a prey to the wicked: her soul is delivered, and we are escaped. Hear us now, we pray thee, O most merciful Father, and continue forth thy lovingkindness towards thy servant, and evermore to thy glory and our comfort keep her in health, with long life, and prosperity, whose rest and only refuge is in thee, O God of her salvation. Preserve her, as thou art wont, preserve her from the snare of the enemy, from the gathering together of the froward, from the insurrection of wicked doers, and from all the traitorous conspiracies of those, which privily lay wait for her life. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only mediator and advocate. Amen.

Jo. Th.

A prayer used in the Parliament only.

O MERCIFUL God and Father, forasmuch as no counsel can stand, nor any can prosper, but only such as are humbly gathered in thy name, to feel the sweet taste of thy Holy Spirit, we gladly acknowledge, that by thy favour standeth the peaceable protection of our Queen and Realm, and likewise this favourable liberty granted unto us at this time to make our meeting together: Which thy bountiful goodness we most thankfully acknowledging, do withal earnestly pray thy divine Majesty so to incline our hearts, as our counsels may be subject in true obedience to thy holy word and will. And sith it hath pleased thee to govern this Realm by ordinary assembling the three estates of the same: our humble prayer is, that thou wilt graff in us good minds to conceive, free liberty to speak, and on all sides a ready and quiet consent to such wholesome laws and Statutes, as may declare us to be thy people, and this Realm to be prosperously ruled by thy good guiding and defence: so that we and our posterity may with cheerful hearts wait for thy appearance in judgment, that art only able to present us faultless before God our heavenly Father: to whom with thee our Saviour Christ, and the Holy Spirit, be all glory both now and ever. Amen.

Imprinted at London
by C. B.

Cum priuilegio.

AN ORDER OF PRAYER AND THANKS GIVING for the preserva- XVIII.

tion of the Queen's Majesty's life and safety: to be

used of the Preachers and Ministers of the Diocese of
Winchester.

With a short extract of William Parry's voluntary confession, written with his own hand.

Imprinted at London by Ralfe Newberie.

The Direction how to use this Order.

FIRST, where any Preacher is, the next Sunday after the receiving of
this order, he shall make a Sermon of the authority and Majesty of
Princes, according to the word of God, and how straight duty of obe-
dience is required of all good and Christian subjects, and what a griev-
ous and heinous thing it is both before God and man traitorously to
seek their destruction, and the shedding of their blood, which are the
Anointed of God, set up by him to be the Ministers of his justice and
mercy to his people. In the end of which Sermon he shall set forth
and declare the brief notes of the confession of the wicked purpose con-
ceived of late by Doctor Parry, to have murdered the Queen's Majesty,
animated thereunto by the Pope and his Cardinals, as you may see it
set down here following. Last of all, he shall say the prayer here pre-
scribed for that purpose, and desire the people to lift up their hearts to
God together with him. After the prayer, there shall be sung or said
the xxj. Psalm, or some other Psalm to the like effect.

A Short extract of a voluntary confession, made by
William Parry, written with his own hand, the 1
of February. 1584.

William Parry, Doctor of Law, carrying an offensive mind against the state, by reason of his conviction, in a trial of life and death at Newgate, for the attempting of the murdering of one Hugh Hare, for the which notwithstanding he received her Majesty's most gracious pardon, and thereupon departing the Realm, in the year 1582, for that he conceived no hope of advancement here, because he was in his own opinion a pretended Catholic, and had

[The date of his letter to the queen, containing this confession, and written from the Tower, is the 14th. Strype's Annals, Vol. I. Aрpendix, p. 104.]

At his being in

not in 22. years received the Communion. the parts beyond the seas, having first reconciled himself to the Church of Rome at Paris, and then at Milan, conceived with himself a mean (as he pretended) to relieve the Catholics of this Realm, which was by killing of the Queen's Majesty.

And nothing stayed him in this conceit, but only to be assured in conscience, that it was lawful and meritorious, and before the execution thereof to receive absolution from the Pope. For his assurance, or rather settling of his conscience herein, he received full satisfaction, first from an old Jesuit in Venice; next from the Pope's Ambassador, resident there, then from other good fathers (as he termeth them) in Lyons and Paris, and lastly, was encouraged to proceed therein by the Nuncio to the Pope, resident at Paris, who promised him, after he assented to that wicked enterprise, to recommend him at the altar, and also to procure the like to be done generally through Paris, which was accordingly performed in general terms, by Recommending of one that had taken upon him to do some dangerous enterprise, tending greatly to the advancement of the Catholic religion. The said Nuncio did also convey the said Parry's letters directed to the Pope, and to the Cardinal'; by the which he did signify to them his full resolution to proceed in his enterprise, and for his better success in the same prayed his benediction Apostolical, whereunto answer was made by letters written in Rome by the Cardinal, dated the last of January, which he received from him when the Court lay at Greenwich, in March last.

The tenor of those letters was a commendation of his enterprise, an allowance thereof, an absolution in his holiness' name of all his sins, and a request to go forward in it, in the name of God.

Which letters confirmed his resolution to kill her Majesty, and made it clear in his conscience, that it was lawful and meritorious, as he setteth down in his said confession. Whereupon he insinuated himself into the Court, and by ways and means sought to win credit, &c. to the intent

[1 The cardinal Como, or, of Como, was prime minister to the Pope. The other personages referred to were named Palmio, Campeggio or Campeius, and Ragazzoni.]

to bring his wicked purpose to pass.

Which at sundry

times he had done, had not the gracious providence of God, by strange means, interrupted his purpose.

A Prayer for the Queen.

O ETERNAL God and merciful Father, with humble hearts we confess that we are not able, either by tongue to utter, or in mind to conceive, the exceeding measure of thine infinite goodness and mercy towards us wretched sinners, and towards this our noble Realm and natural country. Not many years since, when for our unthankful receiving of the heavenly light and truth of thy Gospel we were justly cast into thraldom and misery, and thrust again under the kingdom of darkness, so that our consciences lay groaning under the heavy burdens of error, superstition, and idolatry; even then, even then, O Lord, thou didst vouchsafe of thy great goodness, not only without our desert, but far beyond our hope and expectation, to preserve for us thy faithful servant our gracious prince and Sovereign Queen Elizabeth, and to save her from the jaws of the cruel Tigers, that then sought to suck her blood, and to work to us perpetual tyranny and bondage of conscience. This thou didst, O gracious Lord, undoubtedly, that she might be to this thy church of England a sweet and tender nurse, and that this realm under her happy government might be a blessed Sanctuary, and place of refuge for thy poor afflicted Saints, in these dangerous days persecuted and troubled in many countries for the profession of thy Gospel: yea, and that this our benefit and their comfort might be the more assured, thy divine providence from time to time hath many ways mightily and miraculously preserved and kept her from the crafty, cruel, and traitorous devices of her bloody adversaries, and the deadly enemies of thy Gospel, which with barbarous cruelty have sought to extinguish the light thereof, by shedding her Majesty's most innocent blood: but this thy gracious goodness and mighty providence never so apparently shewed itself at any one time, as even within these few days, when a traitorous subject, never injured or grieved by her, but sundry times holpen, relieved, and countenanced far above his state and worthiness, had of long time retained a wicked and devilish purpose, and often sought occasion and opportunity

to lay violent hands upon her royal person, and to have murdered her. But still the vigilant eye of thy blessed providence did either prevent him by some sudden interruption of his endeavour, or by the majesty of her person and princely behaviour towards him didst strike him so abashed, that he could not perform his conceived bloody purpose. And at the last this wretched villany was by thy means disclosed, and his own tongue opened to confess his detestable and wicked intent. For this thy inestimable goodness towards us (0 heavenly Father) with humble hearts and minds we thank thee: and bless thy name for ever and ever. For assuredly if thou hadst not been now on our side (as the prophet David saith), the whole floods and waves of wickedness had overwhelmed us, and we had been sunk into the bottomless pit of infinite and unspeakable miseries. We beseech thee therefore (O Lord), that thou wilt bless us so with thy grace, that we may be rightly and truly thankful to thee: that is, not in word only, but in deed also, daily studying to frame our lives according to the direction of thy holy word, which thou hast sent among us: And that her Majesty, thus feeling the mighty hand of thy providence fighting for her safety, may more boldly and constantly with an heroical spirit stand in the protection and defence of thy blessed Church, which by thy word thou hast planted among us. And lastly, that the cruel spirits of Antichrist, that seek the subversion of the Gospel, may by the hand of thy justice feel what it is to set to sale for money the innocent blood of thine anointed Princes, which thou hast prepared and set up, to be the nurses and protectors of thy truth: Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, thy only Son our Saviour, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be given all honour and glory, world without end.