enjoy the moecall embraces of her libidinous companion plotted divers ways to take away her husbands life which at length she affected by poysoning him and divers of his family which having done and fearing to be questioned about the Fact she truss'd up her Jewels and the best things about her and fled into France unto the Court of Charles the Great with whom she so temporized and qualified her owne impious Cause and being withall a Lady of extraordinary aspect and presence that she grew highly into his grace and favour But when after he was informed of her unstable condition hee thought to make some tryall of her and being at that time a Widdower one day when hee was in some private conference with her at a window hee said openly Now Lady I put it to your free election whether you will take mee for your wedded Lord and Husband or this my Son here standing in presence To which Question shee without the least pause gave this suddaine Answer Then I make choice of the Sonne and refuse the Father which the King taking as an affront and being therewith somewhat mov'd he as suddenly reply'd I protest woman if thou hadst made choice of me I would have given thee to my Sonne if he would have accepted of thee but for that thou hast slighted and for saken me thou shalt now have neither of us and so presently commanded her as a Recluse to be shut up into a Nunnery But this place though never so strict could not containe her within the bounds of Modesty or Chastity For by the meanes of some Libertines her old companions and acquaintance shee made an escape out of the Cloister and having quitted that place shee wandred up and downe till having consumed all that shee could make she fell into necessitous poverty in which she miserably dy'd none commiserating her in her greatest extremity In memory of which her misdemeanors mixt with the murder of her naturall Lord and Husband the Kings of the West Saxons made a Decree that thence-forward none of their Wives should be called Queenes nor sit by them at any Feast or in any place of State or Honour And this was observed amongst them for a long time after Now to shew how the Creator of all who instituted chaste Matrimony in Paradice as hee hates those contaminated with all impurity so of the contrary he is a Guardian and Potector to those of cleane and undefiled life as may appeare by this subsequent story In the time of Edward the sonne of King Edgar by his first wife Egelfleda who began his reigne in the yeare of Grace nine hundred threescore and nineteene though he was opposed by his step-mother Elphaida who got into her confederacy Alphred Duke of Mercia a potent man in those dayes to have instated her sonne Egelredus a childe of seven yeares old in the Regall Dignity yet she was opposed by Bishop Dunstan with the rest of the Clergy who were also supported by the Earle of East Ingland now called Essex who against the Queens minde and her Confederates Crowned the said Edw. at Kingstowne but the fore-named Alphred who altogether adhered to the proceedings of the Dowager Queen being suspected to have too much private familiarity with her they agreed to put the strict Religious Cloysterers out of the College of Winchester where K. Edgar had before there placed and put into their roomes so many wanton and lascivious Clerks every one of them having his Concubine about him which Controversie had been like to have ended in bloud But there was an assembly of the Bishops and Lords the Prelates and Peeres of both parties in which Dunstan maintaining Chastity was much despised by the Adversary but still he upheld his opinion being grounded upon Justice and Vertue Now the place of their meeting was in a faire and large upper â—â—om and in this great division and argument it being doubtfull which side would carry it suddenly the joysts of the Loft failed and the floore tumbled downe being a great distance from the ground in which ruine the greatest part of those adverse to the Bishop and Clergy were either slaine outright or very dangerously hurt even to lamenesse but of all those that stood with Dunstan in the defence of chastity not one perished neither was any heard to complaine of the least hurt felt or found about them by which miraculous accident the Bishop compass'd his pious and religious ends This King Edward upon a time being hunting in the Forrest and having lost his Traine and finding none of his servants neare him hee bethought himself that his Mother-in-law Elphaida with her Sonne Egelredus lived at a place called Corfe-Castle which is in the West-Countrey and thought it no better a time then now to give her a visit but the malicious woman looking out of her window and knowing him a far off called to one of her servants of her owne breeding and told him what he had to doe for she perceived he was alone and none of his Peeres or Attendants about him By this time the King was come to the Castle gate whither she descended and offered him all the Courtesie of entertainment that any Syren who only flatters to destruction could have done for with courteous words she besought him to alight and to lodge in the Castle that night both which he with great affability and gentlenesse refused saying he would onely taste a Cup of her Beere and then ride to finde out some of his Company but the Cup being brought he had no sooner moved it towards his mouth but this Barbarous Villaine Traitor and Regicide strook him with a long Dagger edg'd on both sid 〈…〉 which entring behind the poynt appear'd to have fore'd way through his breast at which mortall wound receiv'd he put spurres to his horse making speed towards the Forrest in hope to have met with some of his servants but by the extremity of bleeding fainting by the way he felt from his horse with one foot intangled in the stirrop then he was dragg'd crosse high-wayes and a thwart plowde lands till his horse staid at a Towne called Covisgate where he was found but not being knowne for the King hee was unworthily buried at a Town called Warham where his body remained for the terme of three yeares after at which time it was discovered and the dissembling and murderous woman thinking to clearer her selfe of the fact to the world thought at the first to visit him in the way of Pilgrimage but to make the cause evident against her the Horse on which she rode could not be compell'd to come neare unto the place by a miles distance neither by faire usage nor sore beating or any course that man could devise after whose death her sonne Egelredas was Crowned King in the first yeare of whosâ— Reigne the Land grew barren and scarce bore any fruit there happened moreover a Plague which tooke away the men and a Murraine
Confines of Aethiopia by whom hee had a young sonne called Caesaria Hee is also reckoned amongst the Cinaedi and to bee a Pederastes that is one abused against nature of which with Mamuria Termanus he is taxt by Catullus which aspertion Suetonius labours to acquit him of in these words Caesars great familiarity and bed-fellowship with Nicomedes King of Bithynia wich was he with whom he was suspected doth no way hurt or blemish the modesty of Caesar of whose bloudy butchery in the Capitoll who hath not heard Thus you see even in the greatest and most active when they fall into this Mollicies and pillowy sluggishnesse what effects it workes upon them and what fearefull judgements it brings upon them for doubtlesse there is scarce a whoredome acted or adultery committed no incestuous congression or pathick preposterous luxury in which this Socordia this snaylie and sluggish vice hath not a predominant hand Of the last modesty will scarce suffer me to speake or almost to name being more then brutish and altogether abhominable And before I enter on the former give me leave to remember unto you some few of these soft idle and effeminate fellowes which merit rather the names of Musk-cats then men Augustus Caesar in sundry of his Epistles written to Mecoenas expresseth his tendernesse softnesse and delicacy but especially in that where hee delivereth himselfe to this purpose Farewell Mecoenas the Honey of Nations the Ivory of Etruria the Laser of Aretinum the Margarite of Tibur the Smarage of the Gilneans the Jasper Berill and Carbuncle c. strange Mellite and oily Gnatonicall language being seriously intended to a subject from so great and wise an Emperour yet the learned and grave Seneca calls him Mecoenatem discimitum mollicima ejus delicias portentosum orationem His dissolute or unguerded Mecoenas his most effeminate delicacy and portentous speech who saith farther of him that he was able to give an excellent example of the Roman Eloquence if too much felicity and worldly prosperity mixt with ease and idlenesse had not mollified and enerved his spirits So also Macrobius and Crinitus both report of him Caiâ— Duellius after he had triumpht over the Carthaginians and returned thence a glorious Conquerour grew unto that voluptuousnesse and lazinesse that he gave himselfe over to all the intemperances of lust and riot for if he went at any time by invitation to banquet or feast abroad hee had a Trumpet or a Coronet to sound him to the place and when the meeting dissolv'd to usher him back to his owne house The Massâ—â—tenses were with this lazie luxury so contaminated and infected that they imitated women in their habit and vesture perfuming their haire with pretious unguents and then bound up their lockes with laces and ribbands hence grew a proverbe to their lasting disgrace if any man was seene to spâ—uce up himselfe too curiously they would say unto him E Massiâ—ia â—enisti Thou camest but now from Massilla And of this unmasculin'd condition were Abram Artemon Clistine Lysicrates Argyriâ—â— B 〈…〉 us Nâ—arus Aristodamus Andramites King of Lydia with infinite others perpetually and unto all posterity made notorious for their sloath and branded for their idlenesse How apt is plenty and fulnesse of bread to alter even the best natures and of men to make monsters Augustus Caesar was a wise discreet and well govern'd Prince and celebrated for many rare vertues yet it is related of him by Suetonius Sextus Aurelius and others that he was accustomed to lodge nightly with twelve hee Catamites of the one side and as many she Prostitutes of the other who rejecting his wife Scribonia contracted himselfe to Livia who was glad to hasten the nuptials lest her great belly should be discovered and though hee were a bondslave to lust he used to punish it in others with all severity for so the former Authors report of him at a Feast where was a great assembly of the Patricians and Senators with their wives in the middle of the service betwixt the second and third course not able to containe himselfe any longer he tooke by the arme one of the beautifull'st Matrons whose husband was present as a guest and led her into a with-drawing roome where after some stay he brought her backe to her seat with her linnen ruffled and out of order and a great flushing in her face which was palpable to all there present He is also said to have stuprated Tertullia Terentilla Drusilla Salvia Citiscenia and others But more prodigious were the lusts of his Successor Tiberius who according to Tranquillus devised a seller or vault which was as a schoole of Venery and where all libidinous acts were practised in his owne presence In the woods also he built venereall Groves where prostitution was daily practised with some things fearefull to be named And as there were many prodigious examples of Neroes cruelty so there are also of his incontinence and luxury all which adde to his hatefull and abhominable life to make it the more infamous who most irreligiously committed a rape upon Rubria one of the vestall Virgines to whom it was held worse then sacriledge to offer the least violence Hee caused from the beautifull childe Sporus his virill parts to be cut away indeavouring to have made him a woman if Art could have done it and then to have married him and so he did from whence grew a saying made common in the mouthes of all Happy had it beene for Rome and the Empire if Neroes mother had beene such a wife as Sporus Many of his actions are too obscene for modesty to utter Hee had naturall congresse and consociety with his naturall mother Agrippina He caused also one Doriphâ—â— a freed man to be cut like Sporus and married him also Thus farre of him Tranquillus but much more Cornelius Tacitus Caligula incested his owne sisters and prostituted them to his slaves and vassals that in the cause of Aemilius they might be condemned as adultresses or vitiated persons which otherwise had gone against him Livia Horestilla the wife of Caius Piso he violently tooke from him and made her his Empresse but within two yeares being tyred with his new Peere he turned her off to grazing and then he tooke from Caius Memmius his wife Lolliae Paâ—lina and in a short time repudiated her also consining them both from marriage or to have consociety with any man whatsoever He was much inamoured of one Cesonia a beautifull Damsell and his custome was to his private friends oft to shew her naked Hee was said much to love Marcus Lepidus and Marcus Nestor the Pantomine which is a Buffoone or common Jester for no other cause but onely for the commerse of mutuall and alternate brothelry of these and many other his brutish ribauldries witnesseth Suctonius The Emperour Commodus in like manner constuperated his owne naturall sisters in the sight of his other Paramores and Prostitutes and then offered them to his friends such libidinous wretches as
seeing him run they ran after him all not knowing the originall of this uprore they stop him and demand the cause of his flight who in his great affright and terrour of conscience said He was the man They asked what man he answered the same man that committed such a bloody murder so many yeares since upon which he was apprehended and committed to Newgate arraigned by his own confession condemned and hanged first on a gibbet and after at Mile-end in chaines Thus we see how the devill never leaves his ministers and servants especially in this horrid case of murder without shame and judgement Another strange but most true story I shall relate of a young Gentleman of good meanes and parentage brought up in Cambridge whose name for his worshipfull kinreds sake I am desirous to conceal he being of a bould spirit and very able body and much given unto riot and expence could not containe himselfe within his exhibition but being a fellow-commoner lavisht much beyond his allowance to helpe which and to keepe his credit in the Towne he kept a good horse in the stable and oftentimes would flie out and take a purse by the high-way and thus he continued a yeare or thereabouts without the jealousie or suspition of any At length his quarterly meanes not being come up from his father and hee wanting money to supply his ordinary riots hee put himselfe into a disguise tooke horse and crossing New-market Heath he discovered a purchase a serving-man with a cloak-bag behinde him and spying him to travell singly and alone he made towards him and bid him stand and deliver the other unacquainted with that language answered him that he had but little money and what he had he was loath to part with Then said the Gentleman thiefe thou must fight for it Content saith the other and withall both alight and drew and fell stoutly to their businesse in this conflict the honest serving-man was infortunately slain which done the other but sleightly wounded tooke away his cloak-bagge and binding it behinde his owne horse up and fled towards the University and having set up his horse in the Town and carried the cloak-bagge or Portmantuan to his chamber he no sooner opened it but he found a Letter directed to him from his father the contents whereof were That hee had sent him his quarterly or halfe-yeares allowance by his owne man a faithfull servant commended unto him by a deare friend whom he had lately entertained willing his sonne to use the man kindly for his sake which Letter when he had read and found the money told to a penny and considering he had kil'd his owne fathers man whom he had intreated to be used curteously at his hands and onely to take away his owne by force abroad which hee might have had peaceably and quietly brought home to his chamber he grew to be strangely alter'd changing all his former mirth into a deepe melancholy In briefe the robbery and murder were found and known and the Lord chiefe Justice Popham then riding that Circuit whose neare kinsman hee was he was arraigned and condemned at Cambridge Assises though great meanes were made for his pardon yet none could prevaile the Judge forgetting all alliance would neither commiserate his youth nor want of discretion but caused him without respect of person to be hanged up amongst the ordinary and common malefactors Doctor Otho Melander reports this horrible parricide to be committed in the yeare of Grace 1568. within the Saxon confines At a place called Albidos neare unto the Lyon Tower which hath beene an ancient seat of the Dukes of that Countrey There saith he lived a father who had two sonnes the one hee brought up to husbandry the other in merchandise both very obedient and dutifull and given to thrift and good husbandry the Merchant traded in Lubeck where in few yeares hee got a very faire estate and falling sicke even in his prime trading he made his Will in which hee bequeathed to his brother about the summe of five hundred pounds and his father ten and died some few houres after he had setled his estate But before his death he sent to his brother to come in person and receive those Legacies the father not knowing how he had disposed of his meanes dispatcht his other sonne with all speed possible to Lubeck more avaritious after what his sonne the Merchant had left him then sorrowing for his death though hee were a young man of great expectation and of a most hopefull fortune The surviving sonne who was the younger arriveth at the Citie and having first deplored the death of his brother as nature bound him and glad to heare of him so great and good a report he takes out a copie of the Will and after receiveth his money to a farthing and with this new stock seeing what was past hee joyfully returnes into his owne Countrey who at his first arrivall was as gladly welcommed by his father and mother who were over-joyed to looke upon the bagges that hee had brought but when by reading of the Will they saw how partially the money was disposed in that so little fell to their share they first began bitterly to curse the dead sonne and after barbarously to raile on the living out-facing him that he had changed the Will by altering the old and forging a new which the innocent youth denying and excusing himselfe by telling them that the originall was upon record and by that they might be fully satisfied yet all would give them no satisfaction till very wearinesse made them give over their heavy execrations then the sonne offered them whatsoever was his to dispose of at their pleasure which they very churlishly refused and bad him take all and the Devill give him good with it which drew teares from the sonnes passionate eyes who after his blessing craved but denyed very dolefully left them and was no sooner departed from them but to compasse this money they began to devise and consult about his death which they concluded to be performed that night and when hee was sleeping in his bed they both set violently and tygerly upon him forcing daggers into his breast so that inforced with the agony of the wounds he opened his eyes and spying both his parents with their hands imbrued in his bloud he with a loud ejaculation clamour'd out these words or to the same sence Quae non Aurum hominem cogis quae non mala suades In Natos etiam stringere ferra Iubes That is O Gold to what dost thou not compell man to what evils dost thou not perswade are not these sufficient but must thou cause parents to sheath their weapons in their owne bowels their children which words were uttered with such a loud and shrill shreeke that it was heard by the neighbours who starting out of their beds and breaking open the doores found them in the very act before the body was cold for which they were apprehended
eye backbiting pride foolishnesse all these evils come from within and defile a man c. Rom. 13. 12. The night is past and the day is at hand let us therefore cast away the workes of darknesse and let us put on the armour of light so that we walke honestly as in the day not in gluttony and drunkennesse neither in chambering and wantonnesse c. Corinth 2. 12. 21. I feare least when I come againe my God shall abase me amongst you and I shall bewaile many of them which have sinned already and have not repented them of the uncleannesse and fornication and wantonnesse which they have committed Ephes. 4. 19. Which being past feeling have given themselves unto wantonnesse and to worke all uncleannesse 2 Peter 2. 18. For in speaking swelling words of vanity they beguile with wantonnesse through the lusts of the flesh them that were cleane escaped from those which were wrapped in errour promising them liberty and are themselves the servants of corruption And againe 1 Peter 4. 3. For it is sufficient that we have spent the time past of our life after the lusts of the Gentiles walking in wantonnesse lust drunkennesse in gluttony drinking and abhominable Idolatry wherein it seemeth to them strange that you runne not with them into the same excesse of riot therefore speake they evill of you c. There is also Fornicatio differing in some kinde from the former and this includeth all unlawfull copulation or illicite congression in any tye of wedlock consanguinity affinity order religion or vow and this is twofould spirituall and corporall or carnall that spirituall is meere Idolatry so hatefull to God and so often forbid in the holy Text which is attended by infidelity and every hurtfull superstition It includes also the lust of the eye with the consent of the minde according to that Text Whosoever shall looke upon a woman and lust after her c. All uncleane pollution is called carnall fornication and that which is called simplex or simple is Soluti cum soluta and a most mortall sinne and provoketh the wrath of the Lord Deut. 22. 23. If a maid be betrothed to an husband and a man finde her in the Towne and lie with her then you shall bring them both out unto the gates of the same Citie and shall stone them with stones to death the maide because she cryed not being in the Citie and the man because he humbled his neighbours wife so thou shalt put away evill from among you Eccles. 19. 2. Wine and women leade wise men out of the way and put men of understanding to reproofe and hee that accompanieth adulterers shall become impotent rottennesse and wormes shall have him to heritage and he that is bold shall be taken away and be made an example Jerem. 6. and 7. How should I spare thee for this thy children have forsaken me and sworne by them that are no gods Though I fed them full yet they committed adultery and assembled themselves by companies in the harlots houses they rose up in the morning like fed horses for every one neighed after his neighbours wife shall I not visit for these things saith the Lord shall not my soule be avenged on such a Nation as this Hosea 4. 10. For they shall eate and not have enough they shall commit adultery and shall not increase because they have left off to take heed of the Lord wheredome and wine and new wine take away thine heart Againe Vers. 14. I will not visit your daughters when they are harlots nor their spouses when they are whores for they themselves are separated with harlots and sacrifice with whores therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall 1 Cor. 6. The fornicatour shall not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven Hebr. 3. Nor the fornicatours and adulterers Adulterium or Adultery the Greekes call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Hebrews Ninph and it is twofold Spirituall and Carnall that which is called spirituall is metaphoricall including every sin committed by a Christian man because every Christian soul is contracted to Christ the Husband That which is called carnall is either simple or single when but the one party is married or double when both are in the matrimoniall or conjugall tie and all of these are condemned in the holy Text Gen. 20. 3. God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said unto him Behold thou art but dead because of the woman Sarah whom thou hast taken for she is a mans wife Now then deliver the man his wife again for he is a Prophet and he shall pray for thee that thou mayst live but if thou deliver her not again be sure that thou shalt die the death even thou and all that thou hast Lev. 20. 10. And the man that committeth adultery with another mans wife because he hath committed adultery with another mans wife the adulterer and the adulteresse shall die the death Lev. 5. 20. But if thou hast turned from thine husband and so art defiled and some man hath lien with thee besides thine husband then the Priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing and the Priest shall say unto the woman The Lord make thee to be accursed and detestable for the oath among the people and the Lord cause thy thigh to rot and thy belly to swell Verse 28. When ye have made her drinke the water if she be defiled and have transgressed against her husband then shall the cursedwater turned into bitternesse enter into her and her belly shall swell and herthigh shall rot and the woman shall be accursed amongst the people Prov. 32. He that committeth adultery with a woman is destitute of understanding he that doth it destroyeth his own soul he shall finde a wound and dishonour and his reproach shall never be put away Again 30. 18. There be three things hid from me yea four that I know not The way of an Eagle in the air the way of a Serpent upon a stone the way of a ship in the midst of the sea and the way of a man with a maid Such is the way also of an adulterous woman she eateth and wipeth her mouth and saith I have not committed iniquity Eccles. 23. 22. And thus shall it go with every wife that leaveth her husband and getteth inheritance by another for first she hath disobeyed the law of the most High and secondly she hath trespassed against her own husband and thirdly she hath played the where in adultery and gotten her children by another man she shall be brought into the congregation and examination shall be made of her children her children shall not take root and her branches shall bring no fruit a shamefull reproach shall she leave and her reproach shall not be put out c. Wisd. 3. 16. The children of adulterers shall not be partakers of the holy things and the seed of the wicked shall be rooted out and though they live long yet shall they be