Volume 1

A catalogue of the manuscripts relating to Wales in the British museum / Compiled and edited by Edward Owen.

  • British Museum. Department of Manuscripts
Date:
1900-1922
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A catalogue of the manuscripts relating to Wales in the British museum / Compiled and edited by Edward Owen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    128/152 (page 100)
    [246] 10. B. xiii. A tract entitled Detectio Calumniarum Dialogi Papistici dicti Deus et Rex ; by David Owen1; 17 cent. The full title of the pamphlet is as follows:—Detectio calumni- arum sophismatum et imposturarum anonymi papist® qui dialogo sub ementito titulo Deus et Rex. Conatus est astruere potestatem populo papalem ad coercionem et depositionem Regum. Authore Davide Owen Monanensi sacrae thelogiae professore honoratissimo comiti de Holderness a sacris. The dedication, which is in English, shows the author to have been an extreme advocate of the divine right theory. It runs thus:—To the right Ho’ble Sir John Ramsey knight, baron of Barnes and Kingston, viscount Hadington, earle of Holdernesse, one of the ho’ble gentlemen of his Ma’tie’s bedchamber, my singular good lord. S’r. Whilest I attended yo’r honor the last parliament I was perswaded by some freindes to answere a seditious pamphlet published by an English papist, by the name of God and the Kinge, against God and the kinge; w’ch booke hath bine out twoe yeares unanswered. The drift of the pamphleter beinge to w'thdraw the kinge’s subjectes to error, schisme and disloyaltie. When 1 had yo’r leave to returne to my cure at Easter I tooke the booke home w’th me, and (in six weeke’s space) gave yt (I hope) a plaine and a full answere. Wherin 1 manifest that his proofes are as weake as his doctrine is wicked. I knowe (my lord) that the prerogative of a kinge is noe fit theame for a divine, nor matter of discurse for a subject, but the sacrelegious impiety ot papist and puritan, who expose kinges to the censure of the pope, peares ore people (as this dialogist doth) hath enforced many grave divines (whose steppes I trace) to handle that argument, and to make evident demonstration Irom the word of God, the lawes natural], nationall and municipall ol regall states, the report of historic, and the generall good of commonwealthes, That sacred kinges in respect of soveraigne ma’tie are free from all humane censure, for theyre power beinge immediat from God, established for God over all men, and only under God, may not be questioned by man, w’thout offence against God. I am directed by my superiors to give this booke unto the kinge ; w’ch I humbly desire yo’r Io’pp to doe for me. The God ot heven prosper you in all yo’r wayes. Yo’r honor’s chaplayn, humbly devoted, David Owen. 1 For this David Owen see the Die. Nat. Blog. The writer of that notice states that the dedication is dated the 21st July, 1621, but, as will be seen, this is not so. Llyfr. y Cymry, under the year 1642, art. 13 (not 12 as indexed), gives the title of a printed pamphlet by the same David Owen, and erroneously terms him a Merionethshire man. This was the reprint of a tract originally issued in