The History of the Holy War, Poem – Title page
A declaration of the Frontispice.
BEfore you travel to the Holy land,
Behold a Page that in the front doth stand
To give you aym and guidance i' the way.
First Europe bids your observation stay
Upon a Purse of gold (warres surest nerve)
Whose every Crosse is interess'd to serve
…'th' Holy warre. The gain (alas!) no more
Then Crosses Gules in stead of Crosses Or.
But see the troups, see how they march along:
Where severall ranks and orders make a throng
Promiscuously blended; sex and age,
Nation and language jointly do engage
Their devout forces to redresse thy woes,
Ierusalem, ravisht by barbarous foes.
Peter the Monk, leaving his sullen cell,
His Beads, and Offices, and every spell
Of his mysterious zeal, breaks forth at last
To kindle all the world with fat all blast.
First Kings proceed; and Captains follow them:
The helmet waits upon the diadem.
The next are Prelates; who stray farre from home
To winne the glorious name of Martyrdome.
Since all their mild perswasions could not work
Upon th'obdurate Antichristian Turk,
They will at length (if nought prevent their plot)
Confute his Alcoran with sword and shot.
After those reverend men, whose cloven mitres
Speak them not warriours so much as writers,
A bald-pate regiment of Friars comes;
Whose crowns might serve the army for their drums,
And give as full a sound, if you'l confesse
The greatest noise t'arise from emptinesse.
Then moves the main Battalia, straitly knit
Into a steadie Phalanx, square, but fit
To spread, or lengthen, or with art to pare
The corners till the band grow circular
T'environ th'enemy; briefly, to reduce
Their various postures unto every use.
These are the onelyonly Forces; all the rest
Impediments but specious at the best.
But oh amazement! what is that we see?
A troup of Ladies in the next degree.
Each one appears a Pallas t' the field
Dropt newly from Jove's brain with spear and shield:
Or M…rs so long his Venus hath possest,
Courage is stol…n into her tender breast.
March on, brave Amazons: conquest and praise
Weave you a chaplet of immortall bayes;
Which you, when Autumn-age shall pluck your hair,
In stead of costly perriwigs may wear.
March on: For the shrill trumpet and the fife,
Your tongues may serve; then to secure your life
You need no weapons, every face and eye
Carrieth sufficient artillerie.
A slender company doth next succeed:
Call it the Infantrie; 'tis so indeed.
As if the driving of the Turks away
From Christian cities, were but childrens play.
The last in this Religious army crawls
A band collected out of Hospitals
And Spittles. One would think this piteous sight
Did rather come from warre then go to fight.
Their commendation's this, How-e're the day
Shall chance to prove, they'l hardly run away.
This is the totall muster. Let the book
Tell their atchievements: Mean time as you look
VponUpon this Frontispice, you'l plainly see
Their dismall end and sad Catastrophe.
Th'incensed Angel with his flaming blade
Great slaughter of perfidious souls hath made.
To teach us truth and justice, see how God
Scourges their falshood with a fiery rod.
Then the grand Signor his proud fauchion stretches
With domineering hand over the wretches
Low prostrate at his foot. Can Christian eyes
Endure this figure! Let the captives rise,
Surly black Saracen; their bended knee
Has higher objects then to reverence thee:
They serve a Lord greater then Mahomet.
Though now their sunne be darken'd and beset
With clouds of disadvantage, time will be
When such poore things shall triumph over thee;
And their old prophecie shall be made good,
Thy Moon shall then be turned into bloud.
The last of their destroyers that you see,
Is that same gastly thing th' Anatomie
Doth represent; a naked cage of bone,
From whence the winged soul long since is flown:
They call it Death. He with his double band,
Sicknesse and casualty on either hand,
Met many stragglers, forcing them to yeeld:
And where the Turk be…ore him got the field,
He took the gleanings. Thus our souldiers f…ll
By th'Angel, Turk, and Death; heaven, earth, & hell.
Those that escap'd, came home as full of grief
As the poore Purse is empty of relief.
They're turn'd, and so is it; but nothing in't,
Till new devotion shall repair the Mint.
Mean while read o're the Historie: your brain
There you may fill, though not the Purse again.
J. C.
THE HISTORIE of the HOLY WARRE. By Tho Fuller, B.D. Prebendarie of Sarum, late of Sidney-Coll. in Cambridge.
Iohn. 4.21.
The houre cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet al Jerusalem worship the Father.
Acts. 5.38.
If this counsel be of men it will come to nought.
Printed by Thomas Buck one of the Printer… to the University of Cambridge. & are sold by Iohn Williams at … in S. P. Church-yard.
THE HISTORIE of the HOLY WARRE; By THOMAS FVLLER, B. D. Prebendarie of Sarum, late of Sidney Colledge in CAMBRIDGE.
Printed by THOMAS BUCK, one of the Printers to the Universitie of CAMBRIDGE, 1639.