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HE re-establishment in England of Papal authority and domination in its most absolute form, being, at this time, the cherished and avowed object of the Court of Rome, we beg attention to a few remarks on the subject of that frightful plot, which, in the reign of James 1st, was devised for a similar end. Popery has always shown itself regardless of the means it uses in its machinations against the freedom of mankind, and few of us seem to be aware of the formidable and ceaseless efforts that are now being made to bow this nation again beneath its crushing and blood-stained yoke. The ties of the tenderest affection, the sanction of the most solemn oaths, the strongest obligations of honour and of duty, and the plainest injunctions of the word of God, have all been thrown to the winds before the onward stride of that most awful power that is now uncoiling its monstrous folds in every region of the globe. If light be more desirable than darkness, liberty more sweet than the galling chain,-if we would preserve our hearths from the pollution of the confessional, and our altars from blasphemy and idols, we must sternly repel this "woman drunken with the blood of saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus."

Mild as James the 1st was in toleration, there was a project contrived in the very beginning of his reign (says Dr. Goldsmith) for No. 11. Vol. I.

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the re-establishment of Popery, which, were it not a fact known to all the world, could scarcely be credited by posterity. This was the gunpowder plot, than which a more horrid or terrible one was never conceived by the human heart.

The Papists had expected great favour and indulgence on the accession of James, because he was a decendant of the rigid Papist Mary, and had shown much partiality to their corrupted form of christianity in his youth. They soon, however, discovered their mistake, and were at once surprised and enraged to find him expressing, on all occasions, his resolution of strictly executing the laws enacted against them, and of persevering in the conduct of his predecessor. This declaration determined them upon more desperate measures; and they at length formed a resolution of destroying the King and both Houses of Parliament at one blow. The scheme was first projected by a gentleman of good abilities and an ancient family named Catesby, who conceived that a train of gunpower might be so placed under the parliament house, as to blow up the king and all the members at once.

How horrid soever this contrivance might appear, yet every one of the conspirators seemed faithful and secret in the league; and about two months before the sitting of parliament, they hired a house in the name of Percy' adjoining the scene of their intended operations.

Their first intention was to bore a passage under the parliamenthouse from that which they occupied, and they set themselves laboriously to the task. But when they had pierced the wall, which was three yards in thickness, they were surprised to find that the parliament-house was vaulted underneath, and that a magazine of coals was usually deposited there. From their disappointment on this account they were soon relieved by the information that the coals were then selling off, and that the vaults would be let to the highest bidder. They seized the opportunity of hiring the place, and bought the remaining quantity of coals, as if for their own use. They next conveyed there thirty-six barrels of gunpowder which had been purchased in Holland; and covered them over with the coals, and with some fagots bought for that purpose. The doors of the vaults were then boldly thrown open, and every body admitted, as if they contained nothing dangerous.

Confident of success, they now began to plan the remaining part of their project. The king, the queen, the prince Henry, the king's eldest son were all expected to be present at the opening of parliament. The king's second son, by reason of his tender age, would be absent, and it was resolved that Percy should seize or assassinate him. The princess Elizabeth, who was also a child, was kept at Lord Harrington's house, in Warwickshire; and Sir Everard Digby was to seize her, and immediately proclaim her queen.

The day for the sitting of parliament now approached, and never was treason more secret, or ruin more apparently inevitable. The hour was expected with impatience, and the conspirators gloried in their meditated guilt. The dreadful secret, although communicated to above twenty persons, had been religiously kept during the space of near a year and a half. But when all the motives of piety, justice, and safety were too weak, a remorse of private friendship saved the kingdom.

Sir Henry Percy, one of the conspirators conceived a design of saving the life of Lord Monteagle, his intimate friend and companion, and an anonymous letter which he wrote for this end, although at first but little regarded, even by the secretary of state, led the King himself to suspect the real cause of the danger. The Earl of Suffolk was directed to search the vaults, which he intentionally delayed to do till the day before the meeting of parliament, when he siezed a man preparing for the terrible enterprize, dressed in a cloak and boots, with a dark lantern in his hand. This was no other than Guy Fawkes, who had just disposed of every part of the train for taking fire the next morning, the matches and other combustibles being found in his pocket. The whole plot was soon divulged. The conspirators who were in London, fled into Warwickshire, where Sir Everard Digby was already in arms. Beset on

all sides, about eighty of them determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible. But many of them were mangled by the accidental explosion of some gunpowder, while others were cut to pieces by the indignant populace. Several fell by the hands of the executioner, and others experienced the King's mercy. Garnet and Oldcom, who were Jesuits, and privy to the plot, suffered with the rest; and notwithstanding the attrociousness of their guilt, Garnet is to this day considered a martyr by the popish party, and miracles were said to be wrought by his blood.

We have thought it right to publish this extract from Dr. Goldsmith's history of England at the present time because, in the first place, many efforts are being made to efface the remembrance of this infamous conspiracy from the public mind; and secondly, because we wish to show, that such a dreadful crime was not the mere effect of a treasonable design, existing in the minds of a few, but was in entire consistency with the avowed policy of the Pope of· Rome, in his official character, and with the decrees of his infallible and immutable church.

Now, Emanuel Sà, in his aphorisms, affirms it lawful to kill a King, if the Pope has sentenced him to death. Not the obligations of the oath of allegiance, nor the sanction of God himself, must reverse the sentence of the Pope against the King, but any one of his own sworn subjects may kill him.

This iniquitous position of Sà was not made public till forty years after his death, and is now the ordinary received manual for the Fathers confessors of the Jesuits' order. Mariana goes further than this, for he descends to the very manner of doing it with the most convenience. He thinks poison to be the best way, and that, for greater secrecy, it should be cast upon the chairs, and clothes of his Prince. He also gives examples of this method of King-slaughter, telling us that it was by poisoned boots that Henry of Castile was destroyed. Neither was this the opinion of an individual, for there was an apology printed in Italy, in the year 1610, by permission of the superiors of the popish church, that says, "they were all enemies of that holy name of Jesus that condemned Mariana for any such doctrine."

But to come nearer to the case in hand,-Garnet, the superior of the English Jesuits, who was executed for his share in the gunpowder plot, was defended in his act of high treason, by writers of no less eminence than Bellarmine, Gretser, and Eudæmon!

Let us now briefly enquire whether there existed, at that particular period, any recent decisions of the Pope, which could have instigated men who thus moved in the highest circles, to become traitors and murderers.

Queen Elizabeth preceded James upon the throne, and, in consequence of her hostility to Rome, the Pope issued a Bull or letter against her in which he declared her a heretic, deprived her of her

kingdom, absolved her subjects from their oaths of allegiance, excommunicated her, and gave power to any one to rebel against her. This was his first step. He then procured a gentleman of Florence to incite her subjects to a rebellion against her for her destruction. Further yet, he thought this would be such a real benefit to christendom, that he was ready to aid in person, to spend the whole revenue of the See Apostolic, all the chalices and crosses of the church, and even his very clothes to promote so pious a business. Antonius Gabutius also tells us that the Pope's design was to take away her life, in case she would not turn papist.

The rebellion was to be under the conduct of the Duke of Norfolk, a papist, and the Pope intended to use "the utmost and most extreme remedies to cure her heresy, and all means to strengthen the rebellion."

"I durst not have thought so much of his Holiness (says Bishop Taylor,) if his own had not said it."

Such proceedings of the court of Rome we think are quite sufficient to account for the deadly project which we have narrated above. But there is another slight incident worth recording, which doubtless, would tend to quicken the traitor in his hateful plot. Pope Sixtus the 5th compared the assassination of Henry 3rd, by Clement, to the exploits of Eleazer and Judith, mentioned in the scriptures; and after having aggravated the faults of the murdered King, concludes him to have died impentient, and prays that "God would finish what in this manner had been begun!"

"Let us remember, then, (as Bishop Jewel urges) that the Pope hath conference with traitors, that he raiseth subjects against their Princes, that he causeth Princes to plague their subjects, that he hath no regard of the stranger and the fatherless, that he suffereth those who trade in vice to live in wealth and peace with him at Rome; and yet will not suffer a lawful Princess to live in the peace of her own country at home; that he is the procurer of theft and murder, of rebellion and dissention in the land, and that he sent in a Bull against Queen Elizabeth to work our disquiet, fraught with blasphemy and untruth. Let these things never be forgotten! Let your children remember them for ever!"