A General Martyrology, Chapter 32
CHAP. XXXII. The Modern Persecutions of the Church in Germany, since the year, 1630.
THe Swedes being possessed of a Town called Pasewalck, the Imperialists took it by storm, beat, killed, and drave out the Swedes, and not content therewith, they fell to torturing of the townsmen, ravishing women and gilrs in the open streets and Church-yards,Abominable villanies. yea women in child-bed; then they killed the men, fired their houses, and burnt many in them; thrust straw into Cellars where children were hidden, and so burnt and smothered them; Then they burnt the Churches, and massacred the Ministers, and at last burn down the whole Town.
Magdenburg burnt.The like cruelty was used against the City of Magdenburg, famous for Religion, which being taken by Tilly and Pappenheim, Anno 1631. was in twelve hours space wholly turned into cindars, except one hundred thirty nine houses, by which fire six godly Churches were burnt down;Cruelties used there. no mercy was shewed to any age, sex, or condition; above twenty thousand persons were slain, burnt, and smothered to death; six thousand were drowned in the river Elve; Ladies and Gentlewomen, like beasts were yoked together all about the Country, and driven into woods to be ravished; and such as resisted were stript stark naked, whipt, had their ears cropt, and so were turned up.
Anno 1634. The Popish Army having taken the town of Hoxter, they spared neither man,Cruelties at Hoxter. woman nor child, most inhumanely butchering and hewing in pieces all, without respect of age, sexe, or condition; and what the sword could not spoile, they caused the fire to consume, and the dead corpses they cast into the Weser.
At Griphenburg they kept the Senators shut up in a Chamber, macecrating and tormenting them so long with hunger and smoak,Griphenburg. that divers of them died.
In Heidleberg they shut up divers Reverend Ministers and Bourgers in prison,Heidleberg. allowing them nothing to eat but bread and water.
Frankendall being surrendred upon Articles, contrary to Covenants, the grave Counsellors and other Electoral Ministers,Frankendal. were forced to endure such conditions, as were fitter for Dogs than men: Some were cast into prison, and so abused that they died there; others were forced to redeem themselves with unreasonable ransoms; the goods of such as were fled were confiscated; and though the inhabitants were willing to have left their houses, and all their goods, yet were they detained in the City, and their destruction most cruelly plotted.
Their rage was so great against the Professors of the Gospel, that neither Turks nor Heathens did ever exceed them. Princes sacred Person were not exempted from their fury; The old Lantgrave of Hessen, and the old Dutchesse Dowager of Wittenburgh were taken prisoners, reviled, and abused. In Saxoni Tillies Souldiers tortured the Protestants by half strangling them, and pressing their thumbs with wheels.Saxony. In Pomeren they, forced the people to eat their own excrements, and if they refused, they thrust them down their throat,Pomeren. whereby some of them were choaked; If they suspected that any had hidden their gold or silver,Horrible cruelties. they used exquisite torments to make them to confesse it; They wound and tied about the heads of some, strong matches or cords, and with short truncheons twisted them till blood came out of their eyes, ears, and noses, yea sometimes till their eyes started out of their heads; to others they tied burning matches between their fingers, yea to their eyes, ears, noses, tongues, cheeks, breasts, leggs, and secret parts; yea, such parts that nature hideth, they either stuffed with gunpowder, or hung bags of powder to them, and so giving fire to it, in an horrible manner they burst their bellies, and killed them. With bodkins they made holes, or with knives they cut the skin and flesh of many. They drew strings and cords through the fleshie parts of some, and through the muscles of their thighs, leggs, armes, &c. or through their noses, ears, lips, &c. Some they hung up in the smoak, drying them with small fires, and sometimes refreshing them with small drink, or water, taking care lest in their torments they should die too soon. Some they put into hot Ovens, roasting or smothering them there. Some they roasted with fires of straw. Some they stifled, strangled, or hanged, and this was a great favour so soon to rid them out of their pain. Of many they bound their hands and feet so hard, that the blood spirted out their fingers and toes ends. Of some they tied their hands and feet backwards together, stopping their mouths with clouts to hinder them from praying. Some they hung up with ropes fastened to their privy parts, and hearing their cries, strove by their roarings to drown their cries, as in sport.
Where they found poor creatures troubled with ruptures, they enlarged them by villanous means, filling them with gunpowder, and blowing them up as a Mine by giving fire thereto. Many they drew up on high, hanging great weights at their feet to pull their bodies out of joynt. Of some they plained their faces with Chisels. Some men they openly gelded in the presence of their wives and children. The mouths of some they set wide open with gags, and then poured down their throats stinking water, urine, and other liquid things till they grew sick, and their bellies swelled like tuns, whereby they died leasurely with greater torment.
Down the throats of some they violently thrust knotted clouts, and then with a string pulled them up again, whereby they displaced their bowels, and put them to miserable torment, insomuch as some were made dumb, others deaf, others blind, and others lame.
If the Husband intreated for his Wife, or the Wife for the Husband, they would take the intercessour and torture him in the same manner before the others eyes; and when any of these poor creatures in their torments or agonies of death called and cryed unto God for mercy, they would command, and seek to force them to pray and cry unto the devil.Blasphemy. Yea their divellishnesse proceeded so far, that they studied to find out new and unheard of torments. Some they bound, hung up, and sawed off their leggs: Of others they rubbed off the flesh off their leggs to the very bones: Of others they tied the armes backwards, and so hanged them up by those distorted parts. Many they drew through the streets of the Cities stark naked, then brake and wounded them with axes and hammers, and generally used them with such barbarous cruelty, that many begged to be shot or slain instantly, rather than to live and be partakers of such miseries. In most places they took away all the corn and provision of victuals, leaving the places so bare, that many of the best Rank for the space of divers dayes after saw not one bit of bread, but were glad to live with roots and water. In other places they spoiled the inhabitants of their garments, exposing them to that nakednesse, that neither Man, Woman, nor Child had clothes to put on. Hereby fruitful Countries were totally ruinated: Cities, Towns, and Villages, were spoiled and turned into pillars of fire and smoake; Churches lay desolate, the Woods were cut down, the ground lay wast and untilled.
One reverend aged Divine they stripped, bound him backwards upon a Table,A Minister killed with a Cat. and set a big Cat upon his naked belley, beating and pricking the Cat to make her fix her teeth and claws therein. So that both man and Cat, with hunger, pain and anguish breathed their last.
The Crabats laboured much to teach their Horses, not only to kill men, but to eat humane flesh; and consulted how to find out more new and exquisite torments than ever were before used.
At the taking of Magdenburg, a godly Minister of great esteem was found in one of the Churches,Magdenburg. whom they dragged out to his own house, where they ravished his Wife and Daughters before his face; his tender Infant they snatched from the Mothers breast, and stuck it upon the top of a Lance; and when his eyes and heart were glutted with this so cruel a spectacle, they brought him forth bound into the street, and there burned him with his own Books.
Rapes and Ravishings were committed beyond all humane modesty; Maids and Matrons, Wives and Widdows, they forced and violated without distinction, yea, and that in the presence of their Parents,Rapes and Ravishings. Husbands and Neighbours; yea, Women great with child, and others in Child-bed: Their beastliness was such that no pen can write it, no Faith can believe it; Chappels and Churches were not freed from their filthy pollutions; yea, Hospitals, and Bedlam-houses were not spared.
In Hessen land they took divers poor women, some mad, some dumb, some lame, and tying up their coats about their ears so used them, as a modest pen cannot expresse.
In Pomeren they took the fairest maids, and ravished them before their Parents faces, making them sing Psalms the while. One beautiful maid being hid by her Parents in a dunghil, they found her out, had their pleasure of her, then cut her in pieces, and hung up her quarters in the Church. Yea very girles of ten years old and under, they ravished till some of them died; vertuous and chast women, they would threaten to kill, to throw their children into the fire, if they would not yield to their lusts. Divers maids and women to avoid the lusts of these Hell-born furies, have leaped into Rivers and Wells, and some have otherwise killed themselves; and that which was never before heard of, they did not only violate sickly and weak maids and women till they died, but committed the like filthinesse with the dead corpses.
The Merchants of Basil returning from Strasburg Mart, were set upon by the Imperialists in their lodging;Bazil Merchan…s murthered. and though they craved their lives upon their knees, yet they killed ten of them, saying, they must die for that they were Hereticks; the rest leaving their goods and garments, escaped by flight stark-naked in the night.
Two Noble Countesses with their faire Daughters were rifled in their Coaches of all that they had, nor sparing the very garments that covered them.
Neer Friburg these bloody miscreants cut in piecs a Reverend Minister, a man of rare learning and piety;A Minister murthered. after whose death the Dogs would not lick his blood nor touch his flesh. For the common people, they made not so much account of them as of Dogs, murthering them upon every trifling occasion, neither pitying old nor young, men, women, nor innocent babes, whom sometimes most barbarously they used to eat, even when other meat might be had: yea such inhumane cruelty they used,The Crabbats eat infants. that in some places they scarce left any remaining alive to relate the sufferings of the dead. Many times they cut off the Noses and Ears of the living, carrying them about in bravery. Collected out of a Booke composed by Doctor Vincent a Divine, who was an eye-witnesse of many of these things.
Before this great persecution befell the Church of God in Germany, God gave his people warning of it by many and strange prodigies. For October the 26. Anno Christi 1618. there appeared a terrible Comet with a great blazing tayle, at first of a red,A Comet. afterwards of a pale-red colour, which continued for the space of twenty seven dayes, and in some places it was seen longer. This fearfull and ominous Link or Torch the Lord sent to those who had long despised and sleighted his voice in his sacred Word preached by his vigilant and faithful Ministers, to awaken them from their dead sleep of sin, and by repentance to bring them to the reformation of their lives, or otherwise to assure them that he would come suddenly upon them, and plague them with all those evils and miseries which he had denounced against them by his messengers, and whereof he gave them warning by this dreadfull sign.
Anno 1619. At Groningen in the Dukedome of Brunswick was seen a great blazing star,A blazing star. And two Armies. and two Armies, one in the East, and another in the North, fighting together till one of them was defeated and slain.
Water turned to blood. Three Suns.At Wien in Austria, the water in a Dith was seen to be like blood for the space of eight dayes; and shortly after three Suns appeared in the Heavens. In the beginning of April, Anno 1619. and Anno 1621. in March in the same Country of Austria, were two Armies seen in the Heavens by clear day-light,Two Armies. fighting furiously together with great thundering of Ordnance and Canons.
In the same Country, Anno 1623. in the monethmonth of January, just over the City of Lintz, two swords were seen one over against the other, and two great Armies fighting a pitched battel together,Two swords, and two Armies. which caused great terrour to the beholders.
At Heidleberg in February, Anno 1622. were seen three Suns, and three Rainbows.Three Suns and th…ee Rainbows. Shortly after which, that City was besieged by the Inperialists, and at last taken, where a grear slaughter was made of the Imhabitants, and in Neckergemund three miles off, all the inhabitants, Men, Women, and Children were put to the sword.
In April, Anno 1622. In the Country of Darmstad, were trees whose leaves drop't blood; and the year after in the same Country in divers Towns and Villages,Trees dropt blood. Blood on houses and stone-walls, And sickles. were seen bloody signes on Houses and stone-walls. About Meyenfield and Malants, as men were reaping their Corne, their Hands and Sickles were all bloody.
In July, Anno 1622. In the Dukedome of Wittemburgh, it rained so much blood, that it fell upon the hands and cloaths of people in the fields,It rained blood. and was seen upon Trees, Stones, and other places.
May the twelfth, Anno 1624. in the Dukedome of Anhalt there appeared a strange prodigie in the Heavens, which continued from six till eight a clock at night: First there came out of the clouds an Ancient-bearer; After him came forth a grave man in the same habit; then came forth a Chariot drawn with two particouloured Horses:Two Armies. Then another Chariot with four armed Horses: Then suddenly there brake out of the Clouds an infinite number of people like a swarm of Bees: After them followed a man sitting on horseback with a long Robe, putting the people before him; A quarter of an houre after came forth another Army consisting of many horse and foot, &c. The two Armies fought till one of them was routed, and presently after all vanished away.
Anno 1624. In May a strange tempest happened at Ratisbone;A strange tempest. The weather being very calme, with little raine, two dark clouds met together, which suddenly belched out a great wind mingled with fire, which raised such a tempest, that near to the City it tore up trees by the roots, and in a moment drave them into divers places, and thence extending it self to the City, it overturned above two hundred houses in the Towne and Suburbs, not leaving a Chimney standing, nor a roof to cover an house. The Church of Emerans, besides the shattered windows, had one of the steeples laid flat to the ground, and the other broke off in the middle; two other of the chiefest steeples in the City were also broken down. This tempest lasted not above a quarter of an hour, nor extended beyond the City, neither were there above four men slain by it.
Anno 1625.A fight of Jackdaws. Near Troppash a great multitude of Jack-dawes met in the aire, where they fought a great battel, and that with so great eagernesse, that many of them fell down dead, so that the Countrey-men gathered up whole sackfuls of them.
Anno 1628. In Pomerland the heavens seemed to open, and an Army came forth of the Northern part,Two armies. the Avauntguard consisting of Pioneres & Musqueteres; then followed great peeces of Ordnance, and in the Reare came the Cavalry. Another Army came forth on the other side, and betwixt them there became a cruel battel: The victory inclining to the Northern Army; And at last a fiery beame followed upon the Northern Conquerour, which continued for the space of some hours.
Anno 1631. At Hall in Saxony the water was turned into blood to the great astonishment of the inhabitants.
During the siege of Magdenburg, a Captains wife being in travel,Water turned into blood. when she could not be delivered, and was near death, she desired that when she was dead, her body might be opened; which being done, there was found in her womb,A monstrous c…ld. a boy almost as big as one of three years old with an head-piece and breastplate upon him, great boots after the French fashion, and a bag by his side with twoo things in it like musket bullets.
June the nineteenth, Anno 1631. In the lower Saxony two great Armies appeared in the aire, one in the North, the other in the South,Two armies. which fought a great battel together; After long fighting the Northern Army obtained the victory. After the battel was ended, there appeared a man in a long coat, bearing a bow, with which he shot at, and overthrew the Commander of the Southern Army.
In the same Countrey a woman having bought a loafe of bread, when she came home was dividing it,Bloody bread. and in the cutting of it there came forth blood.
Anno. 1633. In the Countrey of Altenburgh, a fish-pond was turned into blood, which stank so extreamly,A fish-pond turn'd to blood that if any Passengers did but touch it, they could not wash off the stink thereof in three days space.
Anno 1634. At Berlin in Brandenburg, It rain'd blood & brimstone.it rained blood and brimstone.
Anno 1635. In Hessen there met two armies of strange birds, which fought a set battel; And not far off, about that same time a multitude of dogs had their Randevouz,A battel of Birds & Dogs which fought so eagerly, that they would not be reconciled; and when the Governour of a neighbour Garrison sent out four companies of Musqueteers against them; they seeing a common enemy, joyned together, and in despight of their guns, beat them away, and devoured nine of them.
Here place the eighth Figure.