salvation, a strong castle, a sure bulwark, a shield of defence, and place of refuge. Be unto him counsel and courage, policy and power, strength and victory: defend his head in the day of battle, comfort his armies, his true faithful Noble men, the princes of his blood, and all other his faithful subjects: Strengthen them to join their hearts and hands with him; associate unto him such as may aid him to maintain his right, and be zealous of thy glory. Let thy holy Angel stand in circuit about his Realm, and about his loyal people, that the enemies thereof, though they be multiplied in number, though they exalt themselves with horses and horsemen, though they trust to their numbers, to their shield, and glory in their strength; yet they may see with Elizeus the unresistable (2 Kings vi. army of angels, which thou canst send for the defence of thy inheritance, and that thy enemies may know and confess, that thy power standeth not in multitude, nor thy might in strong men but thou (O Lord) art the help of the humble, the defender of the weak, the protector of them that are forsaken, and the saviour of all those who put their trust in thee. O merciful Father, we acknowledge thy gracious goodness in our own former deliverance 3 from the like kind of enemies and rebels, against thy anointed our Sovereign Lady and Queen, professing thy Gospel: so will we do in this, and be as joyful of it, and no less thankful for it, and make the same to be for ever an occasion unto us of our more faithful subjection to our own dread Sovereign: Whom (Lord) we beseech thee now and evermore most mercifully to bless with health of body, peace of Country, purity of religion, prosperity of Estate, and all inward, and outward, earthly happiness, and heavenly felicity. This grant (merciful Father) for the glory of thine own name, and for Christ Jesus' sake, our mediator and only Saviour. Amen. Imprinted at London by the Deputies of Christopher Barker, [In 1569. See p. 462.] 17.] XXXVI. AN ORDER for Prayer and THANKSGIVING (necessary to be used in these dangerous times) for the safety and preservation of her Majesty and this realm. Set forth by Authority. LONDON. Printed by the Deputies of Christopher Barker, Printer to the Queen's most excellent Majesty. 1594. 19, 20. An admonition to the Reader. There have been sundry, but heathen men (as Plato and others), being no better instructed than the lame reach of reason could guide them, nor any clearer enlightened, than by the dimmed glimpse of nature, who nevertheless arrived thus far, as to know and acknowledge that God, who is above all, extendeth his careful providence over all, and especially in preservation of Kingdoms, and of other politic societies, and of their Governours and Rulers. For that which may be known of God, is manifest Rom. 1. ver. (saith Saint Paul) among them: for God hath opened it unto them. For his invisible things being understood by his works through the creation of the world, are seen: that is, both his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Then how much more must all Christians, to whom the Day-star hath in greater brightness and measure appeared, and the treasures of God the Father in his Son Christ Jesu been opened, acknowledge this his providence, and reverently adore and magnify that good God, which to the heap of all other his mercies towards them addeth this blessing and protection of Magistracy and government, whereby men live peaceably with all honesty in this life! But if ever any nation, yea, if all the nations in the world besides, have cause with thankfulness to acknowledge this kind of benefit, surely we the people of England have most just and abundant occasion, of all others, to perform this duty unto God. First, for placing over us our most gracious dread Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth, by whose happy government we have so long breathed from the burden of intolerable miseries of scarcity, bloodshed, and spiritual bondage, under which afore we lay grovelling, and pitifully groaned. Then, for preserving these her Realms and dominions so long in the true profession of the Gospel, and in peace and tranquillity, notwithstanding the sundry privy conspiracies and open hostilities practised, both inward and outward, for the interruption of our quiet repose and holy profession. Thirdly, for protecting so long and so often her sacred royal person from the cruel and bloody hands of such and so many several detestable and treacherous Conspirators. And likewise for the Lord's provident and watchful eye over her and us, and for the wonderful happy discoveries of so manifold cruel designments so 17. closely plotted against her innocent life, and so dangerously against her Highness' Realms and dominions. Which mischievous devices as they have all flowed from none other fountain, than from that city of seven hills, the See of Rome, and seat of the Beast, not in regard of any desert Apocal. 13. & of ours, but because we have abandoned the cup of spiritual abominations, wherewith these have long intoxicated the kings of the earth: So have they been continually projected, carried forward, and managed by idolatrous Priests and Jesuits his creatures, the very loathsome Locusts that crawl out of the bottomless pit. Howbeit they have been and are mightily seconded by certain Potentates of the earth', who do nothing else but serve themselves of that idolatrous Romish religion, as of a Mask and stalking-horse, therewith to cover the unsatiable ambition, wherewith they are possessed, of usurping other men's kingdoms. For if we will first particularly cast our eyes upon the variable conspiracies that have been entered into but against her Highness' realms: shall we not find the treason of the two Pooles3, of Felton, and of the late Duke of Northfolk"; [The two other editions mentioned in the next note have not these four words, "Potentates of the earth."] [ There exist three editions of this Order, but only one has the following long enumeration of conspirators. The other two (which are in the University library, Cambridge, and at Lambeth) differ from each other merely in the arrangement of the type, and in the number of pages, one containing C in fours, the other D iii. In both the Admonition goes on thus, "of vsurping the kingdoms of other Princes. Which their most dangerous and desperate plots and enterprises, God of his great mercie hath hitherto most happily discouered to his infinite glorie, and our vnspeakeable comfort. So that it may aptly, &c."] [3 In October, 1562, Arthur Pole, and his brother Edmund, (great grandsons of George, duke of Clarence, Edward the fourth's brother,) with others, were apprehended on a charge of conspiring, by means of a French army landing in Wales, to depose Elizabeth, and set on the throne Mary, queen of Scots, who was to marry Edmund, and create Arthur duke of Clarence. They were tried on the 26th of February, 1563, but, though found guilty, were all pardoned. Carte, Vol. I. p. 408. Zurich Letters, second edition, p. 172.] [ Pope Pius V., he who even desired to 'shed his blood in an expedition against England,' issued, February the 25th, 1570, a bull, excommunicating the heretic Elizabeth, and absolving her subjects from their oaths of allegiance. This bull one John Felton affixed to the gates of the bishop of London's palace in St Paul's church-yard, May the 25th, and on the 8th of August was hanged for his offence before the same gates. Camden, p. 428. Foulis, p. 433. Zurich Letters, pp. 341, 349.] [Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, a protestant since he knew what religion meant,' the pupil of John Foxe, the martyrologist, to whom he left Twenty pound a yeare,' was beheaded on Tower hill, the 2nd of June, 1572, five months after condemnation, for a second time intending to marry Mary, queen of Scots, and thereby further her designs of Throgmorton', of Englefield, of Paget, of Shelley, and Stanley, and Yorke, and of all the seminary Priests", and Jesuits, to have been tickled up by Romish busses and practices, and to have been carried forward by their own gross dotage upon that absurd religion? on the English throne. Camden, pp. 437-440. Vol. 1. pp. 402, 406. Zurich Letters, p. 320. execution had first been signed and revoked. 89, 90.] Wright's Elizabeth, Two warrants for his Lingard, Vol. vii. pp. [John Throckmorton of Norwich was hanged the 30th of August, 1570, for having endeavoured, about a month before, to raise a rebellion in the county, in order, amongst other things, to set the duke of Norfolk at liberty on his first imprisonment. Camden, pp. 428, 429. Zurich Letters, p. 342. Perhaps, however, the Throckmorton alluded to was rather Francis, a gentleman of Cheshire, apprehended November the 7th, 1583, and put to death at Tyburn in the usual manner the 10th of July, 1584, nearly two months after conviction, because he had striven to bring about an invasion of England by the Catholic powers, so that Mary might be delivered from prison, and Elizabeth deposed. Thomas lord Paget, engaged in the same plot, fled into France. Camden, pp. 497, 498. The ship, wherein this nobleman escaped, William Shelley provided, who, being thus connected with the conspiracy, was cast into prison, and in 1586 condemned for treason. Ibid. pp. 504, 553. Lingard, Vol. vii. p. 188.] [Sir Francis Englefield had been one of queen Mary's privy council, and her master of the horse; but, retiring on the accession of Elizabeth to Flanders, was taken into the pay of Spain, of which court he became a great favourite. Strype's Annals, Vol. 1. pp. 370–374: Vol. 11. p.27. In 1594 he was still engaged in plotting against Elizabeth. Camden, p. 576.] [3 Though a Roman catholic, Sir William Stanley was by the earl of Leicester left in charge of Deventer in Holland, which city having betrayed to the Spaniards in the beginning of 1587, 'upon a principle of conscience,' he thenceforth became a pensioner of Philip the second. Carte, Vol. 1. p. 599. Lingard, Vol. VIII. p. 264, note.] [* Rowland Yorke, 'a Man of a loose and dissolute Behaviour,' whom the earl of Leicester had appointed governor of a fort near Zutphen, not only turned traitor himself, but was the cause why his neighbouring commander, Sir William Stanley, did the same. Soames's Elizabethan Religious History, pp. 350-353.] [5 The English clergy, who had withdrawn from their own country on account of religion, were formed into a society after the manner of a college, first at Douay, in 1568, then, on being banished from the Netherlands in 1575, at Rheims, and in 1579 at Rome. Camden, p. 476. These establishments, whose members are not to be confounded with the Jesuits, were called Seminaries, being designed to nourish and bring up persons to become seedmen in the tillage of sedition.' Stow, p. 1266. Fuller, Book ix. p. 84. Ranke's History of the Popes, Book v. chap. 7.] As for those other attempts against her dominions, which have not stayed themselves in the bare terms of conspiracy only, but have also broken further into open rebellion and hostility; they likewise have no less been blown up by that brood of Massing Priests, being unnatural subjects (for the most part) of these kingdoms. For was not Moreton® a Priest sent from the Pope's own side to stir up the two Earls and others unto the Northern rebellion? Did not Saunders' second his bookish treasons even with banner displayed, and by commotion in Ireland? And doth not that carnal arch-traitor Allen proclaim to the world unto his own everlasting reproach, that he and others excited the King of Spain's invincible Navy (vainly so surnamed) by invasion to have conquered his own native country, and to have swallowed us all up? Yea, and in all those their latter hidden, hellish and damnable designs against her Ma 8 [ In 1569 Pius V. sent Dr Nicholas Morton, a Yorkshireman, from Rome into the northern parts of England, to stir up a rebellion there, by declaring on his authority (in anticipation of his famous bull) to the two principal catholic nobles, the earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, that Elizabeth was a heretic, and thus had no right to the kingdom. Soames, pp. 107, 108.] ['Nicholas Saunders, (more truly Slanders-Fuller, Book Ix. p. 169,) 'that indefatigable writer, as well as warrior,' besides other treatises, put out one, De visibili Monarchia Ecclesiæ; and also another, De Origine et Progressu schismatis Anglicani; whose errors and falsehoods have been amply exposed by Burnet, at the end of the first two volumes of his History of the Reformation. Strype's Whitgift, p. 47. Zurich Letters, p. 418. D. Sanders, a lewde scholler and subiect of England, a fugitiue and a principall companion and conspirator with the traitors and rebels at Rome, was by the Pope's speciall commission a commaunder, as in forme of a Legate, and sometime a treasorer or paymaster for those warres: which D. Sanders, in his booke of his Church Monarchie, did afore his passing into Ireland openly by writing gloriously allowe the foresaid Bull of Pius Quintus against her Maiestie, to be lawfull.' See a Tract published in 1583 to prove that the executions of Priests by Elizabeth were 'for Treason and not for Religion.' Saunders, being sent by Gregory XIII. to Ireland with a consecrated banner, landed, about the 1st of July, 1579, at Smerwick, in Kerry, in company with a small body of soldiers under James Fitzmaurice, whose brother, the earl of Desmond, "the Pope's great champion,' he soon persuaded to rebel. Camden, pp. 472, 495. Foulis, p. 390. Ellis's Letters, Second Series, Vol. I. pp. 92-97.] [ William Allen, generally called the cardinal of England, died at Rome, October the 16th, 1594. It was, doubtless, in allusion to his ecclesiastical dignity, that the Admonition styles him 'carnall,' a species of wit not uncommon in the sixteenth century. He retired from the kingdom very soon after Elizabeth's accession. His learning and piety were very great, and he laboured very usefully for the defence of the Catholic religion against the Heretics.' Du Pin's Eccles. Hist. of the 16th century, Vol. 1. p. 152. Ranke, Book v. chap. 12.] [LITURG. QU. ELIZ.] 42 |