_B._ Did not the bishops, that then were, and had taken an oath, wherein was, amongst other things, that they should defend and maintain the legal rights of St. Peter: (the words are, _Regalia Sancti Petri_, which nevertheless some have said are _regulas Sancti Petri_, that is to say, St. Peter’s rules or doctrine; and that the clergy afterward did read it, being perhaps written in short-hand, by a mistake to the Pope’s advantage _regalia_): did not, I say, the bishops oppose that Act of Parliament against the Pope, and against the taking of the oath of supremacy? _A._ No, I do not find that the bishops did many of them oppose the King; for having no power without him, it had been great imprudence to provoke his anger. There was besides a controversy in those times between the Pope and the bishops, most of which did maintain that they exercised their jurisdiction episcopal in the right of God, as immediately as the Pope himself did exercise the same over the whole Church. And because they saw that by this Act of the King in Parliament they were to hold their power no more of the Pope, and never thought of holding it of the King, they were perhaps better content to let that Act of Parliament pass. In the reign of King Edward VI the doctrine of Luther had taken so great root in England, that they threw out also a great many of the Pope’s new articles of faith; which Queen Mary succeeding him restored again, together with all that had been abolished by Henry VIII, saving that which could not be restored, the religious houses; and the bishops and clergy of King Edward were partly burnt for heretics, partly fled, and partly recanted. And they that fled betook themselves to those places beyond sea, where the reformed religion was either protected or not persecuted; who, after the decease of Queen Mary, returned again to favour and preferment under Queen Elizabeth, that restored the religion of her brother King Edward. And so it hath continued till this day, excepting the interruption made in this late rebellion of the presbyterians and other democratical men. But though the Romish religion were now cast out by the law, yet there were abundance of people, and many of them of the nobility, that still retained the religion of their ancestors, who as they were not much molested in points of conscience, so they were not by their own inclination very troublesome to the civil government; but by the secret practice of the Jesuits and other emissaries of the Roman Church, they were made less quiet than they ought to have been; and some of them to venture on the most horrid act that ever had been heard of before, I mean the Gunpowder Treason. And upon that account, the Papists of England have been looked upon as men that would not be sorry for any disorders here that might possibly make way to the restoring of the Pope’s authority. And therefore I named them for one of the distempers of the state of England in the time of our late King Charles.