After a time there came to Rome some of the English clergy, saying
that they had received the Archpriest with amazement, and begging the
Pope to withdraw him. The Pope was not in Rome, and Parsons took care
that they should not reach him. He induced the papal authorities to
arrest them, as rebels, and lodge them in the college controlled by
the Jesuits; and when they persisted in appealing to a Roman tribunal,
he secured the dismissal of the appeal. Later, a fresh batch of
appellants came to Rome, and Parsons knew that their evidence would
be very damning. Not only had the Jesuits, who controlled the moneys
gathered for the support of the imprisoned priests, attempted to use
this power to subdue them, but when the Pope had ordered that no more
pamphlets should be written on the subject, Blackwell had refrained
from publishing the decree until Parsons had time to issue one; and
this one mendaciously purported to have been written by some "priests
united in due subordination to the Archpriest." The secular priests
had appealed to Elizabeth, and she had actually heard and set four of
them at liberty, in order that they might plead their cause at Rome.
They now had the support of the French embassy, and, in spite of all
the libels which Parsons circulated concerning them and the English
clergy generally, they won a partial victory. Blackwell was to remain
Archpriest, but he was not to consult the Jesuits.
From this domestic but instructive feud we return to the action of the
Jesuits in England. Under ten different names Garnet had continued,
amid a hundred adventures, to elude his pursuers, and his colleagues
were only a little less active. We cannot, however, do more here
than attempt to trace their share in the political scheming which
culminated in the Gunpowder Plot. The Jesuits in England carried out
the suggestion of Parsons that, instead of putting their faith in the
eventual accession and conversion of James of Scotland, they should
teach the Catholics to look to Philip. In December 1601 we find Garnet
meeting Catesby, Tresham, and Winter in the house of Anne Vaux at
Enfield Chase, and discussing the question of a mission to Spain. The
issue of it was that Winter and Father Greenway went to Madrid, and
obtained a large sum of money from Philip III. It was intended for the
relief of the poor Catholics, Garnet afterwards said: in which case we
do not very well understand why he "misliked" the expedition, as he
says.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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