A. List of Priests imprisoned at Wisbeach, B. Letter of Blackwell to Cardinal Cajetan, C. Letter of Henry Tichborne, S.J., 1598, D. Extract from Father Lister's Adversus Factiosos, E. John Sicklemore to Dr. Bagshaw, Aug. 1598, H. John Blackfan, S.J., to John Floyd, S.J., Sept. 7, 1599, I. Dr. Bagshaw to Mr. Thomas Bluet, April 27, 1601, J. Letter of the Archpriest Blackwell to his K. Declaratio Thomæ Bluetti exhibita cardinalibus, PAGE 149 150 151 INTRODUCTION. THE True Relation of the Faction begun at Wisbeach is something more than the story of a quarrel among Roman catholic priests of interest only to themselves. The quarrel was indeed fierce and prolonged and widespread, and could not but leave its mark upon the condition and character of the clerical body itself. But although on the surface it seemed principally concerned with matters of ecclesiastical government and discipline, this Eight Years' War of the priests had its origin and its issue in political differences of no small historical importance. The faction led by the jesuits contended for the Spanish succession and the subjection of England to the pope by force of arms. Their opponents were for the king of Scots whether catholic or protestant. The one party upheld the papal claim to depose princes, while the members of the other party came to protest that in case of any attempt to enforce such a claim they should be bound in conscience to defend their sovereign in defiance of all ecclesiastical censures. These same men aimed at securing some measure of toleration for their religion, and at establishing a modus vivendi with the state. The jesuit zealots were for war to the knife, and for obvious reasons detested the thought of toleration.1 Their ecclesiastical scheme which gave most offence-the appointment of an archpriest-was mainly projected with the view of gaining vantage-ground for political action. These grave con 1 See the interesting letter of Father Tichborne, infra, Appendix C. PP. 141, 142. a tentions therefore caused as much anxiety at the court of Madrid as they did at Rome, and were watched throughout with eager interest by the government at home. The end of the struggle found the seminarists as a whole standing in a new relation both towards the pope and the English crown. There had meanwhile sprung up among the clergy a strong national party. The back of the great catholic reaction, in England at least, was already broken. A direct outcome of petty disputes about the morals and behaviour of certain Wisbeach prisoners in 1595 was the famous protestation of allegiance drawn up by thirteen of the leading secular clergy, January 3, 1603, the very day that Elizabeth was seized with her last illness. This was the significant though tardy response on their part to the bull of Pius v., and their virtual condemnation of the insane act of John Felton, now beatified as a martyr, who had stuck that bull on the bishop of London's gate just thirty-three years before. Thus with almost her last breath the queen may be said to have won a decisive moral victory over her lifelong foes. If the winds and the waves had fought for her against the catholic Armada, this her final victory was given into her hands by the priests themselves. Catholic Europe, which had looked on for many years with pious hope and pride on the combined onslaught made upon protestant England by the forces spiritual and temporal of the pope and his seminarists, the Guises and the king of Spain, now witnessed with disgust a disaster more humiliating than the wrecking of Philip's ships. Priests, jesuit and secular, were flying at each other's throats; and designed martyrs' and confessors were reviling each other in language not exceeded in bitterness or violence by the most hostile of the puritans. Protestant preachers were pointing at the scandal with derision, and statesmen were chuckling over the suicidal follies of men who had been boasting of adding new glories to |