children to such seminaries without license were to forfeit for every such offence a hundred pounds; and the students themselves forfeited all right to the property of their parents.
On the third reading of this bill, an extraordinary circumstance took place, leading to strange results, which have never been fully explained, although they have engaged the consideration of all historians to throw some reasonable light upon them. One Dr. Parry, a Welsh civilian, rose and denounced the bill as "a measure savouring of treasons, full of blood, danger, and despair to English subjects, and pregnant with fines and forfeitures, which would go to enrich, not the queen, but private individuals."
This speech greatly astonished the House, both because it required a boldness or a rashness to make such an avowal which very few had, and still more because the man was notorious as one who had long been in the pay of Burleigh as a spy upon the Papists, and who had brought home from Italy accounts of the schemes for the assassination of the queen enough to create the utmost horror. He had been in the service of the Earl of Pembroke, then in that of the queen, and had been employed by Burleigh for some years on the Continent in collecting secret information. On his return he married a rich widow, spent her fortune, got into debt, attempted to murder his chief creditor, and only escaped death, as is supposed, by the influence of Burleigh. He then returned to the Continent again in the pay of Burleigh, and pretended to be a convert to Popery in order to worm out the secrets of eminent men of that faith. He addressed himself to the Jesuit Creighton at Lyons, to Parma at Venice, professing his desire to kill the queen if he could only be assured that it was lawful. He was introduced by Parma to the minister of the Pope, Campeggio; and, returning to France, broached the same design to Waytes and other English priests. On his return to England he assured Elizabeth, in the presence of Burleigh and Walsingham, that he had been solicited by the Pope to murder the queen, and produced a letter from Cardinal Como in proof of it. On the strength of this he demanded a pension; but was told that he had done nothing to deserve it, for the letter of Cardinal Como made not the most distant allusion to any such project.
It appears to have been at this crisis that he made his extraordinary statement in the House of Commons. He was tormented with debts and creditors; and had failed to induce the Government by his dirty employment on the Continent to rescue him from his difficulties. Can anything, therefore, be more likely than that his speech was the sudden outburst of his vexation with the Government, made probably in the hope that his opposition and the exposures it was in his power to make might compel ministers to do that for him out of policy which they would not out of good will?
He was at once given into custody to the sergeant by the House; but the next day was liberated by the command of the queen, who said he had partly explained his notions to her satisfaction. Most likely it had been thought best to close his mouth by a concession to some of his claims. But within six weeks he was again arrested on a charge of high treason, and conducted to the Tower. This time it appears to have been on the charge of an Edmund Neville, a member of the Westmoreland family, who had been employed to watch the Jesuit Persons at Rouen. Neville had returned to England to prosecute his right to the inheritance of the last Lord Latymer, in which he was opposed by the eldest son of Burleigh, who had got possession of it. As Neville and Parry had been associates, and had mutually tempted each other with the professed projects of murdering the queen, it is not at all improbable but that Parry might now be employed to criminate Neville, and thus get rid of his troublesome claims. But Neville turned the tables on Parry, denounced him as having endeavoured to incite him to assassinate the queen, and Parry at length confessing it, was sent to the Tower on the 1st of February, 1585.
Parry had failed to get rid of Neville and his troublesome opposition to the claims of Burleigh's son; but being now in custody, it would appear that it occurred to the ministers that he might be made a useful instrument at this moment in swelling the odium against the Roman Catholics. Accordingly, he made a confession in the Tower, the sum and substance of which was this:—That Morgan had instigated him to murder the queen; that Cardinal Como, in the name of the Pope, had approved of the design—(this, be it remarked, was the very thing which Elizabeth and her ministers, when he was at large, had declared was wholly unproved); that on seeing Elizabeth, he was so much struck by her glorious mind and person that he repented; yet again, reading the treatise of Dr. Allen in reply to Burleigh, on the right of subjects to resist and depose tyrannical sovereigns, he had been inspired afresh to her destruction, and had incited Neville to carry out that object.
So far from denying this on his trial, he pleaded guilty; his confession was read, and the chief justice prepared to pass sentence upon him. On this, in the greatest astonishment, like Francis Throckmorton, he exclaimed that he was deceived; that he was perfectly innocent; that the whole story contained in his confession was a tissue of lies, which had been extorted from him by threats and promises; that he had never really harboured a thought of murder; and that the Cardinal Como had never given any approbation of it. He demanded to be allowed to withdraw his plea, but was not permitted; sentence of death was pronounced upon him. It is quite clear that he had been promised his life if he would make a confession so damning to the Catholics, and was now thunderstruck to see that faith was not kept with him. He protested that if he perished his blood would lie on the head of the queen.
The discovery, by his extraordinary speech, that he was an unsafe man, who, being in possession of dangerous secrets, in a moment of discontent might let them out, was probably the cause of his being selected for the victim on this occasion. He had now done the work of Elizabeth and her ministers, and nothing could save him. On the scaffold, to which he was brought March 2nd, 1585, he again passionately protested his innocence. Topcliffe, the notorious pursuivant, asked him how then he explained the letter of the cardinal. Parry declared that there was nothing of the kind in the letter, and begged that it might be examined, but the only reply was a command to make an end. He had sent a letter to
