This broad duty, however, of expelling a heretic sovereign, he qualifies by two conditions; first, that the subjects should have the power, "ut vires habeant idoneas ad hoc subditi;" secondly, that the heresy be undeniable. There can, in truth, be no doubt that the allegiance professed to the queen by the seminary priests and jesuits, and, as far as their influence extended, by all catholics, was with this reservation--till they should be strong enough to throw it off. See the same tract, p. 229. But after all, when we come fairly to consider it, is not this the case with every disaffected party in every state? a good reason for watchfulness, but none for extermination. [237] Rishton and Ribadeneira. See in Lingard, note U, a specification of the different kinds of torture used in this reign. The government did not pretend to deny the employment of torture. But the puritans, eager as they were to exert the utmost severity of the law against the professors of the old religion, had more regard to civil liberty than to approve such a violation of it. Beal, clerk of the council, wrote, about 1585, a vehement book against the ecclesiastical system, from which Whitgift picks out various enormous propositions, as he thinks them; one of which is, "that he condemns, without exception of any cause, racking of grievous offenders, as being cruel, barbarous, contrary to law, and unto the liberty of English subjects." Strype's _Whitgift_, p. 212. [238] The persecution of catholics in England was made use of as an argument against permitting Henry IV. to reign in France, as appears by the title of a tract published in 1586: "Advertissement des catholiques, Anglois aux François catholiques, du danger où ils sont de perdre leur religion et d'expérimenter, comme en Angleterre, la cruauté des ministres, s'ils reçoivent à la couronne un roy qui soit hérétique." It is in the British Museum. One of the attacks on Elizabeth deserves some notice, as it has lately been revived. In the statute 13 Eliz. an expression is used, "her majesty, and the natural issue of her body," instead of the more common legal phrase, "lawful issue." This probably was adopted by the queen out of prudery, as if the usual term implied the possibility of her having unlawful issue. But the papistical libellers put the most absurd interpretation on the word "natural," as if it was meant to secure the succession for some imaginary bastards by Leicester. And Dr. Lingard is not ashamed to insinuate the same suspicion. Vol. viii. p. 81, note. Surely what was congenial to the dark malignity of Persons, and the blind frenzy of Whitaker, does not become the good sense, I cannot say the candour, of this writer.