors were PAGANS: they worshipped gods made with hands; and they
sacrificed children on the altars of their idols. In this state
England was, when the POPE of that day, GREGORY I., sent forty monks,
with a monk of the name of AUSTIN (or AUGUSTIN) at their head, to
preach the gospel to the English. Look into the Calendar of our
Common Prayer Book, and you will find the name of GREGORY THE GREAT
under the 12th of March, and that of AUGUSTIN under the 26th of May.
It is probable that the POPE gave his order to Austin on the former
day, and that Austin landed in Kent on the latter; or, perhaps, these
may be the days of the year on which these great benefactors of
England were born.

46.  Now please to bear in mind, that this great event took place in
the year 596. The Protestant writers have been strangely embarrassed
in their endeavours to make it out, that up to this time, or
thereabouts, the Catholic Church was pure, and trod in the steps of
the Apostles; but that, after this time, that Church became corrupt.
They applaud the character and acts of POPE GREGORY; they do the same
with regard to AUSTIN: shame would not suffer them to leave their
names out of the Calendar; but still, they want to make it out, that
there was no pure Christian religion after the POPE came to be the
visible and acknowledged head, and to have supreme authority. There
are scarcely any two of them that agree upon this point. Some say
that it was 300, some 400, some 500, and some 600 years before the
Catholic Church ceased to be the true Church of Christ. But, none of
them can deny, nor dare they attempt it, that it was the Christian
religion as practised at Rome; that it was the Roman Catholic
religion, that was introduced into England in the year 596, with all
its dogmas, rites, ceremonies, and observances, just as they all
continued to exist at the time of the "Reformation," and as they
continue to exist in that Church even unto this day. Whence it
clearly follows, that if the Catholic Church were corrupt at the time
of the "Reformation," or be corrupt now, be radically bad now, it was
so in 596; and then comes the impious and horrid inference!,
mentioned in paragraph 12, that "All our fathers who first built our
churches, and whose bones and flesh form the earth for many feet deep
in all the churchyards, are now howling in the regions of the
damned!"

 47. "The tree is known by its fruit." Bear in mind, that it was the
Catholic faith as now held, that was introduced into England by POPE
GREGORY THE GREAT; and bearing this in mind, let us see what were the
effects of that introduction; let us see how that faith worked its
way, in spite of wars, invasions, tyrannies, and political
revolutions.

48.  Saint AUSTIN, upon his arrival, applied to the Saxon king,
within whose dominions the county of Kent lay. He obtained leave to
preach to the people, and his success was great and immediate. He
converted the king himself, who was very gracious to him and his
brethren, and who provided dwellings and other necessaries for them
at Canterbury. Saint AUSTIN and his brethren being monks, lived
together in common, and from this common home, went forth over the
country, preaching the gospel. As their community was diminished by
death, new members were ordained to keep up the supply; and besides
this, the number was in time greatly augmented. A church was built at
Canterbury. Saint AUSTIN was, of course, the BISHOP, or Head Priest.
He was succeeded by other Bishops. As Christianity spread over the
island, other communities, like that at Canterbury, were founded in
other cities; as at London, Winchester, Exeter, Worcester, Norwich,
York, and so of all the other places, where there are now Cathedrals,
or Bishops' Churches. Hence, in process of time, arose those majestic
and venerable edifices, of the possession of which we boast as the
work of our forefathers, while we have the folly and injustice and
inconsistency, to brand the memory of these very forefathers with the
charge of grovelling ignorance, superstition, and idolatry; and while
we show our own meanness of mind in disfiguring and dishonouring
those noble buildings by plastering them about with our childish and
gingerbread "monuments," nine times out of ten, the offspring of
vanity, or corruption.

49.  As to the mode of supporting the clergy in those times, it was
by oblations or free gifts, and sometimes by tithes, which land-
owners paid themselves, or ordered their tenants to pay, though there
was no general obligation to yield tithes for many years after the
arrival of Saint AUSTIN. In this collective, or collegiate state, the
clergy remained for many years. But in time, as the land-owners
became converted to Christianity, they were desirous of having
priests settled near to them, and always upon the spot, ready to
perform the offices of religion. The land was then owned by
comparatively few persons. The rest of the people were vassals, or
tenants, of the land-owners. The land-owners, therefore, built
churches on their estates, and generally near their own houses, for
the benefit of themselves, their vassals, and tenants. And to this
day we see, in numerous instances, the country churches close by the
gentleman's house. When they built the churches, they also built a
house for the priest, which we now call the parsonage-house; and, in
most cases, they attached some plough-land, or meadow-land, or both,
to the priest's house, for his use; and this was called his glebe,
which word, literally taken, means the top-earth, which is turned
over by the plough. Besides these, the land-owners, in conformity
with the custom then prevalent in other Christian countries, endowed
the Churches with the tithe of the produce of their estates.

50.  Hence parishes arose. Parish means a priestship, as the land on
which a town stands is a township. So that the great man's estate now
became a parish. He retained the right of appointing the priest,
whenever a vacancy happened; but he could not displace a priest, when
once appointed; and the whole of the endowment became the property of
the Church independent of his control. It was a long while, even two
centuries or more, before this became the settled law of the whole
kingdom; but, at last, it did become such. But, to this possession of
so much property by the Church, certain important conditions were
attached; and to these conditions it behoves us, of the present day,
to pay particular attention; for, we are, at this time, more than
ever, feeling the want of the performance of those conditions.

51. There never can have existed a state of society; that is to say,
a state of things in which proprietorship in land was acknowledged,
and in which it was maintained by law; there never can have existed
such a state, without an obligation on the land-owners to take care
of the necessitous, and to prevent them from perishing for want. The
landowners in England took care of their vassals and dependants. But
when Christianity, the very basis of which is charity, became
established, the taking care of the necessitous was deposited in the
hands of the clergy. Upon the very face of it, it appears monstrous,
that a house, a small farm, and the tenth part of the produce of a
large estate, should have been given to a priest, who could have no
wife, and, of course, no family. But, the fact is, that the grants
were for other purposes as well as for the support of the priests.
The produce of the benefice was to be employed thus: "Let the priests
receive the tithes of the people, and keep a written account of all
that have paid them; and divide them, in the presence of such as fear
God, according to canonical authority. Let them set apart the first
share for the repairs and ornaments of the church; let them
distribute the second to the poor and the stranger with their own
hands in mercy and humility; and reserve the third part for
themselves." These were the orders contained in a canon, issued by a
Bishop of York. At different times, and under different Bishops,
regulations somewhat different were adopted; but there were always
two-fourths, at the least, of the annual produce of the benefice to
be given to the necessitous, and to be employed in the repairing or
in the ornamenting of the church.

52.  Thus the providing for the poor became one of the great duties
and uses of the Church. This duty rested, before, on the land-owners.
It must have rested on them; for, as BLACKSTONE observes, a right in
the indigent "to demand a supply sufficient to all the necessities of
life from the more opulent part of the community, is dictated by the
principles of society." This duty could be lodged in no hands so
fitly as in those of the clergy; for thus the work of charity, the
feeding of the hungry, the clothing of the naked, the administering
to the sick, the comforting of the widow, the fostering of the
fatherless, came always in company with the performance of services
to God. For the uncertain disposition of the rich, for their
occasional and sometimes capricious charity, was substituted the
certain, the steady, the impartial hand of a constantly resident and
unmarried administrator of bodily as well as of spiritual comfort to
the poor, the unfortunate and the stranger.

53.  We shall see, by-and-by, the condition that the poor were placed
in, we shall see how all the labouring classes were impoverished and
degraded, the moment the tithes and other revenues of the church were
transferred to a Protestant and married clergy; and we shall have to
take a full view of the unparalleled barbarity with which the Irish
people were treated at that time; but, I have not yet noticed another
great branch, or constituent part, of the Catholic Church; namely,
the MONASTERIES, which form a subject full of interest and worthy of
our best attention. The choicest and most highly empoisoned shafts in
the quiver of the malice of Protestant writers, seem always to be
selected when they have to rail against MONKS, FRIARS and NUNS. We
have seen BLACKSTONE talking about "monkish ignorance and
superstition;" and we hear, every day, Protestant bishops and parsons
railing against what they call "monkery," talking of the "drones" in
monasteries, and, indeed, abusing the whole of those ancient
institutions, as something degrading to human nature, in which work
of abuse they are most heartily joined by the thirty or forty mongrel
sects, whose bawling-tubs are erected in every corner of the country.

54.  When I come to speak of the measures by which the monasteries
were robbed, devastated and destroyed in England and Ireland, I shall
show how unjust, base and ungrateful, this railing against them is;
and how foolish it is besides. I shall show the various ways in which
they were greatly useful to the community; and I shall especially
show how they operated in behalf of the labouring and poorer classes
of the people. But, in this place, I shall merely describe, in the
shortest manner possible, the origin and nature of those
institutions, and the extent to which they existed in England.

55.  Monastery means a place of residence for monks, and the word
monk comes from a Greek word, which means a lonely person, or a
person in solitude. There were monks, friars, and nuns. The word
friar comes from the French word frère, which, in English, is
brother; and the word nun comes from the French word nonne, which
means a sister in religion, a virgin separated from the world. The
persons, whether male or female, composing one of these religious
communities, were called a convent, and that name was sometimes also
given to the buildings and enclosures in which the community lived.
The place where monks lived was called a monastery; that where friars
lived, a friary; and that where nuns lived, a nunnery. As, however,
we are not, in this case, inquiring into the differences in the the
rules, orders, and habits of the persons belonging to these
institutions, I shall speak of them all as monasteries.

56.  Then, again, some of these were abbeys, and some priories; of
the difference between which it will be sufficient to say, that the
former were of a rank superior to the latter, and had various
privileges of a higher value. An abbey had an ABBOT, or an Abbess; a
priory, a Prior, or a Prioress. Then there were different ORDERS of
monks, friars, and nuns; and these ORDERS had different rules for
their government and mode of life, and were distinguished by
different dresses. With these distinctions we have here, however,
little to do; for we shall, by-and-by, see them all involved in one
common devastation.

57.  The persons belonging to a monastery lived in common; they lived
in one and the same building; they could possess no property
individually; when they entered the walls of the monastery, they left
the world wholly behind them; they made a solemn vow of celibacy;
they could devise nothing by will; each had a life-interest, but
nothing more, in the revenues belonging to the community; some of the
monks and friars were also priests, but this was not always the case;
and the business of the whole was, to say masses and prayers, and to
do deeds of hospitality and charity.

58. This mode of life began by single persons separating themselves
from the world, and living in complete solitude, passing all their
days in prayer, and dedicating themselves wholly to the serving of
God. These were called hermits, and their conduct drew towards them
great respect. In time, such men, or men having a similar propensity,
formed themselves into societies, and agreed to live together in one
house, and to possess things in common. Women did the same. And hence
came those places called monasteries. The piety, the austerities,
and, particularly, the works of kindness and of charity performed by
those persons, made them objects of great veneration; and the rich
made them, in time, the channels of their benevolence to the poor.
Kings, queens, princes, princesses, nobles, and gentlemen founded
monasteries; that is to say, erected the buildings, and endowed them
with estates for their maintenance. Others, some in the way of
atonement for their sins, and some from a pious disposition, gave,
while alive, or bequeathed, at their death, lands, houses, or money,
to monasteries already erected. So that, in time, the monasteries
became the owners of great landed estates; they had the lordship over
innumerable manors, and had a tenantry of prodigious extent,
especially in England, where the monastic orders were always held in
great esteem, in con sequence of Christianity having been introduced
into the kingdom by a community of monks.

59.  To give you as clear a notion as I can of what a monastery was,
I will describe to you, with as much exactness as my memory will
enable me, a monastery which I saw in France, in 1792, just after the
monks had been turned out of it, and when it was about to be put up
for sale. The whole of the space enclosed was about eight English
acres, which was fenced in by a wall about twenty feet high. It was
an oblong square, and at one end of one of the sides was a gate-way,
with gates as high as the wall, and with a little door in one of the
great gates for the ingress and egress of foot-passengers. This gate
opened into a spacious court-yard, very nicely paved. On one side,
and at one end of this yard, were the kitchen, lodging-rooms for
servants, a dining or eating place for them and for strangers and
poor people; stables, coachhouses, and other out buildings. On the
other side of the court-yard, we entered at a door-way to the place
of residence of the monks. Here was about half an acre of ground of a
square form, for a burying ground. On the four sides of this square
there was a cloister, or piazza, the roof of which was, on the side
of the burying ground, supported by pillars, and, at the back,
supported by a low building which went round the four sides. This
building contained the several dormitories, or sleeping-rooms of the
monks, each of whom had two little rooms, one for his bed, and one
for his books and to sit in. Out of the hinder room, a door opened
into a little garden about thirty feet wide, and forty long. On one
side of the cloister, there was a door opening into their dining-
room, in one corner of which there was a pulpit for the monk who
read, while the rest were eating in silence, which was according to
the rules of the CARTHUSIANS, to which Order these monks belonged. On
the other side of the cloister, a door opened into the kitchen
garden, which was laid out in the nicest manner, and was well stocked
with fruit trees of all sorts. On another side of the cloister, a
door opened and led to the church, which, though not large, was one
of the most beautiful that I had ever seen. I believe, that these
monks were, by their rules, confined within their walls. The country
people spoke of them with great reverence, and most grievously
deplored the loss of them. They had large estates, were easy
landlords, and they wholly provided for all the indigent within miles
of their monastery.

60.  England, more, perhaps, than any other country in Europe,
abounded in such institutions, and these more richly endowed than any
where else. In England, there was, on an average, more than twenty
(we shall see the exact number by-and-by) of those establishments to
a county! Here was a prize for an unjust and cruel tyrant to lay his
lawless hands upon, and for "Reformation" gentry to share amongst
them! Here was enough, indeed, to make robbers on a grand scale cry
out against "monkish ignorance and superstition"! No wonder that the
bowels of CRANMER, KNOX, and all their mongrel litter, yearned so
piteously as they did, when they cast their pious eyes on all the
farms and manors, and on all the silver and gold ornaments belonging
to these communities! We shall see, by-and-by, with what alacrity
they ousted, plundered, and pulled down: we shall see them robbing,
under the basest pretences, even the altars of the country parish
churches, down to the very smallest of those churches, and down to
the value of five shillings. But, we must first take a view of the
motives which led the tyrant, Henry VIII., to set their devastating
and plundering faculties in motion.

61.  This King succeeded his father, Henry VII., in the year 1509. He
succeeded to a great and prosperous kingdom, a full treasury, and a
happy and contented people, who expected in him the wisdom of his
father without his avarice, which seems to have been that father's
only fault. Henry VIII. was eighteen years old when his father died.
He had had an elder brother, named ARTHUR, who, at the early age of
twelve years, had been betrothed to CATHERINE, fourth daughter of
Ferdinand, King of Castile and Arragon. When ARTHUR was fourteen
years old, the Princess came to England, and the marriage ceremony
was performed; but ARTHUR, who was a weak and sickly boy, died before
the year was out, and the marriage never was consummated, and,
indeed, who will believe that it could be? Henry wished to marry
Catherine, and the marriage was agreed to by the parents on both
sides, but it did not take place until after the death of Henry VII.
The moment the young King came to the throne, he took measures for
his marriage. CATHERINE being, though only nominally, the widow of
his deceased brother, it was necessary to have from the POPE, as
supreme head of the Church, a dispensation, in order to render the
marriage lawful in the eye of the canon law. The dispensation, to
which there could be no valid objection, was obtained, and the
marriage was, amidst the rejoicings of the whole nation, celebrated
in June, 1509, in less than two months after the King's accession.

62.  With this lady, who was beautiful in her youth, and whose
virtues of all sorts seem scarcely ever to have been exceeded, he
lived in the married state, seventeen years, before the end of which,
he had had three sons and two daughters by her, one of whom only, a
daughter, was still alive, who afterwards was Mary, Queen of England.
But now at the end of seventeen years, he, being thirty-five years of
age, and eight years younger than the Queen, and having cast his eyes
on a young lady, an attendant on the Queen, named ANNE BOLEYN, he,
all of a sudden, affected to believe that he was living in sin,
because he was married to the widow of his brother, though, as we
have seen, the marriage between Catherine and the brother had never
been consummated, and though the parents of both the parties,
together with his own Council, had unanimously and unhesitatingly
approved of his marriage, which had, moreover, been sanctioned by the
POPE, the head of the Church, of the faith and observances of which
Henry himself had, as we shall hereafter see, been, long since his
marriage, a zealous defender!

63.  But the tyrant's passions were now in motion, and he resolved to
gratify his beastly lust, cost what it might in reputation, in
treasure, and in blood. He first applied to the POPE to divorce him
from from his Queen. He was a great favourite of the POPE, he was
very powerful, there were many strong motives for yielding to his
request; but that request was so full of injustice, it would have
been so cruel towards the virtuous Queen to accede to it, that the
POPE could not, and did not grant it. He. however, in hopes that time
might induce the tyrant to relent, ordered a court to be held by his
Legate and Wolsey, in England. to hear and determine the case. Before
this court the Queen disdained to plead, and the Legate, dissolving
the court, referred the matter back to the POPE, who still refused to
take any step towards the granting of the divorce. The tyrant now
became furious, resolved upon overthrowing the power of the POPE in
England, upon making himself the head of the Church in this country,
and upon doing whatever else might be necessary to insure the
gratification of his beastly desires and the glutting of his
vengeance.

64.  By making himself the supreme head of the Church, he made
himself, he having the sword and the gibbet at his command, master of
all the property of that Church, including that of the monasteries!
His counsellors and courtiers knew this; and, as it was soon
discovered that a sweeping confiscation would take place, the
parliament was by no means backward in aiding his designs, every one
hoping to share in the plunder. The first step was to pass acts
taking from the POPE all authority and power over the Church in
England, and giving to the King all authority whatever as to
ecclesiastical matters. His chief adviser and abettor was THOMAS
CRANMER, a name which deserves to be held in everlasting execration;
a name which we could not pronounce without almost doubting of the
justice of God, were it not for our knowledge of the fact, that the
cold-blooded, most perfidious, most impious, most blasphemous caitiff
expired, at last, amidst those flames which he himself had been the
chief cause of kindling.

65.  The tyrant, being now both POPE and King, made CRANMER
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, a dignity just then become vacant. Of
course, this adviser and ready tool now became chief judge in all
ecclesiastical matters. But, here was a difficulty; for the tyrant
still professed to be a Catholic; so that his new Archbishop was to
be consecrated according to the usual pontifical form, which required
of him to swear obedience to the POPE. And here a transaction took
place that will, at once, show us of what sort of stuff the
"Reformation" gentry were made. CRANMER, before he went to the altar
to be consecrated, went into a chapel, and there made a declaration
on oath, that, by the oath that he was about to take, and which, for
the sake of form, he was obliged to take, he did not intend to bind
himself to anything that tended to prevent him from assisting the
King in making any such "reforms" as he might think useful in the
Church of England! I once knew a Corrupt Cornish knave, who having
sworn to a direct falsehood (and that he, in private, acknowledged to
be such) before an Election Committee of the House of Commons, being
asked how he could possibly give such evidence, actually declared, in
so many words, "that he had, before he left his lodging in the
morning, taken an oath, that he would swear falsely that day." He,
perhaps, imbibed his principles from this very Archbishop, who
occupies the highest place in lying Fox's lying book of Protestant
Martyrs.

66.  Having provided himself with so famous a judge in ecclesiastical
matters, the King lost, of course, no time in bringing his hard case
before him, and demanding justice at his hands! Hard case, indeed; to
be compelled to live with a wife of forty-three, when he could have,
for next to nothing and only for asking for, a young one of eighteen
or twenty! A really hard case; and he sought relief, now that he had
got such an upright and impartial judge, with all imaginable
dispatch. What I am now going to relate of the conduct of this
Archbishop and of the other parties concerned in the transaction is
calculated to make us shudder with horror, to make our very bowels
heave with loathing, to make us turn our eyes from the paper and
resolve to read no further. But, we must not give way to these
feelings, if we have a mind to know the true history of the
Protestant "Reformation." We must keep ourselves cool; we must reason
ourselves out of our ordinary impulses; we must beseech nature to be
quiet within us for awhile; for, from first to last, we have to
contemplate nothing that is not of a kind to fill us with horror and
disgust.

67.  It was now four or five years since the King and CRANMER had
begun to hatch the project of the divorce: but, in the meanwhile, the
King had kept ANNE BOLEYN, or, in more modern phrase, she had been
"under his protection," for about three years. And here let me state,
that, in Dr. BAYLEY's life of Bishop FISHER, it is positively
asserted, that ANNE BOLEYN was the King's daughter, and that Lady
BOLEYN, her rnother said to the King, when he was abouut to marry
ANNE, "Sir, for the reverence of God, take heed what you do in
marrying my daughters for, if you record your own conscience well,
she is your own daughter as well as mine." To which the King replied
"Whose daughter soever she is, she shall be my wife." Now, though I
believe this fact, I do not give it as a thing the truth of which is
undeniable. I find it in the writings of a man, who was the eulogist
(and justly) of the excellent Bishop FISHER, who suffered death
because he stood firmly on the side of Queen CATHERINE. I believe it;
but I do not give it, as I do the other facts that I state, as what
is undeniably true. God knows, it is unnecessary to make the parties
blacker than they are made by the Protestant historians themselves,
in even a favourable record of their horrid deeds.

68.  The King had had ANNE about three years "under his protection,"
when she became for the first time with child. There was now,
therefore, no time to be lost in order to "make an honest woman of
her." A private marriage took place in January, 1533. As ANNE's
pregnancy could not be long disguised it became necessary to avow her
marriage; and, therefore, it was also necessary to press onward the
trial for the divorce; for, it might have seemed rather awkward, even
amongst "Reformation" people, for the King to have two wives at a
time! Now, then, the famous ecclesiastical judge, CRANMER, had to
play his part; and, if his hypocrisy did not make the devil blush, he
could have no blushing faculties in him. CRANMER, in April 1533,
wrote a letter to the King, begging him, for the good of the nation,
and for the safety of his own soul, to grant his permission to try
the question of the divorce, and beseeching him no longer to live in
the peril attending an "incestuous intercourse "! Matchless,
astonishing hypocrite! He knew, and the King knew that he knew, and
he knew that the King knew that he knew it, that the King had been
actually married to ANNE three months before, she being with child at
the time when he married her!

69.  The King graciously condescended to listen to this ghostly
advice of his pious primates who was so anxious about the safety of
his royal soul; and, without delay, he, as Head of the Church,
granted the ghostly father, CRANMER, who, in violation of his
clerical vows, had, in private, a woman of his own; to this ghostly
father the King granted a licence to hold a spiritual court for the
trial of the divorce. Queen CATHERINE, who had been ordered to retire
from the court, resided at this time at AMPTHILL, in Bedfordshire, at
a little distance from DUN5TABLE. At this latter place CaSYMER opened
his court, and sent a citation to the Queen to appear before him,
which citation she treated with the scorn that it deserved. When he
had kept his "court" open the number of days required by the law, he
pronounced sentence against the Queen, declaring her marriage with
the King null from the beginning; and having done this, he closed his
farcical court. We shall see him doing more jobs in the divorcing
line; but thus he finished the first.

70.  The result of this trial was, by this incomparable judge, made
known to the King, whom this wonderful hypocrite gravely besought to
submit himself with resignation to the will of God, as declared to
him in this decision of the spiritual court, acting according to the
laws of holy Church! The pious and resigned King yielded to the
admonition; and then CRANMER held another court at LAMBETH, at which
he declared, that the King had been lawfully married to ANNE BOLEYN;
and that he now confirmed the marriage by his pastoral and judicial
authority, which he derived from the successors of the Apostles! We
shall see him, by-and-by, exercising the same authority to declare
this new marriage null and void from the beginning, and see him
assist in bastardizing the fruit of it: but we must now follow Mrs.
ANNE BOLEYN (whom the Protestant writers strain hard to whitewash)
till we have seen the end of her.

71. She was delivered of a daughter (who was afterwards Queen
Elizabeth) at the end of eight months from the date of her marriage.
This did not please the King, who wanted a son, and who was quite
monster enough to be displeased with her on this account. The couple
jogged on apparently without quarrelling for about three years, a
pretty long time, if we duly consider the many obstacles which vice
opposes to peace and happiness. The husband, however, had plenty of
occupation; for, being now "Head of the Church," he had a deal to
manage: he had, poor man, to labour hard at making a new religion,
new articles of faith, new rules of discipline, and he had new things
of all sorts to prepare. Besides which he had, as we shall see in the
next Number, some of the best then in his kingdom, and that ever
lived in any kingdom or country, to behead, hang, rip up, and cut
into quarters. He had, moreover, as we shall see, begun the grand
work of confiscation, plunder and devastation. So that he could not
have a great deal of time for family squabbles.

72.  If, however, he had no time to jar with ANNE, he had no time to
look after her, which is a thing to be thought of when a man marries
a woman half his own age, and that this "great female reformer," as
some of the Protestant writers call her, wanted a little of husband-
like vigilance, we are now going to see. The freedom, or rather the
looseness, of her manners, so very different from those of that
virtuous Queen, whom the English court and nation had had before
them, as an example for so many years, gave offence to the more
sober, and excited the mirth and set a-going the chat of persons of
another description. In January, 1536, Queen CATHERINE died. She had
been banished from the court. She had seen her marriage annulled by
CRANMER, and her daughter and only surviving child bastardized by act
of parliament; and the husband had had five children by her, that
"Reformation" husband had had the barbarity to keep her separated
from, and never to suffer her, after her banishment, to set her eyes
on that only child! She died, as she had lived, beloved and revered
by every good man and woman in the kingdom, and was buried, amidst
the sobbings and tears of a vast assemblage of the people, in the
Abbey-church of Peterborough.

73.  The King, whose iron heart seems to have been softened, for a
moment, by a most affectionate letter, which she dictated to him from
her death bed, ordered the persons about him to wear mourning on the 
day of her burial. But, our famous "great female reformer" not only
did not wear mourning, but dressed herself out in the gayest and
gaudiest attire; expressed her unbounded joy; and said, that she was
now in reality a Queen! Alas, for our "great female reformer!" in
just three months and sixteen days from this day of her exultation,
she died herself; not, however, as the real Queen had died, in her
bed, deeply lamented by all the good, and without a soul on earth to
impute to her a single fault; but, on a scaffold, under a death-
warrant signed by her husband, and charged with treason, adultery,
and incest!

74.  In the month of May, 1536, she was, along with the King, amongst
the spectators at a tilting-match, at GREENWICH, when, being
incautious, she gave to one of the combatants, who was also one of
her paramours, a sign of her attachment, which seems only to have
confirmed the King in suspicions which he before entertained. He
instantly quitted the place, returned to Westminster, ordered her to
be confined at Greenwich that night, and to be brought, by water, to
Westminster the next day. But, she was met, by his order, on the
river, and conveyed to the TOWER; and, as it were to remind her of
the injustice which she had so mainly assisted in committing against
the late virtuous Queen; as it were to say to her, "See, after all,
God is just," she was imprisoned in the very room in which she had
slept the night before her coronation!

75.  From the moment of her imprisonment her behaviour indicated
anything but conscious innocence. She was charged with adultery,
committed with four gentlemen of the King's household, and with
incest with her brother, Lord ROCHFORD, and she was, of course,
charged with treason, those being acts of treason by law. They were
all found guilty, and all put to death. But, before ANNE was
executed, our friend, THOMAS CRANMER, had another tough job to
perform. The King, who never did things by halves, ordered, as "Head
of the Church," the Archbishop to hold his "spiritual court," and to
divorce him from ANNE! One would think it impossible that a man, that
any thing bearing the name of man, should have consented to do such a
thing, should not have perished before a slow fire rather than do it.
What! he had, we have seen in paragraph 70, pronounced the marriage
with ANNE "to be lawful, and had confirmed it by his authority,
judicial and pastoral, which he derived from the successors of the
Apostles." How was he now, then, to annul this marriage? How was he
to declare it unlawful?

76.  He cited the King and Queen to appear in his "court!" (Oh! that
court! His citation stated, that their marriaze had been unlawful,
that they were living in adultery, and that, for the "salvation of
their souls," they should come and show cause why they should not be
separated. They were just going to be separated most effectually; for
this was on the 17th of March, and Anne, who had been condemned to
death on the 15th, was to be, and was, executed on the 19th! They
both obeyed his citation, and appeared before him by their proctors;
and after having heard these, CRANMER, who, observe, afterwards drew
up the Book of Common Prayer, wound up the blasphemous farce by
pronouncing, "in the name of Christ, and for the honour of God," that
the marriage "was, and always had been null and void!" Good God! But
we must not give way to exclamations, or they will interrupt us at
every step. Thus was the daughter, ELIZABETH, bastardized by the
decision of the very man who had not only pronounced her mother's
marriage lawful, but who had been the contriver of that marriage! And
yet BURNET has the impudence to say, that CRANMER "appears to have
done every thing with a good conscience"! Yes, with such another
conscience as BURNET did the deeds by which he got into the
Bishoprick of Salisbury, at the time of "Old glorious," which, as we
shall see, was by no means disconnected with the "Reformation."

77.  On the 19th, ANNE was beheaded in the Tower, put into an elm-
coffin, and buried there. At the place of exe cution she did not
pretend that she was innocent; and there appears to me to be very
little doubt of her having done some, at least, of the things imputed
to her: but, if her marriage with the King had "always been null and
void;" that is to say, if she had never been married to him, how
could she, by her commerce with other men, have been guilty of
treason? On the 15th, she is condemned as the wife of the King, on
the 17th she is pronounced never to have been his wife, and, on the
19th, she is executed for having been his unfaithful wife! However,
as to the effect which this event has upon the character of the
"REFORMATION," it signifies not a straw whether she were guilty or
innocent of the crimes now laid to her charge; for, if she were
innocent, how are we to describe the monsters who brought her to the
block? How are we to describe that "Head of the Church" and that
Archbishop, who had now the management of the religious affairs of
England? It is said, that the evening before her execution, she
begged the lady of the lieutenant of the Tower to go to the Princess
MARY, and to beg her to pardon her for the many wrongs she had done
her. There were others, to whom she had done wrongs. She had been the
cause, and the guilty cause, of breaking the heart of the rightful
Queen; she had caused the blood of MORE and of  FISHER to he shed;
and she had been the promoter of Cranmer, and his aider and abettor
in all those crafty and pernicious councils, by acting upon which, an
obstinate and hard-hearted King had plunged the kingdom into
confusion and blood. The King, in order to show his total disregard
for her, and, as it were, to repay her for her conduct on the day of
the funeral of CATHERINE, dressed himself in white on the day of her
execution; and, the very next day, was married to JANE SEYMOUR, at
MAREVELL HALL, in Hampshire.

78.  Thus, then, my friends, we have seen, that the thing called the
"REFORMATION"  "was engendered in beastly lust, and brought forth in
hypocrisy and perfidy." How it proceeded in devastating and in
shedding innocent blood we have yet to see.







LETTER III.

RESISTANCE TO THE KING'S MEASURES.
EFFECTS OF ABOLISHING THE POPE'S SUPREMACY.
DEATH OF SIR THOMAS MORE AND BISHOP FISHER.
HORRIBLE MURDERS OF CATHOLICS.
LUTHER AND THE NEW RELIGION.
BURNING OF CATHOLICS AND PROTESTANTS AT THE SAME FIRE.
EXECRABLE CONDUCT OF CRANMER.
TITLE OF DEFENDER OF THE FAITH.

Kensington, 31st January, 1825.

MY FRIENDS,

79.  No Englishman, worthy of that name, worthy of a name which
carries along with it sincerity and a love of justice; no real
Englishman can have contemplated the foul deeds, the base hypocrisy,
the flagrant injustice, ex posed in the foregoing Letter, without
blushing for his country. What man, with an honourable sentiment in
his mind, is there, who does not almost wish to be a foreigner,
rather than be the countryman of CRANMER and of HENRY VIII.? If,
then, such be our feelings already, what are they to be by the time
that we have got through those scenes of tyranny, blood and robbery,
to which the deeds, which we have already witnessed, were merely a
prelude?

80.  Sunk, however, as the country was by the members of the
parliament hoping to share, as they finally did, in the plunder of
the Church and the poor; selfish and servile as was the conduct of
the courtiers, the King's councillors, and the people's
representatives; still there were some men to raise their voices
against the illegality and cruelty of the divorce of CATHERINE, as
well as against that great preparatory measure of plunder, the taking
of the spiritual supremacy from the POPE and giving it to the King.
The Bishops, all but one, which one we shall presently see dying on
the scaffold rather than abandon his integrity, were terrified into
acquiesence, or, at least, into silence. But, there were many of the
parochial clergy, and a large part of the monks and friars, who were
not thus acquiescent, or silent. These, by their sermons, and by
their conversations, made the truth pretty generally known to the
people at large; and, though they did not succeed in preventing the
calamities which they saw approaching, they rescued the character of
their country from the infamy of silent submission.

81.  Of all the duties of the historian, the most sacred is, that of
recording the conduct of those, who have stood forward to defend
helpless innocence against the attacks of powerful guilt. This duty
calls on me to make particular mention of the conduct of the two
friars, PEYTO and ELSTOW. The former, preaching before the King, at
Greenwich, just previous to his marriage with ANNE, and, taking for
his text the passage in the first book of Kings, where MICAIAH
prophecies against AHAB, who was surrounded with flatterers and lying
prophets, said, "I am that "MICAIAH whom you will hate, because I
must tell you "ruly that this marriage is unlawful; and I know, that
I shall eat the bread of affliction, and drink the water of sorrow;
yet because our Lord hath put it in my mouth, I must speak it. Your
flatterers are the four hundred prophets, who in the spirit of King,
seek to deceive you. But take good heed, lest you, being seduced,
find AHAB's punishment, which was to have his blood licked up by
dogs. It is one of the greatest miseries in princes to be daily
abused by flatterers." The King took this reproof in silence; but,
the next Sunday, a Dr. CURWIN preached in the same place before the
King, and, having called PEYTO dog, slanderer, base beggarly friar,
rebel, and traitor, and having said that he had fled for fear and
shame;• ELSTOW, who was present and who was a fellow-friar of PEYTO,
called out aloud to CURWIN, and said: "Good Sir, "you know that
Father PEYTO is now gone to a provincial council at Canterbury, and
not fled for fear of you; for to-morrow, he will return. In the
meanwhile I am here, as another MICAIAH, and will lay down my life to
prove all those things true, which he hath taught out of Holy
Scripture; and to this combat I challenge thee before God and all
equaljudges; even unto thee, CURWIN,  I say, which art one of the
four hundred false prophets, into whom the spirit of lying is
entered, and seekest by adultery to establish a succession, betraying
the King into  endless perdition.'

82.  STOEE, who relates this in his Chronicle, says that ELSTOW
"waxed hot, so that they could not make him cease his speech, until
the King himself bade him hold his peace. The two friars were brought
the next day before the King's council, who rebuked them, and told
them, that they deserved to be put into a sack. and thrown into the
Thames. "Whereupon ELSTOW said, smiling: "Threaten  these things to
rich and dainty persons, who are clothed  in purple, fare
deliciously, and have their chiefest hope in  this world; for we
esteem them not, but are joyful, that,  for the discharge of our
duty, we are driven hence: and with thanks to God, we know the way to
heaven to be as ready by water as by land."

83.  It is impossible to speak with sufficient admiration of the
conduct of these men. Ten thousand victories by land or sea would not
bespeak so much heroism in the winners of those victors as was shown
by these friars. If the bishops, or only a fourth part of them, had
shown equal courage, the tyrant would have stopped in that career
which was now on the eve of producing so many horrors. The stand made
against him by these two poor friars was the only instance of bold
and open resistance, until he had actually got into his murders and
robberies; and, seeing that there never was yet found even a
Protestant pen, except the vile pen of BURNET, to offer so much as an
apology for the deeds of this tyrant, one would think that the heroic
virtue of PEYTO and ELSTOW ought to be sufficient to make us hesitate
before we talk of "monkish ignorance and superstition," Recollect,
that there was no wild fanaticism in the conduct of those men; that
they could not be actuated by any selfish motive; that they stood
forward in the cause of morality, and in defence of a person, whom
they had never personally known, and that, too, with the certainty of
incurring the most severe punishments, if not death itself. Before
their conduct, how the heroism of the Hampdens and the Russells sinks
from our sight!

84.  We now come to the consideration of that copious source of
blood, the suppression of the POPE'sS SUPREMACY. To deny the King's
supremacy was made high treason, and, to refuse to take an oath,
acknowledging that supremacy, was deemed a denial of it. Sir THOMAS
MORE, who was the Lord Chancellor, and JOHN FISHER, who was Bishop of
Rochester, were put to death for refusing to take this oath. Of all
the men in England, these were the two most famed for learning, for
integrity, for piety, and for long and faithful services to the King
and his father. It is no weak presumption in favour of the POPE's
supremacy that these two men, who had exerted their talents to
prevent its suppression, laid their heads on the block rather than
sanction that suppression. But, knowing, as we do, that it is the
refusal of our Catholic fellow subjects to take this same oath,
rather than take which MORE and FISHER died; knowing that this is the
cause of all that cruel treatment which the Irish people have so long
endured, and to put an end to which ill treatment they are now so
arduously struggling; knowing that it is on this very point that the
fate of England herself may rest in case of another war; knowing
these things, it becomes us to inquire with care what is the nature,
and what are the effects, of this papal supremacy, in order to
ascertain, whether it be favourable, or otherwise, to true religion
and to civil liberty.

85.  The Scripture tells us, that Christ's Church was to be ONE. We,
in repeating the Apostle's Creed, say, "I believe in the Holy
Catholic Church." Catholic, as we have seen in paragraph 3, means
universal. And how can we believe in an universal church, without
believing that that Church is ONE, and under the direction of one
head? In the Gospel of Saint John, chap. 10, v. 16, Christ says, that
he is the good shepherd, and that "there shall be one fold and one
shepherd." He afterwards deputes PETER to be his shepherd in his
stead. In the same gospel, chap. 17, v. 10 and 11, Christ says, "And
all mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.
And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I
come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name, those whom
thou hast given me, that they may be ONE, as we are." Saint Paul, in
his second epistle to the Corinthians, says, "Finally, brethren,
farewell: be perfect, be of good comfort, be of ONE MIND."  The same
Apostle, in his epistle to the Ephesians, chap. 4, v. 3, says,
"Endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the  bond of peace.
There is one body and one spirit, even as  ye are called in one hope
of your calling; one lord, ONE  FAITH, ONE BAPTISM, one God and
Father of all." Again, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, chap.
1, v. 10. "Now,  I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord
Jesus  Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be
no divisions amongst you; but that ye be perfectly joined  together
in the same mind and the same judgment."

86.  But besides these evidences of Scripture, besides our own creed,
which we say we have from the Apostles, there is the reasonableness
of the thing. It is perfectly monstrous to suppose that there can be
TWO true faiths. It cannot be: one of the two must be false. And will
any man say, that we ought to applaud a measure which, of necessity,
must produce an indefinite number of faiths? If our eternal salvation
depend upon our believing the truth, can it be good to place people
in a state of necessity to have different beliefs? And does not that,
which takes away the head of the Church, inevitably produce such a
state of necessity? How is the faith of all nations to continue to be
ONE, it there be, in every nation, a head of the Church, who is to be
appealed to, in the last resort, as to all questions, as to all
points of dispute, which may arise? How, if this be the case, is
there to be "one fold and one shepherd"? How is there to be "one
faith and one baptism"? how are the "unity of the spirit and the bond
of peace" to be preserved? We shall presently see what unity and what
peace there were in England, the moment that the King became the head
of the Church.

87.  To give this supremacy to a King is, in our case, to give it
occasionally to a woman; and still more frequently to a child, even
to a baby. We shall very soon see it devolve on a boy nine years of
age, and we shall see the monstrous effects that it produced. But if
his present Majesty and all his royal brothers were to die to-morrow
(and they are all mortal), we should see it devolve on a little girl
only about five years old. She would be the "one shepherd;" she,
according to our own creed, which we repeat every Sunday, would be
head of the "Holy Catholic Church"! She would have a council of
regency. Oh! then there would be a whole troop of shepherds. There
must be a pretty "unity of spirit" and a pretty "bond of peace."

88.  As to the POPE's interference with the authority of the King or
state, the sham plea set up was, and is, that he divided the
government with the King, to whom belonged the sole supremacy with
regard to every thing within his realm. This doctrine, pushed home,
would shut out Jesus Christ himself, and make the King an object of
adoration. Spiritual and temporal authority are perfectly distinct in
their nature, and ought so to be kept in their exercise; and  that,
too, not only for the sake of religion, but also for the sake of
civil liberty. It is curious enough that the Protestant sectarians,
while they most cordially unite with the established Clergy in crying
out against the POPE for "usurping" the King's authority, and against
the Catholics for countenancing that "usurpation," take special care
to deny, that this same King has any spiritual supremacy over
themselves! The Presbyterians have their Synod, the Methodists their
Conference, and all the other motley mongrels some head or other of
their own. Even the "meek" and money-making followers of George Fox
have their Elders and Yearly Meeting. All these heads exercise an
absolute power over their members. They give or refuse their sanction
to the appointment of the bawlers; they remove them, or break them,
at pleasure. We have recently seen the Synod in Scotland ordering a
preacher of the name of FLETCHER to cease preaching in London. He
appears not to have obeyed; but the whole congregation has, it seems,
been thrown into confusion in consequence of this disobedience.
Strange enough, or, rather, impudent enough, is it, in these sects,
to refuse to acknowledge any spritual supremacy in the King, while
they declaim against the Catholics, because they will not take an
oath acknowledging that supremacy: and is it not, then, monstrous,
that persons belonging to these sects can sit in Parliament, can sit
in the King's council, can be generals or admirals or judges, while
from all these posts, and many others, the Catholics are excluded,
and that, too, only because their consciences, their honourable
adherence to the religion of their fathers, will not allow them to
acknowledge this supremacy, but bids them belong to the "one fold and
the one shepherd," and to know none other than "one Lord one faith,
and one baptism"?

89.  But the POPE was a foreigner exercising spiritual power in
England; and this the hypocrites pretended was a degradation to the
King and country. This was something to tickle JOHN BULL, who has,
and, I dare say, always has had, an instinctive dislike to
foreigners. But, in the first place, the POPE might be an Englishman,
and we have, in paragraph 42, seen one instance of this. Then how
could it be a thing degrading to this nation, when the same thing
existed with regard to all other nations? Was King ALFRED, and were
all the long line of kings, for 900 years, degraded beings? Did those
who really conquered France, not by subsidies and bribes, but by
arms; did they not understand what was degrading, and what was not?
Does not the present King of France, and do not the present French
people, understand this matter? Are the sovereignty of the former,
and the freedom of the latter, less perfect, because the papal
supremacy is distinctly acknowledged. and has full effect in France?
And if the Synod in Scotland can exercise its supremacy in England,
and the Conference in England exercise its supremacy in Scotland, in
Ireland, and in the Colonies; if this can be without any degradation
of king or people, why are we to look upon the exercise of the papal
supremacy as degrading to either?

90.  Ay; but there was the money. The money ot England went to the
POPE. Popes cannot live, and keep courts and ambassadors, and
maintain great state, without money, any more than other people. A
part of the money of England went to the POPE; but a part also of
that of every other Christian nation took the same direction. This
money was not, however, thrown away. It was so much given for the
preservation of unity of faith, peace, good will and charity, and
morality. We shall, in the broils that ensued, and in the consequent
subsidies and bribes to foreigners, soon see that the money which
went to the POPE, was extremely well laid out. But how we Protestants
strain at a gnat, while we swallow camels by whole caravans! Mr.
PERCEVAL gave more to foreigners in one single year than the Popes
ever received from our ancestors in four centuries. We have bowed,
for years, to a DUTCHMAN, who was no heir to the crown any more than
one of our workhouse paupers, and who had not one drop of English
blood in his veins; and we now send annually to Hanoverians and other
foreigners, under the name of half-pay, more money than was ever sent
to the POPE in twenty years. From the time of the "Glorious
Revolution," we have been paying two thousand pounds a year to the
heirs of "Marshal SCHOMBERG," who came over to help the DUTCHMAN; and
this is, mind, to be paid as long as there are such heirs of Marshal
SCHOMBERG, which, to use the elegant and logical and philosophical
phrase of our great "Reformation" poet, will, I dare say, be "for
ever and a day." And have we forgotten the BENTINCKS and all the rest
of the DUTCH tribe, who had estates of the Crown heaped upon them:
and do we talk, then, of the degradation and the loss of money
occasioned by the supremacy of the POPE! It is a notorious fact, that
not a German soldier would have been wanted in this kingdom, during
the last war, had it not been for the disturbed and dangerous state
of Ireland, in which the German troops were very much employed. We
have long been paying, and have now to pay, and shall long have to
pay, upwards of a hundred thousand pounds a year to the half-pay
officers of these troops, one single penny of which, we now should
not have had to pay, if we had dispensed with the oath of supremacy
from the Catholics. Every one to his taste; but, for my part, if I
must pay foreigners for keeping me in order, I would rather pay
"pence to PETER" than pounds to Hessian Grenadiers. Alien Priories,
the establishment of which was for the purpose of inducing learned
persons to come and live in England, have been a copious source of
declamatory complaint. But, leaving their utility out of the
question, I, for my particular part, prefer Alien Priories to Alien
Armies, from which latter this country has never been, except for
very short intervals, wholly free, from the day that the former were
suppressed. I wish not to set myself up as a dictator in matters of
taste; but, I must take leave to say, that I prefer the cloister to
the barrack; the chaunting of matins to the reveille by the drum; the
cowl to the brass-fronted hairy cap; the shaven crown to the
mustachio, though the latter be stiffened with black-ball; the
rosary, with the cross appendant, to the belt with its box of
bullets; and, beyond all measure, I prefer the penance to the point
of the bayonet. One or the other of these set of things, it would
seem, we must have; for, before the "Reformation," England never
knew, and never dreamed, of such a thing as a standing soldier; since
that event she has never, in reality, known what it was to be without
such soldiers: till, at last, a thundering standing army, even in
time of profound peace, is openly avowed to be necessary to the
"preservation of our happy constitution in CHURCH AND STATE."

91. However, this money part of the affair is now over, with regard
to the POPE. No one proposes to give him any money at all, in any
shape whatever. The Catholics believe, that the unity of their church
would be destroyed, that they would, in short, cease to be Catholics,
if they were to abjure his supremacy; and, therefore, they will not
abjure it: they insist that their teachers shall receive their
authority from him: and what do they, with regard to the POPE, insist
upon, more than is insisted upon and acted upon by the Presbyterians,
with regard to their Synod?

92.  Lastly, as to this supremacy of the POPE, what was its effect
with regard to civil liberty; that is to say, with regard to the
security, the rightful enjoyment, of men's property and lives? We
shall, by-and-by, see that civil liberty fell by the same tyrannical 
hands that suppressed the POPE's supremacy. But whence came our civil
liberty? Whence came those laws of England which LORD COKE calls "the
birth-right" of Englishmen, and which each of the States of America,
declare, in their constitutions, to be the "birth-right of the people
thereof?" Whence came these laws? Are they of Protestant origin? The
bare question ought to make the revilers of the Catholics hang their
heads for shame. Did Protestants establish the three courts and the
twelve judges, to which establishment, though, like all other human
institutions, it has sometimes worked evil, England owes so large a
portion of her fame and her greatness? Oh, no! This institution arose
when the POPE's supremacy was in full vigour. It was not a gift from
Scotckmen, nor Dutchmen, nor Hessians; from Lutherans, Calvinists,
nor Huguenots; but was the work of our own brave and wise English
Catholic ancestors; and CHIEF JUSTICE Annon is the heir, in an
unbroken line of succession, to that BENCH, which was erected by
ALFRED, who was, at the very same time, most zealously engaged in the
founding of churches and of monasteries.

93.  If, however, we still insist, that the POPE's supremacy and its
accompanying circumstances, produced ignorance, superstition and
slavery, let us act the part of sincere, consistent and honest men.
Let us knock down, or blow up, the cathedrals and colleges and old
churches; let us sweep away the three courts, the twelve judges, the
circuits, and the jury-boxes; let us demolish all that we inherit
from those whose religion we so unrelentingly persecute, and whose
memory we affect so heartily to despise: let us demolish all this,
and we shall have left, all our own, the capacious jails and
penitentiaries; stock-exchange; the hot and ancle- and knee-swelling,
and lung-destroying cotton-factories; the whiskered standing army and
its splendid barracks; the parson-captains, parson-lieutenants,
parson-ensigns and parson-justices; the poor-rates and the pauper
houses; and, by no means forgetting, that blessing which is
peculiarly and doubly and "gloriously" Protestant, the NATIONAL DEBT.
Ah! people of England, how have you been deceived!

94.  But, for argument's sake, counting the experience of antiquity
for nothing, let us ask ourselves what a chance civil liberty can
stand, if all power, spiritual and lay, be lodged in the hands of the
same man? That man must be a despot, or his power must be undermined
by an Oligarchy, or by something. If the President, or the Congress,
of the United States, had a spiritual supremacy; if they appointed
the Bishops and Ministers, though they have no benefices to give, and
would have no tenths and first fruits to receive, their government
would be a tyranny in a very short time. MONTESQUIEU observes, that
the people of Spain and Portugal would have been absolute slaves,
without the power of the Church, which is, in such a case, "the only
check to arbitrary sway." Yet, how long have we had "papal usurpation
and tyranny" dinned in our ears! This charge against the POPE
surpasseth all understanding. How was the POPE to be an usurper, or
tyrant, in England? He had no fleet, no army, no judge, no sheriff,
no justice of the peace, not even a single constable or beadle at his
command. We have been told of "the thunders of the Vatican" till we
have almost believed, that the POPE's residence was in the skies;
and, if we had believed it quite, the belief would not have surpassed
in folly, our belief in numerous other stories hatched by the gentry
of the "Reformation." The truth is, that the POPE had no power but
that which he derived from the free will of the people. The people
were frequently on his side, in his contests with Kings; and, by this
means, they, in numerous instances, preserved their rights against
the attempts of tyrants. If the POPE had had no power, there must
have sprung up an Oligarchy, or a something else, to check the power
of the King: or, every king might have been a Nero, if he would. We
shall soon see a worse than Nero in Henry VIII.; we shall soon see
him laying all law prostrate at his feet; and plundering his people,
down even to the patrimony of the poor. But, reason says that it must
be so; and, though this spiritual power be now nominally lodged in
the hands of the King, to how many tricks and contrivances have we
resorted, and some of them most disgraceful and fatal ones, in order
to prevent him from possessing the reality of this power! We are
obliged to effect by influence and by faction that is to say, by
means indirect, disguised, and frequently flagitiously immoral, not
to say almost seditious into the bargain, that which was effected by
means direct, avowed, frank, honest, and loyal. It is curious enough,
that while all Protestant ministers are everlastingly talking about
"papal usurpation and tyranny," all of them, except those who profit
from the establishment, talk not less incessantly about what they
have no scruple to call, "that two-headed monster, Church and State."
What a monster would it have been, then, if the Catholics had
submitted to the "VETO;" that is to say, to give the King a rejecting
voice in the appointment of Catholic Bishops; and thus to make him,
who is already "the Defender of the Faith," against which he
protests, an associate with the Sovereign Pontiff in carrying on the
affairs of that church, to which the law strictly forbids him to
belong!

95.  Thus, then, this so much abused papal supremacy was a most
salutary thing: it was the only check, then existing, on despotic
power, besides it being absolutely necessary to that unity of faith,
without which there could be nothing worthy of the name of a Catholic
Church. To abjure this supremacy was an act of apostacy, and also, an
act of base abandonment of the rights of the people. To require it of
any man was to violate Magna Charta and all the laws of the land; and
to put men to death for refusing to comply with the request was to
commit unqualified murder. Yet, without such murder, without shedding
innocent blood, it was impossible to effect the object. Blood must
flow. Amongst the victims to this act of outrageous tyranny, were,
Sir THOMAS MORE and Bishop FISHER. The former had been the LORD HIGH
CHANCELLOR for many years. The character given of him by his
contemporaries, and by every one, to the present day, is that of as
great perfection for learning, integrity and piety, as it is possible
for a human being to possess. He was the greatest lawyer of his age,
a long-tried and most faithful servant of the King and his father;
and was, besides, so highly distinguished beyond men in general for
his gentleness and humility of manners, as well as for his talents
and abilities, that his murder gave a shock to all Europe. FISHER was
equally eminent in point of learning, piety, and integrity. He was
the only surviving privy-councillor of the late King, whose mother
(the grandmother of Henry VIII.) having out lived her son and
daughter, besought with her dying breath, the young King to listen
particularly to the advice of this learned, pious, and venerable
prelate; and, until that advice thwarted his brutal passions, he was
in the habit of saying, that no other prince could boast of a subject
to be compared with FISHER. He used, at the council-board, to take
him by the hand and call him his father; marks of favour and
affection which the Bishop repaid by zeal and devotion which knew no
bounds other than those prescribed by his duty to God, his King and
his country. But, that sacred duty bade him object to the divorce and
to the King's supremacy; and then the tyrant, forgetting, at once,
all his services, all his devotion, all his unparalleled attachment,
sent him to the block, after fifteen months of imprison ment, during
which he lay, worse than a common felon, buried in filth and almost
destitute of food; sent him, who had been his boast, and whom he had
called his father, to perish under the axe; dragged him forth, with
limbs tottering under him, his venerable face and hoary locks
begrimed, and his nakedness scarcely covered with the rags left on
his body; dragged him thus forth to the scaffold, and, even when the
life was gone, left him to lie on that scaffold like a dead dog!
Savage monster! Rage stems the torrent of our tears, hurries us back
to the horrid scene, and bids us look about us for a dagger to plunge
into the heart of the tyrant.

96.  And yet, the calculating, cold-blooded and brazen BURNET has the
audacity to say, that "such a man as Henry VIII. was necessary to
bring about the Reformation!" He means, of course, that such measures
as those of Henry were necessary; and, if they were necessary, what
must be the nature and tendency of that "Reformation?"

97.  The work of blood was now begun, and it proceeded with steady
pace. All who refused to take the oath of supremacy; that is to say,
all who refused to become apostates, were considered and treated as
traitors, and made to suffer death accompanied with every possible
cruelty and indignity. As a specimen of the works of BURNET's
necessary reformer, and to spare the reader repetition on the
subject, let us take the treatment of JOHN HOUGHTON, Prior of the
Charter-house in London, which was then a convent of Carthusian
monks. This Prior, for having refused to take the oath, which,
observe, he could not take without committing perjury, was hanged at
TYBURN. He was scarcely suspended when the  rope was cut, and he
alive on the ground. His clothes were then stripped off; his bowels
were ripped up; his heart and entrails were torn from his body and
flung into a fire; his head was cut from his body; the body was
divided into quarters and parboiled; the quarters were then
subdivided and hung up in different parts of the city; and one arm
was nailed to the wall over the entrance into the monastery!

98.  Such were the means, which BURNET says were necessary to
introduce the Protestant religion into England. How different, alas!
from the means by which the Catholic religion had been introduced by
POPE GREGORY and Saint AUSTIN! These horrid butcheries were
perpetrated, mind, under the primacy of Fox's great Martyr, CRANMER,
and with the active agency of another ruffian, named THOMAS CROMWELL,
whom we shall soon see sharing with CRANMER the work of plunder, and
finally sharing, too, in his disgraceful end.

99.  Before we enter on the grand subject of plunder, which was the
mainspring of the "Reformation," we must follow the King and his
primate through their murders of Protestants, as well as Catholics.
But, first, we must see how the Protestant religion arose, and how it
stood at this juncture. Whence the term, Protestant, came, we have
seen in paragraph 3. It was a name given to those who declared, or
protested, against the Catholic, or universal church. This work of
protesting was begun in Germany, in the year 1517, by a friar, whose
name was MARTIN LUTHER, and who belonged to a convent of Augustin
friars, in the electorate of Saxony. At this time the POPE had
authorised the preaching of certain indulgences, and this business
having been entrusted to the Order of Dominicans, and not to the
order to which LUTHER belonged, and to which it had been usual to
commit such trust, here was one of the motives from which LUTHER's
opposition to the POPE proceeded. He found a protector in his
sovereign, the Elector of Saxony, who appears to have had as strong a
relish for plunder, as that with which our English tyrant and his
courtiers and parliament were seized a few years afterwards.

100.  All accounts agree that LUTHER was a most profligate man. To
change his religion he might have thought himself called by his
conscience; but, conscience could not call upon him to be guilty of
all the abominable deeds of which he stands convicted even by his own
confessions, of which I shall speak more fully, when I come to the
proper place for giving an account of the numerous sects into which
the Protestants were soon divided, and of the fatal change which was,
by this innovation in religion, produced, even according to the
declaration of the Protestant leaders themselves, in the morals of
the people and the state of society. But, just observing, that the
Protestant sects had, at the time we are speaking of, spread
themselves over a part of Germany, and had got into Switzerland and
some other states of the Continent, we must now, before we state more
particulars relating to LUTHER and the sects that he gave rise to,
see how the King of England dealt with those of his subjects who had
adopted the heresy.

101.  The Protestants immediately began to disagree amongst
themselves; but, they all maintained, that faith alone was sufficient
to secure salvation; while the Catholics maintained, that good works
were also necessary. The most profligate of men, the most brutal and
bloody of tyrants may be a stanch believer; for the devils themselves
believe; and, therefore, we naturally, at first thought, think it
strange, that Henry VIII. did not instantly become a zealous
Protestant, did not become one of the most devoted disciples of
LUTHER, He would, certainly; but LUTHER began his "Reformation" a few
years too soon for the King. In 151 7, when LUTHER began his works,
the King had been married to his first wife only eight years; and he
had not then conceived any project of divorce. If LUTHER had begun
twelve years later, the King would have been a Protestant at once,
especially after seeing that this new religion allowed LUTHER and
seven other of his brother leaders in the "Reformation" to grant,
under their hands, a licence to the LANGRAVE OF HESSE to have TWO
WIVES at one and the same time! So complaisant a religion would have
been, and, doubtless was, at the time of the divorce, precisely to
the King's taste; but, as I have just observed, it came twelve years
too soon for him; for, not only had he not adopted this religion, but
had opposed it, as a Sovereign; and, which was a still more serious
affair, had opposed it, as an AUTHOR! He had in 1521, written a BOOK
against it. His vanity, his pride, were engaged in the contest; to
which may be added, that Luther, in answering his book, had called
him "a pig, an ass, a dunghill, the spawn of an adder, a basilisk, a
lying buffoon dressed in a king's robes, a mad fool with a frothy
mouth and a whorish face;" and had afterwards said to him, "you lie,
you stupid and sacrilegious King."

102.  Therefore, though the tyrant was bent on destroying the
Catholic Church, he was not less bent on the extirpation of the
followers of LUTHER and his tribe of new sects. Always under the
influence of some selfish and base motive or other, he was, With
regard to the Protestants, set to work by revenge, as, in the case of
the Catholics, he had been set to work by lust, if not by lust to be
gratified by incest. To follow him, step by step, and in minute
detail, through all his butcheries and all his burnings, would be to
familiarize one's mind to a human slaughter-house and a cookery of
cannibals. I shall, therefore, confine myself to a general view of
his works in this way.

103.  His book against LUTHER had acquired him the title of "Defender
of the Faith," of which we shall see more by-and-by. He could not,
therefore, without recantation, be a Protestant; and, indeed, his
pride would not suffer him to become the proselyte of a man, who had,
in print, too, proclaimed him to be a pig, an ass, a fool, and a
liar. Yet he could not pretend to be a Catholic. He was, therefore,
compelled to make a religion of his own. This was doing nothing,
unless he enforced its adoption by what he called law. Laws were made
by him and by his servile and plundering parliament, making it heresy
in, and condemning to the flames, all who did not expressly conform,
by acts as well as by declarations, to the faith and worship, which,
as head of the Church, he invented and ordained. Amongst his tenets
there were such as neither Catholics nor Protestants could,
consistently with their creeds, adopt. He, therefore, sent both to
the stake, and sometimes, in order to add mental pangs to those of
the body, he dragged them to the fire on the same hurdle, tied
together in pairs back to back, each pair containing a Catholic and a
Protestant, Was this the way that Saint AUSTIN and Saint PATRICK
propagated their religion? Yet, such is the malignity of BURNET, and
of many, many others, called Protestant "divines," that they
apologise for, if they do not absolutely applaud, this execrable
tyrant, at the very moment that they are compelled to confess that he
soaked the earth with Protestant blood, and filled the air with the
fumes of their roasting flesh.

104.  Throughout the whole of this bloody work, CRANMER, who was the
primate of the King's religion, was consenting to, sanctioning, and
aiding and abetting in, the murdering of Protestants well as of
Catholics; though, and I pray you to mark it well, HUME, TILLOTSON,
BURNET, and all his long list of eulogists, say, and make it matter
of merit in him, that, all this while, he was himself a sincere
Protestant in his heart! And, indeed, we shall, by-and-by, see him
openly avowing those very tenets, for the holding of which he had
been instrumental in sending, without regard to either age or sex,
others to perish in the flames. The progress of this man in the paths
of infamy, needed incontestible proof to reconcile the human mind to
a belief in it. Before he became a priest he had married: after he
became a priest, and had taken the oath of celibacy, he being then in
Germany, and having become a Protestant, married another wife, while
the first was still alive. Being the primate of Henry's Church, which
still forbade the clergy to have wives, and which held them to their
oath of celibacy, he had his wife brought to England in a chest, with
holes bored in it to give her air. As the cargo was destined for
Canterbury, it was landed at Gravesend, where the sailors, not
apprised of the contents of the chest, set it up on one end, and the
wrong end downwards, and had nearly broken the neck of the poor frow!
Here was a pretty scene! A German frow, with a litter of half German
half English young ones, kept in hugger-mugger, on that spot, which
had been the cradle of English Christianity; that spot, where Saint
AUSTIN had inhabited, and where THOMAS À BECKET had sealed with his
blood his opposition to a tyrant, who aimed at the destruction of the
Church and at the pillage of the people! Here is quite enough to fill
us with disgust; but, when we reflect, that this same primate, while
he had under his roof his frow and her litter, was engaged in
assisting to send Protestants to the flames, because they dissented
from a system that forbade the clergy to have wives, we swell with
indignation, not against CRANMER, for, though there are so many of
his atrocious deeds yet to come, he has exhausted our store; not
against HUME, for he professed no regard for any religion at all;
but, against those who are called "divines," and who are the
eulogists of CRANMER; against BURNET, who says that CRANMER "did all
with a good conscience;" and against Dr. STURGES, or rather, the Dean
and Chapter of Winchester, who clubbed their "talents" in getting up
the "Reflections on Popery," who talk of the "respectable CRANMER,"
and who have the audacity to put him, in point of integrity, upon a
level with Sir THOMAS MORE! As Dr. MILNER, in his answer to STURGES,
observes, they resembled each other in that the name of both was
Thomas; but in all other things, the dissimilarity was as great, as
that which the most vivid imagination can ascribe to the
dissimilarity between hell and heaven.

105.  The infamy of CRANMER in assisting in sending people to the
flames for entertaining opinions, which he afterwards confessed that 
he himself entertained at the time that he was so sending them, can
be surpassed by nothing of which human depravity is capable; and it
can be equalled by nothing but that of the King, who, while he was,
as he hoped and thought, laying the axe to the root of the Catholic
faith, still styled himself its defender! He was not, let it be borne
in mind, defender of what he might, as others have, since his day,
and in his day, called the Christian Faith. He received the title
from the POPE, as a reward for his written defence of the Catholic
faith against Luther. The POPE conferred on him this title, which was
to descend to his posterity. The title was given by POPE Leo X. in a
bull, or edict, beginning with these words: "Leo, servant of the 
servants of the Lord, to his most dear Son, Henry, King of England,
Defender of the Faith, all health and happiness." The bull then goes
on to say, that the King, having, in defence of the faith of the
Catholic Church, written a book against Martin Luther, the POPE and
his Council had determined to confer on him and his successors the
title of Defender of the Faith. "We," says the bull, "sitting in this
Holy See, having, with mature deliberation, considered the business
with our brethren, do with their unanimous counsel and consent, grant
unto your Majesty, your heirs and successors, the title of Defender
of the Faith; which we do, by these presents, confirm unto you,
commanding all the Faithful to give your Majesty this title."

106.  What are we to think, then, of the man who could continue to
wear this title, while he was causing to be acted before him a farce,
in which the POPE and his Council were exposed to derision, and was
burning, and ripping up the bowels, of people, by scores, only
because they remained firm in that faith of which he had still the
odious effrontery to call himself the defender? All justice,
everything like law, every moral thought must have been banished
before such monstrous enormity could have been suffered to exist.
They were all banished from the seat of power. An iron despotism had,
as we shall see in the next Number, come to supply the place of the
papal supremacy. Civil liberty was wholly gone; no man had any thing
that he could call property; and no one could look upon his life as
safe for twenty-four hours.

107. But, there is a little more to be said about this title of
Defender of the Faith, which, for some reason or other that one can
hardly discover, seems to have been, down to our time, a singularly
great favourite. EDWARD VI., though his two "Protectors," who
succeeded each other in that office, and whose guilty heads we shall
gladly see succeeding each other on the block, abolished the Catholic
faith by law; though the Protestant faith was, with the help of
Foreign troops, established in its stead, and though the greedy
ruffians, of his time, robbed the very altars, under the pretext of
extirpating that very faith, of which his title called him the
Defender, continued to wear this title throughout his reign.
ELIZABETH continued to wear this title, during her long reign of
"mischief and of misery," as WITAKER justly calls it, though during
the whole of that reign she was busily engaged in persecuting, in
ruining, in ripping up the bowels of those who entertained that
faith, of which she styled herself the Defender, in which she herself
had been born, in which she had lived for many years, and to which
she adhered, openly and privately, till her self-interest called upon
her to abandon it. She continued to wear this title while she was
tearing the bowels out of her subjects for hearing mass; while she
was refusing the last comforts of the Catholic religion to her
cousin, MARY, Queen of Scotland, whom she put to death by a mockery
of law and jus tice, after, as WITAKER has fully proved, having long
endeavoured in vain to find amongst her subjects, a man base and
bloody enough to take her victim off by assassination. This title was 
worn by that mean creature, JAMES I., who took as his chief
councillor the right worthy son of that father who had been the chief
contriver of the murder of his innocent mother, and whose reign was
one unbroken series of base plots and cruel persecutions of all who
professed the Catholic faith. But, not to anticipate further matter
which will, hereafter, find a more suitable place, we may observe,
that, amongst all our sovereigns, the only real Defenders of the
Faith, since the reign of MARY, have been the late King and his son,
our present sovereign: the former, by assent ing to a repeal of a
part of the penal code, and by his appointing a special commission to
try, condemn, and execute the leaders of the ferocious mob who set
fire to, and who wished to sack, London, in 1780, with the cry of "NO
POPERY" in their mouths, and from pretended zeal for the Protestant
religion: and the latter, by his sending, in 1814, a body of English
troops to assist, as a guard of honour, at the re-instalment of the
POPE. Let us hope, that his defence of the faith is not to stop here;
but that unto him is reserved the real glory of being the Defender of
the Faith of all his subjects, and of healing for ever those deep and
festering wounds, which, for more than two centuries, have been
inflicted on so large and so loyal a part of his people.

108.  From the sectarian host no man can say, what ought to be
expected! but, from the "divines" of the established Church, even
supposing them dead to the voice of justice, one would think, that,
when they reflect on the origin of this title of their sovereign,
common decency would restrain their revilings. It is beyond all
dispute that the King holds this title from the POPE and from nobody
else. His divine right to the crown is daily disputed; and he himself
has disclaimed it. But, as to Defender of the Faith, he owes it
entirely to the POPE. Will, then, the Protestant divines boldly tell
us, that their and our sovereign wears a title, which, observe, finds
its way, not only into every treaty, but into every municipal act,
deed, or covenant; will they tell us, that he holds this title from
the "Man of Sin, Antichrist, and the scarlet whore"? Will they thus
defame that sovereign, whom they, at the same time, call on us to
honour and obey? Yet this they must do; or they must confess, that
their revilings, their foul abuse of the Catholic Church, have all
been detestably false.

109.  The King's predecessors had another title. They were called
Kings of France; a title of much longer standing than that of
Defender of the Faith. That title, a title of great glory, and one of
which we were very proud, was not won by "Gospellers" or
Presbyterians, or New Lights, with Saint Noel or Saint Butterworth at
their head. It was, along with the Three Feathers, which the King so
long wore, won by our brave Catholic ancestors. It was won while the
POPE's supremacy; while confessions to priests, while absolutions,
indulgences, masses, and monasteries existed in England. lit was won
by Catholics in the "dark ages of monkish ignorance and
superstition." It was surrendered in an age enlightened by a "heaven-
born" Protestant and pledge-breaking Minister. It was won by valour
and surrendered by fear; and fear, too, of those whom, for years, we
had been taught to regard as the basest (as they certainly had been
the bloodiest) of all mankind.

110. It would be time now, after giving a rapid sketch of the
progress which the tyrant had made in prostrating the liberties of
his people, and in despatching more of his wives, to enter on the
grand scene of plunder, and to recount the miseries which immediately
followed; but these must be the subject of the next Letter.







LETTER IV.

HORRID TYRANNY. BUTCHERY OF THE COUNTESS OF SALISBURY.
CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY.-- BISHOPS OF WINCHESTER.
HUME'S CHARGES AND BISHOP TANNER'S ANSWER.

Kensington, 28th February, 1825.

MY FRIENDS,

111.  WE have seen, then, that the "Reformation" was engendered in
beastly lust, brought forth in hypocrisy and perfidy, and we have had
some specimens of the acts by which it caused innocent blood to be
shed. We shall now, in this Letter and the next, see how it
devastated and plundered the country, what poverty and misery it
produced, and how it laid the sure foundation for that pauperism,
that disgraceful immorality, that fearful prevalence of crimes of all
sorts, which now so strongly mark the character of this nation, which
was formerly the land of virtue and of plenty.

112.  When, in paragraph 97, we left the King and CRANMER at their
bloody work, we had come to the year 1536, and to the 27th year of
the King's reign. In the year 1528, an act had been passed to exempt
the King from paying any sum of money that he might have borrowed;
another act followed this for a similar purpose; and thus thousands
of persons were ruined. His new Queen, JANE SEYMOUR brought him, in
1537, a son, who was afterwards King, under the title of EDWARD VI.;
but the mother died in Child-birth, and according to Sir RICHARD
BAKER, "had her body ripped up to preserve the child"! In this great
"Reformation" man all was of a piece: all was consistent: he seemed
never to have any compassion for the suffering of any human being;
and this is a characteristic which WITAKER gives to his daughter
ELIZABETH.

113. Having a son for a successor, he, with his Parliament, enacted,
in 1537, that MARY and ELIZABETH, his two daughters, were bastards,
and that, in case of a want of lawful issue, the King should be
enabled, by letters patent, or by his last will, to give the crown to
whomsoever he pleased! To cap the whole, to complete a series of acts
of tyranny such as was never before heard of, it was enacted, in
1537, and in the 28th year of his reign, that, except in cases of
mere private right; "the King's Proclamations should be of the same
force as Acts of Parliament"! Thus, then, all law and justice were 
laid prostrate at the feet of a single man, and that man a man with
whom law was a mockery, on whom the name of justice was a libel, and
to whom mercy was wholly unknown.

114. It is easy to imagine that no man's property or life could have
security with power like this in the hands of such a man. MAGNA
CHARTA had been trampled under foot from the moment that the POPE's
supremacy was assailed. The famous Act of EDWARD THE THIRD, for the
security of the people against unfounded charges of high treason, was
wholly set aside. Numerous things were made high treason, which were
never before thought criminal at all. The trials were, for a long
while, a mere mockery; and at last, they were altogether, in many
cases, laid aside, and the accused were condemned to death, not only
without being arraigned and heard in their defence; but, in numerous
cases, without being apprised of the crimes, or pretended crimes, for
which they were executed. We have read of Deys of Algiers and of Beys
of Tunis; but, never have heard of their, even in the most
exaggerated accounts, deeds to be, in point of injustice and cruelty,
compared with those of this man, whom BURNET calls, "the first-born
son of the English 'Reformation.'" The objects of his bloody cruelty
generally were, as they naturally would be, chosen from amongst the
most virtuous of his subjects; because from them such a man had the
most to dread. Of these his axe hewed down whole families and circles
of friends. He spared neither sex nor age, if the parties possessed,
or were suspected of possessing, that integrity which made them
disapprove of his deeds. To look awry excited his suspicion, and his
suspicion was death. England, before his bloody reign, so happy, so
free, knowing so little of crime as to present to the judges of
assize scarcely three criminals in a county in a year, now saw
upwards of sixty thousand persons shut up in her gaols at one and the
same time. The purlieus of the court of this "first-born son of the
Reformation" were a great human slaughter-house, his people, deserted
by their natural leaders, who had been bribed by plunder, or the hope
of plunder, were the terrified and trembling flock, while he, the
master-butcher, fat and jocose, sat in his palace issuing orders for
the slaughter, while his High Priest, CRANMER, stood ready to
sanction and sanctify all his deeds.

115. A detail of these butcheries could only disgust and weary the
reader. One instance, however, must not be omitted; namely, the
slaughtering of the relations, and particularly the mother, of
Cardinal POLE. The Cardinal, who had, when very young, and before the
King's first divorce had been agitated, been a great favourite with
the King, and had pursued his studies and travels on the Continent at
the King's expense, disapproved of the divorce, and of all the acts
that followed it; and though called home by the King, he refused to
obey. He was a man of great learning, talent, and virtue, and his
opinions had great weight in England. His mother, the Countess of
SALISBURY, was descended from the PLANTAGENETS, and was the last
living descendant of that long race of English Kings. So that the
Cardinal, who had been by the POPE raised to that dignity, on account
of his great learning and eminent virtues, was, thus, a relation of
the King, as his mother was of course, and she was, too, the nearest
of all his relations. But the Cardinal was opposed to the King's
proceedings; and that was enough to excite and put in motion the
deadly vengeance of the latter. Many were the arts that he made use
of, and great in amount was the treasure of his people that he
expended, in order to bring  the Cardinal's person within his grasp;
and, these having failed, he resolved to wreak his ruthless vengeance
on his kindred and his aged mother. She was charged by the base
THOMAS CROMWELL (of whom we shall soon see enough) with having
persuaded her tenants not to read the new translations, of the Bible,
and also with having received bulls from Rome, which the accuser
said, were found at COURDRAY HOUSE, her seat in Sussex. CROMWELL also
showed a banner, which had, he said, been used by certain rebels in
the North, and which he said he found in her house. All this was,
however, so very barefaced, that it was impossible to think of a
trial. The judges were then asked, whether the parliament could not
attaint her; that is to say, condemn her, without giving her a
hearing? The judges said, that it was a dangerous matter; that they
could not, in their courts, act in this manner, and that they thought
the parliament never would. But, being asked, whether, if the
parliament were to do it, it would remain good in law, they answered
in the affirmative. That was enough. A bill was brought in, and thus
was the Countess, together with the Marchioness of EXETER and two
gentlemen, relations of the Cardinal, condemned to death. The two
latter were executed, the Marchioness was pardoned, and the Countess
shut up in prison as a sort of hostage for the conduct of her son. In
a few months; however, an insurrection having broken out on account
of his tyrannical acts, the King chose to suspect, that the rebels
had been instigated by Cardinal POLE, and, forth he dragged his
mother to the scaffold. She, who was upwards of seventy years of age,
though worn down in body by her imprison ment, maintained to the last
a true sense of her character and noble descent. When bidden to lay
her head upon the block: "No," answered she, "my head shall never bow
to tyranny: it never committed treason; and, if you will have it, you
must get it as you can," The executioner struck at her neck with his
axe, and, as she ran about the scaffold with her gray locks hanging
down her shoulders and breast, he pursued, giving her repeated chops,
till, at last, he brought her down!

116. Is it a scene in Turkey or in Tripoli that we are contemplating?
No; but, in England, where MAGNA CHARTA had been so lately in force.
where nothing could have been done contrary to law; but where all
power, ecclesiastical as well as lay, being placed in the hands of
one man, bloody butcheries like this, which would have roused even a
Turkish populace to resistance, could be perpetrated without the
smallest danger to the perpetrator. HUME, in his remarks upon the
state of the people in this reign, pretends, that the people never
hated the King, and "that he seems even,  in some degree, to have
possessed to the last, their love and affection." He adds, that it
may be said with truth, that the "English, in that age, were so
thoroughly subdued, that, like Eastern slaves, they were inclined to
admire even those acts of violence and tyranny which were exercised
over themselves, and at their own expense." This lying historian
every where endeavours to gloss over the deeds of those who destroyed
the Catholic Church, both in England and Scotland. Too cunning,
however, to applaud the bloody Henry himself, he would have us
believe, that, after all, there was something amiable in him, and
this belief he would have us found on the fact of his having been to
the last, seemingly, beloved by his people.

117. Nothing can be more false than this assertion, if repeated
insurrections against him, accompanied with the most bitter
complaints and reproaches, be not to be taken as marks of popular
affection. And, as to the remark, that the English, "in that age were
so thoroughly subdued," while it seems to refute the assertion as to
their affection for the tyrant, it is a slander, which the envious
Scotch writers all delight to put forth and repeat. One object,
always uppermost with HUME, is to malign the Catholic religion; it,
therefore, did not occur to him, that this sanguinary tyrant was not
effectually resisted, as King John and other bad kings had been,
because this tyrant had the means of bribing the natural leaders of
the people to take part against them; or, at the least, to neutralize
those leaders. It did not occur to him to tell us, that Henry VIII.
found the English as gallant and just a people as his ancestors had
found them; but that, having divided them, having by holding out to
the great an enormous mass of plunder as a reward for abandoning the
rights of the people, the people became, as every people without
leaders must become, a mere flock, or herd, to be dealt with at
pleasure. The malignity and envy of this Scotchman blinded him to
this view of the matter, and induced him to ascribe to the people's
admiration of tyranny that submission, which, after repeated
struggles, they yielded merely from the want of those leaders, of
whom they were now, for the first time, wholly deprived. What? have
we never known any country, consisting of several millions of people,
oppressed and insulted, even for ages, by a mere handful of men? And,
are we to conclude, that such a country submits from admiration of
the tyranny under which they groan? Did the English submit to
CROMWELL from admiration; and, was it from admiration that the French
submitted to ROBESPIERRE? The latter was punished, but CROMWELL was
not: he, like HENRY, died in his bed; but, to what mind except to
that of the most malignant and perverse, would it occur that
CROMWELL'S impunity arose from the willing submission and the
admiration of the people?

118. Of the means by which the natural leaders of the people were
seduced from them; of the kind and the amount of the prize of
plunder, we are now going to take a view. In paragraph 4, I have
said, that the "Reformation" was cherished and fed by plunder and
devastation: In paragraph 37, I have said, that it was not a
Reformation, but a devastation of England; and that this devastation
impoverished and degraded the main body of the people. These
statements I am now about to prove to be true.

119.  In paragraphs from 55 to 60 inclusive, we have seen how
monasteries arose, and what sort of institutions they were. There
were, in England, at the time we are speaking of, 645 of theee
institutions; besides 90 Colleges, 110 Hospitals, and 2374 Chantries
and Free-Chapels. The whole were seized on, first and last, taken
into the hands of the King, and by him granted to those who aided and
abetted him in the work of plunder.

120. I pray you, my friends, sensible and just English men, to
observe here, that this was a great mass of landed property; that
this property was not by any means used for the sole benefit of
monks, friars, and nuns; that, for the far greater part, its rents
flowed immediately back amongst the people at large; and, that, if it
had never been an object of plunder, England never would, and never
could, have heard the hideous sound of the words pauper and poor-
rate. You have seen, in paragraph 52, in what manner the tithes arose
and how they were disposed of; and you are, by-and-by, to see how the
rents of the monasteries were distributed.

121. You have, without doubt, fresh in your recollection all the
censures, sarcasms, and ridicule, which we have, from our very
infancy, heard against the monastic life. What drones the monks and
friars and nuns were; how uselessly they lived; how much they
consumed to no good purpose whatever; and particularly how
ridiculous, and even how wicked it was to compel men and women to
live unmarried, to lead a life of celibacy, and, thus, either to
deprive them of a great natural pleasure, or to expose them to the
double sin of breach of chastity and breach of oath.

122. Now, this is a very important matter. It is a great moral
question; and, therefore, we ought to endeavour to settle this
question; to make up our minds completely upon it, before we proceed
any further. The monastic state necessarily was accompanied with vows
of celibacy; and, therefore, it is, before we give an acccunt of the
putting down of these institutions in England, necessary to speak of
the tendency, and, indeed, of the natural and inevitable consequences
of those vows.

123. It has been represented as "unnatural" to compel men and women
to live in the unmarried state, and as tending to produce
propensities, to which it is hardly proper even to allude. Now, in
the first place, have we heard, of late days, of any propensities of
this sort? Have they made their odious appearance amongst clergymen
and bishops? And, if they have, have those clergymen and bishops been
Catholics, or have they been Protestants? The answer, which every one
now living in England and Ireland can instantly give to these
questions, disposes of this objection to vows of celibacy. In the
next place, the Catholic Church compels nobody to make such vow. It
only says, that it will admit no one to be a priest, monk, friar, or
nun, who rejects such vow. Saint PAUL strongly recommends to all
Christian teachers an unmarried life. The Church has founded a rule
on this recommendation; and that, too, for the same reason that the
recommendation was given; namely, that those who have flocks to watch
over, or, in the language of our own Protestant Church, who have the
care of souls, should have as few as possible of other cares, and
should, by all means, be free from those incessant, and, sometimes,
racking cares, which are inseparable from a wife and family. What
priest, who has a wife and family, will not think more about them
than about his flock? Will he, when any part of that family is in
distress, from illness or other cause, be wholly devoted, body and
mind, to his flock? Will he be as ready to give alms, or aid of any
sort, to the poor, as he would be if he had no family to provide for?
Will he never be tempted to swerve from his duty, in order to provide
patronage for sons, and for the husbands of daughters? Will he always
as boldly stand up and reprove the Lord or the 'Squire for their
oppressions and vices, as he would do if he had no son for whom to
get a benefice, a commission, or a sinecure? Will his wife never have
her partialities, her tattlings, her bickerings, amongst his flock,
and never, on any account, induce him to act towards any part of that
flock, contrary to the strict dictates of his sacred duty? And to
omit hundreds, yes, hundreds of reasons that might, in addition, be
suggested, will the married priest be as ready as the unmarried one
to appear at the bed-side of sickness and contagion? Here it is that
the calls on him are most imperative, and here it is that the married
priest will, and with nature on his side, be deaf to those calls.
From amongst many instances that I could cite, let me take one.
During the war of 1776, the King's house at Winchester was used as a
prison for French prisoners of war. A dreadfully contagious fever
broke out amongst them. Many of them died. They were chiefly
Catholics, and were attended in their last moments by two or three
Catholic Priests residing in that city. But, amongst the sick
prisoners, there were many Protestants; and these requested the
attendance of Protestant Parsons. There were the parsons of all the
parishes at Winchester. There were the Dean and all the Prebendaries,
But, not a man of them went to console the dying Protestants, in
consequence of which several of them desired the assistance of the
priests, and, of course, died Catholics. Doctor MILNER, in his
Letters to Doctor STURGES (page 56,) mentions this matter, and he
says, "the answer" (of the Protestant Parsons) "I understand to have
been this: We are not more afraid, as individuals, to face death than
the priests are; but we must not carry poisonous contagion into the
bosoms of our families." No, to be sure! But, then, not to call this
the cassock's taking shelter behind the petticoat, in what a dilemma
does this place the Dean and Chapter? Either they neglected their
most sacred duty, and left Protestants to flee, in their last
moments, into the arms of "popery;" or that clerical celibacy,
against which they have declaimed all their lives and still declaim,
and still hold up to us, their flocks, as something both contemptible
and wicked, is, after all, necessary to that "care of souls," to
which they profess themselves to have been called, and for which they
receive such munificent reward.

124. But, conclusive, perfectly satisfactory, as these reasons are,
we should not, if we were to stop here, do any thing like justice to
our subject; for, as to the parochial clergy, do we not see, ay, and
feel too, that they, if with families, or intending to have families,
find little to spare to the poor of their flocks? In short, do we not
know that a married priesthood and pauperism and poor-rates, all came
upon this country at one and the same moment? And what was the effect
of clerical celibacy with regard to the higher orders of the clergy?
A bishop, for instance, having neither wife nor child, naturally
expended his revenues amongst the people in his diocese. He expended
a part of them on his Cathedral Church, or in some other way sent his
revenues back to the people. If WILLIAM OF WYKHAM had been a married
man, the parsons would not now have had a COLLEGE at Winchester; nor
would there have been a College either at Eton, Westminster, Oxford,
or Cambridge, if the bishops, in those days, had been married men.
Besides, who is to expect of human nature, that a bishop with a wife
and family will, in his distribution of the church preferment,
consider nothing but the interest of religion? We are not to expect
of man more than that, of which we, from experience, know that man is
capable. It is for the lawgiver to interpose, and to take care that
the community suffer not from the frailty of the nature of
individuals, whose private virtues even may, in some cases, and those
not a few, not have a tendency to produce public good. I do not say
that married bishops ever do wrong, because I am not acquainted with
them well enough to ascertain the fact; but, in speaking of the
diocese in wnich I was born, and with which I am best acquainted, I
may say that it is certain, that, if the late Bishop of Winchester
had lived in Catholic times, he could not have had a wife, and that
he could not have had a wife's sister, to marry Mr. EDMUND POULTER,
in which case, I may be allowed to think it possible, that Mr.
POULTER would not have quitted the bar for the pulpit, and that he
would not have had the two livings of Meon-Stoke and Soberton, and a
Prebend besides; that his son BROWNLOW POULTER would not have had the
two livings of Buriton and Petersfield; that his son CHARLES POULTER
would not have had the three livings of Alton, Binstead and Kingsley;
that his son-in-law OGLE would not have had the living of Bishop's
Waltham; and that his son-in-law HAYGARTH would not have had the two
livings of Upham and Durley. If the Bishop had lived in Catholic
times, he could not have had a son, CHARLES AUGUSTUS NORTH, to have
the two livings of Alverstoke and Havant and to be a Prebend; that he
could not have had another son, FRANCIS NORTH, to have the four
livings of Old Alresford, Medstead, New Alresford, and St. Mary's,
Southampton, and to be, moreover, a Prebend and Master of St. Cross;
that he could not have had a daughter to marry Mr. WiLLIAM GARNIER,
to have the two livings of Droxford and Brightwell Baldwin, and to be
a Prebend and a Chancellor besides; that he could not have had Mr.
William Gamier's brother, THOMAS GARNIER, for a relation, and this
latter might not, then, have had the two livings of Aldingbourn and
Bishop's Stoke; that he could not have another daughter to marry Mr.
THOMAS DE GREY, to have the four livings of Calbourne, Fawley,
Merton, and Rounton, and to be a Prebend and also an Archdeacon
besides! In short, if the late Bishop had lived in Catholic times, it
is a little too much to believe, that these twenty-four Livings, five
Prebends, one Chancellorship, one Archdeaconship, and one Mastership,
worth perhaps, all together. more than twenty thousand pounds a-year,
would have fallen to the ten persons above named. And, may we not
reasonably suppose, that the Bishop, instead of leaving behind him
(as the newspapers told us he did) savings to nearly the amount of
three hundred thousand pounds in money, would, if he had had no
children nor grand-children, have expended a part of his money on
that ancient and magnificent Cathedral, the roof of which has
recently been in danger of falling in, or, would have been the
founder of something for the public good and national honour, or
would have been a most munificent friend and protector of the poor,
and would never, at any rate, have suffered SMALL BEER TO BE SOLD OUT
OF HIS EPISCOPAL PALACE AT FARNHAM? With an excise licence, mind you!
I do not say, or insinuate, that there was any smuggling carried on
at the palace. Nor do I pretend to censure the act. A man who has a
large family to provide for must be allowed to be the best judge of
his means; and, if he happen to have an overstock of small beer, it
is natural enough for him to sell it, in order to get money to buy
meat, bread, groceries, or other necessaries. What I say is, that I
do not think that WILLIAM of WYKHAM ever sold small beer, either by
wholesale or retail; and I most distinctly assert, that this was done
during the late Bishop's life-time, from his Episcopal Palace at
Farnham! WILLIAM OF WYKHAM (who took his surname from a little
village in Hampshire) was not Bishop of Winchester half so long as
the late Bishop: but, out of his revenues, he built and endowed one
of the Colleges at Oxford, the College of Winchester, and did
numerous other most munificent things, in some of which, however, he
was ot without examples in his predecessors, nor without imitators in
his successors as long as the Catholic Church remained; but, when a
married clergy came, then ended all that was munificent in the
Bishops of this once famous city.

125.  It is impossible to talk of the small beer and of the Master of
Saint Cross, without thinking of the melancholy change which the
"Reformation" has produced in this ancient establishment. Saint
Cross, or Holy Cross, situated in a meadow about half a mile from
Winchester, is an hospital, or place for hospitality, founded and
endowed by a Bishop of Winchester, about seven hundred years ago.
Succeeding Bishops added to its endowments, till, at last, it
provided a residence and suitable maintenance for forty-eight decayed
gentlemen, with priests, nurses, and other servants and attendants;
and, besides this, it made provision for a dinner every day for a
hundred of the most indigent men in the city. These met daily in a
hall, called "the hundred men's hall." Each had a loaf of bread,
three quarts of small beer and "two messes," for his dinner; and they
were allowed to carry home that which they did not consume upon the
spot. What is seen at the hospital of Holy Cross now? Alas! TEN poor
creatures creeping about in this noble building, and THREE out-
pensioners; and to those an attorney from Winchester carries, or
sends, weekly, the few pence, whatever they may be, that are allowed
them! But the place of the "Master" is, as I have heard, worth a
round sum annually. I do not know exactly what it is; but, the post
being a thing given to a son of the Bishop, the reader will easily
imagine that it is not a trifle. There exists, however, here, that
which, as Dr. MILNER observes, is probably, the last remaining
vestige of "old English hospitality;" for here, any traveller who
goes and knocks at the gate, and asks for relief, receives gratis a
pint of good beer and a hunch of good bread. The late Lord Henry
Stuart told me that he once went and that he received both.

126.  But (and I had really nearly forgotten it) there is a Bishop of
Winchester now! And, what is he doing? I have not heard that he has
founded, or is about to found, any colleges or hospitals. All that I
have heard of him in. the EDUCATION way, is, that, in his first
charge to his Clergy (which he published) he urged them to circulate
amongst their flocks the pamphlets of a society in London, at the
head of which is Mr. JOSHUA WATSON, wine and spirit merchant, of
Mincing-lane; and, all I have heard of him in the Charity way, is,
that he is VICE-PATRON of a self-created body, called the "Hampshire
Friendly Society," the object of which is, to raise subscriptions
amongst the poor, for "their mutual relief and maintenance;" or, in
other words, to induce the poor labourers to save out of their
earnings the means of supporting themselves, in sickness or in old
age, without coming for relief to the poor-rates! Good God!  Why
WILLIAM OF WYKHAM, Bishop Fox, Bishop WYNEFLEET; Cardinal BEAUFORT,
HENRY DE BLOIS, and, if you take in all the Bishops of Winchester,
even back to Saint SWITHIN himself; never would they have thought of
a scheme like this for relieving the poor! Their way of promoting
learning was, to found and endow colleges and schools; their way of
teaching religion was, to build and endow churches and chapels; their
way of relieving the poor and the ailing was, to found and endow
hospitals: and all these at their own expense; out of their own
revenues. Never did one of them, in order to obtain an interpretation
of "Evangelical truth" for their flocks, dream of referring his
Clergy to a Society, having a wine and brandy merchant at its head.
Never did there come into the head of any one of them a thought so
bright as that of causing the necessitous to relieve themselves! Ah!
but they, alas lived. in the "dark ages of monkish ignorance and
superstition." No wonder that they could not see that the poor were
the fittest persons in the world to relieve the poor! And, besides,
they had no wives and children! No sweet babes to smile on, to soften
their hearts. If they had, their conjugal and paternal feelings would
have taught them, that true charity begins at home; and that it
teaches men to sell small beer, and not give it away.

127. Enough now about the celibacy of the Clergy: but, it is
impossible to quit the subject without one word to Parson MALTHUS.
This man is not only a Protestant, but a parson of our Church. Now,
he wants to compel the labouring classes to refrain, to a great
extent, from marriage; and Mr. SCARLETT actually brought a bill into
parliament, having, in one part of it, this object avowedly in view;
the great end, proposed by both, being to cause a diminution of the
poor-rates. Parson MALTHUS does not call this recommending celibacy;
but "moral restraint." And, what is celibacy but moral restraint? So
that, here are these people reviling the Catholic Church for
insisting on vows of celibacy on the part of those who choose to be
priests, or nuns; and, at the same time, proposing to compel the
labouring classes to live in a state of celibacy, or to run the
manifest risk of perishing (they and their children) from starvation!
Is all this sheer impudence, or is it sheer folly? One or the other
it is, greater than ever was before heard from the lips of mortal
man. They affect to believe that the clerical vow of celibacy must be
nugatory, because nature is constantly at work to overcome it. This
is what Dr. STURGES asserts. Now, if this be the case with men of
education; men on whom their religion imposes abstinence, fasting,
almost constant prayer, and an endless number of austerities; if this
be the case with regard to such men, bound by a most solemn vow, a
known breach ot which exposes them to indelible infamy; if such be
the case with such men, and if it be, therefore, contemptible and
wicked, not to compel them, mind, to make such vows, but to permit
them voluntarily to do it, what must it be to compel young men and
women labourers to live in a state of celibacy, or be exposed to
absolute starvation? Why, the answer is, that it is the grossest of
inconsistency, or of premeditated wickedness; but that, like all the
other wild schemes and cruel projects relative to the poor, we trace
it at once back to the" Reformation," that great source of the
poverty and misery and degradation of the main body of the people of
this kingdom. The "Reformation" despoiled the working classes of
their patrimony; it tore from them that which nature and reason had
assigned them; it robbed them of that relief for the necessitous,
which was theirs by right imprescriptable, and which had been
confirmed to them by the law of God and the law of the land. It
brought a compulsory, a grudging, an unnatural mode of relief,
calculated to make the poor and rich hate each other, instead of
binding them together, as the Catholic mode did, by the bonds of
Christian charity. But of all its consequences that of introducing a
married clergy has, perhaps, been the most prolific in mischief. This
has absolutely created an order for the procreation of dependants on
the state; for the procreation of thousands of persons annually, who
have no fortunes of their own, and who must be, some how or other,
maintained by burdens imposed upon the people. Places, commissions,
sinecures, pensions; something or other must be found for them; some
sort of living out of the fruit of the rents of the rich and the
wages of labour. If no excuse can be found; no pretence of public
service; no corner of the pension list open; then they must come as a
direct burden upon the people; and, thus it is that we have, within
the last twenty years, seen sixteen hundred thousand pounds voted by
the parliament out of the taxes, for the "relief of the poor Clergy
of the Church of England;" and at the very time that this prernium on
the procreation of idlers was annually being granted, the parliament
was pestered with projects for compelling the working part of the
community to lead a life of celibacy! What that is evil, what that is
monstrous, has not grown out of this Protestant "Reformation"!

128.  Thus, then, my friends, we have, I think, settled this great
question; and, after all that we have, during our whole lives, heard
against that rule of the Catholic Church. which imposed a vow of
celibacy on those who chose the clerical, or the monastic life, we
find, whether we look at this rule in a religious, in a moral, in a
civil, or in a political, point of view, that it was founded in
wisdom, that it was a great blessing to the people at large, and that
its abolition is a thing to be deeply deplored.

129. So much, then, for this topic of everlasting railing against the
Catholic Church. We must, before we come to an account of the deeds
of the ruffian, THOMAS CROMWELL, who conducted the work of plunder,
say something in answer to the general charge which Protestant
writers, and particularly the malignant Scotch historians, have
preferred against the Monasteries; for, if what they say were true,
we might be disposed to think (as, indeed, we have been taught to
think), that there was not so much harm in the plunderings that we
are about to witness. We will take this general charge from the pen
of HUME, who (Vol. iv. p. 160), speaking of the reports made by
THOMAS CROMWELL and his myrmidons, says, "it is safest to credit the
existence of vices naturally connected with the very institution of
the monastic life. The cruel and inveterate factions and quarrels,
therefore, which the commissioners mentioned,  are VERY CREDIBLE
among men, who, being confined together within the same walls, can
never forget their mutual animosities, and who, being cut off from
all the most endearing connections of nature, are commonly cursed
with hearts more selfish, and tempers more unrelenting, than fall to
the share of other men. The pious frauds, practised to increase the
devotion and liberality of the people, may be regarded AS CERTAIN, in
an order "founded on illusion, lies and superstition. The SUPINE
IDLENESS, also, and its attendant, PROFOUND IGNORANCE, with which the
convents were reproached, ADMIT OF NO QUESTION. No manly or elegant
knowledge could be expected among men, whose life, condemned to a
tedious uniformity, and deprived of all emulation, afforded nothing
to raise the mind or cultivate the genius."

130.  I question whether monk ever wrote sentences con taining worse
grammar than these contain: but, as to the facts; these "very
credible," these "certain," these "unquestionable," facts, are,
almost upon the face of them, a tissue of malignant lies. What should
there be "factions" and "quarrels" about, amongst men living so
"idle" and "unambitious" a life? How much harder are the hearts of
unmarried, than those of married ecclesiastics we have seen above, in
the contrast between the charities of Catholic, and those of
Protestant, bishops. It is quite "credible," that men, lost in
"supine idleness," should practise frauds to get money, which their
very state prevented them from either keeping or bequeathing, and who
were totally destitute of all "emulation." The malignity of this liar
exceeded his cunning, and made him not perceive, that he was, in one
sentence, furnishing strong presumptive proof against the truth of
another sentence. Yet, as his history has been, and is, much read,
and, as it has deceived me, along with so many thousands of others, I
shall, upon this subject, appeal to several authorities, all
Protestants, mind, in contradiction to these, his false and base
assertions, just remarking, by the way, that he himself never had a
family, or a wife, and that he was a great, fat fellow, fed, in
considerable part, out of public money, without having merited it by
any real public services.

131.  In his History of England, he refers, not less than two hundred
times, to Bishop TANNER, who was Bishop of St. Asaph in the reign of
George the Second. Let us hear, then, what Bishop TANNER; let us hear
what this Protestant Bishop says, of the character and effects of the
Monasteries, which the savages under Henry VIII. destroyed; Let us
see how this high authority of HUME agrees with him on this, one of
the most interesting and important points in our history. We are
about to witness a greater act of plunder, a more daring contempt of
law and justice and humanity, than ever was, in any other case,
witnessed in the whole world. We are going to see thousands upon
thousands of persons stripped, in an instant, of all their property;
torn from their dwellings, and turned out into the wide world to beg
or starve; and all this, too, in violation, not only of natural
justice, but of every law. of the country, written and unwritten. Let
us, then, see what was the character of the persons thus treated, and
what were the effects of the institutions to which they belonged.
And, let us see this, not in the description given by an avowed enemy
not only of the Catholic, but of the Cluttian religion; but, in that
descrIption which has been given us uy a Protestant Bishop, and in a
book written expressly to give "An account of all the abbeys,
priories, and friaries, formerly existing in England and Wales;"
bearing in mind, as we go along, that HUME has, in his History of
England, referred to this very work, upwards of two hundred times,
taking care, however, not to refer to a word of it, relating to the
important question now before us.

132.  Bishop TANNER, before entering on his laborious account of the
several monastic institutions, gives us, in pages 19, 20 and 21 of
his preface, the following general description of the character and
pursuits of the Monasteries, and of the effects of their
establishments. I beg you, my friends, to keep, as you read, Bishop
TANNER's description, the description of HUME constantly in your
minds. Remember, and look, now-and-then, back at his charges of
"supine idleness," "profound ignorance," want of all "emulation and
all manly and Segant knowledge;" and, above all things, remember his
charge of selfishness, his charge of "frauds" to get money from the
people. The Bishop speaks thus upon the subject.

133. "In every great abbey, there was a large room called the
Scriptorium, where several writers made it their whole business to
transcribe books for the use of the library. They sometimes, indeed,
wrote the ledger books of the house, and the missals, and other
books, used in divine service, but they were generally upon other
works, viz.: the Fathers, Classics, Histories, &c. &c. JOHN
WHETHAMSTED, Abbot of St. Albans, caused above eighty books to be
thus transcribed (there was then no printing) during his abbacy.
Fifty-eight were transcribed by the care of one Abbot, at
Glastonbury; and so zealous were the Monks in general for this work,
that they often got lands given, and churches appropriated, for the
carrying of it on. In all the greater abbeys, there were also persons
appointed to take notice of the principal occurrences of the kingdom,
and at the end of every year to digest them into annals. In these
records they particularly preserved the memoirs of their founders,
and benefactors, the years and days of their births and deaths; their
marriages, children, and successors; so that recourse was sometimes
bad to them for proving persons' ages, and genealogies though it is
to be feared, that some of those pedigrees were drawn up from
tradition only: and that, in most of their accounts, they were
favourable to their friends, and severe upon their enemies. The
constitutions of the clergy in their national and provincial synods,
and (after the Conquest) even Acts of Parliament, were sent to the
abbeys to be recorded: Which leads me to mention the use and
advantage of these religious houses. For, FIRST, the choicest records
and treasures in the kingdom were preserved in them. An
exemplification of the charter of liberties, granted by King Henry I.
(MAGNA CHARTA) was sent to some abbey in every county to be
preserved. Charters and Inquisitions relating to the county of
Cornwall were deposited in the Priory of Bodmin; a great many rolls
were lodged in the Abbey of Leicester, and Priory of Kenilworth, till
taken from thence by King Henry III. King Edward I. sent to the
religious houses to search for his title to the kingdom of Scotland,
in their ledgers and chronicles, as the most authentic records for
proof of his right to that crown. When his sovereignty was
acknowledged in Scotland, he sent letters to have it inserted in the
chronicles of the Abbey of Winchomb, and the Priory of Norwich, and
probably of many other such like places. And when he decided the
controversy relating to the crown of Scotland, between Robert Brus
and John Baliol, he wrote to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's,
London, requiring them to enter into their chronicles the
exemplification therewith sent of that decision. The learned Mr.
SELDEN hath his greatest evidences for the dominion of the narrow
seas, belonging to the King of Great Britain, from Monastic records.
The evidences and money of private families were oftentimes sent to
these houses to be preserved. The seals of noblemen were deposited
there upon their deaths. And even the King's money was sometimes
lodged in them. -- SECONDLY, they were schools of learning and
education, for every convent had one person or more appointed for
this purpose; and all the neighbours, that desired it, might have
their children taught grammar and church music without any expense to
them. In the Nunneries also young women were taught to work) and to
read English, and sometimes Latin also. So that not only the lower
rank of people who could not pay for their learning, but most of the
noblemen's and gentlemen's daughters were educated in those places. -
- THIRDLY, all the Monasteries were, in effect, great hospitals. And
were most of them obliged to relieve many poor people every day.
There were likewise houses of entertainment for almost all
travellers. Evcn the nobility and gentry, when they were upon the
road, lodged at one religious house, and dined at another, and
seldom, or never, went to inns. In short, their hospitality was such,
that in the Priory of Norwich, one thousand five hundred quarters of
malt, and above eight hundred quarters of wheat, and all other things
in proportion, were generally spent every year. -- FOURTHLY, the
nobility and gentry provided not only for their old servants, in
these houses by corrodies, but for their younger children, and
impoverished friends, by making them, first, monks and nuns, and in
time, priors and prioresscs, and abbots and abbesses -- FIFTHLY, they
were of considerable advantage to the Crown:
1. By the profits received from the death of one Abbot or Prior, to
the election, or, rather, confirmation, of another.
2. By great fines paid for the confirmation of their liberties.
3. By many corrodies granted to old servants of the Crown, and
pensions to the King's clerks and chaplains, till they get
preferment. -- SIXTHLY, they were likewise of considerable advantage
to the places where they had their sites and estates:--
1. By causing great resort to them, and getting grants of fairs and
markets for them.
2 By freeing them from the forest laws.
3. By letting their lands at easy rates.
-- LASTLY, they were great ornaments to the country: many of them
were really noble buildings; and though not actually so grand and
neat, yet, perhaps, as much admired in their times, as Chelsea and
Greenwich Hospitals are now. Many of the abbey churches were equal,
if not superior, to our present Cathedrals; and they must have been
as much an ornament to the country, and employed as many workmen in
building, and keeping them in repair, as noblemen's and gentlemen's
seats now do."

134. Now, then, malignant HUME, come up, and face this Protestant
bishop, whose work you have quoted more than two hundred times, and
who here gives the lie direct to  all and every part of your
description. Instead of your "supine idleness," we have  industry the
most patient and persevering; instead of your "profound ignorance,"
we have, in even convent, a school for teaching, gratis, all useful
science; instead of your want of all "manly and elegant knowledge,"
we have the study, the teaching, the transcribing, the preserving, of
the Classics; instead of your "selfishness" and your "pious frauds"
to get the money from the people, we have hospitals for the sick,
doctors and nurses to attend them, and the most disinterested, the
most kind, the most noble hospitality; instead of that "slavery,"
which, in fifty parts of your history, you assert to have been taught
by the monks, we have the freeing of people from the forest laws, and
the preservation of the Great Charter of English liberty; and you
know as well as I, that when this Charter was renewed by King JOHN,
the renewal was, in fact, the work of Archbishop LANGTON, who roused
the Barons to demand it, he having, as TANNER observes, found the
Charter deposited in an abbey! Back, then; down, then, malignant
liar, and tell the devil that the Protestant Bishop TANNER hast sent
thee!

135.  Want of room compels me to stop; but, here, in this one
authority, we have ten thousand times more than enough to answer the
malignant liar, HUME, and all the revilers of monastic life, which
lies and revilings it was necessary to silence before proceeding, as
I shall in the next Letter, to describe the base, the cruel, the
bloody means by which these institutions were devastated and de
stroyed.







LETTER V.

AUTHORITIES RELATING TO THE EFFECTS OF THE MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS.
THEIR GREAT UTILITY AND THE POLITICAL WISDOM IN WHICH THEY WERE
FOUNDED.
THE APPOINTMENT OF THE RUFFIAN THOMAS CROMWELL.
HIS PROCEEDINGS IN THE WORK OF PLUNDER AND DEVASTATION.
THE FIRST ACT OF PARLIAMENT AUTHORISING THE PLUNDER.



Kensington, 31st March, 1825.

MY FRIENDS,

136. WHEN, at the close of the foregoing Letter, I  appeared to
content myself with the authority of the Protestant Bishop TANNER, as
a defender of Monastic Institutions against the attacks, the
malignant lies, of HUME, I had in reserve other authorities in
abundance, some of which I should then have cited, if I had had room.
Bishop TANNER goes, indeed, quite home to every point; but, the
matter is of such great importance, when we are about to view the
destruction of these institutions, that, out of fifty authorities
that I might refer to, I will select four or five. I will take one
Foreign and four English; and observe, they are all Protestant
authorities.

137.  MALLET. History of the Swiss, Vol. I. p. 105. "The monks
softened by their instructions the ferocious  manners of the people,
and opposed their credit to the tyranny of the nobility, who knew no
other occupation than war, and grievously oppressed their neighbours.
On this account the government of Monks was preferred to theirs. The
people sought them for Judges. It was an usual saying, that it was
better to be governed by the Bishop's crosier than the Monarch's
sceptre."

138.  DRAKE. Literary Hours, Vol. ii. p. 435. "The monks of CASSINS,
observes WHARTON, were distinguished not only for their knowledge of
sciences, but their attention to polite learning, and an acquaintance
with the Classics. Their learned Abbot Desiderius, collected the best
Greek and Roman authors. The fraternity not only composed learned
treatises on Music, Logic, Astronomy, and Vitruvium Architecture, but
likewise employed a portion of their time in transcribing Tacitus,
&c. This laudable example was, in the 11th and 12th centuries,
followed with great spirit and emulation by many English
Monasteries."

139.  TURNER, History of England, Vol. 11. p. 332 and 361.  "No
tyranny was ever established that was more unequivocally the creature
of popular will, nor longer maintained by popular support; in no
point did personal interest, and public welfare, more cordially
unite, than in the encouragement of Monasteries."

140.  BATES. Rural Philosophy, p. 322. "It is to be lamented, that,
while the Papists are industriously planting Nunneries and other
religious Societies in this Kingdom, some good Protestants, are not
so far excited to imitate their example, as to form establishments
for the education and protection of young women of serious
disposition, or who are otherwise unprovided, where they might enjoy
at least a temporary refuge, be instructed in the principles of
religion, and in all such useful and domestic arts, as might qualify
them, who were inclined to return into the world, for a pious and
laudable discharge of the duties of common life. Thus might the
comfort and welfare of many individuals be promoted, to the great
benefit of society at large, and the interests of Popery, by
improving on its own principles, be considerably counteracted."

141.  QUARTERLY REVIEW. December 1811. "The world has never been so
indebted to any body of men as to the illustrious order of
Benedictine Monks; but historians, in relating the evil of which they
were the occasion, too frequently forget the good which they
produced. Even the commonest readers are acquainted with the arch
miracle-monger, St. Dunstan, whilst the most learned of our
countrymen scarcely remember the names of those admirable men, who
went forth from England, and became the Apostles of the North, Tinian
and Juan Fernandez are not more beautiful spots on the ocean, than
Malmesbury , Lindisfarne and Jarrow, were, in the ages of our
heptarchy. A community of pious men, devoted to literature and to the
useful arts as well as to religion, seems, in those days, like a
green Oasis amid the desert. Like stars on a moonless night, they
shine upon us with a tranquil ray. If ever there was a man, who could
truly be called venerable, it was he, to whom the appellation is
constantly fixed, BEDE, whose life was passed in instructing his own
generation, and preparing records for postenty. In those days, the
Church offered the only asylum from the evils to which every country
was exposed -- amidst continual wars, the Church enjoyed peace -- it
was regarded as a sacred realm by men, who, though they hated one
another, believed and feared the same God. Abused as it was by the
worldly-minded and ambitious, and disgraced by the artifices of the
designing, and the follies of the fanatic, it afforded a shelter to
those who were better than the world in their youth, or weary of it
in their age. The wise as well as the timid and gentle fled to this
Goshen of God, which enjoyed its own light and calm, amidst darkness
and storms."

142.  This is a very elegant passage; but, as TURNER's Protestantism
impels him to apply the term "tyranny" to that which honest feeling
bids him say was the "creature of the popular will," and was produced
and upheld by" a cordial union of personal interest and public
welfare," so the Protestantism of the REVIEWERS leads them to talk
about "evil" occasioned by an Order to whom "the world is more
indebted than to any other body of men"; and it also leads them to
repeat the hackneyed charge against St. DUNSTAN, forgetting, I dare
say, that he is one of the Saints in our Protestant Church Calendar!
However, here is more than enough to serve as an answer to the whole
herd of writers who have put forth their venom against the Monastic
Orders.

143.  Can we refer to these authorities, can we see all the
indubitable proofs of the real Christian charity and benevolence
which were essentially connected with the religion of our
forefathers, without feeling indignation against those who, from our
infancy to our manhood, have been labouring to persuade us, that the
Catholic Church produced selfishness, hardness of heart, greediness
in the clergy, and particularly a want of feeling for the poor?
Undeniable as is the fact, that the "Reformation" robbed the poor of
their patrimony; clear as we shall, by-and-by, see the proofs of its
power in creating paupers, and in taking from the higher all
compassion for the lower classes, how incessant have been the
efforts, how crafty the schemes, to make us believe precisely the
contrary! If the salvation of their souls had been the object they
had in view, the deceivers could not have laboured with more pains
and anxiety. They have particularly bent their attention to the
implanting of their falsehoods in the minds of children. The press
has teemed, for two centuries and more, with cheap books having this
object principally in view. Of one instance of this sort I cannot
refrain from making particular mention; namely, a FABLE, in a
Spelling-book, by one FENNING, which has been in use in England for
more than half a century. The fable is called: "The priest and the
jester." A man, as the fable says, went to a "Romish Priest," and
asked charity of him. He began by asking for a guinea, but lowered
the sum till it came to a farthing, and still the priest refused.
Then the beggar asked for a "blessing," which the priest readily
consented to give him: "No," said the beggar; "if it were worth but
one single farthing you would not give it me." How indefatigable must
have been these deceivers, when they could resort to means like
these! What multitudes of children, how many millions of people,
have, by this book alone, had falsehood, the most base and wicked,
engraven upon their minds!

144.  To proceed now with our inquiry relative to the effects of the
Monastic Institutions, we may observe, that authorities, in this
case, seemed necessary. The lies were of long standing: hypocritical
selfishness, backed by every species of violence, tyranny and
cruelty, had been at work for ages to delude the people of England.
Those who had fattened upon the spoils of the church and the poor,
and who wished still to enjoy the fatness in quiet, naturally
laboured to persuade the people, that those who had been despolied
were unworthy people; that the institutions, which gave them  much
property were, at least, useless; that the possessors were lazy,
ignorant, and base creatures, spreading darkness over the country
instead of light; devouring that which ought to have sustained worthy
persons. When the whole press and all the pulpits of a country are
leagued for such a purpose, and supported in that purpose by the
State; and when the reviled party is, by terrors hardly to be
described, reduced to silence; in such a case, the assailants must
prevail; the mass of the people must believe what they say. Reason,
in such a state of things, is out of the question. But TRUTH is
immortal; and though she may be silenced for a while, there always,
at last, comes something to cause her to claim her due and to triumph
over falsehood.

143.  There is now come that which is calculated to give our
reasoning faculties fair play. We see the land covered at last with
pauperism, fanaticism and crime. We hear an increase of the people
talked of as a calamity; we hear of projects to check the breeding of
the people; we hear of Scotch "feelosofers," prowling about the
country, reading lectures to the manufacturers and artisans to
instruct them in the science of preventing their wives from being
mothers; and, in one instance, this has been pushed so far as to
describe, in print, the mechanical process for effecting this object!
In short, we are now arrived at a point which compels us to inquire
into the cause of this monstrous state of things. The immediate cause
we find to be the poverty and degradation of the main body of the
people; and these, through many stages, we trace back to the
"Reformation," one of the effects of which was to destroy those
Monastic institutions which, as we shall now see, retained the
produce of labour in the proper places, and distributed it in a way
naturally tending to make the lives of the people easy and happy.

146.  The authorities that I have cited ought to be of great weight
in the question; but supposing there to be no authorities on the side
of these institutions, of what more do they stand in need than the
unfettered exercise of our reason? Reason, in such a ease, is still
better than authorities; but who is to resist both? Let us ask, then,
whether reason do not reject with disdain the slander that has been
heaped on the Monastic Institutions. They flourished in England for
nine hundred years; they were beloved by the people; they were
destroyed by violence, by the plunderer's grasp, and the murderer's
knife. Was there ever any thing, vicious in itself, or evil in its
effects, held in veneration by a whole people for so long a time?
Even in our own time, we see the people of Spain rising in defence of
their Monasteries; and we hear the Scotch "feelosofers" abuse them,
because they do not like to see the property of those Monasteries
transferred to English Jews.

147.  If the Monasteries had been the cause of evil, would they have
been protected with such care by so many wise and virtuous kings,
legislators, and judges? Perhaps ALFRED was the greatest man that
ever lived. What writer of eminence, whether poet, lawyer, or
historian, has not selected him as the object of his highest praises?
As king, as soldier, as patriot, as lawgiver, in all his characters
he is, by all, regarded as having been the greatest, wisest, most
virtuous of men. And is it reasonable, then, for us to suppose, that
he, whose whole soul was wrapped up in the hope of making his people
free, honest, virtuous, and happy; is it reasonable to suppose, that
he would have been, as he was, one oc the most munificent founders of
Monasteries, if those institutions had been vicious in themselves, or
had tended to evil?  We have not these institutions and their effects
immediately before our eyes. We do not actually see the Monasteries.
But we know of them two things; namely, that they were most anxiously
cherished by ALFRED and his tutor, Saint SWITHIN; and that they were
destroyed by the bloody tyrant HENRY THE EIGHTH, and the not less
bloody ruffian, THOMAS CROMWELL. Upon these two facts alone we might
pretty safely decide on the merits of these institutions.

148.  And what answer do we ever obtain to this argument? Mr. MERVYN
ARCHDALL, in the Preface to his History of the Irish Monasteries,
says: "When we contemplate the universality of that religious zeal
which drew thousands from the elegance and comforts of society to
sequestered solitude and austere maceration: when we behold the
greatest and wisest of mankind the dupes of a fatal delusion, and
even the miser expending his store to  partake in the felicity of
mortified ascetics: again, when we find the tide of enthusiasm
subsided, and sober reason recovered from her delirium, and
endeavouring, as it were, to demolish every vestige of her former
frenzy, have a  concise sketch of the history of Monachism, and no
common instance of that mental weakness and versatility which stamp
the character of frailty on the human species. We investigate these
phenomena in the moral world with a pride arising from assumed
superiority in intellectual powers, or higher degrees of
civilization: our vanity and pursuit are kept alive by a comparison
so decidedly in favour of modern times"? Indeed, Mr. ARCHDALL! And
where are we to look for the proofs, or signs, of this "assumed
superiority"; this "comparison so decidedly in favour of modern
times"? Are we to find them in the ruins of those noble edifices, of
the plunder and demolition of which you cite us an account? Are we to
find them in the total absence of even an attempt to ornament your
country with any thing to equal them in grandeur or in taste? Are we
to look for this "superiority" in the numerous tithe-battles, pistol
in hand, like that of SKIBEEREEN? Are modern times proved to be
"decidedly superior" to former times by the law that shuts Irishmen
up in their houses from sunset to sunrise? Are the people' s living
upon pig-diet, their nakedness, their hunger, their dying by hundreds
from starvation while their ports weree crowded with ships carrying
provisions from their shores, and while an army was fed in the
country, the business of which army was to keep the starving people
quiet: are these amongst the facts on which you found your
"comparison so decidedly in favour of modern times"? What, then, do
you look with "PRIDE" to the ball at the Opera-house, for the relief
of the starving people of ireland, the BALL-room "DECORATED with a
transparency exhibiting an Irishman, as large as life, EXPIRING FROM
HUNGER"? And do you call the "greatest and wisest of mankind" dupes;
do you call them "the dupes of a fatal delusion," when they founded
institutions which rendered a thought of Opera-house relief
impossible? Look at the present wretched and horrible state of your
country; then look again at your list of ruins; and then (for you are
a church-parson, I see,) you will, I have no doubt, say, that, though
the former have evidently come from the latter, it was "sober
reason," and not thirst for plunder, that produced those ruins, and
that it was "frenzy and mental weakness" in the "greatest and wisest
of mankind" that produced the foundations of which those ruins are
the melancholy memorials!

149.  The hospitality and other good things proceeding from the
Monasteries, as mentioned by the Protestant Bishop TANNER, are not to
be forgotten; but we must take a close view of the subject, in order
to do full justice to these calumniated institutions. It is our duty
to show, that they were founded in great political wisdom as well as
in real piety and charity. That they were not, as the false and
malignant and selfish HUME has described them, mere dolers out of
bread and meat and beer; but that they were great diffusers of
general prosperity, happiness and content; and that one of their
natural and necessary effects was, to prevent that state of things
which sees but two classes of people in a community, masters and
slaves, a very few enjoying the extreme of luxury, and millions
doomed to the extreme of misery.

150.  From the land all the good things come. Somebody must own the
land. Those who own it must have the distribution of its revenues.
If these revenues be chiefly distributed amongst the people, from
whose labour they arise, and in such a way as to afford to them a
good maintenance on easy terms, the community must be happy. If the
revenues be alienated in very great part; if they be carried away to
a great distance, and expended amongst those, from whose labour no
part of them arise, the main body of the community must be miserable:
poor houses, gaols, and barracks must arise. Now, one of the greatest
advantages attending the Monasteries was, that they, of necessity,
caused the revenues of a large part of the lands of the country to be
spent on the spot whence those revenues arose. The hospitals and all
the other establishments of the kind had the same tendency. There
were, of the whole, great and small, not less, on an average, than
fifty in each county; so that the revenues of the land diffused
themselves, in great part, immediately amongst the people at large.
We all well know how the state of a parish becomes instantly changed
for the worse, when a noble or other great land-owner quits the
mansion in it, and leaves that mansion shut up. Every one knows the
effect which such a shutting up has upon the poor-rates of a parish.
It is notorious, that the non-residence of the Clergy and of the
noblemen and gentlemen is universally complained of as a source of
evil to the country. One of the arguments, and a great one it is, in
favour of severe game laws, is, that the game causes noblemen and
gentlemen to reside. What, then, must have been the effect of twenty
rich Monasteries in every county, expending constantly a large pan of
their incomes on the spot? The great cause of the miseries of
Ireland, at this moment, is "absenteeship"; that is to say, the
absence of the land-owners , who draw away the revenues of the
country, and expend them in other countries. If Ireland had still her 
seven or eight hundred Monastic Institutions, great and small, she
would be, as she formerly was, prosperous and happy. There would be
no periodical famines and typhus f evers; no need of sun-set and sun-
rise laws; no Captain Rocks; no projects for preventing the people
from increasing; no schemes for getting rid of a "surplus
population"; none of that poverty and degradation that threaten to
make a desert of the country, or to make it the means of destroying
the greatness of England herself.

151.  Somebody must own the lands; and the question is, whether it be
best for them to be owned by those who constantly live, and
constantly must live, in the country and in the midst of their
estates; or, by those who always may, and who frequently will and do,
live at a great distance from their lands, and draw away the revenues
of them to be spent elsewhere. The monastics are, by many, called
drones. Bishop TANNER has shown us that this charge is very false.
But, if it were true; is not a drone in a cowl as good as a drone in
a hat and top-boots? By drones, are meant those who do not work; and,
do land-owners usually work? The lay land-owner and his family spend
more of their revenues in a way not useful to the people than the
monastics possibly could. But, besides this, besides the hospitality
and charity of the monastics, and besides, moreover, the lien, the
legal lien, which the main body of the people had, in many cases, to
a share, directly or indirectly, in the revenues of the Monasteries,
we are to look at the monks and nuns in the very important capacity
of landlords and landladies. All historians, however Protestant or
malignant, agree, that they were "easy landlords"; that they let
their lands at low rents, and on leases of long terms of years; so
that, says even HUME, "the farmers regarded themselves as a species
of proprietors, always taking care to renew their leases before they
expired." And was there no good in a class of landlords of this sort?
Did not they naturally and necessarily create, by slow degrees, men
of property? Did they not thus cause a class of yeomen to exist, real
yeomen, independent of the aristocracy? And was not this class
destroyed by the "Reformation," which made the farmers rack-renters
and absolute dependants, as we see them to this day? And, was this
change favourable, then, to political liberty? Monastics could
possess no private property, they could save no money, they could
bequeath nothing. They had a life interest in their estate, and no
more. They lived, received, and expended in common. Historians need
not have told us, that they were "easy landlords." They must have
been such, unless human nature had taken a retrograde march expressly
for their accommodation. And, was it not happy for the nation, that
there was such a class of landlords? What a jump for joy would the
farmers of England now give, if such a class were to return to-
morrow, to get them out of the hands of the squandering and needy
lord and his grinding land-valuer!

152.  Then, look at the monastics as causing, in some of the most
important of human affairs, that fixedness which is so much the
friend of rectitude in morals, and which so powerfully conduces to
prosperity, private and public. The Monastery was a proprietor that
never died; its tenantry had to do with a deathless landlord; its
lands and houses never changed owners; its tenants were liable to
none of many uncertainties that other tenants were; its oaks had
never to tremble at the axe of the squandering heir; its manors had
not to dread a change of lords; its villagers had all been born and
bred up under its eye and care; their character was of necessity a
thing of great value, and, as such, would naturally be an object of
great attention. A Monastery was the centre of a circle in the
country, naturally drawing to it all that were in need of relief,
advice, and protection, and containing a body of men, or of women,
having no cares of their own, and having wisdom to guide the
inexperienced, and wealth to relieve the distressed. And was it a
good thing, then, to plunder and devastate these establishments; was
it a reformation to squander estates, thus employed, upon lay
persons, who would not, who could not, and did not, do any part or
particle of those benevolent acts, and acts of public utility, which
naturally arose out of the monastic institutions?

153.  Lastly, let us look at the Monasteries as a resource for the
younger Sons and daughters of the aristocracy, and as the means of
protecting the government against the injurious effects of their
clamorous wants. There cannot exist an aristocracy, or body of
nobility, without the means, in the hands of the government, of
preventing that body from falling into that contempt, which is, and
always must be, inseparable from Noble-poverty. "Well," some will
say, "why need that be any such body?" That is quite another
question; for we have it; and have had it for more than a thousand
rears; except during a very short interval, at the end of which our
ancestors eagerly took it back again. I must, too. though it really
has nothing to do with the question before us, repeat my opinion,
many times expressed, that we should lose more than we should gain by
getting rid of our aristocracy. The basest and most corrupt
government that I ever knew any thing, or heard any thing of, is the
republican government of PENNSYLVANIA, and, withal, the most truly
tyrannical: base and corrupt from bottom to top; from the root to the
topmost twig; from the trunk to the extreme point of every branch.
And, if any PENNSYLVANIAN, who has a name, and who will put it as a
challenge to me to prove my words, I will, before the face of all
Europe, prove them in the most complete and ample manner. I am not,
therefore, for republican government; and, then, it follows, that I
am for an aristocracy; for, without it, there can be no limit to a
kingly government.

134.  However, this has nothing at all to do with the present
question; we have the aristocracy, and we must, by a public provision
of some sort, for the younger branches of it, prevent it from falling
into the degradation inseparable from poverty. This provision was, in
the times of which we are speaking, made by the Monasteries, which
received a great number of its monks and nuns from the families of
the nobles. This rendered those odious and burdensome things,
pensions and sinecures, unnecessary. It, of course, spared the taxes.
It was a provision that was not degrading to the receivers; and it
created no grudging and discontent amongst the people, from whom the
receivers took nothing. Another great advantage arising from this
mode of providing for the younger branches of the nobility was, that
it secured the government against the temptation to give offices and
to lodge power in unfit hands. Look at our pension and sinecure list;
look at the list of those who have commands, and who fill other
offices of emolument; and you will, at once, see the great benefit
which must have been derived from institutions, which left the
government quite free to choose commanders, ambassadors, governors
and other persons, to exercise power, and to be entrusted in the
carrying on of the public affairs. These institutions tended, too, to
check the increase of the race of nobles; to prevent the persons
connected with that order from being multiplied to the extent to
which they naturally would, otherwise, be multiplied. They tended
also to make the nobles not so dependant on the Crown, a provision
being made for their poor relations without the Crown's assistance;
and, at the same time, they tended to make the people less dependant
on the nobles than they otherwise would have been. The Monasteries
set the example, as masters and landlords; an example that others
were, in a great degree, compelled to follow. And thus, all ranks and
degrees were benefited by these institutions, which, with malignant
historians, have been a subject of endless abuse, and the destruction
of which they have recorded with so much delight, as being one of the
brightest features in the "Reformation"!

155.  Nor must we, by any means, overlook the effects of these
institutions on the mere face of the country. That soul must be low
and mean indeed, which is insensible to all feeling of pride in the
noble edifices of its country. Love of country, that variety of
feelings which, altogether, constitute what we properly call
patriotism, consist in part of the admiration of, and veneration for,
ancient and magnificent proofs of skill and of opulence. The
monastics built as well as wrote for posterity. The never-dying
nature of their institutions set aside, in all their undertakings,
every calculation as to time and age. Whether they built or planted,
they set the generous example of providing for the pleasure, the
honour, the wealth and greatness of generations upon generations yet
unborn. They executed every thing in the very best manner: their
gardens, fish-ponds, farms; in all, in the whole of their economy,
they set an example tending to make the country beautiful, and to
make it an object of pride with the people, and to make the nation
truly and permanently great. Go into any county, and survey, even at
this day, the ruins of its, perhaps, twenty Abbeys and Priories: and,
then, ask yourself, "What have we in exchange for these"? Go to the
site of some once-opulent Convent. Look at the cloister, now become,
in the hands of a rack-renter, the receptacle for dung, fodder and
fagot-wood: see the hall, where, for ages, the widow, the orphan, the
aged and the stranger, found a table ready spread; see a bit of its
walls now helping to make a cattleshed, the rest having been hauled
away to build a workhouse: recognise, in the side of a barn, a part
of the once magnificent chapel: and, if, chained to the spot by your
melancholy musings, you be admonished of the approach of night by the
voice of the screech-owl, issuing from those arches, which once, at
the same hour, resounded with the vespers of the monk, and which
have, for seven hundred years, been assailed by storms and tempests
in vain: if thus admonished of the necessity of seeking food,
shelter, and a bed, lift your eyes and look at the white-washed and
dry-rotten shell on the hill, called the "gentleman's house;" and,
apprised of the "board-wages" and the spring-guns, suddenly turn your
head; jog away from the scene of devastation; with "old English
Hospitality" in your mind, reach the nearest inn, and there, in a
room half-warmed and half-lighted, and with reception precisely
proportioned to the presumed length of your purse, sit down and
listen to an account of the hypocritical pretences, the base motives,
the tyrannical and bloody means, under which, from which, and by
which, that devastation was effected, and that hospitality banished
from ever front the land.

156.  We have already seen something of these pretences, motives and
acts of tyranny and barbarity; we have seen that the beastly lust of
the chief tyrant was the groundwork of what is called the
"Reformation"; we have seen that he could not have proceeded in his
course without the concurrence of the Parliament; we have seen that,
to obtain that concurrence, he held out to those who composed it a
participation in the spoils of the Monasteries; and, when we look at
the magnitude of their possessions, when we consider the beauty and
fertility of the spots on which they, in general, were situated, when
we think of the envy which the love borne them by the people must
have excited in the hearts of a great many of the noblemen and
gentlemen; when we thus reflect, we are not surprised, that these
were eager for a "Reformation" that promised to transfer the envied
possessions to them.

157.  When men have power to commit, and are resolved to commit, acts
of injustice, they are never at a loss for pretences. We shall
presently see what were the prefences under which this devastation of
England was begun: but, to do the work, there required a workman; as,
to slaughter an ox, there requires a butcher. To turn the possessors
of so large a part of the estates out of those estates, to destroy
establishments venerated by the people from their childhood, to set
all law, divine as well as human, at defiance, to violate every
principle on which property rested, to rob the poor and helpless of
the means of sustenance, to deface the beauty of the country, and
make it literally a heap of ruins; to do these things, there re
quired a suitable agent; and that agent the tyrant found in THOMAS
CROMWELL, whose name, along with that of CRANMER, ought "to stand for
aye accursed in the calendar." This CROMWELL was the son of a
blacksmith of Putney, in Surrey. He had been an underling of some
sort in the family of CARDINAL WOLSEY, and had recommended himself to
the King by his sycophancy to him, and his treachery to his old
master. The King, now become Head of the Church, and having the
supremacy to exercise, had very judiciously provided himself with
CRANMER as a primate; and, to match him, he provided himself with
CROMWELL, who was equal to CRANMER in impiousness and baseness,
rather surpassed him in dastardliness, and exceeded him decidedly in
quality of ruffian. All nature could not, perhaps, have afforded
another man so fit to be the "ROYAL VICEGERENT and VICAR-GENERAL" of
the new head of the English Church.

158.  Accordingly, with this character the brutal blacksmith was
invested. He was to exercise "all the spiritual authority belonging
to the King, for the due administration uf justice in all cases
touching the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the godly reformation
and redress of errors, heresies, and abuses in the said church." We
shall very soon see proofs enough of the baseness of this nan, for
whom ruffian is too gentle a term. What chance, then, did the
Monasteries stand in his hands? He was  created a peer. He sat before
the primate in parliament, he sat above all the bishops in assemblies
of the clergy, he took precedence of all the nobles, whether in
office or out of office, and, as in character, so in place, he was
second only to the chief tyrant himself.

159.  In order to begin the "godly Reformation"; that is to say, the
work of plunder, the "Vicegerent" blacksmith set on foot a visitation
of the Monasteries! Dreadful visitation! He, active as he was in
wickedness, could not do all the work himself. He, therefore,
appointed deputies to assist in making this visitation. The kingdom
was divided into districts for this purpose, and two deputies were
appointed to visit each district. The object was to obtain grounds of
accusation against the monks and nuns. \\then we consider what the
object was, and what was the character of the man, to whom the work
was committed, we may easily imagine what sort of men these deputies
were. They were, in fact, fit to be the subalterns of such a chief.
Some of the very worst men in all England; men of notoriously
infamous characters; men who had been convieted of heinous crimes;
some who had actually been branded; and, probably, not one man who 
had not repeatedly deserved the halter. Think of a respectable,
peaceful, harmless and pious family, broken in upon, all of a sudden,
by a brace of burglars with murder written on their scowling brows,
demanding an instant production of their title-deeds, money and
jewels; imagine such a scene as this, and you have then some idea of
the visitations of these monsters, who came with the threat of the
tyrant on their lips, who menaced the victims with charges of high
treason, who wrote in their reports not what was, but what their
merciless employers wanted them to write.

160. The monks and nuns, who had never dreamed of the possibility of
such proceedings, who had never had an idea that Magna Charta and all
the laws of the land could be set aside in a moment, and whose
recluse and peaceful lives rendered them wholly unfit to cope with at
once crafty and desperate villany, fell before these ruffians as
chickens fall before the kite. The reports, made by these villains,
met with no contradiction; the accused parties had no means of making
a defence; there was no court for them to appear in; they dared. not,
even if they had the means, to offer a defence or make a complaint;
for they had seen the horrible consequences, the burnings, the
rippings up, of all those of their brethren who had ventured to
whisper their dissent from any dogma or decree of the tyrant. The
project was to despoil people of their property; and yet the parties,
from whom the property was to be taken, were to have no court in
which to plead their cause, no means of obtaining a hearing, could
make even no complaint but at the peril of their lives. They, and
those who depended on them, were to be, at once, stripped of this
great mass of property, without any other ground than that of
reports, made by men, sent, as the malignant HUME himself confesses,
for the express purpose of finding a pretence for the dissolution of
the Monasteries and for the King's taking to himself property that
had never belonged to him or his predecessors.

161. HUME dares not, in the face of such a multitude of facts that
are upon record to the contrary, pretend that these reports were
true; but, he does his best to put a gloss upon them, as we have seen
in paragraph 129. He says, in order to effect by insinuation that
which he does not venture to assert, that "it is, indeed, probable,
that the blind submission of the people, during those ages, rendered
the friars and nuns more unguarded and more dissolute than they are
in any Roman Catholic country at present." Oh! say you so? And why
more blind than now? It is just the same religion, there are the same
rules, the peoples if blind then, are blind now; and, it would be
singular indeed, that, when dissoluteness is become more common in
the world, the "friars and nuns" should have become more guarded!
However, we have here his acquittal of the Monasteries of the present
day; and that is no small matter. It will be difficult, I believe, to
make it appear "probable," that they were more unguarded, or more
dissolute, in the sixteenth century; unless we believe, that the
profound piety (which HUME calls superstition) of the people was not
partaken of by the inhabitants of convents. Before we can listen to
his insinuations in favour of these reports, we must believe that the
persons belonging to the religious communities were a body of cunning
creatures, believing in no part of that religion which they
professed, and we must extend this our belief even to those numerous
communities of women, who devoted their whole lives to the nursing of
the sick poor!

162. However, upon reports thus obtained, an Act of  Parliament was
passed, in March, 1536, the same year that saw the end of ANNE
BOLEYN, for the suppression, that is to say, confiscation, of three
hundred and seventy-six monasteries, and for granting their estates,
real and personal, to the King and his heirs! He took plate, jewels,
gold and silver images and ornaments. This act of monstrous tyranny
was, however, base as the Parliament was, and full as it was of
greedy plunderers, not passed without some opposition. HUME says,
"that it does not appear that any opposition was made to this
important law." He frequently quotes SPELMAN as an historical
authority; but, it did not suit him to quote SPELMAN's "History of
Sacrilege," in which this Protestant historian says, that "the bill
stuck long in the Lower House, and could get no passage, when the
King commanded the Commons to attend him in the fore-noon in his
gallery, where he let them wait till late in the afternoon, and then,
coming out of his chamber, Walking a turn or two amongst them, and
looking angrily on them, first on one side and then on the other, at
last, 'I hear (saith he) that my bill will not pass; but, I will have
it pass, or I will have some of your heads'; and, without other
rhetoric, returned to his chamber. Enough was said; the bill passed,
and all was given him as he desired."

163. Thus, then, it was an act of sheer tyranny; it was a pure
Algerine proceeding at last. The pretences availed nothing: the
reports of CROMWELL's myrmidons were not credited; every artifice had
failed: resort was had to the halter and the axe to accomplish that
"Reformation," of which the Scotch historian, BURNET, has called this
monster the first-born son! So such man, he says, was necessary, to
bring about this "great and glorious event." What! was ever good yet
produced by wickedness so atrocious? Did any man but this BURNET and
his countryman, HUME, ever affect to believe, that such barefaced
injustice and tyranny were justified on the ground of their tending
to good consequences?

164.  In the next Number, when I shall have given an account of the
whole of that devastation and sacking, of which we have, as yet, only
seen a mere beginning, I shall come to the consequences, not only to
the monks and nuns, but to the people at large; and shall show how a
foundation was, in this very Act of Parliament, laid for that
pauperism, misery, degradation and crime, which are now proposed to
checked by laws to render the women barren, or to export the  people
to foreign lands.









LETTER VI.



CONFISCATION OF THE MONASTERIES.
BASE AND CRUEL MEANS OF DOING THIS.
THE SACKING AND DEFACING OF THE COUNTRY.
BREAKING UP THE TOMB OF ALFRED.
MORE WIVES DIVORCED AND KILLED.
DEATH OF THE MISCREANT CROMWELL.
DEATH OF THE TYRANT HIMSELF.

Kensington, 30th April, 1825.

MY FRIENDS,

165.  AT the close of the foregoing Letter, we saw the beginning only
of the devastation of England. In the present letter, we shall see
its horrible progress as far as there was time for that progress
during the reign of the remorseless tyrant Henry VIII. We have seen
in what manner was obtained the first Act for the suppression of
Monasteries: that is to say, in reality, for robbing the proprietors
of estates, and also the poor and the stranger. But I must give a
more full and particular account of the Act of Parlia ment itself
before I proceed to the deeds committed in consequence of it.

166.  The Act was passed in the year 1 536, and in the 27th year of
the King's reign. The preamble of the Act contains the reasons for
its enactments; and as this Act really began the ruin and degradation
of the main body of the people of England and Ireland; as it was the
first step taken, in legal form, for robbing the people under
pretence of reforming their religion; as it was the precedent on
which the future plunderers proceeded, until they had com pletely
impoverished the country; as it was the first of that series of deeds
of rapine, by which this formerly well-fed and well-clothed people
have, in the end, been reduced to rags and to a worse than gaol-
allowance of food, I will insert its lying and villanous preamble at
full length. Englishmen in general suppose, that there were always
poor-laws and paupers in England. They ought to remember, that, for
nine hundred years, under the Catholic religion, there were neither.
Then ought, when they hear the fat parson cry "No-popery," to answer
him by the cry of "No-pauperism." They ought, above all things,to
endeavour to ascertain,  how it came to pass, that this land of roast
beef was changed, all of a sadden, into a land of dry bread, or of
oatmeal por ridge. Let them attend, then, to the base and
hypocritical pretences that they will find in the following preamble
to this atrocious act of pillage.

167.  "Forasmuch as manifest synne, vicious, carnal and abominable
living is dayly used and committed commonly in such little and small
Abbeys, Priories and other Religious Houses of Monks, Canons and
Nuns, where the Congregation of such Religious Persons is under the
Number of twelve Persons, whereby the Governors of such Religious
Houses, and their Convent, spoyle, destroye, consume and utterly
waste, as well their Churches, Monasteries, Priories, principal
Farms, Granges, Lands, Tenements and Hereditaments, as the Ornaments
of their Churches, and their Goods and Chattels, to the high
Displeasure of Almighty God, Slander of good Religion, and to the
great Infamy of the King's Highness and the Realm, if Redress should
not be had thereof. And albeit that many continual Visitations hath
been heretofore had, by the Space of two hundred years and more, for
an honest and charitable Reformation of such unthrifty, carnal and
abominable Living, yet neverthelesse little or none Amendment is
hitherto had, but their vicious Living shamelessly increaseth and
augmenteth, and by a cursed Custom so rooted and infected, that a
great Multitude of the Religious Persons in such small Houses do
rather choose to rove abroad in Apostacy, than to conform themselves
to the observation of good Religion; so that without such small
Houses be utterly suppressed, and the Religious Persons therein
committed to great and honourable Monasteries of Religion in this
Realm, where they may be compelled to live religiously for
Reformation of their Lives, the same else be no redress nor
Reformation in that Behalf. In Consideration whereof, the King's most
Royal Majesty, being supreme Head on Earth , under God, of the Church
of England, dayly studying and devising the Increase, Advancement and
Exaltation of true Doctrine and Virtue in the said Church, to the
only Glory and Honour of God, and the total extirping and Destruction
of Vice and Sin, having Knowledge that the Premises be  true, as well
as the Accompts of his late Visitations, as by  sundry credible
Informations, considering also that divers  and great solemn
Monasteries of this Realm wherein  (Thanks be to God) Religion is
right well kept and observed, be destitute of such full Number of
Religious  Persons as they ought and may keep, hath thought good
that a plain Declaration should be made of the Premises, as well to
the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, as to other his loving Subjects the
Commons, in this present Parlia ment assembled: Whereupon the said
Lords and Commons, by a great Deliberation, finally be resolved, that
it is and shall he much more to the Pleasure of Almighty God, and for
the Honour of this his Realm, that the Possessions of such small
Religious houses, now being spent, spoiled and wasted for Increase
and Maintenance of sin, should be used and committed to better uses,
and the unthrifty Religious Persons, so spending the same, to be
compelled to reform their lives."

168.  This preamble was followed by enactments, giving the whole of
the property to the King, his heir and assigns, to do and use
therewith according to their own wills, to the pleasure of Almighty
God, and to the honour and profit of this realm." Besides the lands
and houses and stock, this tyrannical Act gave him the household
goods and the gold, silver, jewels, and every other thing belonging
to these Monasteries. Here was a breach of Magna Charta in the first
place; a robbery of the monks and nuns in the next place; and, in the
third place, a robbery of the indigents, the widow, the orphan and
the stranger. The parties robbed, even the actual possessors of the
property, were never heard in their defence; there was no charge
against any particular convent; the charges were loose and general,
and levelled against all convents, whose revenues did not exceed a
certain sum. This alone was sufficient to show that the charges were
false; for, who will believe that the alleged wickedness extended to
all whose revenues did not exceed a certain sum, and that, when those
revenues got above that point, the wickedness stopped? It is clear,
that the reason for stopping at that point was, that there was yet
something to be clone with the nobles and gentry, before a seizure of
the great Monasteries could be safely attempted. The weak were first
attacked, but means were very soon found for attacking and sacking
the remainder.

169. The moment the tyrant got possession of this class of the Church
estates, he began to grant them away to his "assigns" as the Act
calls them. Great promises had been held out, that the King, when in
possession of these estates, would never more want taxes from the
people; and it is possible, that he thought. that he should be able
to do without taxes; but, he soon found, that he was not destined to
keep the plunder to himself; and that, in short, he must make a
sudden stop, if not actually undo all that he had done, unless he
divided the spoil with others, who instantly poured in upon him for
their share, and they so beset him, that he had not a moment's peace.
They knew that he had good things; they had taken care to enable him
to have "assigns;" and they, as they intended from the first, would
give him no rest, until he, "to the pleasure of Almighty God and to
the honour and profit of the realm," made them those "assigns."

170. Before four years had passed over his head, he found himself as
poor as if had never confiscated a single convent, so sharp-set were
the pious reformers, and so eager to "please Almighty God." When
complaining to CROMWELL of the rapacity of the applicants for grants,
he exclaimed, "By our Lady, the cormorants, when they have got the
garbage, will devour the dish." CROMWELL reminded him, that there was
much more yet to come, "Tut, man," said the King, "my whole realm
would not stanch. their maws." However, he attempted this, very soon
after; by a seizure of the larger Monasteries.

171.  We have seen, in paragraph 167, that the Parliament. when they
enabled him to confiscate the smaller Monasteries, declared, that, in
the "great and solemn Monasteries, (thanks be to God) religion is
right well kept and observed.." It seemed, therefore to be a work of
some difficulty to discover (in so short a time after this
declaration was made) reasons for the confiscation of these larger
Monasteries. But tyranny stands in need of no reasons and, in this
Case, no reasons were alleged. CROMWELL and his myrmidons beset the
heads of these great establishments; they threatened, they promised,
they lied, and they bullied. By means the most base that Can be
conceived, they obtained from some few what they called a "voluntary
surrender." However, where these unjust and sanguinary men met with
sturdy opposition, they resorted to false accusation, and procured
the murder of the parties, under pretence of their having committed
high treason. It was under this infamous pretence that the tyrant
hanged and ripped up and quartered the Abbot of the famous Abbey of
GLASTONBURY, whose body was mangled by the executioner, and whose
head and limbs were hung up on what is called the torre, which
overlooks the abbey. So that the surrender, wherever it did take
place, was precisely of the nature of those " voluntary surrenders "
which men make of their purses, when the robber's pistol is at their
temple, or his blood-stained knife at their throat.

172. After all, however, even to obtain a pretence of voluntary
surrender was a work too troublesome for CROMWELL and his ruffian
visitors, and much too slow for the cormorants who waited for the
plunder. Without more ceremony, therefore, an Act was passed (31 Hen.
VIII. chap. 13,) giving all these "surrendered" Monasteries to the
King, his heirs and assigns, and also ALL OTHER MONASTERIES; and all
hospitals and colleges into the bargain! It is useless to Waste our
time in uttering exclamations, or inventing curses on the memory of
the monsters, who thus made a general sacking of this then fine, rich
and beautiful country, which, until now, had been, for nine hundred
years, the happiest country, and the greatest country too, that
Europe had ever seen.

173.  The carcass being thus laid prostrate, the rapacious vultures,
who had assisted in the work, flew on it, and began to tear it in
pieces. The people, here and there, rose in insurrection against the
tyrant's satellites; but, deprived of their natural leaders, who had,
for the most part, placed themselves on the side of tyranny and
plunder, what were the mere common people to do? HUME affects to pity
the ignorance of the people (as our stock-jobbing writers now affect
to pity the ignorance of the country people in Spain) in showing
their attachment to the monks. Gross ignorance, to be sure, to prefer
easy landlords, leases for life, hospitality and plenty!; "gross
ignorance and superstition" to prefer these to grinding rack-rents,
buying small beer at Bishops' palaces, and living on parish pay. We
shall see, shortly, how soon horrid misery followed these tyrannical
proceedings; but we must trace CROMWELL and his ruffians in their
work of confiscating, plundering, pillaging and devastating.

1 74. Tyrants have often committed robberies on their people; but,
in all Cases but this, in England at least, there was always
something of legal process observed. In this  case there was no such
thing. The base Parliament, who were to share, and who did most
largely share, in the plunder, had given not only the lands and
houses to the tyrant, or, rather, had taken them to themselves; but
had disposed, in the same short way, of all the moveable goods, stock
on farms, crops, and which was of more consequence, of the gold,
silver, and jewels. Let the reader judge of the ransackings that now
took place. The poorest of the convents had some images, vases, and
other things, of gold or silver. Many of them possessed a great deal
in this way. The altars of their churches were generally enriched
with the precious metals, if not with costly jewels; and, which is
not to be overlooked, the people, in those days, were honest enough
to suffer all these things to remain in their places, without a
standing army and without police officers.

175.  Never, in all probability, since the world began, was there so
rich a harvest of plunder. The ruffians of CROMWELL entered the
convents; they tore down the altars to get away the gold and silver;
ransacked the chests and drawers of the monks and nuns; tore off the
covers of books that were ornamented with the precious metals. These
books were all in manuscript. Single books had taken, in many cases,
half a long life-time to compose and to copy out fair. Whole
libraries, the getting of which together had taken ages upon ages and
had cost immense sums of money, were scattered abroad by these
hellish ruffians, when they had robbed the covers of their rich
ornaments. The ready money, in the convents, down to the last
shilling, was seized. in short, the most rapacious and unfeeling
soldiery never. in town delivered up to be sacked, proceeded with
greediness, shamelessness and brutality to be at all compared with
those of these heroes of the Protestant Reformation; and this,
observe, towards persons, women as well as men, who had committed no
crime known to the laws, who had had no crime regularly laid to their
charge, Who had had no hearing in their defence, a large part of whom
had, within a year, been declared, by this same Parliament, to lead
most godly and useful lives, the whole of whose possessions were
guaranteed to them by the great Charter as much as the Kings crown
was to him, and whose estates were enjoyed for the benefit of the
poor as well as for that of these plundered possessors themselves,

176. The tyrant was, of course, the great pocketter of this species
of plunder. CROMWELL carried or sent it to him in parcels, twenty
ounces of gold at one time, fifty ounces at another; now a parcel of
precious stones of one sort, then a parcel of another, HUME, whose
main object is to blacken the Catholic religion, takes every possible
occasion for saying something or other in praise of its destroyers.
He could not, he was too cunning, to ascribe justice or humanity to a
monster whose very name signifies injustice and cruelty. He,
therefore, speaks of his high spirit, his magnificence and
generosity. It was a high-spirited, magnificent and generous King, to
be sure, who sat in his palace, in London, to receive with his own
hands the gold, silver, jewels, and pieces of money, of which his
unoffending subjects had been robbed by ruffians sent by himself to
commit the robbery. One of these items runs in these words:-- "ITEM,
Delivered unto the King's royal Majesty, the same day, of the same
stuffe, foure chalices of golde, with foure patens of golde to the
same; and a spoon of golde, weighing altogether an hundred and six
ounces."
"Received:  HENRY REX."

177.  There are high-spirit, magnificence, and generosity! Amongst
the stock of this "generous prince's" pawnbroker's shop; or, rather,
his store-house of stolen goods, were images of all sorts,
candlesticks, sockets, cruets, cups, pixes, goblets, basons, spoons,
diamonds, sapphires, pearls, finger-rings, ear-rings, pieces of money
of all values, even down to shillings, bits of gold and silver torn
from the covers of books, or cut and beaten out of the altars. In
cases where the wood-work, either of altars, crosses, or images, was
inlaid with precious metal, the wood was frequently burnt to get at
the metal. Even the Jew-thieves of the present day are not more
expert in their trade than the myrmidons of CROMWELL were. And, with
these facts before us; these facts, undenied and undeniable; with
these facts before us, must we not be the most profound hypocrites
that the world ever saw; must we not be the precise country of that
which Englishmen have always been thought to be, if we still affect
to believe, that the destruction of the shrines of our forefathers
arose from motives of conscience?

178. The parcel of plunder, mentioned in the last paragraph but one,
brought into this royal PEACHUM, was equal in value to about eight
thousand pounds of money of the present day; and that parcel was,
perhaps, not a hundredth part of what he received in this way. Then,
who is to suppose that the plunderers did not keep a large share to
themselves? Did subaltern plunderers ever give in just accounts? It
is manifest that, from, this specimen, the whole amount of the goods
of which the Convents were plundered must have been enormous. The
reforming gentry ransacked the Cathedral Churches, as well as the
Convents and their Churches. Whatever pile contained the greatest
quantity of the "the same stuffe," seemed to be the object of their
most keen rapacity. Therefore, it is by no means surprising, that
they directed, at a very early stage of their pious and honest
progress, their hasty steps towards Canterbury, which, above all
other places, had been dipped in the "manifest synne" of possessing
rich altars, tombs, gold and silver images, together with
"manifestely synneful" diamonds and other precious stones. The whole
of this city, famed as the cradle of English Christianity, was prize;
and the "Reformation" people hastened to it with that alacrity, and
that noise of anticipated enjoyment which we observe in the crows and
magpies, when flying to the spot where a horse or an ox has
accidentally met with its death.

179.  But there were, at Canterbury, two objects by which the
"Reformation" birds of prey were particularly attracted; namely, the
monastery of Saint AUSTIN and the tomb of THOMAS À BECKET. The former
of these renowned men, to whose preaching and whose long life of
incessant and most disinterested labour England owed the
establishment of Christianity in the land, had, for eight or nine
centuries, been regarded as the Apostle of England. His shrine was in
the monastery dedicated to him; and as it was, in all respects, a
work of great magnificence, it offered a plenteous booty to the
plunderers, who, if they could have got at the tomb of Jesus Christ
himself, and had found it equally rich, would, beyond all question,
have torn it to pieces. But, rich as this prize was, there was a
greater in the shrine of Thomas à Becket, in the Cathedral Church.
BECKET, who was Archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of Henry II.,
who resisted that king, when the latter was manifestly preparing to
rob the Church, and to enslave and pillage the people, had been held
in the highest veneration all over Christendom for more than three
hundred years, when the Reformation plunderers assailed his tomb; but
especially was his name venerated in England, where the people looked
upon him as a martyr to their liberties as well as their religion, he
having been barbarously murdered by ruffians sent from the King, and
for no other cause than that he persevered in resisting an attempt to
violate the Great Charter. Pilgrimages were continually made to his
tomb; offerings incessantly poured into it; churches and hospitals
and other establishments of piety and charity were dedicated to him,
as, for instance, the church of St. Thomas, in the City of London,
the Monastery of Sende, in Surrey, the Hospital of St. Thomas, in the
Borough of Southwark, and things of this sort, in great numbers, all
over the country. The offerings at his shrine had made it exceedingly
rich and magnificent. A king of France had given to it a diamond,
supposed to be the most valuable then in Europe. HUME, never losing
sight of the double object of maligning the Catholic religion and
degrading the English nation, ascribes this sort of half-adoration of
BECKET to the craft of the priests and to the folly and superstition
of the people. He is vexed to death to have to relate, that more than
a hundred thousand pilgrims to BECKET's shrine have been assembled at
one time in Canterbury. Indeed! why, then, there must have been some
people living in England, even in those old times; and those people
must have had some wealth too; though, according to the whole tenor
of the lying book, which the Scotch call our history, this was, at
the time I am now speaking of, a poor, beggarly, scarcely-inhabited
country. The City of Canterbury does not now contain men, women, and
children, all counted and well-puffed out, more than twelve thousand
seven hundred and twenty souls! Poor souls! How could they find
lodging and entertainment for a hundred thousand grown persons! And
this, too, observe, at one corner of the Island. None but persons of
some substance could have performed such a journey. Here is a fact
that just slips out sideways, which is of itself much more than
enough to make us reflect and inquire before we swallow what the
Scotch philosophers are now presenting to us on the subjects of
national wealth and population. And, then, as to the craft and
superstition which HUME says produced this concourse of pilgrims.
Just as if either were necessary to produce unbounded veneration for
the name of a man, of whom it was undeniably true, that he had
sacrificed his life, and that, too, in the most signal manner, for
the rights and liberties and religion of his country. Was it "folly
and superstition," or was it wisdom and gratitude and real piety to
show, by overt acts, veneration for such a man? The bloody tyrant,
who had sent MORE and FISHER to the block, and who, of course, hated
the name of BECKET, caused his ashes to be dug up and scattered in
the air, and forbade the future insertion of his name in the
CALENDAR. We do not, therefore, find it in the Calendar in the Common
Prayer Book; but, and it is a most curious fact, we find it in
Moore's ALMANACK; in that almanack it is for this very year, 1825;
and thus, in spite of the ruthless tyrant, and in spite of all the
liars of the "Reformation," the English nation has always continued
to be just and grateful to the memory of this celebrated man.

180. But, to return to the Reformation robbers; here was a prize!
This tomb of BECKET was of wood, most exquisitely wrought, inlaid
abundantly with the precious metals, and thickly set with precious
stones of all sorts. Here was an object for "Reformation" piety to
fix its godly eyes upon! Were such a shrine to be found in one of our
churches now, how the swaddlers would cry out for another
"Reformation"! The gold, silver, and jewels, filled two chests, each
of which required six or eight men of that day (when the labourers
used to have plenty of meat) to move them to the door of the
Cathedral! How the eyes of HUME's "high-minded, magnificent and
generous prince" must have glistened when the chests were opened!
They vied, I dare say, with the diamonds themselves. No robbers, of
which we have ever had an account, equalled these robbers in
rapacity, in profligacy, and in insolence. But, where is the wonder?
The tyrant's proclamations had now the force of laws; he had bribed
the people's natural leaders to his side; his will was law; and that
will constantly sought plunder and blood.

181. The Monasteries were now plundered, sacked, gutted; for, this
last is the proper word whereby to describe the deed. As some
comfort, and to encourage us to endure the horrid relation, we may
here bear in mind, that we shall, by-and-by see the base ruffian,
CROMWELL, after being the chief instrument in the plunder, laying his
miscreant head on the block; but, to seize the estates and to pillage
the churches and apartments of the monasteries was not all. The noble
buildings, raised in the view of lasting for countless ages; the
beautiful gardens; these ornaments of the country must not be
suffered to stand, for, they continually reminded the people of the
rapacity and cruelty of their tyrant and his fellow-plunderers and
partakers in the plunder. How the property in the estates was
disposed of we shall see further on; but, the buildings must come
down. To go to work in the usual way would have been a labour without
end; so that, in most instances, GUNPOWDER was resorted to; and thus,
in a few hours, the most magnificent structures, which it had
required ages upon ages to bring to perfection, were made heaps of
ruins, pretty much such as many of them remain even unto this day. In
many cases, those who got the estates were bound to destroy the
buildings, or to knock them partly down, so that the people should,
at once, be deprived of all hope of seeing a revival of what they had
lost, and in order to give them encouragement to take leases under
the new owners.

182. The whole country was, thus, disfigured; it had the appearance
of a land recently invaded by the most brutal barbarians: and this
appearance, if we look well into it, it has even to this day. Nothing
has ever yet come to supply the place of what was then destroyed.
This is the view for us to take of the matter, it is not a mere
matter of religion; but a matter of rights, liberties, real wealth,
happiness and national greatness. If all these have been
strengthened, or augmented, by the "REFORMATION," even. then we must
not approve of the horrible means; but, if they have all been
weakened, or lessened, by that "Reformation," what an outrageous
abuse of words is it to call the event by that name! And, if I do not
prove, that this latter has been the case; if I do not prove, clear
as the daylight, that, before the "Reformation," England was greater,
more wealthy, more moral, and more happy, than she has ever been
since; if I do not make this appear as clearly as any fact ever was
made to appear, I will be content to pass, for the rest of my life,
for a vain pretender.

183. If I look at the county of Surrey, in which I myself was born,
and behold the devastation of that county, I am filled with
indignation against the ruffian devastators. Surrey has very little
of natural wealth in it. A very considerable part of it is mere
heath-land. Its present comparative opulence is a creature of the
fictitious system of funding. Yet this county was, from one end of it
to the other, ornamented and benefited by the establishments which
grew out of the Catholic Church. At BERMONDSEY there was an Abbey; at
St. MARY OVERY there was a Priory, and this convent founded that very
St. Thomas's Hospital which now exists in Southwark. This Hospital
also was seized by the ruffians, but the building was afterwards
given to the City of London. At NEWINGTON there was an Hospital, and,
after its revenues were seized, the master obtained a licence to beg!
At MERTON there was a Priory. Then, going across to the Sussex side,
there was another Priory at REIGATE, Coming again near the Thames,
and more to the West, there was a Priory at SHENE. Still more to the
West, there was an Abbey at CHERTSEY. At TANDRIGE there was a Priory.
Near GUILDFORD, at SENDE, there was a Priory. And, at the lower end
of the county, at WAVERLEY, in the parish of Farnham, was an Abbey.
To these belonged cells and chapels at a distance from the convents
themselves: so that it would have been a work of some difficulty for
a man so to place himself, even in this poor heathy county, at six
miles distance from a place where the door of hospitality was always
open to the poor, to the aged, the orphan, the widow, and the
stranger. Can any man, now, place himself, in that whole county,
within any number of miles of any such door? No; nor in any other
county. All is wholly changed, and all is changed for the worse.
There is now no hospitality in England. Words have changed their
meaning. We now give entertainment to those who entertain us in
return. We entertain people because we like them personally; and,
very seldom, because they stand in need of entertainment. An
hospital, in those days, meant a place of free entertainment; and not
a place merely for the lame, the sick and the blind; and the very
sound of the words "Old English Hospitality," ought to raise a blush
on every Protestant cheek. But, besides this hospitality exercised
invariably in the Monasteries, the weight of their example was great
with all the opulent classes of the community; and thus, to be
generous and kind was the character of the nation at large: a
niggardly, a base, a money-loving disposition could not be in
fashion, when those institutions to which all men looked with
reverence, set an example which condemned such a disposition.

184. And, if I am asked why the thirteen monks of WAVERLEY, for
instance, should have had 196l. l3s. 1d. a year to spend, making
about four thousand pounds a year of the money of the present day, I
may answer by asking, why they should not have had it? And I may go
on, and ask, why any body should have any property at all? Ay, but,
they never worked; they did nothing to increase the nation's store!
Let us see how this is. They possessed the lands of WAVERLEY, a few
hundred acres of very poor land with a mill, and, perhaps, about
twenty acres of very indifferent meadow-land, on one part of which,
sheltered by a semicircle of sand-hills, their Abbey stood, the river
Wey (about twenty feet wide) running close by the outer wall of the
convent. Besides this, they possessed the impropriated tithes of the
parish of Farnham, and a pond or two on the commons adjoining. This
estate in land belongs to a Mr. THOMPSON, who lives on the spot, and 
the estate in tithes to a Mr. HALSEY, who lives at a distance from
the parish. Now, without any disparagement to these gentlemen, did
not the monks work as much as they do? Did not their revenue go to
augment the nation's store as much as the rents of Mr. THOMPSON, or
the tithes of Mr. HALSEY? Ay, and which is of vast importance, the
poor of the parish of Farnham, having this Monastery to apply to, and
having for their neighbour a Bishop of Winchester, who did not sell
small beer out of his palace, stood in no need of poor-rates, and had
never heard the horrid word pauper pronounced. Come, my townsmen of
Farnham, you, who, as well as I, have, when we were boys, climbed the
ivy-covered ruins of this venerable Abbey (the first of its order in
England); you, who, as well as I have, when looking at those walls,
which have outlived the memory of the devastators but not the malice
of those who still taste time sweets of the devastation; you, who, as
well as I, have many times wondered what an abbey was, and how and
why this one came to be devastated; you shall be judge in this
matter, You know what poor-rates are and you know what church-rates
are. Very well, then, there were no poor-rates nor church-rates as
long as Waverley Abbey existed and as long as Bishops had no wives.
This is a fact wholly undeniable. There was no need of either. The
Church shared its property with the poor and the stranger, and left
the people at large to possess their own earnings. And, as to matters
of faith and worship, look at that immense heap of earth round the
church, where your parents and my parents, amid where our
progenitors, for twelve hundred years, lie buried; then bear in mind,
that, for nine hundred years out of the twelve, they were all of the
faith and worship of the monks of Waverley; and, with that thought in
your mind, find, if you can, the heart to say, that the monks of
Waverley, by whose hospitality your fathers and my fathers were, for
so many ages, preserved from bearing the hateful name of pauper,
taught an idolatrous and damnable religion.

185. That which took place in Surrey, took place in every other
county, only to a greater extent in proportion to the greater wealth
and resources of the spot. Defacing followed closely upon the heels
of confiscation and plunder. If buildings could have been murdered,
the tyrant and his plunderers would have made short work of it. As it
was, they did all they could: they knocked down, they blowed up, they
annihilated as far as they could. Nothing, indeed, short of
diabolical malice was to be expected from such men; but, there were
two Abbeys in England, which one might have hoped, that even these
monsters would spare; that which contained the tomb of ST. AUSTIN and
that which had been founded by, and contained the remains of, ALFRED
We have seen how they rifled the tomb of ST. AUSTIN at Canterbury.
They tore down the church and the Abbey, and with the materials built
a menagerie for wild beasts, and a palace for the tyrant himself. The
tomb of ALFRED was in an Abbey, at Winchester, founded by that king
himself. The Abbey and its estates were given by the tyrant to
WRIOTHESLEY, who was afterwards made Earl of Southampton, and who got
a pretty good share of the confiscations in Hampshire. One almost
sickens at the thought of a man capable of a deed like the
destruction of this Abbey. Where is there one amongst us, who has
read anything at all, who has not read of the fame of ALFRED? What
book can we open, even for our boyish days, that does not sound his
praise? Poets, moralists, divines, historians, philosophers, lawyers,
legislators, not only of our own country, but of all Europe, have
cited him, and still cite him, as a model of virtue, piety, wisdom,
valour, and Patriotism; as possessing every excellence, without a
single fault. He, in spite of difficulties such as no other human
being on record ever encountered, cleared his harassed and half-
barbarized country of horde after horde of cruel invaders, who, at
one time, had wholly subdued it, and compelled him, in order to
escape destruction, to resort to the habit and the life of a
herdsman. From this state of depression he, during a not long life,
raised himself and his people to the highest point of happiness and
of fame. He fought, with his armies and fleets, more than fifty
battles against the enemies of England. He taught his people by his
example as well as by his precepts, to be sober, industrious, brave,
and just. He promoted learning in all the sciences; he planted the
University of Oxford; to him, and not to a late Scotch lawyer,
belongs "Trial by Jury "; Blackstone calls him. the founder of Common
Law; the counties, the hundreds, the tithings, the courts of justice,
were the work of ALFRED; he, in fact, was the founder of all those
rights, liberties and laws, which made England to he what England has
been, which gave her a character above that of all other nations,
which made her rich and great and happy beyond all her neighbours,
and which still give her whatever she possesses of that pre-eminence.
if there be a name under heaven, to which Englishmen ought to bow
with reverence approaching towards adoration, it is the name of 
ALFRED. And we are not unjust and ungrateful in this respect, at any
rate; for, whether Catholics or Protestants,  where is there an
Englishman to be found, who would not gladly make a pilgrimage of a
thousand miles to take off his hat at the tomb of this maker of the
English name? Alas! that tomb is nowhere to be found. The barbarians
spared not even that. It was in the Abbey before-mentioned, called
HYDE ABBEY, which had been founded by ALFRED himself, and intended as
the place of his burial. Besides the remains of ALFRED, this Abbey
contained those of ST. GRIMBALD, the Benedictine monk, whom ALFRED
brought into England to begin the teaching at Oxford. But, what cared
the plunderers for remains of public benefactors? The Abbey was
knocked down, or blowed up: the tombs were demolished; the very lead
of the coffins was sold; and, which fills one with more indignation
than all the rest, the estates were so disposed of as to make the
loan-makers, the BARINGS, at this day, the successors of ALFRED the
Great!

186. WRIOTHESLEY got the manors of MICHELDEVER and STRATTON, which,
by marriage, came into the hands of the family of RUSSELL, and, from
that family, about thirty years ago, they were bought by the BARINGS,
and are now in possession of Sir THOMAS BARING. It is curious to
observe how this Protestant "Reformation" has worked. if it had not
been, there would have been no paupers at Micheldever and Stratton;
but, then the Russells would not have had the estates, and they could
not have sold them to the Barings; ay, but then there would have
been, too, no national debt, as well as no paupers, and there would
have been no loan-makers to buy the estates of the Russells. Besides
this, there would have been no bridewell erected upon the precise
spot where the abbey-church stood; no tread-mill, perhaps, Over the
very place where the ashes of ALFRED lay; and, what is more, there
would have been no need of bridewell or tread-mill. It is related of
ALFRED, that he made his people so honest, that he could hang
bracelets up by the way side, without danger of their being touched.
Alas! that the descendants of that same people should need a tread-
mill! Ay, but, in the days of ALFRED there were no paupers; no
miserable creatures compelled to labour from month's end to month's
end without seeing meat; no thousands upon thousands made thieves by
that hunger, which acknowledges no law, human or divine.

187. Thus, then, was the country devastated, sacked and defaced; and
I should now proceed to give an account of the commencement of that
poverty and degradation, which were, as I have pledged myself to
show, the consequences of this devastation; and which I shall show,
not by bare assertion, nor from what are called "histories of
England;" but, from Acts of Parliament, and from other sources, which
every one can refer to, and the correctness of which is beyond all
dispute. But, before we come to this important matter, we must see
the end of the ruffian "Vicegerent," and also the end of the tyrant
himself, who was, during the events that we have been speaking of,
going on marrying and divorcing, or killing, his wives; but, whose
career, was, after all, not very long.

188. After the death of JANE SEYMOUR, who was the mother of Edward
VI., and who was the only one of all the tyrant's wives who had the
good luck to die a queen, and to die in her bed; after her death,
which took place in 1537, he was nearly two years hunting up another
wife. None, certainly, but some very gross and unfeeling woman could
be expected to have, voluntarily, anything to do with a man, whose
hands were continually steeped in blood. In 1539 he found, however, a
mate in ANNE, the sister of the Duke of Cleves. When she arrived in
England he expressed his dislike of her person; but he found it
prudent to marry her. In 1540, about six or seven months after the
marriage, he was divorced from her, not daring, in this case, to set
his myrmidons to work to bring her to the block. There was no lawful
pretence for the divorce. The husband did not like his wife: that was
all: and this was alleged, too, as the ground of the divorce.
CRANMER, who had divorced him from two wives before, put his irons
into the fire again for this occasion; and produced, in a little
time, as neat a piece of work as ever had come from the shop of the
famous "Reformation." Thus the King and Queen were single people
again; but, the former had another young and handsome wife in his
eye. This lady's name was CATHERINE HOWARD, a niece of the Duke of
NORFOLK. This Duke, as well as most of the old nobility, hated
CROMWELL; and now was an opportunity of inflicting vengeance on him.
CROMWELL had been the chief cause of the King's marriage with ANNE of
Cleves; but, the fact is, his plundering talent was no longer wanted,
and it was convenient to the tyrant to get rid of him.

189. CROMWELL had obtained enormous wealth, from his several
offices, as well as from the plunder of the church and the poor. He
had got about thirty of the estates belonging to the monasteries; his
house, or rather palace, was gorged with the fruits of the sacking;
he had been made Earl of Essex; he had precedence of every one but
the King; and he, in fact, represented the King in the Parliament,
where he introduced and defended all his confiscating and murdering
laws. He had been barbarous beyond all description towards the
unfortunate and unoffending monks and nuns; without such an
instrument the plunder never could have been effected: but, he was no
longer wanted; the ruffian had already lived too long; the very walls
of the devastated convents seemed to call for public vengeance on his
head. On the morning of the 10th of June, 1540, he was all-powerful:
in the evening of the same day he was in prison as a traitor. He lay
in prison only a few days before he had to experience the benefit of
his own way of administering justice. He had, as we have seen in the
last Number, invented a way of bringing people to the block, or the
gallows, without giving them any form of trial; without giving them
even a hearing; but merely by passing a law to put them to death.
This was what this abominable wretch had brought about in the case of
the Countess of SALISBURY; and this was what was now to fall on his
own head. He lived only about forty-eight days after his arrest; not
half long enough to enable him to enumerate, barely to enumerate, the
robberies and murders committed under his orders. His time seems,
however, to have been spent, not in praying to God to forgive him for
these robberies and murders, but in praying to the tyrant to spare
his life. Perhaps, of all the mean and dastardly wretches that ever
died, this was the most mean and dastardly. He, who had been the most
insolent and cruel of ruffians, when he had power, was now the most
disgustingly slavish and base. He had, in fact, committed no crime
against the King; though charged with heresy and treason, he was no
more a heretic than the King was; and, as to the charge of treason,
there was not a shadow of foundation for it. But, he was just as
guilty of treason as the abbots of Reading, Colchester, and
Glastonbury, all of whom, and many more, he had been the chief
instrument in putting to death. He put them to death in order to get
possession of their property; and, I dare say, to get at his
property, to get the plunder back from him, was one of the motives
for bringing him to the block. This very ruffian had superintended
the digging up of the ashes of THOMAS À BECKET, and scattering them
in the air; and now, the people who had witnessed that, had to
witness the letting of the blood out of his dirty body, to run upon
the pavement, to be licked up by hogs or dogs. The cowardly creature
seems to have had, from the moment of his arrest, no thought about
any thing but saving his life. He wrote repeatedly to the King, in
hope of getting pardoned: but, all to no purpose: he had done what
was wanted of him; the work of plunder was nearly over; he had, too,
got a large share of the plunder, which it was not convenient to
leave in his hands; and, therefore, upon true "Reformation"
principles, it was time to take away his life. He, in his letters to
the King, most vehemently protested his innocence. Ay; no doubt of
that: but, he was not more innocent than were the butchered abbots
and monks; he was not more innocent than any one out of those
thousands upon thousands, whom he had quartered, hanged, burned, or
plundered; and, amongst all those thousands upon thousands, there
never was seen one, female or male, so complete a dastard as him
self. In these letters to the tyrant, he fawned on him in the most
disgusting manner; compared his smiles and frowns to those of God;
besought him to suffer him "to kiss his balmy hand once more, that
the fragrance thereof might make him fit for heaven"! The base
creature deserved his death, if it had only been for writing these
letters. Fox, the "Martyr" man, calls this CROMWELL the "valiant
soldier of the Reformation." Yes, there have been few soldiers to
understand sacking better: he was full of valour on foraging parties;
and when he had to rifle monks and nuns and to rob altars: a brave
fellow when he had to stretch monks and nuns on the rack, to make
them confess treasonable words or thoughts; but when death began to
stare him in the face, he was, assuredly, the most cowardly caitiff
that ever died. it is hardly necessary to say, that this man is a
great favourite of HUME, who deeply laments CROMWELL's fate, though
he has not a word of compassion to bestow upon all the thousands that
had been murdered or ruined by him. He, as well as other historians,
quotes from the conclusion of one of CROMWELL's letters to the King,
these abject expressions: "I, a most woful prisoner, am ready to
submit to death, when it shall please God and your Majesty; and yet
the frail flesh incites me to call on your grace for  mercy and
pardon of mine offences. -- Written at the  Tower with the heavy
heart and trembling hand of your  Highness's most miserable prisoner
and poor slave, THOMAS CROMWELL -- Most gracious prince, I cry for
mercy,  mercy, mercy!" This is the language of Fox's "valiant
soldier." Fox meant valiant, not in the field, or on the scaffold,
but in the convent, pulling the rings from women's fingers, and
tearing the gold clasps from books: that was the Protestant valour of
the "Reformation." HUME says, that "CROMWELL deserved a better fate."
Never was fate more just or more appropriate. He had been the
willing, the officious, the zealous, the eager agent in the execution
of all the tyrannical, sacrilegious, and bloody deeds of his master;
and had, amongst other things, been the very man who first suggested
the condemning of people to death without trial. What could be more
just than that he should die in the same way? Not a tear was shed at
his death, which produced on the spectators an effect such as is
produced when the foulest of murderers expiate their crimes on the
gallows.

190. During the seven years that the tyrant himself survived this his
cruel and dastardly Vicegerent, he was beset with disappointments,
vexations and torments of all sorts. He discovered, at the end of a
few months, that his new Queen had been, and still was, much such
another as ANNE BOLEYN. He with very little ceremony, sent her to the
block, together with a whole posse of her relations, lovers, and
cronies. He raged and foamed like a wild beast, passed laws most
bloody to protect himself against lewdness and infidelity in his
future wives, and got, for his pains, the ridicule of the nation and
of all Europe. He, for the last time, took another wife; but, this
time, none would face his laws but a widow; and she very narrowly
escaped the fate of the rest. He, for some years before he died,
became, from his gluttony and debaucheries, an unwieldy and
disgusting mass of flesh, moved about by means of mechanical
inventions. But, still he retained all the ferocity and bloody-
mindedness of his former days. The principal business of his life was
the ordering of accusations, executions, and confiscations. When on
his death-bed, every one was afraid to intimate his danger to him,
lest death to the intimater should be the consequence; and he died
before he was well aware of his condition, leaving more than one
death-warrant unsigned for want of time!

191. Thus expired, in the year 1547, in the fifty-sixth year of his
age and the thirty-eighth of his reign, the most unjust, hard-
hearted, meanest and most sanguinary tyrant that the world had ever
beheld, whether Christian or Heathen. That England, which he found in
peace, unity, plenty and happiness, he left torn by factions and
schisms, her people wandering about in beggary and misery. He laid
the foundations of immorality, dishonesty and pauperism, all which
produced an abundant harvest in the reigns of his unhappy, barren,
mischievous and miserable children, with whom, at the end of a few
years, his house and his name were extinguished for ever. How he
disposed of the plunder of the church and the poor; how his
successors completed that work of confiscation which he had carried
on so long; how the nation sunk in point of character and of wealth;
how pauperism first arose in England; and how were sown the seeds of
that system of which we now behold the effects in the impoverishment
and degradation of the main body of the people of England and
Ireland; all these will be shown in the next Letter and shown, I
trust, in a manner which will leave, in the mind of every man of
sense, no doubt, that, of all the scourges that ever afflicted this
country, none is to be put in comparison with the Protestant
"Reformation."







LETTER VII.

EDWARD VI. CROWNED.
PERJURY OF THE EXECUTORS OF HENRY VIII.
NEW CHURCH "BY LAW ESTABLISHED,"
ROBBERY OF THE CHURCHES,
INSURRECTIONS OF THE PEOPLE.
TREASONS OF CRANMER AND HIS ASSOCIATES,
DEATH OF THE KING.

Kensington, 31st May, l825.

My FRIENDS,

192. HAVING, in the preceding Letters, shown, that the thing,
impudently called the "REFORMATION," was engendered in beastly lust,
brought forth in hypocrisy and perfidy, and cherished and fed by
plunder, devastation, and by rivers of innocent English and Irish
blood, I intended to show, in the present Letter, how the main body
of the people were, by these doings, impoverished and degraded up to
this time; that is to say, I intended to trace the impoverishment and
degradation down to the end of the reign of the bloody tyrant, Henry
VIII. But, upon reviewing the matter, I think it best first to go
through the whole of my account of the plunderings, persecutions and
murderings of the "Reformation" people; and, when we have seen all
the robberies and barbarities that they committed under the
hypocritical Pretence of religious zeal; or, rather, when we have
seen such of those robberies and barbarities as we can find room for;
then I shall conclude with showing how enormously the nation lost by
the change; and, how that change made the main body of the people
poor and wretched and degraded. By pursuing this plan, I shall, in
one concluding Letter, give, or, at least, endeavour to give, a clear
and satisfactory history of this impoverishment. I shall take the
present Protestant labourer, with his cold potatoes and water, and
show him how his Catholic forefathers lived; and if those cold
potatoes and water, if this poorer than pig-diet, have not quite
taken away all the natural qualities of English blood, I shall make
him execrate the plunderers and hypocrites by whom was produced that
change, which has finally led to his present misery. and to nine-
tenths of that mass of corruption and crime, public and private,
which now threaten to uproot society itself.

193. In pursuance of this plan and in conformity with my promise to
conclude my little work in Ten Numbers, I shall distribute my matter
thus: in Number VIII (the. present), the deeds and events of the
reign of Edward VI. In Number VIII those of the reign of Queen Mary.
In number IX, those of the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and, in Number
X, the facts and arguments to establish my main point; namely, that
the thing, impudently called the "Reformation," impoverished and
degraded the main body of the people. In the course of the first
three of these Numbers, I shall not touch, except incidentally, upon
the impoverishing and degrading effects of the change; but, shall
reserve these for the last number, when, having witnessed the horrid
means, we will take an undivided view of the consequences. tracing
those consequences down to the present day.

194.  In paragraph 190 we had the satisfaction to see the savage
tyrant expire at a premature old age, with body swelled and bursting
from luxury, and with a mind torn by contending passions. One of his
last acts was a will, by which he made his infant son his immediate
successor, with remainder, in case he died without issue, to his
daughter Mary first, and then, in default of issue again, to his
daughter ELIZABETH; though, observe, both the daughters still stood
bastardized by Act of Parliament, and, though the latter was born of
ANNE BOLEYN while the King's first wife the mother of MARY, was
alive.

195.  To carry this will into execution and to govern the kingdom,
until Edward, who was then ten years of age. should be eighteen years
of age, there were sixteen executors appointed, amongst whom was
SEYMOUR, Earl of Hertford, and the "honest CRANMER." These sixteen
worthies began by taking, in the most solemn manner, an oath to stand
to and maintain the last will of their master. Their second act was
to break that oath by making HERTFORD, who was a brother of JANE
SEYMOUR, the King's mother, protector, though the will gave equal
powers to all the executors. Their next step was to give new peerages
to some of themselves. The fourth, to award to the new peers grants
of the public money. The fifth was to lay aside, at the Coronation,
the ancient English custom of asking the people if they were willing
to have and obey the King. The sixth was "to attend at a solemn high
mass." And the seventh was to begin a series of acts for the total
subversion of all that remained of the Catholic religion in England,
and for the effecting of all that Old Harry had left uneffected in
the way of plunder.

196. The Monasteries were gone; the cream had been taken off; but
there remained the skimmed milk of church-altars, chanteries, and
guilds. Old Harry would, doubtless, if he had lived much longer, have
plundered these; but, he had not done it, and he could not do it
without openly becoming Protestant, which, for the reasons stated in
paragraph 101, he would not do. But HERTFORD and his fifteen brother
worthies had in their way no such obstacle as the ruffian King had
had. The church-altars, the chanteries, and the guilds contained
something valuable; and they longed to be at it. The power of the
POPE was gotten rid of; the country had been sacked; the poor had
been despoiled; but, still there were some pickings left. The piety
of ages had made every church, however small, contain some gold and
silver appertaining to the altar. The altars, in the parish churches,
and, generally, in the cathedrals, had been left, as yet, untouched;
for, though the wife-killer had abjured the POPE, whose power he had
taken to himself, he still professed to be of the Catholic faith, and
he maintained the mass and the sacraments and creeds with fire and
fagot. Therefore he had left the church-altars unplundered. But, they
contained gold, silver, and other valuables, and the worthies saw
these with longing eyes and itching fingers.

197.  To seize them, however, there required a pretext, and what
pretext could there be short of declaring, at once, that the Catholic
religion was false and wicked, and, of course, that there ought to be
no altars, and, of course, no gold and silver things appertaining to
them! The sixteen worthies, with HERTFORD at their head, and with
CRANMER amongst them, had had the King crowned as a Catholic: he, as
well as they, had taken the oaths as Catholics; they had sworn to
uphold that religion; they had taken him. to a high mass after his
coronation; but, the altars had good things about them; there was
plunder remaining; and to get at this remaining plunder, the Catholic
religion must be wholly put down. There were, doubtless, some
fanatics; some who imagined that the religion of nine hundred years
standing ought not to be changed; some who had not plunder and
plunder only in view; but, it is impossible for any man of common
sense, of unperverted mind, to look at the history of this
transaction, at this open avowal of Protestantism, at this change
from the religion of England to that of a part of Germany, without
being convinced that the principal authors of it had plunder and
plunder only in view.

198.  The old tyrant died in 1547; and by the end of 1549, CRANMER,
who had tied so many Protestants to the stake for not being
Catholics, had pretty nearly completed a system of Protestant
worship. He first prepared a. book of homilies and a catechism, in
order to pave the way. Next came a law to allow the clergy to have
wives; and then, when all things had been prepared, came the Book of
Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments. GARDINER, who was
Bishop of Winchester, reproached CRANMER with his duplicity; reminded
him of the zeal with which he had upheld the Catholic worship under
the late King, and would have made him hang himself, or cut his
throat, if he had had the slightest remains of shame in him.

199.  This new system did not, however, go far enough for the
fanatics; and there instantly appeared arrayed against it whole
tribes of new lights on the continent. So that CRANMER, cunning as he
was, soon found that he had undertaken no easy matter. The
proclamations put forth, upon this occasion, were disgustingly
ridiculous, coming, as they did, in the name of a King only ten years
of age, and expressed in words so solemnly pompous and so full of
arrogance. However, the chief object was the plunder; and to get at
this nothing was spared. There were other things to attract the
grasp; but, it will be unnecessary to dwell very particularly on any
thing but the altars and the churches. This was the real "Reformation
reign "; for, it was a reign of robbery and hypocrisy without any
thing to be compared with them; any thing in any country or in any
age. Religion, conscience, was always the pretext; but in one way or
another, robbery, plunder was always the end. The People, once so
united and so happy, became divided into innumerable sects, no man
knowing hardly what to believe; and, indeed, no one knowing what it
was lawful for him to say; for it soon became impossible for the
common people to know what was heresy and what was not heresy.

200.  That prince of hypocrites, CRANMER, who, during the reign of
Henry, had condemned people to the flames for not believing in
transubstantiation, was now ready to condemn them for believing in
it. We have seen, that LUTHER was the beginner of the work of
"Reformation "; but, he was soon followed by further reformers on the
continent. These had made many attempts to propagate their doctrines
in England; but, old Henry had kept them down. Now, however, when the
churches were to he robbed of what remained in them, and when, to
have a pretext  for that robbery, was necessary to make a complete
change in the form of worship, these sectarians all flocked to
England, which became one great scene of religious disputation. Some
were for the Common Prayer Book; others proposed alterations in it;
others were for abolishing it altogether and there now began that
division, that multiplicity of hostile opinions, which has continued
to the present day. CRANMER employed a part of the resources of the
country to feed and fatten those of these religious, or, rather,
impious, adventurers, who sided with him, and who chose the best
market for their doctrines. England was over-run by these foreign
traders in religion; and this nation, so jealous of foreign
influence, was now compelled to bend its haughty neck, not only to
foreigners, but to foreigners of the most base and infamous character
and description. CRANMER could not find Englishmen sufficiently
supple to be his tools in executing the work that he had in hand. The
Protector Hertford, whom we must now call SOMERSET (the child king
having made him Duke of SOMERSET), was the greatest of all
"reformers" that had yet appeared in the world, and, as we shall soon
see, the greatest and most audacious of all the plunderers that this
famous Reformation has produced, save and except old Harry himself.
The total abolition of the Catholic worship was necessary to his
projects of plunder; and, therefore, he was a great encourager of
these greedy and villainous foreigners. Perhaps the world has never,
in any age, seen a nest of such atrocious miscreants as LUTHER,
ZUINGLIUS, CALVIN, BEZA, and the rest of the distinguished reformers
of the Catholic religion. Every one of them was notorious for the
most scandalous vices, even according to the full confession of his
own followers. They agreed in nothing but in the doctrine, that good
works were useless; and their lives proved the sincerity of their
teaching; for there was not a man of them whose acts did not merit a
halter.

201. The consequences to the morals of the people were such as were
naturally to be expected. All historians agree, that vice of all
sorts and crime of every kind was never so great and so numerous
before. This was confessed by the teachers themselves; and yet the
Protestants have extolled this reign as the reign of conscience and
religion! it was so manifest that the change was a bad one, that men
could hot have proceeded in it from error. Its mischiefs were all
manifest before the death of the old tyrant; that death afforded an
opportunity for returning into the right path but, there was plunder
remaining, and the plunderers went on. The "reformation" was not the
work of virtue, of fanaticism, of error, of ambition; but of a love
of plunder. This was its great animating principle in this it began,
and in this it proceeded till there was nothing left for it to work
on.

202.  The old tyrant had, in certain cases, enabled his minions to
rob the bishoprics; but, now, there was a grant! sweep at them. The
PROTECTOR took the lead, and his example was followed by others. They
took so much from one, so much from another, and some they wholly
suppressed, as that of Westminster, and took their estates to
themselves. There were many chanteries (private property to all
intents and purposes); free chapels, also private property; alms-
houses; hospitals; guilds, or fraternities, the property of which was
as much private property as the funds of any Friendly Society now
are. All these became lawful plunder. And yet there are men, who
pretend, that what is now possessed by the Established Church is of
so sacred a nature as not to be touched by Act of Parliament This was
the reign in which this our present Established Church was founded;
for, though the fabric was overset by MARY, it was raised again by
ELIZABETH, Now it was that it was made, it was made, and the new
worship along with it, by Acts of Parliament, and it now seems to be
high time, that, by similar Acts, it should be unmade, it had its
very birth in division, disunion, discord; and its life has been
worthy of its birth. The property it possesses was taken, nominally,
from the Catholic Church; but, in reality, from that Church, and also
from the widow, the orphan, the indigent and the stranger. The
pretext for making it was, that it would cause an union of sentiment
amongst the people; that it would compose all dissensions. The truth,
the obvious truth, that there could be but one true religion, was
acknowledged and loudly proclaimed; and, it was not to be denied,
that there were already twenty, the teachers of every one of which
declared that all the others were false; and, of course, that they
were, at the very least, no better than no religion at all. Indeed,
this is the language of common sense; though it is now so fashionable
to disclaim the doctrine of exclusive salvation. I ask the Unitarian
parson, or prater, for instance, why he takes upon him that office;
why he does not go and follow some trade, or why he does not work in
the fields? His answer is, that he is more usefully employed in
teaching. If I ask, of what use his teaching is, he tells me, he must
tell me, that his teaching is necessary to the salvation of souls.
Well, say I, but, why not leave that business to the Established
Church, to which the people all pay tithes? Oh, no! says he; I cannot
do that, because the Church does not teach the true religion. Well,
say I; but true or false, if it serve for salvation, what signifies
it? Here I have him penned up in. a corner. He is compelled to
confess., that he is a fellow wanting to lead an easy life by
pandering to the passions or whims of conceited persons; or, to
insist, that his sort of belief and teaching are absolutely necessary
to salvation: as he will not confess the former, he is obliged to
insist on the latter; and here, after all his railing against the
intolerance of the Catholics, he maintains the doctrine of exclusive
salvation.

203. Two true religions, two true creeds, differing from each other,
contradicting each other, present us with an impossibility. What,
then, are we to think of twenty or forty creeds, each differing from
all the rest? If deism, or atheism, he something not only wicked in
itself, but so mischievous in its effects as to call, in case of the
public profession of it, for imprisonment for years and years; if
this be the case what are we to think of laws, the same laws, too,
which inflict that cruel punishment, tolerating and encouraging a
multiplicity of creeds, all but one of which must he false? A code of
laws acknowledging and tolerating but one religion is consistent in
punishing the deist and the atheist; but if it acknowledge or
tolerate more than one, it acknowledges or tolerates one false one;
and let divines say, whether a false religion is not as had as deism
or atheism? Besides, is it just to punish the deist or the atheist
for not believing in the Christian religion at all, when he sees the
laws tolerate so many religions, all but one of which must be false?
What is the natural effect of men seeing constantly before their eyes
a score or two of different sects, all calling themselves Christians,
all tolerated by the law, and each openly declaring that all the rest
are false? The natural, the necessary effect is., that many men will
believe that none of them have truth on their side; and, of course,
that the thing is false altogether, and invented solely for the
benefit of those who teach it, and who dispute about it.

204.  The law should acknowledge and tolerate but one religion: or it
should know nothing at all about the matter. The Catholic code was
consistent. It said, that there was but one true religion; and it
punished as offenders those who dared openly to profess any opinion
contrary to that religion. Whether that were the true religion or
not, we have not now to inquire; but, while its long continuance, and
in so many nations too, was a strong presumptive proof of its good
moral effects upon the people, the disagreement amongst the
Protestants was, and is, a presumptive proof, not less strong, of its
truth. If, as I observed upon a former occasion, there be forty
persons, who, and whose fathers, for countless generations, have, up
to this day, entertained a certain belief; and, if thirty-nine of
these say, at last, that this belief is erroneous, we may naturally
enough suppose, or, at least, we may think it possible, that the
truth, so long hidden, is, though late, come to light. But, if the
thirty-nine begin, aye, and instantly begin, to entertain, instead of
the one old belief, thirty-nine new beliefs, each differing from all
the other thirty-eight, must we not, in common justice, decide, that
the old belief must have been the true one? What; shall we hear these
thirty-nine protestors against the ancient faith each protesting
against all the other thirty-eight, and still believe that their
joint protest was just? Thirty-eight of them must now be in error;
this must be: and are we still to believe in the correctness of their
former decision; and that, too, relating to the same identical
matter? If, in a trial, relating to the dimensions of a piece of
land, which had been proved to have always been, time without mind,
taken for twenty acres, there were one surveyor to swear it contained
twenty acres, and each of thirty-nine other surveyors to swear to
each of the other number of acres, between one and forty, what judge
and jury would hesitate a moment in crediting him who swore to the
twenty, and in wholly rejecting the testimony of all the rest?

205. Thus the argument would stand, on the supposition that thirty-
nine parts out of forty of all Christendom had protested; but, there
were not, and there are not, even unto this day, two parts out of
fifty. So that here we have thirty-nine persons breaking off from
about two thousand, protesting against the faith which the whole, and
their fathers, have held; we have each of these thirty-nine instantly
protesting that all the other thirty-eight have protested upon false
grounds; and yet we are to believe, that their joint protest against
the faith of the two thousand, who are backed by all antiquity, was
wise and just! Is this the way in which we decide in other cases? Did
honest men, and men not blinded by passion, or by some base motive,
ever decide thus before? Besides, if the Catholic faith were so false
as it is by some pretended to he, how comes it not to have been
extirpated before now? When, indeed, the POPE had very great power;
when even kings were compelled to bend to him, it might he said, and
pretty fairly said, that no one dared to use the weapons of reason
against the Catholic faith. But, we have seen the POPE a prisoner in
a foreign land; we have seen him almost with out food and raiment;
and we have seen the press of more than half the world at liberty to
treat him and his faith as it pleased to treat them. But have we not
seen the Protestant sects at work for three hundred years to destroy
the Catholic faith? Do we not see, at the end of those three hundred
years, that that faith is still the reigning faith of Christendom?
Nay, do we not see that it is gaining ground at this very moment,
even in this kingdom itself, where a Protestant hierarchy receives
eight millions sterling a year, and where Catholics arc still rigidly
excluded from all honour and power, and, in some cases, from all
political and civil rights, under a constitution founded by their
Catholic ancestors? Can it be, then, that this faith is false? Can it
he that this worship is idolatrous? Can it be that it was necessary
to abolish them in England, as far as law could do it? Can it be that
it was for our good, our honour, to sack our country, to violate all
the rights of property, to deluge the country with blood, in order to
change our religion?

206.  But, in returning, now, to the works of the plunderers, we
ought to remark, that, in discussions of this sort, it is a common,
but a very great error, to keep our eyes so exclusively fixed on mere
matters of religion. The Catholic Church included in it a great deal
more than the business of teaching religion and of practising worship
and administering sacraments. It had a great deal to do with the
temporal concerns of the people. It provided, and amply provided, for
all the wants of the poor and distressed, It received back, in many
instances, what the miser and extortioner had taken unfairly, and
applied it to works of beneficence. It contained a great body of land 
proprietors, whose revenues were distributed, in various ways,
amongst the people at large, upon terms always singularly
advantageous to the latter. It was a great and powerful estate,
independent both of the aristocracy and the crown, and naturally
siding with the people. But, above all things, it was a provider for
the poor and a keeper of hospitality. By its charity, and by its
benevolence towards its tenants and dependants, it mitigated the
rigour of proprietorship, and held society together by the ties of
religion rather than by the trammels and terrors of the law. It was
the great cause of that description of tenants called life-holders,
who formed a most important link in the chain of society, coming
after the proprietors in fee, and before the tenant at will,
participating, in some degree, of the proprietorship of the estate,
and yet, not whom without dependence on the proprietor. This race of
persons, formerly so numerous in England, has, by degrees, become
almost wholly extinct, their place having been supplied by a
comparatively few rack-renters, and by swarms of miserable paupers.
The Catholic Church held the lending of money for interest, or gain,
to be directly in the face of the Gospel. It considered all such gain
as usurious, and, of course, criminal. It taught the making of loans
without interest; and thus it prevented the greedy-minded from
amassing wealth in that way in which wealth is most easily amassed.
Usury amongst Christians was wholly unknown, until the wife-killing
tyrant had laid his hands on the property of the Church and the poor.
The principles of the Catholic Church all partook of generosity; it
was their great characteristic, as selfishness is the characteristic
of that Church which was established in its stead.

207. The plunder which remained after the seizure of the monasteries
was comparatively small; but, still, the very leavings of the old
tyranny, the mere gleanings of the harvest of plunder, were
something; and these were not suffered to remain. The plunder of the
churches, parochial as well as collegiate, was preceded by all sorts
of antics played in those churches. CALVIN had got an influence
opposed to that of CRANMER; so that there was almost open war amongst
these Protestants, which party should have the teaching of the
people. After due preparation in this way, the robbery was set about
in due form. Every church altar had, as I have before observed, more
or less of gold and silver. A part consisted of images, a part of
censers, candlesticks, and other things used in the celebration of
the mass. The mass was, therefore, abolished, and there was no longer
to be an altar, but a table in its stead. The fanatical part of the
reformers amused themselves with quarrelling about the part of the
church where the table was to stand; about the shape of it, and
whether the head of it was to be placed to the North, the East, the
West, or the South; and whether the people were to stand, kneel, or
sit at it! The plunderers, however, thought about other things; they
thought about the value of the images, censers, and the like.

208.  To reconcile the people to these innovations the plunderers had
a Bible contrived for the purpose, which Bible was a perversion of
the original text wherever it was found to be necessary. Of all the
acts of this hypocritical and plundering reign, this was, perhaps,
the basest. In it we see the true character of the heroes of the
"Protestant Reformation"; and the poor and miserable labourers of
England, who now live upon potatoes and water, feel the consequences
of the deeds of the infamous times of which I am speaking. Every
preparation being made, the robbery began, and a general plunder of
churches took place by royal and parliamentary authority! The robbers
took away every thing valuable, even down to the vestments of the
priests. Such mean rapacity never was heard of before, and, for the
honour of human nature, let us hope that it will never be heard of
again. It seems that England was really become a den of thieves, and
of thieves, too, of the lowest and most despicable character.

209. The Protector, SOMERSET, did not forget himself. Having
plundered four or five of the bishoprics, he needed a palace in
London. For the purpose of building this palace, which was erected in
the Strand, London, and which was called "SOMERSET-HOUSE," as the
place is called to this day, he took from three bishops their town-
houses; he pulled these down, together with a parish church, in order
to get a suitable spot for the erection. The materials of these
demolished buildings being insufficient for his purpose, he pulled
down a part of the buildings appertaining to the then cathedral of
St. Paul; the church of St. John, near Smithfield; Barking Chapel,
near the Tower; the college church of St. Martin-le-Grand; St. Ewen's
church, Newgate; and the parish church of St. Nicholas. He, besides
these, ordered the pulling down of the parish church of Saint
Margaret, Westminster; but, says Dr. HEYLIN, "the workmen had no
sooner advanced their scaffolds, when the parishioners gathered
together in great multitudes, with bows and arrows, and staves and
clubs; which so terrified  the workmen that they ran away in great
amazement, and never could be brought again upon that employment."
Thus arose SOMERSET-HOUSE, the present grand seat of the power of
fiscal grasping. It was first erected literally with the ruins of
churches, and it now serves, under its old name, as the place from
which issue the mandates to us to give up the fruit of our earnings
to pay the interest of a DEBT, which is one of the evident and great
consequences of the " Protestant Reformation," without which that
DEBT never could have existed.

210. I am, in the last Number, to give an account of the
impoverishment and degradation that these and former Protestant
proceedings produced amongst the people at large; but I must here
notice, that the people heartily detested these Protestant tyrants
and their acts; General discontent prevailed, and this, in some
cases, broke out into open insurrection. It is curious enough to
observe the excuses that HUME, in giving an account of these times,
attempts to make for the plunderers and their "reformation." It was
his constant aim to blacken the Catholic institutions, and
particularly the character and conduct of the Catholic clergy. Yet he
could not pass over these discontents and risings of the people; and
as there must have been a cause for these, he is under the necessity
of ascribing them to the badness of the change, or to find out some
other cause. He, therefore, goes to work in a very elaborate manner
to make his readers believe, that the people were in error as to the
tendency of the change. He says, that "scarce any institution  can be
imagined less favourable, in the main, to the interests of mankind,"
than that of the Catholic; yet, says he, "as it was followed by many
good effects, which had ceased with the suppression of the
monasteries, that suppression was very much regretted by the people."
He then proceeds to describe the many benefits of the monastic
institutions; says that the monks always residing on their estates
caused a diffusion of good constantly around them; that, "not having
equal motives to avarice with other men, they were the best and most
indulgent landlords;" that, when the church lands became private
property, the rents were raised, the money spent at a distance from
the estates, and the tenants exposed to the rapacity of stewards;
that whole estates were laid waste; that the tenants were expelled;
and that even the cottagers were deprived of the commons on which
they formerly fed their cattle; that a great decay of the people, as
well as a diminution of former plenty, was remarked in the kingdom;
that, at the same time, the coin had been debased by Henry, and was
now further debased; that the good coin was hoarded or exported: that
the common people were thus robbed of part of their wages; that
complaints were heard in every part  of the kingdom."

211. Well; was not this change a bad one, then? And what are the
excuses which are offered for it by this calumniator of the Catholic
institutions? Why, he says, that "their hospitality and charity gave
encouragement to idleness, and prevented the increase of public
wealth;" and that "as it was by an addition alone of toil, that the
people were able to live, this increase of industry was, at last, the
effect of the PRESENT SITUATION, an effect very beneficial  to
society." What does he mean by the "present situation"? The situation
of the country, I suppose, at the time when he wrote; and, though the
"reformation" had not then produced pauperism and misery and DEBT and
taxes equal to the present, it was on the way to do it. But what does
he mean by "public riches"? The Catholic institutions "provided
against the pressure of want amongst the people"; but prevented the
increase of "public riches"! What, again I ask, is the meaning of the
words, "public riches"? What is, or ought to be, the end of all
government and of every institution? Why, the happiness of the
people. But this man sees, like ADAM SMITH, and indeed, like almost
every Scotch writer, to have a notion, that there may be great public
good, though producing individual misery. They seem always to regard
the people as so many cattle, working for an indescribable something
that they call "the "public." The question with them, is, not whether
the people, for whose good all government is instituted, be well off,
or wretched; but, whether, the "public" gain, or lose, money or
money's worth. I am able to show, and I shall show, that England was
a greater country before the "reformation" than since; that it was
greater positively and relatively; that its real wealth was greater.
But, what we have, at present, to observe, is, that thus far, at any
rate, the reformation had produced general misery amongst the common
people; and that, accordingly, complaints were heard from one end of
the kingdom to the other.

212.  The Book of Common Prayer was to put an end to all dissensions;
but, its promulgation and the consequent robbery of the churches,
were followed by open insurrection, in many of the counties, by
battles, and executions by martial law. The whole kingdom was in
commotion; but, particularly to the great honour of those counties,
in Devonshire and Norfolk. In the former county the insurgents were
superior in force to the hired troops, and had besieged Exeter. Lord
RUSSELL was sent against them, and, at last, reinforced by GERMAN
TROOPS, he defeated  them, executed many by martial law, and most
gallantly hanged a priest on the top of the tower of his church!
This, I suppose, Mr. BROUGHAM reckons amongst those services of the
family of Russell, which, he tells us, England can never repay! In
Norfolk the insurrection was still more formidable; but was finally
suppressed by the aid of FOREIGN TROOPS, and was also followed by the
most barbarous executions. The people of Devonshire complained of the
alterations in religion; that, as Dr. HEYLIN (a Protestant divine)
expresses it, "that the freeborn commonalty was oppressed by a small
number of gentry, who glutted  themselves with pleasures, while the
poor commons, wasted by daily labour, like pack-horses, live in
extreme slavery; and that holy rites, established by their fathers,
were abolished, and a new form of religion obtruded"; and they
demanded, that the mass and a part of the monasteries should be
restored, and that priests should not be  allowed to marry. Similar
were the complaints and the demands every where else. But, CRANMER's
Prayer Book and the Church "by law established," backed by foreign
bayonets, finally triumphed, at least for the present, and during the
remainder of this hypocritical, base, corrupt, and tyrannical reign.

213.  Thus arose the Protestant Church, as by law established. Here
we see its origin. Thus it was that it commenced its career. How
different, alas! from the commencement of that Church of England,
which arose under St. AUSTIN at Canterbury, which had been cherished
so carefully by ALFRED the Great, and, under the wings of which the
people of England had, for nine hundred years,  seen their country
the greatest in the world, and had them selves lived in ease and
plenty and real freedom, superior to those of all other nations!

214.  SOMERSET, who had brought his own brother to the block in 1549,
chiefly because he had opposed himself to his usurpations (though
both were plunderers), was, not long after the commission of the
above cruelties on the people, destined to come to that block
himself. DUDLEY, Earl of Warwick, who was his rival in baseness and
injustice, and his superior in talent, had out-intrigued him in the
Council; and, at last, he brought him to that end which he so well
merited. On what grounds this was done is wholly uninteresting. It
was a set of most wicked men circumventing, and, if necessary,
destroying each other; but, it is worthy of remark, that, amongst the
crimes alleged against this great culprit, was, his having brought
foreign troops into the kingdom! This was, to be sure, rather
ungrateful in the pious reformers; for, it was those troops that
established for them their new religion. But, it was good to see them
putting their leader to death, actually cutting off his head, for
having caused their projects to succeed. It was, in plain words, a
dispute about the plunder. Somerset had got more than his brother-
plunderers deemed his share. He was building a palace for himself;
and if each plunderer could have had a palace, it would have been
peace amongst them; but, as this could not be, the rest called him a
"traitor," and as the king, the Protestant St. Edward, had signed the
death-warrant of one uncle at the instigation of another uncle, he
now signed the death-warrant of that other, the "Saint" himself
being, even now, only fifteen years of age!

215.  WARWICK, who was now become Protector, was made Duke of
Northumberland, and got granted to him the immense estates of that
ancient house, which had fallen into the hands of the crown. This
was, if possible, a more zealous Protestant than the last Protector;
that is to say, still more profligate, rapacious, and cruel. The work
of plundering the church went on, until there remained scarcely
anything worthy of the name of clergy. Many parishes were, in all
parts of the kingdom, united in one, and having but one priest
amongst them. But, indeed, there were hardly any persons left worthy
of the name of clergy. All the good and all the learned had either
been killed, starved to death, banished, or had gone out of the
country; and those who remained were, during this reign of mean
plunders so stripped of their incomes, so pared down, that the
parochial clergy worked as carpenters, smiths, masons, and were not
unfrequently menial servants in gentlemen's houses. So that this
Church of England "as by law (and German troops) established," became
the scorn, not only of the people of England, but of all the nations
of Europe.

 216. The king, who was a poor sickly lad; seems to have had no
distinctive characteristic except that of hatred to the Catholics and
their religion, in which hatred CRANMER and others had brought him
up. His life was not likely to be long, and NORTHUMBERLAND, who was
now his keeper, conceived the project of getting the crown into his
own family, a project quite worthy of a hero of the "Reformation." In
order to carry this project into effect, he married one of his sons,
Lord GUILFORD DUDLEY, to Lady JANE GREY, who next after MARY and
ELIZABETH and MARY Queen of Scotland, was heiress to the throne.
Having done this, he got Edward to make a will, settling the crown on
this Lady Jane to the exclusion of his two sisters. The advocates of
the "Reformation," who, of course, praise this boy-king, in whose
reign the new church was invented , tell us long stories about the
way in which NORTHUMBERLAND persuaded "Saint Edward" to do this act
of injustice; but, in all probability, there is not a word of truth 
in the story. However, what they say is this: that Lady JANE was a
sincere Protestant; that the young king knew this; and that his
anxiety for the security of the Protestant religion induced him to
consent to NORTHUMBERLAND's proposition.

 217. The settlement met with great difficulty when it came to be
laid before the lawyers, who, some how or other, always contrived to
keep their heads out of the halter. Even Old Harry's Judges used,
when hard pressed, to refer him to the Parliament for the committing
of violations of law. The Judges, the Lord Chancellor, the
Secretaries of State, the Privy Council; all were afraid to put their
names to this transfer of the crown. The thing was, however, at last
accomplished, and with the signature of CRANMER to it, though he, as
one of the late king's executor's, and the first upon that list, had
sworn in the most solemn manner, to maintain his will, according to
which will, the two sisters, in case of no issue by the brother, were
to succeed that brother on the throne. Thus, in addition to his
fourth act of notorious perjury, this maker of the Common Book of
Prayer became clearly guilty of high treason. He now, at last, in
spite of all his craft, had woven his own halter, and that, too,
beyond all doubt, for the purpose of preserving his bishopric. The
Princess MARY was next heir to the throne. He had divorced her
mother; he had been the principal agent in that unjust and most
wicked transaction; and, besides, he knew that MARY was immoveably a
Catholic, and that, of course, her accession must be the death of his
office and his church. Therefore he now committed the greatest crime
known to the laws, and that, too, from the basest of motives.

218. The king having made this settlement, and being kept wholly in
the hands of Northumberland, who had placed his creatures about him,
would naturally, as was said at the time, not live long! In short he
died on the 6th of July, 1553, in the sixteenth year of his age, and
the seventh of his reign, expiring on the same day of the year that
his savage father had brought Sir THOMAS MORE to the block. These
were seven of the most miserable and most inglorious years that
England had ever known. Fanaticism and roguery, hypocrisy and
plunder, divided the country between them. The people were wretched
beyond all description; from the plenty of Catholic times, they had
been reduced to general beggary; and, then, in order to repress this
beggary, laws the most ferocious were passed to prevent even starving
creatures from asking alms. Abroad, as well as at home, the nation
sunk in the eyes of the world. The town of Boulogne, in France, which
had been won by Catholic  Englishmen, the base Protestant rulers now,
from sheer cowardice, surrendered; and from one end of Europe to the
other, were heard jeering and scoffing at this formerly great and
lofty nation. HUME, who finds goodness in every one who was hostile
to the Catholic institutions, says, "All English historians dwell
with pleasure on the excellences of this young king, whom the
flattering promises of hope, joined to many real virtues, had made an
object of the  most tender affections of the public. He possessed
mildness of disposition, a capacity to learn and to judge, and
attachment to equity and justice." Of his mildness we have, I
suppose, a proof in his assenting to the burning of several
Protestants, who did not protest in his way; in his signing of the
death-warrants of his two uncles; and in his wish to bring his sister
MARY to trial for not conforming to what she deemed blasphemy, and
from doing which he was deterred only by the menaces of the Emperor
her cousin. So much for his mildness. As for his justice, who can
doubt of that, who thinks of his will to disinherit his two sisters,
even after the judges had unanimously declared to him, that it was
contrary to law? The "tender affection" that the people had for him
was, doubtless, evinced, by their rising in insurrection against his
ordinances from one end of the kingdom to the other, and by their
demanding the restoration of that religion, which all his acts tended
wholly to extirpate. But, besides these internal proofs of the
falsehood of HUME's description, Dr. HEYLIN, who is, at least, one of
"all the English historians," and one, too, whom HUME himself refers
to no less than twenty-four times in the part of his history relating
to this very reign, does not "dwell with pleasure on the excellences
of this young prince," of whom he, in the 4th Paragraph of his
preface, speaks thus: "King EDWARD, whose death I cannot reckon for
an infelicity to the Church of England; for, being ill principled in
himself, and easily inclined to embrace such  counsels as were
offered him, it is not to be thought but that the rest of the
bishoprics (before sufficiently impoverished) would have followed
that of Durham, and the poor church be left as destitute as when she
came into the world in her natural nakedness." Aye, but this was his
great merit in the eyes of HUME. He should have said so then, and
should have left his good character of the tyrant in the egg to rest
on his own opinion; and not have said, that "all English historians
dwelt with pleasure on his excellences,"

219.  The settlement of the crown had been kept a secret from the
people, and so was the death of the King for three whole days. In the
meanwhile NORTHUMBERLAND seeing the death of the young "Saint"
approaching, had, in conjunction, observe, with CRANMER and the rest
of his council, ordered the two princesses to come near to London,
under pretence that they might be at hand to comfort their brother;
but with the real design of putting them into prison the moment the
breath should be out of his body. Traitors, foul conspirators,
villains of all descriptions, have this in common, that they, when
necessary to their own interest, are always ready to betray each
other. Thus it happened here; for the Earl of ARUNDEL, who was one of
the council, and who went with Dudley and others, on the tenth of
July, to kneel before Lady Jane as Queen, had, in the night of the
sixth, sent a secret messenger to MARY, who was no farther off than
Hoddesden, informing her of the death of her brother, and of the
whole of the plot against her. Thus warned, she set off on horseback,
accompanied only by a few servants, to Kinninghall in Norfolk, whence
she proceeded to Framlingham, in Suffolk, and thence issued her
commands to the council to proclaim her as. their sovereign, hinting
at, but not positively accusing them with, their treasonable designs.
They had, on the day before, proclaimed Lady JANE to be Queen! They
had taken all sorts of precautions to ensure their success: army,
fleet, treasure, all the powers of government were in their hands.
They, therefore, returned her a most insolent answer, and commanded
her to submit, as a dutiful subject, to the lawful Queen, at the
bottom of which command CRANMER's name stood first.

220. Honesty and sincerity exult to contemplate the misgivings,
which, in a few hours afterwards, seized this band of almost
unparalleled villains. The nobility and gentry had instantly flocked
to the standard of Mary; and the people, even in London, who were
most infected with the pestiferous principles of the foreign
miscreants that had been brought from the continent to teach them the
new religion, had native honesty enough left to make them disapprove
of this last and most daring of robberies. RIDLEY, the Protestant
Bishop of London, preached at St. Paul's, to the Lord Mayor and a
numerous assemblage, for the purpose of persuading them to take part
against Mary; but, it was seen, that he preached in vain.
Northumberland himself marched from London on the 13th of July, to
attack the Queen. But, in a few days, she was surrounded by twenty or
thirty thousand. men, all volunteers in her cause, and refusing pay.
Before Northumberland reached Bury St. Edmunds, he began to despair;
he marched to Cambridge, and wrote to his brother conspirators for
reinforcements. Amongst these, dismay first, and then perfidy, began
to appear. In a few days, these men, who had been so audacious, and
who had sworn solemnly to uphold the cause of Queen Jane, sent
Northumberland an order to disband his army, while they themselves
proclaimed Queen Mary, amidst the unbounded applause of the people.

221. The master-plotter had disbanded his army, or, rather, it had
deserted him, before the order of the council reached him. This was
the age of "reformation" and of baseness. Seeing himself abandoned,
he, by the advice of Dr. SANDS, the Vice-Chancellor of the
University, who, only four days before, had preached against Mary,
went to the market place of Cambridge, and proclaimed her Queen,
tossing, says STOWE, "his cap into the air, in token of his joy and
satisfaction." In a few hours afterwards he was arrested by the
Queen's order, and that, too, by his brother conspirator, the Earl of
Arundel, who had been one of the very first to kneel before Lady
Jane! No reign, no age, no country, ever witnessed rapacity,
hypocrisy, meanness, baseness, perfidy such as England witnessed in
those, who were the destroyers of the Catholic, and the founders of
the Protestant, Church. This DUDLEY, who had for years been a
plunderer of the Church; who had been a promoter of every ruffian-
like measure against those who adhered to the religion of his
fathers; who had caused a transfer of the crown because, as he
alleged, the accession of Mary would endanger the Protestant
religion; this very man, when he came to receive justice on the
block, confessed his belief in the Catholic faith; and, which is
more, exhorted the nation to return to it He, according to Dr. HEYLIN
(a Protestant mind), exhorted them "To stand to the religion of their
ancestors, rejecting that of later date, which had occasioned all the
misery of the foregoing thirty years; and that, if they desired to
present their souls unspotted, before God, and were truly affected to
their country, they should expel the preachers of the reformed
religion. For himself," he said, "being blinded by ambition, he made
a rack of his conscience, by temporizing, and so acknowledged the
justice of his sentence." Fox, author of the lying "Book of Martyrs,"
of whose lies we shall see more by-and-by, asserts that DUDLEY made
this confession in consequence of a promise of pardon. But, when he
came on the scaffold, he knew that he was not to be pardoned; and
besides, he himself expressly declared the contrary at his execution;
and told the people, that he had not been moved by any one to make
it, and had not done it from any hope of saving his life. However, we
have yet to see CRANMER himself recant, and to see the whole band of
Protestant plunderers on their knees before the POPE's legates
confessing their sins of heresy and sacrilege, and receiving
absolution for their offences!

222.  Thus ended this reign of "reformation," plunder, wretchedness,
and disgrace. Three times the form of the new worship was changed,
and yet those who adhered to the old worship, or who went beyond the
new worship, were punished with the utmost severity. The nation
became every day more and more despised abroad, and more and more
distracted and miserable at home. The Church, "as by law
established," arose, and was enforced under two protectors, or chief
ministers, both of whom deservedly suffered death as traitors. Its
principal author was a man who had sent both Protestants and
Catholics to the stake; who had burnt people for adhering to the
POPE, others for not believing in transubstantiation, others for
believing in it, and who now burnt others for disbelieving in it for
reasons different from his own; a man, who now openly professed to
disbelieve in that, for not believing in which he had burnt many of
his fellow-creatures, and who, after this, most solemnly declared,
that his own belief was that of these very persons! As this Church,
by "law established," advanced, all the remains of Christian charity
vanished before it. The indigent, whom the Catholic Church had so
tenderly gathered under her wings, were now, merely for asking alms,
branded with red-hot irons and made slaves, though no provision was
made to prevent them from perishing from hunger and cold; and
England, so long famed as the land of hospitality, generosity, ease,
plenty, and security to person and property, became, under a
Protestant Church, a scene of repulsive selfishness, of pack-horse
toil, of pinching want, and of rapacity and plunder and tyranny that
made the very names of law and justice a mockery.







LETTER VIII.

MARY'S ACCESSION TO THE THRONE.
HER MILD AND BENEVOLENT LAWS.
THE NATION RECONCILED TO THE CHURCH.
THE QUEEN'S GREAT GENEROSITY AND PIETY.
HER MARRIAGE WITH PHILIP.
FOX'S "MARTYRS,"

Kensington, 30th June, 1825.

MY FRIENDS,

223. We are now entering upon that reign, the punishments inflicted
during which have furnished such a handle to the calumniators of the
Catholic Church, who have left no art untried to exaggerate those
punishments in the first place, and, in the second place, to ascribe
them to the Catholic religion, keeping out of sight, all the while,
the thousand times greater mass of cruelty occasioned by Protestants
in this kingdom. Of all cruelties I disapprove. I disapprove also of
all corporal and pecuniary punishments on the score of religion. Far
be it from me, therefore, to defend all the punishments inflicted, on
this score, in the reign of Queen MARY; but, it will be my duty to
show, first, that the mass of punishment then inflicted on this
account, has been monstrously exaggerated; second, that the
circumstances under which they were inflicted found more apology for
the severity than the circumstances under which the Protestant
punishments were inflicted; thirdly, that they were in amount as a
single grain of wheat is to a whole bushel, compared with the mass of
punishments under the Protestant Church, "as by law established;"
lastly, that, be they what they might, it is a base perversion of
reason to ascribe them to the principles of the Catholic religion; 
and that, as to the Queen herself, she was one of the most virtuous
of human. beings, and was rendered miserable, not by her own
disposition or misdeeds, but by the misfortune and misery entailed on
her by her two immediate predecessors, who had uprooted the
institutions of the country, who had plunged the kingdom into
confusion, and who had left no choice but that of making severe
examples, or, of being an encourager of, and a participator in,
heresy, plunder, and sacrilege. Her reign our deceivers have taught
us to call the reign of "BLOODY QUEEN MARY"; while they have taught
us to call that of her sister, the "GOLDEN DAYS OF GOOD QUEEN BESS."
They have taken good care never to tell us, that, for every drop of
blood that Mary shed, Elizabeth shed a pint; that the former gave up
every fragment of the plunder of which the deeds of her predecessors
had put her in possession, and that the latter resumed this plunder
again, and took from the poor every pittance which had, by oversight,
been left them; that the former never changed her religion, and that
the latter changed from Catholic to Protestant, then to Catholic
again, and then back again to Protestant; that the former punished
people for departing from that religion in which she and they and
their fathers had been born, and to which she had always adhered; and
that the latter punished people for not departing from the religion
of her and their fathers, and which religion, too, she herself
professed and openly lived in even at the time of her coronation.
Yet, we have been taught to call the former "bloody" and the latter
"good"! How have we been deceived! And is it not time, then, that
this deception, so injurious to our Catholic fellow-subjects and so
debasing to ourselves, should cease? It is, perhaps, too much to
hope, that I shall be able to make it cease; but, towards
accomplishing this great and most desirable object, I shall do
something, at any rate, by a plain and true account of the principal
transactions of the reign of Mary.

224.  The Queen, who, as we have seen in paragraph 219, was in
Framlingham, in Suffolk, immediately set off for London, where,
having been greeted on the road with the strongest demonstrations of
joy at her accession, she arrived on the 31st of July, 1553. As she
approached London the throngs thickened; Elizabeth, who had kept
cautiously silent while the issue was uncertain, went out to meet he,
and the two sisters, riding on horseback, entered the city, the
houses being decorated, the streets strewed with flowers, and the
people dressed in their gayest clothes. She was crowned soon
afterwards, in the most splendid manner, and after the Catholic
ritual, by GARDINER, who had, as we have seen, opposed CRANMER's new
Church, and whom she found a prisoner in the Tower, he having been
deprived of his Bishopric of Winchester; but whom we are to see one
of the great actors in restoring the Catholic religion. The joy of
the people was boundless. It was a coronation of greater splendour
and more universal joy than ever had before been witnessed. This is
agreed on all hands. And this fact gives the lie to HUME, who would
have us believe that the people did not like the Queen's principles.
This fact has reason on its side as well as historical authority;
for, was it not natural that the people, who, only three years
before, had actually risen in insurrection in all parts of the
kingdom against the new church, and its authors, should be half mad
with joy at the accession of a Queen, who they were sure would put
down that church, and put down those who had quelled them by the aid
of German troops?

225.  Mary began her reign by acts the most just and beneficent.
Generously disregarding herself, her ease and her means of splendour,
she abolished the debased currency, which her father had introduced
and her brother had made still baser; she paid the debts due by the
crown; and she largely remitted taxes at the same time. But that
which she had most at heart, was, the restoration of that religion,
under the influence of which the kingdom had been so happy and so
great for so many ages, and since the abolition of which it had known
nothing but discord, disgrace, and misery. There were in her way
great obstacles; for, though the pernicious principles of the German
and Dutch and Swiss reformers had not, even yet, made much progress
amongst the people, except in London, which was the grand scene of
the operations of those hungry and fanatical adventurers, there were
the plunderers to deal with, and these plunderers had power. It is
easy to imagine, which, in deed, was the undoubted fact, that the
English people, who had risen in insurrection, in all parts of the
kingdom, against CRANMER's new church; who had demanded the
restoration of the mass and of part, at least, of the monasteries,
and who had been silenced only by German bayonets, and halters and
gibbets following martial law; it is easy to imagine, that this same
people would, in only three years afterwards, hail with joy
indescribable, the prospect of seeing the new church put down, and
the ancient one restored, and that, too, under a Queen, on whose
constancy and piety and integrity they could so firmly rely. But, the
plunder had been so immense, the plunderers were so numerous, they
were so powerful, and there were so few men of family of any account
who had not participated, in one way or another, in deeds hostile to
the Catholic Church, that the enterprise of the Queen was full of
difficulty. As to CRANMER's Church, "by law established," that was
easily disposed of. The gold and silver and cups and candlesticks and
other things, of which the altar-robbers of young "Saint Edward's"
reign had despoiled the churches, could not, indeed, be restored;
but, the altars themselves could, and speedily were; and the tables
which had been put in their stead, and the married priests along with
them, were soon seen no longer to offend the eyes of the people. It
is curious to observe, how tender-hearted HUME is upon this subject.
He says, "Could any notion of law, justice, or reason, be attended
to, where superstition predominates, the priests would never have
been expelled for their past marriages, which, at that time, were
permitted by the laws of the kingdom." I wonder why it never occurred
to him to observe, that monks and nuns ought not, then, to have been
expelled! Were not their institutions "permitted by the laws of the
kingdom"? Aye, and had been permitted by those laws for nine hundred
years, and guaranteed too by Magna Charta. He applauds the expelling
of them; but this "new thing," though only of three years and a half
standing, and though "established" under a boy-king, who was under
two protectors, each of whom was justly beheaded for high treason,
and under a council who were all conspirators against the lawful
sovereign; these married priests, the most of whom had, like LUTHER,
CRANMER, KNOX, HOOPER, and other great "Reformers," broken their vows
of celibacy, and were, of course, perjurers; no law was to be
repealed, however contrary to public good such law might be, if the
repeal injured the interests of such men as these! The Queen had,
however, too much justice to think thus, and these apostates were
expelled, to the great joy of the people, many of whom had been
sabred by German troops, because they demanded, amongst other things,
that priests might not be permitted to marry. The Catholic bishops,
who had been turned out by CRANMER, were restored, and  his new
bishops were, of course, turned out. CRANMER himself was, in a short
time, deprived of his ill-gotten see, and was in prison, and most
justly, as a traitor. The mass was, in all parts of the country, once
more celebrated, the people were no longer burnt with red-hot irons,
and made slaves merely for asking alms, and they began to hope, that
England would be England again, and that hospitality and charity
would return.

226.  But there were the plunderers to deal with! And, now, we are
about to witness a scene, which, were not its existence so well
attested, must pass for the wildest of romance. What? That
Parliament, who had declared CRANMER's divorce of Catherine to be
lawful, and who had enacted that Mary was a bastard, acknowledge that
same Mary to be the lawful heir to the throne! That Parliament which
had abolished the Catholic worship and created the Protestant
worship, on the ground that the former was idolatrous and damnable,
and the latter agreeable to the will of God, abolish the latter and
restore the former! What? Do these things? And that, too, without any
force; without being compelled to do them? No: not exactly so: for it
had the people to fear, a vast majority of whom were cordially with
the Queen as far as related to these matters, respecting which it is
surprising what dispatch was made. The late King died only in July,
and before the end of the next November, all the work of CRANMER, as
to the divorce as well as to the worship, was completely overset, and
that, too, by Acts of the very Parliament who had confirmed the one
and "established" the other. The first of these Acts declared, that
Henry and Catherine had been lawfully married, and it laid all the
blame upon CRANMER by name! The second Act called the Protestant
Church, "as by law established," a "new thing imagined by a few
singular opinions," though the Parliament when it established it,
asserted it to have come from the "Holy Ghost." What was now said of
it was true enough: but it might have been added, established by
German bayonets. The great inventor, CRANMER, who was, at last, in a
fair way of receiving the just reward of his numerous misdeeds, could
only hear of the overthrow of his work; for, having, though clearly
as guilty of high treason as DUDLEY himself, been, as yet, only
confined to his palace at Lambeth, and hearing that mass had been
celebrated in his Cathedral Church at Canterbury, he put forth a most
inflammatory and abusive declaration, (which, mind, he afterwards
recanted) for which declaration, as well as for his treason, he was
committed to the Tower, where he lay at the time when these Acts were
passed. But, the new church required no law to abolish it. It was, in
fact, abolished by the general feeling of the nation; and, as we
shall see in the next Number, it required rivers of blood to re-
establish it in the reign of Elizabeth. HUME, following Fox, the
"Martyr"-man, complains bitterly of "the court" for its "contempt of
the laws, in celebrating, "before the two Houses, at the opening of
the Parliament a mass of Latin, with all the ancient rites and
ceremonies, though abolished by Act of Parliament!" Abolished! Why,
so had CROMWELL and his canting crew abolished the kingly government
by Act of Parliament, and by the bayonet; and yet this did not induce
Charles to wait for a repeal before he called himself king. Nor did
the bringers over of the "deliverer," WILLIAM, wait for an Act of
Parliament to authorize them to introduce the said "deliverer." The
"new thing" fell of itself. It had been forced upon the people and
they hated it.

227.  But, when the question came, whether the Parliament should
restore the PAPAL SUPREMACY, the plunder was at stake; for, to take
the Church property was sacrilege, and, if the POPE regained his
power in the kingdom, he might insist on restitution. The greater
part of this property had been seized on eighteen years before. In
many cases it bad been divided and sub-divided; in many, the original
grantees were dead. The common people, too, had, in many cases,
become dependent on the new proprietors: and, besides, they could not
so easily trace the connexion between their faith and that supremacy,
as they could between their faith and the mass and the sacraments.
The Queen, therefore, though she most anxiously wished to avoid
giving, in any way whatever, her sanction to the plunder, was reduced
to the necessity of risking a civil war for the POPE's supremacy; to
leave her kingdom unreconciled to the Church; and to keep to herself
the title of Head of the Church, to her so hateful; or to make a
compromise with the plunderers. She was induced to prefer the latter;
though it is by no means certain that civil war would not have been
better for the country, even if it had ended in the triumph of the
plunderers, which, in all human probability, it would not. But,
observe in how forlorn a state, as to this question, she was placed.
There was scarcely a nobleman, or gentleman of any note, in her
kingdom, who had not, in one way or another, soiled his hands with
the plunder. The Catholic bishops, all but FISHER, had assented to
the abolition of the POPE's supremacy. Bishop GARDINER, who was now
her High Chancellor, was one of these, though he had been deprived of
his bishopric and imprisoned in the Tower, because he opposed
CRANMER's further projects. These Catholic bishops, and GARDINER
especially, must naturally wish to get over this matter as quietly as
possible; for, how was he to advise the Queen to risk a civil war for
the restoration of that, the abolition of which he had so fully
assented to, and so strenuously supported? And how was she to do any
thing without councillors of some sort?

228.  Nevertheless the Queen, whose zeal was equal to her sincerity,
was bent on the restoration; and, therefore, a compromise with the
plunderers was adopted. Now, then, it was fully proved to all the
world, and now this plundered nation, who had been reduced to the
greatest misery by what had been impudently called the "Reformation,"
saw as clearly as they saw the light of day, that all those who had
abetted the "Reformation;" that all the railings against the POPE;
that all the accusations against the monks and nuns; that all the
pretences of abuses in the Catholic Church; that all the
confiscations, sackings, and bloodshed; that all these, from first to
last, had proceeded from the love of plunder; for, now, the two
Houses of Parliament, who had, only about three or four years before,
established CRANMER's Church, and declared it to be "the work of the
Holy Ghost;" now these pious "Reformation" men, having first made a
firm bargain to keep the plunder, confessed (to use the words even of
HUME) "that they had been guilty of a most horrible defection from
the true Church; professed their sincere repentance for their past
transgressions; and declared their resolution to repeal all laws
enacted in prejudice of the POPE's authority"! Are the people of
England aware of this? No: not one man out of fifty thousand. These,
let it be remembered, were the men who made the Protestant religion
in England!

229.  But this is a matter of too much importance to be dismissed
without the mention of some particulars. The Queen had not about her
one single man of any eminence, who had not, in some degree, departed
from the straight path, during one or the other, or both, of the two
last reigns. But there was Cardinal POLE, of whom, and of the
butchery of whose aged and brave mother, we have seen an account in
paragraph 115. He still remained on the Continent; but now he could
with safety return to his native country, on which the fame of his
talents and virtues reflected so much honour. The Cardinal was
appointed by the POPE to be his Legate, or representative, in
England. The Queen had been married on the 25th of July, 1554, to
PHILIP, Prince of Spain, son and heir of the Emperor CHARLES V., of
which marriage I shall speak more fully by-and-by.

230.  In November, the same year, a Parliament was called, and was
opened with a most splendid procession of the two Houses, closed by
the King and Queen, the first on horseback, the last in a litter,
dressed in robes of purple. Their first act was a repeal of the
attainder of POLE, passed in the reign of the cruel Henry VIII.
While, this was going on, many noblemen, and gentlemen had gone to
Brussels, to conduct POLE to England; and it is worth observing, that
amongst these was that Sir WILLIAM CECIL who was afterwards so bitter
and cruel an enemy of the Catholics and their religion, in the reign
of ELIZABETH. POLE was received at Dover with every demonstration of
public joy and exultation; and, before he reached Gravesend, where he
took water for Westminster, the gentlemen of the country had flocked
to his train, to the number of nearly two thousand horsemen. Here is
a fact, which, amongst thousands of others, shows what the
populousness and opulence of England then were.

231.  On the 29th of November the two Houses petitioned the King and
Queen. In this petition they expressed their deep regret at having
been guilty of defection from the Church; and prayed their Majesties,
who had not participated in the sin, to intercede with the Holy
Father, the POPE, for their forgiveness, and for their re-admission
into the fold of Christ. The next day, the Queen being seated on the
throne, having the  King on her left, and POLE, the POPE's Legate, on
her right, the Lord High Chancellor, Bishop GARDINER, read the
petition; the King and Queen then spoke to POLE, and he, at the close
of a long speech, gave, in the name of the POPE, to the two Houses
and to the whole nation, absolution in the name of the Father, Son
and Holy Ghost, at which words the members of the two Houses, being
on their knees, made the hall resound with AMEN!

232.  Thus was England once more a Catholic country. She was restored
to the "fold of Christ"; but the fold had been plundered of its
hospitality and charity; and the plunderers, before they pronounced
the "Amen," had taken care that the plunder should not be restored.
The POPE had hesitated to consent to this; Cardinal POLE, who was a
man full of justice, had hesitated still longer; but, as we have seen
before, GARDINER, who was now the Queen's prime minister, and,
indeed, all her council, were for the compromise; and therefore,
these "Amen" people, while they confessed that they had sinned by
that defection, in virtue of which defection, and of that alone, they
got the property of the Church and the poor; while they prayed for
absolution for that sin; while they rose from their knees to join the
Queen in singing TE DEUM in thanksgiving for that absolution; while
they were doing these things, they enacted, that all the holders of
Church property should keep it, and that any person who should
attempt to molest or disturb them therein should be deemed guilty of
præmunire, and be punished accordingly!

233.  It, doubtless, went to the heart of the Queen to assent to this
act, which was the very worst deed of her whole reign, the
monstrously exaggerated fires of Smithfield not excepted. We have
seen how she was situated as to her councillors, and particularly as
to GARDINER, who, besides being a most zealous and active minister,
was a man of the greatest talents. We have seen, that there was
scarcely a man of any note, who had not, first or last, partook of
the plunder; but still, great as her difficulty certainly was,  she
would have done better to follow the dictates of her own mind,
insisting upon doing what was right, and leaving the consequences to
God, as she had so nobly done, when CRANMER. and the rest of the base
council of Edward VI., commanded her to desist from hearing mass and
most cruelly took her chaplains from her.

234.  However, she was resolved to keep none of the plunder herself.
Old HARRY, as "Head of the Church," had taken to himself the tenths
and first fruits; that is to say, the tenth part of the annual worth
of each church benefice and the first whole year's income of each,
These had, of course, been kept by King Edward. Then there were some
of the Church estates, some of the hospitals, and other things, and
these amounting to a large sum altogether, that still belonged to the
crown; and of which the Queen was, of course, the possessor. In
November, 1555, she gave up to the Church the tenths, and first
fruits; which, together with the tithes, which her two immediate
predecessors had seized on and kept, were worth about 63,000l. a year
in money of that day, and were equal to about a million a year of the
present money! Have we ever heard of any other sovereign doing the
like? "Good Queen Bess" we shall find taking them back again to
herself; and, though we shall find Queen ANNE giving them up to the
Church, we are to bear in mind, that, in Mary's days, the Crown and
its officers, ambassadors, judges, pensioners, and all employed by
it, were supported out of the landed estate of the Crown itself, the
remains of which estate we now see in the pitiful rest of "Crown-
lands." Taxes were never, in those days, called for, but for wars,
and other really national purposes; and Mary was Queen two years and
a half, before she imposed upon her people a single farthing of tax
in any shape whatever! So that this act of surrendering the tenths
and first fruits was the effect of her generosity and piety; and of
hers alone too; for it was done against the remonstrances of her
council, and it was not without great opposition that the bill passed
in parliaments where it was naturally feared that this just act of
the Queen would awaken the people's hatred of the plunderers. But the
Queen persevered, saying, that she would be "Defender of the Faith"
in reality, and not merely in name. This was the woman, whom we have
been taught to call "the Bloody Queen Mary"!

235.  The Queen did not stop here, but proceeded to restore all the
Church and Abbey lands, which were in her possession, being, whatever
might be the consequence to her, firmly resolved not to be a
possessor of the plunder. Having called some members of her council
together, she declared her resolution to them, and bade them prepare
an account of those lands and possessions, that she might know what
measures to adopt for the putting of her intention in execution. Her
intention was to apply the revenues, as nearly as possible, to their
ancient purposes. She began with Westminster Abbey, which had, in the
year 610, been the site of a church immediately after the
introduction of Christianity by St. AUSTIN, which church had been
destroyed by the Danes, and, in 958, restored by King Edgar and St.
Dunstan, who placed twelve Benedictine monks in it: and which became,
under Edward the Confessor, in 1049, a noble and richly endowed
abbey, which when plundered and suppressed by Henry, had revenues to
the amount of 3,977l. a year of good old rent, in money of that day,
and, therefore, equal to about eighty thousand pounds a year of money
of this day! Little of this, however, remained,  in all probability,
to the Queen, the estates having, in great part, been parcelled out
amongst the plunderers of the two last reigns. But, whatever there
remained to her she restored; and Westminster Abbey once more saw a
convent of Benedictine monks within its walls. She next restored the
Friary at Greenwich, to which had belonged friars PEYTO and ELSTOW,
whom we have seen, in paragraphs 81 and 82,  so nobly pleading,
before the tyrant's face, the cause of her injured mother, for which
they had felt the fury of that ferocious tyrant. She re-established
the Black-Friars in London. She restored the Nunnery at Sion near
Brentford, on the spot where Sion-House now stands. At Sheen she
restored the Priory. She restored and liberally endowed the Hospital
of St. John, Smithfield. She re-established the Hospital in the
Savoy, for the benefit of the poor, and allotted to it a suitable
yearly revenue out of her own purse; and, as her example would
naturally have great effect, it is, as Dr. HEYLIN (a Protestant, and
a great enemy of her memory,) observes, "hard to say how far the
nobility and gentry might have done the like, if the Queen had lived
some few years longer."

236.  These acts were so laudable, so unequivocally good, so clearly
the effect of justice, generosity and charity, in the Queen, that,
coming before us, as they do, in company with great zeal for the
Catholic religion, we are naturally curious to hear what remarks they
bring from the unfeeling and malignant HUME. Of her own free will,
and even against  the wish of very powerful men, she gave up, in this
way, a yearly revenue of probably not less than a million and a half
of pounds of our present money. And for what? Because she held it
unjustly; because it was plunder; because it had been taken to the
Crown in violation of Magna Charta and all the laws and usages of the
realm; because she hoped to be able to make a beginning in the
restoring of that hospitality and charity which her predecessors had
banished from the land; and because her conscience, as she herself
declared, forbade her to retain these ill-gotten possessions,
valuing, as she did (she told her council) , "her conscience more
than ten kingdoms." Was there ever a more praiseworthy act? And were
there ever motives more excellent? Yet HUME, who exults in the act in
which the plunderers insisted on, to secure their plunder, calls this
noble act of the Queen an "impudent" one, and ascribes it solely to
the influence of the new POPE, who, he tells us, told her
ambassadors, that the English would never have the doors of Paradise
opened to them unless the whole of the church property was restored.
How false this is, in spite of HUME's authorities, is clear from this
undeniable fact; namely, that she gave the Tenths and First Fruits to
the Bishops and Priests of the Church in England, and not to the
POPE, to whom they were formerly paid. This, therefore, is a
malignant misrepresentation. Then again, he says, that the POPE's
remonstrances on this score, had "little influence "with the nation."
With the plunderers, he means; for, he has been obliged to confess,
that, in all parts of the country, the people, in Edward's reign,
demanded a restoration of a part of the monasteries; and, is it not
clear, then, that they must have greatly rejoiced to see their
sovereign make a beginning in that restoration? But, it was his
business to lessen, as much as possible, the merit of these generous
and pious acts of this basely calumniated Queen.

237.  Events soon proved to this just and good, but singularly
unfortunate, Queen, that she would have done better to risk a civil
war against the plunderers than assent to the Act of Parliament by
which was secured to them the quiet possession of their plunder. Her
generous example had no effect upon them; but on the contrary, made
them dislike her, because it exposed them to odium, presenting a
contrast with their own conduct, so much to their disadvantage. From
this cause, more than from any other, arose those troubles, which
harassed her during the remainder of' her short reign.

238.  She had not been many months!on the throne before a rebellion
was raised against her, instigated by the "Reformation" preachers,
who had bawled in favour of Lady JANE GREY, but who now discovered,
amongst other things, that it was contrary to God's word to be
governed by a woman. The fighting rebels were defeated, and the
leaders executed, and, at the same time, the Lady Jane herself, who
had been convicted of high treason, who had been kept in prison, but
whose life had hitherto been spared, and would evidently still have
been spared, if it had not manifestly tended to keep alive the hopes
of the traitors and disaffected. And,  as this Queen has been called
"the bloody," is another instance to be found of so much lenity shown
towards one, who had been guilty of treason to the extent of actually
proclaiming herself the sovereign? There was another rebellion
afterwards, which was quelled in like manner, and was followed by the
execution of the principal traitors, who had been abetted by a
Protestant faction in France, if not by the Government of that
country, which was bitterly hostile towards the Queen on account of
her marriage with Philip, the Prince of Spain, which marriage became
a great subject of invective and false accusation with the
Protestants and disaffected of all sorts.

239.  The Parliament, almost immediately after her accession, advised
her to marry; but not to marry a foreigner. How strangely our taste
is changed! The English had always a deep-rooted prejudice against
foreigners, till, for pure love of the Protestant religion, they
looked out for, and soon felt the sweets of one who began the work of
funding, and of making national debts! The Queen, how ever, after
great deliberation, determined to marry Philip, who was son and heir
to the Emperor Charles V., and who, though a widower, and having
children by his first wife, was still much younger than the Queen,
who was now (in July, 1554) in the 39th year of her age, while Philip
was only 27. Philip arrived at Southampton in July, 1554, escorted by
the combined fleets of England, Spain, and the Netherlands; and on
the 25th of that month the marriage took place in the Cathedral of
Winchester, the ceremony being performed by GARDINER, who was the
bishop of the see, and being attended by great numbers of nobles from
all parts of Christendom. To show how little reliance is to be placed
on HUME, I will here notice, that he says the marriage took place at
Westminster, and to this adds many facts equally false. His account
of the whole of this transaction is a mere romance, made up from
Protestant writers, even whose accounts he has shamefully distorted
to the prejudice of the views and character of the Queen.

240.  As things then stood, sound and evident good to England
dictated this match. Leaving out ELIZABETH, the next heir to the
throne was Mary Queen of Scots, and she was betrothed to the Dauphin
of France; so that England might fall to the lot of the French King;
and, as to Elizabeth, even supposing her to survive the Queen, she
now stood bastardized by two Acts of Parliament; for the Act which
had just been passed, declaring Catherine to be the lawful wife of
her father, made her mother (what, indeed, CRANMER had declared her)
an adulteress in law, as she was in fact. Besides, if France and
Scotland were evidently likely to become the patrimony of one and the
same Prince, it was necessary that England should take steps for
strengthening herself also in the way of preparation. Such was the
policy that dictated this celebrated match, which the historical
calumniators of Mary have attributed to the worst and most low and
disgusting of motives; in which, however, they have only followed the
example of the malignant traitors of the times we are referring to,
it being only to be lamented that they were not then alive to share
in their fate.

241.  Nothing ever was, nothing could he more to the honour of
England than every part of this transaction; yet did it form the
pretences of the traitors of that day, who, for the obvious reasons
mentioned in the last paragraph, were constantly encouraged and
abetted by France, and as constantly urged on by the disciples of
CRANMER and his crew of German and Dutch teachers. When the rebels
had, at one time, previous to Mary's marriage, advanced even to
London, she went to the Guildhall, where she told the citizens, that,
if she thought the marriage were injurious to her people, or to the
honour of the state, she would not assent to it; and that, if it
should not appear to the Parliament to be for the benefit of the
whole kingdom, she would never marry at all. "Wherefore," said she,
"stand fast against these rebels, your enemies and mine; fear them
not; for  I assure ye, that I fear them nothing at all." Thus she
left them, leaving the Hall resounding with their acclamations.

242.  When the marriage articles appeared, it was shown that, on this
occasion, as on all others, the Queen had kept her word most
religiously: for even HUME is obliged to confess, that these articles
were "as favourable as possible  for the interest and security and
even the grandeur of  England." What more was wanted, then? And if,
as HUME says was the case, "these articles gave no satisfaction to
the nation," all that we can say, is, that the nation was very
unreasonable and ungrateful. This is, however, a great falsehood;
for, what HUME here ascribes to the whole nation, he ought to have
confined to the plunderers and the fanatics, whom, throughout his
romance of this reign, he always calls the nation. The articles
quoted from RYMER by HUME himself, were, that, though Philip should
have the title of King, the administration should be wholly in the
Queen; that no foreigner should hold any office in the kingdom; that
no change should be made in the English laws, customs, and
privileges; that sixty thousand pounds a year (a million of our
present money) should be settled on the Queen as  her jointure to be
paid by Spain if she outlived him; that the male issue of this
marriage should inherit together with England, both Burgundy and the
low Countries; and that, if Don Carlos, Philip's son by his former
marriage, should die leaving no issue, the Queen's issue, whether
male or female, should inherit Spain, Sicily, Milan, and all the
other dominions of Philip. Just before the marriage ceremony was
performed, an envoy from the Emperor, Philip's father, delivered to
the English Chancellor, a deed resigning to his son the kingdom of
Naples and the Duchy of Milan, the Emperor thinking it beneath the
dignity of the Queen of England to marry one that was not a king.

243.  What transaction was ever more honourable to a nation than this
transaction was to England? What queen, what sovereign, ever took
more care of the glory of a people? Yet the fact appears to be, that
there was some jealousy in the nation at large, as to this foreign
connection; and, I am not one of those who are disposed to censure
this jealousy. But, can I have the conscience to commend, or, even to
abstain from censuring, this jealousy in our Catholic forefathers,
without feeling as a Protestant, my cheeks burn with shame at what
has taken place in Protestant times, and even in my own time! When
another Mary, a Protestant Mary, was brought to the throne, did the
Parliament take care to keep the administration wholly in her, and to
give her husband the mere title of king? Did they take care then that
no foreigners should hold offices in England? Oh, no! That foreign,
that Dutch husband, had the administration vested in him; and he
brought over whole crowds of foreigners, put them into the highest
offices, gave them the highest titles, and heaped upon them large
parcels of what was left of the Crown estate, descending to that
Crown, in part at least, from the days of ALFRED himself! And this
transaction is called "glorious"; and that, too, by the very men, who
talk of the "inglorious" reign of Mary! What, then, are sense and
truth never to reign in England? Are we to be duped unto all
generations?

244.  And, if we come down to our own dear Protestant days, do we
find the Prince of SAXE COBURG the heir to mighty dominions? Did he
bring into the country, as Philip did, twenty-nine chests of bullion,
leading to the Tower twenty-two carts and ninety-nine pack horses? Do
we find him settling on his wife's issue great states and kingdoms?
Do we find his father making him a king, on the eve of the marriage,
because a person of lower title would be beneath a Queen of England?
Do we find him giving his bride, as a bridal present, jewels to the
amount of half a million of our money? Do we find him settling on the
Princess Charlotte a jointure of a million sterling a year, if she
should outlive him? No; but (and come and boast of it, you shameless
revilers of this Catholic Queen!) we find our  Protestant parliament
settling ON HIM fifty thousand pounds a year, to come out of taxes
raised on us, if he should outlive her; which sum we now duly and
truly pay in full tale, and shall possibly have to pay it for forty
years yet to come! How we feel ourselves shrink, when we thus compare
our  conduct with that of our Catholic forefathers!

245.  In my relation, I have not adhered to the exact chronological
order, which would have too much broken my matter into detached
parcels , but, I should here observe, that the marriage was previous
to the reconciliation with the POPE, and also previous to the Queen's
generous restoration of the property, which she held of the Church
and the poor. It was also previous to those dreadful punishments
which she inflicted upon heretics, of which punishments I am now
about to speak, and which, though monstrously exaggerated by the
lying Fox and others, though a mere nothing compared with those
inflicted afterwards on Catholics by Elizabeth, and though hardly to
be called cruel, when set in comparison with the rivers of Catholic
blood that have flowed in Ireland, were, nevertheless, such as to be
deeply deplored by every one, and by nobody more than the Catholics,
whose religion, though these punishments were by no means caused by
its principles, has been reproached as the cause, and the sole cause,
of the whole of them.

246.  We have seen, in paragraph 200 and 201, what a Babel of
opinions and of religions had been introduced by CRANMER and his
crew; and we have also seen, that immoralitv, that vice of all sorts,
that enmity and strife incessant, had been the consequence. Besides
this, it was so natural that the Queen should desire to put down all
these sects, and that she should be so anxious on the subject, that
we are not at all surprised that, if she saw all other means
ineffectual for the purpose, she should resort to means of the utmost
severity that the laws of the land allowed of, for the accomplishment
of that purpose. The traitors and the leading rebels of her reign
were all, or affected to be, of the new sects. Though small in
number, they made up for that disadvantage by their indefatigable
malignity; by their incessant efforts to trouble the state, and
indeed, to destroy the Queen herself. But I am for rejecting all
apologies for her, founded on provocations given to her: and also for
rejecting all apologies founded on the disposition and influence of
her councillors; for, if she had been opposed to the burning of
heretics, that burning would, certainly, never have taken place. That
burning is fairly to be ascribed to  her; but, as even the malignant
HUME gives her credit for sincerity, is it not just to conclude, that
her motive was to put an end to the propagation, amongst her people,
of errors which she deemed destructive of their souls, and the
permission of the propagation of which she deemed destructive of her
own? And, there is this much to be said in defence of her motive, at
any rate, that these new lights, into however many sects they might
be divided, all agreed in teaching the abominable doctrine of
salvation by faith alone, without regard to works.

24 7. As a preliminary to the punishment of heretics there was an
Act of Parliament passed in December, 1554 (a year and a half after
the Queen came to the throne) , to restore the ancient statutes,
relative to heresy. These statutes were first passed against the
LOLLARDS in the reigns of RICHARD II. and HENRY IV. And they
provided, that heretics, who were obstinate, should be burnt. These
statutes were altered in the reign of HENRY VIII., in order that he
might get the property of heretics; and, in that of EDWARD, they were
repealed. Not out of mercy, however; but because heresy was,
according to those statutes, to promulgate opinions contrary to the
Catholic Faith; and this did, of course, not suit the state of things
under the new church, "as by law established." Therefore, it was then
held, that heresy was punishable by common law, and, that, in case of
obstinacy, heretics might be burnt; and, accordingly, many were
punished and some burnt, in that reign, by process at common law; and
these were, too, Protestants dissenting from CRANMER's Church, who
himself condemned them to the flames. Now, however, the Catholic
religion being again the religion of the country, it was thought
necessary to return to ancient statutes; which, accordingly, were re-
enacted. That which had been the law, during seven reigns, comprising
nearly two centuries, and some of which reigns had been amongst the
most glorious and most happy that England had ever known, one of the
Kings having won the title of King of France and another of them
having actually been crowned at Paris; that which had been the law
for so long a period was now the law again: so that here was nothing
new, at any rate. And, observe, though these statutes were again
repealed, when ELIZABETH's policy induced her to be a Protestant, she
enacted others to supply their place, and that both she and her
successor, JAMES I., burnt heretics; though they had, as we shall
see, a much more expeditious and less noisy way of putting out of the
world those who still had the constancy to adhere to the religion of
their fathers.

248.  The laws, being passed, were not likely to remain a dead
letter. They were put in execution chiefly in consequence of
condemnations, in the spiritual court, by BONNER, Bishop of London.
The punishment was inflicted in the usual manner; dragging to the
place of execution, and then burning to death, the sufferer being
tied to a stake, in the midst of a pile of fagots, which, when set on
fire, consumed him. Bishop GARDINER, the Chancellor, has been, by
Protestant writers, charged with being the adviser of this measure. I
can find no ground for this charge, while all agree that POLE, who
was now become Archbishop of Canterbury, in the place of CRANMER,
disapproved of it. It is also undeniable, that a Spanish friar, the
confessor of Philip, preaching before the Queen, expressed his
disapprobation of it. Now, as the Queen was much more likely to be
influenced, if at all, by POLE, and especially by PHILIP, than by
GARDINER, the fair presumption is, that it was her own measure. And,
as to BONNER, on whom so much blame has been thrown on this account,
he had, indeed, been most cruelly used by CRANMER and his
Protestants; but, there was the Council continually accusing all the
Bishops (and he more than any of the rest) of being too slow in the
performance of this part of their duty. Indeed, it is manifest, that,
in this respect, the Council spoke the then almost universal
sentiment; for though the French ceased not to hatch rebellions
against the Queen, none of the grounds of the rebels ever were, that
she punished heretics. Their complaints related almost solely to the
connexion with Spain; and never to the "flames of Smithfield," though
we of latter times have been made to believe, that nothing else was
thought of; but, the fact is, the persons put to death were chiefly
of very infamous character, many of them foreigners, almost the whole
of them residing in London, and called, in derision by the people at
large, the "London Gospellers." Doubtless, out of two hundred and
seventy-seven persons (the number stated by HUME on authority of Fox)
who were thus punished, some may have been real martyrs to their
opinions, and have been sincere and virtuous persons; but, in this
number of 277, many were convicted felons, some clearly traitors, as
RIDLEY and CRANMER. These must be taken from the number, and we may;
surely, take such as were alive when Fox first published his book,
and who expressly begged to decline the honour of being enrolled
amongst his "Martyrs." As a proof of Fox's total disregard of truth,
there was, in the next reign, a Protestant parson, as Anthony Wood (a
Protestant) tells us, who, in a sermon, related, on authority of Fox,
that a Catholic of the name of GRIMWOOD had been, as Fox said, a
great enemy of the Gospellers, had been "punished by a judgment of
God," and that his "bowels fell out of his body." GRIMWOOD was not
only alive at the time when the sermon was preached, but happened to
be present in the church to hear it; and he brought an action of
defamation against the preacher! Another instance of Fox's falseness
relates to the death of Bishop GARDINER. Fox and BURNET, and other
vile calumniators of the acts and actors in Queen Mary's reign, say,
that GARDINER, on the day of the execution of LATIMER and RIDLEY,
kept dinner waiting till the news of their suffering should arrive,
and that the Duke of Norfolk, who was to dine with him, expressed
great chagrin at the delay; that, when the news came, "transported
with joy," they sat down to table, where GARDINER was suddenly seized
with the disury, and died, in horrible torments, in a fortnight after
wards. Now, LATIMER. and RIDLEY were put to death on the 16th of
October; and COLLIER, in his Ecclesiastical History, p. 386, states,
that GARDINER opened the Parliament on the 21st of October; that he
attended in Parliament twice afterwards; that he died on the 12th of
November, of the gout, and not of disury; and that, as to the Duke of
Norfolk, he had been dead a year when this event took place! What a
hypocrite, then, must that man he, who pretends to believe in this
Fox! Yet, this infamous book has, by the arts of the plunderers and
their descendants, been circulated to a boundless extent amongst the
people of England, who have been taught to look upon all the thieves,
felons, and traitors, whom Fox calls "Martyrs," as sufferers
resembling St. Stephen, St. Peter, and St. Paul!

249.  The real truth about these "Martyrs," is, that they were,
generally, a set of most wicked wretches, who sought to destroy the
Queen and her Government, and under the pretence of conscience and
superior piety, to obtain the means of again preying upon the people.
No mild means could reclaim them: those means had been tried: the
Queen had to employ vigorous means, or, to suffer her people to
continue to be torn by the religious factions, created, not by her,
but by her two immediate predecessors, who had been aided and abetted
by many of those who now were punished, and who were worthy of ten
thousand deaths each, if ten thousand deaths could have been endured.
They were, without a single exception, apostates, perjurers, or
plunderers; and, the greater part of them had also been guilty of
flagrant high treason against Mary herself, who had spared their
lives; but whose lenity they had requited by every effort within
their power to overset her authority and the Government. To make
particular mention of all the ruffians that perished upon this
occasion, would be a task as irksome as it would be useless; but,
there were amongst them, three of CRANMER's Bishops and himself! For,
now, justice, at last, overtook this most mischievous of all
villains, who had justly to go to the same stake that he had unjustly
caused so many others to be tied to; the three others were HOOPER,
LATIMER, and RIDLEY, each of whom was, indeed, inferior in villany to
CRANMER, but to few other men that have ever existed.

250.  HOOPER was a MONK; he broke his vow of celibacy and married a
Flandrican; be, being the ready tool of the Protector Somerset, whom
he greatly aided in his plunder of the churches, got two Bishoprics,
though he himself had written against pluralities; he was a co-
operator in all the monstrous cruelties inflicted on the people,
during the reign of Edward, and was particularly active in
recommending the use of German troops to bend the necks of the
English to the Protestant yoke. LATIMER began his career, not only as
a Catholic priest, but as a most furious assailant of the Reformation
religion. By this he obtained from Henry VIII. the Bishopric of
Worcester. He next changed his opinions; but he did not give up his
Catholic Bishopric! Being suspected, he made abjuration of
Protestantism; he thus kept his Bishopric for twenty years, while he
inwardly reprobated the principles of the Church, and which Bishopric
he held in virtue of an oath to oppose, to the utmost of his power,
all dissenters from the Catholic Church; in the reigns of Henry and
Edward he sent to the stake Catholics and Protestants for holding
opinions, which he himself had before held openly, or that he held
secretly at the time of his so sending them. Lastly, he was a chief
both in the hands of the tyrannical Protector SOMERSET in that black
and unnatural act of bringing his brother Lord THOMAS SOMERSET, to
the block, RIDLEY had been a Catholic bishop in the reign of Henry
VIII., when he sent to the stake Catholics who denied the King's
supremacy, and Protestants, who denied transubstantiation. In
Edward's reign he was a Protestant bishop, and denied
transubstantiation himself; and then he sent to the stake Protestants
who differed from the creed of CRANMER. He, in Edward's reign, got
the Bishopric of London by a most roguish agreement to transfer the
greater part of its possessions to the rapacious ministers and
courtiers of that day. Lastly, he was guilty of high treason against
the Queen, in openly (as we have seen in paragraph 220), and from the
pulpit, exhorting the people to stand by the usurper Lady JANE; and
thus endeavouring to produce civil war and the death of his
sovereign, in order that he might, by treason, be enabled to keep
that bishopric which he had obtained by simony, including perjury.

251.  A pretty trio of Protestant "Saints," quite worthy, however, of
"SAINT" MARTIN LUTHER, who says, in his own work, that it was by the
arguments of the Devil (who, he says, frequently ate, drank, and
slept with him) that he was induced to turn Protestant: three worthy
followers of that LUTHER, who is, by his disciple MELANCTHON, called
"a brutal man, void of piety and humanity, one more a Jew than a
Christian:" three followers altogether worthy of this great founder
of that Protestantism, which has split the world into contending
sects: but, black as these are, they bleach the moment CRANMER
appears in his true colours. But, alas! where is the pen, or tongue,
to give us those colours! Of the 65 years that he lived, and of the
35 years of his manhood, 29 years were spent in the commission of a
series of acts, which, for wickedness in their nature and for
mischief in their consequences, are absolutely without any thing
approaching to a parallel in the annals of human infamy. Being a
fellow of a college at Cambridge, and having, of course, made an
engagement (as the fellows do to this day), not to marry while he was
a fellow, he married secretly, and still enjoyed his fellowship.
While a married man he became at priest, and took the oath of
celibacy; and, going to Germany, he married another wife, the
daughter of a Protestant "saint;" so that he had now two wives at one
time, though his oath bound him to have no wife at all. He, as
Archbishop, enforced the law of celibacy, while he himself secretly
kept his German frow in the palace at Canterbury, having, as we have
seen in paragraph 104, imported her in a chest. He, as ecclesiastical
judge, divorced Henry VIII. from three wives, the grounds of his
decision in two of the cases being directly the contrary of those
which he himself had laid down when he declared the marriages to be
valid; and, in the case of ANNE BOLEYN, he, as ecclesiastical judge,
pronounced, that Anne had never been the King's wife; while, as a
member of the House of Peers, he voted for her death, as having been
an adulteress, and, thereby, guilty of treason to. her husband. As
Archbishop under Henry (which office he entered upon with a
premeditated false oath on his lips) he sent men and women to the
stake because they were not Catholics, and he sent Catholics to the
stake, because they would not acknowledge the King's supremacy, and
thereby perjure themselves as he had so often done. Become openly a
Protestant, in Edward's reign, and openly professing those very
principles, for the professing of which he had burnt others, he now
burnt his fellow-Protestants, because their grounds for protesting
were different from his. As executor for the will of his old master,
Henry, which gave the crown (after Edward) to his daughters, Mary and
Elizabeth, he conspired with others to rob those two daughters of
their right, and to give the Crown to Lady JANE, that Queen of nine
days, whom he, with others, ordered to be proclaimed. Confined,
notwithstanding his many monstrous crimes, merely to the palace of
Lambeth, he, in requital of the Queen's lenity, plotted with traitors
in the pay of France to overset her government. Brought, at last, to
trial and to condemnation as a heretic, he professed himself ready to
recant. He was respited for six weeks, during which time he signed
six different forms of recantation, each more ample than the former.
He declared that the Protestant religion was false; that the Catholic
religion was the only true one; that he now believed in all the
doctrines of the Catholic Church; that he had been a horrid
blasphemer against the sacrament; that he was unworthy of
forgiveness; that he prayed the People, the Queen and the POPE, to
have pity on, and to pray for his wretched soul; and that he had made
and signed this declaration without fear, and without hope of favour,
and for the discharge of his con science, and as a warning to others.
It was a question in the Queen's council, whether he should be
pardoned, as other recanters had been; but it was resolved, that his
crimes were so enormous that it would be unjust to let him escape; to
which might have been added, that it could have done the Catholic
Church no honour to see reconciled to it a wretch covered with
robberies, perjuries, treasons and bloodshed. Brought, therefore, to
the public reading of his recantation, on his way to the stake;
seeing the pile ready, now finding that he must die, and carrying in
his breast all his malignity undiminished, he recanted his 
recantation, thrust into the fire the hand that had signed it, and
thus expired, protesting against that very religion in which, only
nine hours before, he had called God to witness that he firmly
believed!

252.  And Mary is to be called the "Bloody", because she put to death
monsters of iniquity like this! It is, surely, time to do justice to
the memory of this calumniated Queen; and not to do it by halves, I
must, contrary to my intention, employ part of the next Number in
giving the remainder of her history.







LETTER IX.

MARY AT WAR WITH FRANCE.
THE CAPTURE OF CALAIS BY THE FRENCH.
THE DEATH OF QUEEN MARY.
ACCESSION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.
HER CRUEL AND BLOODY LAWS RELATIVE TO RELIGION.
HER PERFIDY WITH REGARD TO FRANCE.
THE DISGRACE SHE BROUGHT UPON HER GOVERNMENT AND THE COUNTRY BY THIS
PERFIDY.
HER BASE AND PERPETUAL SURRENDER OF CALA1S.

Kensington, 31st July, 1825..

MY FRIENDS,

253.  I NOW, before I proceed to the "Reformation" works in the reign
of ELIZABETH, must conclude the reign of MARY. "Few and full of
sorrow" were the days of her power. She had innumerable difficulties
to struggle with, a most inveterate and wicked faction continually
plotting against her, and the state of her health, owing partly to
her weak frame, and partly to the anxieties of her whole life,
rendered her life so uncertain, that the unprincipled plunderers,
though they had again become Catholics, were continually casting an
eye towards her successor, who, though she was now a Catholic, was
pretty sure to become Protestant whenever she came to the throne,
because it was impossible that the POPE should ever acknowledge her
legitimacy.

254.  In the year 1557, the Queen was at war with France, on account
of the endeavours of that Court to excite rebellion against her in
England. Her husband, PHILIP, whose father, the Emperor, had now
retired to a convent, leaving his son to supply his place, and
possess all his dominions, was also at war with France, the scene of
which war was the Netherlands and the North of France. An English
army had joined PHILIP, who penetrated into France, and gained a
great and important victory over the French. But a French army, under
the Duke of GUISE, took advantage of the naked state of Calais, to
possess itself of that important town, which had been in possession
of the English for more than two hundred years. It was not Calais
alone that England held; but the whole country round for many miles,
including Guisnesse, Fanim, Ardres, and other places, together with
the whole territory called the county of Oye. EDWARD III. had taken
Calais after a siege of nearly a year. It had always been regarded as
very valuable for the purposes of trade; it was deemed a great
monument of glory to England, and it was a thorn continually rankling
in the side of France. Dr. HEYLIN tells us, that Monsieur de CORDES,
a nobleman who lived in the reign of Louis XI., used to say "that he
would be content to lie seven years in hell upon "condition that this
town were regained from the English."

255.  The Queen felt this blow most severely, it hastened that death
which overtook her a few months after wards: and, when her end
approached, she told her attendants, that, "if they opened her body,
they would find Calais at the bottom of her heart." This great
misfortune was owing to the neglect, if not perfidy, of her
councillors, joined to the dread of Philip to see Calais and its
dependencies in the hands of MARY's successor. Doctor HEYLIN (a
Protestant, mind) tells us, that Philip, seeing that danger might
arise to Calais, advised the Queen of it, and "freely offered his
assistance for the defence of it; but, that the English council,
over-wisely jealous of Philip, neglected both his advice and
proffer." They left the place with only five hundred men in it; and
that they did this intentionally it is hardly possible to doubt.
Still, however, if the Queen had lived but a little longer, Calais
would have been restored. The war was not yet over. In 1558, Philip
and the King of France began negotiations for peace; and one of the
conditions of Philip (who was the most powerful, and who had beaten
the French) was, that Calais should be restored to England; and this
condition would unquestionably have been adhered to by Philip; but,
in the midst of these. negotiations, Mary died!

256, Thus, then, it is to the "Reformation," which had caused the
loss of Boulogne, in the plundering and cowardly reign of Edward VI.,
that we, even to this day, owe, that we have to lament, the loss of
Calais, which was, at last, irretrievably lost by the selfishness and
perfidy of Elizabeth. While all historians agree, that the loss of
Calais preyed most severely upon the Queen, and hastened her death;
while they all do this great honour to her memory, none of them
attempt to say, that the loss of Boulogue had even the smallest
effect on the spirits of her  "Reformation" brother! He was too busy
in pulling down altars and in confiscating the property of Guilds and
Fraternities to think much about national honour; or, perhaps, though
he, while he was pulling down altars, still called himself "Defender
of the Faith," he might think, that territory and glory, won by
Catholics, ought not to be retained by Protestants. Be this as it
may, we have seen a loss to England much greater than that of Calais;
we have seen the half of a continent cut off from the crown of
England, and seen it become a most formidable rival on the seas; and
we have never heard, that it preyed much upon the spirits of the
sovereign, in whose reign the loss took place.

257.  With the loss of Calais at the bottom of her heart, and with a
well-grounded fear that her successor would undo, as to religion, all
that she had done, the unfortunate Mary expired on the 17th of
November, 1558, in the forty-second year of her age, and in the sixth
year of her reign, leaving to her sister and successor the example of
fidelity, sincerity, patience, resignation, generosity, gratitude,
and purity in thought, word and deed; an example, however, which, in
every particular, that sister and successor took special care not to
follow. As to those punishments, which have served as the ground for
all the abuse heaped on the memory of this Queen, what were they
other than punishments inflicted on offenders against the religion of
the country? The "fires of Smithfield" have a horrid sound; but, to
say nothing about the burnings of Edward VI., Elizabeth, and James
I., is it more pleasant to have one's bowels ripped out, while the
body is alive (as was Elizabeth's favourite way), than to be burnt?
Protestants have even exceeded Catholics in the work of punishing
offenders of this sort. And, they have punished, too, with less
reason on their side. The Catholics have one faith; the Protestants
have fifty faiths: and yet, each sect, whenever it gets uppermost,
punishes, in some way or other, the rest as offenders. Even at this
very time, there are, according to a return, recently laid before the
House of Commons, no less than fifty-seven persons, who have, within
a few years, suffered imprisonment and other punishments added to it,
as offenders against religion; and this, too, at a time, when men are
permitted openly to deny the divinity of Christ, and others openly to
preach in their synagogues, that there never was any Christ at all. A
man sees the laws tolerate twenty sorts of Christians (as they all
call themselves), each condemning all the rest to eternal flames;
and, if, in consequence of this, he be led to express his belief,
that they are all wrong, and that the thing they are disputing about
is altogether something unreal, he may be punished with six years (or
his whole life) of imprisonment in a loathsome gaol! Let us think of
these things, when we are talking of the "bloody Queen Mary." The
punishments now-a-days proceed from the maxim that "Christianity is
part and parcel of the law of the land." When did it begin? Before,
or since, the "Reformation"? And, who, amongst all these sects,
which, it would seem, this law tolerates; which of them is to tell
us; from which of them are we to learn, what Christianity is?

258.  As to the mass of suffering, supposing the whole of the 277
persons, who suffered in the reign of Mary, to have suffered solely
for the sake of religion instead of having been, like CRANMER and
RIDLEY, traitors and felons as well as offenders on the score of
religion; let us suppose the whole 277 to have suffered for offences
against religion, did the mass of suffering surpass the mass of
suffering; on this same account, during the reign of the late King?
And, unless Smithfield and burning have any peculiar agony, any thing
worse than death, to impart, did Smithfield ever witness so great a
mass of suffering as the Old Bailey has witnessed, on account of
offences against that purely Protestant invention, bank notes?
Perhaps this invention, expressly intended to keep out Popery, has
cost ten times, if not ten times ten times, the blood that was shed
in the reign of her, whom we still have the injustice, or the folly,
to call the "bloody Queen Mary," all whose excellent qualities, all
whose exalted virtues, all her piety, charity, generosity, sacred
adherence to her faith and her word, all her gratitude, and even
those feelings of anxiety for the greatness and honour of England,
which feelings hastened her to the grave: all these, in which she was
never equalled by any sovereign that sat on the English throne,
ALFRED alone excepted, whose religion she sought to re-establish for
ever; all these are to pass for nothing, and we are to call her the
"bloody Mary," because it suits the views of those who fatten on the
spoils of that Church which never suffered Englishmen to bear the
odious and debasing name of pauper.

ELIZABETH.

259.  To the pauper and ripping-up reign we now come. This is the
reign of "good Queen Bess." We shall, in a short time, see how good
she was. The Act of Parliament, which is still in force, relative to
the poor and poor-rates, was passed in the 43rd year of this reign;
but, that was not the only act of the kind: there were eleven acts
passed before that, in consequence of the poverty and misery, into
which the "Reformation" had plunged the people. However, it is the
last Number of my work which is to contain the history of the rise
and progress of English pauperism, from the beginning of the
"Reformation" down to the present time. At present I have to relate
what took place with regard to the affairs of religion.

260.  ELIZABETH, during the reign of her brother, had been a
Protestant, and during the reign of her sister, a Catholic. At the
time of her sister's death, she not only went to mass publicly; but,
she had a Catholic chapel in her house, and also a confessor. These
appearances had not, however, deceived her sister, who, to the very
last, doubted her sincerity. On her death bed, honest and sincere
Mary required from her a frank avowal of her opinions as to religion.
Elizabeth, in answer, prayed God that the earth might open and
swallow her, if she were not a true Roman Catholic She made the same
declaration to the Duke of Feria, the Spanish envoy, whom she so
completely deceived, that he wrote to Philip, that the accession of
Elizabeth would make no alteration in matters of religion, in
England. In spite of all this, it was not long before she began
ripping up the bowels of her unhappy subjects, because they were
Roman Catholics.

261.  She was a bastard by law. The marriage of her mother had been,
by law, which yet remained unrepealed, declared to be null and void
from the beginning. Her accession having been, in the usual way,
notified to foreign powers, that is, that "she had succeeded to the
throne by hereditary right and the consent of the nation," the POPE
answered, that he did not understand the hereditary right of a person
not born in lawful wedlock So that he, of course, could not
acknowledge her hereditary right. This was, of itself, a pretty
strong inducement for a lady of so flexible a conscience as she had,
to resolve to be a Protestant. But, there was another and even a
stronger motive. Mary, Queen of Scotland, who had married the Dauphin
of France, claimed the crown of England, as the nearest legitimate
descendant of Henry VII. So that Elizabeth ran a manifest risk of
losing the crown unless she became a Protestant, and crammed
CRANMER's creed down the throats of her people. If she remained a
Catholic, she must yield submission to the decrees from Rome: the
POPE could have made it a duty with her people to abandon her; or, at
the very least, he could have greatly embarrassed her. In short, she
saw clearly, that, if her people remained Catholics, she could never
reign in perfect safety. She knew that she had no hereditary right;
she knew that the law ascribed her birth to adultery. She never could
think of reigning quietly over a people the head of whose Church
refused to acknowledge her right to the crown. And resolving to wear
that crown, she resolved, cost what ruin or blood it might, to compel
her people to abandon that very religion, her belief in which she
had, a few months before, declared, by praying to "God that the earth
might open and swallow her alive, if she were not a true Roman
Catholic."

262.  The POPE's answer was honest; but it was impolitic, and most
unfortunate it was for the English and Irish people, who had now to
prepare for sufferings such as they had never known before. The
situation of things was extremely favourable to the Protestants.
Mary, the Queen of Scots, the real lawful heir to the throne, was, as
we have seen, married to the Dauphin of France. If Elizabeth were set
aside, or, if she died without issue before Mary, England must become
an appendage of France. The loss of Calais and of Boulogne had
mortified the nation enough; but, for England herself to he to
transferred France, was what no Englishman could think of with
patience. So that she became strong from the dread that the people
had of the consequences of her being put down. It was the betrothing
of Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Dauphin, which induced Mary, Queen of
England, to marry PHILIP, and thereby to secure an ally for England
in case of Scotland becoming a dependance of France. How much more
pressing was the danger now, when the Queen of Scots was actually
married to the Dauphin (the heir apparent to the French throne), and
when if she were permitted to possess the crown of England, England,
in case of her having a son, must become a province of France!

263.  This state of things was, therefore, most unfortunate for the
Catholics. It made many, very many, of themselves cool in opposition
to the change which the new Queen soon showed her determination to
effect; for, how ever faithful as to their religion, they were
Englishmen, and abhorred the thought of being the underlings of
Frenchmen. They might hate the Queen for her apostacy and tyranny;
but still they could not but desire that England should remain an
independent state; and to keep her such, the upholding of Elizabeth
seemed absolutely necessary. Those who eulogize Henry IV. of France,
who became a Catholic expressly and avowedly for the purpose of
possessing and keeping the throne of that country, cannot very
consistently blame Elizabeth for becoming a Protestant for an exactly
similar reason. I do not attempt to justify either of them; but I
must confess, that, if any thing would have induced me to uphold
Elizabeth, it would have been, that she, as far as human foresight
could go, was an instrument necessary to preserve England from
subjection to France; and, beyond all doubt, this was the main reason
for which, at the outset at least, she was upheld by many of the
eminent and powerful men of that day.

264.  But if we admit that she was justified in thus consulting her
preservation as a Queen, and the nation's independence, at the
expense of religious considerations; if we admit that she had a right
to give a preference to Protestants, and to use all gentle means for
the totally changing of the religion of her people; if we admit this,
and that is admitting a great deal more than justice demands of as,
who can refrain from being filled with horror at the barbarity which
she so unsparingly exercised for the accomplishment of her purpose?

265.  The intention to change the religion of the country became, in
a short time, so manifest, that all the Bishops but one refused to
crown her. She at last found one to do it; but even he would not
consent to do the thing without her conformity to the Catholic
ritual. Very soon, however, a series of acts were passed, which, by
degrees, put down the Catholic worship, and re-introduced the
Protestant; and she found the plunderers and possessors of plunder
just as ready to conform to her ecclesiastical sway, as they had been
to receive absolution from Cardinal Pole, in the last reign.
CRANMER's book of Common Prayer, which had been ascribed by the
Parliament to the suggestions of the "Holy Ghost," had been altered
and amended even in Edward's reign. It was now revived, and altered
and amended again; and still it was ascribed to the "dictates of the
Holy Ghost"!

266.  If these Acts of Parliament had stopped here, they would
certainly have been bad and disgraceful enough. But such a change was
not to be effected without blood. This Queen was resolved to reign:
the blood of her people she deemed necessary to her own safety; and
she never scrupled to make it flow. She looked upon the Catholic
religion as her mortal enemy; and, cost what it might, she was
resolved to destroy it, if she could, the means being, by her, those
which best answered her end.

267.  With this view, statutes the most bloody were passed. All
persons were compelled to take the oath of supremacy, on pain of
death. To take the oath of supremacy; that is to say, to acknowledge
the Queen's supremacy in spiritual matters, was to renounce the POPE
and the Catholic religion; or, in other words, to become an apostate.
Thus was a very large part of her people at once condemned to death
for adhering to the religion of their fathers; and moreover, for
adhering to that very religion, in which she had openly lived till
she became Queen, and to her firm belief in which she had sworn at
her coronation!

268.  Besides this act of monstrous barbarity, it was made high
treason in a priest to say mass; it was made high treason in a priest
to come into the kingdom from abroad; it was made high treason to
harbour or to relieve a priest. And, on these grounds, and others of
a like nature, hundreds upon hundreds were butchered in the most
inhuman manner, being first hung up, then cut down alive, their
bowels then ripped up, and their bodies chopped into quarters: and
this, I again beg you, sensible and just Englishmen, to observe, only
because the unfortunate persons were too virtuous and sincere to
apostatize from that faith which this Queen herself had, at her
coronation, in her coronation oath, solemnly sworn to adhere to and
defend!

269.  Having pulled down the altars, set up the tables; having ousted
the Catholic priests and worship, and put in their stead a set of
hungry, beggarly creatures, the very scum of the earth, with
Cranmer's prayer-book amended in their hands; having done this, she
compelled her Catholic subjects to attend in the churches under
enormous penalties, which rose, at last, to death itself, in case of
perseverance in refusal! Thus were all the good, all the sincere, all
the conscientious people in the kingdom incessantly harassed, ruined
by enormous fines, brought to the gallows, or compelled to flee from
their native country. Thus was this Protestant religion watered with
the tears and the blood of the people of England. Talk of Catholic
persecution and cruelty! Where are you to find persecution and
cruelty like this, inflicted by Catholic princes? Elizabeth put, in
one way or another, more Catholics to death in one year, for not
becoming apostates to the religion which she had sworn to be hers,
and to be the only true one, than Mary put to death in her whole
reign for having apostatized from the religion of her and their
fathers, and to which religion she herself had always adhered. Yet,
the former is called, or has been called, "good Queen Bess," and the
latter "bloody Queen Mary." Even the horrid MASSACRE of ST.
BARTHOLOMEW was nothing, when fairly compared with the butcheries and
other cruelties of the reign of this Protestant Queen of England;
yes, a mere nothing; and yet she put on mourning upon that occasion,
and had the consummate hypocrisy to affect horror at the cruelties
that the King of France had committed.

270.  This massacre took place at Paris, in the year 1572, and in the
14th year of Elizabeth's reign; and, as it belongs to the history of
that day, as it was, in fact, in part, produced by her own incessant
and most mischievous intrigues, and as it has been made a great
handle of in the work of calumniating the Catholics, even to this
day, it is necessary that I give a true account of it, and that I go
back to those civil wars in France which she occasioned, and in which
she took so large a part, and which finally lost Calais and its
territory to England. The "Reformation," which LUTHER said he was
taught by the Devil, had found its way into France so early as in the
year 1530, or thereabouts. The "reformers" there were called
HUGUENOTS. For a long while they were of little consequence; but
they, at last, in the reign of Charles IX., became formidable to the
government by being taken hold of by those ambitious and rebellious
leaders CONDÉ and COLIGNI. The faction, of which these two were the
chiefs, wanted to have the governing of France during the minority of
Charles, who came to the throne in the year 1561, at ten years of
age. His mother, the Queen Dowager, gave the preference to the Duke
of Guise and his party. The disappointed nobles, Condé and Coligni,
needed no better motive for becoming most zealous Protestants, the
Guises being zealous in the Catholic cause! Hence arose an open
rebellion on the part of the former, fomented by the Queen of
England, who seemed to think, that she never could be safe as long as
there were Catholic prince, priest, or people left upon the face of
the earth; and who never stuck at means, if they were but calculated
to effect her end. She was herself an apostate; she wanted to
annihilate that from which she had apostatized; and, by her
endeavours to effect her purpose, she made her people bleed at every
pore, and made no scruple upon any occasion, to sacrifice the
national honour.

271.  At her coming to the throne, she found the country at war with
France, and Calais in its hands, that fortress and territory having,
as we have seen in paragraph 254, been taken by a French army under
the Duke of Guise. She almost immediately made peace with France, and
that, too, without getting CALAIS back, as she might have done, if
she had not preferred her own private interest to the interest and
honour of England. The negotiations for peace (England, Spain, and
France being the parties) were carried on at Cateau Cambresis, in
France. All was soon settled with regard to Spain and France; but
PHILIP (Mary's husband, remember), faithful to his engagements,
refused to sign the treaty, until the new Queen of England should be
satisfied with regard to Calais; and he even offered to Continue the
war for six years, unless Calais were restored, provided Elizabeth 
would bind herself not to make a separate peace during that period.
She declined this generous offer; she had begun to rip up her
subjects, and was afraid of war; and she, therefore, clandestinely
entered into negotiations with France, and it was agreed that the
latter should keep Calais for eight years, or pay to England 500,000
crowns! Never was there a baser act than this treaty, on the part of
England. But this was not all; for the treaty further stipulated,
that if France committed any act of aggression against England during
the eight years, or if England committed any act of aggression
against France, during that time, the treaty should be void, and that
the former should lose the right of retaining, and the latter the
claim to the restoration, of this valuable town and territory.

272.  This treaty was concluded in 1559, and it was a treaty not only
of friendship, but of alliance between the parties. But, before three
years out of the eight had passed away, "good Queen Bess," out of
pure hatred and fear of the Catholics; from a pure desire to make her
tyrannical sway secure; from the sole desire of being still able to
fine, imprison, and rip up her unfortunate subjects, forfeited all
claim to the restoration of Calais, and that too, by a breach of
treaty more flagrant and more base than, perhaps, had ever before
been witnessed in the world..

273.  CONDÉ and COLIGNI, with their Huguenots, had stirred up a
formidable civil war in France. "Good Queen Bess's" ambassador at
that Court stimulated and assisted the rebels to the utmost of his
power. At last, VIDAME, an agent of Condé and Coligni, came,
secretly, over to England to negotiate for military, naval and
pecuniary assistance. They succeeded with "good Bess," who, wholly
disregarding the solemn treaties by which she was bound to Charles
IX., King of France, entered into a formal treaty with the French
rebels to send them an army and money, for the purpose of carrying on
war against their sovereign, of whom she was an ally, having bound
herself, in that character, by a solemn oath on the Evangelists! By
this treaty she engaged to furnish men, ships, and money; and the
traitors, on their part, engaged to put HAVRE DE GRACE at once into
her hands, as a pledge, not only for the repayment of the money to be
advanced, but for the restoration of Calais! This infamous compact
richly deserved the consequences that attended it.

274.  The French ambassador in London, when he found that an
intercourse was going on between the Queen and the agents of the
rebels, went to CECIL, the Secretary of State, carrying the treaty of
Cateau Cambresis in his hand, and demanded, agreeably to the
stipulations of that treaty, that the agents of the rebels should be
delivered up as traitors to their sovereign; and he warned the
English government, that any act of aggression on its part, would
annihilate its claim to the recovery of Calais at the end of the
eight years. But "good Bess" had caused the civil wars in France; she
had, by her bribes, and other underhand means, stirred them up, and
she believed that the success of the French rebels was necessary to
her own security on her throne of doubtful right; and, as she hoped
to get Calais in this perfidious way, she saw nothing but gain in the
perfidy.

275.  The rebels were in possession of DIEPPE, ROUEN, HAVRE DE GRACE,
and had extended their power over a considerable part of Normandy.
They at once put HAVRE and DIEPPE into the hands of the English. So
infamous and treacherous a proceeding roused the Catholics of France,
who now became ashamed of that inactivity, which had suffered a sect,
less than a hundredth part of the population, to sell their country
under the blasphemous plea of a love of the Gospel. "Good Bess," with
her usual mixture of hypocrisy and effrontery, sent her proclamations
into Normandy, declaring, that she meant no hostility against her
"good brother" the King of France; but merely to protect his
Protestant subjects against the tyranny of the House of Guise; and
that her "good brother" ought to be grateful to her for the
assistance she was lending! This cool and hypocritical insolence
added fury to the flame. All France could but recollect, that it was
the skilful, the gallant, the patriotic Duke of Guise, who had, only
five years before, ejected the English from Calais, their last hold
in France; and they now saw these "sons of the Gospel," as they had
the audacity to call themselves, bring those same English back again,
and put two French seaports into their hands at once! Are we to
wonder at the inextinguishable hatred of the people of France against
this traitorous sect? Are we to wonder, that they felt a desire to
extirpate the whole of so infamous a race, who had already sold their
country to the utmost of their power?

276.  The French nobility, from every province and corner of France,
flew to the aid of their sovereign, whose army was commanded by the
Constable, Montmorency, with the Duke of Guise under him. Condé was
at the head of the rebel army, having Coligni as a sort of partner in
the concern, and having been joined by the English troops under the
Earl of Warwick, nephew of "good Bess's" paramour, DUDLEY, of whom
the Protestant clergymen, Heylin and Witaker, will tell us more than
enough by-and-by. The first movement of the French against this
combined mass of hypocrisy, audacity, perfidy and treason, was the
besieging of ROUEN, into which Sir Edward Poinings, who had preceded
Warwick, had thrown an English reinforcement to assist the faithful
"sons of the Gospel." In order to encourage the French, the Queen-
Mother (Catherine de Medici), her son the young King, Charles (now
twelve years of age), and the King of Navarre, were present at the
siege. The latter was mortally wounded in the attack; but the
Catholics finally took the town by assault, and put the whole of the
garrison to the sword, including the English reinforcement sent by
"good Queen Bess."

277.  In the meanwhile the brother of Coligni had, by the money of
"good Bess," collected together a body of German mercenary
Gospellers, and had got them to ORLEANS, which was then the main hold
of the Huguenots; while "good Bess," in order to act her part
faithfully, ordered public prayers, during three whole days to
implore God's blessing "upon her cause and the cause of the Gospel."
Thus reinforced by another body of foreigners brought into their
country, the base traitors, Condé and Coligni, first made a feint on
the side of Paris; but, finding themselves too weak on that side,
they took their way towards Normandy, in the hope of their having the
aid of the English forces. But, the Catholics, still under 
Montmorency, followed the traitors, overtook them at DREUX, compelled
them to fight, took Condé himself prisoner, and, though Montmorency
was taken prisoner by the rebels, the Duke of Guise took the chief
command, and drove the rebel Coligni and his army before him; and
this, too, observe, in spite of "good Bess's" three whole days of
prayers.

278.  Nevertheless, Coligni kept the field, and pillaged Normandy
pretty severely. "Good Bess" sent him some money, and offered to be
bound for more, if he could get any merchants (that is, Jews) to lend
it him; but, she sent him no troops; those, under the Earl of
Warwick, being kept safe and sound in the strong fortress of Havre de
Grace, which place honest and "good Bess" intended to keep, let
things go which way they might, which honest intention we shall,
however, find defeated in the end. Coligni and his ruffians and
German mercenary Gospellers cruelly plundered the Normans as far as
they could extend their arms. The Catholics, now under the Duke of
Guise, laid siege to Orleans. While this siege was going on, one
POLTROT, a Huguenot, in the pay of Coligni, went, under the guise of
being a deserter from that inveterate rebel chief, and entered into
the service of the army under the Duke of Guise. In a short time this
miscreant found the means to assassinate that gallant nobleman and
distinguished patriot, instigated, and, indeed, employed for the
express purpose by Coligni, and urged on by BEZA, the "famous
preacher," as HUME calls him, but really one of the most infamous of
all the "reforming" preachers, and, perhaps, second to none but
LUTHER himself. This atrocious deed met, afterwards, with retaliation
in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, when on Coligni's mangled body
there might have been placarded the name of POLTROT. This wretch had
been paid by Coligni, and the money had come from honest and sincere
"good Queen Bess," whom we shall hereafter find plainly accused by
Witaker (a clergyman of the Church of England) of plotting the
assassination of her own cousin, and finding no man in her kingdom
base enough to perform the deed.

279.  This foul deed seems to have made Condé ashamed of his infamous
associate and followers. Ambition had made him a rebel; but he had
sense of honour enough left to make him shudder at the thought of
being the leader of assassins: and he, with one drop of true blood in
him, could not think without horror of such a man as the Duke of
Guise, who had rendered such inestimable services to France, being
swept from existence by so base a miscreant  -- as that whom his late
colleague had hired and paid for that purpose. If the son of the Duke
of Guise could have destroyed Coligni and his whole crew, he would
have been justified in so doing. And vet, the world has been stunned
with the Protestant cries of horror at the death of this same Coligni
and a small part of his followers!

280.  Condé now sought to get rid of his miscreant associates by
proposing, in February 1563, a pacification, and tendering his
submission to his sovereign on condition of an act of oblivion.
Coligni was included in the amnesty. The King granted to the
Huguenots permission to practice their worship in one town in every
bailiwick; and thus were all matters settled between the King and his
rebellious subjects. Sad tidings for "good Queen Bess," who, as
Witaker well observes, continually sought her safety in the divisions
and misery of others. Condé, in his treaty with her, had stipulated
not to conclude any peace without her consent; but, had she a right
to complain of a want of good faith? She, who had broken her treaty
and her oath with Charles IX., and who, in defiance of both, had
entered into a treaty with rebels, in open arms against their King?

281.  The French King, wishing to get her troops quietly out of Havre
de Grace, and finding that she now pretended to hold it as a pledge
for the surrender of Calais, at the end of the eight years, offered
to renew the treaty of Cateau Cambresis, by which Calais was to be
restored to England in 1567. But, she rejected this fair and
reasonable proposal. She had got Havre; no matter how; and she said,
that "a bird in hand was worth two in the bush," snapping her fingers
at the same time, and, as was the common practice with her upon such
occasions, confirming her resolution with a thundering oath, so
becoming in a "Virgin Queen." Finding, however, that all parties in
France were now united for the expulsion of the English, she
reluctantly gave way. She authorised her ambassadors to present a new
project of treaty; but, by this time, the French army, under
Montmorency, Condé, "good Bess's" late friend and ally being serving
in the army, was on its way to regain Havre by force of arms, the
King of France being well convinced, that treaties with "good Betsy"
were things perfectly vain.

282.  Still, it was not a trifling thing to take Havre out of the
hands of the English. A great deal of taxes had been imposed upon
this nation (to say nothing of the "prayers" in order to ensure the
possession of this place. The Earl of Warwick, instead of sending
troops to assist Bess's allies, had kept his army at Havre; had, with
six thousand soldiers and seven hundred pioneers, rendered the place
"impregnable;" had, as soon as he heard that the rebellion was at an
end, expelled all the French people from Havre, to their utter ruin,
and in direct breach of Bess's treaty with Condé and Coligni. But, in
spite of all this, Montmorency was, at the end of a short time, ready
to enter the place by assault, having made his breaches in
preparation. The Queen-Mother and the King were present in the camp
where they had the indescribable pleasure to see "good Queen Bess's"
general humbly propose to surrender the place to its rightful
sovereign, without any mention of Calais and its territory, and on no
condition whatever, but that of being permitted to return to England
with the miserable remnant of his army; and England, after all the
treasure and blood expended to gratify the malignity of "good Bess,"
and after all the just imputations of perfidy that she had brought
upon it, had to receive that remnant, that ratification of disgrace,
greater than it had to support from the day when glorious Alfred
finally expelled the Danes. And, yet, this woman is called, or has
been called, "good Queen Bess," and her perfidious and butchering
reign has been called glorious!

283.  Great as the mortifications of "good Bess" now were, and great
as were the misfortunes of the country, brought upon it by these her
proceedings of hitherto unheard-of hypocrisy and breach of faith, we
have, as yet, seen the full measure of neither the one nor the other.
For, "glorious and good Bess" had now to sue for peace, and with that
King, with whose rebel subjects she had so recently co-operated. Her
ambassadors, going with due passports, were arrested and imprisoned.
She stamped and swore, but she swallowed the affront, and took the
regular steps to cause them to be received at the French court, who,
on their part, treated her pressing applications with a contemptuous
sneer, and suffered many months to pass away, before they would
listen to any terms of peace. SMITH was one of her envoys, and the
other was that same THROCKMORTON, who had been her ambassador at
Paris, and who had been her agent in stirring up Condé and Coligni to
their rebellion. The former was imprisoned at Melun, and the latter
at Saint Germain's. Smith was released upon her application; but
Throckmorton was detained, and was made use of for the following
curious, and, to "good Bess," most humiliating purpose. The treaty of
Cateau Cambresis, which stipulated for the restoration of Calais in
eight years, or the forfeiture of 500,000 crowns by the French,
contained a stipulation, that four French noblemen should be held by
"good Bess" as hostages for the fulfilment of the treaty on the part
of France. "Good Bess," by her aiding of the French rebels, had
broken this treaty, had lost all just claim to Calais, and ought to
have released the hostages; but, as "good Bess" very seldom did what
she ought to; as she might, almost every day of her mischievous life,
have, with perfect truth, repeated that part of the Prayer-Book
"amended," which says, "we have done I those things which we ought
not to do, and have left undone those things which we ought to do;"
so, this "good" woman had kept the hostages, though she had forfeited
all  just claim to that for the fulfilment of which they had been put
into her hands. Now, however, the French had got a "bird in hand"
too. They had got Throckrnorton, their old enemy, and he had got a
large quantity of "good "Bess's" horrible secrets locked up in his
breast! So that, after long discussions, during which Throckmorton
gave very significant signs of his determination not to end his days
in prison without taking revenge, of some sort, on his merciless
employer, the "good" woman agreed to exchange the four French
noblemen for him; and, as a quarter of a loaf was better than no
bread, to take 125,000 crowns for the relinquishment of Calais to
France in perpetuity!

284.  Thus, then, it was "good Queen Bess," after all, glorious and
Protestant Bess, that plucked this jewel from the English crown! Nor
was this the only signal consequence of her unhallowed and
unprincipled treaty and intrigues with the French rebels. The plague,
which had got into the garrison of Havre de Grace, and which had left
Warwick with only about two thousand out of his seven thousand men;
this dreadful disease was brought by that miserable remnant of
infected beings, to England, where HUME himself allows, that it
"swept off great multitudes, especially   in London, where above
twenty thousand persons died of it in one year"! Thus was the nation
heavily taxed, afflicted with war, afflicted with pestilence; thus
were thousands upon thousands of English people destroyed, or ruined,
or rendered miserable, merely to gratify this proud and malignant
woman, who thought that she could never be safe until all the world
joined in her flagrant apostacy. Thus, and merely for this same
reason, was Calais surrendered for ever; Calais, the proudest
possession of England;  Calais, one of the two keys to the Northern
Seas; Calais, that had been won by our Catholic forefathers two
hundred years before; Calais, which they would have no more thought
of yielding to France, than they would have thought of yielding
Dover; Calais, the bare idea of a possibility of losing which had
broken the heart of the honest, the virtuous, the patriotic and most
calumniated Mary!

285.  It is surprising what baseness HUME discovers in treating of
the whole of this important series of transactions; how he glosses
over all the breaches of faith and of oath, on the part of the "good
Bess"; how he lets pass without censure the flagrant and malignant
treason of the rebels; and even how he insinuates apologies for them;
how he skips by the rare fidelity of Philip to his engagements; how
he praises the black-hearted Coligni, while he almost censures Condé
for seeking peace after the assassination of the Duke of Guise; how
he wholly suppresses the deep humiliations of England in the case of
Smith and Throckmorton; how he makes the last bill of sale 200,000
instead of the fourth part of 500,000; how he passes over the loss of
Calais for ever, as nothing in "good Bess," though he had made the
temporary loss of it everything in Mary; but, above all the rest, how
he constantly aims his malignity at that skilful, brave, faithful,
and patriotic noble man, the Duke of Guise, while he extols Condé as
long as he was a rebel and a traitor, engaged in selling his country;
and how he lauds the inveterate and treacherous Coligni to the last
hour of that traitor's life.

286.  Is there any man, who does not see the vast importance of
Calais and its territory? Is there any man who does not see how
desirable it would be to us to have it now? Is there an Englishman
who does not lament the loss of it? And is it not clear as the sun at
noon-day, that it was lost for ever by "good Bess's" perfidy in
joining the rebels of France? If, when those rebels were formidable
to their sovereign, she had pressed him to restore Calais at once,
and to take an equivalent for such anticipated restoration, is it not
obvious, that he would have consented, rather than risk her
displeasure at such a moment? And what is the apology that HUME makes
for her conduct in joining the rebels? "Elizabeth, besides the
general and essential interest of supporting the Protestants, and
opposing the rapid progress of her enemy, the Duke of Guise" (how was
he her enemy?) "had other motives which engaged her to accept this
proposal. When she concluded the peace at Cateau Cambresis, she had
good reason to foresee, that France would never voluntarily fulfil
the article with regard to the restitution of Calais; and many
subsequent incidents tended to confirm this suspicion. Considerable
sums of money had been laid out on the fortifications; long leases
had been granted of the lands; and many inhabitants had been
encouraged to build and settle there, by assurances that Calais would
never be restored to the English. The Queen, therefore, very wisely
concluded, that, could she get possession of Havre, a place which
commanded the mouth of the Seine, and was of much greater importance
than Calais, she should easily constrain the French to execute the
treaty, and should have the glory of restoring to the crown that
ancient possession, which was so much the favourite of the nation."

287.  Away, then, goes, at once,. all her professions of desire to
defend the "cause of the Gospel;" she is a hypocrite the most
profound at once; she breaks faith with the King of France and with
the rebels too. But, if she really foresaw that the French would not
voluntarily fulfil the treaty of Cateau Cambresis, why did she
conclude it, when Philip was ready to aid her in compelling France to
restore Calais at once? And, as to the "subsequent incidents," which
had confirmed her suspicions, why should not the French government
repair the fortifications, and why should they not give "assurances
that the territory would never be restored to the English," seeing
that she had bargained for the perpetual surrender of 500,000 crowns?
The French meant, doubtless, to pay the money at the end of the eight
years. They never, after she had rejected the offer of Philip,
intended to give up Calais: that every body knew, and no body better
than "good Bess:" she had hostages for the payment of the money; and
she held those hostages after she had received Havre from the rebels
as a security for the payment of that money! She had, she thought,
two birds in the hand; but, though she "concluded very wisely," both
birds escaped; she outwitted and overreached herself; and the nation
has, to this day, to lament the consequences of her selfishness, bad
faith, and atrocious perfidy.

288.  I should now proceed to follow "good Bess" and her worthy
friend Coligni down to the date of the massacre of St. Bartholomew,
which was a sort of wholesale of the same work that "good Bess"
carried on in detail: but, I have filled my paper; and I now see,
that it will be impossible for me to do any thing like justice to my
subject with out stretching my little work further than I intended.







LETTER X.

MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW.
TAIL-PIECE TO IT.
A  MAN'S HAND CUT OFF FOR THWARTING BESS IN HER LOVE-SICK FIT.
HER FAVOURITES AND MINISTERS.
HISTORY AND MURDER OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTLAND.

Kensington, August 31st, 1825.

MY FRIENDS,

289.  THOUGH the massacre of St. BARTHOLOMEW took place in France,
yet, it has formed so fertile a source of calumny against the
religion of our fathers; it has served as a pretence with Protestant
historians to justify, or palliate, so many atrocities on the part of
their divers sects; and the Queen of England and her Ministers had so
great a hand in first producing it, and then in punishing Catholics
under pretence of avenging it, that it is necessary for me to give an
account of it.

29O. We have seen, in the paragraphs from 273 to 281, the treacherous
works of Coligni, and in paragraph 278, we have seen that this
pretended Saint basely caused that gallant and patriotic nobleman,
the Duke of Guise; to be assassinated. But, in assassinating this
nobleman, the wretch did not take off the whole of his family. There
was a SON left to avenge that father, and the just vengeance of this
son the treacherous Coligni had yet to feel. We have seen, that peace
had taken place between the French King and his rebellious subjects;
but, Coligni had all along discovered that his treacherous designs
only slept. The King was making a progress through the kingdom about
four years after the pacification; a plot was formed by Coligni and
his associates to kill or seize him; but by riding fourteen hours,
without getting off his horse, and without food or drink, he escaped,
and got safe to Paris. Another civil war soon broke out, followed by
another pacification; but, such had been the barbarities committed on
both sides, that there could be, and was, no real forgiveness. The
Protestants had been full as sanguinary as the Catholics; and, which
has been remarked even by their own historians, their conduct was
frequently, not to say uniformly, characterised by plundering and by
hypocrisy and perfidy, unknown to their enemies.

291. During this pacification, Coligni had, by the deepest
dissimulation, endeavoured to worm himself into favour with the young
King, and upon the occasion of a marriage between the King's sister
and the young King of Navarre (afterwards the famous Henry IV.),
Coligni, who, Condé being now dead, was become the chief of his sect,
came to Paris, with a company of his Protestant adherents, to partake
in the celebration, and that, too, at the King's invitation. After he
had been there a day or two, some one shot at him, in the street,
with a blunderbuss, and wounded him in two or three places, but not
dangerously. His partisans ascribed this to the young Duke of Guise,
though no proof has ever been produced in support of the assertion.
They, however, got about their leaders and threatened revenge, as was
very natural. Taking this for the ground of their justification, the
Court resolved to anticipate the blow; and, on Sunday, the 24th of
August, 1572, it being St. BARTHOLOMEW's day, they put their design
in execution. There was great difficulty in prevailing upon the young
King to give his consent; but, at last, by the representations and
entreaties of his mother, those of the Duke of Anjou, his brother,
and those of the Duke of Guise, he was prevailed upon. The dreadful
orders were given; at the appointed moment the signal was made; the
Duke of Guise with a band of followers rushed to and broke open the
house of Coligni, whose dead body was soon thrown out of the window
into the street. The people of Paris, who mortally hated the
Protestants, and who could not have forgotten Coligni's having put
the English in possession of Dieppe and Havre; who could not have
forgotten, that, while the old enemy of France was thus again brought
into the country by Coligni and his Protestants, this same traitor
and his sect had basely assassinated that brave nobleman, the late
Duke of Guise, who had driven the English from their last hold,
Calais, and who had been assassinated at the very moment when he was
endeavouring to drive this old enemy from Havre, into which this
Coligni and his sect had brought that enemy: the people of Paris
could not but remember these things, and remembering them they could
not but hold Coligni and his sect in detestation indescribable.
Besides this, there were few of them some one or more of whose
relations had not perished, or suffered in some way or other, from
the plunderings, or butcheries, of these marauding and murdering
Calvinists, whose creed taught them, that good works were unavailing,
and that no deeds, however base or bloody, could bar their way to
salvation. These "Protestants," as they were called, bore no more
resemblance to Protestants of the present day, than the wasp bears a
resemblance to the bee. That name then was, and it was justly,
synonymous with banditti; that is, robber and murderer; and the
persons bearing it had been, by becoming the willing tool of every
ambitious rebel, a greater scourge to France than foreign war,
pestilence and famine united.

292.  Considering these things, and, taking into view, that the
people, always ready to suspect even beyond the limits of reason,
heard the cry of "Treason" on all sides, is it any wonder that they
fell upon the followers of Coligni, and that they spared none of the
sect that they were able to destroy? When we consider these things,
and especially when, we see the son of the assassinated Duke of Guise
lead the way, is it not a most monstrous violation of truth to
ascribe this massacre to the principles of the Catholic religion?
With equal justice might we ascribe the act of BELLINGHAM (who sent
for his Church Prayer-book the moment he was lodged in Newgate) to
the principles of the Church of England. No one has ever been base
and impudent enough to do this; why, then, are there men so base and
impudent as to ascribe this French massacre to Catholic principles?

293.  The massacre at Paris very far exceeded the wishes of the
court; and, orders were instantly despatched to the great towns in
the provinces to prevent similar scenes. Such scenes took place,
however, in several places; but, though, by some Protestant writers,
the whole number of persons killed, has been made to amount to
100,000, an account, published in 1582, and made up from accounts
collected from the ministers in the different towns, made the number,
for all France, amount to only 786 persons!

Dr. LINGARD (Note T. Vol. V.), with his usual fairness, says, "if we
double this number, we shall not be far from the real amount." The
Protestant writers began at 100,000; then fell to 70,000; then to
30,000; then to 20,000; then to 15,000; and, at last, to 10,000! All
in round numbers! One of them, in an hour of great indiscretion,
ventured upon obtaining returns of names from the ministers
themselves; and, then, out came the 786 persons in the whole!

294.  A number truly horrible to think of; but a number not half so
great as that of those English Catholics whom "good Queen Bess" had,
even at this time (the 14th year of her reign), caused to be ripped
up, racked till the bones came out of their sockets, or caused to be
dispatched, or to die, in prison, or in exile; and this, too,
observe, not for rebellions, treasons, robberies and assassinations,
like those of Coligni and his followers; but, simply and solely for
adhering to the religion of their and her fathers, which religion she
had openly practised for years, and to which religion she had most
solemnly sworn that she sincerely belonged! The annals of hypocrisy
conjoined with impudence afford nothing to equal her behaviour upon
the occasion of the St. BARTHOLOMEW. She was daily racking people
nearly to death to get secrets from them; she was daily ripping the
bowels out of women as well as men for saying, or hearing, that mass,
for the celebration of which the churches of England had been
erected; she was daily mutilating, racking, and butchering her own
innocent and conscientious subjects; and yet, she and her profligate
courtwomen, when the French ambassador came with the King of France's
explanation of the cause of the massacre, received him in deep
mourning, and with all the marks of disapprobation. But, when she
remonstrated with her "good "brother," the King of France, and added
her hope that he would be indulgent to his Protestant subjects, her
hypocrisy carried her a little too far; for the Queen-Mother, in her
answer to "good Bess," observed, that, as to this matter, her son
could not take a safer guide than his "good sister of England"; and
that, while, like her, he forced no man's conscience; like her he was
resolved to suffer no man to practise any religion but that which he
himself practised. The French Queen-Mother was still short of "good
Betsy's" mark; for she not only punished the practice of all religion
but her own, she, moreover, punished people for not practising her
religion; though she herself was a notorious apostate, and that, too,
from motives as notoriously selfish. '

295. But, there is a tail-piece, which most admirably elucidates
"good Betsy's" sincerity upon this memorable occasion, and also that
same quality in her which induced her to profess that she wished to
live and die a virgin Queen. The Parliament and her Ministers,
anxious for an undisputed succession, and anxious also to keep out
the Scotch branch of the royal family. urged her, several times, to
marry. She always rejected their advice. Her "virgin" propensity led
her to prefer that sort of intercourse with men, which I need not
more particularly allude to. Her amours with LEICESTER, of whom we
shall see enough by-and-by, were open and notorious, and have been
most amply detailed by many Protestant historians, some of whom have
been clergymen of the Church of England; it is, moreover, well known,
that these amours became the subject of a play, acted in the reign of
Charles II. She was now, at the time of St. Bartholomew, in the, 39th
year of her age; and she was, as she long had been, leading with
Leicester the life that I have alluded to. Ten years afterwards,
whether from the advanced age of Leicester, or from some other cause,
the "virgin" propensity seemed, all of a sudden, to quit "good
Betsy"; she became bent on wedlock; and, being now forty-nine years
of age, there was, to be sure, no time to be lost in providing an
hereditary successor to her throne. She had in the 13th year of her
reign, assented to an Act that was passed, which secured the crown to
her "natural issue," by which any bastard that she might have by any
body, became heir to the throne; and it was, by the, same Act, made
high treason to deny that such issue was heir to it. This Act, which
is still in the Statute-Book, 13 Eliz. chap. 1. s. 2., is a proof of
the most hardened profligacy that ever was witnessed in woman, and it
is surprising, that such a mark of apparent national abjectness and
infamy should have been suffered to remain in black and white to this
day. However, at forty-nine "good Betsy" resolved to lead a married
life; and, as her savage father, whom she so much resembled, always
looked out for a young wife, so "good virgin Betsy" looked out for a
young husband; and, in order to convince the world of the sincerity
of her horror at the massacre of St. Bartholomew, who should she fix
on as a companion for life, who should she want to take to her arms,
but the Duke of ANJOU, brother of Charles IX., and one of the
perpetrators of those bloody deeds, on account of which she and the
court ladies, all of her own stamp, had gone into mourning! The Duke
was not handsome; but,  he had what the French call la beauté da
diable: he was young: only 28 years of age; and her old paramour
LEICESTER, was now fifty! Betsy, though well stricken in years
herself, had still a "colt's tooth." Her Ministers and the nation,
who saw all the dangers of such a match to the independence of their
country, protested against it most vehemently, and finally deterred
her from it; but, a gentleman of Lincoln's inn, who had written and
published a pamphlet against the marriage, was prosecuted, and had
his right hand chopped off for this public-spirited effort in
assisting to save England from the ruin about to be brought upon it
for the mere gratification of the appetite of a gross, libidinous,
nasty, shameless old woman. It was said of her monster of a father,
who began the "Reformation," that "he spared no man in his anger, and
no woman in his lust:" the very same, in substance, with a little
change of the terms, might be said of this his monster of a daughter,
who completed that "Reformation;" and, something approaching to the
same degree of wickedness might be justly ascribed to almost every
one who acted a conspicuous part in bringing about that, to England,
impoverishing and degrading event.

296.  Before we come to the three other great transactions of the
long reign of this wicked woman, her foul murder of MARY STUART,
Queen of Scotland; her war with Spain; and her scourging of Ireland,
which unhappy country still bears the marks of her scorpion lash;
before we come to these, it will be necessary to make ourselves
acquainted with the names and characters of some of her principal
advisers and co-operators; because, unless we do this, we shall
hardly be able to comprehend many things, which we ought,
nevertheless, to carry along clearly in our minds.

297.  LEICESTER was her favourite, both in council and in the field.
Doctor HEYLIN (History of the Reformation. Elizabeth, p. 168)
describes him in these words: "Sir ROBERT DUDLEY, the second son of
the Duke of Northumberland"  (the odious traitor executed in the last
reign), "she made, soon after she came to the throne, Lord Denbeigh
and Earl of LEICESTER, having before made him her Master of Horse,
Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and a Knight of the Garter;
and she now gave him the fair manor of Denbeigh, with more gentlemen
owing suit and service to it than any other in England in the hands
of a subject, adding even to this the goodly castle and manor of
Kenilworth. Advanced to this height, he engrossed unto himself the
disposing of all offices in court and state, and of all preferments
in the church, proving in fine so unappeasable in his malice, and so
insatiable in his lusts, so sacrilegious in his rapines, so false in
promises, and so treacherous in point of trust, and finally so
destructive of the lives and properties of particular persons, that
his little finger lay far heavier on the English subjects, than the
loins of all the favourites of the two last Kings." And, mind, those
"two Kings" were the plundering and confiscating Henry VIII. and
Edward VI.! "And, that his monstrous vices might either be connived
at, or not complained of, he cloaks them with a seeming zeal for true
religion, and made himself the head of the Puritan faction, who
spared no pains in setting forth his praises; nor was he wanting to
caress them after such manner as he found most agreeable to these
holy hypocrites, using no other language in his speech and letters
than the Scripture phrase, in which he was as dexterous as if he had
received the same inspirations as the sacred penmen." We must bear in
mind, that this character is drawn by a Doctor of the Church of
England (Betsy's own Church), in a work, dedicated by permission to
King Charles II. She, beyond all doubt, meaned to marry Leicester,
who had, as all the world believed, murdered his own wife to make way
for the match. She was prevented from marrying him by the reports
from her ambassadors of what was said about this odious proceeding in
foreign courts, and also by the remonstrances of her other ministers.
HIGGONS, an historian of distinguished talent and veracity, states
distinctly, that Leicester murdered his first wife for the purpose of
marrying the Queen. He afterwards married, secretly, a second wife,
and when she, upon his wanting to marry a third, refused to be
divorced, he poisoned her; at least so said a publication, called
Leicester's Republic, put forth in 1568. Yet, after all these things,
this man, or, rather, this monster, continued to possess all his
power and his emoluments, and all his favour with "the virgin Queen,"
to the last day of his life, which ended in 1588, after thirty years
of plundering and oppressing the people of England. This was a  "
reformer" of religion, truly worthy of being enrolled with Henry
VIII., Cranmer, Thomas Cromwell, and "good Queen Bess."

298.  Sir WILLIAM CECIL was her next man. He was her Secretary of
State; but, she afterwards made him a lord, under the title of
Burleigh, and also made him Lord Treasurer. He had been a Protestant
in the reign of Edward the Sixth, when he was Secretary, first under
the Protector SOMERSET, who, when Dudley overpowered him, was
abandoned by CECIL, who took to the latter, and was the very man that
drew up the treasonable instrument, by which Edward, on his death-
bed, disinherited his sisters Mary and Elizabeth. Pardoned for his
treason by MARY, he became a most zealous Catholic, and was, amongst
others, a volunteer to go over to Brussels to conduct Cardinal POLE
to England. But, the wind having changed, he became Protestant again,
and Secretary of State to "good Betsy," who never cared anything
about the character or principles of those she employed, so that they
did but answer her selfish ends. This CECIL, who was a man of
extraordinary abilities, and of still greater prudence and cunning,
was the chief prop of her throne for nearly forty of the forty-three
years of her reign. He died in 1598, in the 77th year of his age;
and, if success in unprincipled artifice; if fertility in cunning
devices; if the obtaining of one's end without any regard to the
means; if, in this pursuit, sincerity be to be set at nought, and
truth, law, justice, and mercy, be to be trampled under foot; if, so
that you succeed in your end, apostacy, forgery, perjury, and the
shedding of innocent blood be to be thought nothing of, this CECIL
was certainly the greatest statesman that ever lived. Above all
others he was confided in by the Queen, who, when he grew old, and
feeble in his limbs, used to make him sit in her presence, saying, in
her accustomed masculine and emphatical style: "I have you, not for
your weak legs, but for your strong head."

299.  FRANCIS WALSINGHAM became Secretary of State after Cecil; but,
he had been employed by the Queen almost from the beginning of her
reign. He had been her ambassador at several courts, had negotiated
many treaties, was an exceedingly prudent and cunning man, and wholly
destitute of all care about means, so that he carried his end. He was
said to have fifty-three agents and eighteen real spies in foreign
courts. He was a most bitter and inflexible persecutor of the
Catholics; but, before his death, which took place in 1590, he had to
feel himself a little of that tyranny and ingratitude, and that want
of mercy, which he had so long mainly assisted to make so many
innocent persons feel.

300.  PAULET ST. JOHN, Marquis of Winchester. This was not a
statesman. He, like many more, was a backer-on. He presided at
trials; and did other such-like work, These are unworthy of
particular notice here, and PAULET is named merely as a specimen of
the character and conduct of the  makers and supporters of the famous
"Reformation" This PAULET (the first noble of the family) was, at his
outset, Steward to the Bishop of Winchester, in the time of Bishop
Fox, in the reign of Henry VII. He was, by old brutal Harry VIII.,
made Treasurer of the King's household, and, zealously entering into
all the views of that famous "Defender of the Faith," he was made
Lord St. John. He was one of those famous executors, who were to
carry into effect the will of Henry VIII. Though Harry had enjoined
on these men to maintain his sort of half Catholic religion, PAULET
now, in the reign of Edward, became a zealous Protestant, and
continued to enjoy all his offices and emoluments, besides getting
some new grants from the further spoils of the church and poor.
Seeing that Dudley was about to supplant Somerset, which he finally
did, Paulet joined Dudley, and actually presided at the trial and
passed sentence of death on Somerset, "whose very name," says DR.
MILNER, "had, a little more than two years before, "caused him to
tremble." Dudley made him, first Earl of Wiltshire and then Marquis
of Winchester, and gave him the palace of the Bishop of Winchester at
Bishop's Waltham, together with other spoils of that Bishopric, When
MARY came, which was almost directly afterwards, he became once more
a Catholic, and continued to hold and enjoy all his offices and
emoluments. Not only a Catholic, but a most furious Catholic, and the
most active and vigorous of all the persecutors of those very
Protestants, with whom he had made it his boast to join in communion
only about two years before! We have heard a great deal about the
cruelties of the "bloody Bishop BONNER"; but, nobody ever tells us,
that this Marquis of Winchester, as President of the Council,
repeatedly reprimanded Bonner, in very severe terms, for want of zeal
and diligence in sending Protestants to the stake! Fox says, that "of
the Council, the most active in these prosecutions was the Marquis of
Winchester," But, now, Mary being dead, and Elizabeth being resolved
to extirpate the Catholics, PAULET instantly became a Protestant
again, a most cruel persecutor of the Catholics, president on several
commissions for condemning them to death, and he was in such high
favour with "good Bess," that she said, were he not so very old as he
was, she would prefer him, as a husband, to any man in her dominions.
He died in the 13th year of her reign, at the age of 97, having kept
in place luring the reigns of five sovereigns, and having made four
changes in his religion to correspond with the changes made by four
out of the five. A French historian says, that Paulet being asked,
how he had been able to get through so many storms not only unhurt,
but rising all the while, answered, "En étant un saule, et non pas un
chêne": "by being a willow, and not an oak." Our present Prime
Minister, who, in 1822, while collections were making for the
starving Irish, ascribed the distresses of the country to a surplus
of food, seems also to be of this willow kind; for, with the
exception of about fifteen months, he has been in place ever since he
was a man. He was under Pitt the first time; Pitt went out, but he
stuck in with Addington; Addington went out, but he stuck in again
with Pitt a second time; he was pushed quite out by the "Whigs"; but
in he came again with the Duke of Portland; he stuck in with
Percival; and, at last, he got to the top, where he will remain for
his natural life, unless the paper-money storm should tear even
"willows" up by the roots. What this Bible-Saint would have done, if
there had been a change of religion at every change of ministry, I
shall not pretend to say.

301.  Such were the tools with which "good Bess" had to work; and we
have now to see in what manner they all worked with regard to MARY
STUART, the celebrated and unfortunate Queen of the Scotch. Without
going into her history, it is impossible to make it clearly appear
how Betsy was able to establish the Protestant religion in England in
spite of the people of England; for it was, in fact, in spite of
almost the whole of the people of all ranks and degrees. She actually
butchered, that is to say, ripped up the bellies of some hundreds of
them; she put many and many hundreds of them to the rack; she killed,
in various ways, many thousands; and she reduced to absolute beggary
as many as made the population of one of the smaller counties of
England; to say nothing, at present, of that great slaughter-house,
Ireland. It is impossible for us to see how she came to be able to do
this; how she came to be able to get the Parliament to do the many
monstrous things that they did; how they, without any force, indeed,
came to do such barefaced things, as to provide that any bastard that
she might have should inherit the throne, and to make it high treason
to deny that such bastard was rightful heir to the throne. It is
impossible to account for her being able to exist in England after
that act of indelible infamy, the murder of Mary Stuart. It is
impossible for us to see these things in their causes, unless we make
ourselves acquainted with the history of Mary, and thereby show how
the English were influenced at this most interesting period, the
transactions of which were so decisive as to the fate of the Catholic
religion in England.

302.  MARY STUART, born in 1542 (nine years after the birth of
Elizabeth), was daughter of James V. King of Scotland, and of Mary of
Lorraine, sister of that brave and patriotic nobleman, the Duke of
Guise, who, as we have seen, was so basely murdered by the vile
traitor Coligni. Mary Stuart's father died when she was only eight
days old; so that she became the reigning Queen of Scotland while in
the cradle. Her father (James V.) was the son of James IV. and
Margaret, the eldest sister of the old savage Henry VIII. This
"Defender of the Faith" wished Mary Stuart to be betrothed to his son
Edward, and by that means to add Scotland to the dominions of
England. The family of Guise were too deep for the old "Defender."
Mary Stuart (a Regency having been settled in Scotland) was taken to 
France, where she had her education, and. where her heart seemed to
remain all her life. The French, in order to secure Scotland to
themselves, as a constant ally against England, got Mary to be
betrothed to Francis, Dauphin of France, son and successor of Henry
II. King of France. She, at the age of seventeen years, was married
to him, who was two years younger than herself, in 1 558, the very
year that Elizabeth mounted the throne of England.

303.  That very thing now took place which old Harry had been so much
afraid of, and which, indeed, had been the dread of his councillors
and his people. Edward was dead, Queen Mary was dead, and as
Elizabeth was a bastard, both in law and in fact, Mary Stuart was the
heiress to the throne of England; and she was now the wife of the
immediate heir to the King of France. Nothing could be so fortunate
for Elizabeth. The nation had no choice but one: to take her and
uphold her; or, to become a great province of France. If Elizabeth
had died at this time, or had died before her sister Mary, England
must have become degraded thus; or, it must have created a new
dynasty, or become a republic. Therefore it was, that all men,
whether Catholics or Protestants, were for the placing and supporting
of Elizabeth on the throne; and for setting aside Mary Stuart, though
unquestionably she was the lawful heiress to the crown of England..

304.  As if purposely to add to the weight of this motive, of itself
weighty enough, Henry II, King of France, died in eight months after
Elizabeth's accession; so that Mary Stuart was now, 1559, Queen
Consort of France, Queen of Scotland, and called herself Queen of
England; she and her husband bore the arms of England along with
those of France and Scotland; and the POPE had refused to acknowledge
the right of Elizabeth to the English throne. Thus, as old Harry had
foreseen, when he made his will setting aside the Scotch branch of
his family, was England actually transferred to the dominion of
France, unless the nation set at nought the decision of the POPE, and
supported Elizabeth.

305.  This was the real cause of Elizabeth's success in her work of
extirpating the Catholic religion. According to the decision of the
head of the Catholic Church, Elizabeth was an usurper; if she were an
usurper, she ought to be set aside; if she were set aside, Mary
Stuart and the King of France became Queen and King of England; if
they became Queen and King of England, England became a mere
province, ruled by Scotchmen and Frenchmen, the bare idea of which
was quite sufficient to put every drop of English blood in motion.
All men, therefore, of all ranks in life, whether Protestants or
Catholics, were for Elizabeth. To preserve her life became an object
dear to all her people; and, though her cruelties did, in one or two
instances, arm Catholics against her life, as a body, they were as
loyal to her as her Protestant subjects; and, even when her knife was
approaching their bowels, they, without a single exception, declared
her to be their lawful Queen. Therefore, though the decision of the
POPE was perfectly honest and just in itself, that decision was, in
its obvious and inevitable consequences, rendered, by a combination
of circumstances, so hostile to the greatness, the laws, the
liberties, and the laudable pride of Englishmen, that they were
reduced to the absolute necessity of setting his decision at nought,
or, of surrendering their very name as a nation, But, observe, by-
the-bye, this dilemma and all the dangers and sufferings that it
produced, arose entirely out of the "Reformation." Had the savage old
Harry listened to Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher, there would have
been no obstacle to the marrying of his son with Mary Stuart; and,
besides, he would have had no children, whose legitimacy could have
been disputed, and, in all human probability, several children to be,
in lawful succession, heirs to the throne of England.

306.  Here we have the great, and, indeed, the only cause, of
Elizabeth's success in rooting out the Catholic religion. Her people
were, ninety-nine hundredths of them, Catholics. They had shown this
clearly at the accession of her sister Mary. Elizabeth was as great a
tyrant as ever lived; she was the most cruel of women; her disgusting
amours were notorious; yet, she was the most popular sovereign that
had ever reigned since the days of Alfred; and we have thousands of
proofs, that her people, of all ranks and degrees, felt a most
anxious interest in everything affecting her life or her health.
Effects like this do not come from ordinary causes. Her treatment of
great masses of her people, her almost unparalleled cruelties, her
flagrant falsehoods, her haughtiness, her insolence and her lewd
life, were naturally calculated to make her detested, and to make her
people pray for any thing that might rid them of her. But, they saw
nothing but her between them and subjection to foreigners, a thing
which they had always most laudably held in the greatest abhorrence.
Hence it was, that the Parliament, when they could not prevail upon
her to marry, passed an Act to make any bastard (" natural issue") of
hers lawful heir to the throne. -- WITAKER (a clergyman of the Church
of England) calls this a most infamous act. It was, in itself, an
infamous act; but, that abjectness in the nation, which it now, at
first sight, appears to denote, disappears, when we consider well
what I have stated above. To be preserved from Mary Stuart, from the
mastership of the Scotch and the French, was, at that time, the great
object of anxiety with the English nation. HUME, whose head always
runs upon something hostile to the Catholic religion, ascribes
Elizabeth's popularity to the dislike that her people had to what he
calls the "Romish superstition." WITAKER ascribes the extirpation of
the Catholic religion to the choice of her people, and not to her.
The Catholic writers ascribe it to her cruelties; and they are right
so far; but, they do not, as I have endeavoured to do, show how it
came to pass that those numerous and unparalleled cruelties came to
be perpetrated with impunity, to her and her Ministers. The question
with the nation was, in short, the Protestant religion, Elizabeth,
and independence; or, the Catholic religion, Mary Stuart, and
subjection to foreigners. They decided for the former, and hence all
the calamities, and the final tragical end of the latter lady.

307.  MARY STUART was, in the year 1559, as we have seen in paragraph
303, on the highest pinnacle of earthly glory, Queen Consort of
France, Queen regnant of Scotland, Queen, in lawful right, of
England, and was, besides, deemed one of the most beautiful women in
the whole world. Never was fall like that of this Queen. Her husband,
Francis II., died seventeen months after his accession, and was
succeeded by Charles IX., then not more than three years old. Her
husband's mother, CATHERINE DE MEDICI, soon convinced her, that to be
any thing, she must return to Scotland. To Scotland she returned with
a heavy heart, anticipating very little quiet in a country which was
plunged in all the horrors of the "Reformation" even more deeply than
England had been. Her long minority, together with her absence from
her dominions, had given rise to contending factions of nobles who
alternately triumphed over each other, and who kept the country in a
state of almost incessant civil war, accompanied with deeds of
perfidy and ferocity, of which there is scarcely any parallel to be
found in history, ancient or modern. Added to this was the work of
the new Saints, who had carried the work of "Reformation" much
further than in England. The famous JOHN KNOX, an apostate monk, whom
Dr. Johnson calls the "Ruffian of the Reformation," was leader of the
"holy hypocrites" (as Dr. Heylin calls them) in Scotland. Mary, who
had been bred a Catholic, and who had almost been deified in the
court of France, was not likely to lead a happy life amongst people
like these.

308.  All this, however, Elizabeth and her Ministers and (for let us
have no disguise) the English people, saw with great and ungenerous
satisfaction. There was, for the present, at least, an end to the
danger from the union of Scotland with France. But, Mary Stuart might
marry again. There were the powerful family of Guise, her near
relations; and she was still a formidable person, especially to
Elizabeth. If Mary had been a man, Betsy would certainly have married
her; but here was a difficulty too great even for Cecil to overcome.
The English Queen soon began to stir up factions and rebellions
against her cousin; and, indeed, by her intrigues with the religious
factions and with the aspiring nobles, became, in a short time, with
the aid of her money (a drug of infallible effect with the Scotch
reformers), more the real ruler of Scotland than poor Mary was. She
had, for the greater part of her whole reign, always a band of one
faction or the other at, or about, her court. Her object was to keep
Mary from possessing any real power, and to destroy her, if by any
means short of detectable murder, she could effect that purpose.

309.  In 1565, about three years after the return of Mary to
Scotland, she was married to Henry Stuart, Earl of DARNLEY, her
cousin, in which she over-reached the Queen of England, who, fearing
that a visible heir to her own throne (as it actually happened) might
come from this marriage, took desperate measures to prevent it; but,
those measures came too late. Darnley, though young and handsome,
proved to be a very foolish and disagreeable husband, and he was a
Protestant into the bargain. She soon treated him with great
contempt, suffered him to have no real authority, and, in fact, as
good as banished him from her court and disowned him. Darnley sought
revenge. He ascribed his ill-treatment to Mary's being under the
advice and control of her Catholic favourites, and particularly to
the advice of Rizzio, a foreigner, her private secretary. Several
malcontent "reformed" nobles joined with Darnley in agreeing to
assist him in the assassinating of Rizzio, taking a bond from him to
protect them against evil consequences. Mary was sitting at supper
with some ladies of her court, Rizzio and other servants being in
waiting, when the conspirators rushed in. Darnley went to the back of
the Queen's chair; Rizzio, seeing their object, ran to the Queen for
protection; she, who was in the sixth month of her pregnancy,
endeavoured by entreaties and screams, to save his life. The ruffians
stabbed him at her feet, and then dragged him out and covered his
body with wounds.

310.  This black and bloody transaction, for which not one of the
assistants of Darnley was ever punished, was, in all probability, the
cause, the chief cause, of the just, though illegal killing of
Darnley himself. The next year after the murder of Rizzio, 1567, Mary
having, in the meanwhile, brought forth a son (afterwards our James
I., of half POPE and half Puritanical memory), Darnley was taken ill
at Glasgow. The Queen went to visit him, treated him with great
kindness, and, when he became better in health, brought him back to
Edinburgh; but, for the sake of better air, lodged him in a house, at
some distance from other houses, out of the town, where she visited
him daily, and where, in a room immediately under his, she slept
every night. But, on the night of the 10th of February (1567), she
having notified it to him, slept at her palace, having promised to be
present at the marriage of two of the attendants of her court, which
marriage took place, and at which she was present: on this very
night, the King's lodging-house was blown up by powder, and his dead
body cast into an adjoining piece of ground! If the powder had given
this base and bloody man time for thought, he would, perhaps, have
reflected on the stabs he had given Rizzio in spite of the screams of
a swooning and pregnant wife.

311.  Now it was that the great and life-long calamities of this
unfortunate Queen began. She had been repeatedly insulted and even
imprisoned by the different factions, who, aided and abetted by the
English Queen, alternately oppressed both her and her people; but,
she was now to lead the life and die the death of a malefactor. It
has been proved beyond all doubt, that the Earl of BOTHWEL, with
other associates, bound in a "bloody bond," murdered Darnley. This
was openly alleged, and, in placards about the streets, it was
averred that Mary was in the plot. No positive proof has ever been
produced to make good this charge; but, the subsequent conduct of the
Queen was of a nature very suspicious. I shall simply state such
facts as are admitted on all hands; namely, that Bothwel had, before
the murder, been in great favour with the Queen, and possessed power
that his talents and character did not entitle him to; that, after
the murder, he was acquitted of it by a mock trial, which she might
have prevented; that, on the 24th of April (53 days after the murder)
she was, on her return from a visit to her infant son, seized by
Bothwel at the head of 3,000 horsemen, and carried to his castle of
Dunbar; that before she left the castle, on the 3d of May, she agreed
to marry him; that he had a wife then alive; that a divorce, both
Protestant and Catholic, in. one court for adultery and in the other
for consanguinity, took place between Bothwel and his wife, in the
space of six days; that, on the 12th of May, Bothwel led the Queen to
the Sessions House, where, in the presence of the judges, she
pardoned him for the violence committed on her person; that on the
15th of May, she openly married him; that the French Ambassador
refused to appear at the ceremony; and that Mary refused, in this
case, to listen to the entreaties of the family of Guise.

312.  Scores of volumes have been written, some in sup port of the
assertion that Mary was consenting to the murder of her husband; and
others in support of the negative of that proposition. Her enemies
brought forward letters and sonnets, which they alleged to have been
written by Mary to Bothwel, previous to her husband's murder. Her
friends deny the authenticity of these; and I think they make their
denial good. WITAKER, an Englishman, a Rector in the Church of
England, mind; a man, too, who has written much against the Catholic
religion, defends Mary against the charge of having consented, or
having known of the intention, to murder her husband. But, nobody can
deny, that she was carried off by Bothwel; that she, being at perfect
liberty, pardoned him for that; and that she immediately married him,
though it excited horror in the family of Guise, whom she had always
heretofore listened to with the docility of a dutiful daughter.

313.  This gross conduct, almost equal, in power of exciting odium,
to the murder of such a wretch as Darnley, was speedily followed by
tremendous punishment. A part of her subjects, armed against her,
defeated Bothwel, who was compelled to flee the country, and who, in
a few years afterwards, died in prison in Denmark. She herself be
came a prisoner in the hands of her own subjects; and she escaped
from their prison walls only to come and end her life within those of
Elizabeth, her wily and deadly enemy.

314.  The rebels were headed by the Earl of MURRAY, a natural son of
Mary's father, and to her a most unnatural and cruel brother. He had
imprisoned and deposed the Queen, had had her son crowned at thirteen
months old, and had had himself elected Regent of the Kingdom. Murray
had begun his life of manhood, not only as a Catholic, but as an
ecclesiastic. He was prior of St. Andrew's; but, finding that he
could gain by apostacy, he, like Knox, apostatized, and of course,
broke his oath; and WITAKER says of him, that though "he was guilty
of the most monstrous crimes, yet he was denominated a good man by
the reformers of those days." His great object was to extirpate the
Catholic religion, as the best means of retaining his power, and,
being also a "bold liar" and a man that stuck at no forgery, no
perjury, no bloody deed, that answered his purpose, he was a man
after "good Queen Bess's" own heart.

315.  She, however, at first affected to disapprove of his conduct,
threatened to march an army to compel him to restore the Queen, gave
the Queen positive assurances of her support, and invited her to
take, in case of need, shelter, and receive protection, in England.
In evil hour Mary, confiding in these promises and invitations, took,
contrary to the prayers of her faithful friends, on their knees, the
fatal resolution to throw herself into the jaws of her who had so
long thirsted for her blood. At the end of three days she found that
she had escaped to a prison. Her prison was, indeed, changed two or
three times; but a prisoner she remained for nineteen long years; and
was, at last, most savagely murdered for an imputed crime, which she
neither did nor could commit.

316. During these nineteen years, Elizabeth was intriguing with
Mary's rebellious subjects, tearing Scotland to pieces by means of
her corruption spread amongst the different bands of traitors, and
inflicting on a people, who had never offended her, every species of
evil that a nation can possibly endure.

317. To enumerate, barely to enumerate, all, or one half, of the acts
of hypocrisy, perfidy, meanness, and barbarity that "good Bess"
practised against this unfortunate Queen, who was little more than
twenty-five years of age when she was inveigled within the reach of
her harpy claws; barely to enumerate these would require a space
exceeding that of this whole Letter. While she affected to disapprove
of Murray, she instigated him to accuse his queen and sister; while
she pretended to assert the inviolability of sovereigns, she
appointed a commission to try Mary for her conduct in Scotland; while
she was vowing vengeance against the Scotch traitors for their
rebellious acts against her cousin, she received, as presents from
them, a large part of the jewels which Mary had received from her
first husband, the King of France; and when, at last, she was
compelled to declare Mary innocent of having consented to the murder,
she not only refused to restore her, agreeably to her solemn promise
repeatedly made, but refused also to give her her liberty, and,
moreover, made her imprisonment more close, rigorous and painful than
ever. Murray, her associate in perfidy, was killed in 1570 by a man
whose estate he had unjustly confiscated; but, traitor after traitor
succeeded him, every traitor in her pay, and Scotland bleeding all
the while at every pore, because her cruel policy taught her that it
was necessary to her own security. WITAKER produces a crowd of
authorities to prove, that she endeavoured to get Mary's infant son
into her hands, and that having failed in that, she endeavoured to
cause him to be taken off by poison!

318.  At last, in 1587, the tigress brought her long suffering victim
to the block! Those means of dividing and destroying, which she had,
all her life long, been employing against others, began now to be
employed against herself, and she saw her life in constant danger.
She thought and, perhaps, rightly, that these machinations against
her arose from a desire in the Catholics (and a very natural desire
it was) to rid the world of her and her horrid barbarities, and to
make way for her Catholic, lawful successor, Mary; so that, now,
nothing short of the death of this Queen seemed to her a competent
guarantee for her own life. In order to open the way for the foul
deed that had been resolved on, an Act of Parliament was passed,
making it death for any one who was within the realm to conspire with
others for the purpose of invading it, or, for the purpose of
procuring the death of the Queen. A seizure was made of Mary's
papers. What was wanting in reality was, as WITAKER. has proved,
supplied by forgery, "a crime," says he, "which with shame to us, it
must be confessed, belonged peculiarly to the Protestants." But, what
right had Bess to complain of any hostile intention on the part of
Mary? She was a queen as well as herself. She was held in prison by
force; not having been made prisoner in war; but having been
perfidiously entrapped and forcibly detained. Every thing had been
done against her short of spilling her blood: and, had she not a
clear and indisputable right to make war upon, and to destroy, her
remorseless enemy, by all the means within her power? And, as to a
trial, where was the law, or usage, that authorised one queen to
invite another into her dominions, then imprison her, and then bring
her to trial for alleged offences against her?

319.  When the mode of getting rid of Mary was debated in "good
Bess's" council: LEICESTER was for poison; others were for hardening
her imprisonment, and killing her in that way; but WALSINGHAM was for
death by means of a trial, a legal proceeding being the only one that
would silence the tongues of the world. A commission was accordingly
appointed, and Mary was tried and condemned; and that, too, on the
evidence of papers, a part, at least, of which, were barefaced
forgeries, all of which were copies, and the originals of none of
which were attempted to be produced! The sentence of death was
pronounced in October. For four months the savage "good Queen Bess,"
was employed in devising plans for causing her victim to be
assassinated, in order to avoid the odium of being herself the
murderer! This is proved by WITAKER beyond all possibility of doubt:
but, though she had entrusted the keeping of Mary to two men, mortal
enemies of the Catholics, they, though repeatedly applied to for the
purpose, perseveringly refused. Having ordered her Secretary,
Davison, to write to them on the subject, Sir AMIAS PAULET, one of
the keepers, returned for answer, that he "was grieved at the motion
made to him, that he offered his life and his property to the
disposal of her Majesty; but absolutely refused to be concerned in
the assassination of Mary." The other keeper, Sir DRUE DRURY, did the
same. When she read this answer, she broke out into reproaches
against them, complained of the " daintiness of their consciences,"
talked scornfully of  the niceness of such precise fellows," and
swore that she would "have it done without their assistance." At the
end, however, of four months of unavailing efforts to find men base
and bloody enough to do the deed, she resorted to her last shift, the
legal murder, which was committed on her hapless victim on the 8th of
February, 1587, a day of everlasting infamy to the memory of the
English Queen, "who, says WITAKER, had no sensibilities of
tenderness, and no sentiments of generosity; who looked not forward
to the awful verdict of history, and who shuddered not at the
infinitely more awful doom of God. I blush as an Englishman to think
that this was done by an English Queen, and one whose name I was
taught to lisp in my infancy, as the honour of her sex, and the glory
of our isle."

320.  Ah! and thus was I taught; and thus have we all been taught. lt
is surely then our duty to teach our children to know the truth. Talk
of "answers" to me, indeed! Let them deny, if they can, that this she
"Head of the Church," this maker of it, was a murderer, and wished to
be an assassin, in cold blood.







LETTER XI.

BESS'S HYPOCRISY AS TO THE DEATH OF MARY STUART.
SPANISH ARMADA.
POOR-LAWS.
BARBAROUS TREATMENT OF IRELAND.
BESS'S INQUISITION.
HORRID PERSECUTION OF THE CATHOLICS.
THE RACKS AND TORTURES SHE EMPLOYED.
HER DEATH.

Kensington, 30th Sept., 1825.

MY FRIENDS,

321. DETESTABLY base as was the conduct of "good Queen Bess" in the
act of murdering her unfortunate cousin, her subsequent hypocrisy was
still more detestable. She affected the deepest sorrow for the act
that had been committed, pretended that it had been done against her
wish, and had the superlative injustice and baseness to imprison her
Secretary, DAVISON, for having dispatched the warrant for the
execution, though she, observe, had signed that warrant; and though,
as WITAKER has fully proved, she had reviled DAVISON for not having
despatched it, after she had, in vain, used all the means in her
power to induce him to employ assassins to do the deed. She had, by a
series of perfidies and cruelties wholly without a parallel. brought
her hapless victim to the block, in that very country to which she
had invited her to seek safety; she had, in the last sad and awful
moments of that victim, had the barbarity to refuse her the
consolations of a divine of her own communion; she had pursued her
with hatred and malice that remained unglutted even when she saw her
prostrate under the common hangman, and when she saw the blood
gushing from her severed neck; unsated with the destruction of her
body, she, Satan-like, had sought the everlasting destruction of her
soul: and yet, the deed being done, she had the more than Satan-like
hypocrisy to affect to weep for the untimely end of her "dear
cousin"; and, which was still more diabolical, to make use of her
despotic power to crush her humane secretary, under pretence that he
had been the cause of the sad catastrophe! All expressions of
detestation and honour fall short of our feelings, and our only
consolation is, that we are to see her own end ten thousand times
more to be dreaded than that of her victim.

322.  Yet, such were the peculiar circumstances of the times, that
this wicked woman escaped, not only for the present, but throughout
her long reign, that general hatred from her subjects, which her
character and deeds so well merited; nay, it perversely happened,
that, immediately alter this foul deed, there took place an event
which rallied all her people round her, and made her life, more than
ever, an. object of their solicitude.

323.  Philip II., King of Spain, who was also sovereign of the Low
Countries, resolved on an invasion of England, with a fleet from
Spain and with an army from Flanders. She had given him quite
provocation enough; she had fomented rebellions against him, as she
long had in France against the King of that country. Philip was the
most powerful monarch in Europe; he had fleets and armies vastly
superior to hers; the danger to England was really great; but, though
these dangers had been brought upon it solely by her malignity, bad
faith, and perfidy, England was still England to her people, and they
unanimously rallied round her. On this occasion, and, indeed, on all
others, where love of country was brought to the test, the Catholics
proved, that no degree of oppression could make them forget their
duty as citizens, or as subjects. Even from HUME it is extorted, that
the Catholic gentlemen, though her laws excluded them from all trust
and authority, "entered as volunteers in her fleet or army. Some
equipped ships at their own charge, and gave the command of them to
Protestants: others were active in animating their tenants and
vassals and neighbours, to the defence of their country:  and, every
rank of men, burying, for the present, all patty distinctions, seemed
to prepare themselves with order as well as vigour, to resist these
invaders." Charles I., James II., George I. and George II., and even
George III., all saw the time, when they might have lamented the want
of similar loyalty in Protestants. The first lost his head; the
second his throne; the third and fourth were exposed to great danger
of a similar loss; and the fifth lost America; and all by the doings
of Protestants.

324.  The intended invasion was prevented by a tremendous storm,
which scattered and half destroyed the Spanish fleet, called the
ARMADA, and, in all human probability, the invaders would not have
succeeded, even if no storm had arisen. But, at any rate, there was
great danger; no one could be certain of the result; the Catholics,
had they listened to their just resentment, might have greatly added
to the danger; and, therefore, their generous conduct merited some
relaxation of the cruel treatment which they had hitherto endured
under her iron sceptre. No such relaxation, however, took place: they
were still treated with every species of barbarous cruelty; subjected
to an inquisition infinitely more severe than that of Spain ever had
or ever has been; and, even on the bare suspicion of disaffection,
imprisoned, racked, and not unfrequently put to death.

325.  As to Ireland, where the estates of the convents, and where the
church property had been confiscated in the same way as in England,
and where the greater distance of the people from the focus of power
and apostacy and fanaticism, had rendered it more difficult to effect
their "conversion" at the point of the bayonet, or by the halter, or
the rack; as to this portion of her dominions, her reign was almost
one unbroken series of robberies and butcheries. One greedy and
merciless minion after another were sent to goad that devoted people
into acts of desperation; and that, too, not only for the obvious
purpose, but for the avowed purpose, of obtaining a pretence for new
confiscations. The "Reformation" had, from its very outset, had
plunder written on its front; but, as to Ireland, it was all plunder
from the crown of its head to the sole of its foot. This horrible
lynx-like she-tyrant could not watch each movement of the Catholics
there, as she did in England; she could not so harass them in detail;
she could find there no means of executing her dreadful police; and
therefore she murdered them in masses. She sent over those parsons
whose successors are there to the present day. The ever blood stained
sword secured them the tithes and the church lands; but even that
blood-stained sword could not then, and never did, though at one time
wielded by the unsparing and double-distilled Protestant, CROMWELL,
obtain them congregations. However, she planted, she watered with
rivers of blood, and her long reign saw take fast root in the land,
that tree, the fruit of which the unfortunate Irish taste to this
hour; and which will, unless prevented by more wise and more just
measures than appear to have been yet suggested, finally prove the
overthrow of England herself.

326.  I am to speak, further on, of the monstrous immoralities
produced in England by the "Reformation," and also of the poverty and
misery that it produced; and then I shall have to trace (through Acts
of Parliament) this poverty and misery up to the "Reformation;" yes,
for therein we shall see, clearly as we see the rivulet bubbling out
of the bed of the spring, the bread and water of England and the
potatoes of Ireland; but, even in this place, it is necessary to
state the cause of the greater poverty and degradation of the Irish
people. For ages that ill-treated people have, in point of clothing
and food, formed a contrast with the English. Dr. FRANKLIN, in
speaking of Ireland, says, that "one would think that the cast-off
clothes of the working-people of England were sent over to be worn by
the working-people here"

327.  Whence comes it that this contrast has so long existed? The
soil and the climate of Ireland are as good as those of England. The
islands are but a few miles asunder. Both are surrounded by the same
sea. The people of the. former are as able and as willing to labour
as those of the latter; and of this they have given proof in all
parts of the world, to which they have migrated, not to carry packs
to cheat fools out of their money, not to carry the lash to make
others work, but to share themselves, and cheerfully to share, in the
hardest labours of those amongst whom they have sought shelter from
the rod of unrelenting oppression. Whence comes it, then, that this
contrast, so unfavourable to Ireland, has so long existed? The answer
to this interesting question we shall find by attending to the
different measures, dealt out to the two people, during the long and
cruel reign of which we are now speaking; and we, at the same time,
trace all the miseries of Ireland back, at once, to that
"Reformation," the blessings of which have, with such persevering
falsehood and hypocrisy, been dinned in our ears for ages.

328.  We have seen in Letter III. of this little work, paragraphs 50,
51, and 52, that the Catholic Church was not, and is not, an affair
of mere abstract faith; that it was not so very spiritual a concern
as to scorn all cares relative to the bodies of the people; that one
part, and that a capital part, of its business was, to cause works of
charity to be performed; that this charity was not of so very
spiritual a nature as not to be at all tangible, or obvious to the
vulgar sense; that it showed itself in good works done to the needy
and suffering; that the tithes and offerings and income from real
property, of the Catholic Church, went in great part, to feed the
hungry, to clothe the naked, to lodge and feed the stranger, to
sustain the widow and the orphan, and to heal the wounded and the
sick; that, in short, a great part, and indeed one of the chief
parts, of the business of this Church was, to take care that no
person, however low in life, should suffer from want either of
sustenance or care; and that the priests of this Church should have
as few selfish cares as possible to withdraw them from this important
part of their duty, they were forbidden to marry. Thus, as long as
this Church was the national Church, there were hospitality and
charity in the land, and the horrid word "pauper" had never been so
much as thought of.

329.  But, when the Protestant religion came, and along with it a
married priesthood, the poorer classes were plundered of their
birthright, and thrown out to prowl about for what they could beg or
steal. LUTHER and his followers wholly rejected the doctrine, that
good works were necessary to salvation. They held, that faith, and
faith alone, was necessary. They expunged from their Bible the
Epistle of St. JAMES, because it recommends, and insists on the
necessity of, good works; which Epistle Luther called, "An Epistle of
straw." The "reformers" differed from each other, as widely as the
colours of the rainbow, in most other things; but, they all agreed in
this, that, good works were unnecessary to salvation, and that the"
saints," as they had the modesty to call themselves, could not
forfeit their right to heaven by any sins, however numerous and
enormous. By those, amongst whom plunder, sacrilege, adultery,
polygamy, incest, perjury, and murder were almost as habitual as
sleeping and waking; by those, who taught that the way to everlasting
bliss could not be obstructed by any of these, nor by all of them put
together; by such persons, charity, besides that it was a so well-
known Catholic commodity, would be, as a matter of course, set wholly
at nought.

330.  Accordingly we see that it is necessarily excluded by the very
nature of all Protestant establishments; that is to say, in reality;
for the name of charity is retained by some  of these establishments;
but, the substance nowhere exists. The Catholic establishment
interweaves deeds of constant and substantial charity with the faith
itself. It makes the two inseparable. The DOUAY CATECHISM, which the
Protestant parsons so much abuse, says that "the first fruit of the
Holy Ghost is charity." And, then, it tells us what charity is;
namely, "to feed the hungry, to give drink to  the thirsty, to clothe
the naked, to visit and ransom captives, to harbour the harbourless,
to visit the sick, to bury  the dead." Can you guess, my friends, why
fat Protestant parsons rail so loudly against this "wicked Douay
Catechism?" It is in the nature of man to love all this. This is what
"the gates of hell will never prevail against." This is what our
fathers believed, and what they acted upon; and this it was that
produced in them that benevolent disposition which, thank God , has
not yet been wholly extirpated from the breasts of their descendants.

331.  Returning now to paragraphs 50, 51, and 52, just mentioned; it
is there seen that the Catholic Church rendered all municipal laws
about the poor wholly unnecessary; but, when that Church had been
plundered and destroyed; when the greedy leading "reformers" had
sacked the convents and the churches; when those great estates which
of right belonged to the poorer classes, had been taken from them;
when the parsonages had been first well pillaged, and the remnant of
their revenues given to married men; then the poor (for poor there
will and must be in every community) were left destitute of the means
of existence, other than the fruits of begging, theft, and robbery.
Accordingly, when "good Queen Bess" had put the finishing hand to the
plundering of the Church and poor, once happy and free and hospitable
England became a den of famishing robbers and slaves. STRIPE, a
Protestant, and an authority to whom HUME appeals and refers many
hundreds of times, tells us of a letter from a Justice of the Peace
in Somersetshire to the Lord Chief Justice, saying: "I may justly
say, that the able men that are abroad, seeking the spoil and
confusion of the land, are able, if they were reduced to good
subjection, to give the greatest enemy her Majesty hath a strong
battle, and, as they are now, are so much strength to the enemy.
Besides, the generation that daily springeth from them, is like to be
most wicked. These spare neither rich nor poor; but, whether it be
great gain or small, all is fish that cometh to net with them; and
yet I say, both they and the rest are trussed up a-pace." The same
Justice says: "In default of justice, many wicked thieves escape. For
most commonly the most simple countrymen and women, looking no
farther than to the loss of their own goods, are of opinion that they
would not procure any man's death, for all the goods in the world."
And while the "good Bess" complained bitterly of the non-execution of
her laws, the same Protestant historian tells us, that "she executed
more than five hundred criminals in a year, and was so little
satisfied with that number, that she threatened to send private
persons to see her penal laws executed for 'profit and gain's sake.'
It appears that she did not threaten in vain; for soon after this a
complaint was made in Parliament, that the stipendiary magistrate of
that day was 'a kind of living creature, who for half a dozen of
chickens would dispense with a dozen of penal statutes.'" She did
not, however, stop, with this "liberal" use of the gallows. Such was
the degree of beggary, of vagabondage and of thievishness and
robbery, that she resorted, particularly in London and its
neighbourhood, to martial law. This fact is so complete a proof of
the horrible effects of the "Reformation" upon the moral state of the
people, and it is so fully characteristic of the Government, which
the people of England had, in consequence of that "Reformation,"
become so debased as to submit to, that I. must take the statement as
it stands in HUME, who gives the very words of "good and glorious
Bess's" commission to her head murderer upon this occasion. "The
streets of London were very much infested with idle vagabonds and
riotous persons: the Lord Mayor had endeavoured to repress this
disorder: the Star-chamber had exerted its authority, and inflicted
punishment on these rioters. But the Queen, finding these remedies
ineffectual, revived"  [ Revived? What does he mean by REVIVED?]
"martial law, and gave Sir THOMAS WILFORD a commission as Provost-
martial: 'Granting him authority, and commanding him, upon
signification given by the justices of the peace in London or the
neighbouring counties, of such offenders, worthy to be speedily
executed by martial law, to take them, and according to the justice
of martial law, to execute them upon the gallows or gibbet.' " And
yet, this is she, whom we have been taught to call "good Queen Bess;"
this is she, of the "glories" of whose reign there are men of
learning base enough to talk, even to this day!

332.  But, such were the natural consequences of the destruction of
the Catholic Church, and of the plundering of the poor which
accompanied that destruction, and particularly of lodging all power,
ecclesiastical and civil, in the same hands. However, though this
terrible she-tyrant spared neither racks nor halters, though she was
continually reproving the executors of her bloody laws for their
remissness while they were strewing the country with the carcasses of
malefactors or alleged malefactors, all would not do; that hunger,
which breaks through stone-walls, set even her terrors and torments
at defiance; at last it was found to be absolutely necessary to make
some general and permanent and solid provision for the poor; and in
the 43rd year of her reign, was passed that Act, which is in force to
this day, and which provides a maintenance for indigent persons,
which maintenance is to come from the land, assessed and collected by
overseers, and the payment enforced by process the most effectual and
most summary. And here we have the great, the prominent, the staring,
the horrible and ever-durable consequence of the "Reformation;" that
is to say, pauperism established by law.

333.  Yet this was necessary. The choice that the plunderers had in
England was this: legal pauperism, or, extermination; and this last
they could not effect, and if they could, it would not have suited
them. They did not possess power sufficient to make the people live
in a state of three-fourths starvation, therefore they made a legal
provision for the poor: not, however, till they had tried in vain all
other methods of obtaining a something to supply the place of
Catholic charity. They attempted, at first, to cause the object to be
effected by voluntary collections at the churches; but, alas! those
who now entered those churches, looked upon LUTHER as the great
teacher; and he considered St. JAMES's Epistle as an "Epistle of
straw." Every attempt of this sort having failed, as it necessarily
must, when the parsons who were to exhort others to charity, had
enough to do to rake together all they could for their own wives and
children; every Act (and there were many passed) short of a
compulsory tax, enforced by distraint of goods and imprisonment of
person, having failed, to this "glorious Bess" and her "Reformation"
Parliament at last came; and here we have it to this day, filling the
country with endless quarrels and litigation, setting parish against
parish, man against master, rich against poor, and producing, from a
desire of the rich to shuffle out of its provisions, a mass of
hypocrisy, idleness, fraud, oppression, and cruelty, such as was,
except in the deeds of the original "reformers," never before
witnessed in the world.

334.  Nevertheless, it was, as far as it went, an act of justice. It
was taking from the land and giving to the poor, a part, at least, of
what they had been robbed of by the "Reformation." It was doing, in a
hard and odious way, a part of that which had been done, in the most
gentle and amiable way by the Church of our fathers. It was, indeed,
feeding the poor like dogs, instead of like one's children; but it
was feeding them. Even this, however, the "good Bess" and her
plundering minions thought too much to do for the savagely-treated
Irish people; and here we come to the real cause of that contrast, of
which I have spoken in paragraph 235; here we come to that which made
Dr. FRANKLIN suppose, or, to say that any one might naturally
suppose, that "the old clothes of the working classes in England had
been sent over to be worn by the same class in Ireland."

335.  We have seen how absolute necessity compelled "good Bess" and
her plunderers to make a legal provision for the relief of the
indigent in England; we have seen, that it was only restoring to them
a part of that of which they had been plundered; and upon what
principle was it, that they did not do the same with regard to the
people of Ireland? These had been plundered in precisely the same
manner that the former had; they had been plunged into misery by
precisely the same means used under precisely the same hypocritical
pretences; why were not they to be relieved from that misery in the
same manner; and why was not the poor-law to be extended to Ireland?

336. Base and cruel plunderers! They grudged the relief in England;
but, they had no compulsory means to be obtained out of England; and
they found it impossible to make Englishmen to compel one another to
live in a state of three-fourths starvation. But, they had England to
raise armies in to send to effect this purpose in Ireland, especially
when those English armies were urged on by promised plunder, and were
(consisting as they did of Protestants) stimulated by motives as
powerful, or nearly so, as the love of plunder itself. Thus it was,
that Ireland was pillaged without the smallest chance of even the
restoration which the English obtained; and thus have they, down unto
this our day, been a sort of outcasts in their own country, being
stripped of all the worldly goods that God and nature allotted them,
and having received not the smallest pittance is return. We talk of
"the outrages in Ireland;" we seem shocked at the violences committed
there; and that sapient, profound, candid and modest gentleman, Mr.
ADOLPHUS, the other day, in pleading at one of the police-offices in
London (a sphere to which his talents are exceedingly well adapted,)
took occasion, sought occasion, went out of his way to find occasion,
to "thank God" that we, on this side of St. George's Channel, knew
nothing of those outrages, which, when they were mentioned to the
Irish, they ascribed to the misrule of ages. Now, it might be a
little too much to expect an answer of any sort from a lawyer so
dignified as this police-pleader; but, let me ask any English
gentleman, or, any Englishman of any rank, except Mr. ADOLPHUS, what
he thinks would be the consequences here, if the poor-laws were
abolished to-morrow? Mr. ADOLPHUS can hardly help knowing, that
Parson MALTHUS and his tribe have been preaching up the wisdom of
such abolition; he may remember, too (for the example was terrific),
that Mr. SCARLETT was "twisted down" in consequence of his having had
the folly to mould this proposition of Malthus into the form of a
BILL; but, Mr. ADOLPHUS may not know, that petitions were preparing
against that Bill, and that, too, from the payers of the poor-rates,
stating, that, if such Bill were passed, there would be no safety for
their property or their lives. Let us, then, have a little justice,
at any rate; and, above all things, let us not, adding blasphemy to
ignorance, insolence, and low, mob-courting sycophancy, "thank God"
for the absence of outrages amongst us, as the wolf, in the fable,
"thanked God" that he was not ferocious.

337.  Why, there have been "ages of misrule" in Ireland, many, many
ages too; or the landholders of England have, during those ages, been
most unjustly assessed. But, they are sensible, or, at least, the far
greater part of them, that a provision for the indigent, a settled,
certain, legal provision, coming out of the land, is a right which
the indigent possess, to use the words of BLACKSTONE, "in the very
nature of civil society." Every man of reflection must know, that the
labours, which the affairs of society absolutely demand, could never
be performed but by persons who work for their bread; he must see,
that a very large part of these persons will do no more work than is
necessary to enable them to supply their immediate wants; and,
therefore, he must see, that there always must be, in every
community, a great number of persons who, from sickness, old age,
from being orphans, widows, insane, and from other causes, will need
relief from some source or other, This is the lot of civil society,
exist wherever and however it may, and it will require a solider head
than that which is on the shoulders of Mr. SCARLETT, to show, that
this need of relief, to which all are liable, is not a necessary
ingredient in the cement of civil society. The United States of
America is a very happy country. The world has never yet seen a
people better off. But, though the Americans cast off their
allegiance to our king; though they abolished the monarchical rights;
though they cast off the aristocracy of England; though they cast off
the Church of England; they did not cast off the English poor-laws;
and this very act of turbulent Bess, extorted from her by their
English forefathers, is, at this moment, as completely in force in
New York as it is in Old York, in New London as in Old London, in New
Hampshire as in Old Hampshire, and in that whole country, from one
end to the other, as it is in Old England herself.

338.  Has it not, then, been a "misrule of ages" in Ireland? Have not
that people been most barbarously treated by England? An Irishman,
who has a thousand times been ready to expire from starvation in his
native land, who has been driven to steal sea-weed to save himself
from death, goes to America, feels hunger without having the means of
relieving it; and there, in that foreign land, he finds, at once, be
he where he may, an overseer of the poor, ready to give him relief!
And, is such monstrous, such crying injustice as this still to be
allowed to exist? The folly here surpasses, if possible, the
injustice and the cruelty. The English landholders make the laws: we
all know that. They subject, justly subject, their own estates to
assessments for the relief of the poor in England; and, while they do
this, they exonerate the estates of the Irish landowners from a like
assessment, and choose rather to tax themselves and to tax us and tax
the Irish besides, for the purpose of paying an army to keep that
starving people from obtaining relief by force! Lord LIVERPOOL, when
the Scotch Lords and others applied to him, in 1819, for a grant out
of the taxes, to relieve the starving manufacturers in Scotland, very
wisely and justly said, "No: have poor-laws, such as  ours, and then
your poor will be sure of relief." Why not say the same thing to the
Irish landholders? Why not compel them to give to the people that
which is their due? Why is Ireland to be the only civilised country
upon the face of the earth, where no sort of settled, legal provision
is made for the indigent, and where the Pastors are, at the same
time, total strangers to the flocks, except in the season of
shearing? Let us, at least, as long as this state of things should be
suffered to exist, have the decency not to cry out quite so loudly
against the "outrages of the Irish."

339.  I must now return from this digression (into which the mention
of "good Bess's" barbarous treatment of Ireland has led me), in order
to proceed with my account of her "reforming" projects. Betsy was a
great Doctor of Divinity. She was extremely jealous of her
prerogatives and powers, but particularly in what regarded her
headship of the Church. She would make all her subjects be of her
religion, though she had solemnly sworn, at her coronation, that she
was a Catholic, and though, in turning Protestant. she had made a
change in Cranmer's prayer-book and in his articles of faith. In
order to bend the people's con sciences to her tyrannical will, which
was the more unjust, because she herself had changed her religion,
and had even changed the Protestant articles, she established an
inquisition the most horrible that ever was heard of in the world.
She gave what she called a Commission to certain Bishops and others,
whose power extended over the whole kingdom, and over all ranks and
degrees of the people. They were empowered to have an absolute
control over the opinions of all men, and to punish all men according
to their discretion, short of death. They might proceed legally, if
they chose, in the obtaining of evidence against parties; but, if
they chose, they were to employ imprisonment, the rack, or torture of
any sort, for this purpose. If their suspicions alighted upon any
man, no matter respecting what, and they had no evidence, nor even
any hearsay, against him, they might administer an oath, called ex-
officio, to him, by which he was bound, if called upon, to reveal his
thoughts, and to accuse himself, his friend, his brother, or his
father, upon pain of death. These subaltern monsters inflicted what
fines they pleased; they imprisoned men for any length of time that
they pleased. They put forth whatever new articles of faith they
pleased; and, in short, this was a Commission exercising, in the name
and for the purposes of "good Queen Bess," an absolute control over
the bodies and the minds of that people, whom the base and
hypocritical and plundering "reformers" pretended to have delivered
from a "slavish subjection to the POPE," but whom they had, without
any pretending, actually delivered from freedom, charity and
hospitality.

340.  When one looks at the deeds of this foul tyrant, when one sees
what abject slavery she had reduced the nation to, and especially
when one views this Commission, it is impossible for us not to
reflect with shame on what we have so long been saying against the
Spanish Inquisition, which, from its first establishment to the
present hour, has not committed so much cruelty as this ferocious
Protestant apostate committed in any one single year of the forty-
three years of her reign. And, observe again, and never forget, that
Catholics, where they inflicted punishments inflicted them on the
ground, that the offenders had departed from the faith in which they
had been bred and which they had professed; whereas the Protestant
punishments have been inflicted on men because they refused to depart
from the faith in which they had been bred, and which they had
professed all their lives. And, in the particular case of the brutal
hypocrite, they were punished, and that, too, in the most barbarous
manner, for adhering to that very religion, which she had openly
professed for many years of her life, and to which she, even at her
coronation , had sworn that she belonged!

341. It is hardly necessary to attempt to describe the sufferings
that the Catholics had to endure during this murderous reign. No
tongue, no pen is adequate to the task. To hear mass, to harbour a
priest, to admit the supremacy of the POPE, to deny this horrid
virago's spiritual supremacy. and many other things, which an
honourable Catholic could scarcely avoid, consigned him to the
scaffold and to the bowel-ripping knife. But, the most cruel of her
acts, even more cruel than her butcheries, because of far more
extensive effect, and far more productive of suffering in the end,
were the penal laws inflicting fines for recusancy, that is to say,
for not going to her new-fangled Protestant church. And, was there
ever tyranny equal to this? Not only were men to be punished for not
confessing that the new religion was the true one; not only for
continuing to practise the religion in which they and their fathers
and children bad been born and bred; but also punished for not
actually going to the new assemblages, and there performing what they
must, if they were sincere, necessarily deem an act of open apostacy
and blasphemy! Never, in the whole world, was there heard of before
tyranny equal to this.

342.  The fines were so heavy, and were exacted with such unrelenting
rigour, and, for the offence of recusancy alone the sums were so
enormous, that the whole of the conscientious Catholics were menaced
with utter ruin. The priests who had never been out of England, and
who were priests before the reign of this horrible woman, were, by,
the 20th year of her reign, few in number, for the laws forbade the
making of any new ones on pain of death, and, indeed none could be
made in England, where there was no clerical authority to ordain
them, the surviving Catholic bishops being forbidden to do it on pain
of death. Then she harassed the remainder of the old priests in such
a way, that they were, by the 20th year of her reign, nearly
exterminated; and as it was death for a priest to come from abroad,
death to harbour him, death for him to perform his functions in
England, death to confess to him, there appeared to be an
impossibility of preventing her from extirpating, totally extirpating
from the land, that religion, under which England had been so great
and so happy for ages so numerous; that religion of charity and
hospitality; that religion which made the name of pauper unknown;
that religion which had built the churches and cathedrals, which had
planted and reared the Universities, whose professors had made Magna
Charta and the Common Law, and who had performed all those glorious
deeds in legislation and in arms, which had made England really "the
"envy of surrounding nations and the admiration of the world": there
now appeared to be an impossibility, and especially if the termagant
tyrant should live for another twenty years (which she did), to
prevent her from effecting this total extirpation. From accomplishing
this object she was prevented by the zeal and talents of WILLIAM
ALLEN, an English gentleman, now a priest, and who had before been of
the University of Oxford. In order to defeat the she-tyrant's schemes
for rooting out the Catholic religion, he formed a Seminary at DOUAY,
in Flanders, for the education of English priests. He was joined by
many other learned men; and, from this depot, though at the manifest
hazard of their lives, priests came into England; and thereby the
malignity of this inexorable apostate was defeated. There was the sea
between her and ALLEN, but, while he safely defied her death-dealing
power, she could not defy his, for she could not erect a wall round
the island, and into it priests would come and did come; and, in
spite of her hundreds of spies and her thousands of "pursuivants," as
were called the myrmidons who executed her tormenting and bloody
behests, the race of English priests was kept in existence, and the
religion of their fathers along with it. In order to break up the
seminary of ALLEN, who was afterwards made a Cardinal, and whose name
can never be pronounced but with feelings of admiration, she resorted
to all sorts of schemes; and, at last, by perfidiously excluding from
her ports the fleet of the Dutch and Flemish insurgents, to whom she
stood pledged to give protection, she obtained from the Spanish
Governor, a dissolution of ALLEN's college; but, he found protection
in France, from the House of Guise, by whom he and his college were,
in spite of most bitter remonstrances from "good Bess" to the King of
France, re-established at RHEIMS.

343. Thus defeated in all her projects for destroying the missionary
trunk, she fell with more fury than ever on the branches and on the
fruit. To say mass, to hear mass, to make confession, to hear 
confession, to teach the Catholic religion, to be taught it, to keep
from her church service: these were all great crimes, and all
punished with a greater or less degree of severity; so that the
gallowses and gibbets and racks were in constant use, and the gaols
and dungeons choking with the victims. The punishment for keeping
away from her church was 20l. a lunar month, which, of money of the
present day, was about 250l. Thousands upon thousands refused to go
to her church; and thus she sacked their thousands upon thousands of
estates; for, observe, here was, in money of this day, a fine of
3,250l. a year. And now, sensible and just reader, look at the
barbarity of this "Protestant Reformation." See a gentleman of,
perhaps, sixty years of age or more; see him, born and bred a
Catholic, compelled to make himself and his children beggars, actual
beggars, or to commit, what he deemed, an act of apostacy and
blasphemy. Imagine, if you can, barbarity equal to this; and yet even
this is not seen in its most horrible light, unless we take into
view, that the tyrant who committed it, had, for many years of her
life, openly professed the Catholic religion, and had, at her
coronation, sworn that she firmly believed in that religion.

344.  In the enforcing of these horrible edicts, every insult, that
base minds could devise, was resorted to and in constant use. No
Catholic, or reputed Catholic, had a moment's security or peace. At
all hours, but generally in the night-times, the ruffians entered his
house by breaking it open; rushed, in different divisions, into the
rooms; broke open closets, chests, and drawers; rummaged beds and
pockets; in short, searched every place and thing for priests, books,
crosses, vestments, or any person or thing appertaining to the
Catholic worship. In order to pay the fines, gentlemen were compelled
to sell their estates piece by piece; when they were in arrear, the
tyrant was, by law, authorised to seize all their personal property,
and two thirds of their real estate every six months; and they were
in some cases suffered, as a great indulgence, to pay an annual
composition for the liberty of abstaining from what they deemed
apostacy and blasphemy. Yet, whenever she took it into her suspicious
head that her life was in danger, from whatever cause, and causes,
and just causes enough there always were, she had no consideration
for them on account of the fines or the composition. She imprisoned
them, either in gaol, or in the houses of Protestants, kept them
banished from their own homes for years. The Catholic gentleman's own
house afforded him no security; the indiscretion of children or
friends, the malice of enemies, the dishonesty or revenge of tenants
or servants, the hasty conclusions of false suspicion, the deadly
wickedness of those ready to commit perjury for gain's sake, the
rapacity and corruption of constables, sheriffs, and magistrates, the
virulent prejudice of fanaticism; to every passion hostile to
justice, happiness, and peace; to every evil against which it is the
object of just laws to protect a man, the conscientious Catholic
gentleman lived continually exposed; and that, too, in that land
which had become renowned throughout the world by those deeds of
valour and those laws of freedom which had been performed and framed
by his Catholic ancestors.

345.  As to the poor conscientious "recusants," that is to say,
keepers away from the tyrant's church, they, who had no money to pay
fines with, were crammed into prison, until the gaols could (which
was very soon) hold no more, and until the counties petitioned to be
relieved from the charge of keeping them. They were then discharged,
being first publicly whipped, or having their ears bored with a hot
iron. This not answering the purpose, an act was passed to compel all
"recusants," not worth twenty marks a year, to quit the country in
three months after conviction, and to punish them with death, in case
of their return. The old "good Bess," defeated herself here; for, it
was found impossible to cause the law to be executed, in spite of all
her menaces against the justices and sheriffs, who could not be
brought up to her standard of ferociousness; and they, therefore, in
order to punish the poor Catholics, levied sums on them at their
pleasure, as a composition for the crime of abstaining from apostacy
and profanation.

346.  The Catholics, at one time, entertained a hope, that, by a
declaration of their loyalty, they should obtain from the Queen some
mitigation, at least, of their sufferings. With this view they drew
up a very able and most dutiful petition, containing an expression of
their principles, their sufferings, and their prayers. Alas! they
appealed to her to whom truth and justice and mercy were all alike
wholly unknown. The petition being prepared, all trembled at the
thought of the danger of presenting it to her. At last, RICHARD
SHELLEY, of Michael Grove, Sussex, assumed the perilous charge. She
had the (as it would have been in any other human being) incomparable
baseness to refer him, for an answer, to the gloomy echoes of a
pestiferous prison, where he expired, a victim to his own virtue and
to her implacable cruelty.

347.  Talk of Catholic tyrants! Talk of the Catholics having
propagated their faith by acts of force and cruelty! I wonder that an
English Protestant, even one whose very bread comes from the
spoliation of the Catholics, can be found with so little shame as to
talk thus. Our lying Protestant historians tell us, that the ships of
the Spanish Armada were "loaded with RACKS," to be used upon the
bodies of the English, who were preserved from these by the wisdom
and valour of "good and glorious Queen Bess." In the first place, it
was the storm, and not "glorious Bess," that prevented an invasion of
the country; and, in the next place, the Spaniards might have saved
themselves the trouble of importing RACKS, seeing that gentle Betsy
had always plenty of them, which she kept in excellent order, and in
almost daily use. It is to inflict most painful feelings on
Protestants, to be sure; but, justice demands, that I describe one or
two of her instruments of torture; because in them we see some of the
most powerful of those means which she made use of for ESTABLISHING
HER PROTESTANT CHURCH; and here I thank Dr. LINGARD for having, in
note U of volume V. of his History, enabled me to give this
description. One kind of torture, which was called "The Scavenger's
Daughter, was a broad hoop of iron, consisting of two parts, fastened
by a hinge. The prisoner was made to kneel on the pavement and to
contract him self into as small a compass as he could. Then the
executioner, kneeling on his shoulders, and having introduced the
hoop under his legs, compressed the victim close together, till he
was able to fasten the feet and hands together over the small of the
back. The time allotted to this kind of torture was an hour and a
half, during which time the blood gushed from the nostrils, and,
sometimes, from the hands and feet." There were several other kinds
of arguments of conversion that gentle Betsy made use of to eradicate
the "damnable errors" of popery; but, her great argument was, the
RACK. "This was a large  open frame of oak, raised three feet from
the ground. The prisoner was laid under it, on his back, on the
floor. His wrists and ankles were attached by cords to two rollers at
the ends of the frame: these were moved by levers in opposite
directions till the body rose to a level with the frame. Questions
were then put; and, if the answers did not prove satisfactory, the
sufferer was stretched more and more till the bones started from
their sockets."

348.  There, Protestants; there, revilers of the Catholic religion;
there are some of the means which" good Queen Bess" made use of to
make her Church, "established by law." Compare, oh! compare, if you
have one particle of justice left in you; compare these means with
the means made use of by those who introduced and established the
Catholic Church!

349.  The other deeds and events of the reign of this ferocious woman
are now of little interest, and, indeed, do not belong to my subject;
but, seeing that the pensioned poet, JAMMY THOMPSON, in that sickly
stuff of his, which no man of sense ever can endure after he gets to
the age of twenty, has told us about "the glories of the maiden
reign," it may not be amiss, before I take my leave of this "good"
creature, to observe, that "her glories" consisted in having broken
innumerable solemn treaties and compacts; in having been continually
bribing rebel subjects to annoy their sovereigns; in having had a
navy of freebooters; in having had an army of plunderers; in having
bartered for a little money the important town of Calais; and in
never having added even one single leaf of laurel to that ample
branch which had, for ages, been seated on the brows of England; and
that, as to her maiden virtues, WITAKER (a Protestant clergyman,
mind) says, that "her life was stained with gross licentiousness, and
she had many gallants, while she called herself a maiden Queen." Her
life, as he truly says, was a life of "mischief and of misery"; and,
in her death (which took place in the year 1603, the 70th of her age
and the 45th of her reign) she did all the mischief that it remained
in her power to do, by sulkily refusing to name her successor, and
thus leaving to a people, whom she had been pillaging and scourging
for forty-five years, a probable civil war, as "a legacy of mischief
after her death." Historians have been divided in opinion, as to
which was the worst man that England ever produced, her father, or
Cranmer; but, all mankind must agree, that this was the worst woman
that ever existed in England, or in the whole world, Jezebel herself
not excepted.









LETTER XII

ACCESSION OF JAMES I.
HORRID PERSECUTION OF THE CATHOLICS.
GUNPOWDER PLOT.
CHARLES I. QUALIFIED FOR THE RANK OF MARTYR.
"REFORMATION" THE SECOND, OR "THOROUGH GODLY REFORMATION."
CHARLES II. THE PLOTS AND INGRATITUDE OF HIS REIGN.
JAMES II.. HIS ENDEAVOURS TO INTRODUCE GENERAL TOLERATION.
DAWN OF "GLORIOUS" REVOLUTION.

Kensington, 31st October, 1825.

My FRIENDS,

350.  IN the foregoing Letters, it has been proved, beyond all
contradiction, that the "Reformation," as it is called; was,
"engendered in beastly lust, brought forth in hypocrisy and perfidy,
and cherished and fed by rivers of "innocent English and Irish
blood." There are persons who publish what they call answers to me:
but these answers (Which I shall notice again before I have done) all
blink the main subject: they dwell upon what their authors assert to
be errors in the Catholic Religion; this they do, indeed, without
attempting to show how that Protestant Religion, which has about
forty different sects, each at open war with all the rest, can be
free from error; but, do they deny, that this new religion began in
beastly lust, hypocrisy and perfidy; and do they deny, that it was
established by plunder, by tyranny, by axes, by gallowses, by gib