Picardy by the River of Some and on the West it is bounded with the Ocean and the little River Crenon which severeth it from a corner of Britain It extendeth in length from the beginning of the 9th degree of longitude to the middle of the 23. viz. from the Cape of St. Saviour West to the Port town of St. Valeria East For breadth it lieth partly in the 49th partly in the 50th degree of latitude So that reckoning 60. miles to a degree we shall find it to contain 270. English miles in length and 60 English miles in breadth where it is narrowest Amongst the Nations it was accounted a part of Gallia Celtica the name Neustria This new title it got by receiving into it a new Nation A people that had so terribly spoiled the Maritine Coasts of England France and Belgia that a furore Normannorum was inserted into the Letany Originally they were of Norway their name importeth it Anno 800. or thereabouts they began first to be accounted one of the plagues of Europe 900. they seated themselves in France by permission of Charles the Balde and the valour of Rollo their Captain Before this they had made themselves Masters of Ireland though they long held it not and Anno 1067. they added to the glory of their name by the Conquest of England You would think them a people not onely born to the warrs but to victory But Vt frugum semina mutato solo degenerant sic illa genuina feritas eorum amaenitate mollita est Florus spake it of the Gaules removed into Asia it is appliable to the Norwegians transplanted into Gallia yet fell they not suddenly and at once into the want of courage which now possesseth them During the time they continued English they attempt the Kingdom of Naples and Antioch with a fortune answerable to their valour Being once oppressed by the French and inslaved under that Monarchy they grew presently Crest fall'n and at once lost both their spirits and their liberty The present Norman then is but the corruption of the ancient the heir of his name and perhaps his possessions but neither of his strength nor his manhood Bondage and a fruitful soil hath so emasculated them that it is lost labour to look for Normans in Normandy There remaineth almost nothing in them of their Progenitors but the remainders of two qualities and those also degenerated if not bastards a penurious pride and an ungoverned doggedness Neither of them become their fortune or their habit yet to those they are constant Finally view him in his rags and dejected countenance and you would swear it impossible that those snakes should be the descendents of those brave Heroes which so often triumphed over both Religions foyling the Saracens and vanquishing the Christians But perchance their courage is evaporated into wit and then the change made the better Ortelius would seem to perswade us to this conceit of them and well might do it if his words were Oracle Le Gens saith he speaking of this Nation sont de plus accorls subtills d' esprit de la Gaule A Character for which the French will little thank him who if he speak truth must in matter of descretion give precedency to their vassals But as Imbat a French Leader said of the Florentines in the fifth book of Guicciardine Non supena done consistesse lingeque tanto celebrare de Fiorâ—ntini so may I say of the Normans for my part I could never yet find where that great wit of theirs lay Certain it is that as the French in general are termed the King's asses so may these men peculiarly be called the Asses of the French or the veriest Asses of the rest For what with the unproportionable rents which they pay to their Lords on the one side and the immeasurable taxes laid upon them by the King on the other they are kept in such a perpetuated course of drudgery that there is no place for wit or wisdom left amongst them Liberty is the Mother and Nurse of those two qualities and therefore the Romans not unhappily expressed both the condition of a Free-man and a discreet and modest personage by this one word Ingenuous Why the French King should lay a greater burden upon the backs of this Nation than their fellows I cannot determine Perchance it is because they have been twice conquered by them once from King John and again from Henry the sixth and therefore undergo a double servitude It may be to abate their natural pride and stubbornness Likely also it is that being a revolting people and apt to an apostasie from their Allegiance they may by this meanes be kept impoverished and by consequence disabled from such practises This a French Gentleman of good understanding told me that it was generally conceited in France that the Normans would suddenly and unanimously betray their Country to the English were their King a Cathâ—like But there is a further cause yet of their beggarliness and poverty which is the litigiousness and frequent going to law as we call it Ortelius however he failed in the first part of the Character in the conclusion of it hath done them justice Mais en generall saith he its sont scavans an passible en prosses pluideries They are pretty well versed in the querks of the Law and have wit more than enough to wrangle In this they agree exactly well with the Inhabitants of our Country of Norfolke Ex infima plebe non pauci reperiuntur saith Mr. Cambden qui si nihil sit litium lites tamen ex ipsis jaris apicibus serere callent They are pretty fellows to find out quirks in Law and to it they will whatsoever it cost them Mr. Cambden spake not at random or by the guess for besides what my self observed in them at my being once among them in a Colledge-progress I have heard that there have been no less than 340. Nisi prius's tried there at one Assises The reason of this likeness between the two Nations I conjecture to be the resemblance of the site and the soyl both lie upon the Sea with a long and spacious coast both enjoy a Country champain little swell'd with hils and for the most part of a light and sandy mould To proceed to more particulars if there be any difference between the two Provinces it is onely this that the Country of Normandy is much better and the people of Norfolk are somewhat the richer For indeed the Country of Normandy is enriched with a fat and liking soil such a one quae demum votis respondet avari Agricolae which may satisfie the expectation of the Husbandman were it never so exorbitant In my life I never saw Corn-fields more large and lovely extended in an equal level almost as far as eye-reach The wheat for I saw little Barley of a fair length in the stalk and so heavy in the ear that it even bended double you would think the grain had a desire to kiss
onely of Amiens could I meet with any antient Character which also was but a Gothish Dutch Letter and expressed nothing but the name and vertue of a Bishop of the Church in whose time it was So little also did I perceive them to be inclining to be Antiquaries that both neglects considered si Verbis audaciadetur I dare confidently averre that one Cotton for the Treasury and one Selden now Mr. Camden is dead for the study of Antiquities are worth all the French As for these five peices in La salle des Antiques they are I confess worthy our observation and respect also if they be such as our trudgeman informed us At the further end of it the Statua of Diana the same as it is said which was worshipped in the renowned Temple of Ephesus and of which Demetrius the Silver-smith and his fellow Artists cried out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great is Diana of the Ephesians Of a large and manly proportion she seemeth to be Quantum quale latus quam juvenile femur As Ovid of his Mistriss She is all naked save her feet which are buskin'd and yet she hath a scarfe or linnen roul which coming over her left shoulder and meeting about her middle hung down with both ends of it a little lower In the first place towards the right hand as we descended towards the door was the Statua of one of the Gods of Aethiopia as black as any of his people and one that had nothing about him to express his particular being Next unto him the Effigies of Mercury naked all except his feet and with a pipe in his mouth as when he inchanted Argos Nam que reperta Fistula nuper erat Saith the Metamorphosis Next unto him the portraiture of Venus quite naked and most immodestly apparreld in her hand her little Son Cupid as well arrayed as his Mother sitting on a Dolphin Last of all Apollo also in the same naked truth but that he had shooes on He was portrayed as lately returned from a Combat perhaps that against the Serpent Python Quem Deus arcitenens nunquam talibus armis Ante nisi in damis caprisque fugacibus usus Mille gravem telis exhausta pane pharetra Perdidit effuso per vulnera nigra veneno The Archer-God who e're that present tide Ne're us'e those arms but ' gainst the Roes and Deer With thousand shafts the earth made to be dy'de With Serpents bloud his quiver emptied cleer That I was in the right conjecture I had these reasons to perswade me the Quiver on the Gods right shoulder almost emptied his warlike belt hanging about his neck his garments loosly tumbling upon his left arm and the slain Monster being a water-serpent as Pithon is fained to be by the Poets All of these were in the same side of the wall the other being altogether destitute of ornament and are confidently said to be the statues of those Gods in the same forms that they were worshipped in and taken from their several Temples They were bestowed on the King by his Holiness of Rome and I cannot blame him for it It was worthy but little thanks to give unto him the Idols of the Heathen who for his Holiness satisfaction had given himself to the Idols of the Romans I beleive that upon the same terms the King of Enggland should have all the Reliques and ruines of Antiquity which can be found in Rome Without this room the Salle des Antiques and somewhat on the other side of the Louure is the House of Burbon and old decayed fabrick in which was nothing observable but the Omen For being built by Lewis of Burbon the third Duke of that branch he caused this Motto ESPERANCE to be engraven in Capital Letters over the door signifying his hopes that from his loyns should proceed a King which should joyn both the Houses and the Families and it is accordingly happened For the Tuilleries I have nothing to say of them but that they were built by Catherine de Medices in the year 1564 and that they took name from the lime-kils and tile-pits there being before the foundation of the house and the garden the word Tuillerie importing as much in the French language I was not so happy as to see them and will not be indebted to any for the relation CHAP. X. The person age and marraige of King Lewis Conjectural reasons of his being issueless Jaqueline Countess of Holland kept from issue by the house of Burgundy The Kings Sisters all married and his alliances by them His natural Brethren and their preferment His lawful Brother the title of Monsieur in France Monsieur as yet unmarried not like to marry Mont-Peusiers Daughter That Lady a fit Wife for the Earl of Soisons The difference between him and the Prince of Conde for the Crown in case the Line of Navarre fail How the Lords stand affected in the cause Whether a Child may be born in the eleventh moneth King Henry the fourth a great Lover of fair Ladies Monsieur Barrados the Kings Favorite his birth and offices The omniregency of the Queen Mother and the Cardinal of Richilieu The Queen Mother a wise and prudent Woman THe King is the soul of the Court without his presence it is but a Carcass a thing without life and honour I dare not so farre wrong the Louure as to make it but a common house and rob it of the fruition of its Prince and therefore will treat of him here though during my aboad in France he lay all the while in Fountain Bleau For person he is of the middle stature and rather well proportioned than large His face knoweth little yet of a beard but that which is is black and swarthy his complexion also much of the same heiw carrying in it a certain boysterousness and that in a further measure than what a graceful Majesty can admit of So that one can hardly say of him without a spice of Courtship what Paterculus did of Tiberius Quod visus praetulerit principem that his countenance proclaimed him a King But questionless his greatest defect is want of utterance which is very unpleasing by reason of a desperate and uncurable stammering which defect is likely more and more to grow upon him At this time he is aged twenty four years and as much as since the 27 day of September last which was his birth day an age which he beareth not very plausibly want of beard and the swarthiness of his complexion making him seem elder At the age of eleven years he was affianced to the Lady Anna Infanta of Spain by whom as yet he hath no children It is thought by many and covertly spoken by divers in France that the principal cause of the Queens bartenness proceedeth from Spain that people being loath to fall under the French obedience which may very well happen she being the elder Sister of the King For this cause in the seventh article of marriage there is a clause that
Mundi tam in temporalibus quam in spiritualibus the King returned him an answer with an Epithite sutable to his arrogancy Sciat maxima tua fatuitas nos intemporalibus alicui non subesse c. The like answer though in modester termes was sent to another of the Popes by St. Lewis a man of a most mild and sweet disposition yet unwilling to forgoe his Royalties His spiritual power is almost as little in substance though more in shew for whereas the Councill of Trent hath been an especiall authorizer of the Popes spiritual supremacy the French Church never would receive it by this means the Bishops keep in their hands their own full authority whereof an obedience to the decrees of that Councill would deprive them It was truly said by St. Gregory and they well knew it Lib. 7. Epist 70. Si unus universalis est restat ut vos Episcopinon Sitis Further the Vniversity of Paris in their Declaration Anno 1610. above mentioned plainly affirme that it is directly opposite to the doctrine of the Church which the Vniversity of Paris hath alwaies maintained that the Pope hath power of a Monarch in the spiritual Government of the Church To look upon higher times when the Councill of Constance had submitted the authority of the Pope unto that of a Councill John Gerson Theologus Parisiensis magni nominis defended that deeree and entitleth them Perniciosos esse ad modum adulatores qui tyranidem istam in Ecclesia invexere quasi nullis Regum teneatur vinculis quasi neque parere debeat Concilio Pontifex nec ab eo judicare queat The Kings themselves also befreind their Clergy in this Cause and therefore not onely protested against the Council of Trent wherein the spiritual tyranny was generally consented to by the Catholike faction but Henry the second also would not acknowledge them to be a Council calling them in his Letters by no other name than Conventus Tridentinus An indignity which the Fathers took very offensively Put the principal thing in which it behooveth them not to acknowledge his spiritual supremacy is the Collation of Benefices and Bishopricks and the Annates and first fruits thence arising The first and greatest controversie between the Pope and Princes of Christendom was about the bestowing the Livings of the Church and giving the investiture unto Bishops The Popes had long thirsted after that authority as being a great meanes to advance their followers and establish their own greatness for which cause in divers petty Councels the receiving of any Ecclesiastical preferment of a Lay-man was decreed to be Simony But this did little edifie with such patrons as had good Livings As soon as ever Hiâ—el brand in the Catalogue of the Popes called Gregory the seventh came to the throne of Rome he set himself entirely to effect the business as well in Germany now he was Pope as he had done in France whilst he was Legate He commandeth therefore Henry the third Emperour Ne deinceps Episcopatus Beneficia they are Platina's own words per cupiditatem Simoniacam committat aliter se usurum in ipsum censuris Ecclesiasticis To this injustice when the Emperour would not yeild he called a solemn Council at the Lateran where the Emperour was pronounced to be Simoniacal and afterwards excommunicated Neither would this Tyrant ever leave persecuting of him till he had laid him in his grave After this followed great strugling between the Popes and the Emperours for this very matter but in the end the Popes got the victory In England here he that first bickered about it was William Rufus the controversie being whether he or Pope Vrban should invest Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury Anselme would receive his investiture of none but the Pope whereupon the King banished him the Realm into which he was not admitted till the raign of Henry the second He to endear himself with his Clergy relinquished his right to the Pope but afterwards repenting himself of it he revoked his grant Neither did the English Kings wholly loose it till the raign of that unfortunate Prince King John Edward the first again recovered it and his Successors kept it The Popes having with much violence and opposition wrested into their hands this Priviledge of nominating Priests and investing Bishops they spared not to lay on what taxes they pleased as on the Benefices First fruits Pensions Subsidies Fifteenths Tenths and on the Bishopricks for Palls Mitres Crosiers Rings and I know not what bables By these means the Churches were so impoverished that upon complaint made unto the Council of Basel all these cheating tricks these aucupia eapilandi rationes were abolished This Decree was called Pragmatica sanctio and was confirmed in France by Charles the seventh Anno 1438. An act of singular improvement to the Church and Kingdom of France which yearly before as the Court of Parliament manifested to Lewis the eleventh had drained the State of a million of Crowns Since which time the Kings of France have sometimes omitted the vigour of the Sanction and sometimes also exacted it according as their affairs with the Pope stood for which cause it was called fraenum pontificum At the last King Francis the first having conquered Millain fell unto this composition with his Holiness namely that upon the falling of any Abbacie or Bishoprick the King should have six moneths time to present a fit man unto him whom the Pope legally might invest If the King neglected his time limited the Pope might take the benefit of the relapse and institute whom he pleased So is it also with the inferior benifices between the Pope and the Patrons insomuch that any or every Lay-patron and Bishop together in England hath for ought I see at the least in this particular as great a spiritual supremacy as the Pope in France Nay to proceed further and to shew how meerly titular both his supremacies are as well the spiritual as the temporal you may plainly see in the case of the Jesuites which was thus In the year 1609. the Jesuites had obtained of King Henry the fourth license to read again in their Colledge of Paris but when their Letters Patents came to be verified in the Court of Parliament the Rector and Vniversity opposed them On the seventeenth of December Anno 1611. both parties came to have an hearing and the Vniversity got the day unless the Jesuits would subscribe unto these four points Viz. First that the Council was above the Pope Secondly that the Pope had not temporal power over Kings and could not by Excommunication deprive them of their Realms and Estates Thirdly that Clergy men having heard of any attempt or conspiracy against the King or his Realm or any matter of treason in Confession they were bound to reveal it And fourthly that Clergy men were subject to the Secular Prince or Politick Magistrate It appeared by our former discourse what title or no power they had left the Pope over the estates
French by that door making their entry into this Province out of which at last they thrust the English Anno 1450. So desperate a thing is a frighted Coward This Country had once before been in possession of the English and that by a firmer title than the Sword William the Conqueror had conveyed it once over the Seas into England it continued an appendix of that Crown from the year 1067. unto that of 1204. At that time John called Sáns terre third Son unto King Henry the second having usurped the States of England and the English possessions in France upon Arthur heir of Britain and Son unto Geofrey his elder brother was warred on by Phillip Augustus King of France who sided with the said Arthur In the end Arthur was taken and not long after found dead in the ditches of the Castle of Roven Whether this violent death happened unto him by the practises of his Uncle as the French say or that the young Prince came to that unfortunate end in an attempt to escape as the English report is not yet determined For my part considering the other carriages and virulencies of that King I dare be of that opinion that the death of Arthur was not without his contrivement Certainly he that rebelled against his Father and practised the eternal imprisonment and ruine of his Brother would not much stick this being so speedy a way to settle his affairs at the murther of a Nephew Upon the first bruit of this murther Constance Mother to the young Prince complained unto the King and Parliament of France not the Court which now is in force consisting of men only of the long Robe but the Court of Pairrie or twelve Peers whereof himself was one as Duke of Normandy I see not how in justice Philip could do less than summon him an Homager being â—lain and an Homager accused To this summons John refused to yeild himself A counsel rather magnanimous than wise and such as had more in it of an English King than a French Subject Edward the third a prince of a finer mettal than this John obeyed the like warrant and performed a personal homage to Philip of Valoys and it is not reckoned among his disparagements He committed yet a further error or solaecisme in State not so much as sending any of his people to supply his place or plead his cause Upon this none appearance the Peers proceed to sentence Il fur par Arrest la dire Cour saith Du' Chesne condemne pour attaint et convainuc du crime de parricide de felonnie Parricide for the killing of his own Nephew and felony for committing an act so execrable on the person of a French vassal and in France Jhon de Sienes addeth a third cause which was contempt in disobeying the Kings commandement Upon this verdict the Court awarded Que toutes les terres qu' il avoit par deca de mourerient acquises confisques a la corronne c. A proceeding so fair and orderly that I should sooner accuse King John of indiscretion than the French of injustice when my estate or life is in danger I wish it may have no more sinister a trial The English thus outed of Normandy by the weakness of John recovered it again by the puissance of Henry But being held onely by the sword it was after thirty years recovered again as I have told you And now being passed over the Oyse I have at once freed the English and my self of Normandy here ending this Book but not that dayes journey The Second Book or FRANCE CHAP. I. France in what sense so called the bounds of it All old Gallia not possessed by the French Countries follow the name of the most predominant Nation The condition of the present French not different from that of the old Gaules That the Heavens have a constant power upon the same Climate though the Inhabitants be changed The quality of the French in private at the Church and at the Table Their Language Complements Discourse c. IVly the third which was the day we set out of St. Claire having passed through Pontoise and crossed the River we were entred into France France as it is understood in his limitted sense and as a part onely of the whole For when Meroveus the Grandchild of Pharamond first King of the Francones had taken an opportunity to pass the Rhene having also during the warres between the Romans and the Gothes taken Paris he resolved there to set up his rest and to make that the head City of his Empire The Country round about it which was of no large extent he commanded to be called Francia or Terra Francorum after the name of his Francks whom he governed In this bounded and restrained sense we now take it being confined with Normandy on the North Campagne on the East and on the West and South with the little Province of la Beausse It is also called and that more properly to distinguish it from the whole continent the Isle of France and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Isle I know not any thing more like it then the Isle of Elie the Eure on the West the Velle on the East the Oyse on the Northward and a vein riveret of the Seine towards the South are the Rivers which encircle it But the principall environings are made by the Seine and the Marne a river of Champagne which within the main Island make divers Ilets the waters winding up and down as desirous to recreate the earth with the pleasures of its lovely and delicious embraces This Isle this portion of Gaule properly and limitedly stiled France was the seate of the Franks at their first coming hither and hath still continued so The rest of Gallia is in effect rather subdued by the French than inhabited their valour in time having taken in those Countries which they never planted So that if we look apprehensively into Gaule we shall find the other Nations of it to have just cause to take up the complaint of the King of Portugal against Ferdinand of Castile for assuming to himself the title of Catholique King of Spain eius tam non exiguâ parte penes reges alios as Mariana relateth it Certain it is that the least part of old Gallia is in the hands of the French the Normans Britons Biscaines or Gascoynes the Gothes of Languedoc and Provence Burgundians and the ancient Gaules of Poictou retaining in it such fair and ample Provinces But it is the custome shall I say or fate of lesser and weaker Nations to loose their names unto the stronger as Wives do to their Husbands and the smaller Rivers to the greater Thus we see the little Province of Poland to have mastered and given name to the Pruteni Marovy and other Nations of Sarmatia Europaea as that of Moseo hath unto all the Provinces of Asiatica Thus hath Sweden conquered and denominated almost all the great Peninsula of Scandia where it is but
imagine them to be coy of their lips yet this is their humour It seemed to me at first strange and uncivil that a woman should turn away from the proffer of a salutation Afterwards I liked the custom very well and I had good cause for it for it saved me from many an unsavoury peice of mannerliness This notwithstanding could not but amaze me that they who in their actions were so light and wanton should yet think themselves modest and confine all lasciviousness unto a kiss A woman that is kissed they account more than half whored be her deportment never so becoming which maketh them very sparing of receiving such kindnesses But this is but a dissembled unwillingness and hath somewhat in it of the Italian As they had rather murther a man in private than openly speak ill of him so it may be thought that these Damsels would hardly refuse a mans bed though education hath taught them to fly from his lips Night and the Curtains may conceal the one the other can obtain no pardon in the eye of such as may happen to observe it Upon this ground your French Traveller that perhaps may see his Hostess kissed at Dover and see a Gentleman salute a Lady in the streets of London relateth at his coming home strange Chymera's of the English modesty to further this sinister opinion he will not spare to tell his Comerades for this I have noted to you to be a part of his humour what Merchants Wives he enjoyed at London and in what familiarity such a Lady entertained him at Westminster Terrible untruths and yet my poor Gallant thinketh he lieth not I remember I met in Paris with an English Docter and the Master of a Colledge there who complained much of the lasciviousness of the English Women and how infamously every French Taylor that came from us reported of them withall he protested it did not much greive him because he thought it a just judgement of God upon our Nation that all the married men should thus suffer A strange peice of Divinity to me that never before heard such preaching This was the occasion of the doctrine In the old English Mass-book called Secundum usum Sarum the Woman at the time of marriage promiseth her future Husband to be bonny and buxome at bed and at board till death us depart c. This being too light for the gravity of the action then in hand and in mine opinion somewhat less reverent than a Church duty would require the Reformers of that Book thought good to alter and thought fitter to put in to love cherish and obey That this was a sufficient assurance of Conjugal faith he would not grant because the promise of being buxome in bed was excluded Besides he accounted the supposed dishonesty of the English Wives as a vengeance plucked down on the heads of the people for chopping and changing the words of the holy Sacrament for such they esteem the form of Matrimony Though his argument needed no answer yet his accusation might expect one And an English Gentleman though not of the English faith laid open the abuse and seemed to speak it out of knowledge When the Monsieurs came over full pursed to London the French Pandars which lay in wait for such booties grow into their acquaintance and promise them the imbraces of such a Dame of the City or of such a Lady of the Court Women perhaps famed for admirable beauties But as Ixion amongst the Poets expected Juno and enjoyed a Cloud So those beguiled wretches instead of those eminent persons mentioned to them take into their bosomes some of the common prostitutes of the Town Thus are they cozened in their desires thus do they lie in their reports whilst poor fools they think themselves guilty of neither imposture For the other accusation which would seem to fasten a note of immodesty upon our English Gentlewomens lips I should be like enough to confess the crime were the English kisses like unto those of the French As therefore Doctor Bale Master of the Requests said unto Mendoza the Spanish Embassador upon his dislike of the promiscuous sitting of men and women within our Churches Turpe quidem id esse apud Hispanos qui etiam in locis sacris cogitarent de explendâ libidine a quâ procul aberant Anglorum mentes So do I answer to the bill of the Complaint An Oxford Doctor upon this Text Betrayest thou the Son of man with a Kiss made mention of four sorts of kisses viz. Osculum charitatis Osculum gratioris familiaritatis Osculum calliditatis and Osculum carnalitatis Of these I will bestow the last on the French and the third on the Spaniards retaining the two first unto our selves whereof the one is enjoyned by the precept and the other warranted by the examples of holy Scriptures For my part I see nothing in the innocent and harmless salutations of the English which the Doctor calleth Oscula gratioris familiaritatis that may move a French mans suspition much I confess which may stir his envy Perhaps a want of that happiness in himself maketh him to dislike it in us as the Fox that had lost his tayl perswaded all others to cut off theirs But I have already toucht the reason why that Nation is unworthy of such a favour their kisses being heat and sulphury and indeed nothing but the Prologue of their lust whereas on the contrary and I dare be confident in it the chast and innocent kiss of the English Gentlewoman is more in Heaven than many of their best devotions It were not amiss to explain in this place a verse of Ovids common in the mouthes of many but in the understanding of few Oscula qui sumpsit non caetera sumpsit Hoec quoque quae sumpsit perdere dignus erat He that doth onely kiss and doth no more Deserves to loose the kisses given before Which must be understood according to the fashion of Rome and Italy and since of France and Spain where they were given as pawns of a dishonest contract and not according to the customs of England where they are onely proffered in the way of a gratious and innocent familiarity and so accepted I return again to the French women and though I may not kiss them which he that seeth them will have good cause to thank God for yet they are at liberty to be courted An office which they admit freely and return as liberally an office to which they are so used that they can hardly distinguish complement from wooing till the Priest expecteth them at the Church door That day they set themselves forth with all the variety of riches their credit can extend to A Schollar of the University never disfurnished so many of his Freinds to provide for a journey as they do neighbours to adorn that wedding At my being at Pontoise I saw Mrs. Bride return from the Church the day before she had been somewhat of the condition of a
and preferments of the French By these propositions to which the Jusuits in the end subscribed I know not with what mental reservation it is more than evident that they have left him no command neither over their consciences nor their persons So that all things considered we may justly say of the Papal power in France what the Papists falsly say of Erasmus namely that it is Nomen sine rebus In one thing onely his authority here is entire which is his immediate protection of all the Orders of Friers and also a superintendency or supreme eye over the Monks who acknowledge very small obedience if any at all to the French Bishops For though at the beginning every part and member of the Diocess was directly under the care and command of the Bishop yet it so happened at the building of Monestaries in the Western Church the Abbots being men of good parts and sincere life grew much into the envy of their Diocesan For which cause as also to be more at their own command they made suit to the Pope that they might be freed from that subjection Vtque intutelam Dive Petri admitterentur A proposition very plausible to his Holiness ambition which by this meanes might the sooner be raised to his height and therefore without difficulty granted This gap opened first the several Orders of Friers and after them the Deans and Chapters purchased to themselves the like exemptions In this the Popes power was wonderfully strengthened in having such able and so many props to uphold his authority it being a true Maxime in State Quod qui privilegia obtenent ad eadem conservanda teneantur authoritatem concedentis tueri This continued till the Council of Trent unquestioned where the Bishops much complained of their want of authority and imputed all the schismes and vices in the Church to this that their hands were tied Hereupon the Popes Legates thought it fit to restore to their jurisdiction their Deans and Chapters At that of the Monks and Monestaries they were more sticking till at the last Sebastian Pighinus one of the Popes Officers found out for them this satisfaction that they should have an eye and inspection into the lives of the Monks not by any authority of their own Sed tanquam a sede Apostolica delegati But as for the Orders of Friers the Pope would not by any means give way unto it They are his Janizaries and the strongest bulwarks of his Empire and are therefore called in a good Author Egregia Romanae Curiae instrumenta So that with them the Diocesan hath nothing to do each severall religious House being as a Court of Peculiars subject onely to the great Metropolitan of Rome This near dependance on his Holiness maketh this generation a great deal more regardless of their behaviour than otherwise it would be though since the growth of the reformation shame and fear hath much reformed them They have still howsoever a spice of their former wantonness and on occasions will permit themselves a little good fellowship And to say truth of them I think them to be the best Companions in France for a journey but not for acquaintance They live very merrily and keep a competent table more I suppose than can stand with their vow and yet far short of that affluency whereof many of our books accuse them It was my chance to be in an house of the Franciscans in Paris where one of the Friers upon the entreaty of our Friend had us into the Hall it being then the time of their Refectory a favour not vulgar There saw we the Brothers sitting all on a side and every one a pretty distance from the other their several commons being a dish of pottage a chop of mutton a dish of Cherries and a large glass of water This provision together with a liberal allowance of ease and a little of study keepeth them exceeding plump and in good liking and maketh them having little to take thought for maketh them as I said before passing good Company As I travelled to Orleans we had in coach with us three of these mortified sinners two of the Order of St. Austin and one Franciscan the merriest Crickets that ever chirped Nothing in them but mad tricks and complements and for musick they would sing like Hawks when we came to a vein of good Wine they would chear up themselves and their neighbour with this comfortable doctrine Vivamus ut bibamus et bibamus ut vivamus and for Courtship and toying with the Wenches you would easily beleeve it had been a trade with which they had not a little been acquainted Of all men when I am married God keep my wife from them and till then my neighbours On the other side the common Priests of France are so dull and blockish that you shall hardly meet with a more contemptible people The meanest of our Curats in England for spirit and discourse are very Popes to them for learning they may safely say with Socrates Hoc tantum scimus quod nescimus but you must not look that they should say it in Latine Tongues they have none but those of their Mother and the Masse Book of which last they can make no use unless the Book be open and then also the Book is fain to read it self for in the last Romanum Missale established by the authority of Pius the fifth and recognized by Clement the eighth Anno 1600. every sillable is diversly marked whether it must be sounded long or short just as the varifying examples are in the end of the English Grammer When I had lost my self in the streets of Paris and wanted French to enquire homeward I used to apply my self to some of this reverend habit But O soeclum insipiens et infacitum you might as easily have wrought water out of the flint as a word of Latine out of their mouthes Nor is this the disease of the vulgar Masse mumbler onely it hath also infected the right worshipful of the Clergy In Orleans I had business with a Chanoin of the Church of St. Croiz a fellow that wore his surplice it was made of Lawne and Lace with as good a credit as ever I saw any and for the comliness and capacity of his cap he might have been a Metropolitan perceiving me to speak to him in a strange Tongue for it was Latine he very learnedly asked me this question Num potestis loqui Gallica which when I had denied at last he brake out into another Interrogatory viz. Quandiu fuistis in Gallice To conclude having read over my Letter with two or three deadly pangs and six times rubbing of his temples he dismissed me with this cordial and truly it was very comfortable to my humor Ego necotias vestras curabo A strange beast and one of the greatest prodigies of Ignorance that ever I met with in mans apparrel Such being the Romish Priests it is no marvail if the French be no more setled and resolute
in their Religion If the eye be blind the body cannot chuse but be darkned and certainly there is nothing that hath prepared many of this Realm more to embrace the reformation than this blockishness of their own Clergy an excellent advantage to the Protestant Ministers could they but well humor it and likely to be a fair inlargement to their party if well husbanded Besides this the French Catholicks are not over earnest in their cause and so do lye open to the assaults of any politick enemy to deal with them by main force of argument and in the servent spirit of zeal as the Protestants too often do is not the way Men uncapable of opposition as this people generally are and furious if once thwarted must be tamed as Alexander did his Horse Bucephalus Those that came to back him with the tyranny of the spur and a cudgel he quickly threw down and mischieved Alexander came otherwise prepared for turning his Horse toward the Sun that he might not see the impatiency of his shadow he spake kindly to him and gently clapping him on the back till he had left his flinging and wildness he lightly leapeth into the saddle the Horse never making resistance Plutarch in his life relateth the storie and this the Morall of it CHAP. XII The correspondency between the King and the Pope This Pope An Omen of the Marriage of France with England An English Catholick's conceit of it His Holiness Nuntio in Paris A learned argument to prove the Popes universality A continuation of the Allegory of Jacob and Esau The Protestants compelled to leave their Forts and Towns Their present estate and strength The last War against them justly undertaken not fairly mannaged Their insolence and disobedience to the Kings command Their purpose to have themselves a free Estate The War not a War of Religion King James in justice could not assist them more than he did First forsaken by their own party Their happiness before the War The Court of the Edict A view of them in their Churches The commendation which the French Papists give to the Church of England Their Discipline and Ministery c. WE have seen the strength and subtilty as also somewhat of his poverties at home let us now see the alliance which this French Esau hath abroad in the world in what credit and opinion he standeth in the eye of Bâ—eâ—i the Romish Hittite the daughter of whose abominations he hath married And here I find him to hold good correspondency as being the eldest son of the Church and an equal poize to ballance the affairs of Italy against the potency of Spain Oâ— this ground the present Pope hath alwayes shewed himself very favorable to the French side well knowing into what perils a necessary and impolitick dependance on the Spanish party onely would one day bring the state Ecclesiastick As in the general so in many particulars also hath he expressed much affection unto him as first by taking into his hand the Valtolin till his Son of France might settle himself in some course to recover it secondly his not stirring in the behalf of the Spaniard during the last warrs in Italy and thirdly his speedy and willing grant of the dispensation of Madames marriage of which his Papacy was so large an Omen so fair a Prognostick Est Deus in nobis agitante calescimus illi The Lar or Angel Guardian of his thoughts hastened him in it in whose time there was so plausible a presage that it must be accomplished For thus it standeth Malachy now a Saint then one of the first Apostles of the Irish one much reverenced in his memory to this day by that Nation left behind him by way of prophesie a certain number of Motto's in Latine telling those that there should follow that certain number of Popes onely whose conditions successively should be hereby expressed in those Motto's according to that order he had placed them in Messingham an Irish Priest Master of the Colledge of Irish fugitives in Paris hath collected together the lives of all the Irish Saints which book himself shewed me In that volume and the life of that Saint are the several Motto's and the several Popes set down columewise one against the other I compared the lives of them with the Motto's as farre as my memory would carry me and found many of them very answerable as I remember there are thirty six Motto's yet to come and when just as many Popes are joyned to them they are of opinion for so Malachy foretold that either the world should end or the Popedom be ruined Amongst others the Motto of the present Pope is most remarkable and sutable to the cheif action likely to happen in his time being this Lilium Rosa which they interpret and in my mind not unhappily to be intended to the conjunction of the French Lillie and the English Rose To take from me any suspition of imposture he shewed me an old book printed almost two hundred years ago written by one Wion a Flemming and comparing the number of the Motto's with the Catalogue of the Popes I found the name of Vrban now Pope directly to answer it upon this ground an English Catholike whose acquaintance I gained in France made a Copy of Verses in French and presented them to the English Embassadors the Earles of Carlisle and Holland because he is my Friend and the conceit is not to be despised I begged them of him and these are they Lilia juncta Rosis Embleme de bon ' presage de l' alliance de la France avec l' Angleterre Ce grand dieu quid ' un oecl voit tout ce que les aâ—s Souos leurs voiles sacrez vont a nous yeax cathans Descouvre quelque fois ainsi qui bon luy semble Et les moux avenir et les biene tout ensemble Ainsc fit il iadis a ce luy qui primier Dans l' Ireland porta de la foye le laurier Malachie son nom qu' autymon de l' Eglise On verra soir un jour il qui pour sa devise Aura les Lys chenus ioints aux plus belles fleures Qui docent le pinâ—temps de leurs doubles couleurs CHARLES est le fleuron de la roso pour pree HENRITTE est le Lys que la plus belle pree De la France nâ—urit pour estrâ— quelque iour Et la Reine des flâ—ures et des roses l' amour Adorable banquet bien beu reux courâ—nne Que la bonte du ciel en parrage nous donne Heu reux ma partie heu reux mille fois Cela qui te fera reflorrier en les Roys With these verses I take my leave of his Holiness wishing none of his successors would presage worse luck unto England I go now to see his Nuntio to whose house the same English Catholike brought me but he was not at home his name is Ferdinando d' Espado a
1594. John Chastell of Novice of this order having wounded King Henry the fourth in the mouth occasioned the banishment of this Society out of all France Into which they were not againe received till the yeare 1604. and then also upon limitations more strict than ever Into Paris they were not re-admitted untill Anno 1606. neither had they the liberty of reading Lectures and instructing the Youth confirmed unto them untill Anno 1621. which also was compassed not without great trouble and vexation Per varios casus tot discrimina rerum as Aeneas and his companions came into Latium In this Vniversity they have at this instant three Houses one of Novices a second of Institutors which they call the Colledge and a third of professed Jesuits which they stile their Monastery or the professed House of St. Lewis In their house of Novices they traine up all those whom they have called out of their Schooles to be of their order and therein imitate them in the art of Jesuitisme and their mysteries of iniquity There they teach them not Grammaticall construction or composition but instruct them in the paths of Vertue Courage and Obedience according to such examples as their Authors afford them But he that made the Funerall Oration for Henry the fourth Anno 1610. reported otherwise Latini Sermonis obtentu saith he impurissime Gallicae juventutis mores ingenuos foedant Bonarum artium praetextu pessimas edocent artes Dum ingenia excolunt animas perdunt c. In their College they have the same method of teaching which the others of their company use in Orleans A Colledge first given unto them by Mr. William Prat Bishop of Clermont whose House it was but much beautified by themselves after his decease for with the money which he gave unto them by his Will which amounteth as it was thought to 60000. Crowns they added to it the Court called de Langres in S. James's street An. 1582. Their Monastery or house of prayer or profession is that unto which they retire themselves after they have discharged their duties in the College by reading and studying publickly in their severall Classes when they are here their study both for time and quality is ad placitum though generally their onely study in it is Policy and the advancing of their cause And indeed out of this Trojan Horse it is that those firebrands and incendiaries are let out to disturb and set in combustion the affaires of Christendome Out of this Forge come all those Stratagems and tricks of Machiavillianisme which tend to the ruine of the Protestants the desolation of their Countries I speak not this of their house of Profession here in Paris either onely or principally wheresoever they settle they have a House of this nature out of which they issue to overthrow the Gospel Being once sent by their superiours a necessity is laid upon them of obedience be the imployment never so dangerous and certainly this nation doth most strictly obey the rules of their order of any whosoever not excepting the Capuchins nor the Carthusians This I am witnesse unto that whereas the Divinity Lecture is to end at the tolling of a Bell one of the Society in the College of Clermont reading about the fall of the Angells ended his Lecture with these words Denique in quibuscunque for then was the warning given and he durst not so farre trespasse upon his rule as to speak out his sentence But it is not the fate of these Jesuites to have great persons onely and Vniversities to oppose their fortunes they have also the most accomplisht malice that either the Secular Priests or their friends amongst whom they live can fasten upon them Some envy them for the greatnesse of their possessions some because of the excellency of their Learning some hate them for their power some for the shrewdnesse of their braines all together making good that saying of Paterculus that Semper eminentis fortunae comes est invidia True indeed it is that the Jesuites have in a manner deserved all this clamor and stomack by their own insolencies for they have not onely drawne into their owne hands all the principall affaires of Court and State but upon occasions cast all the storme and contempt they can upon those of the other Orders The Janizaries of the Turke never more neglectfully speak of the Asapi than these doe of the rest of the Clergie A great crime in those men who desire to be accounted such excellent Masters of their owne affections Neither is the affection borne to them abroad greater then that at home amongst those I mean of the opposite party who being so often troubled and frumped by them have little cause to afford them a liking and much lesse a welcome Upon this reason they were not sent into England with the Queen although at the first they were destinate to that purpose It was well known how odious that name was among us and so little countenance the Court or Countrey would have afforded them They therefore that had the governance of that businesse sent hither in their places the Oratorians or Fratres Congregationis Oratorii were a race of men never as yet offensive to the English further than the generall defence of the Romish cause and so lesse subject to envie and exception They were first entituled by Philip Nerius not long after the Jesuits and advanced and dignified by Pope Sixtus the fifth principally for this end that by their incessant Sermons to the People of the lives of Saints and other Ecclesiasticall antiquitie they might get a new reputation and so divert a little the torrent of the peoples affections from the Jesuits Baronius that great and excellent Historian and Bozius that deadly enemy to the soveraignty of Princes were of the first foundation of this new order I have now done with Orleans and the Jesuits and must prepare for my returne to Paris which journey I began the 13. of July and ended the day following We went back the same way that we came though we were not so fortunate as to enjoy the same company we came in formerly Instead of the good and acceptable society of one of the French Noblesse some Gentlemen of Germany and two Friers of the Order of S. Austin we had the perpetuall vexation of foure Tradesmen of Paris two Fulles de Joy and an old Woman The Artizans so slovenly attired and greazy in their apparell that a most modest apprehension could have conceived no better of them than that they had been newly raked out of the Scullery one of them by an inkhorne that hung by his side wouâ—d have made us believe that he had been â— Notary buâ— by the thread of his discourse we found out that hâ— was a Sumner so full of Ribaldry was it and so rankly did it savour of the French Bawdy court The rest of them talked according to their skill concerning the price of Commodities and whâ— was the most likely man
neither the said Infanta nor the Children born by her to the King shall be capable to inherit any of the estates of the King of Spain and in the eighth article she is bound to make an act of renunciation under her own hand-writing as soon as she cometh to be twelve years old which was accordingly performed But this being not sufficient to secure their fears it is thought that she was some way or other disabled from conception before ever she came into the Kings embraces A great crime I confess if true yet I cannot say with Tully in his defence of Ligarius Novum crimen Caie Caesar hec tempus mauditum Jaqueline Countess of Holland was Cozen to Philip Duke of Burgundie Her being fruitful would have debarred him from those estates of Holland Zealand and West-Freezland therefore though she had three Husbands there was order taken she should never have Child with her two first Husbands the Duke would never suffer her to live and when she had stollen a wedding with Frane of Borselle one of her servants the Dukes Physitians gave him such a potion that she might as well have married an Eunuch upon this injury the poor Lady died and the Duke succeeded in those Countries which by his Grand-child Marie were conveyed over into the House of Austria together with the rest of his estate I dare not say that that Family hath inherited his practises with his lands and yet I have heard that the Infanta Isabella had the like or worse measure afforded her before she was bedded to the Arch-duke Albertus A diabolical trick which the prostitutes of the heathen used in the beginnings of the Gospel and before of whom Octavius complaineth quod originem futuri hominis extinguant paricidium faciunt antequam pariunt Better luck than the King hath his Sister beyond the mountains I mean his eldest Sister Madame Elizabeth married to the King of Spain now living as being or having been the Mother of two Children His second Sister Madame Christian is married to Amadeo Victor Principe Maior or heir apparent of the Duke of Savoy to whom as yet she hath born no issue The youngest Henrietta Mariae is newly married to his most Excellent Majesty of England to whom may she prove of a most happy and fruitful womb Et pulchra faciat te prole parentem Of these alliances the first were very profitable to both Princes could there be made a marriage between the Kingdoms as well as the Kings But it is well known that the affections of each people are divided more unconquerable mountains than their dominions The French extreamly hating the proud humour and ambition of the Spaniard We may therefore account each of them in these marriages to have rather intended the perpetuity of their particular houses than the strength of their Empires and that they more desired a noble stock whereon to graft posterity than power The alliance with Savoy is more advantagious though less powerful than that of Spain For if the King of France can keep this Prince on his party he need not fear the greatness of the other or any of his faction The continuall siding of this House with that of Austria having given many and great impediments to the fortune of the French It standeth so fitly to countenance the affairs of either King in Italy or Germany to which it shall incline that it is just of the same nature with the estate of Florence between Millain and Venice of which Guicciaraine saith that Mantennero le coseâ—d Italia bilanâ—iate On this reason King Henry the fourth earnestly desired to match one of his Children into this Countrey and left this desire as a Legacie with his Council But the alliance of most use to the State of France is that of England as being the nighest and most able of all his neighbours An alliance which will make his Estate invincible and incompassed about as it were with a wall of brass As for the Kings bastard Brethren they are four in number and born of three several beds The eldest is Mr. Alexander made Knight of the Order of St. John or of Malta in the life time of his Father He is now Grand Prior of France and it is much laboured and hoped by the French that he shall be the next Master of the Order a place of great command and credit The second and most loved of his Father whose lively image and character he is said to be is Mr Caesar made Duke of Vendosme by his Father and is at this time Governor of Brittain a man of a brave spirit and one who swayeth much in the affairs of State His Father took great care for his advancement before his death and therefore married him to the Daughter and Heir of the Duke of Mercuer a man of great possessions in Brittain It is thought that the inheritance of this Lady both by her Fathers side and also by her Mothers who was of the Family of Marsegues being a stock of the old Ducal tree is no less than 200000. Crowns yearly Both these were born unto the King by Madame Gabriele for her excellent beauty surnamed labelle Dutchess of Beauforte a Lady whom the King most entirely affected even to the last gasp and one who never abused her power with him so that we may truly say of her what Velleius flatteringly said of Livia the Wife of Augustus Ejus potentiam nemo senset nisi levatione periculi aut accessione dignitatis The third of the Kings natural Brethren is Mr. Henry now Bishop of Metz in Lorraine and Abbot of St. Germans in Paris As Abbot he is Lord of the goodly Fairbourg of St. Germans and hath the profits of the great Fair there holden which make a large revenue His Bishoprick yeildeth him the profits of 20000. Crowns and upwards which is the remainder of 60000. the rest being pawned to the Duke of Lorraine by the last Bishop who was of that family The Mother of this Mr. Henry is the Marchioness of Verneville who before the death of the King fell out of his favour into the prison and was not restored to her liberty till the beginning of the Queen Mothers Regency The fourth and youngest is Mr. Antonie born unto the King by the Countess of Morret who is Abbot of the Churches of Marseilles and Cave hath as yet not fully six thousand pound a year when his Mother dieth he Will be richer The Kings lawful Brother is named John Baptist Gaston born the 25th of April Anno 1608. A Prince of a brave and manlike aspect likely to inherit as large a part of his Fathers spirit as the King doth of his Crown He is entituled Duke of Aniou as being the third Son of France but his next elder Brother the Duke of Orleance being dead in his childhood he is vulgarly and properly called Monsieur This title is different from that of Daulphin in that that title is onely appropriated to the Heir