A Looking Glass for Persecutors, Part 6

A Looking Glass for Persecutors · Part 6

p. 75Of Gods Judgments upon Persecutors in Germany, Spain, and France.

141. The Electoral House of Saxony, upon the devesting of that brave and pious Prince John Frederick, the true Heir, by the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and the investing the younger House to usurp that Honour, hath ever since proved a greater Friend to the Popish Party, than to the purer Church of the French, and Helvetick Confession. Maurice that usurped the Dutchy and Electorate, upon the captivating of the said John Frederick, his Cousin, first p. 76ruined the Princes of the Smalcaldick Union, to which himself had subscribed; and then (casting an ambitious eye upon the Empire it self:) broke his Faith with the Emperor that had raised him; and having patched up the defection by the help of Ferdinand of Austria, King of Bohemia (afterwards Emperor) he lastly perished by a violent death in a pitch'd Battel fought against his Fellow-Protestants. A just Judgment of God upon him.

142. Charles the Fifth, having obtained the Empire by the help and monies of our King Henry the Eighth, was the most potent Emperor that ever Germany had as long as he maintained the peace of Religion: But having yielded to the Popes instigations, and prospered a while in his intended extirpation of the Truth, he found at last by sad experience, what his brave, and valiant General [Castaldus] had foretold him, that these violent proceedings would in the end prove fatal to himself: For having first fled away at Midnight, in a cold and rainy season from Onspurch, for fear of the Protestant Army, he was afterward (instead of setling his Son Philip in his Imperial Throne, as he had intended) p. 77forced to surrender the Empire to his Brother Ferdinand, who diverse years before had entred into a secret League with the Protestant Princes of Germany, and so having lived a few years in a despised, and disconsolate condition, he at last ended his life most ingloriously in a Monastery.

143. His Son Philip the Second, King of Spain, the most inveterate Enemy of the Gospel that ever lived, did not only erect Shambles for Gods Saints in most of his large Dominions, by his bloody Inquisitors, but still aided the Rebels in France, England, and Ireland against their lawful Sovereigns, and plotted to invade all other Protestant Dominions in Christendom, so at last by one general Carriage of them all, he and his holy Father the Pope, might have shared the Christian World by a double Monarchy, of the Church and Empire between them. But did this bloody Prince prosper in these his ambitious and cruel Designs? Nothing less. For what got he by his invading France by Land, and England, and Ireland by Sea, and by his large Pensions conferred upon the Traitors and secret Enemies of either States? Truly nothing. For having wasted about thirty millions of Money upon p. 78those fruitless Designs; and not gained a Foot of Land in any of those Realms, but the loss of a great part of the seventeen Provinces, with whom, having broken his Oath solemnly sworn to them in his Inauguration, they (by the Aid of England and France) freed themselves from his unjust Oppression and Tyranny.

Neither did the Divine Justice suffer him so to escape, but raised a Fire in his own House. For whereas he had Issue by his first Wife Mary, the Daughter of John the Third, King of Portugal, one only Son, called Charles (a Prince of admirable towardliness) He (during the Life of our Queen Mary, his second Wife) treated a Marriage for his Son with Elizabeth, the eldest Daughter of Henry the Second, King of France; during which Treaty, our Queen Mary dying, he himself married her who was designed for his Son (a Lady of admirable Beauty and Parts:) They often in private, never forgetting their old affections, lamented their unhappy loss each of other. The Son also detested his Fathers cruelty, and butchery by the merciless Inquisitors! This so enraged his jealous Father, that he imprison'd him, and delivered him over into the Inquisitors p. 79Hands, by whom he was condemned, Anno Christi, 1568. and a few days after he sent to him to choose his own Death, who in a warm Bath caused his Veins to be opened, and so dyed. A while after (though she was great with child) he caused his Queen to drink a Cup of poison, which soon dispatched her.

144. King Philip's fourth Wife was Anne, the Daughter of Mary, the Empress, his own natural Sister, by whom he had Issue Ferdinand and James▪ both cut off by Death in their Infancy, and Philip, who being the only surviving Issue of this incestuous match, succeeded his Father in his Dominions, but not altogether in his cruelties.

145. Rodulph the Second, Emperor of Germany, not following the steps of the wise Maximilian his Father, but of the aforesaid Philip his Brother in Law, sought by all secret and hostile means to enervate, and root out Religion in the Empire: What got he by it, but to have Gods curse denounced in Scripture fulfilled upon him? That the elder should serve the younger. For Mathias the Arch-Duke of Austria, raising an Army in the year 1608. and joining his Forces with those of the oppressed Protestant p. 80in Bohemia, hem'd up his Brother Rodulph in Prague, got the Kingdom of Hungary from him in present possession, and the Empire in reversion, leaving him nothing but the complement of Majesty, which he did not long survive, and could never revenge that affront.

146. We need not look into ancient Histories of Gods Judgments upon Heathen persecuting Emperors: we may see the sad successes of the Princes of the house of Valois in France. King Henry the Second of France was meanly married to Katherine de Medices (the Niece of Pope Clement the Seventh) during the Life of the Dolphin his elder Brother, who was afterwards poisoned. And Francis the first, his Father deceasing, he succeeded, and swayd the French Scepter for diverse years, with much Tranquility and happiness, till (loathing the Coiture of his Queen, unfit indeed for a Princes bed) he grew highly enamoured on Piciavia of Valence, a woman of exquisite Beauty, and good extraction, with whom he long after lived in continual Adultery, and was by her enticed to persecute and slay the Protestants, Anno Ghristi 1553. that so by the confiscation of their Lands and Goods, she p. 81might enrich her self, and her Kindred. This Persecution put a Period to all his former Victories, and the next year was followed with the loss of the City of Seins in Italy to the Spaniard: The Death of the old gallant General Leo Strozzi by a base hand, and the overthrow of his French Army by James de Medices.

147. Anno Christi 1556. The violence of persecution was again renewed against the Protestants, and the very next year after (as before) God again gave up the French Army to the slaughter of the Spaniards and Dutch at the Siege and Battel of S. Quintins, in which were above three thousand slain upon the place, and many of them men of note, and soon after the Town was taken by Storm: Also Annas Duke de Memorancy himself, the Constable of France: The Marshal of S. Andrew: the Duke of Longevile, Gaspar de Coligne, Earl of Castilion and Admiral of France, and a number others of the great Peers were all taken Prisoners. In sum, the loss and slaughter was so great, and fatal to the French, as it well-near equalled that Victory obtained by the Duke of Bourbon at the Battel of Pavia in Italy against Francis the first, his Father. Yet Henry p. 82the Second still shut his eyes against the cause of these losses, and having his heart cauterized by his Lusts, he not only caused the godly to be committed to the Flames, but himself would needs be a Spectator of their Torments as a pleasing sight, and had combined with Philip King of Spain, his new Son in Law, for the utter ruine and final subversion of Geneva.

Nay, but a few hours before his Death, Anno 1559. Lodovick Faber, and Annas Burgus, two Senators of Paris, because they had spoken a little freely in defence of the innocency and piety of the Protestants in the open Senate, were cast into Prison by his special Command, in the Bastile of the same City, by Gabriel Earl of Mongomery, one of the Captains of his Guard. And the persecution of all others of the same Profession grew so hot and furious: when the King June the nine and twentieth, the same year, running at Tilt with the very same Earl of Mongomery, and near the very Bastile where the said Senators were Prisoners, was struck with a splinter of Mongomery's Spear, through the Eye into his Brain, and never had the happiness to speak one word after, though he survived the wound a few days; Nor to acknowledge p. 83his former Lust and Cruelty.

148. And if we farther look to Gods Hand that followed this Prince in his Posterity, it will yet seem the greater miracle. For of five Sons that he had, all save one dyed without lawful Issue to survive them, ad three of them by violent Deaths, and in his Posterity ended the Valetian Line, the Crown thereupon devolving to the Royal Branch of Cleremont, commonly called Bourbon, whom his Sons had most bitterly hated and persecuted. And of all his five Daughters, three dyed issueless, and the eldest (the Queen of Spain aforementioned) that had Issue was cut off by poison. Nay, his very Bastard Son, Henry of Engolism, a great Actor in the Parisian Massacre, perished also by the stab of Philip Altovit, a Florentine, his old and mortal Enemy, Anno Christi 1586. during the Reign of Henry the Third, his Brother.

149. Charles the Ninth (third Son of the said Henry the Second) who succeeded his Brother Francis the Second, Anno Christi 1560. had he continued his Reign with as much Mercy and Wilsdom as he began it, when he followed the grave and seasonable advise of Michael Hospitalius, his Chancellor, probably he had lived more virtuously p. 84and dyed less miserably. But he had scarce raigned two years in Peace and Plenty, when Katherine de Medices, his Mother (desiring to get the Regency into her own Hands by raising combustions in the Kingdom) perswaded this her Son to revive those Persecutions against the Protestants which his Father had begun. She also reconciled Her self to Charles Lorainer, Duke of Guise, whom a little before she had feared and hated, being a secret Enemy to Lewis de Cleremont, Prince of Conde. He and the Marshal of S. Andrew having gained Annas Momorancy, Constable of France to their party, they all conspired together for the ruine of the Truth. The Protestants in the mean time, seeing the King in his minority, held (as it were) captivated by this Triumvirate, took up Arms by the Queen-Mothers own instigation, to maintain the Kings Edict of Pacification, which was published Anno Christi 1561. commonly called, The Edict of January.

The year following, by the instigation of the said Triumvirate, not only the Queen-Mother, but Anthony de Cleremont, King of Navar also (who yet dyed a Protestant) was drawn on to assail those of the p. 85Religion with open force, they in the mean time filling the Queen-Mothers ear with these vain Flatteries, that she should soon see the utter ruine of all the Hereticks in France: From which time that goodly, rich, peaceable, and flourishing Kingdom, for almost forty years together (some short pauses excepted) was filled with Cruelties, Ravages, Ravishments, Murthers, Battles, Fires, Slaughters, and all other calamities that attend a civil War: In the end of all which, the Protestants being increased in their strength and numbers, obtained a more firm and advantagious peace than ever they had before: whereas those three incendiaries who had been the Authors of all these miseries, perished within a few years after, by the just Judgment of God in the very act when they were pursuing the godly party. For the Marshal of S. Andrew was slain in the Battle of Dreux: Annas de Momorancy under the very walls of Paris, and Francis Lorainer, Duke of Guise, was pistoled by John Poltrot whilest he besieged Orleans.

King Charles seeing that by open force he could not eradicate and destroy the truth, nor root out the Professors of it, about two years before the hellish Massacre begun p. 86at Paris, and prosecuted (to the perpetual infamy of France) in diverse other Cities, held a secret Council in the Castle of Blois, with Katherine de Medices, his Mother, Alexander, and Hercules (called also Henry and Francis) his Brothers, and Henry Lorainer, Heir to the said Duke Francis aforementioned, by what means they might best draw the Protestants into their toil to murther and destroy them. The same Council was again held in the house of Hieronimo de Gondy at S. Clou, and the time and order of the bloody Marriage Banquet to be served in at the Nuptials of the King of Navar with the Lady Margaret, the French Kings Sister, almost in the same manner and order as it was afterwards put in execution on Bartholomews Day, Anno Christi 1572. In which were most inhumanely murthered, of men, women, and children (many also of them being great and honourable Personages) of either Sex about thirty thousand. And while the Duke of Guise was prosecuting that most inhumane Butchery, a Cabinet Council was held in the Queen-Mothers Chamber, whether it were not necessary that both the Duke, and the rest of his Family who were then present, should not be dispatched p. 87at the same time in that disorderly tumult.

King Charles himself never saw good day after this bloody Massacre, though the Court-Sycophants had promised him that it should prove the first happy day of his absolute Monarchy. For though he had been long drenched in Lust (a sin seldom separated from a Persecutor) by his ordinary Adultery with a mean Wench of Orleance, of whom he begat Charles of Engolism, afterwards Earl of Auvern: And though he had been trained up by his Mother to see the slaughter of Beasts; and ever in his Chases had been accustomed to bath his hands in the Blood of the slain Game (which might have served to stupifie his Conscience, as they did inflame his fierce and cruel nature, yet) a very stinging remorse in his Conscience, did ever pursue and haunt him after that merciless slaughter, brought about, chiefly by his own swearing and forswearing, (by which the King of Navar, and the Admiral Coligni were deceived) His eyes ever rolled up and down uncertainly in the Day-time with fear and suspition, and his sleep was usually interrupted in the night with dismal Dreams and Apparitions (like p. 88our King Richard the Third of England after he had murthered his two Nephews in the Tower) Nay, though he survived that Massacre not fully two years, yet had he in that time plotted the death of the said Henry, Duke of Guise, and the removal of the Queen-Mother, and her Instruments from the Helm of State: But as he, a little before the Massacre had poisoned that incomparable Princess for Learning and Piety, Joan, Queen of Navar: So did his Mother, or the Duke of Guise (by way of prevention, or anticipation) minister to him his fatal sharp Phisick, of which (after many and grievous torments) he deceased upon Whitsunday, Anno Christi 1574. being not full twenty five years old.

150. The Queen-Mother, the Kings two Brethren, the Cardinal, and the Duke of Guise, that had not only joined with him in his Persecution, but encouraged him to it, they still survived, and for ought men saw, were firmly setled in Peace and Prosperity: Though Guise might have taken warning by the Death of Claude, Duke of Aumal, his Brother, slain with a Musket-Bullet from the walls of Rochel, p. 89as he lay in Siege before it, Anno Christi 1573.

151. Henry his Brother, who succeeded King Charles, was not long before chosen King of Poland, where he then was; but hearing of the Death of his Brother, he clandestinly stole away from that Kingdom to return to France. In his return the good Emperor Maximilian the Second, and the Venetian State, earnestly advised him to maintain the former Edicts of Pacification inviolably, and not force the Consciences of men in matters of Religion; Of the same Opinion also were all his wisest Councellors, who saw plainly that the encreasing of the Protestants was the only means now left under Heaven to draw the Pope and his Conclave to yield some Reformation of the Church, which it needed exceedingly. But his Mother advised him by all means to root out the Professors of the truth by Fire and Sword. And others there were of loose and Atheistical Lives, as Henry Duke of Guise; Lewis the Cardinal of Guise; Renalt Villoclare (A man, saith the incomparable Monsieur de Thou, fatally preferr'd to be an attendant upon this King by his Mother) and diverse others, who perswaded the King to break the aforesaid p. 90Edicts for Pacification, and never to sheath his Sword till he had utterly ruined all the Protestants in France: And the King, being of a weak, and degenerate Spirit, the House of Guise (being the Arch-enemies of the Gospel) became at length so potent, and triumphed so notoriously over the impotency of the King, that at last they forced him to seek to those very Protestants for support, against whom he had taken a Solemn Oath for their utter destruction.

Infinite almost were the Treasures which he spent upon his Minions and Pleasures (His expenses upon his Dogs only, amounted in those times to twenty thousand pounds yearly at the least) but most was exhausted in the prosecution of his Wars against the Protestants.

152. Guise, and his Faction now grown strong, and assured of support from King Philip the Second of Spain, after he had expelled his King out of Paris, and heaped a world of other insolent affronts upon him, was drawn by him, Anno Christi 1588. to the Assembly then held at Blois. He came thither with his Brother Lewis Lorainer, Cardinal of Guise, and Charles, Prince of Ionvile, his Son, upon the same Royal Assurance p. 91of safety, with which Charles the Ninth, had (by his advise) deceived the Protestants before the abhorred Massacre in the year 1572. But during this Assembly this Duke of Guise was slain, against the Publick Faith given him, not only within the Castle of Blois, but in that very room, wherein sixteen years before he had advised the bloody Massacre of Paris to be executed. Two circumstances also do add much horror to the punishment it self: One was that he was but newly risen from the bed of his adulterate Lust, having not been able before this night, to conquer the chastity of a Gentlewoman that waited on the Queen-Mother: and therefore was so eager in reaping the fruits of his long Siege, that he came not to the Council Chamber, till he was oft sent for, and even then scarcely ready: The other was in the manner of his first wound, which was given him in his Throat, and immediately caused the Blood so abundantly to stream out of his Mouth, as he never had time so much as to call upon God for mercy or forgiveness, but spent his last minute in endeavouring to revenge himself upon his Murtherers.

153. A while after the Cardinal of Guise, p. 92his Brother (who had been a great Gamester at Cards and Dice; perished also in the same Castle of Blois by a violent Death. Katherine de Medices, the Queen-Mother, who had been the chief cause for thirty years together of the shedding of so much innocent Blood, being present at the same time in the said Castle, stormed secretly that so great an action should be entred into, and effected without her advice: And when she heard that Charles Lorainer, Duke of Main was escaped, (being the younger Brother to the murthered Duke of Guise) she presaged to the King her Son, the sad Issue of that rash attempt, which he (as it seems) interpreting to be rather the expression of her wishes than her fears; and having by many woful experiences, seen the effects of her revengful Italian Spirit, took a course to pacify her wrath: For not long after, she there ended her unhappy Life, by poison (saith Elias Reusner) in the same Castle also, where she held the first secret and bloody Council for the execution of the aforesaid bloody Massacre. Francis her youngest Son dyed before her, June the tenth, Anno 1584. in the one and thirtieth year of his Age, of a violent poison, probably ministred to him by some of the p. 93Hispaniolized Guisards, so that it caused very much Blood to issue out of his Body in several places, the sight of which purple streams might well call upon him to remember with what inhumane Pride he trampled upon the bloody streets of Paris in the great slaughter committed upon Gods Saints and Martyrs about twelve years before.

154. There now only remained Henry the Third, the French King, alive, of all the first contrivers, and principal Executioners of that inhumane Massacre, which no Age, no Time, no Action of the most Barbarous Nations of the world could ever parallel, till that horrid Massacre of the bloody Irish upon the English Protestants in the year 1641. October 23. wherin above one hundred and fifty thousand perished in one of the four Provinces of that Kingdom, after the most savage and barbarous manner that ever was read of.

155. Charles Lorainer, Duke of Main was presently upon the death of his Brother made General of the Holy League, (as they stiled it) And Paris it self, and in a manner all the Popish Cities beyond the Loi… giving up their Names and Forces to that Faction, supported from Rome by Pope p. 94Sixtus the Fifth, and from Spain by Philip the Second.

156. When the King saw that neither his acting the Monk with the Flagellators, nor his playing the Devil against the Prostants, could secure him from a speedy ruine by the violent hands of Rebels; He sent to the victorious King of Navar (his Brother in Law) and to the Protestant Army, before whose known valour the Popish Forces hastened back from the Loyer to the Seine; Henry the Third pursued them, and pitched his Royal Pavilion at S. Clou, not far from the Gates of Paris. But his former cruelties, and persecutions of the godly, were doubtless the hinderances of his new expected Victories, and the Divine Providence so ordered it that in the very place where the last resolution was taken by himself, his Mother, his Brethren, and others for the speedy Execution of that brutish Massacre, about seventeen years before, nay in the very same House of Jerom de Gondy, and in the very same Room and Chamber (saith John de Serres) was murthered by James Clement, a Jesuited Monk, Anno Christi 1589. and in the nine and thirtieth year of his Age.

p. 95This Assasination was promoted by Pope Sixtus the Fifth, by the seditious Sermons of Jesuits, Priests, and Friars, and by the persecution of Katherine Mary, Duchess of Mompensier, Sister of the slain Duke of Guise, who was so horribly transported with malice against the Protestants, and with desire of revenge upon the King, as she prostitued her Body to that Jesuited Goat, to encourage him the more to that horrid murther, and by that means to stupify and harden his Soul by his filthy Lust, that it might not startle at any other wickedness whatsoever. Yet as this King some Months before his Death had altered his former bloody resolution against the Protestants; so did the Divine Providence at his Death afford him some hours of Repentance, after the bloody knife had been sheathed in his Belly; in which time he acknowledged his sin, and his error in having been so long miss-lead by his ambitious and malicious Counsellors, and his sin in having persecuted his Protestant Subjects, and for having enforced the Conscience of many to submit to Popery against the known Truth by threats and cruelty.

157. Our Queen Mary began her Reign p. 96with the breach of her Publick Faith.. For whereas the Crown was set upon her head by the Gentry and Commons of Suffolk, (although they knew her to be a Papist (which shews that the godly Protestants, whatsoever is suggested to the contrary by Lustful, Prophane, and Popishly affected Persons, are the best Subjects that any Sovereign can be happy in) yet she, in one of her first Acts of Council, took order for their restraint, long before the Mass and Latine Service were generally received in London, and caused that Diocess to tast the sharpest Inquisition, and Persecution that raged during her Reign, which was happily shortened by her Husbands contemning her Person, and her Enemies conquering her Dominions, neither of which she had power either to recover, or revenge: So that though she dyed not by any outward violence, yet was her end as inglorious and miserable, as her Reign had been turbulent and bloody. She might have taken warning by the sudden, and immature Death of King James the Fifth of Scotland, her Cousin German, who, raising a persecution there, against his Loyal and innocent Subjects that were Protestants, Anno Christi 1539. burning some, exiling, and imprisoning p. 97others, and forcing many to blaspheme, in abjuring the known truth; and all by advice and procurement of James Beaton, Arch-Bishop of S. Andrews, and David Beaton, Abbot of Arbroth, his Brother, never saw good day after: For two brave young Princes his Sons, were the year following, cut off by untimely ends in their Cradles: Wars to his great disadvantage and loss were raised between him and our King Henry the Eighth, his Uncle, and all things fell out so cross to his haughty and vast mind as that it hastened his Death, which fell out Anno Christi 1542. See more of him before.

Many also are the Examples of Gods severe, but righteous Judgments of God upon Popish persecuting Prelates, whereof you have store of instances in my two Martyrologies, and in my two Vollumes of Examples. I shall content my self for the present with two or three, which though briefly set down there, yet here more largely.

158. Thomas Arundal, Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, having been the successful Traytor, by the help of his Reverend Follow-Bishops, to estabish Henry the Fourth in the Throne of King Richard the Second, p. 98his Liege Lord, and Cousin German, pressed the new King (whose broken Title needed the supportments of his Prelates) to use his temporal Sword for the destruction of the Disciples of John Wickliff, whose numbers at that time were so encreased that they even filled the Kingdom: The King assented. and having by their cruel instigation, shed the blood of many of Gods Saints, his Reign proved neither long nor prosperous.

159. King Henry the Fifth. his Son, a brave and marshal Prince, succeeding him, the Protestants began to meet more publickly, and to profess the Truth more openly than before. The Arch-Bishop thereupon renews his former Suit to the Son, as he had before successfully pressed upon the Father. In particular, he first aimed at the destruction of Sir John Oldcastle (See his Life in my second Volume of Lives) who had most affronted him. He, by reason of his great Alliances, and the favour of his King, who called him His Knight, might have expected exemption from their Tyranny: But they prevailed with the King (as saith Arch-Bishop Parker) Rex virum clarum, sibique familiarissimum, Episcoporum potestati, & carnisioinae p. 99permisit: The King gave up this famous man, and who was dear to himself, to the power, and destruction of the Bishops: And yet it pleased God that he outlived this persecuting Arch-Prelate two years at least. For the Arch-Bishop having murthered many godly Saints in King Henry the Fourths time, and being a great stickler in state affairs, having long before procured himself to be made Lord Chancellour of England, and lastly (in a Synod held by himself at Rochester) having forbidden the reading of the Scriptures in English, and limited Preachers, under an heavy censure, what they should treat of in the Pulpit, was soon cut off himself by the immediate hand of God, after he had condemned that warlike Kinght, Sir John Old-Castle, Lord Cobham, before he could see him executed. For his Tongue was so swoln, and benummed that he could neither swallow, nor speak, some days before his Death: It being (saith one) the just Judgment of God upon him (and may be a warning to all other wicked Popish Prelates) that as he had muzled up the mouths of Preachers, and kept the Scriptures from the knowledge of the people, being their spiritual food. So he should neither be able to p. 100swallow nor speak, from that very minute that this Judgment fell upon him, and so he dyed within a few days after, in great torment, and extremity, by a languishing silence and famishment.

A later Example we have in the admirable punishment of James Beton, Arch-Bishop of S. Andrews in Scotland, who was also a member of the purpurated Conclave at Rome. He had for diverse years been an inveterate Enemy to the Gospel, and the Professors of it in that Kingdom under King James the Fifth: And after his Death, taking the advantage of the infancy of the Princess Mary, the Hereditary Queen of that Realm, he thought it a work worthy of himself, to double die his Purple Robes in the Blood of the Saints: And to make a full and clear way for that his sanguinary Project, he forged a Will of the deceased King, whereby he was established the chief Regent there, during the young Ladies incapacity to Reign: From which yet, his false play being discovered, he was removed, and for a while imprisoned: Yet was he no sooner delivered, but he presently endeavoured to raise a new and a fatal war between England and Scotland, and to root out the Professors of p. 101the Truth by a violent and bloody Persecution. And among others whom he cited, imprisoned, or exiled in the year 1545. he seized upon Mr. George Wiseheart (a very eloquent and learned Preacher) who by the Latin writers of that age is called Sophocardius, and contrary to their own Popish Canons, adjudged him to present death himself, which is never done, except by the hellish Inquisition of Spain, but by delivering the Martyrs into the power of the Civil-Magistrate; And in his Court before the Castle of S. Andrews, caused that bloody Sentence to be executed, the said Mr. Wiseheart being first strangled, and his Body afterwards burnt to Ashes; The Cardinal in the mean time had a Chamber prepared for him, with Carpets and Cushions in the Windows, out of which he was a Triumphant Spectator of this godly mans Martyrdom: From which window he departed, not more delighted, than (as himself thought) secured; and presently he began to fortify his Castle against all Assaults.

But Gods Judgment from Eternity awarded against him, for this later, as well as former cruelties exercised upon his faithful Servants, slep'd not. For within a few p. 102weeks after, the Cardinal having falsified his Promise to the Lord Norman Lesly, Son of the Earl of Rothsay, a zealous Romanist; He upon the thirteenth day of May, the same year, with about fourteen resolute Gentlemen in his company, entred the said Castle of S. Andrews, where the Cardinal lay (having had a whore with him all that night) and having first assured himself of all within, and the Gates without, he slew the bloody Prelate by his Bed-side without Law or Justice, who had but a little before, most unjustly condemned and murthered the aforesaid Mr. Wiseheart, and being willing to expose the dead Carcass of that cruel Persecutor (all weltring and besmeared with blood) unto the view of the People (who abhorred his Butcheries, and rejoiced at his fall) casually they laid it along, to be seen of all men in that very window, out of which a little before, leaning at his ease upon rich Cushions, he had proudly beheld the death of that precious Martyr.

161. Its very observable which Historians take notice of, that generally the greatest Persecutors are most drenched in the sin of uncleanness, and Epicurism. What was Escovedo, that great Instrument of the King of Spain's cruelties against the Evangelical p. 103Party in the Low-Countries, but a a very Lump of Lust, which in the end proved fatal to him?

162. Peter Espinac, A Bishop of Lions in France, was a great Persecutor, and one that lived in incest with his own Sister.

163. John Arch-Bishop of S. Andrews in Scotland, spent the greatest part of the Revenues of his See, and the seisure of the Protestants Estates (whose mortal Enemy he was) upon his Whores and Revellings.

164. The Cardinal of Granvels Veneries were so manifest and numerous, as when Anno Christi 1574. the Kingdom of Tunis, and the strong Fort of Gulette (formerly esteemed impregnable) were won by the Turks; the Spaniards made a jest of it, & said openly, That the Cardinals Breeches, had occasioned that loss, meaning thereby, that King Philip the Second, relying chiefly upon his advice in that, and in most of the rest of his important affairs, the Cardinals Lusts so took him up, that he had not leisure to advise the King for the best.

165. Cardinal Beton (aforementioned) wallowed at home with pollution among his Harlots, and raged abroad with the blood and slaughter of the innocent Servants of Christ.

p. 104166. In that Hellish Massacre on S. Bartholomew's Day, in Paris it self: The Murtherers there, were for the most part, brutish and lustful Soldiers, or profane Varlets of the scum of the City, and though their Leaders were more noble, yet less virtuous. The Duke of Guise, and Aumale, Albert, Gondy, Earl of Rets, Tavanne, and others of them that were bred up in Lust, Revellings, and all manner of Debaucheries.

167. The next place that came nearest to the cruelties exercised at Paris, was the City of Lions, where the numbers of the slain and massacred was so great, that their Bodies being thrown into the river Rhodanus, or Rosne, stained and corrupted the water, the violence of which stream, carrying them down by heaps to Tornou, (where the Inhabitants, not knowing what they were, but fearing that it proceeded from invasion by Enemies, and Robbers, assembled themselves in Arms together for their mutual defence.) The chief Ringleaders, and Abettors of which Butchery (Monsieur de Thou, a Papist, yet an incomparable Historian, confesseth) to have been Boidon, Mormieu, and Clou, three of the most wicked, and vilest Varlets that a Kingdom could harbour; which Boidon p. 105was afterwards executed at Clermont in Auvergne: And if Mormieu escaped a shameful end, yet surely he deserved it as well as his Fellow Persecutor, having before (as Semanus confesseth) procured the murther of his own Father?

At Tholous also, a few days after, a great slaughter of the godly was committed; not by the better sort of Citizens, or sober, or morally virtuous Papists; but by one Turry, and a number of other infamous, and lewd persons like himself, who joined themselves together for the effecting of that bloody execution.

The like Villany was perpetrated and done at the great City of Roan in Normandy, by one Maronie, a most infamous Ruffian, and a great many of other base Varlets, who flocked to him as to their chief Ringleader.

168. But in none of them were these two hellish sins of Adultery and Blood more eminently coupled together than in Paygillard, the Master Butcher at Angiers, who having long continued in the sin of Adultery, was at last enticed by his Harlot, to murther his own wife.

169. In France, after this barbarous and cruel Massacre, the eighth day of November following, there appeared a dreadful Comet, p. 106concerning which, a Learned Protestant, presently after published an elaborate Poem, wherein he presaged, that it was Gods Herald or Messenger to denounce his Judgment quickly to ensue upon that Kingdom for their late inhumane Butcheries. These Verses were scarcely come abroad, when there suddenly broke out in Poictou, a new, dreadful, and before unknown Disease, commonly called the PoictovinChollick, which miserably wasted that goodly Kingdom for above thirty years after. This Disease was accompanied with many extreme pains and torments, not only in the outward Parts of the Body, but also in the inward and Vitals, insomuch as it drew on diverse horrid Convulsions, and in many, blindness before it killed them. The strange Original, the hidden nature, and those unparallel'd torments which it produced, sometimes resembling the very stabs, and gashes made with Swords, and Ponyards, gave all impartial judgments just ground to conclude, that it was the finger of God himself in punishing the merciless Murthers of his Dear Saints.

170. But though the brutish, goatish Papists were so cruel and inhumane, yet others there were of more moral and moderate p. 107Princiciples, who in their very Souls abhorred and detested those barbarous practices. Monsieur de Thou in his unparallel'd▪History tells us, that himself was about nineteen years old when that horrible and Hellish Massacre was committed in Paris on S. Bartholomews Day, which fell out that year on the Lords Day, and did in his very soul abhor the cruelty and savageness thereof, when in his passage through the streets to Mattins that Morning, he met with diverse Villains, dragging along the dead Body of Hierom Grolet, late Governour of Orleance, all weltring with gastly wounds in his own Blood: At which sight his Heart relenting, and mourning inwardly, not daring to shed tears publickly, he hastened home to the House of Christopher de Thou, his Father, who at that time was the chief President of the Parliament in Paris, there freely to deplore that execrable Butchery; as did also the said Christopher, his Father.

171. Vidus Faber Pibratius, John Merviller, Belleureu, all eminent men, with all the judicious, and morally virtuous Papists in that City, did Christianly hide, and so preserved many Protestants from a wretchless massacring. Nay, Arman Guntald, the old Marshal Biron (Father of Charles, Duke of p. 108Biron, that was beheaded in King Henry the Fourth's time) when the Deputies of Rochel came to him, some few weeks after that bloody Execution, to treat of a peaceable accomodation of their affairs, he shed many tears in their presence upon his execrating the Authors of that Cruelty, and acknowledged the great Mercy of God to him that he neither knew of it, nor had any hand in it.

At the City of Lions also, where the inhumanity of the Murtherers almost equalled that of Paris, Mandelot the Governor there, did his best to have prevented it, and in his Heart (with many other grave and sober Gitizens of the Romish Religion) utterly detested it. And when the slaughtered Bodies that were tumbled into the River of Rosne, were carried down with the stream to Tornou, Valence, Vienne, and Burg, contiguous to the same River, the Papists there, generally detested the cruelty thereof: And at Arles, where for want of Springs, and Ponds they had most use of that River water; yet they so much abhorred that Butchery, as they would neither drink thereof, nor yet eat any of the Fish taken therein, for diverse days after: And generally in all Provence, those of the Romish Religion drew the mangled Bodies out of the water, and with great humanity interred them.

p. 109172. Monsieur Carragie, a Noble Gentleman, who was Governour of the great City of Roan in Normandy, did likewise oppose the Massacres there to the utmost of his power. As did also James Benedict Largahaston, the Prime Senator of Burdeaux, who thereby became himself in danger to have been slain by those seditious Varlets, who at first had been stirred up to commit those outrages by the seditious Sermons of a lustful Jesuite, called Eminund Auger.

173. Claudus, Earl of Tende, a Descendant of the illustrious House of Savoy, Governour of Provence, Monsieur de Gordes, Governour of Daulpbany, Monsieur Sauteran, Governour of Auvergne, and Francis Duke of Memorancy, absolutely refused to suffer any Massacres to be committed in such places as were under any of their Governments: So as the Rochellers in their Declaration set out the same year, do acknowledge that all such Romanists, who had but any humanity left in them, did in their Hearts abhor, and with their Mouths detest those abominable outrages and hellish cruelties.

174. And as the soberer and modester sort of Papists abhorred such brutishness, so also they disswaded from the same.

p. 110That Noble Gentleman David Hamilton gave this advice to James, Earl of Arran, then Regent of Scotland Anno 1545. when Cardinal Beton would have perswaded him to have joined with him in the Persecution and Slaughter of the godly in that Kingdom: I cannot but wonder, said he, that you should give up the innocent Servants of God, against whom no Crime, is objected, but the Preaching of the Gospel, into the hands and power of men most infamous for Lust, Cruelty, and all other wickedness; which in the mean time those very Enemies of the Truth themselves cannot deny that the lives of such as profess this Doctrine which they so hate, are full of integrity and virtue: And therefore although the profane and bloody Prelates could never be drawn to pity Gods Children, much less to love them for their piety and innocency (being therein more inhumane than diverse of the Heathen Emperors themselves, who, upon the information of the virtuous and harmless deportment of the Christians, by their Governours of Provinces, caused their Persecutions to be slacked and ceased) Yet diverse Princes and moderate Pontificians, have been moved by the upright and honest lives of Gods Children to further their Liberty of Conscience, and to abhor the cruelties which other Papists have practised upon them.

p. 111175. Maximilian the Emperour, son of Ferdinand the Second, and Francis the First, the French King were hence perswaded to grant unto their own subjects freedom of Conscience.

176. The Earl of Egmont, and Horn (though zealous Papists) laboured with the Dutchess of Parma, that the Low-Country Protestants might be free from Fines, imprisonments, and all other manner …f Persecutions in respect of Religion.

177. Under Francis the Second, the French King Anno Christi 1560. by the excellent and learned speeches of Charles Marillack, Arch-Bishop of Vienne, and John de Monlu, Bishop of Valence freely spoken before the King himself in behalf of the French Protestants, all Persecution against them was restrained. The said Bishop among other particulars, affirming boldly, that a great encrease of the Sectaries proceeded from the ignorance and evil lives of the Bishops, who having laid aside the care of their Flocks, had, for many years made it their business to enhanse their Fines, and Rents, and to live deliciously, and loosely; so as there were sometimes forty of them seen at once together, wasting their time in Luxury and idleness in Paris: the care of their p. 112Churches being in the mean time turned over to young and ignorant Fellows. And so the Bishops becoming blind and useless; the Parish Priests also, following the Example of their Diocesans, were only intent upon spoiling and vexing their people about their Tithes, but were wholly unskilful and negligent in preaching to them: And that therefore it was no wonder, though diverse of the Nobility as well as of the common people, did so readily hearken to new Opinions, and Doctrines.

The same Counsel, that the Conscience ought not to be forced, nor any to be persecuted for matters of Religion meerly, did Michael Hospitalius, Chancellour of France, give unto Charles the Ninth, the same year that he succeded to the Crown, after the death of the said Francis, his Brother.

178. By these foregoing Examples we may plainly see, that their self-love, and wallowing in all manner of sensuality, is the great cause of their hatred to the godly, whose lives and principles oppose their wickedness and errors. The persecutions of the Arrians against the Orthodox, exceeded the cruelty of the Heathen Emperours, but this of the Romanists far surpasseth and exceeds them both being joined together.

p. 113179. Pope Paul the Third, left this bloody Legacy to his Conclave when he dyed Anno Christi 1359. (as is testified by Mounsieur de Thou) For having called diverse of the Cardinals into his Bed-chamber, he exhorted them by all means to continue and maintain the Office of the Inquisition, as the only means left upon earth to establish the Romane Religion.

180. It may cause wonder in any serious man to consider that amongst the Turks, Jews, Indians, yea, and the Papists themselves, the most zealous, strict, and precise in their several Religions, are the most esteemed and honoured; and only in the greater part of the Protestant Churches, the most knowing and resolute retainer, of the truth, and the most strict and godly in their lives, are most hated, nick-named, disgraced, and persecuted: And Grace which should add a lustre to Learning, Riches, Honours, Noble Extraction, and all other outward endowments, whether natural or acquired, that alone obscures all the rest, and brings the contempt, not only of great ones, but even of the scum, and dregs of the multitude upon the persons so qualified.

181. Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, in the Reign of our King Henry the Fifth, p. 114being convented before Thomas Arundel, Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, and diverse other lustful and bloody Bishops, spake thus unto them: Whilest I was, said he, a Swearer, a Rioter, and every way else vicious, you never reproved me, nor questioned me: But since I have embraced this despised Doctrine of John Wickliff, which hath taught me how to conquer my Sins, and to lead an honest and a godly life, now you are enraged against me with malice, and seek my destruction.

182. The same observation was made by Annas du Bourg, that brave Senator of Paris Anno Christi 1559. under King Henry the Second of France: That there were many Adulteries, Perjuries, Oaths, and other infamous offences dayly committed, and already punishable by the Laws, and yet such as were guilty of all, or any of those crimes were countenanced and advanced: But against the Professors of the Truth all cruelty was practised, who were guilty of no other offence, but of embracing the truth of the Gospel revealed unto them by the Spirit, and Word of God, and of discovering, by the same Light, the horrible vices, and errors of the Popish power that so there might follow an amendment.

183. Experience sufficiently manifests p. 115that Persecution hath never been a way to suppress the Truth; and surely its against the Dictates of Charity and Christianity to enforce the conscience without a full and clear conviction. This was confessed by King Henry the Third of France (one of the most impotent Princes (saith a learned Gentleman) that ever swayed that Scepter, and the most inveterate Enemy that ever the Protestants had, having been instructed to hate, betray, and persecute them, by Katherine de Medices▪ his bloody Mother, even from his very cradle,) yet when James Clement, a Jesuited Monk, had sheathed a knife in his Bowels, and that he saw himself near to the Minute in which he was to give an account of all his cruelties to the supreme Judge of Heaven and Earth, he made an effectual speech to the chief Commanders of his Army, being most of them Papists: wherein he exhorted them to acknowledge and obey the King of Navar (then a Protestant) as their lawful Soveraign, and the undoubted Heir of the French Crown: and to know this undoubted truth for the future: That Religion which is instilled into the Souls of men by God himself, cannot be forced by man.

184. The same Truth also, and almost p. 116in the same words did the Lord Brederode, and the other Protestants in the Low-Countries alledge for their just excuse in their joint Apology, published in the year 1566, and farther added: That if the Papists did conceive their Religion to be the Truth, they should instead of Blood, Fines, Imprisonings, and Banishments, take the good, and seasonable counsel of the Learned Gamaliel, and try a while, whether the Protestants separation from them, were of God or no. For otherwise, if by force, and tyranny they should compel them to profess and practice those actions in Gods Worship, which they accounted abominable; and should also restrain them from the practice of those Duties towards God, wherein they were convinced the truth of his Service consisted, their Consciences must needs be shipwrack'd and undone, and so instead of making them new Converts, they should leave them Atheists and Libertines.