News from Hell, Report
HERE FOLLOWETH A BREIF RELAtion of a great feast, which from Lucifer Prince of hell was by the hands of Cardinall Pegusius presented to the view, disposall and approbation of the Pope of Rome, in the yeare of Jubilee, 1641.
Pope.
MY Lord Cardinall Pegusius, and you the rest of my holy Brethren, I beseech you view these excellent varieties, and variety of excellencies, well dressed, & most exquisitely set forth and garnished. But the contents of every dish, I beleeve, is best known to you my Lord Pegusius, from whom I desire to be satisfied, concerning the contents, qualities and operation of every severall dish.
Card.
May it please your Holinesse, These varieties of dishes, wch your holinesse here sees thus set forth, were all of them prepared, for the onelyonly table of our high and mighty Monarch, King Lucifer, your Holinesse sole Patron and Protector, a certain number of which dishes his Majesty hath gratiously been pleased to cause them to be presented to your Holinesse disposall, and the residue of them, onelyonly to your Holinesse view and approbation, being to be preserved for his Majesties owne peculiar pallate.
Pope.
I beseech you my Lord Card. let me have them brought hither before me in order, according to the appointment of my Soveraigne and most munificent patron.
Card.
Your holinesse will and pleasure shall be accomplished, & here in the first place may it please your holynesse to take notice, that the first dish by his majesties appointment to be presented to your holinesse disposall, is this large (Latine charger) contayning twenty two Lordly Bishops, stued with the fire contention, on the chafindish of exasperation, and seasoned with the severall spices of mans invention, as with the spice of the Masse, Priesthood, holy-days, Altars, Candles, Rayles, holy-bread, holy-water, holy-ashes, devout prayer for the dead, invocation of Saints, offerings at the Altars, excommunications: and the strong and operative spice, of the high commission. It is also garnished about, with the severall hereticall Doctrines of all the new intituled Priests of England, and this dish his majesty hath appointed to be disposed of by your holynesse.
Pope.
I will surely taste of it, (it looks lovely) oh admirable, it is a most LAVDable dish of meat: I can finde nothing wanting in this dish: but onelyonly three graines of the spice of accomplishments, and then it had bin devoutly seasoned for my pallat: but I pray-what is the next dish my lo'
Card.
The next dish may it please your holynesse, is a silver charger, comprehending all the contrivers, and complotters of the dissention betweene England and Scotland, of the last Spanish invasion of England, and the practisers with the French for the subversion of a the heriticks in England, Scotland, and Ireland, it is seasoned with all our Iesuitical practises, Church policies and all our English Romane Catholicke trecheries, and garnished with all our English Romane Statists: this dish of meat is now almost cold, and therefore at this present unfit for your holinesse pallat, it only wants the breath of the Earle of Straffords fiery zeale to heat it, by a LAVDable blast or two.
Pope.
However I pray let me taste of it, oh the lamentation of a sinner, pity, pity, yea a thousand pities is it, that this dish had not bin kept hot and seasoned to the proofe, that we might have sung most LAVDably, …e Lucifer Landamus. But my Lord Cardinal what is the next dish.
Card.
May it please your holynesse, this dish contains a certaine number of false and corrupt Iudges, it is seasoned with the spice of aged detestable covetousnesse, bribery, extortion, oppression, injustice, unmercifulnesse, and with pervertion of all the statute lawes, garnished with ship-money, forrest-money, lone-money, and a multitude of Isoprises, but this dish is by his majesties speciall order to be preserved for his owne peculiar palate.
Pope.
His majesties will be done, I shall ever be ready & obedient to al his majesties commands, nor wil I presume to taste of it, but onelyonly passe my judgement on it, that it is a Princely dish, fit onelyonly for his majesties table.
What is the next I pray my Lord?
Card.
The next may it please your Holinesse, is a large golden charger, contayning a very great number of base-minded, covetous, unjust, extorting and oppressing Lawyers who value every word by them uttered at a barre of Justice, at a farre higher price then your Holinesse doth your Buls, issued forth for remission of sins: and these caterpillars, his majesty king Lucifer hath brought into such great esteeme, with all the Inhabitants of England, as that no man of quality thinks his house to stand, unlesse it be supported by one of those vermin pillars & brood of contention, this dish is seasoned with the spice of extorting fees from one 20 shillingspeece, to 5 to 10. yea, to 20, especially by those who are stiled the Judges favourites, all this is given sometimes but for the speaking of two or three words, it is likewise seasoned with the taking fees on both sides, deluding Clyents, spinning out the thread of an honest cause to its full length, until the purs-strings both of Plaintife and defendant cracke, and then they are tyed together, by a commission into the country, where these caterpillers are reverenced and feared like so many gods, by all the people: this dish is garnished with some 10000. pestiferous pettifogging seditious ten-groat-Atturnies, one of whose perfidious bils of charges, in one tearme advances it selfe sometimes unto the sum of 5, 10. 20. yea, 30. pounds, especially when he finds his Clyent naturally inclined to the conditions of an asse. And on every of these garnishes hanges five cony-catching deceitfull Solicitors, properly termed lawyers-lime-twigs, traps or nets to catch the poor silly creatures called Clyents, and this dish his majesty hath also reserved for his own table.
Pope.
It is a Princely dish indeed, and fit onelyonly for the peculiar table of so great a Monarch, as is our most damnable soveraigne King Lucifer, the operation and vertue of which dish, is able to season a whole kingdome, to be fit meat for his majesties palate, especially if there be but the operative spice added to it, call'd the (action of the Case.)
But what is this dish my Lord Cardinall.
Card.
May it please your Holinesse, this dish containes a certain number of base muck-worms, stiled Doctors of our Civill Law, Chancellors and Officials, this dish is also seasoned with the unjust spice of extortion, oppression, fraud and deceit, and garnished about with a most damnable crue of Proctors, Notaries, Registers, Deligates, Advocates, Sumners, and petty Apparaters, these have for many yeares proved notable instruments of strife and vexation, unto the Inhabitants of England, and through their deceiveable wayes, have mightily oppressed the people, being not much inferiour unto the precedent Golden Charger.
But to this dish may it please your Holinesse, there hath happened this year a very great mischance in the cooking, for when we thought it should have bin most Laudably boyled up to its greatest height of Catholick operation there happened a Spider to fall into it, through a sudden blast of reformation which hath made it somewhat dangerous now for your holinesse to taste of, for, the Lamb that was most richly seasoned in it, is now through this sudden & unexpected misfortune putrified, and the Duck being awatry foule, is quite dissolved, and this dish by his majesties speciall order, is to be left now to your holinesse disposall.
Pope,
I am much bound to his majesty for his gracious favour to me herein, I shall be very carefull through deliberation and mature consideration to study for the most fittest disposall thereof during the time of my vicegency here, and then returne it againe to his Majestyes disposall. But I pray you my Lord Cardinal what do those coper vessels contain?
Card.
may it please your holinesse: this covered messe is a gallimophre or as the Flemine cals it a Hutchpot, wherin are sundry meats stued together: it containes a certaine number of beasts called corrupt masters of the Chancery, and halfe a dozen corrupt clarks of the chancery, also 150. of their puny clarks commonly termed Atturnies in chancery, it also containes 6 new Atturnies of the Court of requests and some 60 of their puny clarks: this Hutchpot is seasoned with the spice of bribery, false witnesses stiled Knights of the poste, a spice greatly in request in those Courts, especially in the examiners offices and the late Coventry affidavit office, but his majesties speciall command is to have this covered mispreserved in its present condition, least contention should cease amongst the inhabitants of England, and unity and peace take place, which cannot but tend much to his majesties detriment and losse of dominion in that Kingdome, and to that end he hath caused the same to be sealed up, and to be conveyed from Coventry to Manchester by the goulden-Finche.
Pope.
Good my Lord Cardinall I beseech you, let his majesties will and pleasure herein be very carefully accomplished, for it concerns much his majestyes honour and our safety.
But what is in this dish my Lord?
Card.
This may it please your holines, is likewise a Hutchpot, contayning meates of sundry sorts and operations, it containes a certaine number of Prothonotaries, Registers, and Clarks of the Star Chamber, Chancery, Court of Request, Kings-Bench, Common Pleas, and the Exchecker, this galimofre is seasoned with subornation of false-witnesses, falsifying of orders, and decrees, it is garnished with the subtill practises of the renter warden of the fleet and his imphes, as also with Kilvert, kilfart, kilbennet, kill Bishop, and the like instruments of Lawyers gaine, the operations of this dish chiefly consists in the confusion of mens estates, to extract Gold out of all mens purses, to suppresse vertue and peace, and to advance iniquity and contention, to wrong and oppresse every man, and to do right unto no man.
And this messe is also to be reserved for his Majesties Table.
Pope.
Good my Lord Cardinal, I pray you let me taste of this messe, the operation whereof by your relation appeares to be admirable, I wish from my heart that I might also grow capeable of that vertue of extracting Gold out of the English nation, as some of my predecessors have don before me, (I confesse) the study of this Art was begun by my Phisition most laudadly, but alasse and woe is me, it was marred by a robustuous storme of winde out of the North, and quite spoyled a vehement shower of puritanicall raine, and what is the next messe my Lord?
Card.
May it please your holinesse, this is also a Hutchpot, containing sundry course meats, as scriveners, brokers, usurers, jailors, baliss, sergeants, informers, perjured Chuch-wardens, justlers of the peace, and bumbailifs: this messe is seasoned with parchment, deceit, extortion, usury, oppression, murdering of Christian souls in prisons through famine, false information, injustice, neglect, and tyranny, and is garnished with a number of irreligious Maiors, Sherifs, Feoderies, escheaters, Clarkes of the syse, Clarcks of the peace, Constables and headboroughs. But this messe is by his majesties order to be disposed of unto his servant.
Pope.
Indeed my Lord Card. me thinks this Messe hath a very bitter rellish with it, else my mouth is quite out of taste, I confesse it to be a messe fit onelyonly for his majesties Hell-hounds, But what is this last messe?
Card.
I conceive this messe to be very well known to your holinesse, for it is seasoned with most of those operative spices that all the meat dressed in your holines kitchen is seasoned with this mess, contains divers justicial birds of Middlesex, as namely the Long, the Hearn, the Snape, the Hooker, the Geay, & the likes of them. Seasoned with the fees and bribes of all the whores and theeves that live in Westminster, Coven-Garden, Holborn, Grub-street, Clarkenwell, Rosemarylane, Turnbull-street, Ratcliff, Southwark, Bank-side, and Kent-street; this dish is also garnished with the New-yearsgifts of the whores, theeves, and cutpurses, dwelling in the forenamed severall places, but this Messe is by his majestie reserved for his owne peculiar pallate.
Pope.
Oh venerable Bead, Oh holy Garnet, O sanctified Faux, O reverend Becket, O beloved Ravilliack, Campion, Watson, Parsons, Morton, Sands, and admired Bellarmine, I call you all to witnesse this day, whether you or any of you have ever as yet been capeable of such a delicious feast, adorned with so many varieties, beautified with so many severall rarieties, and seasoned with such delectable spices.
Sancte …dicte Or… pro nobis.
And thus rendring all humble and hearty thanks, with all reverence in all obedience unto his Majestie, our most damnable prince and Protector, Lucifer, King of Sticks and Phlegeton; I remaine his majesties humble servant and Vice gerent, at his majesties sole disposall during life.
PAPA ROMANORUM