Publications
There have been many publications produced concerning the plot. They all try to put the facts in order and some do quite well. One thing all such publications do is to convey reassessments based upon the time- reflections based upon the context of the writer. They are as ripples sent out by the plot itself. (see also Prayers/Prayer books) From 1606 to the present day we hope to trace those ripples of the plot in later works that refer to it or to the celebration of the 5th.   We have arranged our bits and pieces in a rough chronological order.  Click here to begin. You can also use your browser's search function to search for an author. Plays are also important sources. We have a whole web page of plays just click here to go there. We have also found a Squib from 1849- click here for this wacky piece.
Do you have a favorite which is not here? We would love to hear about  it! Send us e.mail click here!  (Image above- From Broadside printers boys in Boston [1768]. see below.)  See also our pages specifically focusing on Charles Dickens-click here
 

 
Sonnet 124
                                            If my dear love were but the child of state,
                                            It might for Fortune's bastard be unfathered,
                                            As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,
                                            Weeds among weeds or flowers with flowers gathered.
                                            No, it was builded far from accident,
                                            It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
                                            Under the blow of thralléd discontent,
                                            Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls.
                                            It fears not policy, that heretic,
                                            Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,
                                            But all alone stands hugely politic,
                                            That it nor grows with heat nor drowns with showers.
                                            To this I witness call the fools of time,
                                            Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.
                                                 -William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Here Shakespeare refers to the Gunpowder plot. Parliament= "nor falls Under the blow of thralled discontent" Plotters: "the fools of time which die for goodness, who have lived for crime"
Perhaps.....
1606-1631
Other “non-official” publications also were popular at the local level:
John Rhodes wrote:
“Fawkes at midnight, and by torchlight, there was found
With long matches and devices, underground.- - A brief Summe of the Treason intended against the King & State, when they should have been assembled in Parliament, November 5, 1605. Fit for to instruct the simple and ignorant herin: that they be not seduced any longer by Papists.(London 1606)
Francis Herring-
Popish Pietie, or the first part of the history of that horrible and barbarous conspiracie, commonly called the Poweder-treason (1610) Latin Poem (113 stanzas)
Dedicated to Princess Elizabeth (a target of the plot)
“The Powder treason that monstrous birth of the Romish Harlot, cannot be forgotten without great impiety and injury to ourselves...We shall be guilty of horrible ingratitude, the foulest of all vices, if we do not embrace all means of perpetuation the memory of so great, so gracious, and wonderful a preservation.”...”The quintessnce of Satan’s Policy, the furthest reach and stain of human malice and cruelty, not to be paralleled among the savage Turks, the barbarous Indians, nor, as I am persuaded among the more brutish cannibals.”
(Francis Herring., Popish Piete, or the first part of the Historie of that horrible and barbarous conspiracie, commonly called the Powder-treason (London,1610)
John Vicars wrote Mischeefes Mysterie:or, Treasons Master-peece. The Powder Plot (London 1617) which is based upon the work of Herring (see above)
Vicars also wrote “England’s hallelu-jah; or, Great Britaines Retribution” (London, 1631) which describes the people of Britain as:
“English Israelites...ingrafted on onld Israel’s stock”
Samuel Garey 1618- the plot meant “the general martyrdom of the kingdom”...”Amphitheatrum scelurum: or the transcedent of treason, the day of a most admirable deliverance of our king, queen, prince, royal progeny , the spiritual and temporal peers and pillars of the church and state, together with the honorable assembly of the representative body of the kingdom in general , from that most horrible and hellish project of the Gunpowder Treason” the plot was: “the quintessence of all impiety and confection of all villainy” the celebration was to be kept as: “holy feast unto the Lord through out the generations”....”How unworthy shall we be of future favours if so unthankful for past blessings? And truly herein the land is faulty in forgetting these benefits.”....”a few years being past, they began to slacken this duty, and are cold in praising God for so blessed a deliverance.” People should: “awaken our slumbering affections to this perpetual service of thankful rejoicing” to “to “imprint an eternal memento in the calendar of our hearts forever, of the marvelous mercy of God in keeping us from that intended destruction.” One could recite the narrative of the plot: “to rouse up and revive the languishing spirits of the land, with the renewed remembrance of so joyful a work.”
As Garey notes : the retelling of the story of the plot was an integral part of observances.
-Samuel Garey,Great Brittans little Calendar; or, Triple Diarie, in remembrance of three dates (London, 1618), Amphitheatrum Scelerum; or the Transcedent of Treason:For the Fifth of November (London 1618)
Almanacs 1608-1695
The Plot is also commemorated in Almanacs
Edward Pond New Almanacke for this Present Yeare of our Lord 1608 lists the Papists Conspiracy as a red letter day.-(London, 1608)
Henry Alleyn, Alleyns Almanacke or a Double diarie & Prognostication for 1608 notes for November 5:“King James Preserved.”
Richard Allestree almanacs of 1620-30s marked November 5 as a red letter day.-(London 1628,1632,1640)
John Booker in Telescopium Uranicum 1665 notes:
“The Powder was papish, was it not?
Yea, and an act made ne’re to be forgot.” (London, 1665)
Poor Robin’s Almanac 1695 records:
“Let Papists now with bluishing cheks remember,
What they were practicing this month November,
When as by powder they did vaunt and vapour,
To make king, prince and lords i’th’ air to caper
What’s ere’s forgot, the memory o’ the Powder Plot will hardly die.
- (Poor Robin., An Almanack After the Old and New Fashion.,London, 1695)
 
Diaries 1617-1623
Diary writers of the time also recorded the date for the celebration of the plot:
Nicholas Asherton from Lancashire notes on Nov. 5, 1617
“Gunpowder treason, twelve years since, should have been’ but God’s mercy and goodness delivered us from the snare of devilish invention. To church; parson preached; dined parsonage.”
-F.R. Raine (ed.) The Journal of Nicholas Assheton. (Chetham Society, 1848)
Simonds D’Ewes a student at the Middle Temple wrote on Nov. 5 1622:
“This is the memorable day upon which the papists had decreed to have blown up the parliament God delivered this land. At night preached Mr. Crashaw and made an excellent discourse of it”
On Nov 5, 1623 he recorded:
Wednesday being the fifth of November, the memorial of that act and shame of popery was celebrated, the Gunpowder....At night we had a sermon in memory of it.”
-Elisabeth Bourcier (ed.). The Diary of Sir Simonds D’Ewes 1622-1624.(Paris, 1974)
The Celebration of the 5th of November became an important one, however it was not a day off work but rather a day for prayer and meditiation and thanksgiving. As the 17th century progressed the celebrations became excuses for mischief.
Michael Sparke wrote in the 1620’s:
“Let us and our prosterity after us with bonfires trumpets, shawms and psalms laud and praise thy holy name on the fifth of november yearly and forever.”
-Thankful Remembrance of God’s Wonderfull Deliverances of this Land (London 1628)
 

1623
Upon the Powder-Plot.
Oh Murtherous Plot! Posterity shall say,
‘s Unholyness o’re shoots Caligula.
The Pope by this and such designs (‘tis plain)
Out-Babels Nimrod, and out-Butcher’s Cain.
Monteagle’s Letter was in dubious sence,
And Seem’d a piece of Stygian Eloquence:
The Characters look’d just like conj’ring Spells
For this bout Hell here spoke in Parables.
the Popes and Devil’s Signet were set to’t,
The Cloven Miter join’d to th’ cloven foot.
Thus were our Senates like to be betray’d,
By a strange Egg in Peters Chair ‘twas laid:
For had the Serpent hatcht it, the device
Had prov’d to us a bainful Cockatrice.
But Fawkes his bafled hopes only bequeaths,
Instead of Comforts, thoughts of sudden death.
Like Hamans Fate he only must aspire
To the just advance of fifty Cubits higher.
But couldst thou think thou monstrous Beast of Rome
To Massacere at one sad blow by Doom
And cast them down whom Heaven decreed to stand?
Dark Lanthorns, whilst Truths Candlestick is here
Thy Purple Plots our Nation need not fear.
The Beastly Whore may lay her Trump’ries by;
Until our sins are of her purple-die.
-From:England’s remembrancer, a true and full narrfative of those two never to be forgotten deliverances, one from the Spanish invasion[in 88], the other from the hellish powder pl[ot] November 5, 1605: whereunto is added the like narrative of that signal [judgment] of God upon the papists by the [fall of the] house in Black Fryers London [upon their] fifth of November,1623, Samuel Clarke, 1676, London, Printed for J. Hancock.

Song: 1626
The Discovery of the Powder Plot, Anno, 1605
From: Song of Deliverance for the Lasting Remembrance of Gods Wonderful Works never to be Forgotten…, Mr. John Wilson,1626 reprinted in 1680.

1605
Full twenty years agoe it was,
one thousand six hundred five,
When Papists, zealous for the Masse,
in England did contrive;
The king, Queen, Peer, and noble Peers,
the Prelate, Judge, and Knight,
And Burgesses, with powder fire
all at a clap to smite.
At Dunkerk, and at Lambeth both,
they did of things agree,
With solemn Sacramental Oath,
of deepest secrecy.
When Spanish Navy had no force,
nor Plots of foreign foes,
They meant to take a surer course,
the scap’t bird to enclose.
That is, with Art to undermine
the house of Parliament,
(No fitter place to be the signe,
of such a damn’d intent.)
There had the cruel Laws been made,
against their Romish Priests,
There will they dig with cruel spade,
and meet their mining lists.
But who would taxe (beside themselves,)
of Rigour such a Law.
As gave the use of life to Elves
that had so curst a jaw ?
A jaw so curstly wide, as would
Have swallowed at a bit,
great England’s head and body, should
The Lord have suffred it.
after some dgging they discry
A Cellar to be near,
which they resolve to hire or buy,
Should it be ne’re so dear.
they laid their powder in this Vault,
Full six and thirty Barrels,
with one unheard of deep assault,
To end their former quarrels,
(note by the way the Romish Whore,
Hath Barrels in her Cellar.
In March she brewed, or before,
but I’le be bold to tell her;
Thy Christmas doth not yet approach
why laist thou in so fast?
Before thy time, thou mean’st to broach,
thy brewing will be waste.)
Billets and Faggots hid this stuff
great stones and iron crowes.
(To cause a more massacring puffe)
were piled under those,
Now was November fifth at hand,
when ore this hellish pit.
Both head and body of the Land
were all at once to sit.
When furious Fauxe with matches three,
(for spickets) was provided,
The rest of this fraternity,
were very closely sided.
Moneys they had good store, and horse,
(some more than was their own.)
And thought to gather mighty force,
by roving up and down.
From Warwick-shire to Woster-shire,
from thence to Stafford-shire,
Thinking ere this, all Westminstir
was over-turn’d with fire.
They made the world believe, they went
about a hunting match,
But for their spoyle and booty, meant
our Souls and lives to catch.
When first th’ad got, by force of Arms,
the Lady Elizabeths Grace,
Not doubting by their Popish charms;
her Conference to deface:
And having blown away the King,
and royal Issue male,
They thought by Crowning her, to bring
her will in servile thrall.
Then had they in her name forth sent
good store of Proclamations,
Such as might fit with the intent
of their Imaginations.
Nor would they father by and by
the Plot, (thought ‘twere their own,)
But meant the infamy should lye
where it was quite unknown.
If you would know what kind of man,
they would have thus traduced,
Forsooth, it was the Puritan,
(so in their stile abused.)
indeed they meant the Protestants,
Should all be under guilt,
As if the blood of Popish Saints,
at once they would have spilt.
A Gull without all wit or sense
(what will not malice say?)
"the Wolfe can soon find a pretence,
why the poor Lamb to slay.
No, no: it was the Jesuit,
and Priests of Popish faction,
That brought them to this hideous pit,
though they deny the action.
Our doctrine loyal is, and course,
like to our doctrine, loyal;
They teach, (and put no less in force)
to crush the Scepter royal,
Who to their Anti-christian Sect
will not their favour crown,
Let him be King, born or elect,
they’l seek to pull him down.
And if their strength be not enough,
to bring about the matter,
Then Dagger, Dag, Fig, Powder Stuffe,
shall stab, shoot, poison, scatter.
Thus were their heads and hands at work,
our State to overthrow,
Supposing all the while to lurke,
under some saifer show.
But all this while they looked not
to God that view’d them well,
And layd all-ope their subtle Plot,
forg’d by the Devil of hell.
These privy works of wily men,
so long and close concealed,
By their own letter, hand, and pen,
were suddenly revealed.
The hole was searcht of crafty Cubs,
and then appeared plain,
The Wood, Stones, Iron, Gunpowder tubs,
and all the powder train.
At this Hell mouth, with triple match,
(dark lantern in his hand.)
stood Fauxe in dead of night, to watch,
And comers to withstand.
his watching had but ill event,
When from our watchful King,
those noble Patriots were sent,
To find the secret thing.
he was in Boots and best array,
(‘twas fit it should be so,
being to travail such a way,
As he least thought to goe.)
he was not vext so much about
His taking, or his shame,
as for his happe to be without,
When the Kings searchers came;
else, he resolv’d, all void of grace,
(that might have made him quake.)
Them, and himself, with house and place,
a ruinous heap to make.
About this time the hunting rout,
that were in Country mounted,
From Shire to Shire were hunted out,
and sturdily affronted.
Nor needed greater power rise
their mutinies to quaile
The Sheriffes power did suffice
to fetch them to the Jayle.
They look’t that all where ere they post
should like and help the fact,
Their reckoning was without the host
for all abhorr’d their Act.
Yea, mark the house that they were in
(as in a harbour sure,)
might well convince them of their sin,
And practising impure.
for as their powder was too dry,
(wherein they put their trust,)
They saw it was but vanity,
to hope in fickle dust;
Which (touched with a sparke of fire,)
hurt them by sudden flash,
That were inflam’d with hot desire,
the highest Court to quash.
So their own powder did them tell,
to their own very face,
Their powder workings were from Hell,
most barbarous and base.
One of them dreamed over night,
he saw strange looks and antick;
Their morrow faces in the light,
prov’d this no fancy frantick;
He dream’d, at the same time and place,
he saw strange tottering steeple,
Which did presage the tottring case,
pf this seduced people.
"They say our Churches are their own,
our Bells and Steeples tall,
But striving for possession,
they caught a fearful fall.
They builded Castles in the Sky,
(no marvail if they waver,
"The bird may build her nest on high,
"(not high enough to save her.)
And here it may not be forgot,
Catesby himself was one,
(The first contriver of this Plot,)
their powder flasht upon.
In stead of whirling into Sky
our Parliament, their own
Roof (where they parl’d) before their Eye
into the Sky was blown.
And a great powder bag, (entire,)
was blown up therewithal:
Which never taking any fire,
came down full in the fall.
To shew that God doth over sway
both fire and powder strong,
And doth their strength hold or allay,
as he sees right or wrong
Suppose the fire had toucht the Train
under the Parliament,
God could have made them both refrain
their natural extent.
Themselves were forc’t upon this fight,
heavens anger to confess,
And on bent knees (all in a fright)
their sorrows to express:
As they, that found the Shepherd’s rod,
their devellish fears to quell.
"All trembling at the hand of God
from their presumption fell.
Thus all their hopes were overthrown,
and utterly confounded,
And Popish hunters, in their own
most cruel pit were pounded.
Catesby and Piercy, brethren sworn,
were caught and pierc’t together,
Back joyn’d to back, (and all forlorne,)
by one shot, reaching thither.
Two Wrights that with their open might,
against their King rebelled,
Of roisting Rebels had the right,
by Sword of Justice quelled.
Garnett’s to Gallows guarded sure,
[Nor th’ straw miraculous,
Where Limner drew his face demure.
sav’d him from dying thus.]
Digby did for their digging pay,
on Gibbit mounted up,
Two Winters went the selfsame way,
Keys dranke of this Cup.
Tresham had tred no other track,
if he had liv’d so long,
Grant had his grant, the Rebel-pack,
to end his life among.
Rookwood, that would not better look,
to hooks of bait alluring,
Was fain like heavy doom to brook,
(with shame for ever during.)
Fauxe like a Fox was hanged high,
and Bates his strength abated
"Those that in Treason joyne, must dye
"the death of Traitors hated.
"They’r dead, we live, even in their sight:
" they’r catcht, we scap’t away;
"What should have been their day, our night,
"is now their night, our day.
"Even as those three renowned ones,
"in furnace seven times fired,
Were safe preserved, flesh and bones,
skin, hair, and cloathes unseared:
"The smoak devouring at a lick
"all them (and all entire)
"Which in their malice were so quick
"to cast them in the fire,
"And as when Daniel was thrown,
into the Lyons den,
They spared him; but flesh and bone
all tore those wicked men.
So when three Kingdomes with a blast,
"from Babels flaming pit;
Were like to come to woful waste,
"before they dream’d of it:
"The Son of God (that in the mids
of burning bush is dwelling)
"Sav’d us, and kept his tender kids
"from claws of Lions yelling.
"Nay, (as if this unto his Grace,
"had seem’d too small a thing)
"He brought our foes into the place,
where they vow’d us to bring.
Alas! if they had brought to pass
the things they took in hand,
For Christ, the Pope, for Gospel Mass
had reigned in our Land.
And every where there had been rife,
Racks, halters, fire and stake,
Or privy dungeon deaths, by knife,
hunger, and poyson’d cake.
But God was pleas’d from bitter brunts,
of Antichristian thrall,
To save us, and to just accounts
those bloody men to call.
Never since world began was thought
Plot more abominable.
Never Deliverance was wrought,
more strange and admirable
Our king was wise by a word to see
their secret deep intent,
Wiser to seal that firm decree
in Court of Parliament,
That year by year, most solemn thanks
might to our God redound,
Who did the Popish power and pranks
so mightily confound.
Here to insert, is not amiss,
another later doom,
Which did befal long after this
some Romists in a room
Even for this end, that all the Land
more freshly might remember,
How God abhorr’d that Plot in hand,
on fifth day of November.
"For he is privy to the rotten
frame of our thankless minds,
And sees how all would be forgotten
without some fresher signs;
May’t please you but to reckon by
Gregorian Kalendar,
Then will you say as much as I
am here to Register.
-Rev. John Wilson. Born ca 1589 in England. John died on 7 Aug 1667 in Boston, MA.23 Buried in Kings Chapel Burying Ground, Boston. Education: King's College, Cambridge 1610, MA 1613. According to Savage,13 John attended "Eton school, went to the University of Cambridge in 1602 .After serving as chaplain in several houses, he was inducted at Sudbury in the south border of County Suffolk; there contined ten or twelve years but disgusted with the worhsip of forms and vestments growing in the church he encouraged the colonization of the Massachusetts Bay, and came 1630, with the Gov. and Company bringiing the charter in the Arbella. John "went back to Eng. and came again 1632, he brought [his wife] and son John, but the oldest son perhaps never was on this side of the ocean. ca 1616 John married Elizabeth Mansfield.

LOCUSTAE VEL PIETAS IESUITICA- 1627, Phineas Fletcher

 

 

PHINEAS FLETCHER - 1627

LOCUSTAE VEL PIETAS IESUITICA

panditur inferni limen, patet intima Ditis

ianua, concilium magnum, Stygiosque Quirites

accitos, rex ipse nigra in penetralia cogit.

olli conveniunt, volitant umbrosa per auras

numina, Tartareoque tumet domus alta senatu. 5

confidunt, numeroque omnes subsellia iusto

(concilium horrendum) insternunt, causamque fluendi

intenti expectant. solio tum Lucifer alto

insurgens, dictis umbras accendit amaris,

manesque increpitans cunctantes: "cernitis," inquit, 10

"(coelo infensa cohors, exosa, expulsaque caelo)

cernitis, ut superas mulcet Pax aurea gentes?

bella silent, silet iniectis oppressa catenis

inque Erebum frustra e terris redit exul Erinnys.

divino interea resonant sacraria verbo, 15

indomitus possessa tenet suggesta minister,

et victus victorque novos vocat impiger hostes.

et nunc ille minis stimulans, nunc laeta reponens,

scite animos flectit monitis, et corda remulcet.

"quin etiam sancti vulgata scientia scripti 20

invexit superos terris, et luce corusca

dissolvit tenebras, noctemque excussit inertem.

crescit in immensum Pietas, finesque recusat

relligionis amor; fugit Ignorantia, lucis

impatiens, fugit Impietas, artusque pudendos 25

nuda Superstitio, et nunquam non devius Error.

vim patitur, gaudetque trahi coeleste rapique

imperium. quin et gentes emensa supremas,

Virginiam (nostras, umbrae, tot secula sedes)

aggreditur, mox Cocytum Stygiasque paludes 30

tranabit, vix hunc nobis Acheronta relinquet.

"nos contra immemori per tuta silentia somno

sternimur interea, et media iam luce supini

stertentes, festam trahimus, pia turba, quietem.

quod si animos sine honore acti sine fine laboris 35

poenitet, et proni imperii regnique labantis

nil miseret, positis flagris, odiisque remissis

oramus veniam, et dextras praebemus inermes.

fors ille audacis facti, et iustae immemor irae,

placatus, facilesque manus et foedera iunget. 40

fors solito lapsos (peccati oblitus) honori

restituet, coelum nobis soliumque relinquet.

at me nulla dies animi, coeptique prioris

dissimilem arguerit: quin nunc rescindere coelum,

et coniurato victricem milite pacem 45

rumpere, ferventique iuvat miscere tumultu.

"quo tanti cecidere animi? quo pristina virtus

cessit, in aeternam qua mecum irrumpere lucem

tentastis, trepidumque armis perfringere coelum?

nunc vero indecores felicia ponitis arma, 50

et toties victo imbelles conceditis hosti.

per vos, per domitas coelesti fulmine vires,

indomitumque odium, proiecta resumite tela.

dum fas, dum breve tempus adest, accendite pugnas,

restaurite acies, fractumque reponite Martem. 55

ni facitis, mox soli, et (quod magis urit) inulti

aeternum (heu) vacuo flammis cruciabimur antro.

ille quidem nulla, heu, nulla violabilis arte,

securum sine fine tenet, sine milite regnum;

a nullo petitur, nullo violatur ab hoste. 60

competitur tamen, inque suis violabile membris

corpus habet: nunc o totis consurgite telis,

qua patet ad vulnus nudum sine tegmine corpus,

imprimite ultrices, penitusque recondite flammas.

accelerat funesta dies, iam limine tempus 65

insistit, cum nexa ipso cum vertice membra

naturam induerint coelestem, ubi gloria votum

atque animum splendor superent, ubi gaudia damno

crescant, deliciaeque modum, finemque recusent.

at nos supplicio aeterno, Stygiisque catenis 70

compressi, flammis et vivo sulphure tecti

perpetuas duro solvemus carcere poenas.

hic anima, extremos iam tum perpesse dolores,

maiores semper metuit, queriturque remotam,

quam toto admisit praesentem pectore mortem; 75

oraque caeruleas perreptans flamma medullas

torquet anhela siti, fibrasque atque ilia lambit.

mors vivit, moriturque inter mala mille superstes

vita, vicesque ipsa cum morte, et nomina mutat

cum vero nullum moriendi conscia finem 80

mens reputat, cum mille annis mille addidit annos,

praeteritumque nihil venturo detrahit aevum,

mox etiam stellas, etiam superaddit arenas,

iamque etiam stellas, etiam numeravit arenas;

poena tamen damno crescit, per flagra, per ignes, 85

per quicquid miserum est, praeceps ruit, anxia lentam

provocat infelix mortem; si forte relabi

possit, et in nihilum rursus dipersa resolvi.

"aequemus meritis poenas, atque ultima passis

plura tamen magnis exactor debeat ausis; 90

Tartareis mala speluncis, vindictaque coelo

deficiat. nunquam, nunquam crudelis inultos

immeritosve Erebus capiet: meruisse nefandum

supplicium medios inter solabitur ignes,

et, licet immensos, factis superasse dolores. 95

nunc agite, o proceres, omnesque effundite technas,

consulite, imperioque alacres succurrite lapso."

dixerat, insequitur fremitus, trepidantiaque inter

agmina submissae franguntur murmure voces.

qualis ubi oceano mox praecipitandus Ibero 100

immineat Phoebus, flavique ad litora Chami

conveniunt, glomerantque per auras agmina muscae,

fit sonitus; longo crescentes ordine turbae

buccinulis voces acuunt, sociosque vocantes

undas nube premunt; strepitu vicinia rauco 105

completur, resonantque accensis litora bombis.

postquam animi posuere, sonique relanguit aestus,

excipit Aequivocus, quo non astutior alter

Tartareos inter technas effingere patres.

illi castra olim numero farcibat inerti, 110

crescens in ventrem monachus, simul agmine iuncti

tonsi ore, et tonsi lunato vertice fratres.

at nunc felici auspicio Iesuitica princeps

agmina ducebat, veteranoque omnia late

depopulans, magnas passim infert milite clades. 115

illum etiam pugnantem, illum admirata loquentem

circuit et fremitu excepit plebs vana secundo.

surgit, et haud laeto Aequivocus sic incipit ore:

"o pater, o princeps umbrarum, Erebique potestas,

ut rebare, omnes nequicquam insumpsimus artes: 120

nil tanti valuere doli. nihil omnibus actum

magnorum impensis operum, verum omnia retro

deterius ruere, inque bonum sublapsa referri.

"non secus adverso pictum tenet amne phaselum

anchora, si funem aut mordaces fibula nexus 125

solverit, atque illum prona trahit alveus unda.

nec quenquam accusa, tentatum est quicquid aperta

ut fieri, aut pressa potuit quod tectius arte.

ille pater rerum, cui frustra obnitimur omnes

(sed frustra iuvat obniti) vim magnus inanem 130

discutit, et coelo fraudes ostendit aprico.

quin soliti lento reges torpescere luxu,

Palladiis nunc tecti armis, Musisque potentes,

in nos per mediam meditantur praelia pacem.

nec tamen aeternos obliti absiste timere 135

unquam animos -- fessique ingentes ponimus iras?

nec fas, non sic deficimus, nec talia tecum

gessimus, in coelos olim tua signa sequuti.

est hic, est vitae, et magni contemptor Olympi,

quique oblatam animus lucis nunc respuat aulam, 140

et domiti tantum placeat cui regia coeli.

ne dubita, nunquam fractis haec pectora, nunquam

deficient animis: prius ille ingentia coeli

atria, desertosque aeternae lucis alumnos

destituens, Erebum admigret noctemque profundam, 145

et Stygiis mutet radianta lumina flammis.

quod si acies, fractasque iterum supplere catervas

est animus, sciteque malas dispergere fraudes,

non ego consilii, armorum non futilis author.

nec veteres frustra, genitor, revocabimus artes, 150

sed nova, sed nulli prorsus speranda priorum

aggredienda mihi conamina. non ego lentos

nequicquam adstimulem fratres, alvumque sequentes

distentam monachos: dum nox, dum plurima terris

incumbens caligo animos sopivit inertes, 155

non ingratus erat fratrum labor, omnia nobis

artibus ignavis dederat secura, trahensque

invisam coelo lucem, tenebrisve nitentem

involvens, iam nube diem, iam nocte premebat.

"at nebulas postquam Phaebus dimovit inanes, 160

Tartareae immisso patuerunt lumine sordes,

nec patitur lucem miles desuetus apertam.

nunc alio imbelles tempus supplere cohortes

milite, et emeritos castris emittere fratres.

nunc Iessuitarum sanctum prudentia numen 165

arma, manusque placent: iuvat ipsum invadere coelum,

sideraque haerentemque polo detrudere solem.

iam mihi sacratos felici milite reges

protrahere, atque ipsum coeli calcare tyrannum

sub pedibus videor. nihil isto milite durum, 170

nil sanctum, clausumque manet, quin oppida late

praesidiis, urbesque tenent. iam limina regum,

iamque adyta irrumpunt, vel mollibus intima blandi

corda dolis subeunt, vel ferro et caede refringunt.

hi vetulae fucum Romae, pigmentaque rugis 175

aptantes, seros effoetae nuper amores

conciliant, lapsumque decus formamque reponunt.

ni facerent (noctem coelique inamabile lumen

testor) mox aliae sedes, nova regna per orbem

exulibus quaerenda, soloque atque aethere pulsis: 180

Cocytus tantum nobis Erebusque pateret.

quin tu (magne pater) Stygias reclude cavernas,

ac barathrum in terras Orcumque immitte profundum;

insueti totum superi mirentur Avernum.

"hic solita infidis inspiret praelia Turcis; 185

Sarmatas hic, gelidosque incendat Marte Polonos,

Germanosque duces, hic reges inflet Iberos;

regnorumque sitim, et nullo saturabile pectus

imperio stimulet, diroque intorqueat aestu.

ite foras, Stygiae (princeps iubet) ite catervae, 190

vipereas inferte manus, serite arma per agros,

et scelerum et foeti dispergite semina belli.

ast ego Tarpeium Tiberina ad flumina patrem,

conciliumque petam solus, mea regna, Latinum,

murice vestitum, rubeoque insigne galero. 195

mox scelere ingenti atque ingenti caede peracta

regrediar, Stygiasque domus et inania late

undique collectis supplebo regna colonis.

at tu, magne pater, fluitantes contrahe manes,

praecipitesque vias latosque extende meatus, 200

ut patulo densum volitantes Orcus hiatu

corripiat rabidus mentes, intusque recondat."

dixit, et illaeti perfracto limine Averni

exiliit primus, lucemque invasit apertam.

insequitur deforme Chaos, ruit omne barathrum, 205

foeda, horrenda cohors. trepidant pallentia coeli

lumina, et incerto tellus tremit horrida motu.

ipse pater pronos laxatis Phaebus habenis

praecipitat currus, et caelo territus exit.

succedit nox umbrarum, coelumque relictum 210

invadit, multaque premit caligine terras.

non secus Aeoliis emissi finibus Austri

omnia corripiunt, terrasque undasque tumultu

miscent; arboreos foetus, segetemque resectam

turbine convellunt rapido, verruntque per auras. 215

ast oculis longe moestus sua vota colonus

insequitur, totoque trahit suspiria corde.

senserat adventum, subitoque inferbuit aestu

terra, odiisque tumet, foeto iam turgida bello,

circum umbrae volitant, fraudesque et crimina spargunt. 220

hic gelidos semper nivibus glacieque Polonos

exacuit, taciteque subit Iesuitica totus

pectora, iamque dolos caedesque inspirat; at illa

arripiunt avide flammas, notaeque per ossa

discurrunt furiae, inque sinus inque ilia serpunt. 225

iamque in cognatos meditantur bella Suevos,

Sarmaticasque ardent Romano adnectere gentes

pontifici, et Graecas templis expellere leges.

fictitam regis sobolem, consutaque belli

crimina supponunt, vafri, mentitaque veris 230

texunt, Sarmaticosque implent rumoribus agros.

caedibus accrescit bellum, regnique medullis

haeret inexpletum; semper nova praelia victus

integrat, erubuere nives iam sanguine tinctae

purpureo, et tepida solvuntur frigora caede. 235

ast alii Graias olim cognomine terras

Graias, Pieriis gratissima nomina Musis,

nunc domitos tutus consedit Turca per agros.

invisunt alacres bello loca foeta perenni,

et tenero caedem inspirant et praelia regi. 240

nunc oculo, nunc voce ferox, nunc fronte minatur,

non epulis luxuve puer, non ille paterna

desidia gaudet, sed bella, sed aspera cordi

ira sedent, saevamque superbia Turcica mentem

inflat, et ingentes volvit sub pectore motus. 245

aut is linigeras aptabit classibus alas,

aut galeas finget clypeosque, et (fulmina belli)

tormenta, impositis strident incudibus aera.

et nunc ille ferox Persas Asiamque rebellem

subiciens, totum spirat de pectore Martem, 250

exultansque animis multa se suscitat ira.

heu quae Christicolis caedes, quam debita pestis

imminet? heu quantus tanto timor instat ab hoste,

ni tu, Christe, malum avertas, tu fulmina, Christe,

dispergas, et vana manu conamina ludas? 255

interea toto dum bella seruntur in orbe,

Italiam Aequivocus magnam et Tiberina fluenta

adveniens intrat feralis moenia Romae.

nec mora, nota subit mitrati tecta tyranni,

quaque incedit ovans, adytisque vagatur opacis, 260

insperata Erebo vel aperto crimina sole

gaudet ubique tuens, messemque expectat opimam.

dicite, Pierides, quis nunc tenet Itala primus

arva? quibus tandem gradibus, quo principe reges

exuit, et pingues aptans sibi Roma cucullos 265

subiicitur raso modo facta sororcula fratri?

siccine decrepiti puerascunt tempore mores,

pontifice Augustum ut mutent, monachoque monarchum?

postquam res Latii totum porrecta per orbem

creverat, et terras urbi subiecerat uni, 270

substitit, et iusto librata in pondere sedit,

at mox prona ruens, in se conversa, relabi

coepit, et effoetam vix iam, vix sustinet urbem.

haud secus alternis crescentes fluctibus undae

incedunt, facilesque Actae superantia clivos 275

aequora prorepunt tacite, mox litora complent,

subiectasque procul despectant vertice terras:

iamque viarum incerta haerent, mox prona recedunt,

defervensque undis paulatim in se ipse residit

Nereus, et nulli noto caput abdidit alveo.< 280

interea patrum manibus coelestia passim

semina sparguntur, surgit cum foenore campis

laeta seges, plenisque albescunt messibus arva.

at simul hirsutis horrebat carduus agris,

et tribuli loliique nemus, simul aspera lappae 285

sylva, et lethaeos operata papavera somnos.

quippe hominum coelique hostis, dum membra colonis

fessa quies laxat, tritico vilemque faselum

miscuit infestus, viciasque aspersit inanes.

mirantur lolium agricolae, mirantur avenas, 290

mortiferasque horrent mediis in messibus herbas.

quin etiam imperio Christi Pro-christus eodem

parvus adhuc, claususque utero succrevit opaco;

iamque vias trudens tentaverat, integra Romae

auspicia impediunt, ausisque ingentibus obstant. 295

at Latiis postquam imperium segnesceret arvis,

inque Bisantinas sensim concederet urbes,

exilit, et iusto prodit iam firmior aevo.

mox etiam laxis paulatim assuetus habenis,

Mauricio scelere extincto, duce et auspice Phoca, 300

excutit aurigam, inque rotas succedit inanes.

et nunc rasorum longus producitur ordo

pontificum, magicaque rudem, Stygiaque popellum

arte ligans, Itala solus dominatur in aula.

iamque furens animis, et torquens fulmina, sceptrum 305

Paulus habet, clavesque manu violentus inanes

proiiciens Petri, gladio succinctus acuto

intonat, et longe distantes territat urbes.

stulte, quid aeterni crepitantia fulmina patris,

coelestesque minas, et non imitable numen 310

ignibus, ah, fatuis simulas? Venetosque sagaces,

et non fictitio terrendos igne Britannos

exagitas? ast hi contra, cum debita poscunt

tempora (non illi voces, verbosaque chartae

fulmina) tela alacres, verasque in moenia Romae 315

incutient flammas, carnesque et viscera mandent.

arma foris regum meretrix vetula, arma dolosque

exercet, Circaea domi sed carmina et artes

infandas magicis dirum miscendo susurris.

at cum feralis languet saturata libido, 320

in facies centum, centum in miracula rerum

corpora Lethaeo transformat adultera cantu.

aut asini fiunt, vulpesve, hirtive leones,

atque lupi, atque sues, atque exosae omnibus hydrae.

illi capta quidem dextro, sed acuta sinistro 325

lumine, deformis caecae Ignorantia portae

excubat, et nebulis aditus et limen opacat.

filius huic Error comes assidet; ille vagantes

excipit hospitio, et longis circum undique ducit

porticibus, veterumque umbras simulacraque rerum 330

mirantes variis fallit per inania ludis.

intrantem prensat mores venerata vetustos

stulta Superstitio, properanteque murmura voce

praecipitans, voti superos precibusque fatigat.

interius Scelus imperitat, foecundaque regnant 335

flagitia, et mentes trudunt, rapiuntque nefandas.

inficit hic coelos audax, Christumque venerans

porrigit immistis regi sacra tanta cicutis.

lethalem ille deum, atque imbutam morte salutem

ore capit, multoque lavat peccata veneno. 340

hic clavos, virgasque, crucemque, tua (optime Iesu)

supplicia, hastamque innocuo sub corde refixam,

hic truncum, hic saxum (saxo contemptior ipso)

propitium implorat supplex, Stygiisque ululantes

speluncis flexo veneratur poplite manes. 345

hic Cereri et fluido procumbit stultus Iaccho,

quosque colit vorat ipse deos, et numina plenus

(ah scelus!) abscondit venis, alvoque reponit.

hic caligantes, coelum execratus apertum,

te magicos, Iesu, te immitens sagus in ignes, 350

umbras imperiis audax, Stygiumque nefando

ore Iovem, totumque vocat de sedibus Orcum.

Romulidum ille patrum, primaeque haud immemor urbis,

et fovet ipse lupas, atque ipse fovetur ab illis.

hic sobolem impurus prohibens castosque hymenaeos, 355

ah, pathicos ardet pueros, et mascula turpis

scorta alit; (heu facinus terris coeloque pudendum

ausus!) purpureo quin mox pater ille galero

emeritos donat, proceresque, oviumque magistros

esse iubet, mox dura pater Musisque tremenda 360

laudat, et incestis tutatur crimina Musis.

nec requies, fervent nova crimina, fervet honorum

nummorumque infanda sitis; tument improba fastu

conculcans stratos immensa superbia reges.

venerat huc, laetusque animi vetera agmina lustrans 365

Aequivocus falsi subiit penetralia Petri.

quem super Anglorum rebus, Venetoque tumultu

ardentem curae, et semper nova damna coquebant.

huic Stygias sub corde faces, omnesque nefando

pectore succendit furias, ille improbus ira 370

concilium vocat. agglomerant imberbia fratrum

agmina, concurrunt veteranis ordine longo

insignes ducibus Iesuitae, animisque parati

sive dolo libeat seu Marti fidere aperto

duscumbunt, sedet in mediis diademate Paulus 375

tempora praefulgens triplici, vultuque dolorem.

praefatus, sic tandem iras atque ora resolvit:

"nil pudet incepto victos desistere? fessos

deficere, extremoque fere languere sub actu,

nec posse instantem Romae differre ruinam? 380

fata vetant: mene incertis concedere fatis?

inclusus latebris monachus tot vertere praedas,

tot potuit patri Romano avellere gentes?

ast ego, quem strato venerantur corpore, sacris

blanda etiam pedibus libantes oscula reges, 385

quem superi, quem terra tremit manesque profundi,

qui solio Christi assideo, Christo aemulus ipsi,

tot mala quotidie, et semper crescentia inultus

damna fero: et quisquam Romanum numen adoret?

aut vigiles supplex munus suspendat ad aras? 390

iam Veneti iuga detrectant, et iussa superbi

destituunt, Batavus nulla revocabilis arte

effugit, longeque escas laqueosque recusat.

Gallia tot compressa malis, tot cladibus acta

deficit, et iam dimidia plus parte recessit. 395

ille Navarrena infelix ex arbore ramus

(exosum genus, et divis hostile Latinis)

quanquam oculos fingens placidos, vultusque serenat,

aggerat ingentem memori sub corde dolorem.

"et velut ille fame et vinclis infractus ahenis, 400

oblitusque leo irarum, caudamque remulcens

porrectas manibus captabit leniter escas,

si semel insueto saturaverit ora cruore,

mox soliti redeunt animi, fremit horridus ira,

vincula mox et claustra vorat, rapit ore cruento 405

custodem, et primas domitor lacer imbuit iras.

quid referam tota divisos mente Britannos,

quos neque blanditiae molles, non aspera terrent

iurgia, non ipsos sternentia fulmina reges?

heu sobolem invisam, et fatis maiora Latinis 410

fata Britannorum! centum variata figuris

proditio flammis, ferroque, atroque veneno

nil agit: insensum detorquet vulnera numen.

nil Hispana iuvat pubes, nil maxima classis:

quam tellus stupuit, stupuit Neptunus euntem, 415

miratus liquidum sylvescere pinibus aequor!

quin toto disiecta mari fugit aequore prono,

iamque relaxatos immittens navita funes,

increpitat ventos properans, Eurosque morantes.

tot precibus properat aegre, frustraque redempta. 420

quid laeti tulit illa dies, qua sidus Elisae

occidit, et longo solvit e Roma dolore!

occidit illa quidem, qua nullam Roma cruentam

nostra magis vidit, faustamve Britannia stellam.

sed simul exoritur, quem nos magis omnibus unum 425

horremus, gelida consurgens Phoebus ab Arcto,

quem Pallas, quem Musae omnes comitantur euntem;

Pax simul incedit laeto Saturnia vultu,

lora manu laxans, trahitur captiva catenis

Barbaries, positoque gemens Bellona flagello. 430

non me nequicquam iunctum uno foedere triplex

imperium terret, terret fatale Iacobi,

nec frustra impositam luctantis ab omine nomen.

quin similis patri soboles inimica Latino

nomina pontifici assumens, radiante superbos 435

Henricos puer et Fredericos exprimit ore.

nunc et equos domitare libet, spumantiaque ora

colligere in nodum, sinuosaque flectere colla,

et teneris hastam iam nunc iactare lacertis.

quin etiam ille minor, sed non minus ille timendus 440

Carolus, haud laeto turbat nos omine, cuius

mortiferam accepit primo sub nomine plagam

Roma, et lethali languens in vulnere, lenta

peste cadit, certamque videt moribunda ruinam.

illa etiam inferior sexu, non pectore, terret, 445

quae reducem nobis foecundam ostentat Elisam,

invisum, maius fatis ac cladibus auctum

nomen, et invictam spondens post praelia pacem.

nec me vanus agit terror, quippe illius ore

praevideo multas nobis, nisi fallor, Elisas. 450

"quae mihi spes ultra? vel me praesaga mali mens

abstulit, et veris maiora pavescere iussit,

vel calamo pater et Musis, sed filius armis

sternet, et extremis condet mea moenia flammis.

"hei mihi! sidereae turres, tuque aemula coeli 455

urbs, antiqua deum sedes, reginaque terrae,

quam lana Assyrio pingit fucata veneno,

quam vestes auro stellasque imitante pyropo

illusae decorant, ostro coccoque pudentes,

cui tantum de te licuit? quae dextera sacras 460

dilacerare arces potuit? quo numine turres

deiicere, ingentique vias complere ruina?"

conticuit: tristisque diu stupor omnibus ora

defixit, mistoque sinus premit ira dolore.

ut rediere animi, strepitus, iunctaeque querelis 465

increbuere minae: dolor iras, ira dolorem

aggerat, alternisque incendunt pectora flammis.

tota minis mistoque fremunt subsellia luctu.

at sonitus inter medios, et maximus aevo

et sceptris Iesuita potens, cui caetera parent 470

agmina, consurgens ultro sese obtulit: illo

conspecto siluere omnes, atque ora tenebant

affixi. verba Aequivocus versuta loquenti

suggerit, et cordi custos orique residit.

"o pater, o hominum princeps, o maxime divum 475

conditor, haud minor ipse Deo, iam parva caduco

spes superest regno, neque te sententia fallit:

moenia praecipitem spondent sublapsa ruinam.

nulla igitur lacrymis tempus, quin ocyus omnes

sarcimus veteres, aliasque reponimus arces. 480

quid prohibet quin arte diu tua Roma supersit,

qua vel nunc superest? fatum sibi quisque supremum est,

et sortis faber ipse suae. nunc, optime, nostram

qua fieri possit paucis, pater, accipe mentem.

"ut qui armis hostile parat rescindere vallum, 485

non ubi confertis armantur moenia turmis,

aut altis cinguntur aquis, sed qua aggere raro,

atque humiles tenui muros cinxere corona,

irruit, incautamque malis premit artibus urbem,

non secus infirmi nutantia pectora sexus 490

blanditiis tentanda, doloque adeunda procaci.

in tenui labor, at lucrum non tenue sequetur.

vincitur, et vincit citius; cito foemina discit

errores, sciteque docet: gremio illa virili

infusa, et niveis cunctantem amplexa lacertis, 495

blanda sinus leviter molles et pectora vellit,

mox domitae imperitat menti, bibit ille venenum,

et rapit errores animo, penitusque recondit.

qui toties septus, toties invictus ab hoste

consitit, armatum qui dente atque ungue leonem 500

Manoides dextra impavidus lacerabat inermi,

pellicis in gremio crinem roburque relinquens,

foeminea infelix (nullis superandus ab armis)

arte, sine ense iacet, sine vi, sine vulnere victus.

his, pater, haud levibus visum est praeludere telis. 505

et quoniam illecebris flecti frangive recusat

vi Batavus, technis subeundus, et arte domandus.

"apta nec ansa deest: manet illic forte, scholisque

imperitat vafri ingenii fideique labantis

Arminius, quem magna stupet sequiturque caterva, 510

amphibium genus, et studiis hostile quietis.

hi suetis stimulandi odiis, scitisque fovendi

laudibus ac donis onerandi, rebus Iberis

ut faveant, sceptrum Hispano obsequiumque reponant.

"Proximus in Gallos labor et, quos agmine pleno 515

aversos, iterum ad Romam matremque reducam.

Parisios vobis facile succidere flores,

liliaque Hispano dabimus calcandi leoni;

et trunca, ad solitum decusso vertice morem,

stemmata radicemque arvis transferre Granatis. 520

ille Navarrena infelix ex arbore planta

ense recidenda est, flammisque urenda supremis.

dumque tener flectique potest, nescitque reniti

surculus, in truncum mox immittatur Iberum.

oblitus primi Hispanum propagine succum 525

imbibat, Hispanis excrescant germina ramis.

quin modo qui secta viduus manet arbore ramus,

Hispano discat, si fas, inolescere libro,

et duplex pietas duplicato crescat amore.

"hic tragicae prologus scenae: maiora paramus, 530

non facinus vulgare sero, quod nulla tacebit,

credet nulla dies, magnum populisque tremendum

omnibus incepto. nequicquam verba minasque

conterimus, nequicquam artes proiecimus omnes:

tempora nos urgent mortis suprema, supremum 535

tendandum scelus est. tollatur quicquid iniqui

obstiterit. nec te larvati nomen honesti

terreat aut sceleris; quin tu moderator honesti,

regula tu iusti. per fas, pater optime, nobis

perque nefas tentanda via est, qua frangere duros 540

possimus, Latiumque ipsis inferre Britannis.

illi hostes, illi telisque dolisque petendi,

vindicatam reliqui tantam videantque, tremantque.

nec mihi mens solum gelidis auferre cicutis

aut armis regem, cultrove invadere: magnum, 545

sed prius auditum est facinus. certissimus ultor

et sceptris odiisque puer succedet avitis.

sed regem pariter, pariterque inflexile semen,

sed proceres, patresque equitesque et quicquid ubique

prudentis vulgi est, ictu truncabimus uno. 550

quin domitos sine telo omnes, sine vulnere victos

flagitio, pater, una uno dabit hora Britannos.

qua facere id possim, paucis adverte, docebo.

"stat bene nota domus, saxo constructo vetusto,

marmore caelato, et Pariis formosa columnis, 555

qua celebris Thamo generatus et Iside nympha

Thamesis inflexo Ludduni moenia fluctu

alluit, ingentemque excurrere moenibus urbem,

crescentesque videt semper splendescere turres.

quaque Austros patulis immittit aperta fenestris, 560

fronte superba alte submissas despicit undas.

"huc fluere, et primis omnes concurrere regnis

et proceres terrae et patres plebemque Britannae.

ipse etiam primum tota cum prole senatum

regina simul ingreditur comitante Iacobus.

"hic lapsos revocant mores, Romaeque cruentas 565

imponunt leges, et poenas sanguine poscunt.

at latebrae subter caecae magnisque cavernae

excurrunt spatiis, multo loca foeta Lyaeo.

his tacite nitrum et viventia sulphura tectis 570

subiiciam, Stygioque implebo pulvere sedes.

"ut numero primum crescunt subsellia iusto,

et semel intumuit pleno domus alta senatu,

tecta ruam: iuvat horrendos procul aure fragores

excipere, et mistas latoribus aere leges 575

correptas spectare. iuvat semusta virorum

membra, omnesque supra volitantes aethere reges

cernere: rupta gemet tellus, et territa coeli

dissilient spatia, ast alto se gurgite praeceps

Thamisis abscondet, mirabitur aethera Pluto, 580

et trepidi fugient immisso lumine manes."

dixerat. applaudunt omnes, magis omnibus ipse

consilium laudat sanctus pater, ipse labantis

patronum Romae laeto sic ore salutat:

"dii patribus fausti semper, cultique Latinis, 585

non omnino tamen moriturae moenia Romae

deseritis, tales cum animos, et tanta tulistis

pectora. iam versis Latium florescere fatis

aspicio, effoetamque iterum iuvenescere Romam.

"ast ego quas tandem laudes pro talibus ausis, 590

quae paria inveniam? quin tu mox aureus aede

stabis, victrici succinctus tempora lauro.

ipse ego marmoreas, meritis pro talibus, aras

adiiciam, ipse tibi vota, et pia thura frequenter

imponam, et summos iam nunc meditabor honores. 595

"salve praesidium fidei columenque Latinae:

incipe iam coelo assuesci, stellasque patentes

ingreditor, manibusque coli iam disce supinis."

interea Aequivocus manes atque infima Ditis

regna petens magnis Erebum rumoribus implet, 600

inventum facinus, cuius caelumque solumque

atque umbras pudeat steriles, quod cuncta, quod ipsas

vicerat Eumenidas, totoque a crimine solvat.

at Iesuita memor sceleris, coeptique nefandi,

lucifugae devota Iovi patrique Latino 605

pectora de tota excerpit lectissima gente,

digna quidem proles Itala de matre Britanna.

hic dirum a facibus certo trahit omine nomen,

ille hyemes referens, magnos portenderat imbres,

raptaque perpetua minitatur lumina nocte. 610

hic trahit a fossis, raucis hic nomina corvis.

his Iesuita nefas aperit, totumque recludens

consilium, horrendisque ligans Acherontica diris

vota, truces ipso caedes obsignat Iesu.

iamque illi, ruptae media inter viscera matris, 615

accelerant, duros (agrestia tela) ligones

convectant, Orco vicini, dirius Orco

infodiunt alte scelus, interiusque recondunt.

dumque operi incumbunt alacres, crescuntque ruinae,

nescio quos multa visi sub nocte susurros 620

percipere, et tenui incertas cum murmure voces.

vicinos illi manes, Erebumque timentes

diffugiunt trepidi, refluunt cum sanguine mentes.

iamque umbris similes ipsi vitantur, ut umbrae,

et vitant, ipsique timent, ipsique timentur. 625

hic medio lapsus cursu immotusque recumbens

pressa anima, clausisque oculis, iam flagra sequentis

Tisiphones, uncasque manus, et verbera sperat.

ille cavas quaerit latebras, cupaque receptus

nitrosa trepidos intra se contrahit artus. 630

sic cum membra silent placida resoluta quiete,

terrenus nigra inficiens praecordia fumus

invadit mentem, iamque umbram effingit inanem,

taeda umbram Stygia armatam, sanieque madentem,

omnia turbantur subito, volat ille per auras 635

exanimis demensque metu, frustraque refixos

increpat usque pedes. praesens insultat imago,

iam tergum calcemque terens, vox ore sepulta

deficit, et dominum fallaci prodit hiatu.

ut reduci mox corde metus sedantur inertes, 640

paulatim apparent rari latebrasque relinquunt,

incertique metus tanti, sed pergere certi,

cautius arrecta captabant aure susurros.

laeti abeunt, ortoque die vicina Lyaeo

sacrata ediscunt latis excurrere cellis. 645

conducunt, nitrumque avide sulphurque recondunt,

et ligno scelus et coniecto vimine celant.

iamque nefas felix stabat, promptumque seniles

temporis increpitant gressus, lucemque morantem.

sed quid ego nullo effandum, sed nullo tacendum 650

tempore flagitium repeto? quid nomina, Diris

vota, et perpetuis repeto celebranda tenebris?

at frustra celabo tamen quod terra stupescit,

quod superi exhorrent, quod Tartarus ipse recusat

eiuratque nefas: incisum marmore crimen 655

vivet in aeternum, pariter Iesuitica longum

simplicitas vivet, rerumque piissima Roma.

iamque optata dies aderat, qua more vetusto

conveniunt magno proceresque patresque senatu.

ipse sacris princeps devinctus tempora gemmis, 660

aut phalerato insignis equo, curruve superbus

ingreditur, laterique haeret pulcherrima coniux,

et sobole et forma fortunatissima princeps.

proximus incedit facie vultuque sereno

ille animum ostantans patrium matrisque decores, 665

mistaque concordi felicia praelia pace,

Henricus, placidoque refulgens Carolus ore.

virgineasque simul, magnatum incendia, turmas,

insignes forma nymphas, formosior ipsa

flagrantes perfusa genas inducit Elisa, 670

et nivibus roseum commiscuit ore pudorem.

haud secus innumeris coelo stipata sereno

ignibus incedit, radiosque argentea puros

diiaculans, cunctis praefulget Cynthia stellis.

mox procerum accrescunt multo splendentia luxu 675

agmina, gemmisque insignes et murice fulgent,

conciliumque petunt conferti, effusus euntes

prosequitur plaususque virum, clangorque tubarum,

et faustis mistus precibus ferit ardua clamor

sidera, tota fremit festis urbs quassa triumphis. 680

nox erat, et Facii titan scelerisque propinqui

avolat impatiens, stimulisque minisque iugales

exagitans, latet adverso iam tutus in orbe.

quaque volat, patulae lustrans tot crimina terrae,

nullum aequale videt, Thracesque Getasque cruentos, 685

quique Platam, Gangem, rapidum qui potat Oraxem,

qui Phlegetonta, omnes omni iam crimine solvit.

diffugiunt stellae, nequicquam impervia tentans

aequora collectis nebulis extinguitur ursa.

manibus et sceleri nox apta, at nigrior ipsa 690

nocte facem plumbo septam, taedamque latentem

veste tegens, cellam Facius crimenque revisit.

dumque opus effingit tragicum, facinusque retexit,

multa timet speratque: hinc poena, hinc praemia pectus

sollicitant, dubio desciscunt viscera motu. 695

iamque vacillantem Aequivocus coenamque precesque

coecumque obsequium menti, Papamque reponens

fulcit, et iniectis obfirmat pectora diris.

ast oculos summo interea deflexit Olympo

ille pater rerum, certo qui sidera cursu 700

magna rotat, terrasque manu et maria improba claudit.

confectasque videns fraudes, caecisque cavernis

crimina vicino matura tumescere partu,

mox aquilam affatur, solio quae sternitur imo

advigilans, liquidasque alis mandata per auras 705

praecipitat: "confestim Anglos pete nuncia clivos,

et proceres summis curam de rebus habentes

aggressa, ambiguo fraudes sermone recludas,

atque acres coeco turbes aenigmate sensus.

ipse ego dum voces alto sub pectore versant, 710

ipse oculos mentemque dabo, qua infanda Iacobus

ausa, et Tarpeii evolvat conamina patris."

dixerat: at levibus volucris secat aethera pennis,

ocyor et vento, et rapido Iovis ocyor igne.

iamque simul niveas Luddini assurgere longe 715

aspicit, aspectasque simul tenet impigra turres.

penniger hic primum contractis nuncius alis

constitit, et formosa videns fulgescere tecta

coctilibus muris, parilique rubentia saxo,

ingreditur, magno posuit quae splendida sumptu 720

qui patriis maior succrevit laudibus herois,

prudentis soboles patris prudentior ipse.

hunc, ubi consilium pleno de pectore promit,

mirantur Britones laeti, mirantur Iberi,

et laudant animos trepidi, metuuntque sagaces. 725

ille etiam gazam (maior tamen ipse) Britannam,

ille etiam Musas tutatur, et otia Musis,

Chamus ubi angustas tardo vix flumine ripas

complet, decrepitoque pater iam deficit amne.

ille mihi labro teretes trivisse cicutas, 730

ille modos faustus calamo permisit agresti.

huc ubi perventum est, mutato nuntius ore

perplexa attonito descriptas arte tabellas

tradidit heroi, et mediae sese ocyus urbi

proripiens, suetis iterum se condidit astris. 735

ille legens caeci stupuit vestigia scripti,

atque iterum voces iterumque recolligit omnes,

iamque hoc, iamque illud, iam singula pectore versat,

quid te frustra, heros, angis? non si Oedipus author

spondeat, hos animo speres rescindere nodos. 740

non minimum est crimen crimen praesumere tantum,

nec virtus minima est scelus ignorasse profundum,

quod bene cum scieris, non sit tibi credere tantum.

postquam fessa oculos nihil ipsa excerpere nigris

suspicio scriptis potuit, nihil omnibus actum 745

consiliis, ipsi referunt aenigmata regi.

ille oculo nodos facili scelerumque nefandas

percurrens animo ambages (dum nubila spargit

lux lucis, mentemque aperit) mox omnia pandit

monstra, aperitque nefas solus, tenebrasque resolvit. 750

quin medias inter technas iam nocte profunda

artificem sceleris prendunt, patet alto nitroso

pulvere foeta domus, penitusque recondita soli

crimina miranti, et coelo ostenduntur aperto.

non secus atque Euris media inter viscera pressis 755

rupta patet tellus, magnoque fatiscit hiatu,

dissultant pavidi montes, penitusque cavernis

immittunt Phoebum, furiasque umbrasque recludunt.

apparent deforme Chaos Stygiique penates,

apparet barathrum, et diri penetralia Ditis, 760

miranturque diem perculso lumine manes.

iamque ipso pariter cum crimine, criminis author

protrahitur, circum populus fluit omnis euntem:

expleri nequeunt animi frontemque tuendo

torvam, squalentesque genas, nemorosaque setis 765

ora, et Tartareas referentia lumina taedas.

ille autem audenti similis, similisque timenti,

nunc fremitu turbam et dictis ridere superbis,

diductisque ferox inhiantem illudere labris;

nunc contra trepidare metu, tremulosque rotare 770

circum oculos, iam flagra miser dextramque parati

carnificis medios inter saevire cruores

sentit, iamque Erebum spectat furibundus hiantem,

et semesa inter labentes membra dracones

percipiens, aeternae horret primordia poenae. 775

o pater, o terrae et summi regnator Olympi,

quas tibi pro meritis laudes, quae munera laeti

tanta servati dabimus de clade Britanni?

non nos, non miseri (nec tanta superbia lapsis)

sufficimus meritis: sed, quas prius ipse dedisti, 780

quas iterum solas repetis, pater, accipe mentes.

dum domus aeterno stabit pulcherrima saxo,

pulvere sulphureo, et tanti erepta ruinis,

dum tumidis Nereus undarum moenibus Anglos

sospitet, et tundat liventes aequore clivos, 785

semper honos, semperque tuum solenne Britannis

nomen erit. te, magne pater, te voce canemus,

factaque per seros dabimus memoranda nepotes.

tu, pater, Aeolia fratres sub rupe furentes

tu premis, inmensoque domas luctantia claustro 790

pectora, tu vastos turbata ad litora montes

frangis, aquasque inhibes, rector, retrahisque rebelles.

tu, pater, hibernae tu laxas vincula nocti,

et lenta aestivo tardas vestigia soli.

te reduces iterum flores te terra iubente 795

pubescit, virides crinescunt vertice fagi.

imperiis sol ipse tuis immitior ignes

diiaculat Nemeum medius, Cancrumque rubentem

inter, et effoetas tumido de semine fruges

evocat, ac teneras duro coquit aridus aestu. 800

mox iterum ignoto dilapsus tramite Phoebus

declinat, iamque Aethiopes, Nilique fluenta,

desertasque Libum propior despectat arenas.

nos anni premit effoeti properata senectus:

flavent pampineae frondes, salicesque recurvae, 805

decrepitae fluxis calvescunt crinibus ulmi.

tu, pater, invictas quas iactat Iberia classes

frangis, et ingentes dispergis in aethera motus,

iamque etiam erepta (sacro mihi nomine) Elisa,

ingentem meritos cladem, ingentemque timentes 810

restituis, placidoque ferens tria septra Iacobo,

multiplicem nobis reddis placatus Elisam.

salve, summe heros, aetatis gloria nostrae,

o decus Anglorum, princeps, patriaeque beatus

Musarumque pater. placidam tu pacis olivam 815

Angligenis infers felix, maioraque votis

gaudia, et aeternos firmas in prole triumphos.

tu bifidum clauso nobis premis obice Ianum,

Pieridumque potens armis, feralia sacrae

moenia prosternis Romae, regumque lupanar 820

diruis, et nimio meretricem vulnere figis.

accipe pubentem tenera lanugine Musam,

quae salices inter spretas, ulvamque palustrem,

(non lauros palmasque ambit) proludere discit,

et tentans sese innatos depascitur ignes, 825

qua pater externis Chamus vix cognita rivis

flumina demulcens, regales alluit hortos,

templaque submissis veneratur regia lymphis.

mox ubi pennatis crevit maturior alis,

te canere audebit, tua (princeps) condere facta; 830

exhaustoque tumens Helicone, undantia pleno

carmina diffundet fluvio. coelum audiet omne,

audiet omne nemus, resonabilis accinet Eccho.

- Fletcher, Phineas (1582 - 1650

http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/fletcher.html

Broadside and Writings 1640-41
1640: A broadside stated:
“Hail happy hour, wherin that hellis plot was found...Our nation need not fear/Dark lanterns while God’s candlestick is here...Christ bless this kingdom from intestine quarrels, From schism in tubs, and popery in barrels.” -”The Muse Fire Works Upon the Fifth of Novvember: or, The Protestants Remembrancr of the Bloody Designs of the Papists in the Never-to-be-forgotten Powder Plot (London 1640)
John Vicars November 1641- addresses his work to “all loyal-hearted English Protestants which sincerely relish the power and purity of Christ’s gospel, and zealously detest the damnable doctrine of Antichrist.”-John Vicars “The Quintessence of Cruelty or Master-piece of Treachery, the Popish Powder-Plot(London 1640)
Press and Pamphlets c.1644-47
A royalist Pamphlet: “The Fifth of November” Oxford 1644 shows how similar the Parliamentary rebellion was to the Gunpowder Treason. Such parliamentary rebels were “schismatical rebels” “Religion is made the stalking horse to rebellion by both parties. The Jesuited and Anabaptized party row with the same oars, sail by the same wind and compass, though their coats be as far distant as Amsterdam and Rome.”
The Gunpowder Celebration was to be reserved for the king and not Parliament.-”The Fifth of November, or The Popish and Schismatical Rebels. With their Horrid Plots, Fair Pretences, and Bloudy Practices, Weighte One Against Another” (Oxford, 1644)
Royalist Broadsheet 19 November 1647: November was “red in ink, redder in wine”-November (London,1647)Thomason collection, 669. F.11/93, collected 6 November 1647.
Mercurius Elencticus 5-12 Nov. 1647 “If it shall please God (as who shall doubt it) to stop the issue of blood in this kingdom, and to confound the plots and devices of the enemies thereof, restore the king to his crown, and the languishing subjects to his liberty, posterity will undoubtedly set apart the day, whereon to commemorate...so universal and unspeakable a deliverance of his majesty, and the howle kingdom, from the most destructive and damnable conspiracies of a mad and bloody parliament”- Mercurius Elencticus 5-12 Nov. 1647

John Milton- 1645 & 1673

In proditionem Bombardicam

In Quintum Novembris
JAm pius extremâ veniens Jäcobus ab arcto
Teucrigenas populos, latéque patentia regna
Albionum tenuit, jamque inviolabile foedus
Sceptra Caledoniis conjunxerat Anglica Scotis:
Pacificusque novo felix divesque sedebat
In solio, occultique doli securus & hostis:
Cum ferus ignifluo regnans Acheronte tyrannus,
Eumenidum pater, æthereo vagus exul Olympo,
Forte per immensum terrarum erraverat orbem,
Dinumerans sceleris socios, vernasque fideles,
Participes regni post funera moesta futuros;
Hic tempestates medio ciet aëre diras,
Illic unanimes odium struit inter amicos,
Armat & invictas in mutua viscera gentes;
Regnaque olivifera vertit florentia pace,
Et quoscunque videt puræ virtutis amantes,
Hos cupit adjicere imperio, fraudumque magister
Tentat inaccessum sceleri corrumpere pectus,
Insidiasque locat tacitas, cassesque latentes
Tendit, ut incautos rapiat, se Caspia Tigris
Insequitur trepidam deserta per avia prædam
Nocte sub illuni, & somno nictantibus astris.
Talibus infestat populos Summanus & urbes
Cinctus cæruleæ fumanti turbine flammæ.
Jamque fluentisonis albentia rupibus arva
Apparent, & terra Deo dilecta marino,
Cui nomen dederat quondam Neptunia proles
Amphitryoniaden qui non dubitavit atrocem
Æquore tranato furiali poscere bello,
Ante expugnatæ crudelia sæcula Troiæ.
   At simul hanc opibusque & festâ pace beatam
Aspicit, & pingues donis Cerealibus agros,
Quodque magis doluit, venerantem numina veri
Sancta Dei populum, tandem suspiria rupit
Tartareos ignes & luridum olentia sulphur.
Qualia Trinacriâ trux ab Jove clausus in Ætna
Efflat tabifico monstrosus ab ore Tiphoeus.
Ignescunt oculi, stridetque adamantius ordo
Dentis, ut armorum fragor, ictaque cuspide cuspis.
Atque pererrato solum hoc lacrymabile mundo
Inveni dixit, gens hæc mihi sola rebellis,
Contemtrixque jugi, nostrâque potentior arte.
Illa tamen, mea si quicquam tentamina possunt,
Non feret hoc impune diu, non ibit inulta,
Hactenus; & piceis liquido natat aëre pennis;
Quà volat, adversi præcursant agmine venti,
Densantur nubes, & crebra tonitrua fulgent.
   Jamque pruinosas velox superaverat alpes,
Et tenet Ausoniæ fines, à parte sinistrâ
Nimbifer Appenninus erat, priscique Sabini,
Dextra veneficiis infamis Hetruria, nec non
Te furtiva Tibris Thetidi videt oscula dantem;
Hinc Mavortigenæ consistit in arce Quirini.
Reddiderant dubiam jam sera crepuscula lucem,
Cum circumgreditur totam Tricoronifer urbem,
Panificosque Deos portat, scapulisque virorum
Evehitur, præeunt summisso poplite reges,
Et mendicantum series longissima fratrum;
Cereaque in manibus gestant funalia cæci,
Cimmeriis nati in tenebris, vitamque trahentes.
Templa dein multis subeunt lucentia tædis
(Vesper erat sacer iste Petro) fremitúsque canentum
Sæpe tholos implet vacuos, & inane locorum.
Qualiter exululat Bromius, Bromiique caterva,
Orgia cantantes in Echionio Aracyntho,
Dum tremit attonitus vitreis Asopus in undis,
Et procul ipse cavâ responsat rupe Cithæron.
   His igitur tandem solenni more peractis,
Nox senis amplexus Erebi taciturna reliquit,
Præcipitesque impellit equos stimulante flagello,
Captum oculis Typhlonta, Melanchætemque ferocem,
Atque Acherontæo prognatam patre Siopen
Torpidam, & hirsutis horrentem Phrica capillis.
Interea regum domitor, Phlegetontius hæres
Ingreditur thalamos (neque enim secretus adulter
Producit steriles molli sine pellice noctes)
At vix compositos somnus claudebat ocellos,
Cum niger umbrarum dominus, rectorque silentum,
Prædatorque hominum falsâ sub imagine tectus
Astitit, assumptis micuerunt tempora canis,
Barba sinus promissa tegit, cineracea longo
Syrmate verrit humum vestis, pendetque cucullus
Vertice de raso, & ne quicquam desit ad artes,
Cannabeo lumbos constrinxit fune salaces,
Tarda fenestratis figens vestigia calceis.
Talis uti fama est, vastâ Franciscus eremo
Tetra vagabatur solus per lustra ferarum,
Sylvestrique tulit genti pia verba salutis
Impius, atque lupos domuit, Lybicosque leones.
   Subdolus at tali Serpens velatus amictu
Solvit in has fallax ora execrantia voces;
Dormis nate? Etiamne tuos sopor opprimit artus?
Immemor O fidei, pecorumque oblite tuorum,
Dum cathedram venerande tuam, diadmaque triplex
Ridet Hyperboreo gens barbara nata sub axe,
Dumque pharetrati spernunt tua jura Britanni:
Surge, age, surge piger, Latius quem Cæsar adorat,
Cui reserata patet convexi janua cæli,
Turgentes animos, & fastus frange procaces,
Sacrilegique sciant, tua quid maledictio possit,
Et quid Apostolicæ possit custodia clavis;
Et memor Hesperiæ disjectam ulciscere classem,
Mersaque Iberorum lato vexilla profundo,
Sanctorumque cruci tot corpora fixa probrosæ,
Thermodoontéa nuper regnante puella.
At tu si tenero mavis torpescere lecto
Crescentesque negas hosti contundere vires,
Tyrrhenum implebit numeroso milite pontum,
Signaque Aventino ponet fulgentia colle:
Relliquias veterum franget, flammisque cremabit,
Sacraque calcabit pedibus tua colla profanis,
Cujus gaudebant soleïs dare basia reges.
Nec tamen hunc bellis & aperto Marte lacesses,
Irritus ille labor, tu callidus utere fraude,
Quælibet hæreticis disponere retia fas est;
Jamque ad consilium extremis rex magnus ab oris
Patricios vocat, & procerum de stirpe creatos,
Grandeævosque patres trabeâ, canisque verendos;
Hos tu membratim poteris conspergere in auras,
Atque dare in cineres, nitrati pulveris igne
Ædibus injecto, quà convenere, sub imis.
Protinus ipse igitur quoscumque habet Anglia fidos
Propositi, factique mone, quisquámne tuorum
Audebit summi non jussa facessere Papæ.
Perculsosque metu subito, casúque stupentes
Invadat vel Gallus atrox, vel sævus Iberus
Sæcula sic illic tandem Mariana redibunt,
Tuque in belligeros iterum dominaberis Anglos.
Et nequid timeas, divos divasque secundas
Accipe, quotque tuis celebrantur numina fastis.
Dixit & adscitos ponens malefidus amictus
Fugit ad infandam, regnum illætabile, Lethen.
   Jam rosea Eoas pandens Tithonia portas
Vestit inauratas redeunti lumine terras;
Mæstaque adhuc nigri deplorans funera nati
Irrigat ambrosiis montana cacumina guttis;
Cum somnos pepulit stellatæ janitor aulæ
Nocturnos visus, & somnia grata revolvens.
   Est locus æternâ septus caligine noctis
Vasta ruinosi quondam fundamina tecti,
Nunc torvi spelunca Phoni, Prodotæque bilinguis
Effera quos uno peperit Discordia partu.
Hic inter cæmenta jacent semifractaque saxa,
Ossa inhumata virûm, & trajecta cadavera ferro;
Hic Dolus intortis semper fedet ater ocellis,
Jurgiaque, & stimulis armata Calumnia fauces,
Et Furor, atque viæ moriendi mille videntur
Et Timor, exanguisque locum circumvolat Horror,
Perpetuoque leves per muta silentia Manes
Exululant, tellus & sanguine conscia stagnat.
Ipsi etiam pavidi latitant penetralibus antri
Et Phonos, & Prodotes, nulloque sequente per antrum
Antrum horrens, scopulosum, atrum feralibus umbris
Diffugiunt sontes, & retrò lumina vortunt,
Hos pugiles Romæ per sæcula longa fideles
Evocat antistes Babylonius, atque ita fatur.
Finibus occiduis circumfusum incolit æquor
Gens exosa mihi, prudens natura negavit
Indignam penitus nostro conjungere mundo:
Illuc, sic jubeo, celeri contendite gressu,
Tartareoque leves difflentur pulvere in auras
Et rex & pariter satrapæ, scelerata propago
Et quotquot fidei caluere cupidine veræ
Consilii socios adhibete, operisque ministros.
Finierat, rigidi cupidè paruere gemelli.
 Interea longo flectens curvamine caelos
Despicit æthereâ dominus qui fulgurat arce,
Vanaque perversæ ridet conamina turbæ,
Atque sui causam populi volet ipse tueri.
 Esse ferunt spatium, quà distat ab Aside terra
Fertilis Europe, & spectat Mareotidas undas;
Hic turris posita est Titanidos ardua Famæ
Ærea, lata, sonans, rutilis vicinior astris
Quàm superimpositum vel Athos vel Pelion Ossæ
Mille fores aditusque patent, totidemque fenestræ,
Amplaque per tenues translucent atria muros;
Excitat hic varios plebs agglomerata susurros;
Qualiter instrepitant circum mulctralia bombis
Agmina muscarum, aut texto per ovilia junco,
Dum Canis æstivum coeli petit ardua culmen
Ipsa quidem summâ sedet ultrix matris in arce,
Auribus innumeris cinctum caput eminet olli,
Queis sonitum exiguum trahit, atque levissima captat
Murmura, ab extremis patuli confinibus orbis.
Nec tot Aristoride servator inique juvencæ
Isidos, immiti volvebas lumina vultu,
Lumina non unquam tacito nutantia somno,
Lumina subjectas late spectantia terras.
Istis illa solet loca luce carentia sæpe
Perlustrare, etiam radianti impervia soli.
Millenisque loquax auditaque visaque linguis
Cuilibet effundit temeraria, veráque mendax
Nunc minuit, modò confictis sermonibus auget.
Sed tamen a nostro meruisti carmine laudes
Fama, bonum quo non aliud veracius ullum,
Nobis digna cani, nec te memorasse pigebit
Carmine tam longo, servati scilicet Angli
Officiis vaga diva tuis, tibi reddimus æqua.
Te Deus æternos motu qui temperat ignes,
Fulmine preæmisso alloquitur, terrâque tremente:
Fama siles? an te latet impia Papistarum
Conjurata cohors in meque meosque Britannos,
Et nova sceptrigero cædes meditata Jäcobo:
Nec plura, illa statim sensit mandata Tonantis,
Et satis antè fugax stridentes induit alas,
Induit & variis exilia corpora plumis;
Dextra tubam gestat Temesæo ex ære sonoram.
Nec mora jam pennis cedentes remigat auras,
Atque parum est cursu celeres preævertere nubes,
Jam ventos, jam solis equos poft terga reliquit:
Et primò Angliacas solito de more per urbes
Ambiguas voces, incertaque murmura spargit,
Mox arguta dolos, & detestabile vulgat
Proditionis opus, nec non facta horrida dictu,
Authoresque addit sceleris, nec garrula cæcis
Insidiis loca structa silet; stupuere relatis,
Et pariter juvenes, partier tremuere puellæ,
Effætique senes pariter, tanteæque ruinæ
Sensus ad ætatem subitò penetraverat omnem
Attamen interea populi miserescit ab alto
Æthereus pater, & crudelibus obstitit ausis
Papicolûm; capti poenas raptantur ad acres;
At pia thura Deo, & grati solvuntur honores;
Compita læta focis genialibus omnia fumant;
Turba choros juvenilis agit: Quintoque Novembris
Null Dies toto occurrit celebratior anno.- Ioannis Miltoni Londinensis Poemata, quorum pleraque intra Annum aetatis Vigesimum Conscripsit, Nunc primum Edita (printed at London by R. R. Prostant in 1645);  1673 (reprinted) , Ioannis Miltoni Londinensis
Poemata, quorum pleraque intra Annum aetatis Vigesimum Conscripsit, Nunc primum Edita (printed at London by W. R. in 1673).
Translation:
On the Fifth of November Age 17
 Now pious James, coming from the extreme North, possessed the Teucer-born peoples and the widespread realms of the folk of Albion, and now an inviolable pact conjoined English scepters to the Caledonian Scots, and James sat as a peacemaker and a prosperous man
on his new throne, secure from hidden wiles and any foe, when the savage tyrant of Acheron, flowing with fire, the father of the Eumenides, the vagrant exile from celestial Olympus, chanced to be wandering through the world, counting his allies in crime, his loyal servants, destined to be partners in his kingdom after their sad demise. Here he stirred up great storms in mid-air, there he sowed hatred between like-minded friends, armed unconquered nations against each others’ vitals, overturned kingdoms flourishing in peace that bears the olive branch, and whoever he saw to be enamored of pure virtue, these he craved to add to his empire. The master of deceits tried to corrupt the inaccessible heart with evil, setting stealthy snares, stretching his hidden nets, that he might capture the unwary, as the Caspian tigress follows her prey through the trackless wastes under a moonless night sky and stars winking in slumber. With such things Summanus attacks people and cities, wreathed in a smoky whirlwind of blue fire. And now the fields white with their booming cliffs appeared, that land dear to the sea-god, to which his son had
once lent his name, a man who did not shrink from crossing over the sea and challenging Amphitryon’s violent son to furious combat, before the cruel age which saw the storming of Troy. But as soon as he saw that Albion was blessed with wealth and festive peace, her fields rich with the bounty of Ceres, and (which vexed him the more) her people worshipping the sacred divinity of the true God, at length he heaved sighs stinking of Tartarus’ fires and yellow sulphur, sighs such as grim and monstrous Typhoeus emits from his corrosive mouth, shut up by Jove in Sicilian Aetna. His eyes blazed, his row of adamantine teeth gnashed like the clash of arms, like the sound of spear beating against spear. And he said, "I have wandered all the world, and have found this one thing to be lamentable, this single race is rebellious towards me, scornful of my yoke, stronger than my art. But if my endeavors have any power, she will not long experience this with impunity, she will not go scot-free." So much he spoke, and swam
through the liquid air on pitch-black wings. And where he flew, unfriendly winds ran before him in a battle-line, the clouds gathered, much lightning flashed. Now he swiftly passed the frosty Alps and gained the Ausonian land. On his left were the misty Apennines and the ancient Sabines, on the right Tuscany, notorious for its poisoners, and he saw you too, Tiber, giving furtive kisses to Thetis. Next he landed on the citadel of Mars-born Quirinus. Now the dusk was making the light uncertain, while the wearer of the triple tiara was traveling throughout the city, bearing his gods made of baked bread, borne on the shoulders of men. Kings preceded him on their knees and a lengthy file of mendicant friars, holding waxen candles, blind, born and living out their lives in Cimmerian darkness. Then they entered shrines glowing with many tapers (the evening was that consecrated to Peter), and the bawling of the choirs filled the hollow vaults, the empty spaces, just as Dionysus and his throng howl, singing at their orgies on Echionian Arachynthus, as Asopus quakes in his pellucid waters and Cithaeron echoes at a distance with its crannied cliffs. These things finally accomplished with solemnity, Night silently quit the embrace of old man Erebus and drove her horses headlong, her whip lashing them onward: blind Typhlon, fierce Melanchaetes, sluggish Siope born of an Acherontean sire, and Phrix bristling with a shaggy mane. Meanwhile the master of kings and heir of Phelegethon entered his marriage-chamber (for this furtive adulterer spends no
loveless nights without a soft mistress), but sleep had scarcely closed his eyes when the black lord of the shades, ruler of the silent, that predator on mankind, stood by him, clad in disguise. His temples gleamed with false white locks, a long beard covered his breast, an ash-colored garment swept the ground with its hem, a cowl hung from his tonsured head, and, lest anything be lacking from his artfulness, he girded his lusty loins with a hempen rope and wore open sandals on his slow-moving feet. Such is Francis supposed to have been in the vast wilderness, as he used to wander alone in the harsh haunts of wild beasts, bringing pious words of salvation to the denizens of the wood (though impious himself), taming the wolves and the Libyan lions. The crafty serpent, concealed by such a rig, deceitfully opened his hateful mouth and said: "Are you sleeping, my son? Even now does slumber overwhelm your limbs, oh you who are unmindful of the Faith and forgetful of your flock, while a barbarian nation born beneath the Hyperborean pole, the quiver-bearing British mock your see, venerable one, and your triple tiara? Come, awake, rise up, you lazy fellow worshipped by Latin Caesar, a Father for whom the portals of arching heaven lie open. Shatter their swollen spirits, their bold disdain, let these blasphemers learn the power of your curse, the power of the holder of the apostolic key. Gain vengeance, mindful of the devastation of the Spanish fleet, their pennants sunk in the vast deep, and so many Saints’ bodies nailed to the shameful cross during the recent reign of the Thermodontean maiden. But if you prefer to wallow in your soft bed, and refuse to smite our enemy’s growing powers, he will fill the Tyrrhenian Sea with a multitude of soldiers, and plant his bright banners on the Aventine hill; he will shatter the remains of antiquity and set them aflame, he will plant his profane feet on your sacred neck, though kings used to delight in kissing your feet. But do not attempt to assail him with warfare and open contention, for that is a fruitless effort; employ deceit cleverly, it is permitted to spread any nets at all against heretics. And now their great King is summoning leading men from farflung regions to a council, and also Peers blessed in their lineage, and aged fathers venerable for their gowns and hoary heads. You will be able to scatter them in the air, dismembered, and reduce them to ashes by throwing gunpowder’s fire beneath the building in which they are convened.  Further, you must warn whomever of the faithful England still possess of your intention and of the deed. Will none of your countrymen dare carry out the mandates of the supreme Pope? When they are stricken by sudden terror and amazed at their misfortune, either the cruel Frenchman or the fierce Spaniard will invade. Thus at length the Marian centuries will return there, and you will gain mastery of the warlike English. Have no fear, know that the gods and goddesses are well disposed, and all the divinities you adore on holy days." Thus the Treacherous One spoke and, putting off his borrowed attire, fled to unspeakable Lethe, his gloomy realm. Now Tithonia, throwing open the gates of the dawn, clothed the golden land with her returning light and, still mourning her swarthy son’s sad fate, she shed her ambrosial drops on the mountain tops, when the doorkeeper of night’s starry court banished sleep, rolling away nocturnal visions and welcome dreams. There is a place surrounded by night’s eternal mist, once the proud foundations of structures now ruined, now the caverns of brutal Murder and two-tongued Betrayal, whelped at the same time by wild Discord. Here amidst rubble and half-broken stones lie men’sunburied bones and bodies run through with steel. Here black Guile always sits with her eyes askew, and Quarrels, and Libel, armed with fangs in her jaws, and Madness, here can be seen a thousand manners of death, and Fear; bloodless Horror always circles the place, ghosts constantly howl in the mute silence, and the guilty earth pools with blood. Murder and Betrayal themselves lurk in terror in the bowels of the cave, though nobody pursues them through the cavern, the shadowy cave, craggy, dark with wild shadows. They flee in guilt, rolling back their eyes. The Babylonian bishop summoned these weapons, loyal to Rome for long centuries, and spoke thus: "A nation hateful to me inhabits the waters pouring around the western ends of the earth, prudent Nature refused to join them to our world, being unworthy. I command you to hasten there on swift feet, and let them be blown into thin air by Hellish powder, both the King and his Lords, and also his wicked offspring; and as many men as have been burning with zeal for the true Faith you must make partners in your plan and the agents of our work." He made an end, and the unbending twins obeyed.  Meanwhile He who bends the heavens in their long curve looked down, the Lord Who hurls lightning from His citadel in the skies, laughed at the vain endeavors of this perverse gang, and chose to defend in Person the cause of His people. They say there is a place where fertile Europe parts from Asia and looks at the waters of Lake Maeotis. Here is built the lofty tower of Rumor, daughter of a Titaness, brazen, broad, resonant, nearer to the gleaming stars than Athos or Pelion piled atop Ossa. A thousand doors
and portals lie open, and a like number of windows, and through its thin walls the rooms within can be seen. Here a rabble congregation emits sundry whispers, as do swarms of flies with their buzzings as they circle a milk-pail, or fly though the sheep pen made of woven wicker, when the Dogstar seeks the heights of heaven, its summer high-point. Rumor herself sits atop her citadel, her mother’s avenger; her head is held aloft, encircled by a thousand ears by which she receives the smallest sound, the lightest murmur of an undertaking, from the farthest ends of the widespread world. Not even you rolled so many eyes in your pitiless face, son of Arestor, wrongful guardian of the Isis-cow, eyes that never lowered in quiet slumber, eyes gazing wide over the outspread earth. With these Rumor is often wont to examine places that are lacking in light, even places impervious to the radiant sun. Then, babbling with her thousand tongues, she wantonly pours forth the things she has heard and seen to anyone at all, now lyingly diminishing the truth, now exaggerating it with invented tales. But you deserve my song’s praise, Rumor, for the good you did (nothing ever more truthful). You deserve to be sung of by me, nor shall I be ashamed to have mentioned you in such a lengthy song, and we English, wandering goddess, saved by your offices, repay you in equal measure. For God Who governs the eternal fires in their movement first sent forth a lightning bolt, and as the earth trembled then said:  "Are you silent, Rumor? Or does that Papist crew
escape your notice, conspiring against Me and My British? Do you not know of the novel murder being planned against scepter-wielding James?" He said no more, she immediately understood the Thunderer’s injunctions and (though she had been swift enough before) she put on whirring wings and clothed her slender body with particolored feathers. In her right hand she bore a ringing trumpet of Temesaean brass.
Without delay she traversed the air that yielded to her pinions; it was a trifle to outrun the scudding clouds &endash; now she left the winds and the horses of the sun behind her and at first, in her usual way, spread enigmatic words and uncertain whispers through the cities of England. Soon she denounced the schemes and published the hateful work of treason, and also deeds horrible to describe, adding the names of
the architects of the crime, nor in her prattle did she remain silent about places arranged for their secret treacheries. People were astounded by her revelations, both young men and girls shivered, as did feeble old men, awareness of so great a collapse quickly penetrated to every age. But in the meantime our heavenly Father took pity on the people from on high, and checked the Papists’ cruel attempts. But pious incense and grateful honors are paid to God, our happy streets are all smoking with joyous bonfires, the youthful throng goes a-dancing: in the whole year no day is celebrated more than the Fifth of November.-Source: www. author name absent.
 

 

 
Commemorative Poem 1654
1654- John Turner: “A Commemoration or a Calling to Minde of the Great and Eminent Deliverance from the Powder-Plot”
”England alas almost hath quite forgot
The great deliverance from the Powder Plot...
The mercies all that now we do enjoy.
We owe unto the mercy of that day”...
So dealt our good and gracious God with us;
But he may say, Do you requite me thus?
Was the mercy I showed you worth no more?
That you by it do set no greater store?
Sure we have cause for ever to remember
The mercy show’d the fifth day of November. -John Turner, A commemoration or a Calling to Minde of the Great and Eminent Deliverance from the Powder-Plot (London, 1654), pp. 1,5.

The Emergence of the explanation of "Cecil’s Scheme" 1670’s
Early in Charles II’s reign- The story that the plot was a scheme devised by Sir Robert Cecil to entrap the innocent emerged.
1670s- publications used the Latin work of French Catholic Jacques Auguste de Thou against the Jesuits and the explanation fo Cecil’s scheme. Translated into English as: “Popish Policies and Practices” or”A narration of that Horrible Conspiracy against King James”-Jacobus Augustus Thauanus (De Thou), Popish Policies and Practices Represented in the Histories of the Parisian massacre; Gunpowder Treason; Conspracies Against Queen Elizabeth (London, 1674)
Analysis of the Plot /Publications c.1670-1680
Edward Stephens- edits a history of the Catholic Plots and Conspiracies and states: “we are still in danger”-”A discourse concerning the Original of the Powder-Plot: Together with a relation of the Conspiracies against Queen Elizabeth, and the Persecutions of the Protestants in France (London 1674)
1678- November-Thomas Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln- Has “an authentic history” of the plot republished as parliament: “did diligently seek after the book...found it not” and that the conspiracies of 1605 and 1678 were: “hatched and hammered in the same popish forge”.
1679- reprinted was: “A History of The Gunpowder Treason” - by John Williams
1679- reprinted was: “The Gunpowder Treason: with a discourse of its discovery; and a perfect relation of the proceedings against the conspirators (first published 1609)
1680- reprinted was: “Song or story for the lasting remembrance of divers famous works which God hath done in our time” (first published London 1626) warns of: “fell and furious rage” of the Catholics. John Wilson see above.
1671-1679 Reprinted three times was: “ England’s Remembrancer, containing a true and full narrative of those two never to be forgotten deliverances: the one from the Spanish invasion in eighty- eight: the other from the hellish Powder Plot, November 5 1605.” By Samuel Clarke (originally puiblished London 1657).- (David Cressy.,Bonfires and Bells.”National Memory and the Protestant Calendar in Elizabethan and Stuart England.,University of California Press, Berkeley,1989 pp.176-177.)
1679- Dealer near Stationers’ Hall advertizes: “a pack of cards, price one shilling, forming a history of all the popish plots from those in Queen Elizabeth’s time...with the manner of Sir Edmundburry Godfrey’s murder”-”Archaeological Journal, 11 (1854), p.180. See: J.R.S. Whiting, “A Handfull Of History (London 1978) for reproduction of the cards.

The Burning of the Whore of Babylon, 1673

As it was acted, with great applause in the Poultrey, London, on Wednesday Night, (being the 5^th of November last) at Six of the Clock.

With a Relation of their Matchless, Develish, Gun-powder Plot

and their Oath of Secresy: Also the Priests and Jesuits Prayer for the Good Success of this damnable Plot.

Semel in Anno ridet Apollo.

London,

Printed, and are to be sold by R.C. over against the Globe in Little-Brittain, 1673

It was the saying of good bishop Latimer to his fellow Sufferer, when he came to dye at the Stake in Oxford, Be of good cheer Brother, for we shall light such a Fire this day in England, as by God’s Grace the Papists shall never be able to quench it, and how much this hath been verified, let the World judge. For, notwithstanding the Romanists have made it their business to quench the fire of the gunpowder-Treason, in the thoughts of the present Generation, yet with all their Artifices, they have not been able to do it, but the memory of that never to be forgotten day, is carefully transmitted from the Elder to the Younger, so that the Child, as well as the Man of years considers it; and the middle-age, as well as either; nor is there any degree of men in the Kingdom that have not (as they have had occasion) testified their abhorrency of the Papist Principles and practices, the Zeal whereof is again renewed from the Highest to the Lowest; and because that Religion hath made such great use of fire for its propogation, and the fiery Jesuit retains still his heat to blow up all the Gunpowder, if it lay in his power; therefore Bonfires and Squibs are the usual Trophies that the Juvenal fry in England make use of on that day, to testify their joy and gladness for the wonderful preservation of their fore-Fathers.

And now again, his Sacred Majesty, (whom God preserve) and his Parliament, having so lately renewed their joynt desires and endeavours for the Suppressing of the growth of Popery in this Kindgom, to the great satisfaction of all good subjects: The Citizens rejoyceing, seemed to swel the banks last Wednesday Night, where you might have seen the broad Streets of London so thick with Bonfires, as if they had been but one Hearth, and the Fire-works flying in such numbers, that the Serpents flew like Bees through the Ayre, and could scarce have room for one another to pass: The Bells were very early up that Morning, and rung so loud, as if they had prefaced in a Jubilee.

But that being no more than what was common for kind, though not in degree; The Pprentices were resolved to make a new Addition, which was, a large Effigie of the Whore of Babylon, drest up Cap-a-Pe, with all the Whorish Ornaments, having a Cross and Two Keys in his hand; I know not if they were the Keys of the Cellar that Guy Faux had, but I suppose they ight belong to Purgatory, because the Pope formerly kept one, and Donna Olympia the other; he had a string of Beads in the other hand: and never more need you will say, to fall to his Beads, when I shall tell you how near he was to his End: (I do not think they were the same that Father Gardner carried with him to Tyburn) he gorgiously appear’d with the Triple Crown on his head, and holding a Placate in his hand, extended to the people, Proclaiming general Pardons; but I saw none very forward to accept them, notwithstanding the Market was ready to be shut up, and himself so near his End; in this posture he was carried, not in a Chaire, but as the Traytors heads are upon the Bridge, fixed upon a Pole in Procession, all about the Poultry Market-place, attended with near an hundred Torches, and more than a thousand people. This Ceremony lasted some considerable time; after which, the Effigies was hung up, upon a high Rope that was tyed at two Garret windows, cross the Poultrey Street about two hours, with a great Bonfire before it, lest it should catch cold by hanging so long in the Ayr.

That being ended, there was a Hogshead filled with small fuel & combustible stuff, which was set right under his feet; but such was the forwardness of some of the Spectators, that they must imploy some other weapons for his destruction, some letting flie at him with Pistols,, and others with Fowling-Pieces; but the fire over-powering it, soon spoyled their sport, by burning the Mark; yet they were loth to omit the use of Guns, in memory of the Monk that contrived them two hundred and ninety –three years agoe.

Now having filled themselves with good Liquor, and gratified their own humors, every Man and Boy went to his own home, and so the Play ended.

The Reader is desired to take Notice of the following matter, which stands upon Record.

The Plot was to undermine the Parliament house, and with Powder to blow up the King, Prince, Clergy, Nobles, Knights, and Burgesses, the very confluence of all the flower of Glory, Piety, Learning, Prudence and Authority in the Land: Fathers, Sons, Brothers, Alleys, Friends, Foes, Papists, and Protestants, all at one blast.

The intent, when that irreligious achievement had been performed, was, to surprize the remainder of the Kings issue, to alter Religion and Government, and to bring in a foreigne power: Sir Edmond Baynam, an attainted person (who stiled himself Prince of the damned crew) was sent unto the Pope as he was a temporal Prince, to acquaint him with the Gunpowder plot: and now to the plot itself.

The sessions of Parliament being dissolved, July the 7^th, Anno Christi 1605 and prorogued to the seventh of February following: Catesby being at Lambeth, sent for Thomas Winter, who before had been employed into Spaine, and acquainted him with the designe of blowing up the Parliament house, who readily apprehending it, said, This indeed strikes at the root, only these helps were wanting, a house for residence, and a skillful man to carry the Mine: But the first, Catesby assured him was easie to be got, and for the man, he commended Guy Fawkes, a sufficient soulder, and a forward Catholick: Thus Robert Catesby, John Wright, Thomas Winter, and Guy Fawkes had many meetings, and conferences about this business, till at last Thomas Percy came puffing in to Catesbys lodging at Lambeth, saying, What Gentlemen, shall we alwayes be talking, and never do any thing? You cannnot be ignorant how things proceed? To whom Catesby answered, that something was resolved on but first an oath for secresie was to be administred for which purpose they appointed to meet some three dayes after, behind Clements Church beyond Temple barre; where being met, Percy professed that for the Catholick cause himself would be the man to advance it, were it with the daughter of the King, which he was there ready to undertake and do.

No Tom (said Catesby) thou shat not adventure thy self to so small purpose, if thou wilt be a Traytor, there is a plot to greater advantage, and such an one as can never be discovered: Hereupon all of them took the Oath of secresie, heard a Masse, and received the Saacrament, after which Catesby told them his devillish devise by Mine and Gunpowder to blow up the Parliament house, and so by one stroke with the destruction of many, effect that at once which had been many years attempting: And for case of conscience to kill the innocent with the nocent he told that it was warrantable by the authority of Garnet himself the superiour of the English Jesuites, and of Garrard and Tesmond (Jesuitical Priests likewise) who by their apostolical power did commend the fact, and absolve the actors. The Oath was given them by the said Garrard in these words:

Neither were the Priests and Jesuites slack on their parts, who usually concluded their Masses with prayers for the good success of their expected hopes, about which Garnet made these verses.

Gentem aufert perfidam credentium de finibus

Ut Christe laudes debitas persolvamus alacriter.

And other thus. Prosper Lord their paines that labour in thy cause day and night. Let Heresie vanish away like smoake. Let their memory perish with a crack like the ruine and fall of a broken house.

Finis

The horrid Popish PLOT
HAPPILY Discover’d
or,
The English Protestants Remembrancer.
A Poem on the Never-to be-forgotten
POWDER-TREASON
And late Burning of several Cart-loads of Popish Books at the Royal Exchange.
Welcome blest day! that happily didst save
Our church and Nation from a threatened Grave:
A Day! must never Marks of Honour want,
Whilst there survives one grateful Protestant;
But in our Calendar shall stand inrol’d,
through every Age, with Characters of Gold.
As once proud Haman with a curs’d Decree,
Had sign’d God’s peoples General Destinie,
So cruel Factors now of Hell and ROME,
Resolv’d on England’s universal Doom.
But Heaven’s bright Eye Reveal’d the Hellish PLOT
Which had it prosper’d, boldy might have shot
At the Celestial Throne, put out the Sun,
And made the World back to its Chaos run.
Though deep as Hell they laid the Black Designe,
Fate blasts their Projects with a Countermine:
And then the desperate Undertakers be,
Like Haman, sentenc’d to the fatal Tree.
Thus Pharaoh perish’d, Israel scap’d free,
And shall such Mercies ever be forgot?
No, no,--Were we so thankless they would not
Permit it; whose new Treasons still we see,
Revive their Old ones to our Memory.
The Cockatrice on the same Eggs doth brood;
Rebellion’s Venome is their natural Food.
Rome’s Founder by a Wolf (‘tis said) was nurs’d,
And with his Brother’s blood her Walls at first
He cemented: whence ever since we finde
Her Off spring of a Ravenous, Bloody kinde.
Long since with Temporal Arms, and Flags unfurl’d,
She Tyranny o’re Conquer’d Nations hurl’d;
And now with Spiritual Thraldom grasps the World.
Sooner the Aethiop may blanch his skin,
And Devil’s cease from tempting Men to sin;
Sooner shall Darkness dwell in the Suns beams,
And Tybur mix with our Thames purer Streams,
Than the slie Jesuit in his old Arts will leave,
Or, cursed Nets of Treason cease to weave.
But now behold! methinks a gallant Sight,
Doctrines of Darkness yonder brought to light:
Boonfires in Earnest! where Rome’s Pamphlets fry,
And Popish Authors pass their Purgat’ry.
Unto the Fire their Books most justly came,
Which first were wrote to let us in a Flame.
As in the Air the burning Papers flew,
We might, in Emblem, that Religion view:
Which makes a while a glorious glittering Blaze,
And with gay Pomp inviteth Fools to gaze;
Pretends directly towards Heav’n to fly
On Wings of flaming Love and Charity:
But wait a while, approach a little nigher,
Its Glory fades, grows faint, and does Expire.
What at first view appear’d so warm and bright,
Like painted Fires, yields neither Heat nor Light,
But Gross and Earthly down it comes again,
And with its Blackness, where’t doth touch, doth stain.
Was it for this the Monk in his dark Cell,
With Nitrous Earth, and Brimstone stoln from Hell,
First compos’d Gun-powder, that it might be
The future Engine of their Butchery?
At one sad stroke to Massacre a Land,
And make them fall, whom Heaven ordain’d to stand?
Or could the bold, but silly Traitors hope,
Great Britain er’e would Truckle to the Pope?
Erect and Lofty still her Genius stands,
And defies all their Heads, and all their Hands.
Nor shall their Strength or Policy e’re reach
Our Ruine, if our Crimes open not the Breach.
Still we are late, till our transgression merits
The dreadful Reformation from such spirits.
They dig in vain, nor need our Nation fear
Dark Lanthorns, whilst God’s Candlesticks are here.
"The Purple Whore may lay her mantle by,
"Until our sins are of a Scarlet Die.
Lord! may they never to that Bulk proceed,
Nor fester so within, that we should need
Italian Horse-leeches to make us Bleed.
May Reviv’d London never more become
The Priests Burnt-offering to Insulting Rome,
With Guarding Mercies, still our Sovereign tender,
And be thou His, as He’s thy Faiths Defender.
F I N I S.
LICENSED, Nov. 2, 1678.
London Printed for R. G. 1678.

1680- A verse pamphlet published: “Faux’s Ghost: or, Advice to Papists”-(London, 1680)
Faux’s Ghost:
Or,
Advice to
Papists
November 5, 1680
The Morning of that day was almost come,
Which once, the Daring Catalines of Rome
Design’d to make Great Brittains day of doom.
(November’s Fifth,) a Day which had not Heaven,
(Just when the Fatal Stroke was to be given,)
Stretcht out its Saving Hand, had seen the Fall
Of King and People, Root, and Branch, and all:
A Day which since, (and may it Ever be!)
Has been, by all true Protestants, to Thee,
And to thy Praise, Great God, Devoted Solemnlie.
‘Twas just before the Morning of This Day,
As in my Bed, in a Deep sleep I lay,
I felt a sudden Trembling seize my Heart,
And a Cold Sweat ran over every part:
Methought, the Room I lay in was o’er-spread
With thick Black Darkness, such as hides the Dead;
And to encrease the Horrors it brought there,
Loud Thunders Roar’d through all the troubled Air;
And Dismal Lightnings Revel’d in the Clouds,
Which fighting winds drove on in trembling crouds;
Such was that Hour, I thought it could Portend
No less, then that the World was at an End,
When loe! Methought, a Mighty Earth-quake came
And Cleft the Ground; then in a Sulpherous Flame
That seem’d to fill the Chamber, straight arose
A Ghastly shape, Ugly and Black as those
We paint the Devils in; its Glaring Eyes
Look’d like to Comets of a Monstrous size.
So Hidious ‘twas, I guess’d it straight to be
Some Damn’d Arch-Traytor’s Ghost; but whose, to me
Was something hard, at first to Understand;
But when I spy’d th’ Dark Lanthorn in his Hand,
I knew ‘twas FAUX, (that Darling of the Devil,)
That strove t’ Out-doe even Hell itself in Evil.
Methought he Frown’d and deeply seem’d to groan,
And (with a Horrid Voice,)
‘Twixt Grief and Rage, at last, thus made his Moan:
And is it come to this? (cry’d he) did I
So Great, so Glorious an Example dye,
To teach succeeding Ages how to Dare,
And at the Highest Crimes not shrink, nor fear,
And yet can you, ye Dull Tame Sons of Rome,
(Unworthy to be thought from Thence to come,)
When you’ve so far, and Venturously past,
Leave the Great Work but done by Halves at last:
All you’ve yet done has only render’d Us,
And our Religion the more Odious.
But Pardon me, dear Sons o’th Church, ‘tis Zeal,
(Zeal for the Holy Cause,) makes me reveal
My Grief so Passionately; besides, you know,
I’m newly come from a Hot Place Below.
I know you Plotted well, and Plot on still;
And till Our End’s accomplish’d Ever will:
But I dislike the Method you Proceed in,
It is too Mean; set all the Land a Bleeding;
With Fire and Sword, the Hereticks Destroy,
And Endles Fame for the Brave Act Enjoy:
Do what I aim’d at; let that Vipers Nest,
That Conventicle of Heritics I’th West,
That now sit Plotting how to Extirpate
Us, and Religion, find a sudden Fate.
Ah! Had the Fatal Squire a while but spar’d
Those Famous Modern Hero’s, they’d have Dar’d:
Coleman, Groves, Pickering, Whitebeard, all the Crew *
That strove in Royal Blood their Hands t’ Embrew;
Had they but liv’d yer Undiscover’d, what!
Oh! What had they now done! Rather what not?.
Yet some are Living, Roman-Soul’d indeed,
That for the Sacred Cause dare boldly Bleed:
There’s Don Thomazo, (Curse on th’ Renegade!)**
Had he stood firm what Work would he have made!
But to spare Names, (to all our Hero’s Shame,)
Our brave Bold Heroine hath Engross’d all Fame;
She who like Hecate, dire Mischief loves,
And though o’re power’d, Undaunted on still moves!
Celier! Famous Celier! Whose Name at Rome, ***
Shall like the Sun, shine to all Times to come,
And dim the Glories of all Saints that are
Recorded in the Sacred Calender:
On then, True Daughter, of so Great a Sire;
Thy Holy Father bids thy thoughts aspire;
And though Confin’d in such Ignoble Walls,
Plot still King’s Murders, and great Kingdom’s falls.
And oh! Ye Men, for shame, at last be Brave;
Let not a Woman all the Honour have;
And be assur’d, if you but dare do Well,
We’l arm, to aid you, all the Powers of Hell.
With that, methought he Vanisht, with a Noise
Dreadful and Loud as thousand Thunders Voice:
I started, and awak’d, and Kneeling there,
To England’s Gracious God adress’d this Prayer;
Great God, who hitherto hast sav’d this Land,
Oh! Stretch out still thy all Protecting Hand:
Keep safe our Soveraign from Hell and Rome,
And ne’r let Popery into England come.
Finis
London
Printed for Mr. Benskin in Green’s Rents neer Fleet Bridge
1680
*Participants in the Popish Plot uncovered by Titus Oates 1673
** The matchless rogue, or, A brief account of the life of Don Thomazo the unfortunate son [microform] : together with the just commendations of the gentlemans ingenious answer to
Malice defeated, intituled, some reflections on Madam Cellier's case, with due respect to the honourable title of captain, which himself says he is worthy of / Elizabeth Cellier. -- London :
Printed for Elizabeth Cellier ..., 1680.
*** Elizabeth Cellier "Meal-Tub Plot" of 1680.
"One of these shams was to be based on a document
which, he alleged, was hidden in a meal-tub in Mrs. Cellier's house. Search was made, and
in a meal-tub the paper in question was found. It charged with treason most of the leading
Protestants, including the king's natural son, the Duke of Monmouth, the Earl of
Shaftesbury, and Sir Thomas Waller, who was the very official charged with the search. In
consequence of Dangerfield's accusation founded on this document, Lady Powis and
Mrs. Cellier were arrested, as well as some other Catholics, among them the Earl of
Castlemain. Mrs. Cellier's trial took place on 11 June, 1680. She was charged with high
treason, but practically the only evidence against her was that of Dangerfield himself, and
she had little difficulty in proving him a witness entirely unworthy of credence. She was
found not guilty."
-Source: Catholic Encyclopedia

ROME RHYM'D TO DEATH. Being a Collection OF CHOICE POEMS: In two parts.

Written by the E. of R. Dr. Wild, and others of the best Modern Wits.

LONDON, Printed for Iohn How, at the Seven Stars, at the South-West corner of the Royal Exchange, in Cornhill. 1683.

(exerpts)

An Exclamation against POPERY:

By Dr. WILD.

PLot on proud Rome! and lay thy damn'd Design

As low as Hell, we'll find a Countermine:

Wrack thy curst Parts! and when thy utmost Skill

Has prov'd unable to effect thy Will;

Call thy black Emissaries, let 'em go

To summon Traytors from the Shades below,

Where Infant Treason dates its Monstrous Birth;

Is nurst with Care, and after sent on Earth:

To some curst Monks, or wandring Iesuits Cell;

Where it thrives faster than it did in Hell!

Call bloody Brutus up, Lean Cassius too;

Let Faux and Catesby both, be of the Crew!---

Nay, rather than want Help, let your BVLLS run,

And Damn the Devil, if he do not come!

 

Yet after all your Plots, and Hatchings, we

(So long as CHARLES and's Senators agree)

Will warm our Hands at Bone-fires, Bells shall Ring;

And Traytor's Knells no longer Toll, but Sing.

We doubt not Rome, but Maugre all thy Skill,

The Glorious GOD of our Religion will,

In spite of all thy Art, preserve It still!

And his peculiar Care of It to shew,

Defend in Health, Its Great DEFENDER too!

I'th' Interim, Do thou new Crimes invent,

And we'll Contrive as subtil Punishment.

'Tis Autumn now with us; and every Tree,

Instead of Fruit, may bend with Popery.

`Twould be a Novel, tho no hated Sight,

If every Bough should bear a Iesuite!

We'll meet your Plots with Pikes, Daggers, with Swords;

And stead of long Cravats, we'll lend you Cords.

Each Stab in Private, we'll with Use return:

And whilst one Hangs, the other he shall Burn;

Till Tybourn's long-impoverish'd Squire appear,

Gay as the Idol, fills the Porph'ry Chair.

Yes, Mighty CHARLES at thy Command we'll run

Through Seas of Rebels Blood, to save thy Crown.

Our Wives, Estates, and Children too, shall be

But Whetstones to our Swords, when drawn for thee.

We'll Hack, and Slash, and Shoot, till Rome Condoles;

And Hell it self is cloy'd with Traytors Souls:

'Till Godfrey's wronged Ghost (which still does call

For Shoals of Rebels to attend his Fall;)

 

 

Cries out, Dear Protestants, no more pursue

Their Guilty Blood, my Manes have their Due!

This, Mighty Monarch! at thy Beck or Nod,

Shall be effected, as Thou wer't a God;

With so much Readiness, thy Royal Tongue

Shall hardly Speak, c're we revenge the Wrong

On thy curst Enemies; who whilst they state

Thy Death, shall feel themselves th' intended Fate;

And by a quick Reverse, be forc'd to try

The Dire Effects of their own Treachery.

Poor Scarlet Harlot, couldst thou stand in want

Of a Genteel, and Generous Gallant,

Whose Noble Soul to Baseness could not yield;

But wou'd ha[...]e try'd thy Int'rest in the Field,

We had not thus thy Policies condemn'd;

But thought Thee worthy of a Foe, or Friend:

Both which, with equal Estimate thoul't find,

Were always valu'd by an English Mind.

But Thou of late, so Treacherous do'st grow,

That we should blush, to own thee either now.

Base, and Perfidious too, thou do'st appear;

Sland'rest a Pope, and spoyl'st an Emperor.

What! is the Eagle from the Mitre flown?

Is there of Caesar nothing left in Rome?

Must that Renowned City, here-to-fore

Fam'd for her Vertues, well as for her Pow'r;

Instead of Consuls, Vagabonds employ?

And suborn Felons, MONARCHS to destroy?

Bribe Men (thro' Want made boldly Desperate)

To Fire-ball Cities, to their Grov'ling Fate;

 

Whilst Hellish-Iesuits Porters Garbs profane;

Assist the Fire, and Bless the growing Flame!

Must Rome's Great Pope, whose Piety should run

As an Example, thro' all Christendom;

Whose Signal Vertues, Arguments should be

Of his Admir'd Infallability?

Does he hire Ruffains, Iustices to Kill;

And send the Murd'res Pardons at his Will?

Bids them in Hereticks Blood their hands embrue;

Tells them withal 'tis Meritorious too!---

If this thy Practice be, false Rome Fare-well!---

Go, Teach thy Doctrine to the Damn'd in Hell!

Where, by Black Lucifer's Destructive Pride,

Thou may'st in part thy future Fate decide:

Whil'st from our City we thy Imps remove,

To shake their Heels in some cold Field or Grove.

Since both by Ours, and all Mens just Esteem.

They're fitter to Converse with Beasts than Men.

 

A New Song on the Hellish Popish Plot; Sung by BELZEBUB, at a Merry-meeting of the Devils.

 

I.

COme Brother Devils, with full Bowls

Let us refresh our thirsty Souls.

If there be joy in Heaven when men repent;

Why should not we

As merry be,

When thousands to our Regions are sent.

 

 

II.

And first let's give unto Christ's Vicar

The Supremacy o'th' Liquor.

We'l drink his health, and may his Kingdoms grow;

The farther he

Extends his See,

The larger our Dominions are below.

 

 

III.

Of Heaven and Hell Popes have the Keys,

And damn or save whom e'r they please:

'Tis sign they are our friends, if this be true;

They send to th' Skies

Their Enemie,

And let in here only their Popish crue.

 

 

IV.

Next to our Friends the Priests of Mass,

A Bumper round about shall pass.

As many Proselyte[...] to Hell they win,

As we trepan

In tempting Man.

By helping to Indulgencies for sin.

 

 

V.

Before the day of doom, 'tis said,

We Devils must be bound and laid:

But if the Popish-Priests on earth may dwell,

from tempting wee

May well be free;

They'l do more harm than all the arts of Hell.

 

 

VI.

Yet after death these Saints are made,

And Divine honour to them's paid:

To them for help the common people cry,

Oramus vos,

Servate nos,

Whilst in these flames they here tormented lye.

 

 

VII.

But since the name of Saints they gain,

Who for their Church have felt the pain

Of transitory earthly fires; then sure

Much more that name

The Priests may claim,

Who for their Church eternal flames endure.

 

 

VIII.

Oft have I try'd the British-Land

To re-inslave to Romes command

If in that lesser World I had my hopes

I'd sing Old Rose,

And fuddle my Nose;

The Universe should quickly be the Popes

 

 

IX.

Early and late what pains I take

For th' Catholick Religion's sake,

Did they but know, me too they'd Canonize:

My Cloven-foot

And Horns they'd put

Among those Reliques that they highest prize.

 

 

X.

First to conspire, Guy Faux I mov'd

Though Fatal to himself it prov'd.

After that upwards to the firmament

It could not rent

The Parliament,

Him downwards to this place the Powder sent.

 

 

XI.

And at this time to kill the King,

And Popery again to bring,

Many I've tempted; if i'th' first they fail,

A Counterplot

Still they have got,

I hope their next Attempt may yet prevail

 

 

XII.

The French are ready to send o're

Their Armies to the Brittish-shore.

To set fresh forces on the English ground

I have again

Perswaded Spain,

Although in eighty-eight their strength it found.

 

 

XIII.

The English Papists too I'le Arm,

And they shall rise at the Allarm:

One blow these forces shall together joyn,

If Charles they kill,

I have my will,

Against the Protestants they shall combine.

 

 

XIV.

How do I long to see that day,

When Bibles shall be took away,

And Popish Legends in their places laid;

When the Beads motion

Shall be devotion

And in an unknown tongue Prayers shall be said.

 

 

XV.

With joy I think upon the time,

When Whoring shall be thought no crime;

When Monks and Fryers ev'ry place shall store.

When Marriage all

A sin shall call,

And Images for God they shall adore.

 

 

XVI.

But by their own Accomplices

I hear that all detected is.

Th' impeached Traitors into Goal are thrown,

Their Arms are found

Hid under ground,

And all their Letters to the King are known.

 

 

XVII.

Th' unwelcom news by Staley came,

Who hansel'd Tyburn for the same.

With his own hand, had he been longer lived

In open day

The King to slay,

Raviliae-like, he says he had contrived.

 

XVIII.

O that these puny Rogues I'd got.

That did relent and spoil the Plot:

If it were possible, more cruelty

I would Invent

Them to torment,

Than e're was exercis'd on Godfery.

 

 

XIX.

But since we can't come at these men;

Let's swinge the rest for trusting them.

Each of you take his tort'ring instrument;

With Hangmans Noose

When Life they lose,

On the Conspirators our spleen wee'l vent.

 

 

XX.

In the mean while 'tis best I think,

To make an end of all our drink:

That when they're come, and in the height of pain

Their Teeth they gnash,

And Throats would wash,

Nothing to cool their Tongues may here remain.

 

 

 

 

A Continuation of the Catholick Ballad inviting to Popery; Vpon the best Grounds and Reasons, that could ever yet be produced. To an excellent Tune, called, The [H] Powder-plot.

FRom Infallible Rome, once more I am come,

With a Budget of Catholick Ware,

Shall dazle your Eyes, and your Fancies surprize,

To embrace a Religion so rare.

Oh! the Love and good Will, of his Holiness still,

What will he not do for to save ye:

If such Pains and such Art, cannot you Convert,

'Tis pity but Old Nick should have ye.

Now our Priests are run down, and our Iesuits aground

And their Arguments all prove invalid:

See here he hath got, an unheard of New-plot,

To Proselite you with a Ballad.

Then lay by your Jeers, and prick up your Ears,

Whilst I unto you do display,

The advantage and worth, the Truth and so forth

Of the Roman Catholick way.

 

 

If you did but behold the Faith and the Gold,

Of which Holy Church is possest;

You would never more stray, in the Heretical way,

But flie to her Lap to be blest.

The Pope is the Head, and doth Peter succeed,

(Pray come away faster and faster)

He succeeds him 'tis true, but would you know how,

Tis only in denying his Master.

He's Infallible too, what need more ado,

And ever hath Truth in possession:

For though once Mob Ioan, Ascended the Throne,

The same was no breach of Succession.

Our Church and no other, is the Reverend Mother

Of Christians throughout the whole Earth;

Though Older they be, perhaps far than she,

Yet they must owe unto Her their Birth.

Our Faith is so great, so sound and compleat,

It scorneth both Scripture and Reason;

And builds on Tradition, sometimes Superstition,

And oft-times Rebellion and Treason.

Our strict Purity, is plain to each eye,

That Catholick Countries view;

For there to suppress, the sins of the Flesh,

Sodomy is in use; and the Stews.

Our Zeal has been felt, whereever we dwelt,

On all that our Doctrine deny:

If we have a Suspicion, we make Inquisition,

And straight the poor Hereticks fry.

In vain they may plead, or their Scriptures read,

We value them all not a Pin:

 

The best Argument, that we can invent,

Is with Fire and Sword to begin.

A most Godly way, whatever they say,

Since it their Salvation o[...]tains,

Makes them Orthodox, with blows and with knocks,

And hammers Faith into their Brains.

A God we can make, of a thin Wafer-Cake,

And eat him up when we have done:

But a Drop of the Cup, Lay-men must not sup,

For the Priest guzles that all alone.

We have terrible Bulls, and Pardons for Gulls,

Holy Water to Scar-crow the Devil;

With Consecrate Swords, take them on our words,

They shall make the Great Turk be civil.

We have Saints great store, and Miracles more,

With Martyrs a great many from Tyburn;

Pretty Nuns that dwell, mewd up in a Cell,

As chast as Night-walkers of Holbourn.

We have Holy Blood, we have Holy Wood,

A Ship-load, or some such matter:

We have Holy Bones, and some Holy Stones,

Would make an old Ladies Chops water.

We have Holy Men, seen but now and then,

Monks, Abbots, and Capuchin Friars,

With Merits so great, they can buy one a Seat

In Heaven, or else they are Liars.

Then all you that would sure Salvation procure,

And yet still live as you list;

Do but mutter and pray, and say as we say,

And your Catholicks good as e're P---.

 

We are brisk and free, and always agree,

Allowing our selves to be jolly;

And the Puritan Tricks, of dull Hereticks.

We count but Fanatical Folly.

Swearing and Whoring, Drinking and Roaring,

All those are but Venial Transgressions:

The Murthering of Kings, and such petty things,

Are easily Absolv'd in Confession.

A little short Penance, doth wipe away Sin,

And there's an end of all trouble;

Which having dispatcht, you may fall to't agen,

And safely your Wickedness double.

Bring a good round Sum, Sins past and to come,

Shall presently be forgiven;

But this you must know, before you do go,

The Excize runs high upon Heaven.

For we have the Price, of every Vice,

Assest at a certain Rate;

So near at a word, we do them afford,

Not a Penny thereof we can bate.

But if you're content, a while to be pent,

And in Purgatory purged;

A smaller Spell, shall preserve you from Hell,

And keep you from being scourged.

Though you have liv'd a Devil, in all kind of Evil

Bequeath but a Monastery,

And Angels your Soul, without Controul,

To Abraham's Bosom shall Carry.

Nor need you to fear, who have bought Lands dear

That were Holy Churches before;

 

We'l lend them for life, but for your Souls health

At your Death you must them restore.

Thus Popery, you see, will kindly agree,

If you will it but embrace.

But if you delay, there's somany i'th way,

That you will hardly get a good place.

The Critical Time, is now in the prime,

See how Holy Mother does smile,

And spreading her Arms, to preserve you from harms,

So gladly would you Reconcile.

To which purpose behold, do but tell out your Gold,

And all things in readiness be;

For the next Year, His Holiness (we hear)

Doth intend a Jubilee.

You that Pardons would have, or Indulgence crave,

To ROME, to ROME be trudging,

And do not contemn, good Advice from a Friend,

Nor take his Ballad in dudgeon.

 

Vpon the Fifth of November.

HAil happy Hour, wherein that Hellish Plot

Was found, which, had it prosper'd, might have shot

At the Celestial Throne; at whose dread stroke

Atlas had reel'd, and both the Poles had shoke:

And Tellus (sympathizing in the woe)

Had felt an Ague and a Feaver too:

Hell-Gates had been set ope, to make men say,

Saint Peter's Vicar hath mistook his Key.

Methinks I see a dismal gloomy Cell,

The Lobby-Porch and Wicket unto Hell,

The Devil's Shop, where great had been his Prize,

Had he prevail'd to make his Wares to rise.

Say, gentle Drawer, were they Casks of Beer?

Or was old Bacchus tunn'd and firkin'd there?

Nay, then the Pope's turn'd Vintner: Friends, behold

What mortal Liquor's at the Mitre sold!

 

Fire-spewing Aetna with good Cause may fear

That her Distemper springs from too much Beer:

And old Enceladus may well confess

That all his Belching's caus'd by Drunkenness.

Had wretched Dives begg'd a Drop of this,

To allay his heat, the Fool had ask'd amiss:

His hapless Rhet'rick might have done him wrong,

'Twould have tormented, not have could his tongue.

Had Heber's Wife but known this Trick of thine,

She'd spar'd her Milk, & given the Captain Wine.

Strange, sure, had been th' Effects; it would have sped

Our lawful King, and left the Pope instead.

Right Drunkenness indeed, which, for a space,

Steals Man away, and leaves a Beast in's place.

'T had caus'd a general intoxication.

The stag'ring, nay, the Downfal of the Nation.

Oh murth'rous Plot! Posterity shall say,

His Holiness o're-shoots Caligula.

The Pope by this and such Designs ('tis plain)

Out-Babels Nimrod, and Out-butchers Cain.

About this time the brave Mounteagle, whose

Firm Love to his Religion rather chose

To break the Roman Yoke, than see the Reign

Of deceas'd Mary, wheel about again,

Receiv'd a Letter in a dubious sense,

It seem'd a piece of Stygian Eloquence:

The Characters look'd just like conj'ring Spells;

For this bout Hell here spoke in Parables.

The Pope's and Devil's Signets were set to't,

Th Clo[...]en Mitre and the Clo[...]en Foot.

 

But shall our State by an unlook'd-for Blow

Receive a mortal Wound, and yet not know

The hand that smote her? shall she sigh and cry,

Like Polyphemus, Out is quench'd mine Eye?

Is England by the angry Fates sad Doom

Condemn'd to play at Hot-cockles with Rome?

No, Man of Myst'ries, no, we understand

Thy Gibb'rish, though thou art confounded, and

Have found thy meaning; Heav'n can read thy hand.

Thus were our Senate like to be betraid

By a strange Egg which Peter's Cock had laid:

For had the servant hatch'd it, the Device

Had prov'd to us a baneful Cockatrice.

Now like proud H[...]man being stretch'd upon

The heightned Pegs of vain Ambition,

Above Pride's highest Ela, how he took

Poor Mordechai's advancement, and could brook

Hanging, instead of Honouring; that Curse

Which made him set the Cart before the Horse:

Just such was Faux, his baffled hopes bequeath

No comforts now, but thoughts of suddain Death.

Like Haman's fate, he only could aspire

To be advanced fifty Cubits higher.

What Phoebus said to th' Laurel, that sure he

Said to the Gallows, Thou shalt be my Tree.

But didst thou think, thou mitred Man of Rome,

Who bellowest threatnings and thy dreadful Doom,

And like Perillus roarest in thy Bull

Curses and Blasphemies a Nation full,

 

At one sad stroke to Massacree a Land,

And make them fall, whom Heaven ordain'd to stand.

No, though thy head was fire and thou could turn

Thy Ten Branch'd Antler to a Powder-horn;

Still we are safe, till our transgressions merit

A Reformation from such a Spirit

As comes from thence: our Nation need not fear

Dark Lanterns, whilst God's Candlestick is here.

The Purple Whore may lay her Mantle by,

Until our Sins are of a Scarlet-dye.

Those Horns alone can sound our overthrow,

And blow us up, which blew down Iericho,

Christ bless this Kingdom from intestine quarrels;

From Schism in Tubs, and Popery in Barrels.

 

On the Murther of Sir EDMONDBURY GODFREY of WESTMINSTER: An hasty POEM

(exerpt)

As Hocus Pocus doth his Rope or Knife,

And cheats the gaping Farmer and his Wife.

Oh Vote each Sign-post shall a Gibbet be,

And hang a Traytor upon every Tree.

Yet we'l find Wood enough for Bone-fire-piles,

T' inlighten and inflame our Brittish Isles

Upon the approaching Fifth November night,

And make Incendiaries curse the light.

November Fires Septembers may reveal,

One Burn (we say) another Burn will heal.

Lastly, And surely, let this Hue and Cry

Reach Heaven, where every Star looks like an Eye

To that High Court of Parliament above,

Whose Laws are mixt with Justice and with Love;

Whither Just Godfry's Souls already come,

And hath receiv'd the Crown of Martyrdom;

Where Murder'd Kings and slaughter'd Saints do cry,

Their Blood may never unrevenged lie.

Ye Saints and Angels hate that Scarlet Whore,

Whose Priests and Brats before your Shrines adore,

And in their Massacres your Aid implore:

Staining your Altars with the precious Gore:

Pour down your Vials on their Cursed heads,

And in Eternal flames prepare their Beds.

And Thou Judge Jesus Hang'd and Murder'd too,

By Power of Rome and Malice of the Iew,

In Godfry's Wounds Thine own to bleed anew.

Oh Rend Thy Heavens! Come Lord and take Thy Throne,

Revenge Thy Martyrs and Thine own.

 

 

 

 

 

On so great an Occasion as this, two such great Occasions as God has given us, for a perpetual Remembrance of this day; Our Deliverance heretofore from the Gunpowder Treason, and now again from the imminent danger of Popery and Slavery: Such abundant, such overflowing matter of Thanksgiving to God, I confess I am Jealous of myself, may draw me forth into a trespass upon this great Audience; thre being so much to speak of, that one hardly knows what to leave out….

November 3-7 1681: The Domestick Intelligence “there is lately published the history of the life, bloody reign and death of Queen Mary....and other popish cruelties...seasonably published for a caution against popery, illustrated with pictures...”-”The Domestick Intelligence, 3-7 November 1681.

1700?(1894) The National Anthem of Britain
National Anthem Both the music and words were composed by Dr. Henry Carey in 1740. However, in Antwerp cathedral is a MS. copy of it which affirms that the words and music were by Dr. John Bull; adding that it was composed on the occasion of the discovery of Gunpowder Plot, to which the words ``frustrate their knavish tricks'' especially allude.-THE DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE BY E. COBHAM BREWER FROM THE NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION OF 1894
 
U.S.A.
South end forever [cut] North end forever. Extraordinary verses on Pope-night. or, A commemoration the fifth of November, giving a history of the attempt, made by the papishes, to blow up king and Parliament, A. D. 1588. Together with some account of the Pope himself, and his wife Joan: with several other things worthy of notice, too tedious to mention. Sold by the printers boys in Boston [1768].
1. HUZZA! brave Boys, behold the Pope,
     Pretender and Old-Nick,
     How they together lay their Heads,
     To plot a poison Trick?
     2. To blow up KING and PARLIAMENT
     To Flitters, rent and torn:
     --Oh! blund'ring Poet, Since the Plot,
     Was this Pretender born.--
     3. Yet, sure upon this famous Stage,
     He's got together now;
     And had he then, he'd been a Rogue
     As bad as t'other two.
     4. Come on, brave Youths, drag on your Pope
     Let's see his frightful Phiz:
     Let's view his Features rough and fierce,
     That Map of Ugliness!
     5. Distorted Joints, so huge and broad!
     So horribly drest up!
     'Twould puzzle Newton's Self to tell,
     The D--l from the Pope.
     6. See I how He Shakes his tot'ring Head
     And knocks his palsy Knees;
     A Proof He is the Scarlet Whore,
     And got the soul Disease.
     7. Most terrible for to behold,
     He Stinks much worse then Rum:
     Here, you behold the Pope, and here
     Old Harry in his Rome.
     8. D'ye ask why Satan Stands behind?
     Before he durst not go,
     Because his Pride won't let him Stoop,
     To kiss the Pope's great Toe.
     9. Old Boys, and young, be Sure observe
     The Fifth Day of November;
     What tho' it is a Day apast?
     You still can it remember.
     10. The little Popes, they go out First,
     With little teney Boys:
     In Frolicks they are full of Gale
     And laughing make a Noise.
     11. The Girls run out to fee the Sight,
     The Boys eke ev'ry one;
     Along they are a dragging them,
     With Granadier's Caps on.
     12. The great Ones next go out, and meet
     With many a Smart Rebuf:
     They're hall'd along from Street to Street
     And call hard Names enough.
     13. "A Pagan, Jew, Mahometan,
     Turk, Strumpet, Wizzard, Witch;"
     In short the Number of his Name's,
     Six Hundred Sixty six.
     14. "How dreadful do his Features show?
     "How fearful is his Grin?
     "Made up of ev'ry Thing that's bad;
     He is the Man of Sin.
     15. If that his deeden Self could see
     Himself so turn'd to Fun:
     In Rage He'd tear out His Pope's Eyes,
     And scratch his Rev'rend Bum.
     16. He'd kick his tripple Crown about,
     And weary of his Life,
     He'd curse the Rabble, and away
     He'd run to tell his Wife.
     17. [Some Wits begin to cavil here
     And laughing seem to query,
     "How Pope should have a Wife, and yet,
     The Clergy never marry."
     18. Laugh if you please, yet still I'm sure
     If false I'm not alone;
     Pray Critic, did you never hear
     Not read of fair Pope-Joan.]
     19. "Help Joan! see how I'm drag'd and bounc'd,
     "Pursu'd, surrounded, -- Wife!
     "And when I'm bang'd to Death, I shall
     "Be barbacu'd alive."
     20. Joan cry's, "Why in this Passion, Sir?
     "And why so raving mad?
     "You surely must mistake the Case,
     "It cannot be so bad."
     21. "You Fool! I saw it with my Eyes,
     "I cannot be deceiv'd."
     "Yes, but You told me t'other Day,
     "Sight! must not be believ'd."
     22. A sham'd, inrag'd, and mad, and vex'd,
     He mutters ten Times more.
     "I'll make a Bull, and my He-Cow
     "Shall bellow, grunt and rear."
     23. Oh! Pope, we pity thy sad Case,
     So dismal and forlorn!
     We know that thou a Cuckold art,
     For thou hast many an Horn.
     24. And eke sev'n Heads he has also.
     Tho' but one on him flicks:
     Ten Horns he in his Pocket puts,
     And Heads no less than six.
     25. His Pockets full of Heads and Horns,
     In's Hand he holds his Keys;
     So down He bends beneath their Weight,
     With Age, Shame and Disease.
     26. His End so near, each Cardinal
     Quite old himself would feign:
     He tries to stoop and cough that he
     Might his Successor reign.
     27. And now, their Frolick to compleat,
     They to the Mill-Dam go,
     Burn Him to Nothing first, and then
     Plunge Him the Waves into.
     28. But to conclude, from what we've heard,
     With Pleasure serve that King:
     Be not Pretenders, Papishes,
     Nor Pope, nor t'other Thing.
Sold by the Printers Boys in Boston.
 
 
 
Thomas Hardy Describes a Bonfire
3 - The Custom of the Country
Had a looker-on been posted in the immediate vicinity
of the barrow, he would have learned that these persons
were boys and men of the neighbouring hamlets.
Each, as he ascended the barrow, had been heavily laden
with furze faggots, carried upon the shoulder by means
of a long stake sharpened at each end for impaling them
easily--two in front and two behind.  They came from
a part of the heath a quarter of a mile to the rear,
where furze almost exclusively prevailed as a product.
Every individual was so involved in furze by his method
of carrying the faggots that he appeared like a bush on
legs till he had thrown them down.  The party had marched
in trail, like a travelling flock of sheep; that is to say,
the strongest first, the weak and young behind.
The loads were all laid together, and a pyramid of furze
thirty feet in circumference now occupied the crown
of the tumulus, which was known as Rainbarrow for many
miles round.  Some made themselves busy with matches,
and in selecting the driest tufts of furze, others in
loosening the bramble bonds which held the faggots together.
Others, again, while this was in progress, lifted their
eyes and swept the vast expanse of country commanded
by their position, now lying nearly obliterated by shade.
In the valleys of the heath nothing save its own wild
face was visible at any time of day; but this spot
commanded a horizon enclosing a tract of far extent,
and in many cases lying beyond the heath country.
None of its features could be seen now, but the whole
made itself felt as a vague stretch of remoteness.
While the men and lads were building the pile,
a change took place in the mass of shade which denoted
the distant landscape.  Red suns and tufts of fire one
by one began to arise, flecking the whole country round.
They were the bonfires of other parishes and hamlets
that were engaged in the same sort of commemoration.
Some were distant, and stood in a dense atmosphere,
so that bundles of pale straw-like beams radiated around
them in the shape of a fan.  Some were large and near,
glowing scarlet-red from the shade, like wounds in a black hide.
Some were Maenades, with winy faces and blown hair.
These tinctured the silent bosom of the clouds above
them and lit up their ephemeral caves, which seemed
thenceforth to become scalding caldrons.  Perhaps as many
as thirty bonfires could be counted within the whole
bounds of the district; and as the hour may be told on
a clock-face when the figures themselves are invisible,
so did the men recognize the locality of each fire by its
angle and direction, though nothing of the scenery could
be viewed.
The first tall flame from Rain barrow sprang into the sky,
attracting all eyes that had been fixed on the distant
conflagrations back to their own attempt in the same kind.
The cheerful blaze streaked the inner surface of the human
circle--now increased by other stragglers, male and female--with
its own gold livery, and even overlaid the dark turf
around with a lively luminousness, which softened off into
obscurity where the barrow rounded downwards out of sight.
It showed the barrow to be the segment of a globe,
as perfect as on the day when it was thrown up, even the
little ditch remaining from which the earth was dug.
Not a plough had ever disturbed a grain of that stubborn soil.
In the heath's barrenness to the farmer lay its fertility
to the historian.  There had been no obliteration,
because there had been no tending.
It seemed as if the bonfire-makers were standing in some
radiant upper story of the world, detached from and
independent of the dark stretches below.  The heath down
there was now a vast abyss, and no longer a continuation
of what they stood on; for their eyes, adapted to the blaze,
could see nothing of the deeps beyond its influence.
Occasionally, it is true, a more vigorous flare than usual
from their faggots sent darting lights like aides-de-camp
down the inclines to some distant bush, pool, or patch
of white sand, kindling these to replies of the same colour,
till all was lost in darkness again.  Then the whole black
phenomenon beneath represented Limbo as viewed from the brink
by the sublime Florentine in his vision, and the muttered
articulations of the wind in the hollows were as complaints
and petitions from the "souls of mighty worth" suspended therein.
It was as if these men and boys had suddenly dived into
past ages, and fetched there from an hour and deed which had
before been familiar with this spot.  The ashes of the
original British pyre which blazed from that summit lay
fresh and undisturbed in the barrow beneath their tread.
The flames from funeral piles long ago kindled there had
shone down upon the lowlands as these were shining now.
Festival fires to Thor and Woden had followed on the same
ground and duly had their day.  Indeed, it is pretty
well known that such blazes as this the heathmen were now
enjoying are rather the lineal descendants from jumbled
Druidical rites and Saxon ceremonies than the invention
of popular feeling about Gunpowder Plot.
Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant
act of man when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is
sounded throughout Nature.  It indicates a spontaneous,
Promethean rebelliousness against that fiat that this
recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness,
misery and death.  Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods
of the earth say, Let there be light.
The brilliant lights and sooty shades which struggled
upon the skin and clothes of the persons standing round
caused their lineaments and general contours to be drawn
with Dureresque vigour and dash.  Yet the permanent moral
expression of each face it was impossible to discover,
for as the nimble flames towered, nodded, and swooped
through the surrounding air, the blots of shade and flakes
of light upon the countenances of the group changed shape
and position endlessly.  All was unstable; quivering as leaves,
evanescent as lightning.  Shadowy eye-sockets, deep
as those of a death's head, suddenly turned into pits of
lustre: a lantern-jaw was cavernous, then it was shining;
wrinkles were emphasized to ravines, or obliterated
entirely by a changed ray.  Nostrils were dark wells;
sinews in old necks were gilt mouldings; things with no
particular polish on them were glazed; bright objects,
such as the tip of a furze-hook one of the men carried,
were as glass; eyeballs glowed like little lanterns.
Those whom Nature had depicted as merely quaint
became grotesque, the grotesque became preternatural;
for all was in extremity.
---Source: Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy

Dickens Invokes the Plot and Fawkes
There was, within a few years, in the possession of a highly
respectable and in every way credible and unimpeachable member of
the Chuzzlewit Family (for his bitterest enemy never dared to hint
at his being otherwise than a wealthy man), a dark lantern of
undoubted antiquity; rendered still more interesting by being, in
shape and pattern, extremely like such as are in use at the present
day.  Now this gentleman, since deceased, was at all times ready to
make oath, and did again and again set forth upon his solemn
asseveration, that he had frequently heard his grandmother say, when
contemplating this venerable relic, 'Aye, aye!  This was carried by
my fourth son on the fifth of November, when he was a Guy Fawkes.'
These remarkable words wrought (as well they might) a strong
impression on his mind, and he was in the habit of repeating them
very often.  The just interpretation which they bear, and the
conclusion to which they lead, are triumphant and irresistible.  The
old lady, naturally strong-minded, was nevertheless frail and
fading; she was notoriously subject to that confusion of ideas, or,
to say the least, of speech, to which age and garrulity are liable.
The slight, the very slight, confusion apparent in these expressions
is manifest, and is ludicrously easy of correction.  'Aye, aye,'
quoth she, and it will be observed that no emendation whatever is
necessary to be made in these two initiative remarks, 'Aye, aye!
This lantern was carried by my forefather'--not fourth son, which is
preposterous--'on the fifth of November.  And HE was Guy Fawkes.'
Here we have a remark at once consistent, clear, natural, and in
strict accordance with the character of the speaker.  Indeed the
anecdote is so plainly susceptible of this meaning and no other,
that it would be hardly worth recording in its original state, were
it not a proof of what may be (and very often is) affected not only
in historical prose but in imaginative poetry, by the exercise of a
little ingenious labour on the part of a commentator.
-Source Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit
by Charles Dickens
 
I have said that the company were all gone; but I ought to have excepted Uriah, whom I don't include in that denomination, and who had never ceased to hover near us.  He was close behind me when I went downstairs.  He was close beside me, when I walked away from the house, slowly fitting his long skeleton fingers into the still longer fingers of a    great Guy Fawkes pair of gloves.- Charles Dickens, David Coperfield, Chapter 25.
 
1822
ESSAYS AND SKETCHES
Charles Lamb
 
FROM THE "LONDON MAGAZINE," 1823
A VERY ingenious and subtle writer, 1 whom there is good reason for suspecting to be an ex-Jesuit, not unknown at Douay some five-and-twenty years since (he will not obtrude himself at M__th again in a hurry), about a twelvemonth back set himself to prove the character of the Powder-Plot conspirators to have been that of heroic selfdevotedness and true Christian martyrdom. Under the mask of Protestant candour, he
actually gained admission for his treatise into a London weekly paper (2)But, admitting
Catholic principles, his arguments are shrewd and incontrovertible. "Guy Faux was a
fanatic; but he was no hypocrite. He ranks among good haters. He was cruel, bloodyminded, reckless of all considerations but those of an infuriated and bigoted faith; but he was a true son of the Catholic Church, a martyr, and a confessor, for all that. He who can prevail upon himself to devote his life for a cause, however we may condemn his opinions or abhor his actions, vouches at least for the honesty of his principles and the disinterestedness of his motives.
He may be guilty of the worst practices; but he is capable of the greatest. He is no 1 not
particularly distinguished for its zeal towards either religion. No longer a slave, but free. The contempt of death is the beginning of virtue. The hero of the Gunpowder Plot was, if you will, a fool, a madman, an assassin; call him what names you please: still he was neither knave nor coward. He did not propose to blow up the Parliament, and come off, scot-free, himself: he showed that he valued his own life no more than theirs in such a cause, where the integrity of the Catholic faith and the salvation of perhaps millions of souls was at stake. He did not call it a murder, but a sacrifice, which he was about to achieve: he was armed with the Holy Spirit and with fire; he was the Church’s chosen servant and her blessed martyr. He comforted himself as ‘the best of cut-throats.’ How many wretches are there that would have undertaken to do what he intended, for a sum of money, if they could have got off with impunity! How few are there who would have put themselves in Guy Faux’s situation to save the universe! Yet, in the latter case, we affect to be thrown into greater consternation than at the most unredeemed acts of villainy; as if the absolute disinterestedness of the motive doubled the horror of the deed! The cowardice and selfishness of mankind are in fact shocked at the consequences to themselves if such examples are held up for imitation; and they make a fearful outcry against the violation of every principle of morality, lest they, too, should be called on for any such tremendous sacrifices; lest they, in their turn, should have to go on the forlorn hope of extra-official duty. Charity begins at home is a maxim that prevails as well in the courts of conscience as in those of prudence. We would be thought to shudder at the consequences of crime to others, while we tremble for them to ourselves. We talk of the dark and cowardly assassin; and this is well, when an individual shrinks from the face of an enemy, and purchases his own safety by striking a blow in the dark: but how the charge of cowardly can be applied to the public assassin, who, in the very act of destroying another, lays down his life as the pledge and forfeit of his sincerity and boldness, I am at a loss to devise. There may be barbarous prejudice, rooted hatred, unprincipled treachery, in such an act; but he who resolves to take all the danger and odium upon himself can no more be branded with cowardice, than Regulus devoting himself for his country, or Codrus leaping into the fiery gulf. A wily Father Inquisitor, coolly and with plenary authority condemning hundreds of helpless, unoffending victims to the flames, or to the horrors of a living tomb, while he himself would not suffer a hair of his head to be hurt, is, to me, a character without any qualifying trait in it. Again: the Spanish conqueror and hero, the favourite of his monarch, who enticed thirty thousand poor Mexicans into a large open building under promise of strict faith and cordial goodwill, and then set fire to it, making sport of the cries and agonies of these deluded creatures, is an instance of uniting the most hardened cruelty with the most heartless selfishness. His plea was, keeping no faith with heretics; this too was Guy Faux’s: but I am sure at least that the latter kept faith with himself; he was in earnest in his professions. His was not gay, wanton, unfeeling depravity; he did not murder in sport: it was serious work that he had taken in hand.
To see this arch-bigot, this heart-whole traitor, this pale miner in the infernal regions,
skulking in his retreat with his cloak and dark lantern, moving cautiously about among
his barrels of gunpowder loaded with death, but not yet ripe for destruction, regardless
of the lives of others, and more than indifferent to his own, presents a picture of the
strange infatuation of the human understanding, but not of the depravity of the human
will, without an equal. There were thousands of pious Papists privy to and ready to
applaud the deed when done: there was no one but our old Fifth of November friend,
who still flutters in rags and straw on the occasion, that had the courage to attempt it.
In him stern duty and unshaken faith prevailed over natural frailty." 2 (2) The
Examiner, then edited by Leigh Hunt. It is impossible, upon Catholic principles, not to
admit the force of this reasoning: we can only not help smiling (with the writer) at the
simplicity of the gulled editor, swallowing the dregs of Loyola for the very
quintessence of sublimated reason in England at the commencement of the nineteenth
century. We will just, as a contrast, show what we Protestants (who are a party
concerned) thought upon the same subject at a period rather nearer to the heroic project
in question.
The Gunpowder Treason was the subject which called forth the earliest specimen
which is left us of the pulpit eloquence of Jeremy Taylor. When he preached the sermon
on that anniversary, which is printed at the end of the folio edition of his Sermons, he
was a young man, just commencing his ministry under the auspices of Archbishop
Laud. From the learning and mature oratory which it manifests, one should rather have
conjectured it to have proceeded from the same 2 He says- William Hazlitt.
person after he was ripened by time into a Bishop and Father of the Church.
"And, really, these Romano-barbari could never pretend to any precedent for an act so
barbarous as theirs. Adrammelech, indeed, killed a king; but he spared the people.
Haman would have killed the people, but spared the king; but that both king and
people, princes and judges, branch and rush and root, should die at once (as if
Caligula’s wish were actuated, and all England upon one head), was never known till
now, that all the malice of the world met in this, as in a centre. The Sicilian even-song,
the matins of St. Bartholomew, known for the pitiless and damned massacres, were but
kapnou skias onar, ‘the dream of the shadow of smoke,’ if compared with this great
fire. In tum occupato saeculo fabulas vulgares nequitia non invenit. This was a busy
age. Erostratus must have invented a more sublimed malice than the burning of one
temple, or not have been so much as spoke of since the discovery of the powder
treason. But I must make more haste; I shall not else climb the sublimity of this impiety.
Nero was sometimes the populare odium, was popularly hated, and deserved it too: for
he slew his master, and his wife, and all his family, once or twice over; opened his
mother’s womb; fired the city, laughed at it, slandered the Christians for it: but yet all
these were but principia malorum, the very first ‘rudiments of evil.’ Add, then, to these,
Herod’s masterpiece at Ramah, as it was deciphered by the tears and sad threnes of the
matrons in an universal mourning for the loss of their pretty infants; yet this of Herod
will prove but an infant wickedness, and that of Nero the evil but of one city. I would
willingly have found out an example, but I see I cannot, should I put into the scale the
extract of all the old tyrants famous in antique stories,"Bistonii stabulum regis,
Busiridis aras, Antiphatae mensas, et Taurica regna Thoantis; should I take for true
story the highest cruelty as it was fancied by the most hieroglyphical Egyptian,- this
alone would weigh them down, as if the Alps were put in scale against the dust of a
balance. For, had this accursed treason prospered, we should have had the whole
kingdom mourn for the inestimable loss of its chiefest glory, its life, its present joy, and
all its very hopes for the future. For such was their destined malice, that they would not
only have inflicted so cruel a blow, but have made it incurable, by cutting off our
supplies of joy, the whole succession of the Line Royal. Not only the vine itself, but all
the gemmulae, and the tender olive branches, should either have been bent to their
intentions, and made to grow crooked, or else been broken.
"And now, after such a sublimity of malice, I will not instance in the sacrilegious ruin
of the neighbouring temples, which needs must have perished in the flame; nor in the
disturbing the ashes of our entombed kings, devouring their dead ruins like sepulchral
dogs; these are but minutes in respect of the ruin prepared for the living temples.
"Stragem sed istam non tulit Christus cadentum principum Impune, ne forsan sui
Patris periret fabrica.
Ergo quae poterit lingua retexere Laudes, Christe, tuas, qui domitum struis Infidum
populum cum Duce perfido?"
In such strains of eloquent indignation did Jeremy Taylor’s young oratory inveigh
against that stupendous attempt, which he truly says had no parallel in ancient or
modern times. A century and a half of European crimes has elapsed since he made the
assertion, and his position remains in its strength. He wrote near the time in which the
nefarious project had like to have been completed. Men’s minds still were shuddering
from the recentness of the escape. It must have been within his memory, or have been
sounded in his ears so young by his parents, that he would seem, in his maturer years,
to have remembered it. No wonder, then, that he describes it in words that burn. But to
us, to whom the tradition has come slowly down, and has had time to cool, the story of
Guido Vaux sounds rather like a tale, a fable, and an invention, than true history. It
supposes such gigantic audacity of daring, combined with such more than infantile
stupidity in the motive,- such a combination of the fiend and the monkey,- that
credulity is almost swallowed up in contemplating the singularity of the attempt. It has
accordingly, in some degree, shared the fate of fiction. It is familiarised to us in a kind
of serioludicrous way, like the story of Guy of Warwick, or Valentine and Orson. The
way which we take to perpetuate the memory of this deliverance is well adapted to
keep up this fabular notion. Boys go about the streets annually with a beggarly
scarecrow dressed up, which is to be burnt indeed, at night, with holy zeal; but,
meantime, they beg a penny for poor Guy. This periodical petition, which we have
heard from our infancy, combined with the dress and appearance of the effigy, so well
calculated to move compassion, has the effect of quite removing from our fancy the
horrid circumstances of the story which is thus commemorated; and in poor Guy vainly
should we try to recognise any of the features of that tremendous madman in inquity,
Guido Vaux, with his horrid crew of accomplices, that sought to emulate earthquakes
and bursting volcanoes in their more than mortal mischief.
Indeed, the whole ceremony of burning Guy Faux, or the Pope, as he is indifferently
called, is a sort of Treason Travestie, and admirably adapted to lower our feelings upon
this memorable subject. The printers of the little duodecimo Prayer Book, printed by T.
Baskett, 3 in 1749, which has the effigy of his sacred majesty George II. piously
prefixed, have illustrated the service (a very fine one in itself) which is appointed for
the anniversary of this day, with a print, which is not very 3 The same, I presume, upon
whom the clergyman in the song of the "Vicar and Moses," not without judgment,
passes this memorable censure: Here, Moses the king: ‘Tis a scandalous thing That this
Baskett should print for the Crown.
easy to describe; but the contents appear to be these: The scene is a room, I conjecture,
in the king’s palace. Two persons- one of whom I take to be James himself, from his
wearing his hat, while the other stands bare-headed- are intently surveying a sort of
speculum, or magic mirror, which stands upon a pedestal in the midst of a room, in
which a little figure of Guy Faux with his dark lantern, approaching the door of the
Parliament House, is made discernible by the light proceeding from a great eye which
shines in from the topmost corner of the apartment, by which eye the pious artist no
doubt meant to designate Providence.
On the other side of the mirror is a figure doing something, which puzzled me when a
child, and continues to puzzle me now. The best I can make of it is, that it is a
conspirator busy laying the train; but, then, why is he represented in the king’s
chamber? Conjecture upon so fantastical a design is vain; and I only notice the print as
being one of the earliest graphic representations which woke my childhood into
wonder, and doubtless combined, with the mummery before mentioned, to take off the
edge of that horror which the naked historical mention of Guido’s conspiracy could not
have failed of exciting. Now that so many years are past since that abominable
machination was happily frustrated, it will not, I hope, be considered a profane
sporting with the subject, if we take no very serious survey of the consequences that
would have flowed from this plot if it had had a successful issue. The first thing that
strikes us, in a selfish point of view, is the material change which it must have
produced in the course of the nobility. All the ancient peerage being extinguished, as it
was intended, at one blow, the Red Book must have been closed for ever, or a new race
of peers must have been created to supply the deficiency. As the first part of this
dilemma is a deal too shocking to think of, what a fund of mouth-watering reflections
does this give rise to in the breast of us plebeians of A.D. 1823! Why, you or I, reader,
might have been Duke of __, or Earl of __. I  particularise no titles, to avoid the least
suspicion of intention to usurp the dignities of the two noblemen whom I have in my
eye; but a feeling more dignified than envy sometimes excites a sigh, when I think how
the posterity of Guido’s Legion of Honour (among whom you or I might have been)
might have rolled down, "dulcified," as Burke expresses it, "by an exposure to the
influence of heaven in a long flow of generations, from the hard, acidulous, metallic
tincture of the spring."
4
What new orders of merit think you this English Napoleon would have chosen?
Knights of the Barrel, or Lords of the Tub, Grand Almoners of the Cellar, or Ministers
of Explosion? We should have given the train couchant, and the fire rampant, in our
arms; we should have quartered the dozen white matches in our coats: the Shallows
would have been nothing to us.
Turning away from these mortifying reflections, let us contemplate its effects upon the
other house; for they were all to have gone together,- king, lords, commons.
4 Letter to a Noble Lord.
To assist our imagination, let us take leave to suppose (and we do it in the harmless
wantonness of fancy)- to suppose that the tremendous explosion had taken place in our
days. We better know what a House of Commons is in our days, and can better
estimate our loss. Let us imagine, then, to ourselves, the united members sitting in full
conclave above; Faux just ready with his train and matches below,- in his hand a "reed
tipp’d with fire." He applies the fatal engine.
To assist our notions still further, let us suppose some lucky dog of a reporter, who had
escaped by miracle upon some plank of St. Stephen’s benches, and came plump upon
the roof of the adjacent Abbey; from whence descending, at some neighbouring coffeehouse, first wiping his clothes and calling for a glass of lemonade, he sits down and
reports what he had heard and seen (quorum pars magna fuit) for the Morning Post or
the Courier. We can scarcely imagine him describing the event in any other words but
some such as these: "A motion was put and carried, that this house do adjourn; that the
Speaker do quit the chair. The house rose amid clamours for order." In some such way
the event might most technically have been conveyed to the public. But a poetical mind,
not content with this dry method of narration, cannot help pursuing the effects of this
tremendous blowing up, this adjournment in the air, sine die. It sees the benches
mount,- the chair first, and then the benches; and first the treasury bench, hurried up in
this nitrous explosion,- the members, as it were, pairing off; Whigs and Tories taking
their friendly apotheosis together (as they did their sandwiches below in Bellamy’s
room). Fancy, in her flight, keeps pace with the aspiring legislators: she sees the awful
seat of order mounting, till it becomes finally fixed, a constellation, next to Cassiopeia’s
chair,- the wig of him that sat in it taking its place near Berenice’s curls. St. Peter, at
heaven’s wicket, no, not St. Peter,- St. Stephen, with open arms, receives his own.
While Fancy beholds these celestial appropriations, Reason, no less pleased, discerns
the mighty benefit which so complete a renovation must produce below.
Let the most determined foe to corruption, the most thorough-paced redresser of
abuses, try to conceive a more absolute purification of the house than this was
calculated to produce. Why Pride’s Purge was nothing to it. The whole
boroughmongering system would have been got rid of, fairly exploded; with it the
senseless distinctions of Party must have disappeared, faction must have vanished,
corruption have expired in air. From Hundred, Tything, and Wapentake, some new
Alfred would have convened, in all its purity, the primitive Witenagemote,- fixed upon
a basis of property or population, permanent as the poles.
From this dream of universal restitution, Reason and Fancy with difficulty awake to
view the real state of things. But (blessed be Heaven!) St. Stephen’s walls are yet
standing, all her seats firmly secured; nay, some have doubted (since the Septennial
Act) whether gunpowder itself, or anything short of a committee above stairs, would be
able to shake any one member from his seat. That great and final improvement to the
Abbey, which is all that seems wanting,- the removing of Westminster Hall and its
appendages, and letting in the view of the Thames,- must not be expected in our days.
Dismissing, therefore, all such speculations as mere tales of a tub, it is the duty of every
honest Englishman to endeavour, by means more wholesome than Guido’s, to
ameliorate, without extinguishing, parliaments; to hold the lantern to the dark places of
corruption; to apply the match to the rotten parts of the system only; and to wrap
himself up, not in the muffling mantle of conspiracy, but in the warm, honest cloak of
integrity and patriotic intention.
 
 
Harlequin and Guy Fawkes a Pantomime from 1835 click here
 

Blackwoods Edinbugh Magazine Vol. 76 (470) Dec 1854 Page 715
Peace and War
Shall we forget the immortal Fifth, dear to urchins, a small part of whose associations to
Them is made up of treasons and plots, and a large part of fun and fireworks? Surely the poor fanatic Guy would have kept his principles in his pocket, and his tinder-box out of it, if he had known that his very name was to become a source of annual and perennial delight to yet unborn generations of heretics; or the most he would have done would have been to turn Irish agitator, and “blow up” the three estates at monster meetings, or meetings of monsters. IN the present year, Guy Fawkes day fell on a Sunday, and therefore was either postponed or anticipated, according to the impatience or the luxurious patience of its celebrators. But the evening of Sunday, the 5th of November, is remembered by the writer of this, as illustrating the frequent beauty of the season. The evening air was rather cold, the sun had gone to rest wrapped up in robes of purple, and in the west was that sweet green ting which, mixing into the cool blue-grey of the heaven, creates an appearance and feeling best expressed by the term “weird.” And the full moon rose large, and of a deep gold colour, over a hill which stood between the spectator and London. And as she rose,
Or rather stood, suddenly up, there was a faint redness round her in the air, perhaps partly produced by the smoke of the metropolis; at all events, it had the effect of a blush, as the pure queen of night, who had justl left her bower in unveiled beauty, sailed over the great bad town, so that the air seemed flushing with consciousness, as it did when the Lady Godiva had to run the gauntlet of the unholy eyes of Coventry.  This evening, in particular was full of calm and sprituality, and, in general, the month abounds with a soothing melancholy, which is very good for the heart and soul.  When fine, it is like the peaceful and natural death of the year, which passes away like:
“A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller betwixt life and death.”
Such a death as all good people would wish to die.
 
 
 
.
THE’ FIFTH OF NOVEMBER.

IN SERIES, 1821-22. PART II.

XLII. GUNPOWDER PLOT

          FEAR hath a hundred eyes that all agree
          To plague her beating heart; and there is one
          (Nor idlest that!) which holds communion
          With things that were not, yet were 'meant' to be.
          Aghast within its gloomy cavity
          That eye (which sees as if fulfilled and done
          Crimes that might stop the motion of the sun)
          Beholds the horrible catastrophe
          Of an assembled Senate unredeemed
          From subterraneous Treason's darkling power:                10
          Merciless act of sorrow infinite!
          Worse than the product of that dismal night,
          When gushing, copious as a thunder-shower,
          The blood of Huguenots through Paris streamed.
            --Wordsworth, William. 1888. Complete Poetical Works. 

 

Machiavelli

Thomas Babington MacaulayEnglish Essays: Sidney to Macaulay.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

We doubt whether any name in literary history be so generally odious as that of the man whose character
and writings we now propose to consider. The terms in which he is commonly described would seem to
impart that he was the Tempter, the Evil Principle, the discoverer of ambition and revenge, the original
inventor of perjury, and that, before the publication of his fatal “Prince,” there had never been a hypocrite, a tyrant, or a traitor, a simulated virtue, or a convenient crime. One writer gravely assures us that Maurice of Saxony learned all his fraudulent policy from that execrable volume. Another remarks, that, since it was
translated into Turkish, the sultans have been more addicted than formerly to the custom of strangling their
brothers. Lord Lyttelton charges the poor Florentine with the manifold treasons of the house of Guise, and
with the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Several authors have hinted that the Gunpowder Plot is to be
primarily attributed to his doctrines, and seem to think that his effigy ought to be substituted for that of Guy
Fawkes, in those processions by which the ingenuous youth of England annually commemorate the
preservation of the Three Estates. The Church of Rome has pronounced in works accursed things. Nor have our own countrymen been backward in testifying their opinion of his merits. Out of his surname they havecoined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the Devil.
2
It is indeed scarcely possible for any person, not well acquainted with the history and literature of Italy, to
read without horror and amazement the celebrated treatise which has brought so much obloquy on the name of Machiavelli.

 
Flan O' Brien 1962
The Hard Life
Chapter 10
"-Now listen her, Father. Listen carefully.  This is the first part of November. In the year 1605 in England, King James the First was persecuting the Catholics, throwing them into prison and plundering their property.  It was diabolical, worse than in Elizabeth's time.  The R.C.s were treated like dogs, and their priests like pigs.  It would  put you in mind of the Roman emperors, except that a thullabawn like Nero could at least boast that he was providing public entertainment.  Well, what happened?
- James was a very despicable monarch, Father Fahrt said slowly.
-I will tell you what happened.  A man named Robert Catesby thinks to himself that we've had as much of this sort of carry-on as we're going to take.  And he thought of the same plan as Mrs. Flaherty.  He planned to blow up the parliament house and annihilate the whole bloody lot of the bosthoons, his Majesty included.  I know the thanks you'd get if you told him to busy himself with elections and votes.  He'd slap your face and give you a knee in the belly. Remember, remember the Fifth of November.
-they lived in another age, of course, Father Fahrt answered.
-Right nad wrong don't change with the times and you know that very well, Father.  Catesby got Guy Fawkes on his side, a brave man that was fighting in Flanders.  And Grant and Keyes and the two Winters, any God's amount of sound men, Romans all.  Fawkes was the kingpin and the head bottle washer of the whole outfit.  He managed to get a ton and a half of gunpowder stuffed into a cellar under the House of Lords. But there were two other men lending a good hand all the time and saying Glod bless the work. I mean Greenway and Garnet. Know who they were, Father?
-I think I do.
-Of course you do. They were Jesuits. Hah?
-My dear man, Jesuits also can make mistakes.
They can err in judgment. They are human.
-Faith then they didn't err in judgment when Guy Fawkes was found out.  They scooted lik greased lightning and Father Greenway and  another priest managed to get to a healthier country.  Father Garnet was not so alive to himself.  He got caught and for his pains he got a length of hempen tope for himself, on the gallows high.
-A martyr for the Faith, of course, Father Fahrt said evenly.
-And Fawkes. They gave him tortures you wouldn't see outside hell itself to make him give the names of the others.  Be damn but he wouldn't. But when he hard that Catesby and a crowd of his segocias had been chased, caught and killed, he broke down and made some class of a confession. But do you know what? When this rigamore was put before him for signature, believe it or not but he couldn't sign it.  The torture had him banjaxed altogether.  His hands were all broken be the thumb screws.  Waht's your opinion of that?
-The torture Fawkes so heroically endured, Father Fahrt said, was admittedly appalling and terrifying, the worst torture that the head of man could think of.  It was called per gradus ad ima. He was very brave.
-I needen't tell you he and several others go the high jump.  But Lord save us, poor Fawkes couldn't climb up the ladder to the gallows, he was so badly bet and broken up in the torture.  He had to be carried up. And hewas hanged outside the building he tried to blow up for the greater glory of god.
-I suppose that's true enough, Father Fahrt said meekly.
-For the greater glory of God. How's this you put Latin on that?
-Ad majorem Dei gloriam.  It is our own Society's watchword.
-Quite right A.M.D.G. Many a time I've heard it.  But if blowing up councilors is band and sinful as you said, how do you account for two Jesuits maybe three, being guilty of that particular transaction, waging war on the civil power? Isn't Mrs. Flaherty in the same boat as Mr. Fawkes?
-I have pointed out, Collopy, that events and opinions vary drastically from one era to another.  People are influenced by quite different things in dissimilar ages.  It is difficult even impossible, for the people of today to assess the stresses and atmosphere of Fawke's day.  Cicero was a wise and honest man and yet he kept slaves.  The Greeks were the most sophisticated and civilized people of antiquity, but morally a great many of them were lepers.  With them sins of the flesh was a nefarious preoccupation.  But that does not invalidate the wisdom and beauty of things many of them left behind them.  Art, poetry, literature, architecture, philosophy and political systems, these were formulated and developed in the midst of debauchery. I have -ah ha- sometimes thought that a degraded social climate is essential to inspire great men to achievement in the arts.
Mr. Collopy put down his glass and spoke somewhat sternly, wagging a finger.
-Now look here, Father Fahrt, he said, I'm going to say something I've said in other ways before.  Bedamn but I don't know that I can trust you men at all. Ye are forever trimming and adjudicating yourselves to the new winds that do blow.  In case of doubt, send for a Jesuit.  For your one doubt he will give you twenty new ones and his talk is always full of "ifs" and "buts", rawmaish and pseudo-theology.  The world I have heard used for that sort of thing is casuistry. Isn't that right? Casuistry.
-there is such a word but it's not true in this case.
-Oh now, you can always trust a Jesuit to make mischief and complicate simple things........
-Flan O' Brien, The Hard Life, An Exegesis of Squalor.,  Pantheon Books, New York,1962, pp 75-84. 

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