Edmund Plowden, Recusant

At one time the heretic, usurper,tyrant Queen had wished to bestow the Lord Chancellorship upon Plowden, and wrote him a letter to that effect, asking only that he should join the Anglican Church in return, but his answer was as follows:

'Hold me, dread Sovereign, excused. Your Majesty well knows, I find no reason to swerve from the Catholic Faith, in which you & I were brought up. I can never, therefore, countenance the persecution of its professors. I should not have in charge your Majesty's conscience one week, before I should incur your displeasure, if it be your Majesty's intent to continue the system of persecuting the retainer's of the Catholic Faith'