II. Offences done and committed by the said Earl, during the time of the Princes being in Spain.
VII. THat at the Princes coming into Spain, during the time aforesaid, the Earl of Bristol cunningly, falsly, and traiterously moved and perswaded the Prince, being then in the pow∣er of a forreign King of the Romish Religion, to change his Religion, which was done in this manner. At the Princes first coming to the said Earl, he asked the Prince for what he came thi∣ther? The Prince at first not conceiving the Earls meaning, answered, You know as well as I. The Earl replied, Sir, Servants can never serve their Masters industriously, although they may do it faith∣fully, unless they know their meanings fully. Give me leave therefore to tell you what they say in the Town is the cause of your coming, That you mean to change your Religion, and to declare it here. And yet cun∣ningly to disguise it, the Earl added further, Sir, I do not speak this, that I will perswade you to do it; or that I will promise you to follow your Ex∣ample, though you will do it; but as your faithful Ser∣vant, if you will trust me with so great a secret, I will endeavor to carry it the discretest way I can. The Prince being moved at this unexpected motion, again, said unto him, I wonder what you have ever found in me, that you should conceive I would be so unworthy and base, as for a wife to change my Religion. The said Earl replying, He desired the Prince to pardon him, if he had offended him, it was but out of his desire to serve him. Which perswa∣sions of the said Earl were the more dangerous, because the more subtile; whereas it had been the duty of a faithful Servant, to God and his Ma∣ster, if he had found the Prince staggering in his Religion, to have prevented so great an error, and to have perswaded against it, so to have avoided the dangerous consequence thereof to the true Religion, and to the State, if such a thing should have hapned.
VIII. That afterwards, during the Princes be∣ing in Spain, the said Earl having conference with the said Prince about the Romish Religion; he en∣deavoured falsly and traiterously to perswade the Prince to change his Religion, and to become a Romish Catholick, and to become obedient to the usurped Authority of the Pope of Rome: and to that end and purpose, the said Earl traiterously used these words unto the said Prince, That the State of England never did any great thing, but when they were under the obedience of the Pope of Rome, and that it was impossible they could do any thing of note otherwise.
IX. That during the time of the Prince's being in Spain, the Prince consulting and advising with the said Earl and others, about a new offer made by the King of Spain touching the Palatinates eld∣est Son to marry with the Emperors Daughter, but then he must be bred up in the Emperors Courts; the said Earl delivered his opinion, That the Proposition was reasonable; whereat when Sir Walter Aston then present, falling into some pas∣sion, said, That he durst not for his head consent to it; the Earl of Bristol replied, that he saw no such great inconvenience in it; for that he might be bred up in the Emperors Court in our Religi∣on. But when the extream danger, and, in a manner, the impossibility thereof, was pressed un∣to the said Earl, he said again, That without some great Action, the Peace of Christendom would never be had; which was so dangerous, and so desperate a Counsel, that one near the Crown of England should be poisoned in his Religion, and become an unfriend to our State, that the conse∣quences thereof, both for the present and future time, were infinitely dangerous; and yet hereun∣to did his disaffection to our Religion, the blind∣ness in his judgment, misled by his sinister respects, and the too much regard he had to the House of Austria, lead him.