A Mirror both for Saints and Sinners, Treatise · Chapter 69
CHAP. LXIX. Examples of strange Accidents.
MAthias Huniades (the thundering sonne of a lightning father) being cast into prison by Uladislaus King of Hungary, and Bohemia, was sent into Bohemia to his execution, but Uladislaus immediately after, dying upon the eating of a poisoned Apple: the Hungarians, partly affected with the merit of his father, and hopes of the sons valour, and partly by means of the solicitations of his friends, chose Huniades for their King; and to give him notice thereof, they sent Letters by Ambassadours to P…gibrachius King of Bohemia, with whom Matthias was prisoner: which he receiving at Supper, presently raised Matthias from the lower end of the Table where he sate, and set him above himself, wishing him not to be dismayed, for he had glad tydings for him, which he would impart after Supper, and so he did, saluting him King of Hungary, and gave him Katherine his daughter to wife: Look Glass. of the Hol War.
A young man, the son of Sinan the Jew [a famous Sea-Captain under the Turk] having been taken prisoner by the Christians, was at length delivered, and sent home to his father: The old man over-joyed at the sudden, and unexpected return of his son, in imbracing of him fainted, and presently dyed in an extasie of joy. Turk. Hist. p. 750.
Dudilius relates a sad story of one Bochna, a woman who had but two sons, and whilest she was walking with one towards a River, she heard the other cry out, whereupon returning hastily to him, she found a knife sticking in him which soon ended his life. Then did she return to her other child, thinking yet to solace her self with her now onelyonly son: but he also in her absence was fallen into the River, and drowned, whereby she was deprived of them both in one hour.
Charles the second, King of Spain, having wasted his spirits with voluptuousnesse and Luxury, in his old age fell into a Lethargy: And therefore to comfort his benummed joynts, he was by the advice of his Physicians sowed up in a sheet steeped in aqua vitae; The Chirurgion having made an end of sowing the sheet, wanted a knife to cut off the thread, whereupon he took up a wax Taper that stood by to burn it off: But the flame running by the thread, caught hold of the sheet in an instant, which (according to the nature of Aqua vitae) burned so violently, that the old King ended his daies in the flame.
Eschilus the Athenian, who fought stoutly in the battel of Marathon, was afterwards warned by the Oracle to take off a blow from above upon such a day: whereupon he removed out of the City when that day came, and went without his hat into the fields, thinking to make all sure: But an Eagle taking his bald head for a stone, let a Tortoise fall upon it, which dashed out his brains. Plin.
The wife of Nausimenes the Athenian, finding her son and daughter committing incest together, was so affected with the sight of that hainous crime, that she could find no words for the present to utter her indignation, and ever after remained dumb.
One Palevizine, an Italian Gentleman, and kinsman to the learned Scaliger, had in one night all his hair changed from black to gray. Scal. de sub. p. 18. The like befell a Gentleman not many yeares since who was by our former Parliament condemned to death, and should the next day have been executed.
Vergerius, the Popes Nuncio, intending to write a book against the Lutheran Apostates, (for so he stiled them) whilest he was searching into their tenents with a purpose to confute them, was himself converted: so that leaving his Bishoprick, he lived and dyed a powerful Preacher in Germany: See his Life in my first Part.
It is a rare happinesse of the family of St. Laurence Barons of Hoath in Ireland, that the heires thereof for 400 years together alwaies have been of age before the death of their Fathers: Holy War.
At the siege of Perugia in Italy, when the City was as good as wonne, onelyonly a Chain which was laid at…wart the gate, wanted cutting in sunder for a fuller entrance of the Army; upon a meer mistake of a Souldier, crying, Give back, meaning to get a fuller blow at the Chain, all behind taking it for a word of command, ran quite away.
At the Battel of Munda in Spain between Caesar, and Pompey, where the whole world lay at the stak…, when Caesar's Souldiers began to shrink apace, and nothing but meer shame kept them from running away, by a meer mistake of King Boguds sudden wheeling about to have surprised Caesars Camp: Pompey's Souldiers utterly lost the day.