OF MISSIONARY PRIESTS, AND OTHER CATHOLICS OF BOTH SEXES, THAT HAVE suffered DEATH IN ENGLAND ON RELIGIOUS ACCOUNTS, FROM THE YEAR 1577, TO 1684. BY BISHOP CHALLONER, V. A. L. VOL. II. Carefully collected from the Accounts of Eye-witnesses, cotemporary Authors, and Manuscripts kept in the English Colleges and Convents abroad. Philadelphia: PUBLISHED BY JOHN T. GREEN. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THOSE THAT SUFFERED FROM THE YEAR 1603, ib. THE Continuation of the executions of catholics on religious accounts, from the death of queen Elizabeth till the end of the reign of king Charles the second, is laid before the reader in this second volume of our memoirs, in which we have endeavoured to follow the same method as in the first. Our intention herein is not to meddle any way with religious controversies, or to make apologies for the principles of those whose sufferings we represent, or to discuss the merits of the cause for which they suffered; but barely to give an impartial account of the characters of these sufferers, as far as we could learn of them, the most remarkable particulars of their lives and deaths, and their behaviour at their execution. If any one apprehend that the cruelties here represented, may reflect an odium upon the memories of those who were the authors or executors of the sanguinary laws, by which so much christian blood has been shed for more than a whole century, in a nation which of all others is naturally most averse from shedding of blood; we can only assure him that it was not our design to reflect on the memory of any one, but barely to represent matters of fact, which we hoped might furnish a useful and agreeable scene of history to the English reader. However, we must at the same time declare, how much we are convinced, that the more mild proceedings of the present government, with regard to catholics, are far more agreeable both to reason and religion, more honourable to the nation, and more suitable to that claim of liberty and property, which every true Englishman challenges as his birth-right. In effect, is it not most agreeable to right reason, for a people that disclaims all pretensions to infallibility, to give a moderate liberty to the tender consciences of their fellow subjects, of thinking for themselves in matters of religion, without being constrained therein by penal laws? |