The Archpriest's manifesto was most opportune; for about the time he was writing it, Ben Jonson, the poet, who had been a Catholic for seven years,[339] was writing to Salisbury that some say they must consult the Archpriest; but that he, Ben Jonson, thinks[340] "they are all so enweaved in it as it will make 500 gent. lesse of the religion within this weeke." He also got up in the Council Chamber at Whitehall,[341] denounced the plot on behalf of the Catholics of England, and offered his services in hunting down the gang of miscreants that had brought this discredit on his Church. [339] Dixon's _Her Majesty's Tower_, Vol. ii. p. 191. [340] S. P., James I., Dom., Vol. xvi. n. 30. [341] Dixon's _Her Majesty's Tower_, Vol. ii. p. 191. "Three weeks later," continues Tierney, the Archpriest "repeated his admonition in still stronger terms. He reminded his people of his former letter, assured them that 'no violent attempt against the king or his government could be other than a most grievous and heinous offence to God'; and concluded by declaring that, as the pope had already condemned all such unlawful proceedings, so he, by the authority of the pope, now strictly forbad Catholics, under pain of ecclesiastical censures, 'to attempt any practise or action, tending to the prejudice' of the throne, or to behave themselves in any manner but such 'as became dutiful subjects and religious Catholics, to their king, his counsellors, and officers.'" With a copy of the first of these two letters[342] before me, I am struck by one sentence which lays down a golden rule concerning political plots. "Moreover, our divines do say that it is not lawful for private subjects, by private authority, to take arms against their lawful king, albeit he become a tyrant." [342] See S. P. Dom. James I., Vol. xvi. n. 21.