The Gunpowder Plot
A CATHOLIC ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
ON KING JAMES I
A TRACT
Mischeefes Mysterie:
Or Treason's Master-Peece, the Powder Plot
London 1617.
Francis Herring
The Catholic religion hated King James I and tried to kill him. King James was a staunch opponent of popery and his zeal for the word of God was just as fervent. As products of the Reformation period, King James I and his contemporaries knew well the Catholic history of intrigue, torture, and murder. This tract reminds us of how unnatural today's alliance of "evangelicals" and Catholics really is. Despite numerous attempts to hinder him, King James did not treat his Catholic subjects unfairly. Even in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, the King said:
"...it was the...blind superstition of their errors in religion, that led them to this desperate devise; yet does it not follow, that all professing that Romish religion were guilty of the same..."
THE TRACT
This tract (created a few years after the Gunpowder Plot) shows a title of "The Clouds of Ignorance and Error" with eight heads arranged in a circle. The heads represent popery, e.g. the pope and Catholic officials, as well as a devil. Each head breathes out his threatenings and blasphemies,
"Opposing the Truth" "Fulfillment of Scriptures" "Curses and Excommunications" "The Armada in 88" "Daggers, Daggs, Poison Kill All" "Blasphemies and Lies" "Envy & Malice" "Recusancy & Rebellion" The poem at the bottom reads:
Enclosed with clouds of ignorance and error,
Rome, hell and Spaine, do threaten England's terror:
The Card'nall, Legate, Jesuite, impious Fryers
Homebred, recusant, Britaines bane desires;
Each puff's and snuffs with envy, all in vaine,
At Christ's pure gospell, which shall still remain.
READ THE KING'S ELOQUENT WORDS ON THE GUNPOWDER PLOT.
Back to King James VI & I index.
"Where the word of a king is, there is power."
Ecclesiastes 8:4
