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A88437 The civil wars of France, during the bloody reign of Charls the Ninth: wherein is shewed, the sad and bloody murthers of many thousand Protestants, dying the streets and rivers with their blood for thirty daies together, whose innocent blood cries to God for vengeance. And may stand as a beacon tired to warn, and a land-mark to pilot all Protestant princes and states to a more secure harbour than peace with Papists. / Faithfully collected out of the most antient and modern authors, by a true Protestant, and friend to the Common-wealth of England. London, William, fl. 1658. 1655 (1655) Wing L2851; Thomason E1696_1; ESTC R209434 160,389 298

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off the edge of suspition hapning in a manner saies he by chance and not by any plotted contrivance This Speech of the Kings was by himself and the Parliament commanded to be written and entered into the Records of Parliament proclaimed by Heraulds and published in print a Book also was published by the Kings commandment which because it is within four daies of the same date of that Letter wherein he laies the blame of the Admirals death c. on the Duke of Guise and here takes it to himself therefore I say I thought fit to insert that printed Book by way of Declaration which is as followeth A Declaration of the King concerning the occasion of the Admirals death and his Adherents and Complices hapned in the City of Paris August 24. 1572. By the King HIs Majesty desiring to have all Seigniours Gentlemen and other Subjects understand the cause of the Murther of the Admiral and his Adherents and Complices which lately happened in the City of Paris the four and twentieth day of this present month of August lest the said deed should be otherwise disguised and reported than it was indeed His Majesty therefore declareth that which was done was by his express commandment and for no cause of Religion nor breaking his Edicts of Pacification which he alwaies intended and still mindeth and intendeth to observe and keep yea it was rather done to withstand and prevent a most detestable and cursed conspiracy begun by the said Admiral the chief Captain thereof and his said Adherents and Complices against the Kings person his Estate the Q. his Mother and the Princes his Brethren the King of Navar and other Lords about him wherefore his Majesty by this Declaration and Ordinance giveth to understand to all Gentlemen and others of the Religion which they pretend Reformed that he mindeth and purposeth that they live under his Protection with their wives and children in their houses in as much safeguard as they did before following the benefit of the former Edicts of Pacification most expresly commanding and ordaining that all Governours and Lieutenants General in every of his Countreys and Provinces and other Justices and Officers to whom it appertaineth do not attempt nor suffer to be attempted any thing in what sort soever upon the persons and goods of them of the Religion their wives children and families on pain of death to be inflicted on those that shall be found faulty and culpable in this behalf And nevertheless to withstand the troubles slanders suspitions and defiances that may come by Sermons and Assemblies as well in the houses of the said Gentlemen as in other places as it is suffered by the said Edicts of Pacification it is expresly forbidden and inhibited by his Majesty to all Gentlemen and others of the said Religion to have no assemblies for any cause at all till his Majesty hath provided and appointed otherwise for the Tranquillity of his Realm upon pain of disobedience and confiscation of body and goods It is also expresly forbidden under the pain aforesaid that for the aforesaid accasions none shall take or retain any Prisoners or take ransome of them and that incontinently they certifie the Governours of every Province and the Lieutenant General of the name and quality of every such Prisoner whom his Majesty hath appointed shall be released and set at liberty except they be of the late Conspiracy or such as have made some practice or device for them or had intelligence of and they shall advertise his Majesty of such ro know his further pleasure It is also ordained that from henceforth none shall take or arrest any Prisoner for that cause without his Majesties commandment or his Officers nor that none be suffered to roave abroad in the Fields to take up Dogs Cattel Beefs Kine or other Beasts Goods Fruits Grain or any thing else nor to hurt the Labourers by word or deed but to let them alone about their work or calling in peace and safety At Paris August 28. 1572. signed Charls and underneath Fizes Imprinted at Paris by Iohn Dalleir Stationer dwelling on Saints Michaels Bridge at the sign of the White Rose by the Kings Licence There was Letters also writ by the King to the Officers of Burghs also remembrances sent to the General Lieutenant of Burgundy which being to the same purpose is omitted for brevity The Kings Oration in the great Assembly aforesaid being ended before this Assembly broke up one Christopher Thuane the President of this Assembly in Parliament being one of a high Spirit and subject to admire his own parts and actions ready to wonder what a fool he could make of Solomon being a man reported to be notable for his light brain and cruel heart who trusting more to a slipery tongue than a sound cause congratulated the King for his wise Policy and good success in a speedy conquest over his Enemies But alas how did he conquer Only by wearing the vest of the Innocent to conceal and cover the deformed ugliness of his perfidious perjury But the Advocate of the Finanees succinctly delivered his mind to this purpose That though his Majesty had just cause to punish Delinquents yet it were more becoming the justice of a Prince to proceed according to the Lawes by himself decreed and established and so more fit for his Majesty to command a speedy cessation of such violent slaughters and to enter upon a judicial proceeding according to the Laws which was well known to be the proper and peaceable establishment of Empires and Kingdoms This advice takes well for now the King begins to do unjustly in the name of Justice so he proceeds to dissemble a Legality for all his future Butcheries unwilling to murther any more without a statute and pretence of Justice for it This being a brave principle of a Tyrant and that whereas the Laws at first were known to be the legitimate daughter of judgement it must now be made the adopted daughter of Tyranny Now is an arrest of Parliament with his Royall assent so that immediately Heraulds went about the City and an Edict was proclaimed in the Kings name That all murthers should cease but those that he intended more immediately to have a hand in himself by sitting in judgement and quallifying his cruelty and bloodshed with the name of Justice And first let us see a little of this new Justice of the Kings which now must be exercised on the dead Admiral which being as aforesaid hung by the heels on the common gallows of Paris the people by flocks and multitudes gathered to see it The Queen Mother to delight her self with that sad v●ew of her Sons and her own bloody cruelty she takes the King and his Brethren and so advances towards this sad sight but his body was in the night conveyed away by two of the Marshall de Momorancies Servants and was secretly buried at Chantilly whose faithfulness and adventure is beyond a terrene Reward And now the King begins
to the King of Navar the King crowned the Princes of the Bloud and Duke of Guise contends at the Coronation about precedency the King gives it to the Duke of Guise the Constable forsakes the Protestants and cleaves to the Duke of Guise the Queen Mother for her own advantage joyns with the King of Navar and gives some liberty to the Protestants which so enrages the Catholick party as presently all former Edicts in behalf of the Protestants were broken by a contrary Edict that no Religion should be suffered in the Kingdom but the Romish the King and Queen Mother subscribes thereunto the Protestants at their request have a Conference granted they meet and confer in a hot Dispute but agree not the Catholicks murder many Protestants in Paris the eight Parliaments of France assembles the Duke of Guise disapproved of it and so in a fury departs the Court and goes for Spain the Protestants deluded by the Queen Mother gives her a List of all their Forces the King of Navar turns Catholick the eight Parliaments meet and with the consent of the King and Queen Mother do decree a free and publick Toleration of the Protestant Religion but speedily a sad and cruel Massacre the Duke of Guise furiously assaults the Protestants at a Sermon and murders two hundred of them the Protestants complain to the Prince of Conde of breach of Covenant and Edict the Duke of Guise seises on the King and carries him to Paris the Queen Mother writes to the Prince of Conde for aid against the Duke of Guises Attempt the Prince in his journey to Court suddenly retires to Orleance and possesses it the first Civil War begins The death of King Francis and Reign of King Charls FRancis second King of that name dying the fourteenth of December 1560. made entrance for the Reign of Charls the ninth and as the first died of a Feaver so the last reigned in a Frensie the legitimate off-spring of his Predecessours disease whose short Reign was thought too much lengthened by the train of all sorts of bloudy cruelties which filled this poor distracted Nation of France whose wicked Reign was also attended with the sable clouds of Flagellum Dei which swept both Field and City The beginning of his wicked Reign had a bloudy ending to the poor Kingdom and himself for the bodies of the murthered Protestants was a Prey to the Birds of the Air and Beasts of the Fields the whole Nation wearing the Pensive Weeds of a Ruinous Distraction for through the Lords just Judgments on the Nation they suffer nothing less than all Roberies Rapes and all sorts of Cruelties with horrid Massacres for the space of twelve years And as the Prologue of his Reign was Perjury and Treachery so was the Epilogue Bloudy to himself and poor Nation especially to the poor innocent Protestants A Parliament sits and the Government committed to the Queen Mother during the Kings minority A Parliament being called they begin the 23. of December Now at this time in the Court of France was Katherine de Medices Pope Clements Brothers Daughter and this Kings Mother who being born in Florence a City of Italy had conferr'd upon her the Government of this Kingdom in the Kings minority for it is well known that according to the Laws of this Nation neither the Administration nor Inheritance thereof can justly be cast on the shoulders of a Woman and yet against this Law and through the negligence of the King of Navar the said Queen Mother was joyned with him in the Office of Protectorship the confirmation of her Regency being allowed of by the Chancellour was afterwards confirmed by the Speakers Now in this Assembly of Parliament one John Quintin a Doctor of the Common Law at Paris for the Clergy pleads that none of the Religion Reformed for so they called the Protestants should any more be tolerated or suffered and desired that the Laws in that case provided might be put in speedy execution but the day following that brave Commander and good Christian Gasper de Coligni the Admiral of the Protestants complained to the Queen Mother against the said Quintin who presently excuses himself and in his second Speech moderates his Plea to the Admirals content The Parliament a little enlarges the Protestants privileges Now the Estates proceeds in their consultations making themselves and the beginning of this year somewhat happy by some moderation in matters of Religion whereby the reproachfull names of Papist and Hugenot was forbidden upon pain of Death which name Hugenot they fixed in disdain and derision to the Protestants and was derived from a Gate-house in Tours called St. Hughs Gate where they met in Assemblies Many good and necessary Laws were then published but with more confusiom than advantage for Laws though good and many yet through want of a due execution by the Magistrates power makes the good intent thereof to be perverted and turned into an indirect Channel giving the people cause to slight such wholesom Laws and grow bad under a good Government Great contentions and private animosities arose between the Princes of the Bloud that is the Prince of Conde and King of Navar who were Protestants and Francis Duke of Guise who was descended of the House of Lorain and now Grand Master of the Kings House who being a strong Catholick was no less a bitter Enemy to the poor Protestants the Queen Mother in her affections did secretly incline to the Duke of Guise yet to secure her own interest and power in the Kings minority carried fair to both The Princes of the Bloud being Protestants in discontent absent from Court but the King of Navar and Prince of Conde with the Constable seeing themselves justled out of that power and favour in Court which as due they did expect and also foreseeing the event which must necessarily ensure having onely the pacings of the Duke of Guise they absent from Court with all their Attendants resolving to right their wrong on the Queen Mothers Regency and the Guisans usurpation of their unlimited power Now the Queen Mother by her subtil and natural insight to secret affairs judged so at their Discontent that she politickly cast her Cards that both might have a good hand yet deald her self the Trumps checking their power that they might not check hers The King of Navar by the Queens policy jointly governs with her To which purpose she makes a new Agreement with the Navarois concluding him in the Government that taking the Title and Power of Regency to her self he should be called and but called Lieutenant General to his Majesty All this but in Paper and Ink composed of a double intent but those that can break Oaths witnessed by God and all the World how soon can they swallow and digest the breach of such Paper-promises like that good Actor in Smyrna that cried O Terram yet pointing to the Heaven and O Coelum yet pointing to the earth
deliver their Ambassy to an Oak-tree standing by One of the three Ambassadours spake to the Oak-Tree in these words Thou hallowed Oak and what ever else in this place belongs to the Gods hear and bear witness of this Disloyal perjury and breach of Covenant and favour our just complaints that we may at last by the help of the Gods be revenged on this perjured people So they returned home and presently raised an Army set on this perjured people and by the just Judgements of God utterly destroy them off the face of the earth To omit many other Examples of this Nature take but this one more King of Lacedemonia The King of Lacedemonia and the Argives being at War Cleomenes the Lacedemonian King made Truce for seven days and the third night following fell on them and made a great slaughter and with this excuse thought to evade the dint of the shame and Gods justice for sayes he It is true I made Truce for seven days but I did not mention nights Yet God followed this perjured King with these Judgements The Wives of the slain Argives arm under the command of Tolesilla their Captainess enter the City and puts to the Sword and flight the power and forces of the perjured King Cleomenes afterwards he was banished into Egypt where he miserably died a desperate death being his own Executioner Thus we see what heavy Judgements God has made and does execute upon all such as are contemners and breakers of this holy Edict and Law of God The Lord is to be feared and obeyed for in all his Judgements none greater threatned nor heavyer and surer falls on than on bloody and perjured men A thing abhorred and hated by Heathens before ever they were so far enlightened as to know the Law of God was above the Law of Nature for though they had but the light of Nature yet they held it a sin unpardonable and no Punishment accounted enough as they could invent There were some that recorded these cruelties and treacherys of the Kings and instanced the Law of the twelve Tables Si patronus clienti fraudem facit sacer esto if the Sovereign cheat his Subjects let them be out of safety or Protection He that in antient time despised the keeping of Oaths was no more to be called a King The Right hand was called a Pledge of Faith The Throne is established by Justice and it is an Abomination for Kings to do wickedness The Throne is upheld by mercy saies Solomon But this King by his Treachery Perjury and Cruelty degraded himself of his peoples affections for he valued not the lives of many thousand so his bloody cruelty could be satisfyed Scipio accounted it an honourable thing to save one Citizen rather than to kill a thousand Enemies There was no power and authority so great as the Dictators at Rome it was such an Assembly which met together as had the power of War and Peace nay they had the command of life and death at their will and that without any Appeal and yet it was not lawful for them to execute a Citizen unless his cause was publickly and justly heard and he legally committed and condemned But indeed it is the manner of Murtherers to bereave of life without Law or cause of death Nay had this horrid Massaere been a bare down-right murther it had been the less but it was covered with fraud and deceit The King and Court must personate a Religious habit and pretence of a Religious vow making Gods holy Ordinance stoop to his deceitful and tteacherous intention The Duties of Kings and Powers of the World which is not inconsistent with prudent Policy and sound Christianity A King ought by his Christian demeanour to have a rich store-house and exchequer of Affection and allegiance in his peoples hearts and he who takes care therein to lay such provision of love as that it may be as a firm Rock as a strong foundation what is there then that he may not command which is in their power to perform then the arms of the peoples affections open and are spread to imbrace any command this is the way to have the key of their hearts and to open that treasury of respect which by the wise mannagement of his power received from them he hath ready laid up Loving Subjects are most uniting in a harmonious consent of obedience to all his Commands love to a Prince created by himself will make cowards valourous even to defend him from the shock of his Enemies assaults And it is seen with greatest lustre and to his best advantage in his Straights when he hath made all his Subjects on the least notice ready to be voluntiers in the greatest dangers and hottest attempts for the Honour of their own Prince But when Kings spend too much on the stock of his Peoples willing minds of Subjection and prodigally trade away that stock of Love treasured up in his people what does he but expose himself to all assaults of fury and cruelty without pitty as it has been the end of many Princes nay when love is abused and turned to hatred in what a tottering Throne does he sit But whatsoever the Theory of an absolute Monarchy be yet a Good King loves the practical part of Justice his Power being more safe in his Laws than his Will Though his power and his Command may claim a strong Authority to do as he pleases yet he will not make his Power arbitrary nor beyond the limit of equal justice to all Now for Oppression Tyranny Cruelty and perjury to be seated in the heart of a King and he in the heart of his Kingdome Oh! how it levells his peoples affections and stems the tide and current of their allegiance razes the very foundation of his own security and is the most compendious way to his own utter ruin It doth by a strange instinct raise tumults and vicissitudes that like a rapid Torrent of confusion falls upon his own head as the reward of his vicious merits What foundation can such a King have when it is builded on a Quagmire seated on the terrible aspect of the peoples hatred accrewing by his Treacherous Tyranny An ingenuous people can no more brook oppression than the River Danube can mix with the muddy streams of Sava But this King to establish his Throne of Cruelty and Tyranny Peaceable like betroaths his People and Himself in an indissoluble bond of Peace never to be broke on his part yet no sooner made before the view of heaven and in the sight and presence of God but he registers his falsehood cruelty and perjury in a suddain breach with the blood of his own Subjects taking the advantage of their punctual observance to disarm them and take their Towns which on the peace granted were delivered and so erects his bloody Engines of deceit upon the ruins of his own promise Now Christian Reader let us a little see the small probability that the Admiral should