296 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 103. 



estates and churches of Christenrioni ; whereni tlie true 

 ancient faith and religion of tlie Catholic Church is set 

 forth, and no heterodoxies or novelties maintained: to 

 the defence of which faith, and service of which Church, 

 as he had already a lonj; time applied his studies, and 

 wrote ten books, De Repuhiica Ecclcsiasticd, so, by the 

 favour of God, and Kin;^ James, he was now come into 

 England to review and publish them, togetlier with the 

 History of the Council of Trent, which he had brought 

 with him from Padre Paolo of Venice, who delivered 

 it into his hands ; by whom lie was chiefly persuaded 

 and encouraged t;) have recourse to the king and the 

 Churcli of England, being the best founded for the 

 professiou of true Catholic doctrine, and the freest from 

 error and novelties, of any Church in all places besides. 

 Then they descended to the particular points of 

 doctrine," &c. 



It is, however, not witli the doctrinal question, 

 which wouhl, of course, be iniidmissihle in '"Notes 

 AND Queries," but with the liistorical fact, that 

 we have to do; the question being, whether An- 

 tonius Spalatensis was "ficl'^le" in respect of the 

 Church of England. 



There is an interesting skctcli of Spalatro's after 

 history in Cosin's Treati.sc ugaiii.st Trunsubsiaiitia- 

 tiuii, chap. ii. § 7.; from Luke de Beaulieu's trans- 

 lation of which (Cosin's Collected Wo?-ks, vol. iv. 

 p. 160., Oxford, 1851) I (juote the following: 



" Antonio de Dorainis, Archbishop of Spalato, (was) 

 a man well versed in the Sacred Writings, and the 

 records of antiquity ; who, having left Italy (when he 

 could no longer remain in it, cither witli quiet or 

 safety) by the advice of his intimate friend, Paulus 

 Venetus, took sanctuary under the protection of King 

 James of blessed memory, in the bosom of the Church 

 of England, which lie did faithfully follow in all |ioints 

 and articles of religion. But, beuig dailv vexed with 

 many aflVonts and injuries, and wearied by the unjust 

 persecutions of some sour and over-rigid men, who 

 bitterly declaimed everywhere against his life and 

 actions, he at last resolved to return into Italy with a 

 safe conduct. Before he departed he was, by order 

 from the king, questioned by some commissionated 

 bishops, what he thought of the religion and church of 

 England, which for so many years he had owned and 

 obeyed, and what he would say of it in the Roman 

 court. To t/iis query he gave in icriling this memoruhle 

 answer, ' / am resolved, even jvilli the dangtr of my life, 

 to profess before the Pope himself, that the Church nf 

 England is a true and orllmdox Church of Christ.' This 

 he not ouly promised. Out faithfully performed; for though, 

 soon afier his departure, there came a book out of the 

 Low Co'jutries, falsely bearing his name, by wlune title 

 many were deceived, even among tlie English, and 

 thereby moved to tax him with apostacy, and of being 

 another Ecebolius; yet, when he came to Rome 

 (where he was most kindly entertained in the palace of 

 Pope Gregory XV., who iormeily had been his fellow- 

 student), he could never he persuaded by the Jesuits ai.d 

 others, who daily thronged upon him, neither to sub- 

 scribe the new-devised tenets of the Council of Trei t, 

 or to retract those orl/wdo.v boohs which he had printed 

 in England and Germany, or to renounce the communion 



of the Church of England, in ichoee defence ke cotistanlly 

 persisted to the very last. But, presently after the de- 

 cease of Pope Gregory, he was imprisoned by the 

 Jesuits and Inijuisitors in Castle St. Angelo, where, 

 by being barbarously used, and almost starved, he 

 soon got a mortal sickness, and died in a few days, 

 though not without suspicion of being poisoned. The 

 day following, his corpse was by the sentence of the 

 Inquisition tied to an infamous stake, and there burnt 

 to ashes, for no other reason but that he refused to make 

 abjuration of the rclipion of the Church of England, and 

 subscribe some of the lately-made decrees of Trent, 

 which were pressed upon him as canons of the Catholic 

 faith. I have taken occasion (Cosinadds) to insert this 

 narration, perhaps not 'known to many, to make it 

 apjiear that this reverend prelate, who did great service 

 to the Church of God, may justly (as I said before) 

 be reckoned among the writers of the Church of 

 England." 



In the first collection of Lord Somers^s Tracts, 

 vol. iv. p. 575., there is a curious paper bearing 

 the title : A relation sent from Rome, of the pro- 

 cess, sentence, and execution done upon the hody, 

 pictures, and hooks of Marcus Ant. de Dominis, 

 Archbishop of Spalato, after his death. There are 

 some notices of l)e Dominis, also, among the Birch 

 and other MSS. in the British Museum. 



Mn. Fbazeb might possibly ascertain the other 

 particular about which he intpiires, viz. whetlier 

 Spalatro " acted as a bishop in England," by con- 

 sulting some of the numerous tracts written at the 

 time, both against anil in vindication of the arch- 

 bishop ; and, more jiarticiihirly, a tract entitled: 

 De pace reli'^iimis M. Ant. do Dominis Spulateus. 

 Ai-chiepi.'sc. Epist. ad venerahilem viruin Jos. Hal- 

 lutn, Archipre.^hyteruin Vigorn, &c. : edit. Ves. 

 Sequan. 1666. J. Sanson. 



Perhaps it may be doubted whether it was the 

 wish of Antoiiius de Dominis to reunite the 

 churches of Rome .'md England : however this 

 may be, as Dean of Vv'indsor, he accused one of 

 the canons, Richard jNIountagu (tifterwards suc- 

 cessively Bishop of Chichester and Norwicli) of 

 preaching tlie lloman doctrine of the invocation 

 of saints and angels. Mountagu replied in a 

 pamplilet, the title of which is. Immediate Addresse 

 unto GOD Alone. First deliver-ed in a Sermon 

 before his 3Iajestie at Windsor e, since reuised and 

 inlargcd to a just Treatise of Invocation of Saints. 

 Occasioned by a false iniputidion of M. Antonius de 

 Dominis upon the Authour, Richard Momdagu. 

 London, 1624. 



Mountagu had evidently no high opinion of his 

 accuser: for he writes in his E])istle Dedicatory 

 to John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, and Visitor 

 of the collegiate church of Windsor : "There was 

 present at my sermon that infamous Ecebolius of 

 these times, Rollgionis desultor, Archbishop some- 

 time of Spalato, then Deane of tliat church, 

 Marcus Antonius de Dominis ;" and he goes on to 



