rent; and should, from hence, the current of water be guessed to fall where the ground is fallen in all down one curve of the circle, then should not another breach considerable appear from its production, and the earth would have been overshot or carried that way as the current of water past; but the earth is carried that way where no such falling in appears. That it was Wind. 1. Because it is so improbable to be water; but we judge wind might be the cause, forasmuch as it is its property to produce such effects. 2. For wind being gathered, and streightened within the bowels of the earth, in order to an earthquake, doth at last (by a volatile motion) break or burst forth in some place or other, with great violence, rending, twisting in, and burying the earth within its own bowels; and in its motion, arching, flying, and searching about, might (very naturally) cause this breach. 3. Because the lower part of the periphery, which is overshot, lies rolled in, huft, or blown, darting, from its swoln (or enlarged) pores, stones of a considerable weight; as also the root of a tree, which is turned up in the primary breach. 4. This being at the front of a hilly range, the earthquake might come running along, and there disburden itself; and that moreover as it is free from rocks, the ground solvible, and consequently the pores more easily extended. Arguments corresponding with the former reasons. 1. If water had been the cause, then from a slant descent, or ascent, the breach would have shewed itself in a right-lined, or serpentine figure, and more especially in a right-lined figure, its surface having declination. But this breach is circular, and declining, contrary to a right-lined, or serpentine figure. Therefore the cause could not be water. 2. Water was not the cause, but rather wind; for wind is volatile, light, and forcible, and known to be of circular motion; where it is streightened, and wants liberty to disburden, or disperse, itself into its own element, it searches a passage, and, by operation, is (by philosophers) accounted the cause of earthquakes; it vents, and turns up the earth in its delivery thence. But, in this breach, the figure is circular, diversly fractured, blown, or huft up, and writhed, which are the symptoms of an earthquake. Ergo wind was the proper and true cause. Now it remains that we answer three objections, and conclude. 1. May some say, had there been an earthquake, why was it not discerned, felt, or discovered by one or other? 2. Though towns be not very high, yet there be some inhabitants on the forest nigh resident, and would not they have been sensible of some motion or noise which accompany earthquakes? 3. There be many trees, not far off, would not some of them have received prejudice by overturning, or rocks where you suppose the windy commotion ran along? Answers to the objections. 1. Had there been any inhabitants dwelling on the said hill, they might then have felt it. 2. As for them that dwell nigh, they might very well be insensible of noise, or motion, which might happen in the night; and because earthquakes (more general ones) have been experienced to operate in one part of the town, and not in another part of the same; or in a various manner, in a little distance; no wonder then, if such inhabitants perceive it not. 3. As for trees, how should they be prejudiced, where the earthquake came not? But, had trees stood where the breach was made, they would probably then have been overthrown, as the root of a tree aforesaid; and, as for rocks being not removed over the windy passage, they might be spared for the same reason that the ground in those places was; and both spared, because the disturbance hastens along to the front, as a stone to its center. A NARRATIVE OF THE WICKED PLOTS CARRIED ON BY SEIGNIOR GONDAMORE, For advancing the Popish Religion and Spanish Faction. Heartily recommended to all Protestants, by Richard Dugdale, Gent. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them; for it is a shame even to speak of those things, which are done of them in secret. EPHESIANS V. II. 12. London, printed 1679. Folio, containing sixteen pages. COURTEOUS READER, THE PREFACE. This following narrative has run all the hazards and risks of fortune; it breathed for a long time in the obscure shadow of a country and loyal divine's study; after the death of that worthy and eminent person, a relation to the great Earl of Strafford, it fell into the hands of one of his younger sons, who being a man of business, and a daily frequenter of Westminster Hall, that great mart and exchange of law, this lay bundled up, among some bundles of insignificant and worthless papers, till it pleased God to confine this gentleman to his chamber, by a distemper, which though it was so severe as to deny him to act abroad, yet it did not so at home: under this imprisonment (for restraint is such to active spirits) he reviewed his long neglected writings; and being unwilling, like the rabble of the town, to condemn and execute upon a bare presumption of guilt: he calls all to a single scrutiny and examination: the multitude here, as in the world, proved trash and refuse, only this manuscript, like Moses among the reeds, was preserved alive, because it was of a very fair and beautiful countenance. Perils, and manifold sorts of death, attend writings, as well as their authors, and God's providence is as legible in the extraordinary preservation of useful and profitable books, as in raising up and protecting persons of invincible resolution and courage, to be the publick instruments of the church's and kingdom's deliverance; of this advantageous nature and consideration, I take these following sheets to be, for herein are evidently discoursed and unriddled the designs of the Spanish match, the stratagems of the comprehensive statesman Gondamore, and of his faithful adherents the Jesuits, for the introduction of his master's religion and empire into these nations together. The negotiations betwixt Spain and Great Britain were, in King James's reign, the unaccountable state secrets and mysteries; these exercised and distressed the combined heads and wits of our great council, raised the fears and jealousies of the people, and prepared them to entertain those groundless suggestions, which afterwards both gave rise and support to our late civil wars. The designs of the catholick bishop and monarch, in all these treaties of marriage, were to enslave us to a false and foppish religion, and a tyrannical government; and, though pretences of commerce and friendship swam at the top, yet these were the great motives, which lay at the bottom. To compass these, perjuries, and the violation of the marriageoath with an heretical prince, would be a sacred and meritorious action; and if the antichristian beast could be drawn in, as the giant did the cattle into his den, backward, and by the tail, it is no matter how much reason and morality is affronted : : nay, his holiness, out of the plentitude of his power, will indulge his faith, fullest adherents to renounce even in extremis, at the very point of death, some essential and reproachful articles of their faith (as the lawfulness of deposing* kings and sovereign princes) that the whole system may with the less suspicion be glibly swallowed down and entertained. The dimensions of Hercules were exactly calculated by the measure of his foot; and the magnitude of a limb may discover to the intelligent the true bulk of the symmetrical and well-built body; and the horrid lyes and immoralities, rapines and murders, assassinations and massacres, approved of in this small pamphlet, for the effecting of the Romish design, may sufficiently instruct such (of the villainous and pernicious nature of the whole) as have cast out the two devils of prejudice and of a blind and implicit faith in that arch-fanatick of Europe, and divider of kingdoms; for he it is (and, for this lesson, I must acknowledge myself intirely indebted to this paper) who sows the tares of division betwixt the gown-men of this nation; sets the lawyer to quarrel the divine; the two temples to deprecate the church, and Westminster Hall to envy the princely and magnificent structure of the Abby. Read this discovery with seriousness, and I am confident, it will prove very instructive in many important particulars; it was its misfortune to lie so long in obscurity, and so was it too to breathe first of all in air. infected with the stench of such an infinite number of puny, insect, and imperfect libels: here is nothing in this but what is masculine, the argument is weighty, the stile passant and expressive, the discovery of the Popish designs in that juncto of affairs clear and palpable, and that it may be serviceable in this to the publick weal, is the only design, and hearty wish of him, who is H' Reader, A hearty well-willer to the welfare IS catholick majesty having given commandment, that, presently upon the return of Seignior Gondamore, the leiger ambassador from England, a special meeting of the principal states of Spain, who were of his council, together with the presidents of the council of Castile, of Arragon, of Italy, of Portugal, of the Indies, of the treasure of war, and especially of the Holy Inquisition, should be held at Mon Vid. Concil. Lateran. magnum sub Innocentio III. Can. 30. de Hæreticis, where the legality of the pope's power to depose princes is asserted, and this declaration thus authoritively made (denied by the late dying conspirators, is a sufficient ground of faith, except they will grant the catholick Church, both representative and vertual, to be fallible, which concession would stab popery in its vitals, and kill it at a blow. son in Arragon, the Duke of Lerma being appointed president, who should make declaration of his majesty's pleasure, take an account of the ambassador's service, and consult, touching the state and religion respectively, to give satisfaction to his holiness's nuncio, who was desired to make one in this assembly, concerning overtures of peace and amity with the English, and other catholick princes; which might ingender suspicion and jealousy betwixt the pope and his majesty, if the mystery were not unfolded, and the ground of those counsels discovered aforehand: this made all men expect the ambassador's return with a kind of longing, that they might behold the issue of this meeting, and see what good for the catholick cause the ambassador's employment had effected in England, answerable to the general opinion, received of his wisdom, and what further project would be set on foot to become matter for publick discourse. At length he arrived, and had present notice given him from his majesty, that, before he came to court, he should give up his account to this assembly; which command he gladly received, as an earnest of his acceptable service, and gave thanks, that for his honour he might publish himself in so judicious a presence. He came first upon the day appointed to the council chamber; not long after all the council of state and the president met; there wanted only the Duke of Lerma and the pope's nuncio, who were the head and feet of all the assembly. These two staid long away for divers respects the nuncio, that he might express the greatness of his master, and lose the see of Rome no respect by his oversight, but that the benches might be full at his approach. The Duke of Lerma, to express the authority and dignity of his own person, and to shew how a servant, put in place of his master, exacts more service of his fellow-servants than the master himself. These two staid till all the rest were weary of waiting; but at length the nuncio, supposing all the council sat, launched forth and came to road in the council-chamber, where, after mutual discharge of duty from the company, and blessing upon it from him, he sat down in solemn silence, grieving at his oversight, when he saw the Duke of Lerma absent, with whom he strove as a competitor for pomp and glory. The duke had sent before, and understood of the nuncio's being there, and staid something the longer, that his boldness might be ob served, wherein he had his desire; for the nuncio, having, a while, patiently driven away the time, with several compliments to several persons, had now almost run his patience out of breath; but the Duke of Villa Hermosa (president of the council of Arragon) fed his humour by the discharge of his own discontentment, upon the occasion of the Duke of Lerma's absence, and beckoned Seignior Gondamore to him, using this speech in the hearing of the nuncio, after a sporting manner: How unhappy are the people, where you have been: first, for their souls, being hereticks; then for their estates, where the name of a favourite is so familiar? how happy is our estate, where the keys of life and death are so easily come by (pointing at the nuncio) hanging at every religious girdle, and where the door of justice and mercy stand equally open to all men, without respect of persons? The am bassador knew the ironical stroke to be intended as a by-blow to the nuncio, but fully at the Duke of Lerma (whose greatness began now to wax heavy towards declension) and therefore he returned this answer: Your excellency knoweth the state is happy, where wise favourites govern kings, if the kings themselves be foolish, or if the wiser sort 'will not yet be governed by them; the state of England (howsoever you hear of it in Spain or Rome) is so happy in the last kind, that they 'need not care much what the favourite be (though, for the most part, 'he be such as prevents all suspicion in that kind, being rather chose as ' a scholar to be taught, than a tutor to teach) of this they are sure no prince exceeds theirs in personal abilities, so that nothing could be added to him in my wish, but this one,' He were our vassal and a catholick. With that the noise without gave notice of the Duke of Lerma's entrance, at whose first approach the whole house arose, though some later than others, as if some had hung plummets on them, to keep them down; the nuncio only sat unremoved: the duke received the obeysance of the rest with a familiar kind of carriage too high for courtesy, as one not neglecting such demeanors, but expecting it, and, after a filial observance to the pope's nuncio, sat down as president under the cloth of state, but somewhat lower; then, after a space given for admiration, preparation, and attention: The President's Speech, requiring the Ambassador to give an Account of his Plots and wicked Intrigues against England, and what Success he met with. The king my master (holding it more honourable to do, than to discourse, to take from you the expectation of oratory, used rather in schools and pulpits than in councils) hath appointed me president in this holy, wise, learned, and noble assembly; a man naturally of a slow speech, and not desirous to quicken it by art or industry, as holding action only proper to a Spaniard, as I am by birth; to a soldier, as I am by profession; to a king, as I am by representation; take this there. fore briefly for a declaration, both for the cause of this meeting, and my master's further pleasure. There hath been at all times, from the world's foundation, one chief commander, or monarch upon the earth; this needs no further proof than a back-looking into our own memories and histories of the world; neither now is there any question (except with infidels and hereticks) of that one chief commander in spirituals, in the unity of whose person, the members of the visible church are included; but there is some doubt of the chief commander in temporals, who (as the moon, to the sun) might govern by night, as this by day, and by the sword of justice compel to come in, or cut off, such as infringe the authority of the keys. This hath been so well understood long since, by the infallible chair, as that, thereby upon the declension of the Roman emperors, and the increase of Rome's spiritual splendor, who thought it unnatural, that their suns should be sublunary, our nation was by the Bishop of Rome selected, before other people, to conquer and rule other nations with a rod of iron, and our kings, to that end, adorned with the stile of ca |