to those Canaanites would call his mothers sinnes to a new remembrance, and so conjure up the spirit of rebellion, against which there can be no apter sacrifice then the retainers to that community, which beautifies the vesteries of Scotland, &c. in the shape of a beast, &c. which once heard interpreted by a curtailed divine, he either durst not, or would not, abate this rigor, but rather increased their despaire by daily threats of worse, and invectives owned as written by himselfe, which, though some might consider as too theatricall to be reall, yet others, not so well versed in his majesties royall craft, and having possibly besides been swallowed by one of these harpies, that, like cormorants, will retaine the prey 'till their throats be cut, may be excused in part, if, finding their hopes deluded, they fell into despaire, especially hearing the uncessant cry made by the commons in the house of parliament, for a fresh supply of lawes against rescusants, and all that lay but under the least notion of a popish affection;

which was a latitude some extended as far as prelacy, others bounded it very little on this side anabaptisme: Though they saw

The favourers alike, and the enemies of James, allowed, that the desperate resolution of the powder plot sprung out of the despair of the catholics. The Earl of Northampton enlarged on this point at the trial of the conspirators

"If any one greene leafe for catholiques could have bene visibly descerned by the eye of Catesby, Winter, Garnet, Faux, &c. they would neither have entered into practise with forraine princes, during the queenes time for preuention of the kings lawful and hereditarie right, nor haue renued the same, both abroad and at home, by missions and combinations, after his majesty was both applauded and entered.

"It is true, that, by confessions, we finde that false priest Watson, and arch-traitour Percy, to have bin the first devisers and diuuigers of this scandalous report, as an accursed ground, whereon they might with some advantage, as it was conceived, build the castles of their conspiracie.

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Touching the first, no man can speak more soundly to the poynt then myselfe: for, being sent into the prison by the king, to charge him with this false alarum, only two daies before his death, and upon his soule, to presse him in the presence of God, and as hee would answer it at another bar, to confessè directly, whether, at either of both these times, he had accesse unto his majestie at Edinborough; his majestie did give him any promise, hope, or comfort of encouragement to catho

them daily thrown into a denne of Scotchmen, which the court did already so naturally resemble, as nothing made penall by law, either in church or common-weale, but was by the king granted to his country

liques, concerning toleration; he did there protest, upon his soule, that he could neuer winne one ynch of ground, or drawe the smallest comfort from the king in those degrees, nor further, then that he would have them apprehend, that, as he was a stranger to this state, so, till he understood in all poynts how those matters stood, hee would not promise fauour any way, but did protest, that all the crownes and kingdomes in this world should not induce him to change any iote of his profession, which was the pasture of his soule, and earnest of his eternall inheritance. Hee did confesse,, that in very deede, to keep up the hearts of catholiques in loue and duety to the king, hee had imparted the kings wordes to many, in a better tune, and a higher kinde of descant, then his booke of plaine song did direct: because hee knewe that others, like slie bargemen, looked that way, when their stroke was bent another way. For this he craued pardon of the king, in humble maner, and for his maine reasons of a higher nature then these figures of hypocrisie, and seemed penitent, as well for the horrour of his crime, as for the falshood of his whisperings."- A true and perfect Relation of the whole Proceedings against the late most barbarous Traitors, Garnet, a Jesuite, and his Confede rates, 1606. 4to.

men, and by them exacted to the uttermost farthing. Many in the meane time venting their spleen (capable of better imployment) in libels and songes, of one of which I remember two lines at this time, and may do more hereafter:

In Scotland he was borne and bred,
And though a beggar, must be fed.

This made the papists look about them, not a little terrified to see the king turne his quill (the sharpest weapon he handled throughout his whole raigne) against the pope. And though they had fairer cards at that time to shew for their opinions, (by reason of the bishops and more politicke clergy, who began now to find no head so likely to support them, as one naturally issuing out of their own body, being in this single condition likly no longer to subsist, than found necessary to the temporall power,) then they were ever able to draw during the dayes of the queene: Yet they wanted patience to attend their better for

tune, which no time since the dissolution of the abbyes, (King James holding no bishop, no king, for as reall an article in the mystery of monarchy, as they did no ceremony, no bishop, in that of the hierarchy,) was more likely to have brought about, had they not manifested such foule play, as an indeavour to blow up the houses of parliament; a treason of so bloudy an intendment, that it almost appeares a fiction to us that saw it, though two of the heads of the conspirators, Catesby and Percy,' (if not since removed, and others set in their places, as I have been told,) remaine still

'Lord Northampton, in his speech against Garnet, gives a similar account of the disposal of Percy's head.

"It falles out in a better consequence, that the skull of faithlesse Piercie should stand sentinel where he was once captaine pioner; and Lambeth should now be Catesbyes horizon, that was his arsenall: and their giddie pates are left tanquam malus navis, like the mast of a ship, to use the prophets phrase, to warne passengers by what iust disaster these rouing pyrates came to their unhappy end: especially for seeking the golden fleece, not by Jason's merit, but by Medæa's sorcery."Proceeding against the late Traitors, 1606. 4to.