Some of the Jesuits were concerned in all the treasons to which I have already alluded; and the gunpowder treason was managed by the same party, the actors being either Jesuits, or the disciples of Jesuits. Jesuits were their directors, their confessors, and their governors. “I never yet knew a treason without a Romish priest,” said Sir Edward Coke, at the trial of the conspirators; and on Garnet’s trial he declares, “Since the Jesuits set foot in this land, there never passed four years without a most pestilent and pernicious treason, tending to the subversion of the whole state.” Shortly before the death of Elizabeth, and while the negotiations just mentioned were going forward in Spain, the pope, Clement VIII., addressed to the English Romanists the bulls to which I have already referred in a former chapter; by which they were instructed to oppose any one who should claim the crown after Elizabeth’s death, unless he would promise not merely to tolerate the Roman Catholic faith, but to promote it by all means in his power. These bulls were to be executed, _“Quandocunque contingeret miseram illam fœminam ex hac vitâ excedere,”_—whenever it should happen that that miserable woman should depart this life. On James’s accession, therefore, many of the Romanists were tampered with by the Jesuits, and persuaded not to render obedience to his majesty, as being a heretic. They were told by the Jesuits that they ought even to submit to death rather than obey a heretic. King James was, however, quietly seated on the throne, notwithstanding the secret practices of the Jesuits, backed as they were by the king of Spain and the pope. As it was dangerous to keep the two bulls in his possession, Garnet committed them to the flames after James’s accession. Now it is altogether manifest, that the treason originated in these bulls of Pope Clement VIII.; for the conspirators argued, when the lawfulness of the undertaking was discussed, that if it was lawful to prevent James from possessing the throne, it was equally so to remove him though he had taken possession. I see not how this argument can be overturned by the Romanists; or how they can clear the rulers of their church of that day of the guilt of that dark transaction.