_Pope Joan_ (Vol. iii., p. 265.).--NEMO will find much information on the
question, "Whether Pope Joan ever held the keys of St. Peter?" in Alexander
Cooke's _Dialogue between a Protestant and a Papist; manifestly proving
that a Woman_ {307} _called Joane was Pope of Rome: against the surmises
and objections made to the contrary by Robert Bellarmini and Cæsar
Baronius, Cardinals, Florimondus Ræmondus, and other Popish Writers,
impudently denying the same_, 4to, pp. 128, 1610. The work was dedicated to
the Archbishop of York, and was reprinted in 1625 in 4to., and in French,
1633, 8vo. The author, in his address _To the Popish Reader_, says:
"_I offer unto thee here a discourse touching_ POPE JOANE _(if thou
darest read it, for fear of falling into thy Pope's curse), whose
Popedome I will make good unto thee, not by the testimonies of_
Pantaleon, _and_ Functius, _and_ Sleidan, _and_ Illyricus, _and_
Constantinus Phrygio, _and_ John Bale, _and_ Robert Barnes, _because
thou hast condemned their persons, and their books too, to hell; but by
the testimonies of thy brethren, the sonnes of thine own mother;
because, as one saith_, 'Amici contra amicum, et inimici pro inimico,
invincibile testimonium est.'"