Lotaire Those Lords that accompany'd Charles observing these Artifices believed the best way was to breake thorow them all with a brave resolution and advised he would march directly to him Thus the two Armies were found to be within Six Leagues of each other the City of Orleans lying between them Then the Lords on either part endeavoured to bring them to an accord as was the usual custom of the French Those of Charles's party finding themselves by much the weaker yielded to an agreement very disadvantagious whereby was left to him only by provision Aquitain Languedoc and Province with some Counties between the Loire and the Seine and it was said they should meet at the Parliament to be holden at Atigny to compose all their differences but they added this Clause that in the interim Lotaire should attempt nothing upon Charles nor Louis otherwise they should be quit of their Oathes and promises Year of our Lord 841 This Treaty finished Charles marched towards Bretagne to quell the motions of some Lords of that Country From thence he returns on his way to be at the Parliament of Atigny Lotharius had in the mean while endeavoured to shut up the passages against him broken down all the Bridges over the Seine and ordered Forces on either Shoar who coasted along incessantly Which did him no good because Charles having information that there were several Vessels at Roüen Seized them with great diligence and wafted over his Army with them His enemies betook themselves to Flight upon the first appearance of his Standard At the same time Lotharius by the advice of Albert Earl of Mets his chief incendiary and Othbert Bishop of Ments were dealing with the French Austrasians and knowing that Louis of Germany was upon his march to joyn with Charles caused some Troops to pass over the Rhine to meet him and did entice away a part of his men so that he was councell'd fearing he might lose the rest to retreat into Bavaria where it had been easy for Lotaire to have crushed him had he but pursued it Year of our Lord 841 Charles marching up along the River Seine makes his Prayers in the Church of St. Denis joynes some Troops which two or three of his Counts brought him near Montereau on Yonne beats two of the Counts that Lotaire had sent to oppose him in his March goes on to Troyes where he celebrated the Feast of Easter From thence he went to Atigny to let them know he would not neglect to meet at the conference appointed between him and Lotaire After his having remained there some days he Marched towards Chaalons and there finds his Mother the Empress Judith and those Forces she brought him out of Aquitain He had intelligence at the same time that his Brother Louis having gained a Battel against Albert Count of Mets made all possible hast to joyn with him Wherefore he goes that way to meet him Lotaire gave out a report that he fled and pursues him Mean time Louis arrives and thus the two young Brothers being united were found to be the strongest Lotaire therefore gains some days time by his feigned negotiations till Pepin who was upon the March could joyn with him When he had this re-inforcement he talked of nothing but bringing them to obedience and having a Monarchical Soveraignty All the tenders they could proffer did but confirm his resolution of having all So that they were constrained to send him word they would give him Battel the next morning about the second hour of the day which was the 25 th of June Year of our Lord 841 The two Armies being encamped against one another near the Burrough of Fontenay by Auxerre The whole Power of France all the bravest Officers and most of the Grandees and Nobility were about the Four Kings who were to be both the Witnesses and rewarders of their Actions Since the Beginning of the French Monarchy to the very day I write these Lines there hath not been so much French Blood spilt in any Battel whatever A Hundred Thousand men perished there a horrible wound and which weakned the Carlovinian-House so greatly that it could never well recover it self again The victory fell to the younger Brothers share They used it with all humility and would not give the Emperor chace for fear of spilling more blood They likewise caused his men to be buried and took care to dress the wounded as their own proclaiming a general pardon to all those that would accept thereof Year of our Lord 841 The most part of those Officers that had been with these Princes being gone away they could not reap all the Fruits might have accrued upon so notable an advantage Louis repassed the Rhine and Charles took his way towards Aquitain to drive Pepin entirely from thence But some dissention hapning in his Councels so that he acted not vigorously enough Pepin who had been brought very low and would certainly have submitted re-assumed his courage On the other hand Lotaire having gathered up his scatter'd men and raised new ones appeared soon after in Neustria where he had a great many abetters His Army and Charles's drew near each other about St. Denis the River betwixt them Charles's being the weakest saved themselves in the Forrests of Perche Lotaire pursued them but not able to compel them to a Battel he sent back Pepin whom he had called thither with his Forces of Aquitain Year of our Lord 842 The two young Brothers at their parting had appointed to meet again at soonest As soon as Charles found the way open and clear he went to the banks of the Rhine to his Brother and both of them being met the 22 th of February in the City of Strasburgh made a new League and Alliance of Friendship promising by Solemn Oath never to forsake each other This Treaty was framed and written in two Languages viz. Romance the Original of the present French and the Tudesque It mentioned that if either of the two Brothers contravened their Subjects should be no longer obliged to serve them Which was in truth to leave a gap open for them to change their Soveraign when they pleased Year of our Lord 842 This union having reassured their Subjects brought back those whom Lotaire had inveigled and encreased their Forces they sought for him to give him battel but he left the Country in so much hast that he made no stop till he was gotten to Lyons and by his slight abandoned all Austrasia to them and part of the Kingdom of Burgundy Year of our Lord 842 When they were come back to Aix the Bishops by them Assembled pronounced a Solemn Judgment whereby they deprived Lotharius of all his Portion of Lands on this side the Mountains and yet they would not admit the two Brothers till they first were assured by them that they would govern according to the Commandments of God To which having answered that they desired so the Bishops told them And we by
tax which he had ordered for their maintenance Being returned to Tours he fell into the like Fitts of fainting as before His Servants having vowed him to Saint Claude he went thither on Pilgrimage and left the General Lieutenancy of the Kingdom to Peter de Bourbon Lord of Beaujeu his Brother Never was such a Pilgrim seen the Countries he passed felt his Devotions he marched accompanied with six thousand Soldiers and did always some terrible thing or other in his way In this he seized Philibert Duke of Savoy and brought him into France that young Prince dying the next year in the City of Lyons and his brother Charles succeeding him he declared himself his Guardian For since the decease of Duke Ame IX their Father he had alwayes had a great hand in the affairs of Savoy upon pretence that these young Princes were his Sisters Children Year of our Lord 148 Happily for Italy Mahomet being on the point to begin again the Siege of Rhodes and to send a new Army to Otranto dyed at Nicomedia the third of May. Now whilst his two Sons Bajazeth and Zizim were contending for the Empire between themselves the Pope and King Ferdinand took the courage to besiege Otranto and the Turks whilst the division betwixt their Princes lasted expecting no succours surrendred upon composition A short while after Zizim having been defeated twice fled to Rhodes where expecting to find an Asylum he fell into captivity For the Knights for a Pension of 50000 Crowns which Bajazeth promised to pay them yearly detained him Prisoner and with the Kings permission sent him to the Castle of Bourgneuf in Auvergne where he remained some years treated honourably enough Year of our Lord 1489 Year of our Lord 1481 Every thing gave apprehensions to King Lewis he still kept his wife at distance from him and these last years he continued her in Savoy he bred his Son like a Captive at Amboise amongst Servants lest he should grow too high-spirited and alwayes took along with him the first Prince of the blood Lewis Duke of Orleance not suffering any to cultivate his mind by any Education He married him this year to one of his daughters named Jane a most wise Princess but ugly and Lame and one whom the Physitians assured uncapable of bearing any Children Perhaps themselves had taken a course for that purpose Year of our Lord 1481 A little while after his return from Saint Claude he fell again for the third time into his fits of Swooning He caused himself to be carry'd to Clery where he had built a Church to his good Our Lady And there he received some relief but which lasted not long Year of our Lord 1481 The 10th of December Charles d'Anjou Count du Mayne being sick at Marseilles whereof he dyed the next day by his Testament instituted King Lewis his universal Heir in all his lands to enjoy the same he and all the Kings of France his Successors recommending most earnestly to him to mantain Provence in it's liberty 's Perogatives Customs Rene Duke of Lorraine Son of Yoland d'Anjou reclaimed against this institution maintaining that it could not be made to his prejudice the King on the contrary justified it to be good because Provence is a Country ruled by written Law according to which any person may dispose of his own in favour of whom he pleaseth besides the Counts of Provence had always called the Males to their Succession to the prejudice of the daughters Palamedes de Fourbin Sieur de Souliers who managed the Mind of Charles made him find these reasons to be good and for this he in recompence had the Government or to say better the Soveraignty of Provence during his whole life Year of our Lord 1482 When the Affairs of Mary of Burgundy began to be setled that Princess going ahunting fell from her horse and died of it at Gaunt the 25th of May with the fruit wherewith her womb was pregnant In four years she had borne three children Philip Margret and another that had but a short life The death of Mary brought trouble and disorders afresh amongst the Flemmings Her Husband had so little Authority because of his Covetous Poverty amongst those people who were wont to have Princes extreamly Liberal and Magnificent that he was forced to suffer that the Children he had by her should remain under the guard of the Gauntois After a great famine which had afflicted France during the year 1481. there followed an Epidemical Sickness altogether extraordinary which seized upon the Great as well as the Little ones It was a continual and violent Feaver which set the Head on fire whereby the most part fell into Phrensies and died as it were Mad. Year of our Lord 1482 William de la Mark called the wild Boar of Ardenne incited and assisted by the King Massacred most inhumanely Lewis de Bourbon Bishop of Liege either in an Ambuscade or after he had defeated him in Battle and soon after himself being taken by the Lord de Horne brother to the Bishop successor to Lewis had his head cut off at Mastrict Desquerdes had even the last year made himself Master of the Town of Air at the price of 50000 Crowns bestowed on the Governour From this advantagious Post which bridled the Flemmings he made them incline as well by cunning too as force to treat of the Marriage of Margret Daughter of their deceased Princess with the Dauphin Charles though she were hardly two years old and Charles almost twelve The Gauntois Ambassadors having seen the King at Clery made report to their Council of the Kings intentions He demanded for her dowry only the County of Artois and they would needs add to it those of Burgundy of Masconnois Auxerois and Charolois thereby to weaken their Prince so much that he might never be able to bring them under his Yoke Year of our Lord 1482 The King was in so ill a condition that hardly could he suffer them to see him to present so advantagious a Treaty The Daughter was to be put into his Hands about the end of this Year but there remaining yet some difficulties to be determined they brought her not into France till the April following and the Wedding was celebrated at Amboise at the end of July Year of our Lord 1483 Then Edward King of England who upon the faith of the Treaty of Pequigny had ever flattered himself that the Dauphin should Marry his Daughter and held himself so well assured that he made her be called the Dauphiness seeing himself bafled by the French and scoffed by his own Subjects as one fouly imposed upon was so moved with shame and grief that he died the 4th of April delivering France from the apprehension of many mischiefs he might have done them during the Minority of Charles VIII He had two Sons Edward and Richard and five daughters Marry'd to Noblemen of that Country He had also had two Brothers George Duke of Clarence
That the Saint Ampoulle i. e. Holy Oyl was conveyed at his Baptism by a Celestial Dove That the Shield Semé with Flower-de-Luces and the Standard Royal de l'Oriflamme were by an Angel deposited in the hands of a good Hermit living in the solitudes of Joyenval near St. Germans en Laye That he had the Gift of Healing the Evil and made proof of it upon Lanicet his Favourite But God made him a more extraordinary and more excellent Present than all those when he bestowed upon him the Heavenly Knowledge of the Orthodox Faith there being amongst all the Princes upon Earth none but himself that did not live either in Error or Idolatry This Conversion did him no little Service towards keeping the Gauls who were all Christians in Obedience and to allure others who were Subjects to the Gothick and the Burgundian Princes whose Government was odious to them because they would compel them to follow the Opinion of Arrius The zeal of Christianity did not allay his Warlike heats Gondesigilus having promised if he would assist him in suppressing his Brother Gondebaud to share the spoil with him he fell with his Army upon the Burgundians Countrey Gondesigilus Year of our Lord 500 pretending he was mightily scared sent to pray his Brother to come to his assistance Gondebaud failed not but when it came to the Battle which was fought on the borders of the River L'Ouche near Dijon Gondesigilus went over to the French and began to Assault him Gondebaud finding it was a thing designed betwixt them fled to Avignon Clovis pursues and besieges him there The Sage Aredius Principal Counsellor to Gondebaud cunningly contrives to do his Master Service upon this occasion the Siege spinning out to some length he pretends to desert him and renders himself to Clovis with whom he manages Affairs so wisely as that King agrees to a Composition and Gondebaud becomes his Tributary Year of our Lord 500 and 501. When Clovis was out of that Countrey and perhaps employ'd in other business Gondebaud scorning to pay him the Tribute assembles his Forces together and besieges Gondesigilus in Vienne One Fontenier whom they had thrust out amongst the useless People discovered to him the mouth of an Aqueduct by which way he sent in some Men who surprized the City his Brother having sheltred himself in a Church belonging to the Arrians was there slain together with a Bishop of the same Belief Thus Gondebaud remained sole King of all Burgundy Year of our Lord Towards 502 or 503. It is my opinion during these years that the French as Procopius tells us not having been able to subdue the Armoricae betwixt the Seinè and the Loire did incorporate with them by a mutual Confederacy which of two made them bat one People The Roman Garrisons not being strong enough either to Retreat or to Defend themselves restored their Towns to them but did not quit the Countrey where they for a long time afterwards retained their Laws their Discipline and Habits The Citizens of Verdun being Revolted it is not said for what reason Clovit being ready to force them the Prayers of Euspice Arch-Deacon of that City a Man of a very Holy Life allayed his Wrath and obtained their Pardon I cannot tell precisely in what year hapned that which Procopius relates how Clovis and Theodoric King of the Ostrogoths having made an agreement together to conquer Burgundy and divide it upon condition that if either of the two Armies did not meet at a certain time appointed they should pay a certain Sum to the other the Visigoths made no great haste but left the French to bear all the brunt then coming when the hottest work was over and the Countrey subdued took their share of the Conquest paying the Sum as had been stipulated Year of our Lord 503 or 504. Neither the one nor the other held those Countreys long but restored them entire to Gondebaud who afterwards made a strict Alliance with Clovis against the Visigoths There is great likelyhood that it was in these peaceable days that Clovis laboured to reform the Salique Law which having been made by the French when Pagans might contain many things contrary to the manners and Laws of Christianity This Law was only for the French in his own Kingdom for those of Colen had another which we find to this day by the name of the Law of the Ripuarians conformable notwithstanding in many particulars to the Salique Law Year of our Lord 506. And the following Two Kings powerful and young as were Clovis and Alaric could not be long Neighbours and good Friends Divers petty differences set them at variance by the secret practises of the Bishops of Aquitain who being troubled they should obey Alaric an Arrian Prince pushed on Clovis to a Rupture The Two Kings had an Enterview and discoursed each other in the Island D'Or nigh Amboise between the City of Tours which belonged to the Visigoths and that of Orleance appertaining to the French This Meeting salved up their quarrel for a time and Theodoric King of the Ostrogoths Father-in-law to Alaric and Brother-in-law to Clovis undertook to make them agree but as great a Polititian as he was he could not restrain the Ardour of Clovis This Conquerour knowing the Visigoths were softned or effeminated by a long Peace and having made sure of Gondebaud by a League contracted betwixt them resolved to Attaque Alaric under the specious pretence of Religion the French followed him with great cheerfulness those of Aquitain invited Year of our Lord 507. 507 and him Heaven conducted him by visible Signs and Miracles Immediately the City of Tours surrenders to him Alaric who was getting his Forces together at Poitiers le ts him pass along to Vienne then imprudently resolves to give him Battle it was in the Plains of Vouglay Ten miles from Poitiers Clovis having exhorted his Soldiers Armed them with the Sign of the Cross and for the Word gave them the Name of the Lord. Alaric's Army was defeated and he slain in the Fight by Clovis's his own hand The vanquisher divided his Army in two Bodies with the one his Son Thierry makes himself Master of Albigeois of Rouergne of Quercy and of Auvergue and himself with the other of Poitou of Saintonge all Bourdelois and Burdeaux it self where he passed the Winter then in the Spring of Thoulouse wherein was the Treasure Year of our Lord 508 of the Visigoths At his return he took the City of Angoulesme the Walls whereof sell down before him in fine of all the Three Aquitains the Catholicks casting themselves into his Arms to be freed from the yoak of the Arrians At the same time Gondebaud pursuant to the Treaty made with Clovis Conquered the two Narbonnoises and the City of Narbona from whence he drove Gesali◠Year of our Lord 508 so was called the Bastard Son of Alaric who had seized on the Kingdom of the Visigoths because Almaric the Legitimate Son born of
Leutaire which had pierced as far as Otranto thinking to bring their Plunder to some safe place was beaten near Fano in the Province Emilia and from thence being Retreated by very difficult ways into Venetia which then belonged to Theobaldus when they thought to rest themselves in a little Town the small and unwholsome Lodgings bred so furious a Contagion that it destroyed them all not one Soldier escaping That of Bucelin who staid in the Countrey de Lavour being already weakned very much with the like Plagues was made an end of in a Battle which Narses gave them neer Capoiia from whence only Five Men escaped The year following the Duke Amingua another General of Theodebaldus being joyned with the gleanings Year of our Lord 555 of the Ostrogoths whom the Count Vidin had gathered up had the same fate as Bucelin there remained nothing to the French in Italy but the passage of the Alpes After such bloody Losses Theodebaldus ended his languishing Life being in the 20th of his Age and the 7th of his Reign He had Married but one Wife Valdrade Daughter of Wacon King of the Lombards by whom having no Children his Succession returned to his Two Great Uncles But Clotaire who was the strongest because he had Five Sons all bearing Arms seizes upon it immediately and on his Wife likewise whom he Married As touching the Kingdom Childebert who had none but Daughters durst not then speak a word but as for the Wife the Bishops made him so many Remonstrances about that Incest that he quitted her and gave her in Marriage to Garibald Duke of Bavaria CHILDEBERT in Neustria at Paris and CLOTAIRE in Neustria and Austrasia Burgundy to them Both. The Saxons who were Tributaries to the French even from the time of Thierry Year of our Lord 555. and 556. of Mets having heard of his death took occasion to Revolt conjoyntly with the Turingians Clotaire straightway goes thither and having beaten them near the Weser plundered the Countreys both of the one and the other Year of our Lord 556 The following year they revolt again but when saw him him on the Frontiers they sent Deputies to implore Mercy and to submit to any Conditions The French would give no Ear but resolved to chastise them and because he refused to lead them on they tore down his Tent and forced him to go in the Front and indeed they were beaten with a horrible slaughter and the King gladly proffer'd the Saxons that Peace which had been denied them Year of our Lord 557 His Brother Childebert jealous of his prosperities incited them a third time to take up Arms against him and at the same instant set his own Son Chramne to rebel against him Clotaire had bestowed on him the Government of Aquitain where he had behaved himself so tyrannically that great Complaints were brought against him his Father had therefore recalled him to Court to give an account of his actions he having refused to come he sends his two other Sons Charibert and Gontran into Aquitain to compel him to Obedience and in the mean time marches against the Saxons whom he brought under by several Defeats and imposed a Tribute on them of 500 Oxen. While he was in Saxony a rumour was spread that he was slain Childebert falls into Champagne and ravages it the two young Brothers being affrighted retired into Burgundy Chamne pursues them and from thence comes to Paris where he engages himself by an Oath to Childebert never to reconcile himself to his Father Year of our Lord 558 Childebert returning from Champagne was struck with a troublesome malady which having made him languish for some time ended not but in death St. Germain Bishop of Paris buried him in the Church of St. Vincent which he had Erected Amongst his Virtues he was eminent in his Charity towards the Poor and his Zeal for Religion The first made him part with all his Gold and Silver Plate to bestow it in Charity the other was signalized by the several Foundations for pious Uses and by his care to propagate the Faith and preserve its Purity For he made an Edict to demolish all the Pagan Temples and the Pope Pelagius being suspected guilty of the Errors condemned by the Council of Chalcedon he sent to him to know his Profession of the Faith that he might take some course against that scandal His Wife Ultrogoth survived him a long time and led a Holy Life with two Daughters she had by him they were named Chrotherge and Chrotesinda they never Married Their Uncle Clotaire whether in hatred to their Father or for fear lest they should pretend to the Succession detained them in prison with their Mother till he had secured himself of the Kingdom This is the First Example of the Salique Law in favour of the Males to the Crown Clotaire succeeded to the exclusion of his Nieces and he was so happy that having survived his three elder Brothers he rejoyned in his own person the entire Succession of the Grand Clovis Clotair I. King VII POPE JOHN III. 559. In March S. 14 years Two only under this Reign Year of our Lord 560 THe Prince Chramne destitute of the protection of Childebert reconciled himself to his Father but soon after he flies off again and retires into Bretagne to Conober one of the Princes of that Countrey for there were divers and such as did not depend upon the French His Father hotly pursues him and fought him neer the Sea-side History does not exactly mark out the place but that the Bretons were defeated Conober killed in the Fray and Chramine taken prisoner The cruel Father orders his People to burn him with his Wife and his Children which they presently executed on the spot putting Fire to a place filled with Straw where they had locked them up So cruel an action caused in him a cruel Repentance in vain he strove to appease Year of our Lord 560 that remorse by his Devotions and great Donations to the Church Coming back from a great Hunting in the Forrest of Cuise a burning Fever seized on his Bowels whereof he died at Compiegnè He was in the 61 year of his age and about the Year of our Lord 561 end of the 49th of his Reign His four Sons conducted his Corps with great Pomp the Priests Singing all the way of the City of Soissons where they buried him as he had ordained in the Church and before the Altar of St. Medard He had four or five Wives amongst the rest he kept two Sisters together at one time Ingonde and Haregonde by the First he left three Sons Cherebert Gontran Sigebert who Reigned and a Daughter named Clodosuinda who Married Alboin King of the Lombards By Haregonda he had Chilperic who Reigned likewise and by Ghinsine the unhappy Chramne Many Authors antient enough give him a Daughter named Blitilda and Marry her with the Senator Ansbert whom they make paternal Grandfather to St. Arnold Some modern
of Soissons and Paris in Neustria CHILDEBERT II. called the Young aged Five years in Austrasia Year of our Lord 575 The death of Sigebert was followed with a suddain and general Revolution the Austrasians raised the Siege of Tournay and having joyned with those who were at Vitry they retired in confusion the Neustrians returned to the Obedience of Chilperic and Brunehaud found her self surrounded and cooped up in Paris where she then was with her Children and knew not how to get thence But the wisdom of the Duke Gombaud the greatest Lord of Austrasia found out a way to save the Pupil Childebert having let him down over the Walls in a Basket and put him into the hands of a faithful Person who himself carried him into the City of Mets. Already some of the Austrasians had made their Composition with Chilperic but the rest being assembled together in great numbers according to their custom set the young Prince upon the Royal Seat on New-years-day and put him under the protection of Gontran so that Chilperic lost his hopes of invading that Kingdom but he seized upon that of Paris and banished Brunehaud to Rouen and her two Daughters to Meaux Year of our Lord 576 He had sent Meroveus his eldest Son by Queen Audovere to seize upon Poitou which belonged to the Kingdom of Childebert Meroveus instead of putting this design in execution went to Tours and from thence to Rouen where he suffered himself to be so much surprized with the charms of Brunehaud as then aged at least 28 years that he Married her Pretextat Bishop of Rouen God-father to the young Prince making the Marriage The Father hastens thither and having by deceitful words drawn those so newly Wedded out of a Church where they had taken shelter he set a Guard upon Brunehaud and carried his Son away with him Mean time the Austrasian Lords who were come to submit to him returned again to Childebert Godin amongst others who to carry somewhat with him that might bid him welcom armed the Champanois and made himself Master of Soissons where he wanted but little of surprizing Fredegonda Chilperic was quickly there vanquishes him and re-takes the Town but Fredegonda believing that Godin had not undertaken so bold an enterprize without the participation of Meroveus and Brunehaud obliged her Husband to confine that young Prince and a while after to force him to turn Priest and send him to the Monastery of Aunisse which is called now St. Calas the name of its first Abbot The Austrasians demand their Queen Brunehaud with so much earnestness that Year of our Lord 576 he sent her to them and yet he could not forbear to invade the Lands of Childebert His Son Clovis took the Town of Saintes but the Duke Didier going to besiege that of Limoges met in his way the Patrician Mummole whom Gontran sent to Year of our Lord 577 defend the Country belonging to his Pupil the Fight was so obstinate that there were slain Thirty thousand on both sides three parts of them were Didier's who saved himself with much ado About the same time Meroveus escaped from the Monastery and secured himself in the Church called St. Martins of Tours prompted thereto by Gailen his most intimate Confident who was come to visit him and drawn by Gontran-Boson who had sheltred himself in that place as we have related The Step-Mother Ferdegonda favoured this Boson for the same reason that Chilperic would put him to death and maintained a private Commerce with him that he might destroy Meroveus as he had made his Brother Theodebert to perish The young Prince having notice that Fredegonda sought by all means to take away his life did not find himself there in security He goes out from thence accompanied with this Boson whose treachery he knew not of and would go to find out Brunehaud but the Austrasians refused to admit him he remained then some time concealed and a Vagabond in Champagne After which this Boson and Giles Bishop of Rheims upon the pretence of delivering up the City of Teroüenne to him made him fall into their Ambuscades surrounding and taking him Prisoner in a Village of which they gave immediate notice to Chilperic he went thither with Year of our Lord 577 all diligence but found that his unfortunate Son was dead he had been Poynarded by the order of Fredegonda who made him believe that apprehending he should be put to tortures he had borrowed the helping hand of Gailen his favourite to dispatch him A while before the Bishop Pretextat his Godfather was accused before the Bishops assembled in Councel at Paris where no proofs appearing strong enough against him touching what was alledged he suffers himself to be induced by two false Brothers upon an assurance the King would pardon him to confess more than they could desire for which he was banished to an Island near Coustances but with hopes of returning because he pretended he had not been degraded though they had placed Melantius in his See Death having snatched away the two Sons which Gontran had by Austrigilda his second Wife although he were not above the age of getting Children not being above Fifty he desired the Austrasians to bring his Nephew Childebert to him and Adopted him having placed him in his Royal Seat These two Princes being thus allied sent to Chilperic to demand their part of the Kingdom of Paris and declared War against him Chilperic did but scoff at them diverting himself in building of Cirques or places for publick Spectacles at Paris and at Soissons where he would have entertained the People with Chariot-races could he have found Charioteers that had skill enough The Bretons about the year 441. had possessed themselves of Vannes afterwards Year of our Lord 578 Clovis had taken that place again and likewise the Cities of Nants and Rennes at that time governed by Roman Captains This year 578. Waroc or Guerec a Count of Bretagne had the boldness to seize again upon Vannes which appertained to the Kingdom of Chilperic and march up to the French who were encamped on the Banks of the River Vilain They had some Companies of Saxons or Sesnes-Bessins in their Army one night he passes the River and beat up their Quarter but three days afterwards finding himself too weak for so potent an Enemy he desires Peace swore fealty to the King and renders up the City of Vannes upon condition he should remain Governor A short while after he again seizes it and so long as he lived put the French to a great deal of trouble Chilperic and his wicked Wife Fredegonda over-burthened the People with Imposts they had taxed an Amphore of Wine upon every half Acre of Vineyard several other Charges upon things of another kind and a Tribute upon the head of every Slave and indeed a kind of Poll-money for every Freeman insomuch that their Subjects ran away out of the Kingdom as a place of Torment and peopled
informed of it sent one of his Dukes who quashed that Design The Provinces suffered most horribly by the cruel Discord of these Kings the Soldiers who marched every where plunder'd burnt and put all to the Sword There was no Discipline but so uncontroul'd a License that the Soldiers would fly in the faces of their own Officers if they did but question or forbid them as soon as on the meanest fellow With this cruel Desolation Heavens sent a cruel Epidemical Disease which raged over all France but most fiercely over Paris and that Vicinage it was called Lues Inquinaria because it appeared in those parts it burnt those that were tainted with it with great pain and made an Escar in a short time like a Cautery the most part died howling and shreiking most horribly and there was no cure found but in the Churches and especially that of our Ladies Chilperic had besieged Melun and commanded three of his Dukes to attaque Year of our Lord 583 Bourges the Berryvians came forth to meet them and gave them Battle which was very bloody to both Parties Gontran who went in his own Person to fight Chilperic having met with a Body of his Men who had left the rest to get Plunder cut them all off Chilperic much cooled with this Rebuke caused some Propositions to be made towards an Accommodation and Gontran who was of a mild and peaceable Temper receives them with joy Chilperic thought with himself that now he should get him to joyn to oppress Childebert in whose Kingdom he had great intelligence by the means of the Bishop of Rheims but maugre all the intrigues of those Factious Spirits Gontran and Childebert were reconciled the Uncle restored that part of Marseilles which began the breach to his Nephew again and they formed a League together to recover at their joynt Charges and Expence those Cities belonging to Chereberts Kingdom which Chilperic had gotten from it Upon the point when Childebert was preparing himself to assault Chilperic the Emperor Mauritius for the Sum of 50000 Crowns of Gold ready Money obliges him to carry his Forces into Italy against the Lombards who held the City of Rome besieged The young Prince but Fourteen years of Age went in Person Their King Autaris did not oppose Force with Force but putting his Men into several places let the Torrent run on and that it might for ever be turned another way he yielded up his Kingdom to the French and became their Tributary It is fit we understand that in the year 584. the Lombards perceiving that the Emperor Mauritius would needs endeavour by all means to root them out of Italy they thought the best way to preserve themselves was to restore their State to a Monarchy again and made Autaris the Son of Clephus King But nevertheless their thirty Dukes kept as their Propriety and as Hereditary the Titles to those Cities they then held but so that they should be obliged in certain Services to him particularly to obey and follow him in time of War This is perhaps the true Original of that Knights Service or Fee so much searched after by the Curious at least it is said they were setled or establish'd according to the Custom of the Lombards Year of our Lord 584 After many Wars Chilperic thinking to enjoy some rest was Assassinated in the Court of his Palace of Chelles in Brie which hapned towards the end of September One Evening in the twilight as he was alighting from his Horse being come from Hunting accompanied with but few a Murtherer gave him two Stabs with a Knife one under his Arm-pit the other into his Belly An Author attributes this unhappy blow to Brunehaud but others accuses his Wife Fredegonda who was obliged say they to prevent him because he had discover'd her Adultery with a Lord named Landry History describes this King to us Proud Inhumane Malicious Dissembling and a great Projector of Imposts but Crafty Patient Magnificent and instructed with good Learning In our days have been found it was Anno 1643. a couple of Tombs just by one another under ground at the entrance into the Church of St. Germain des Prez the name of Chilperic which was written upon one of the two hath made it to be conjectured that it was his and the other his Wife 's however it be that other Tomb in the same Church whereon we see his Statue is a Cenotaph which hath been placed there in these last Ages Of so many Sons as he had gotten on divers Women there remained but one who was but four months old and had as yet no name he caused him to be Nursed at the Burrough of Vitry near Tournay for fear they should destroy him by Poyson or Witchcraft as he believed they had done the others He had likewise a Daughter by Fredegonda she was named Rigunta who was then on her way into Spain to meet with Ricarede the King eldest Son to Leuvigildus to whom she was betrothed When she was gotten to Thoulousa the news came of her Fathers Death Didier Duke of that Country rifled all her Equipage so that she went no farther but returned to her Mother to whom she gave a great deal of trouble being much like her in Humour and ill Qualities Clotair II. King X. POPES PELAGIUS II. S. Five years during this Reign St. GREGORY I. Called the Great chosen Sept. 590. S. thirteen years six months SABINIANUS In Sept. 604. S. five months nineteen days BONIFACE III. Chosen in Sep. 606. S. nine months BONIFACE IV. Chosen 607. S. six years eight months DEUS-DEDIT Elected in 614. S. three years BONIFACE V. Chosen in 617. S. nine years HONORIUS I. Elected 13 May 626. S. twelve years five months of which six years in this Reign Vncle Cousin Germans GONTRAN in Burgundy and part of Neustria CHILDEBERT in Austrasia CLOTAIR II. Aged four or five months in Neustria Year of our Lord 584 THe Conscience of the Crime and the fear of Childebert who was at that time at Meaux terrified Fredegonda so much that leaving part of her Treasure at Chelles she flies to Paris and thrusts her self for Sanctuary in the Church of Nostre-Dame under the Protection of the Bishop Gontran having heard of the death of his Brother came presently with great Company Childebert was set forward likewise to have gotten in but finding the place was possessed he retires to Meaux and sends Ambassadors to him to demand part of the Kingdom of Paris and then again some others to pray him to deliver up Fredegonda to him to punish her for the Murther of her Husband and of Meroveus and Clovis To the first he Replied That all the Kingdom of Paris belonged to him because his Brothers Sigebert and Chilperic had forfeited their shares by violating the Treaty of Agreement made between them three and as for the other he would refer it to an Assembly of the Estates which was to be held on a day appointed He remained two months at
needs then have been very aged but it appears rather that she was Sister to Odillon Duke of Bavaria and Widow of some Lord of that Countrey as yet very beautiful since Martel would take the trouble of bringing her unless it were some affection he had for the Neece whom indeed he was Married unto some while after After divers Wars against the People beyond the Rhine of which we have no particulars Year of our Lord 730 hapned that against Aquitain Duke Eudes had broken the Treaty made with Charles and made a League with the Sarrazin Munuza giving him for pledge of this Union his Daughter Lampagia one of the most beautiful Princesses of those times This Munuza was Governour of the Spanish Countreys on this side the Hebrus but was revolted from Iscam who was Caliph Charles who was ever on Horseback having had intelligence that Eudes moved falls immediately into Aquitain and having sacked it all as far as the Garonne severely chastised him for his breach But he was not quit for all this for at the same time as Charles went out Abdiracman or Abderame Lieutenant-General of the Caliph Iscam in Spain being entred Year of our Lord 731 in another way after he had vanquished and taken Munuza prisoner in Cerdagne with his new Spouse traversed Aquitania Tertia perhaps not without fighting the Gascons who held it and forced and sacked the City of Burdeaux In this manner it was that Eudes drew the Sarracens into France which hath given occasion to some to write that they were called in Now he durst not wait for them beyond the Rivers but was retreated on this side the Dordogne and there being reconciled with Martel he assembled his Forces staying for him to come and joyn him with his French Men. Abderame would not allow him the time but pressing still forwards passed the River to attaque him in his Camp Year of our Lord 732 The Duke stood his ground and fought him as bravely as could be but in the end was overcome with inestimable loss of People However some small portions of this great wrack were left him with which he made his Retreat and came and joyned Martel's Army which had passed the Loire and were Encamped some say near Tours upon the River of Cher others a little on this side of Poitiers Abderame following his blow after he had sacked the City of Poitiers marched Year of our Lord 732 directly to Tours to plunder the Sepulchre of St. Martin in his way he meets with Martel who puts him to a full stop The two Armys having looked with threatning countenance upon each other seven days beginning first with several skirmishes at length came to a general Battle which was given upon a Saturday in the month of October The Saracens being light and nimble charged with much briskness but being ill Armed broke themselves against the great Battallions of the French who were sheltred under their Bucklers There were great numbers slain but not 375000 as hath been said for in their whole Army there were but 80 or 100000 Men. Abderame himself the General perished there The night parted the fray and favoured the Infidels who not daring to abide another days Engagement Retreated by long Marches into Septimania the French perceived very late that their Camp was forsaken but fearing some stratagem and withal being busie in getting together and sharing the Plunder which was very rich they did not endeavour to pursue them Year of our Lord 733 This great Victory secured Christendom which would have become a prey to the Barbarians if they had gained France which was its only Bulwark but it seems Charles did not make good use of this great advantage no more then of all those others that Heaven bestowed upon him when he gained his ends he set himself upon persecuting every thing that cast but the least shaddow upon his Grandeur even the very Prelats whom he banished and imprisoned taking away not only the Treasures and Revenues of the Churches to pay his Captains but likewise bestowing on them Abby's and Bishopricks for their reward so that there were many without Pastors and Monasteries were filled more with Soldiers then with Monks The Churches of Lyons of Vienne of Auxerre were destitute of their Bishops and dispoiled of their Goods which he had given to his Martial Officers as if they had been a Prize taken from the Enemy Upon his return from Aquitain he banished Eucher bishop of Orleans with some of his Kindred First to Colen then into the Countrey of Hesbain because he defended the Rights and Possessions of the Church with too much courage Five years before he had also banished Rigobert Bishoy of Reims who had refused him his Gates when he marched against Rainfroy Year of our Lord 733 The Kingdom of Burgundy did not as yet own his Commands perhaps Arnold the Son of Grimoald whom some believe was their Duke thought to hold the Sovereignty When he had conquered the Saracens he marches directly to them and brings all the Countrey into subjection Year of our Lord 734 With the like expedition he vanquished the Frisons killed their Duke Popon who succeeded Ratbod in a great Battle subjugated afterwards the Ostergow and the Westergow these are two Countreys in West Frisia pulled down all their Temples their Sacred Groves and their Idols and covered all the Land with slaughter and destruction and the rubbish of their Ruines Year of our Lord 735 The year following a new War was kindled betwixt him and the Duke of Aquitain this Duke having been compelled to make a very disadvantageons Treaty with Charles to procure assistance against the Saracens as soon as the danger was over scorned to keep his word Therefore Martel marches a third time into his Countrey and having followed him at the very heels with his drawn Sword from place to place without being able to catch him returned home loaden with spoil The same year Death ended the misfortunes of that Duke but not those of Aquitain He had two Sons Hunoud and Hatton some add Remistang who to others appears rather to be his Wives Brother He bestowed upon Hatton the County of Poitiers for his Portion Hunoud had all the rest of the First and Second Aquitain of which he took possession as if it had been an Hereditary and Independant Estate Charles who would have no other partaker soon returned again with his Army and marching quite thorough to the Garonne seized upon Blaye and some other places so that Hunoud was constrained to submit to his Will and receive the Dutchy from him as he had before from his Father giving his Oath both to him and to his Son Pepin Year of our Lord 737 His Celerity and his Valour did let nothing escape the same year he beat the Aquitain Forces and went and setled the Governours that had disturbed the City of Lyons and a part of Burgundy and proceeding forward made sure of Provence and put Governours into Arles and
convey'd to the Abbey of Fleury upon the Loire which from thence was named St. Bennets but it was to oppose the endeavours of the Pope and countermine his Designs in those Undertakings In effect the Monk pleaded the Cause of Astolphus so stoutly in the Parliament of Crecy that it was agreed some Ambassadors should be dispatched to Astolphus to endeavour an accommodation The Lombard received and treated them as coming from a Great and Potent State He was willing to lay aside his pretences to the Soveraignty of the City of Rome and its dependences but would reserve the Exarchat he had conquered by the Sword The Pope on the contrary maintained that it belonged to him aâ— being the spoiles of an heretick and he sollicited Pepin so effectually that that King promised to assist him in the conquering of it Year of our Lord 754 Mean time Carloman for having espoused the Interest of the Lombard too far brought himself to an ill pass for the King and the Pope consulting and contriving together shut him up in a Monastery at Vienne where he dyed the same Year and his Sons were shaved for fear they should one day claim the Estate their Father had once possessed Year of our Lord 755 The great Preparations for War and a second Embassy being not sufficient to remove Astolphus from his firm resolution of detaining the Exarchat and the Pentapole Pepin caused his Army to march that way His Van-Guard having seized the Cluses or the Passages of the Alps and beaten off those Lombards that thought to defend them Astolphus retires into Pavia where presently afterwards he was shut up by Pepin The havock the ruine and firings the French made use of round about that City could not draw him into the Field The Pope in the mean while grew weary and melancholy at the desolation of Italy and he also feared lest Pepin should make himself absolute Master if he took that Place by force He therefore condescends to an Accommodation at the earnest intreaty of the Lombard and it was easily obtained for he then promised him to give up the Exarchat and the Justices of Saint Peter which in my apprehension were certain Lands within the Bishoprick of Rome Year of our Lord 756 So soon as the French-mens backs were turned the Lombard instead of performing those hard Conditions resolves to revenge himself upon the Pope and the following Year went and laid Siege to Rome where he made such spoil as declared his cruel resentment This infraction obliged Pepin to repass the Mountains Upon the noise of his March he decamps from before Rome which he had much straitned and retreats the second time to Pavia Pepin besieges him and presses on so close that having no other means to save his Life and Crown he is compell'd to take himself for Judge and Arbitrator of the differences between him and the Pope It was not possible but Pepin must judge in favour of the last And indeed he would grant no Peace to Astolphus but upon condition he should make good his former Years agreement and moreover give up Comachio This was treated and negotiated in the presence of the Emperour's Ambassadours who being come to that Siege to demand those Countries for their Master the Lombards had taken suffered the displeasure and shame of a refusal The Exarchat comprehended Ravenna Bologna Imola Faenza Forly Cesenna Bobia Ferrara and Adria The Pentapole held Rimini Pesaro Conca Fano Senigalia Anconna and some other lesser places Year of our Lord 756 A Chaplain of King Pepin's received all these Towns brought away Hostages and laid the Keys upon the Altar of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome with the draught of the Treaty to signify that Pepin made a donative thereof to those Holy Apostles Some do imagine he did it in the Name of the Emperour Constantine Copronimus who indeed would not consent to it and they believe that it is upon the equivocation of this name that the Popes have founded their fabulous donation of Constantine the Great Astolphus dyed the Year following by a Fall from his Horse Didier his Constable had a Party strong enough to Elect him King But those for the Monk Rachis Brother to King Luitprand who had left his Cloister puzled him very much He betakes himself to Pope Stephanus promising him to make good the restitution Astolphus had agreed to Pepin's Ambassadours were of Opinion that he should assist him in it so that he constrained Rachis to return and betake himself agen to his Monastery Stephanus dyes some Months after Paul I. succeeded him Didier and he lived well enough with each other Year of our Lord 757 The Emperour Constantine had not yet lost all hopes of recovering the Exarchate by means of the French and he endeavoured to regain it by the force of Presents and fair Words Amongst other things he sent a pair of Organs to the King who was then at Compiegne These were the first that had been seen in France Tassillon Duke of Bavaria Son of Duke Vtilon or Odillon came to the same place to take his Oath of Fidelity to King Pepin rendring Homage to him his hands within the Kings and promising him such Service as a Vassal oweth to his Lord which he confirmed by Swearing on the Bodies of St. Denis Saint German of Paris and Saint Martin at Tours Year of our Lord 758 This Year they changed the time of the General Assembly which was held in March and was now put off till May. And so it was no longer called the Field of Mars but the Field of May. Pepin thought to take some rest this Year when Intelligence was brought him that the Saxons were revolted Though they were embodied in an Army and had made Retrenchments upon all the Passages into their Country he gained them all at the first attempt and forced them to give him their Oaths and to pay Tribute The Kings of this Second Race Celebrated the Festivals of Christmass and Easter with great Solemnity cloatbed in their Royal Ornaments the Crown upon their heads and keeping open Court and for this reason the Authors of those times never fail to put down every Year the place where they solemnized those holy Feasts Year of our Lord 759 The City of Narbonna was yet held by the Saracens This Year Pepin having besieged it the Citizens who were Visigoths and Christians slew the Infidel Garrison and delivered the place up to him upon condition that he should suffer them to live according to their own Laws that is to say the Roman Law which had ever been observed by the People of Septimania and is yet to this day Year of our Lord 760 There remained of all the Countries that had been subject to the Kingdom of France none but Aquitain that was not brought to their duty Their Duke Gaifre did not acknowledg Pepin and moreover he or the Lords of his Country retained what belonged to those Churches the French had in Aquitain
that the People did not believe a Prince wore it Legally if it were not put on by the hand of one Bishop and the consent of all Now those of Bretagne having for the most part been nominated by Louis the Debonnaire would not give their Ministery nor their approbation to this Usurper He contrived therefore an accusation of Simony against them by the means of an Abbot named Connoyon esteemed as a Saint by the People The assembly sends them before the Pope to justify themselves the Abbot follows them to Rome and Neomene causes him to be accompanied with a stately Embassy with a Present of a Gold Crown for the Pope and an order to desire of him the Restoration of the extinguished Royalty in Bretagne The whole House of France opposed this so strongly that he obtained nothing of the Holy-Father but some Relicks and verbal Reprimands for the accusation against the Bishops But at their return he frighted them so with the fear of Death as made them confess those crimes and thereupon caused them to be deposed Year of our Lord 848. And 849. Presently after he put men of his own Faction in their rooms made three more Bishopricks that is of Dole Treguier and St. Brieuc and Ordained the Bishop of Dole for Metropolitan The Popes had bestowed the Pall on those Prelats in the sixth Century All this tended towards his Crowning and Anointing after the Mode of the French Kings Which was performed in the City of Dole where he had assembled the Estates of his petty Kingdom All his Bishops assisted except Actard of Nantes who for that reason being turned out of his See retired to the Arch-Bishop of Tours his true Metropolitan who having called together the Bishops of his Province and those adjoyning caused some Remonstrances to be made to Neomene but to no purpose Year of our Lord 848 Two other Enemies perhaps leagued together young Pepin and the Normans drew Charles's Army into Aquitain In the Month of March he took some of those Pirats Ships in the Dordogne and compelled Pepin to leave the Field to him But when he was gone from that Province the Normands surprised Burdeaux by the treachery of the Jewes that were in it and took William Duke of the Gascons Prisoner and such others as their covetousness prompted them to spare alive after their fury had been glutted with blood The French were so feeble and weak as to let them make that place their Store-house and Armory for several years Year of our Lord 849 The two Kings Lotaire and Charles had an interview in the Palace of Peronne and by Oaths renewed again their affection and league for mutual Security Charles Brother to Pepin of Aquitain relying too much upon these seeming demonstrations was so imprudent when he returned from Lotaire's Court of whose protection he made no doubt as to pass by West France Count Vivian observing his steps stop'd him and carried him to Charles the Bald who at the Assembly of Chartres caused him to be shaved and sent him to the Monastery of Corbie About four years afterwards Louis the Germanick his Uncle made him Arch-Bishop of Ments Year of our Lord 850 King Pepin his Brother had many very ill qualities he was a Drunkard filthyly Debauched and Violent vexing and grieving his Subjects and Authorizing the unjustice and robberies committed by his Officers A good part of the Grandees of Aquitain having conceived a kind of scorn and hatred for him invited and called in Charles the Bald whom they received with great applause at Limoges and attended him to the Siege of Tolouse which surrendred on composition But as soon as he had left Aquitain they reconciled themselves to Pepin Year of our Lord 850 The Voyage which Charles the Bald made into Bretagne to put a reinforcement into Rennes did not prevent Neomene from Besieging that Town and taking Prisoners all the Chief Officers of that Garrison Year of our Lord 850 The same year the Traytor Lambert having turned his Coat seized Count Amaulry and divers other French Lords who were gotten into Nantes without doubt to defend that place Year of our Lord 851 The following year Neomene attaquing the French Territories by Anjou and destroying their Churches with as much Barbarity almost as the Normans was smitten as it is believed by the hand of God whereof he died in few hours space His Son Herispoux succeeded him There was a general Assembly held of all the Kingdoms of the French Monarchy on the banks of the Meuse where the three Brothers met and swore Amity and mutual Assistance At their departure from thence Charles goes into Bretagne to attaque Herispoux whom he guessed to be as yet unsettled Their Armies engaged on the Confines of Anjou If we credit the Bretons Charles's was but ill handled However it were he agreed to a Peace with the Breton to take possession of Aquitain which was a thing of more importance and also to oppose the Normans The same year the Pyrate Hachery coming out of Burdeaux with his Fleet destroyed the Abbey of Fontenelle to the very Foundations then going up the Seine with his small Boats he plundred all the Country for a great way on either side and burnt divers Cities amongst others that of Beaurais Year of our Lord 852 Pepins ill conduct had so highly offended the Lords of his Kingdom that in fine they seized on his Person and delivered him up to Charles who caused him to be shorn and confined to the Monastery of Saint Mard. Whence making his escape he roved a while and took part with the Normans which made him only the more odious So that being retaken he was close shut up in the Castle of Senlis Year of our Lord 852 The same year Lotaire associated his eldest Son Louis in the Empire He had three living this Louis Lotaire and Charles Lotaire and Louis his Son associate in the Empire Louis King of East-France Bavaria Charles of West-France and Aquitaine There would be no end if we should set down all the exploits and ravages of Year of our Lord 852. And 853. the Normans In An. 852 and 853. other multitudes went up the Seine again and this latter year some went up the Loire plundred the City of Tours and set Fire to the Churches particularly to that of the Grand Saint Martins Ebon had setled himself again in the Arch-Bishoprick of Reims when Lotaire invaded Year of our Lord 852 the Territories of Charles the Bald Afterwards that King expelled him and in his stead caused Hincmar to be Elected who after many contests was this year confirmed in that Arch-Bishoprick by the Synod of Soâ—ssons Year of our Lord 852 Whether it were by necessity or evil counsel the Bald treated the Aquitains very rudely He caused several of the principal Heads to fly amongst others that of a Count named Gosbert which begot so much aversion in them towards their new Soveraign that under pretence that he took no care to
King Lewis Aged above 45 years went Year of our Lord 951 from Loan where her Son kept her as a Prisoner and married Hebert of Vermandois Count de Troyes Son of that Traytor Hebert who made her Husband die in Prison She thus satisfied her revenge to the prejudice of her honour or perhaps made that only a cover for her incontinence LOUIS Transmarine in France Otho in Germany Lorrain Conrad in Burgundy Arles Berenger II. and Adelbert his Son in Italy Year of our Lord 950 Adeleida the Widdow of Lotaire was Beautiful and Charming she had the City of Pavia in Dowre and besides great riches and possessions much credit and many Friends as well in that Country as on this side the Mountains being the Daughter of Rodolph II. and Sister to Conrad Kings of Burgundy For these reasons Berenger sought to gain her for his Son but she couragiously rejected the proposition Upon her obstinate refusal he besieges her in Pavia took her and sent her Prisoner to the strong Castle of Garda whence the Lake hath borrowed its name She notwithstanding made her escape by the help of a Priest reduced after she was got out to live upon such Alms as the Priest begg'd for her Then retired to the Marquiss Athon her Kinsman who undertook to protect her in his Fortress of Canossa Year of our Lord 950 Presently Berenger besieges it with all his Forces The second year of the siege and the end of their provisions drew near when that Queen sent to implore the aid of King Otho and to offer him with her self the Kingdom of Italy The Love of Honour more then Love to that Lady drew this Prince thither He Year of our Lord 951 delivered her Married her because he could not otherwise enjoy her and carried her into Germany leaving his Army with Conrad Duke of Lorrain to finish that War Year of our Lord 952 This Conrad prosecuted the War so briskly against Berenger and his Son that both of them laying down their Arms came to a Conference with him and thorough his persuasions went both of them into Germany to King Otho who having treated them magnificently and taken their Oaths and made them do hommage restored to them all that Kingdom excepting only Veronnois and Friuli which he bestow'd upon his Brother Henry Duke of Bavaria The contest about the Arch-Bishoprick of Reims and some other particular Lordships had brought King Lewis and Hugh le Blanc again to Daggers-drawing But Hugh in fine whatever motive prompted him desired to confer with Queen Gerberge his wives Sister who came to meet him And afterwards treating with the King personally in Soissons he made Peace about the end of March in this year 953. Year of our Lord 953 This re-union perhaps pleased King Otho but little but he found himself not in a condition to disturb it He was too much troubled with the Civil-War made against him by his own Son Luitolf incited by Conrad Duke of Lorrain who made him jealous of a Son as yet in the Cradle which his Father had by Adeleida his second wife Otho thrust Conrad out of his Dutchy and at length brought his Son to his duty not without much hazard fighting and labour Year of our Lord 954 But Conrad obstinately rebellious turned every stone to be revenged He made a League with Berenger King of Italy as ingrateful as perfidious against Otho and drew the Hungarians in twice first into Lorrain An. 954. whence they over-run even to Champagne and Burgundy and having done a world of mischief were beaten back into Italy the second into Bavaria where a most dreadful multitude got in Year of our Lord 955 together Yet Otho fought them and cut them all off after Conrad had been killed in the scuffle This was in Anno 595. Year of our Lord 954 During these troubles in the year 954. King Lewis died by a strange accident As he was going from Laon to Reims spurring to ride after a Wolfe which he met in his way his Horse stumbled and threw him so rudely on the ground that he was bruised all over These bruises turned into a kind of Leprosy which caused his death the 15 th of October in the City of Reims whither he would be carried and where he lies buried in the Church of St. Remy His Reignwas 18 years three Months and his Age 38 or 39 years Of five Sons which he had by Gerberge there were but two remaining Lotaire and Charles whereof Lotaire the eldest was about 14 or 15 years old and Charles but 15 or 16 Months The small Age of this last the poverty of the Kings who had scarce any other Towns in propriety but Reims and Laon and perhaps the interest of Hugh le Blanc were the reasons why he did not share the Kingdom with his elder as had been ever almost the Custom in the first and second Race or Line Since this time it was never equally divided amongst the Brothers the eldest alone hath had the Title of King and the cadets or younger have only had some Lands in appennage and under an entire Subjection And even of these the Kingly power being increased hath taken the Reversion for want of Heirs-males which hath not a little contributed to restore the Grandeur of the Monarchy LOTAIRE King XXXIII POPES AGAPET II. above a year in this Reign JOHN XII who was the first that changed his name introduced An. 955. S. 9 years within some Months is deposed BENEDICT V. put in by the Romans An. 964. S. some Months JOHN XIII nominated by the Empp. Otho in 964. S. almost 7 years DOMNUS Elect in 972. S. 3 Months BENEDICT VI. in 972. S. one year 3 Months BENEDICTUS VII in 974. S. 9 years and some Months JOHN XIV Elect. in July 849. S. one year one Month. Lotaire in France Otho in Germany Lorrain Conrad in Burgundy Arles Berenger and Adelbert his Son in Italy THE greatest part of the power being in the hands of Hugh he might have taken the Crown had he not feared the Forces of King Otho maternal Uncle to the Sons of the deceased King and the jealousy of the other French Lords For these reasons Queen Gerberge his wives Sister being come to him to take his Counsel he chose rather to preserve his Authority by protecting a Widdow and a Minor then by oppressing them Having therefore carried Lotaire to Reims he caused him to be Crowned the 12 th of November by the Arch-Bishop Artold Upon this occasion the young King gave the Dukedoms of Burgundy and Aquitain to Hugh le Blanc and to Hugh Capet his eldest Son who being satisfied and the Duke of Normandy likewise for their sakes it was not difficult to calm the other Lords who were less considerable These Dukes in my opinion were of two sorts in those times the one held the Cities and Lands and were become Hereditary the other were general commands over a whole Kingdom as well
he brought most of them to their Duty one after another Eudes being dead during these Transactions he Treated with Hugh de Puiset who was to inherit that Earldom and making him resign his Right provided he would give him his liberty put himself in possession of that place of great importance at that juncture Year of our Lord 1112 c. Some time after Hugh having re-fortisied le Puiset and committing a thousand Insolencies upon the Neighbouring Countries he besieged him in that place but the Champenois having the rest that were in League together for him failed not to come to relieve it Two great Battles were fought one to the Kings disadvantage the other to his advantage after that they talked of an Accommodation and Hugh obtained his Pardon Milon Vicount de Troyes whom the King had re-setled in Montlehery had withdrawn himself from the rest of the Leagued Party Crescy not being able to draw him in again surprized him by Treachery and after he had led him about to divers Castles bound and setter'd not knowing where to secure him so but the King would deliver him nor how to let him go but he would take his Revenge he caused him to be Strangled in the night and thrown out of a Window at the Castle of Gumet He would have had it believ'd that he had broken his Neck endeavouring to make his escape but the Crime was discover'd and the King with great diligence besieged the Castle of Gumet The wretched Murtherer being condemned to justifie himself by Duel in the Court of Amaulry de Montfort had not the courage to expose himself to that hazard and therefore finding himself Convicted he came and cast himself at the Kings Feet gave up his Lands to him and put on the Habit of a Monk as his Pennance Year of our Lord 1116 Hugh du Puiset being Revolted the third time the King again besieged that Castle razed it and then turned that Rebel out of all his Estate This unfortunate Man having in a Sally killed Anseau de Garlande Grand Seneschal and Favourite to the King and not daring to remain any longer in the Country went a while after to the Holy Land which in those times was the Refuge of Banish'd and Condemned People as it was likewise of true Penitents Year of our Lord 1116 Thomas de Marle Lord of Coucy had been Excommunicated and Degraded of his Nobility Anno 1114. by the Popes Legat in the Council of Beauvais for the Sacriledge and Robberies he committed upon the Churches and the People belonging to the Bishopricks of Reims Laon and Amiens That Sentence had inflamed his Rage to do yet worse even to the setting Fire to the City of Laon and the Noble Church of Nostre-Dame I believe it was that of Liesse to Massacre the Bishop Galderic and cut off that Finger whereon he wore the Episcopal Ring The King who flew about every where with incredible Celerity ran that way before this Robber had seized the Tower of Laon forced and razed his Castles of Crecy and Nogent and brought him to Reason Year of our Lord 1116 17. He quelled likewise another puny Tyrannet named Adam that ravaged all the Neighbourhood of Amiens He had gotten possession of the City Tower which was very strong and gave a great deal of trouble but the King having begirt it for two years gained it and razed it About Ten or Eleven years afterwards Thomas draws the King again upon him by the like Deportment so that he went and besieged his Castle of Coucy It hapned that making their approaches Rodolph Count de Vermandois met him wounded him and took him Prisoner He was carried to Laon where he died miserably of his Wounds Henry King of England was the Boute-feu and Support of all these Revolts Year of our Lord 1117 King Lewis in Retaliation had stirred up against him his Nephew William Son of the Deceased Duke Robert whom he admitted to do Hommage for the Dukedom of Year of our Lord 1117 Normandy and gave him the Castle and City of Gisors the first occasion of the Quarrel This Nephew being thus supported put his Uncle to so much trouble that he was fain to make a Peace with Lewis promising to leave all the Rebels to his Mercy Year of our Lord 1118 Archambaud Lord of Bourbon being dead Hemon his Brother surnamed Vaire-Vache under pretence of claiming his Share detained the whole Possession to the prejudice of the Son and Treated his Subjects especially the Clergy very Tyrannically The King assigns him to plead his Right before the Parliament Upon his refusal to appear he went in Person to compel him and besieged his Castle of Germigny Hemon dreading his Wroth came and craved his Pardon he received him to Mercy and took both him and his Nephew along with him to bring them to an agreement of all their Disputes The Quarrel between the Emperor and Pope concerning the right of Investitures being burst out anew with more heat then ever Pascal II. being Pope the Emperor Henry V. had seized both upon him and all his Cardinals and constrained him to allow him the priviledge of nominating two Bishopricks Afterwards that Pope being at liberty annull'd that Treaty in the Council of Latran and Excommunicated the Emperor Year of our Lord 1118 In this year 1118. Galasius was elected in the room of Pascal or Paschalis but he sought not the approbation of the Emperor who being displeased at that neglect or contempt caused one Maurice Burdin to be chosen a Limosin by Birth and Archbishop of Braga in Portugal to whom they gave the name of Gregory Year of our Lord 1119 Gelasius being then driven from Rome took his way into France to hold a Council there as he did in the City of Vienne but he died the same year in the Abby of Clugny Year of our Lord 1119 The Cardinals that had followed him elected Guy Archbishop of Vienne who took the name of Calixtus II. He was the Brother of Stephen Earl of Burgundy and Uncle of Adele or Alix Queen of France who was the Daughter of his Sister and of Humbert Earl of Morienne and this consideration did fortisie the Holy See with great Alliances against the Emperor Year of our Lord 1119 The whole Kingdom of France having taken his part he came from Vienne to Toulouze where he held a Council Thence he went to Reims where he called another in which divers Canons were made to take away Simony the Investiture of Benefices from Laicks Concubines from Priests and the selling of Sacraments The King was present the Emperor Henry would not be there and having refused to part with the right of Investitures was Excommunicated There was almost the same contest and difference betwixt the Popes and the Kings of France These pretending the Election and Provisions of the Popes were not sufficient without their consent So that it had begot great troubles in the Churches of Bourges Reims Beauvais and
People pretended they had the better Title and had most commonly maintain'd themselves in possession of it alledging the Popes could not deprive them of a Right born with the Church its self and practised in the times of the Apostles Year of our Lord 1160 King Lewis relying upon the Judgment of the Gallican Church whom he Assembled for this purpose at Estampes adhered to Alexander All the West followed his Example excepting the Emperor Frederick who with his Almans and what Partisans he had in Italy fiercely rejected him because he was Install'd without his Approbation King Henry besides the Kingdom of England held the Dutchy of Normandy which had then a part of Bretagne holding of it the Country of Maine Anjou Touraine and the Province of Aquitain His Ambition upheld by this great increase Year of our Lord 1160 of Power made him revive afresh the Right his Wife had to the County of Toulouze For this end having made Alliance with Raimond Prince of Arragon and Earl of Barcelonna he raised a great Army of Aquitains and Routiers amongst whom was Malcolme King of Scotland enter'd upon Languedoc took Mâ—issac Cahors and some other places The jealousie Lewis had of his growing Greatness moving him at least as much as Year of our Lord 1160 61. the Prayers and Intreaties of Earl Raimond his Brother-in-Law caused him to march that way and cast himself into Toulouze but he had so few with him that it was in the power of Henry to have forced that City had not the scruple of falling upon his Soveraign deterr'd him from it After which they were reconcil'd but Henry would not let fall his claim and hold of the Earldom of Toulouze till he bestow'd his Daughter Jane Widow of William II. King of Sicily on Earl Raimond In these days the cursed Crew of Routiers and Cottereaux began to make themselves known by their Cruelties and Robberies we cannot tell certainly why they were so called but they were a kind of Soldiers and Adventurers coming from divers parts as from Arragon Navarre Biscay and Brabant who wandred over all Countries and would be hired by any one that offer'd to take them provided they might be allow'd all manner of Licence The Cottereaux were most of them Foot-Soldiers the Routiers served on Horseback In the mean while Pope Alexander fearing the Emperor after he had pull'd down the Pride of the Milannois might come to Rome did not judge himself a fit match and so retired into France where he remained above three years Year of our Lord 1161 This year he held a Council at Clermont in which he did not forbear to thunder against Victor Frederick and all their Adherents Year of our Lord 1161 The most Potent and most Factious Family in all France was the House of Champagne Lewis to divide them from the English and gain them to himself takes Alix for his third Wife who was youngest Sister to the four Brothers Champenois for Constance his second Wife was dead Anno 1159. and for the two Daughters of his first Bed he gave one to Henry the eldest of the four Brothers Earl of Troyes and the other to Thibauld the second Earl of Blois Year of our Lord 1162 Pope Alexander came to Torcy on the River Loire where the two Kings Lewis and Henry received him with extream submission Both of them alighted and each taking one of the Reins of his Horses Bridle conducted him to the House prepared for him Year of our Lord 1162 A second time the Emperor came into the County of Burgundy bringing his Victor with him and a second time some endeavoured to procure a Conference betwixt him and the King to determine that Difference which made the Schism by the Judgment of a Council They agreed upon the place of Interview to be at Avignon as being the Frontier of either Prince whither the King by Oath obliged himself to bring Alexander But that Pope refusing to go there saying he could be judged by none it broke off the Conference and put the King in very great danger For the Almans having reproached him that he kept not his word plotted to way-lay him and had taken him Prisoner had not the King of England caused his Army to advance to disengage him Thence follow'd a cruel War between the Emperor and Alexander which horribly tormented Italy and out of which the Emperor could not withdraw himself but by the means of a shameful submission craving Pardon of the Pope and suffering him to set his Foot upon his Throat Which hapned in Anno 1177. in the City of Venice Year of our Lord 1163 Anno 1163. Alexander assisted at the Council of Tours Assembled by his order and there he thunders once more against Victor and Frederick He caused some Decrees likewise to be made against the Hereticks who had spread themselves over all the Province of Languedoc There were especially of two sorts The one Ignorant and withall addicted to Lewdness and Villanies their Errors gross and filthy and these were a kind of Manicheans The others more Learned less irregular and very far from such filthiness held almost the same Doctrines as the Calvinists and were properly Henricians and Vaudois The People who could not distinâ—uish them gave them alike names that is to say called them Cathares Patarins Boulgres or Bulgares Adamites Cataphrygians Publicans Gazarens Lollards Turlupins and other such like Nick-names Year of our Lord 1163 Death of Odo III. Duke of Burgundy to whom succeeded Hugh III. his Son There being Peace between the two Kings Lewis employs himself in doing Justice and suppressing Disorders The Inhabitants of Vezelay having made a Corporation would have shaken off the Abbot who was their Lord protected by the Earl of Nevers He compell'd them and their Earl to ask Pardon and break their Corporation The same year he went in Person to â—ight the Earl of Clermont the Earl du Puy and the Vicount de Polignac Lords of Auvergne who denied to forbear plundering of Churches overthrew them and brought them Prisoners to Paris where having detained them a long while he releas'd them upon giving their Oaths and Hostages In like manner he punished the Earl of Chaalons with the loss of his County because he had pillag'd the Abby of Clugny and kill'd above five hundred some Monks some Servants However the Daughter of this Man re-entred upon her Patrimony Year of our Lord 1163 Thomas Becket Chancellor of England elected Archbishop of Canterbury Anno 1163. soon lost the good favour of King Henry for divers causes and particularly Year of our Lord 1164 for stickling too fiercely in maintaining the Priviledges of the Clergy Being banished the Kingdom he retired himself in France in the Abby of Pontigny of the Diocess of Sens whence he gave much trouble to his King and suffer'd not a little himself during six years Year of our Lord 1164 Death of Victor the Anti-Pope in whose stead the Cardinals of his Party elected Guy
Canons out of their Churches put the Curats from their Parishes and consiscated and plundred all their Goods Then against the Laity vexing and loading the Citizens with new Imposts and unheard of Exactions tiercing or thirding the Gentry that was taking away Thirds of their Revenues and of all their Goods which had never been heard of in France The Interdiction lasted Seven Months during this time Philip sollicited the Pope so earnestly that he gave order to his Legats to take it off upon condition he should take Isemburge again and in six Months six Weeks six Days and six Hours he would have the Case of her Divorce decided by his two Legats and the Prelats of the Year of our Lord 1200 Kingdom the Friends and Relations of that Princess being assigned to defend her The Assembly was held at Soissons by Isemburges choice King Canut sent the ablest people in his Kingdom to sollicite and plead her Cause After twelve days jugling and proceeding Philip had intimation that Judgment would be against him he goes one fair Morning to fetch Isemburge from her House and setting her up on Horse-back behind him carries her thence having order'd notice to be given to the Legat not to give himself so much trouble about examining whether the Divorce he had Decreed were good or not since he owned it and would have her for his Wife Nevertheless he used her but little better then before nor did shew any more kindness besides some little Civilities to her Year of our Lord 1200 Besore the years end Agnes her Rival died having been five years with the King She had two Children by him One Son and One Daughter whom Pope Innocent III. Legitimated Died likewise Thibauld Earl of Champagne who had then only One Daughter a Minor The King would have the Guardianship-Noble but soon after the death of Thibauld his Wife was brought to bed of a Post-humus Son who had his Fathers Name and the Surname of Great The Daughter lived not long after the birth of the Posthume In those times Usury and Uncleanness Reigned bare-faced in France God raised up two great and virtuous Men Fulk Curate of Neuilly in Brie and Peter de Roucy a Priest in the Diocess of Paris to Preach against these Vices with so much power and efficacy that they reclaimed a great many Souls from those Sins and Follies Now it hapned that a few Months before the death of Thibauld Fulk who had this gift of perswading People to what he approved by his earnest Exhortations knowing there was to be a great meeting of Princes Lords and Gentlemen at a Year of our Lord 1120 Turnament or Justs at the Castle d'Ecris between Braye and Corbie went thither and exhorted them so earnestly effectually to undertake the voyage to the Holy Land that the Earls Baldwin of Flanders Henry d'Anguien his Brother Thibauld de Champagne Lovis de Blois his Brother Simon de Montfort Gautier or Gualtier de Brienne Matthew de Montmorency Stephen du Perche and several other Lords Crossed themselves nevertheless they could not set forwards till two years afterwards The reconcilation between the two Kings seemed perfect and sincere This year they conferr'd at Andeley Nay Philip had the the King of England with him Year of our Lord 1201 to his City of Paris and Treated him with all the magnificence and all the demonstrations of friendship he could desire But John had begun to contrive his own unhappiness by casting off his Wife Avice or Avoise Daughter of the Earl of Glocestre to Marry Isabel only Daughter of Aymar Earl of Angoulesme and Alix of Courtenay whom he ravished from Hugh le Brun Earl de la Marche to whom she was affianced From that time the said Lord sought all manner of ways to revenge himself for that injury He began to hold private intelligence with Philip he endeavour'd to make an insurrection in Poitou and Rodolph his Brother Earl of Eu began to commit Hostilities on the skirts of Normandy John chastised them for their Rebellion bydepriving them of their Lands especially some Castles in the County d'Eu They make address to the King of France their Sovereign Lord and demand Justice of him Upon this difference the two Kings saw one another near Gaillon where Philip who had laid his design spake high and summon'd John to appear in his Court that right might be done not only upon the complaint of Hugh but likewise of Prince Arthur who demanded Maine Anjou and Touraine Year of our Lord 1201 The Earl of Flanders and the other Lords that had taken the Cross departed for the Holy Land and as in those times there were but few Vessels upon the coasts of Provence they had taken their way by Venice where they hop'd to find a great many well fitted and there Thomas I. Earl of Savoy and Boniface Marquis of Montferrat joyned them But the Venetians would not furnish them with Vessels till they had first employ'd their Arms to recover the Cities of Sclavonia especially that of Zara for the Republique from whom they had withdrawn themselves to own the King of Hungary which retarded them above a year in those parts Year of our Lord 1201 In the year 1195. Isaac Angelus Emperour of the East had been deprived of his Empire his Sight and his Liberty by his own Brother Alexis And the Son of that Isaac likewise named Alexis had made his escape into Germany flying to Philip of Snevia pretended Emperour who had Married his Sister This young Prince having notice that there was an Army of the Crossed at Venice went thither to implore their assistance Several difficulties hindred them from going into the Holy-Land besides the Venetians hoped to find it better for their purpose to make a War in Greece because the spoil and plunder promised more gain and seemed more certain to them and more-over all the Latine Christians were ravish'd to meet with this occasion and opportunity to revenge the Treachery and Outrages the Greeks had practised since the beginning of the Holy-War They concluded therefore to turn their Arms that way upon condition the young Alexis would defray the charges of their expedition allow them great rewards and submit the Greek Church to the Obedience of the Pope To provide for the expences of his War King Philip endeavour'd to accustom the Clergy to furnish him with Subsidies and they excused themselves upon their Liberties and for that it was not lawful to employ the Moneys belonging to the Poor in prosane uses they only promis'd to assist him with their Prayers to God Now it hapned that the Lords de Coucy de Retel de Rosey and several others went and pillag'd and invaded their Lands they fly to the King for protection who in their own coin assisted them with Prayers to those Lords but as they understood one another they proceeded to worse dealing Then the Prelats redoubled their intreaties and besought him to employ his Forces
Nations when the accidental Quarrel of an English Mariner with a Mariner of Normandy upon the Coast of Guyenne where they had landed to take in fresh Water set them against one another First Ship and Ship endeavour'd to plunder or take what they could singly on each side then they brought Fleet against Fleet. The English had the worst their King Edward demanded restitution of such Merchants Goods as had been made Prize in these Scuffles Philip on the contrary Summons him to appear in his Court of Parliament as his Vassal Edward sent his Brother Edmund but Philip not satisfied with that caused him to be declared Contumacious and ordered his Lands should be seized Year of our Lord 1292. 1293. In Execution of this Decree the year following the Constable Rodolph de Nesle seized several Cities in Guyenne and even that of Bourdeaux which was the Capital Thus a Riot between Private Men blew their little Sparks of Contention into a flame of War which one may say proved very fatal to France since it gave way to the overthrowing of her ancient Laws and Liberties and the introducing and establishment of divers Charges and Subsidies on the People The increase and burthen whereof is ordinarily followed with Revolutions and Seditions as it fell out this year by a great Commotion hapning at Rouen but which had the same end and event as all the like Enterprizes generally come to that is to say the Hanging of the most froward and hottest and the Banishment or Ruine of the rest Year of our Lord 1294 The King of England vexed at the loss of those places in Guyenne sollicited all Princes against France particularly the Emperor Adolph with great Sums of Money and Guy de Dampierre Earl of Flanders with the hopes oâ— the Marriage of his Son Prince of Wales with Philippetta that Earls Daughter Adolph sent to defie the King in haughty language but they gave him no other answer but a Sheet of white Paper For which he shewed no other Resentment but by Threats and so turned his Arms against some German Rebels Year of our Lord 1294 As for Guy having been allured to Paris with his Wife and Daughter by Letters from the King fraught with Expressions of Kindness he was much amazed to find himself made a Prisoner there It is true that about a Twelve month after himself and his Wife were set at liberty but his Daughter they kept still to break the Measures of that Match too pernicious to the French Year of our Lord 1294 In the year 1294 the Cardinal Benedict Cajetan by intrigues or by deceit and fourbery obliged Pope Celestin to resign the Popedom and by the same Methods got himself to be elected he was named Boniface VIII His Ancesters were Originally Catalonians and had taken the name of Cajetan because they first dwelt near Cajeta before they transplanted themselves to the City of Anagnia where he was born Year of our Lord 1294 At his advancement to that Dignity he endeavours to mediate a Peace between all Christian Princes He could not procure it between France and England but he setled that between Arragon and France King Alphonso was dead and James his Brother succeeded him It was agreed that Charles Earl of Valois should renounce the Kingdom of Arragon wherein he had been invested by Pope Martin V. upon which Condition the Arragonian repudiating Isabella de Castille for being too nigh of Kin should Marry his Laughter set the three Sons of Charles the Lame and other Hostages at liberty and surrender Sicily and what he had Conquer'd in Abruzza but Frederic his younger Brother to whom Alphonso had by his last Testament will'd that Kingdom got himself to be named King by the Sicilians Since then that which we call the Kingdom of Sicilia was dismembred in two that beyond the Fare which was the Island and that on this side which they called the Kingdom of Naples They were again re-joyned in Anno 1503. and are to this day in the same hands Year of our Lord 1295 The Sons of Charles the Lame being set at liberty the eldest named Charles entred into the Order of the Friers Minors The following year he was by the Pope promoted to the Archbishoprick of Thoulouze which he accepted not of till after he had made his Vows The King of Englands heart was much set upon two things the one to Subject the Kingdom of Scotland and the other to recover the Tows in Guyenne He thought the first was pretty well advanc'd having obliged Baliol to render him Homage and to compass the second he prepared a mighty Fleet and had strengthned himself with Friends and Alliances But Philip to prevent his designs induced the King of Scotland already threatned by his Subjects who scorned to subject themselves to the English to break the Treaty he had made with Edward and Allie himself with France and for security of this new Bond of Alliance he promised to give the eldest Daughter of the Earl of Valois to his eldest Son whose name was Edward At the same time he caused the People of Wales also to rise who out of a wild and untamed humour for Liberty were easily heated and drawn into the Field The great devastations and spoil they made this time in Pembrook-shire and thereabout broke all the King of England's Measures He was forced to go in Person that way to stop their progress and lay aside the business of Guyenne till he had quell'd those hot and stubborn old Enemies as he did having overmaster'd almost all of them in four Months time About this time the Principality of Milan and Neighbouring Cities was fixed and perpetuated in the Family of the Vicounts to which Otho Vicount Archbishop of Milan contributed not a little Matthew his Brothers Son was created the first Year of our Lord 1295 Duke this year 1295. and took the Investiture of the Emperor Adolph who likewise gave him the Vicarship or Vicegerency of the Empire in Lombardy Year of our Lord 1295 In Pistoya a City in Tuscany as then powerful enough it hapned that the rich and numerous Family of the Cancellary were divided in two Factions the one of the White the other of the Black The first joyned themselves with the Guelphes the second with the Ghibelins and that fury and madness spread over all Italy and caused insinite Seditions and Murthers Year of our Lord 1295 Pope Boniface was Proud Haughty Imperious and Undertaking he thought all the Princes of the Earth must bow to his Commands but he found a Philip of France at the head of them a young Prince of no very patient Humour more Potent then any one of his Predecessors and who had a Council consiting of People that were Year of our Lord 1295 stout and impetuous So that Boniface who ardently pursued the Design he aimed at to oblige all Kings to the Holy War having sent to tell both him and the King of England that they must make
which comes from the Hebrew Year of our Lord 1345 The Earl of Derby after the having refreshed himself at Bourdeaux with the Forces he had brought from England took the Field to fall upon the Provinces on this side the Dordogne The Earl de Laille and the Gascon Lords who had thrown themselves into Bregerac thinking to obstruct his passage over that River were constrained to abandon that Town to him and to let him over-run all the Upper Gascongny where he conquer'd several small places When he was returned to Bourdeaux the Earl de Laille took his opportunity having sent for the Lords of that Countrey he being as it were Vice-Roy and laid Sieg to Auberoâ—ke but not with the like success The Earl of Derby coming to its relief with only aâ—thousand Men defeated his Army which consisted of Tenthousand and took him prisoner with eight or ten Earls and Vicounts more After which he with much ease besieged and took the Cities de la Reole Angoulesine and divers others John Earl of Montfort had been set at liberty by virtue of the Truce upon condition that he should not depart the Court notwithstanding he goes and puts himself at the head of his Forces in Bretagne he besieged Kemper but was so far from taking it that himself had like to be taken Going from thence he sacked and burnt Dinant then over burthen'd with grief and anger for the slow progress in his Affairs he died about the end of September leaving the management of his pretensions to his Wife and his Son who was yet very young He had the same name as his Father and afterwards gained the Surname of Valiant Year of our Lord 1345 The famous Artevelle had made a promise to King Edward to procure that his Son the Prince of Wales should be owned for Earl of Flanders by the great Cities to the exclusion of their natural Lord. Upon this assurance Edward carries his Son to Scluse the Deputies of the Cities went to wait on him he treated them very magnificently but they would not hear of disinheriting their Earl Artevelle's enemies did not fail to make use of this occasion to stir up the peoples hatred against him When he was returned to Ghent having been so ill advised as to remain some days at Scluse after the other Deputies the People fell upon him and murther'd him The King of England retir'd in a fury for the death of his good friend however the Cities of Flanders having sent their Deputies to him he accepted their satisfaction and the offer they made him to bestow the Daughter of their Earl upon the Prince of Wales There was great reason to put some stop to the Earl of Derby's progress in Guyenne the Duke of Normandy goes to Toulouze in the beginning of January with an hundred thousand Men bearing Arms. All this formidable multitude did no more in three Months besides the taking of two or three little paltry Towns in Angenois and the City of Angoulesme whence they fell down upon Tonneius and after that came and hesieged Aiguillon seated on the confluence of the Rivers d'Olt and de Garonne well munition'd and well fortify'd those times In all this age we do not find a more memorable Siege either for the Attaques or the Defence They made three Assaults each day for a whole week together then they came to their Artillery and their Engins both by Sea and Land Philip the Son of Eudes Duke of Burgundy and Earl of Boulogne by his Wife who was Daughter and Heyress of Earl William was wounded upon a Salley whereof he died At last the Battle of Cressy being lost drew away the Duke of Normandy from this Siege which till then he obstaintely continued Year of our Lord 1346 The Second day of June Edward with a Fleet of Two hundred Sail wherein he had Four thousand Men at Arms Ten thousand Archers and as many Foot as well Irish as Welshmen puts to Sea with his eldest Son with intent to land in Guyenne He did not relye so much upon his Forces as upon the secret discontents of the French Nobility and the intelligence he held with many of the Grandees He had with him Gefroy Brother of the Earl of Harcoâ—r a Lord very powerful in Normandy who having lost the favour of King Philip in his indignation and finding no certain security there went into England The winds having turned Edward two several times out of his road towards Guyenne this Gefroy inslamed with revenge perswaded him that Heaven would have him steer his course for Normandy a fat and plentiful Countrey that had not felt a War for two ages so that he went and landed at the Port de la Hogue St. Vaast in Constantin near St. Sauveur which were Lands belonging to Gefrâ—y resolved to cross thorough France to go and joyn the Flemmings Year of our Lord 1346 His Army marched divided by day in three Bodies which joyned together at night Gefroy undertook the Office of Field Marshal The Cities of Valongnes Carentan St. Lo and Harfleur were his first prey Rodolph Earl of â—u and of Guisnes Constable of France and the Count de Tancarville whom the King had sent to Caen encreased his Spoil and Fame by taking them prisoners with the defeat of Twenty thousand Men the Burghers braver in words then deeds having fortaken them in the midst of the Fight Going from thence he continued his march by the Bishopricks of Lisieux and Evreux saccaged and burnt all along the Seine even to Paris but approached not nigh Rouen and came and encamped at Pâ—issy from thence he sent a defiance to Philâ—p to fight him under the Walls of the Louvre but after he had staid there five days fearing to be enclosed betwixt the Rivers of Seine and Oyse he caused the Bridges to be repaired and passed into Beatvaisis with design to retire into his County of Ponthieu marking his road all the way with long traces of Fire and Blood Year of our Lord 1346 Philip foaming with rage to behold with his own eyes from his capital City suh Flames in the very heart of his Kingdom goes forth to pursue him in great haste that he might fight him before he could pass the Somme Edward not being able to find any passage over the River was so happy as to have a prisoner that shewed him the Foord of Blanquetague below Abbevilie Gondemar du Fay a Norman Lord could not hinder him with Twelve thousand Men from passing at low Water and was put to the rout The same Evening Edward went and encamped at Cressy and the next day Philip lodged at Abbevilie which is within three Leagues of it on this side he had not less then an hundred thousand Men with which he might have hemm'd them in and reduced them to a Famine in a few days but he believieng that having over-taken them was conquering them he marches the next day out of Abbeville and gives him battle the
Bourdeaux and carried away the King and his Son along with him tg ether with a prodigious number of prisoners Charles the Dauphin Lieutenant then Regent Aged some XXI years Year of our Lord 1356 THere being no Authority left in the Kingdom and the King before his departure having not setled any thing in order all was in a most horrible confusion The Dauphin at the first took only the quality of Lieutenant upon him he believed it belonged to the general Estates to provide for the Government of the Kingdom and the redemption of the King and therefore having called them together at Paris the Fifteenth of October he propounded these two things to them But that hapned then which ever happens in such great disorders where the people have been evilly treated in their prosperity Instead of assistance he met with nothing but complaints and sharp rebukes They would deliberate of nothing in the presence of his Commissioners they demanded to have the Chancellor set aside this was Peter de la Forest Archbishop of Rouen Simon de Bucy First President and six or seven Officers more that had mis-mannaged the Treasury They would have him set the King of Navarre at liberty and would have him be governed and guided by a Council they chose for him upon which conditions they promised to maintain Thirty thousand Men but which should receive their pay from their own hands In the mean time they set up a Council for the Government of the Kingdom whereof Robert le Coq Bishop of Laon was the Chief and Commissioned People that were at their own Devotion to manage the Treasury The Dauphin not being able to perswade them to condescend to any other method nor bias their resolutions made use of some wile to break up that Assembly and upon divers pretences obliged the Deputies of the several Cities to return Afterwards he dispatched others to all the Bailywicks and Seneschals Courts to demand a subsistence of them severally hoping that none in particular would dare to refuse him what when altogether they had boldly denied During this confusion every one imagined now was the proper time to recover their Rights and Priviledges The Nobility began to make Alliance with the Cities The Dauphin found out the way to prevent that union and draw them to himself The Cities on the other hand grew jealous of the Gentry so that to preserve themselves from being pillaged by the Soldiery who had all manner of Licence allowed them they began to fortifie especially at Paris where they chained their Streets repaired their Walls made good their Ditches and enclosed all that quarter of the Street St. Anthoine and St. Pol which before was but the Suburbs Stephen Marcel Prevost des Merchands and Ronsac the Sheriff had full power over the People and govern'd them at their own pleasure Year of our Lord 1356 The unfortunate Gefroy de Harcourt had sold his Lands in Normandy to the English to enjoy it after his decease disinheriting Lewis his Nephew because he would not take up ARms against his own Countrey He had some Forces at St. Sauveur le Vicomte from whence they made their incursions to the Suburbs of Caen and even to Evreux The Estates assembled at Paris had sent four Captains thither to make head against him he marching into the Fields to meet them near the City of Coutances was there defeated and slain had he been taken alive they would have made him pay down his Head upon a Scaffold he chose rather to dye with his Sword in hand The Duke of Lancaster and Philip of Navarre who made War in Normandy with Philip d'Evreux not being able to pass over the Loire to assist the Prince of Wales amidst the danger he was in before the Battle of Poitiers were fallen down into Bretagne The Duke laid Siege to Rennes the Third of December in this year 1356. but Year of our Lord 1356 the place was so well defended that he could make nothing of it in Ten Months time After the example of their Sovereign who had studied more the enlarging of his ☜ power then the publique good every one took care now of his particular interest and overturned all that lay in his way to attain his own ends The Deputies whom the Dauphin had sent into all the Provinces brought nothing back but grievances the only Countrey of Languedoc because they had been less oppressed by Taxes then the rest testified a publique sorrow for the captivity of their Prince and proffer'd to maintain Five thousand Horse for his Service the others refused every thing but what should be ordained by the Estates Year of our Lord 1356 The Dauphin had Commanded some new Money to be Coined but being gone to Metz to confer with the Emperour Charles IV. his Cousin who stood up mightily for the interests of the House of France the Duke of Anjou whom he had left at Paris was compell'd by Stephen Marcel to forbid the carrying it on Year of our Lord 1357 Wanting some publique Authority to get himself to be declared Regent he had summoned the Estates upon the Fifth of February to meet at Paris at the Cordeliers but could obtain no more from them then he had done the former time They forced the Chancellor la Forest to lay down the Seals turned out all the principal Officers of the Treasury caused all their Goods to be seized and inventoried and upon the warm Remonstrances of Robert le Coq Bishop of Laon removed all the Great Officers of the Kingdom even those of the Parliament excepting Sixteen The Dauphin not finding what he reckon'd on Adjourn'd the Assembly till Fifteen days after Easter Whether it were the inconveniency of that time of the year or the greediness and covetous humor of the Gascons each one of them demanding as much reward as if he alone had gained the Battle and taken the King which hindred the English from removing him out of Bourdeaux he passed all the Winter there but Served and Treated as if he had been in his own Courr Year of our Lord 1357 About the beginning of April they transferr'd him into England where he was entertained with as much Honour and Respect as if he had gone over only to pay a kind visit to King Edward They made him a publique entrance at London he was mounted upon a White Horse a mark of Sovereignty and the Prince of Wales on his left hand upon a little Hackney They lodged him in the Savoy palace the King the Queen and the Grandees visited him and gave him all sort of liberty In the mean time the Popes instant mediation obtained a Truce for two years between both Crowns in which John de Montfort and Philip d'Evreux were not comprehended The Duke of Lancaster had sworn not to rise from before Rennes till he had gotten in and planted his Banners upon their Ramparts whist his Army was in apprehension Year of our Lord 1357 of a second Winter and the
out of that Laudible zeal he hath transmitted to all his posterity to procure the publick good There were more Propositions made no doubt then they intended to practise and fine studied speeches This is what they call in France de Belles actions brave actions Year of our Lord 1466 The excessive heats of the Summer bred many contagious Maladies which in the City of Paris alone swept away above forty Thousand People and frighted away a much greater number In so much as the King desiring to re-people it by an Edict called in all sorts of Nations and People even such as were banished or Criminals to whom besides the Abolition he gave Priviledges and Franchises Year of our Lord 1467 The Pragmatique subsisted yet Pope Paul II. sent as Legat to the King John Joffridi Cardinal Bishop d'Alby to get the revocation verified who employed John Balue Cardinal Bishop of Angiers to carry the Letters from the King to the Chastelet and the Parliament They passed at the Chastelet without opposition but in the Parliament he found John de Sainct Romain Attorney General who opposed him to his face and the University went to the Legat to signify their Appeal to the next Council and after entred it into the Register at the Chasteler Paris being as it were the Kings Bulwark against the Grandees that loved him not he ordained that all the Inhabitants even the Ecclesiasticks should enroll themselves under the Banners of their Principals and Sub-Principals that is to say of Colonels and Captains and should provide themselves with good Arms. At one Muster which was made the 4 th of September there were found to be between 70 and 80000 men between the ages of 16 and 60 years In another which was made the following year they counted 84000. Year of our Lord 1467 The 15 th of July in the year 1467. Philip Duke of Burgundy called le Bon i. e. the Good ended his days at Brussels in the 72 th year of his Age and the 45 th of his Domination He yielded not in power or riches to any King but the French but had not his like in Goodness and Magnisicence And indeed he was adored by his people respected by all the Princes of Christendom and dreaded even by the Infidels The Count de Charolois Succeeded in his great Dominions not at all in his Goodness and Wisdom He was Rash Presumptuous Quarrelsome and Bloody But withal Valiant Undaunted and Indefatigable in War and who within himself observed exact justice and right towards his own Subjects Year of our Lord 1467 At his first coming to this Estate he was engaged against the Liegois whom the King had wrought to break the Truce and he assisted them yet notwithstanding he offered to forsake them if the Duke would forsake the Breton whom the King held already as it were by the Throat being entred into his Country with thirty Thousand Men. The Duke would do nothing of this but hastned to make an end of the War with Liege Now the Liegois having lost a Battel when they came to relieve the City of St. Tron did submit themselves to any conditions he would require excepting firing and plundring He caused the Heads of 20 or 30 of the most guilty to fly together with the Towers and Walls of the City of Liege changed the Magistrates and the Laws and drained them of great Sums of Money for his expences This was in the Month of November The people of Flanders especially the Gantois who had mutined after the Death of his Father humbled themselves likewise before their victorious Prince and sent him all their Banners to Bruges In the Month of October the King received advice that the Duke of Alenson who made one in every discontented Party was joyned in that of Monsieur and the Duke of Bretagne and had given them up all his places by means of which and of those that yet remained in their possession amongst others Auranches Bayeux and Caen they held almost all the lower Normandy The King willing to tread him down first in his way to the others did presently cause his Army to march into the Countreys of Perche and of Mayn and arrived at Mans himself Year of our Lord 1467 One of the causes which had most stirred up the Cities especially Paris against the King in the League for the publick good had been the mutation of Officers For this reason before his march against the Leagued Princes he made this celebrated Ordinance of the 21th of October which bears That considering that in his Officers consists under his Authority the direction whereby are Policed and managed the publick affairs of the Kingdom and that thereof they are Essential Ministers as members of that Body whereof of he is the Head he would therefore free them from all doubts they had of falling into the ineonveniences mutation and destitution and provide for their security And therefore he Ordained that thenceforward there should be no Office disposed of unless it were vacant by Death or by voluntary resignation or by forfeiture judged and declared Judicially by a competent Judge His Army lay all the rest of Autumn without doing much for as subtil as he was he suffer'd himself to be amused by the Breton with the hopes of an accommodation Nevertheless he did not wholly lose his time Towards the end of the year he Debauched Rene Count du Perche Son of John Duke of Alenson who betraying his own Father delivered the Castle of Alenson up to him which in those days was reckoned for a very good place The Breton forsook the Town And sinding Monsieur and the Duke of Bretagne astonished at so unexpected an accident he employ'd the Popes Legat to let them know that he would refer all his Deputies to the judgment of the General Estates And for that purpose summoned them together at Tours the first day of April Year of our Lord 1468 All the Deputies proved to be so much at his Devotion that they ordained nothing but what was conformable to his desires That Normandy being united to the Crown could not be dismembred to be given to his Brother That that young Prince should be exhorted to be satisfied with twelve thousand Livers yearly Rent in Lands for his Appenage and 60000 Livers Annual Pension but this not to be a President for the futureSons of France That the Breton should surrender the places in Normandy and if he would not obey this Ordinance they should make War upon him with all their Forces and to do this they proffered their Lives and Fortunes He caused this to be immediately made known to his Brother and to the Breton and at the same time his Army led by his Admiral entred Bretagne took Chantoce and Ancenis and penetrated a great way into the Country whilst himself after he had visited his good City of Paris was gone towards the Frontiers of Picardy to make use of some Engines to endeavour to disjoyn the Duke of Burgundy
him run after his fancies and endeavoured then to recover Perpignan whereof John King of Arragon was repossessed by Intelligence it was only the Town for the Castle held out still for the French Their Army went thither after the taking of Leytoure King John besieged in the City though Aged above Seventy years defended himself bravely for two Months together till his Son Ferdinand came to his assistance and relieved him The Twelfth day of August Nicolas d'Anjou Son of John of Calabria who had Succeeded to the Dutchy of Lorrain after the Death of his Father Died of the Plague at Nancy Thus his Cousin Rene of Lorrain Son of his Aunt Yoland d'Anjou and de Ferry who was Son of Antony Count of Vaudemont restored the Dukedom to their House whence it came For about four or five years past the Constable play'd double betwixt the King and the Burgundian and incited them the one against the other He thought their broils was his only safety but both offended with his duplicity agreed his ruin at the price of his head and his plunder if they could but catch him He had some hint of it and broke the project by the many reasons he gave the King in writing But after he had obtained his pardon he again offended him more grievously then ever For he Seized on the City of St. Quentin and which was worse had the impudence to confer with him well Armed upon a Bridge with a Barrier betwixt them as he had been his equal Year of our Lord 1474 The Burgundians ambition was insatiable He had invited Edward of the House of York to make a descent in France where the Burgundian promised to do as much by his correspondence as they with their Forces and nevertheless instead of waiting for them he went and ruined his Army before the Town of Nuz building great designs upon the taking of this place which lies on the Rhine The apparent reason why he laid that Siege was to re-settle Robert de Bauiere in the Arch-Bishoprick of Cologn whose Channons had refused to admit him and for their Chief had taken one of their Colleagues to wit Herman Brother of the Landgrave of Hesse Year of our Lord 1474 As King Rene was good liberal and devout so was he inconstant and variable of Courage tame and weak His Sons and Grand-sons being all dead there remained only his Daughter Yoland mother of Rene Duke of Lorrain but that House was at distance from him and such as were near made him believe that having received so many troubles from her he ought not to love her and inclined him according to their interests to give his Succession one while to the King of France another while to Charles Count du Maine his Nephew Son of his Brother of the same name another time to the Duke of Burgundy And this is the reason of so many several Wills and divers Donations made by him on that Subject It is believed that he caused one to be written in Letters of Gold and Adorned with Miniature whereby he made the King his Heir to the County of Provence It is certain that this year 1474. he instituted Charles du Maine in all his Lands reserving only the Dutchy of Barr which he left to his Daughters Son Duke Rene. Now the following year when he saw the King had Seized his City of Anger 's and the Castle of Barr for the Portion said he of Mary d'Anjou his Mother he changed his mind or pretended so and to make him afraid said he would bestow it upon the Duke of Burgundy but the King being purposely advanced as far as Lyons hindred him and thereupon hapned the defeat of that Duke as you shall see Whilst he was battering his Head against that potent Body of Germany which is all of Iron the King accumulated Enemies on that part against him especially the Swisse whose alliance he had gained with the Cities of Basle and Strasburgh and others on the Rhine Sigismund Duke of Austria Rene Duke of Lorrain and even the Emperor Frederic Sigismund with the aid of the Swisse re-enters the County of Ferrete and caused Hagenbac's head to be cut off for the Concussions he had useâ— â—ene Duke of Lorrain sent to declare War against him even before Nuz by a Moorish Servant who belonged to the Lord de Craon and Frederick Armed all the power of the Empire to force him to raise the Siege Nevertheless durst he not attack him though he were four times more in number The Bishop of Munster alone had brought thither 1200 Horse and 60000 Foot all cloathed in Green with 1200 Waggons Year of our Lord 1475 The Truce betwixt the King and the Duke being expired the King goes into the Field and snatched from him Roye Montdidier and Corbie but neither this multitude of Enemies nor the Winter long and sharp nor the loss of his Towns could not make his stubborness Flexible which held him still to that Siege for ten Months from its beginning In the Month of June Edward King of England caused his Army to Land at Calais which took up three Weeks time Whilst he was putting them ashoar he sent two or three dispatches to him prayed him and pressed him to come and joyn with him the Duke making now one delay and then another The Mediation of the Apostolick Legat and of the King of Denmark who was in a City near at hand was a plausible pretence for him to withdraw from that dangerous enterprize with Honour but he obstinately refused it In the end when he saw it was too long a business though he was within ten days of taking the City by Famine he consented it should be put into the hands of the Legat. That done he comes post to find the English at Calais leaving his Forces in Barrois so shatter'd that he durst not let them be seen He conducted the King all along the way to Peronne and from thence went to see the Constable at St. Quentin who gave him his word he would deliver that City and all his other places up to the English the Duke assured them of it But when they would have approached he caused them to Fire upon them It is hard to express whether was then greatest their amazement or their rage the Duke having spent a great many words to Interpret this in the best Sence returned to Barrois to recruit his Forces Edward was a Voluptuous Prince very Fat and naturally slow who sought only to cram his Purse and who having undertaken this War rather to screw money from his Subjects then to acquire Dominion or Honour had brought over with him some of the Fattest London Citizens such as loved their ease mightily that so their weariness and toyl might make them sooner willing to desire a Peace It hapned therefore that during the Burgundians absence the King by force of intrigues of flattery and withal some Presents whereof the English are very greedy persuaded that Prince and
could he by going a long way about get entrance into the Castle del Ovo again From thence he descended again into the City with his Sword and Flambeau in Hand and strugled mightily to recover it but the Revolters opposed him with Retrenchments and Barricado's which they wrought upon with so much diligence both Night and Day that they coop'd him in the Castle This hapned at the same time as the Battle of Fornowa After three Months Siege and continul Skirmishes Montpensier wanted Provisions and was informed at the same time that the relief which was coming from France by Sea meeting with great Storms was driven to Legorne and there dispersed In this extremity he capitulated with the Enemy to deliver up the Castles in a Months time if he were not relieved In the mean time he bethinks himself but very late to send to Aubigny to dravv all his Forces together and come to disengage him Aubigny could not go in Person being yet sick he sent Percy who cut four thousand of the Count de Matalonas Men in pieces near Eboli Ferdinand vvas so much dismay'd that he had thoughts of Flying but the Neapolitans and the Colonnas whom fear of Punishment had made desperate labour'd so much as to make him change his Fear into Year of our Lord 1495 a Re-assurance Percy coming thither found their Intrenchments so well guarded that he could not approach the Castle whereupon he returned to Nola. Mean while Stephen de Vers whom the King had made Duke of Nola being gone into France did earnestly sollicite they would provide for the maintaining of that Kingdom the Ambassadors from the Florentines the Cardinal of Saint Peters c. and Signor Trivultio joyned their Intreaties and the French even those that had advised against the first Attempts for this Conquest declared all with one Voice that it now concerned the Honor of the Nation to preserve it and not suffer the Great Monarch of France to be braved by those Bastards of the House of Arragon Every one desired this excepting those that managed the Affairs particularly the Cardinal Briconnet who either by intelligence with the Pope or out of Sloath and Cowardize hindred the rest from acting The King might be angry with them if he pleased nothing went forward Year of our Lord 1496 The importunity of those Lords who were engaged in the Kingdom of Naples the reproaches of the French and those of his own Conscience obliged the King to resolve upon a new Effort for the Affairs of Italy He parted from Tours where he left the Queen his Wife came to Saint Denis to take his Farewell of the Holy Martyrs advanced to Lyons and gave out his Orders every where then when it was believed he would have passed the Mountains he returned Post to Tours whither the Charms of one of the Queens Maids attracted him as it were per-force These grand Preparations amounted to six Vessels loaden with Provisions and Men for Cajeta Year of our Lord 1496 Ludovic had perswaded the Emperor Maximilian to enter into Italy to embrace the Defence of Pisa which he thought by this means to get into his own Hands Upon this Expedition it was that the Pisans pull'd down the King's Statute to set up the Emperors in its stead As for the rest of this Enterprize no more then in all his others he showed neither Valor nor Perseverance and to speak the Truth he minded no more but only to make his Musters compleat that he might get the Pay and then drew off again like a Hireling The French Affairs declined from Bad to Worse Aubigny was Sick still Percy marr'd his greatest Success by his unsufferable Pride the Germans Mutined for want of Pay and the Garrisons were quite unfurnished And to compleat these Misfortunes Montpensier suffers himself to be shut up in Atella by three Armies of Venetians Spaniards and Arrogonians and for want of Provisions capitulated to Surrender the whole Kingdom in one Month. The other Chiefs especially Aubigny and Guerre refused to obey him in the execution of this Infamous Treaty As a Punishment for this Stubborness Ferdinand banished both him and all his Soldiers into the Maritime Countries where the Pestilential Air destroy'd most of them Of five thousand Men he had with him hardly did five hundred escape and Montpensier himself died at Puzzoli of Sickness or of Poison From Atella Gonsalvo passed to Calabria reduced Manfredonia and Cosenza and Besieged Daubigny in Gropoli That generous Captain defended himself so bravely that he made an honourable composition they gave him leave to carry back his Forces into France with Colours Flying but the surrender of Cajeta was comprehended in it Nothing was left the French of this glorious and suddain Conquest but a villanous Disease which cannot handsomely be named The Spaniards having gotten it in the Islands of Florida where it is almost Epidemical had brought into and infected the Kingdom of Naples with it the Women whom they had spoiled with this Venome communicated it to the French Year of our Lord 1496 Before Cajeta was Surrendred King Ferdinand Died and Frederic his Uncle ascended that mournful Throne with the good wishes and acclamations of all his Subjects Ferdinand King of Spain his own people called him so and the French in railery John Gipon made an Inroad towards Narbonna in favour of Ferdinand King of Naples Charles d'Albon Saint Andre Lieutenant for the King in Languedoc did not only repress them but in ten hours forced the City of Salses in sight of their Army The Spaniards fearing they might draw the whole burthen of the War upon themselves entred into a Conference which towards the end of the year produced a Truce for some Months Year of our Lord 1497 Several designs were set on foot and divers means considered and projected for the recovery of the Kingdom of Naples sometimes to receive Hommage and Tribute of Frederic at other times to agree with the Pope who was Lord of the Fief then to begin with the Milanois and give the conduct to the Duke of Orleans To this purpose Levies were made amongst the Swiss and the Cavalry advanced as far as Ast but the Duke refused that employment Several consultations were held afterwards some resolutions taken but no effects though the several and various interests of the Italian Princes did call every day for the Kings return and opened the Gates wide enough for his re-entrance Year of our Lord 1498 But his Health hourly diminishing as well because he was of a washy constitution and had loved the Ladies too much or perhaps some slow working poyson given him by the Italians made him lose the relish of all these Conquests nay even of those amongst the Beauties so that he now thought of nothing but how to lead a quiet and Christian life He therefore turned himself wholly towards God and applied himself to the reforming of his State He heard the complaints and causes of his Subjects
with the Bentivoglios the Pope retired to Ravenna and left the guarding of Bologna to the Cardinal of Pavia his Favourite and to Francis Maria Duke of Vrbin his Brothers Son his Forces being in the Place and the Venetians in the Vicinage but this could not stay nor hinder the inconstancy of the Bolognese nor the impetuosity of the French Upon his way he met with three Mortal Displeasures the first was the News that the Bolognians had driven out his Soldiers the second that his Army was dispersed the third the Duke of Vrbin his Nephew stabb'd almost in his sight the Cardinal of Pavia in Ravenna upon some Quarrel between them and in those Cities thorough which he passed he saw the Indiction posted up for a General Council at Pisa the first of September It was of the sixteenth of May made at the requisition of the Kings and the Emperors Procurators in execution of the Decree of the Council of Constance and in the Name of nine Cardinals three of them having signed it these were Sancta Croce Cosenza and Saint Malo their Names Bernard de Carvajal Francis Borgia and William Briconnont who hapned to be then at Milan The King and the Emperor approved this Indiction by their Letters Patents of the following Month of July In this consternation seeing no Security for himself even in Rome if the Kings Victorious Army should pursue him he cast about for an Accommodation but as soon as he knew that the King tyred with the importunate Scruples of his Wife had sent Orders to Trivulcio not to make any Attempt upon the Territories of the Church he shewed himself more stubborn and more implacable then ever Year of our Lord 1511 And so by his Bulls of the Seventeenth of July he assigned a Council at Rome in the Lateran Palace for the nineteenth of April following declared Null the Convocation of that of Pisa and cited the three Cardinals to appear before him within threescore and five Dayes upon default whereof they should be degraded of their Dignities and deprived of their Benefices The Kings negligence and the Chimerical irresolutions of the Emperor heightned his Courage For the Emperor ever slow and wavering omitting at first to press the Business home had not so much Credit as to make his Prelates go to Pisa the King managing this serious Business as it were but in Sport sent thither but fifteen of his Bishops of France and Milan together with some Abbots Doctors and Procurators of the Universities and the Council was not opened till the twenty-ninth of October they being troubled to obtain leave of the Florentins under whose Seigneury Pisa then was who had at length reduced it by force about two Years before this The Cardinal de Sancta Croce was President there Odet de Foix Lautrec the Guardian and Philip Dece an excellent Lawyer the Advocat Year of our Lord 1511 The Pisans had little respect for this Assembly and the People whether of themselves or by the secret Instigations of the Popes Emissaries or the Florentins who apprehended the furious resentments of the Pope did often quarrel with the French Soldiers The Fathers took such an Allarm upon it that at their third Session they transferr'd it to Milan where they were no better received nor longer in quiet Year of our Lord 1511 Julius relied much upon the Assistance of Ferdinand and the Venetians the twentieth of October he concluded the League with them which they named Holy for the Peace of the Church said they the abolishing the Council of Pisa the recovery of the Lands belonging to the Holy See and the expulsion of all those out of Italy that would hinder the Execution of those things Year of our Lord 1512 In the Month of January of the Year 1512. the Army of the Holy League commanded by Raimond de Cardonna Vice-Roy of Naples besieged Bologna and the Citizens of Brescia introduced the Venetians into their City where they put in fifteen hundred Horse and eight thousand Foot in Garrison who besieged the Castle But now behold the young Gaston de Foix General of the Kings Army in those Countries more sudden and more terrible then Thunder overthrows them and all their Designs For on the tenth Day of the Siege whilst the Snow fell so thick as to prevent the being observed he entred into Bologna to the great astonishment of those Old Soldiers who raised their Siege confounded and cloathed with Shame From thence marching towards Brescia with six thousand chosen Men he on his way defeated John Paul Bailloni who commanded part of the Venetian Army Then entring into the City by the Castle he forced their Works and the Intrenchments they had made strewed the Streets with eight thousand of their Slain and drove out the Venetian Troops These three grand Exploits performed in less then fifteen Daies raised this Prince above all the Captains of his Time Notwithstanding all these Advantages the Pontifical League being reinforced every day with some remainders the Florentins renounced their Amity with France the Report was spread of a sudden Irruption of the Swiss and the English were just upon breaking with the King for the Pope had intoxicated them with the vain Glory of defending the Holy See and the Fumes of all sorts of delicious Wines whereof he had sent them a whole Ships loading together with Hamms Sauciges and Spices to give the Wine a better relish or gusto and make them the more desirable Year of our Lord 1512 Now the King that he might not have so many Enemies at once sent Order to Gaston that he should give Battle to the Army of the League during the Torrent of his good Fortune The Enemies themselves presented it to him being approached near Ravenna to make him raise the Siege which he had undertaken Year of our Lord 1512 for this very purpose It was fought on Easter Day the eleventh of April Their Forces were equal the shock very bloody in the conclusion the Commanders for the League some of them being fled and the others taken the Victory turned to Gaston's Lot But as he was pursuing too eagerly a Body of four thousand Spaniards who made their retreat in good Order by the way betwixt the rising Ground and the River Ronca he was surrounded and slain with the thrust of a Pike and his Cousin Odet de Foix Lautree grievously wounded This gross was not pursued the rest were all cut in Pieces or made Prisoners Ravenna afterwards Sacked and some Neighbouring Cities put into the Hands of the Cardinal Sanseverin Legate from the Council of Pisa as likewise the Cardinal Julian de Medicis the Popes Legate Ferrand d'Avalos Marquiss of Pescaro and Peter de Navarre who had all been taken in the Battle After this it was expected there would have been an Universal Revolution in Italy in favour of the French In effect their fright was so great in Rome that the Cardinals in a Body went to implore the Pope to
and put himself under his Protection At his departure thence he was so rash as to send a Challenge of Desiance to the Emperor in the Diet at Wormes and afterwards Florenges his Son with three thousand Men besieged Vireton in Luxembourgh Immediately the King of England undertaking to be Mediator sends to Francis whom he took to be the chief Promoter of this Challenge to intreat him not to commence a War Francis takes his Advice and commands Florenges away from Vireton but the Emperor did not take this for satisfaction he would not have it said that a Man whose Ancestors had been Domestick Servants to the House of Burgundy should have braved him impunitively He raised a great Army the command whereof he gave to Henry Count of Nassaw who took four or five little Places from Robert and caused some Soldiers of the Garrisons to be hanged on the Battlements After this the Emperor being in some measure satisfied granted him a Truce of forty Days At the same time the Lord de Liques a Hennuyer seized upon the City of Saint Amand in Tournesis under pretence of some Dispute he had with Lewis Cardinal of Bourbon who was the Abbot He afterwards besieged Mortain which he said belonged to him The Captain who was in it gave it up upon Condition to have his Life and Goods spared but the Emperors Men ransacked the Garrison Then the Governor of Flanders laid siege to Tourney The King could interpret these Undertakings for no other then a Declaration of War however the Emperor would not own them as yet having the like Design upon many other Frontier Places which he intended to execute without mentioning a Word and besides he dreaded the King of England who would needs be Mediator and therefore wished both the one and the other to send their Deputies to him at Calais there to make known their difference giving them plainly to understand that he would declare himself an open Enemy to him that should refuse They were therefore obliged either of them being affraid to have him their Enemy to send Ambassadors to him Those from the King were James de Chabanes la Palisse Mareschal of France the Chancellor du Prat and John de Selve first President of Parliament who went to attend Henry at Calais At first those on behalf of the Emperor demanded no less then the Dutchy of Burgundy and that the King should acquit him of all Homage as well for that Country as for the Counties of Flanders and Artois because the subjection as Vassal said they did injury to the Imperial Majesty Year of our Lord 1521 During this Conference of Calais the Count de Nassaw with the Emperors Army passed the Meuse and besieged Mouzon The Soldiers that were in it frighted to see themselves exposed and laid open to a Battery that was on the Hill compell'd their Commanders to demand composition There were two of them who were so imprudent as to go both together to Nassaw to make it and by this over-sight they had no Terms but what were very disadvantagious The Chevalier Bayard behaved himself much more generously against the Attacks of the same General for he not only defended himself like a brave Soldier but made such a Division by counterfeit Letters between Nassaw and Sickingben who commanded that part of the Imperial Army on this side the Meuse that he made them raise their Siege It appears to me if I have rightly observed that in this Siege the Enemies made use of that sort of Artifice or Engines since called Bombes which are great Granados long or round loaden with Gun-Powder and shot out of a Morter-piece that they may fall in some certain place where they work a double Mischief both by the weight of their fall and the great violence of the Powder which is set on fire by a Fusee so disposed that in a Moment it causes the Bombe to burst after it's fall and breaks and tears all that is either above it nor neer hand about it In this Retreat Nassaw having fired all in his way putting Men Women and Children to the Sword especially in the City of Aubenton gave the first beginning to Burnings and Massacrings of Innocents The King having drawn his Forces together had his revenge for this Affront of the Emperors he regained Mouzon burnt and dismantled Bapaume reduced Landrecy and Bouchain Then with his whole Army passed the Scheld over a Bridge made for the purpose to seek out the Emperor who with his own was come to Valenciennes but he staid not for him retiring from thence under the favor of a very thick Fogg Year of our Lord 1521 Upon this occasion the King to content his Mother began to discontent the Constable Charles de Bourbon for he gave the command of the Van-Guard to the Duke of Alenson first Prince of the Blood and who had married his Sister but a Man of shallow understanding and uncertain Courage Which is more he slighted the good Advice he gave him to fall upon the Emperor's Army in their Retreat when no doubt he might have put them into great disorder In his whole life he never met again with so fair an opportunity though he sought it every where it seemed as if Fortune displeased that he would not lay hold of her Favor then had sworn to avoid and fly from him and never make him the like happy proffer again The Grave Tacite and Haughty Humor of Charles de Bourbon did not sute well with the King 's which was Pleasant Free and Open And withal Madame mortally offended that he disdained the Love she had for him push'd on her Resentments all the ways imaginable till in the end she had her revenge upon him at the expence of her Son and the whole Kingdom of France An old Tradition but which hath more the countenance of Falshood then of Truth says that this Princess desiring to marry the Constable had perswaded the King this Match would be greatly to his advantage for since he could have no Children by her the rich Succession of that House of Bourbon would by consequence revert to him according to some agreement or pact made with Lewis XI That the King was allured by this advantage and having one day spoken of his Mother to the Constable that Prince who had an Aversion to her made some reply that reflected on her Honor at which the King was so offended that he gave him a Box on the Ear. The Admiral Bonnivet having feigned a March towards Pampelonna turned short by Saint John de Luz and besieged Fontarabia which surrendred after the first Assault the eighteenth of October The Deputies from the King and the Emperor were still at Calais with the King of England labouring to adjust their Differences and take away all such stumbling Blocks as might occasion the like hereafter They were agreed upon every thing having covenanted that the Emperor should raise the Siege of Tournay and recal his Troops out of
little while he stole away from his own People who followed Francis de Montagnac Tenzane thinking it had been their Master and made his escape attended only by one Esquire named Pomperan to the Franche-Compte From thence he passed into Germany then thorow the Valley of Trent to Mantua and from that place to Genoa to conferr about the Affairs of the War with Charles de Lanoy Vice-Roy of Naples who had the general Command of the Armies after the Death of Prosper Colomna which happened about the end of this year 1523. In France Conspiracies with Strangers against the State never do any mischief when once they are discovered this bred a great deal of astonishment but produced Year of our Lord 1523 no present evil This great Prince so Wealthy so greatly Allied and so much esteemed by the Sons of War was but a single banished man when out of France No body followed him excepting his domestick Servants and five or six of his particular Friends So that the Emperor who at his first Arrival had given him his choice either to stay there to command his Army or to go into Spain to compleat his Marriage when he perceived that his revolt effected nothing feared he should have only a proscribed Person for his Brother in Law and perswaded him it were better he should stay in Italy We need not doubt but he had formed divers designs in several Provinces of France but no Commotions appearing the King either out of Policy or good nature did not make strict inquiry who were his Accomplices There were not above seven or eight taken into Custody amongst others St. Vallier la Vauguyon and Emard de Prie. St. Vallier was Tried and Condemned to lose his Head but being in the Greve the place of Execution on the Scaffold instead of the mortal stroke he received his pardon It was said that the King sent it not to him till he had robb'd his Daughter Diana as then but Fourteen years of Age of the most precious Jewel she had a very easie exchange for those that value Honour less then Life or make it consist in the Sun-shine of a Favour rather envied then innocent It was now almost a year that the Lord de Lude had bravely defended Fontarabia against the Spaniards Assaults He was so distressed by Famine that it was time to throw in Provisions the Mareschal de Chastillon who was ordered to do it Died by the way La Palice happily performed it and having drawn out the Lord de Lude and the Garrison who had suffered great Fatigues he put in all Fresh-men and for Governor Frauget a Captain of Fifty men at Arms. About the end of the Spring an Army of twenty four thousand Spaniards came and fell into Guyenne by two or three several ways and afterwards joyned Year of our Lord 1523 all in one Body before Bayonne to besiege it The City being weak their fears were great however Lautrec getting in amongst them revived their Hearts and cheered them so that they drew off after three days battering it However they did not lose their labour for bending all their Force against Fontarabia Frauget tamely surrendred it upon their first Assault for punishment whereof he was degraded of his Nobility on a Scaffold in the City of Lyons Cowardize not being worthy of death but of Infamy Neither the Emperor nor the King of England did use that diligence they ought in so great a design as that of tearing all France in pieces The Emperor did not furnish Bourbon with those Forces he had promis'd to seize upon the Dutchy of Burgundy but only twelve thousand Foot who having no Horse were easily beaten off from the Frontiers of Champagne by the Earl of Guise who was Governour there The English did not land till the Month of September the Duke of Norfolk being their General Their Army and that of the Count de Bure made up together neer forty thousand men Lewis de la Tremouille to whom the King had committed the Guard of that Frontier having but few men could only Garrison the Towns They left Terouanne which they had design'd to attaque on the left hand and taking their March between that City and Monstrevil came before Hesdin Knowing the Valiant Pontdormy was got into it they went farther on pass'd the Somme at Bray took Roye and Montdidier and brought a terror even upon Paris which was again revived by the coming in of Charles Duke of Vendosme with some Horse After all they withdrew again upon the first frosty weather yet not all above one third of the English leaving their bones there to pay their Charges When they were entring Picardy Bonnivet pass'd the Mountains The Emperor the Pope and the Venetians had declar'd against the King as we have said nevertheless this great League having but few Forces Bonnivet soon Conquer'd all the Milanois to the Tesin Prosper Colomne did not imagin that the King having so many Irons in the Fire in France should have thoughts of sending an Army into Italy He was much amazed when they inform'd him that Bonnivet was come over the Hills He appeared at the River Tesin with those few men he had to obstruct his getting over But it being Foordable in many place by reason of the great Drowths he soon had notice that the French were on the other side and retreated with his handful of men It was said that if Bonnivet had used that diligence which was requisite he might have overtaken and cut them all in pieces Or at least if he had not amused himself three or four days at Pavia he had made himself Master of Milan This delay gave Prosper time to provide So that Bonnivet lost his time in Besieging it Winter came the Plague crept into his Army and that of the Confederates encreased He was therefore fain to give ground in his turn and retire to Biagras six Leagues on this side of Milan He chose that Post because he might safely wait there for a new re-inforcement having the whole Country behind at his own disposal During these Transactions Pope Adrian died the fourteenth of September and the Cardinal Julius de Medicis cousin German of Leo X. and Son of Julian but born out of Wedlock was elected by the contrivance and other devices and ways usual in the Conclaves He took the name of Clement VII This year began the Chastisement of those who professed the new Reformation Preathed by Luther The Protestants reckon for first Martyrs for so they call them one John le Clerc native of Meaux a Wool-comber and two Augustin Monks of the Country of Brabant le Clerc was Whipt and Brandmarkt on the Shoulder with a Flower de Luce at Meaux for having said that the Pope was Antichrist and was afterwards Burnt at Mets for having beaten down some Images The two Monks suffer'd the like death at Bruxels Luther Sung their Triumphs much gladder to be their Panegyrist than their fellow Sufferer Year of our
Regis Professors at Paris for the Sciences and for the Tongues He had likewise a design to Build a Colledge and to settle a Fund of Fifty Thousand Crowns Revenue for the breeding and maintenance of Six Hundred Gentlemen He got together a huge number of Manuscripts of Ancient Authors which make up that precious Library which is the rarest Treasure of our Monarchs of France In a word he merited the glorious Surname of the Father or Patron and restorer of Learning The long and tedious Wars and his Imprisonment had accustomed the Nobility to all sorts of Violence and Crimes He caused the Grand-Jours or Sessions to be held at Poitiers this is an extraordinary Tribunal of Judges Commissioned Year of our Lord 1531 for a certain time and chosen out of those belonging to the Parliament to punish the most guilty There were others held during his Reign at Rion in Auvergne in the Year 1545. Towards the end of July there was a Hairy Comet observed in the Heavens which was visible all the Month of August The vulgar imagined it foretold the death of Louisa of Savoy the Kings Mother who might justly boast she brought him twice into the World once when he was born and again when by her care she deliver'd him from his Captivity She died at Grez in Gastinois the two and twentieth of September as she was Travelling to her Castle of Remorantin in Berry after a long fit of Sickness she had endured at Fontainebleau From the end of the Year 1528. to the beginning of the Year 1534. the wrath of Heaven was so great against France that there was a perpetual irregularity in the Seasons or to speak truth Summer alone usurped the place of the other three insomuch as in five years there had not been two days Frost together These tedious heats enervated as we may say and decay'd Nature making her impotent she brought nothing to maturity The Trees put forth their Blossoms immediately upon their Fruit Corn did not multiply in the Fields and for want of Winter there were such multitudes of Vermin and Insects that fed upon it at its first tender sprouting up that the Harvest yielded not enough for Seed against the next Season for Sowing This scarcity caused a general Famine then came a Disease which they named Truss-Galant after that a dreadful Plague so that these three destroyed above a fourth part of the People Year of our Lord 1532 Anno 1532. The King made a Journey into Bretagne and there after the deliberation which he procured with no small trouble of the Estates of the Country Assembled at Vannes he United that Province to the Crown and would needs have his Son Crowned Duke at Rennes and bear their Arms with those of France and Daufine The Patent for this Union bears date at Nantes in the Month of August of this Year 1532. During the six years of Peace the Emperor labour'd in Settling and Composing his Affairs in Germany which were much embroiled by the different Sects in opposing the designs of Solyman and more yet in contriving wayes and means to ruine the Affairs or at least blast the reputation of King Francis This year he went to the Diet at Ratisbon where at the request of the Princes of the Empire he reformed the Imperial Chamber and obtained of them and the Cities a very great Supply against the Turk who was making ready to fall upon Hungary with innumerable Forces by Land and upon Italy with a powerful Fleet by Sea He made use of this occasion to demand of the King that he would lend him Money and his Gentdarmerie He answer'd as touching the Money that he was no Banker and for his Horse-men that they were the strength of his State and that he lent them no more then he would his Sword but would fight at the head of them that he might have his share in the Honour or in the Danger But because the Imperialists proclaim'd it was a shame that both he and the King of England should stand idle or with their Hands in their Pockets amidst the danger that threatned all Christendom they made a League whereby they engaged betwixt them to set Four-score Thousand Men on Foot with an Equipage suitable and convenient to Attack the common Enemy and the King in particular proffer'd to defend Italy which the Emperor had denuded of all his Forces in case the Turkish Navy should land there The year was much advanc'd when Solyman appeared upon the Frontiers of Hungary with Two Hundred Thousand Men. Germany notwithstanding their Divisions made a greater effort then ever They opposed him with an Army of Ninety Thousand Foot and Thirty Thousand Horse all modelled Troops The Emperor was at their Head and this was his first Expedition which gave him a gusto for the Trade ever afterwards One Battle would have decided the Fate of either Empire and made one sole Master of the Universe But neither the one nor the other durst run the hazard of so great an Event there were only some Combats between detached Bodies Solyman withdrew first Charles V. afterwards in so great hast that he staid not to drive the pretended King John out of Hungary as he might have done Before his return into Spain he went to Bologna where he confer'd a second time with the Pope Year of our Lord 1532 The Union appeared very strickt between King Francis and King Henry These Princes desiring to confer with each other about their Affaires met in the Month of October at Saint Joquevert between Boulogne and Calais according as they had appointed the foregoing year Henry came to Boulogne to visit Francis who returned him his Visit at Calais Both of them were much dissatisfied with the Pope particularly Henry because he refused to appoint him Judges upon the place to take Cognizance in the matter of Divorce They treated therefore a League defensive with and against all and projected to demand of the Pope one his Assistance to recover the Dutchy of Milan the other a Bull for the dissolving of his Marriage otherwise they would withdraw their Kingdoms from his Obedience till a General Council the only Name whereof as they well knew made him even tremble But the news they received af Solymans retreat somewhat allayed those Propositions and delivered Italy from that approaching War they had threatned it withal The Pope and Emperor saw each other at Bologne with the same Demonstrations of Amitie as the first time but with much different Sentiments The Emperor pressed him to call a Council because he had promised the Germans one to renew a Confederation with all the Princes of Italy for their common defence against the French and to bestow his Niece Catherine upon Francis Sforza He likewise was earnest with him to cast his Spiritual Thunderbolts against the King of England for having Divorced himself from his Aunt Katherine As to the first the Pope not finding himself irreproachable but much hated of the
send a great Army into Germany in the Spring That he should pay certain Sums of Money to maintain that Army under Maurice and the other Confederates and that to re-imburse himself of these Charges he should as soon as possible seize upon Cambray or else Mets Toul and Verdun which he should keep in Quality of Vicar to the Empire Before the Year expired the Holy Father growing weary of the War was considering of an accommodation with the King and sent one Legate to him and another to the Emperor to conjure them to hearken to a Peace The Legate that came into France made several propositions They all tended to the resigning Parma into the hands of his Holiness who proffer'd to restore the Dutchy of Camerino to Octavio they were not favourably received because they were no ways advantageous to the interests of the King for he did not so much regard the satisfaction of Octavio as the having the City of Parma at his own devotion and by that means having footing again in Italy traverse all the Emperors projects About the end of this Year having no Money to defray the expenses of his War he made divers Edicts in order to engage part of his Demeasnes to create those Courts or Seats of Justice named Presidiaux to erect the Chambre des Monnoyes to a Soveraign Court He also got Silver Plate of all such as would lend him any to convert it into Testons which were Coyned in a certain new invented Mill made upon the Seine and he levied an Impost of twenty Livers upon every Steeple upon Jewels and Church Fabricks not excepting even the Mendicants The Dutchess of Valentinois as it was reported had a good share of this Collection However it were some of the Cordelier and Jacobin Preachers could not hold their Tongues and had made much more noise about it if they had not been chastised Year of our Lord 1552 At the same time the King and the Leagued Princes made both their Manifesto's and their Armes appear together Maurice using much Craft and entertaining the Emperor with propositions of Peace Marched with so much celerity that he wanted but little of surprizing him at Inspurk He was fain to escape by night very shamefully and much affrighted flying to Carinthia even as far as the Frontiers of the Venetians with so much dread that for several days he knew not what he did The King on his side likewise took the Field Before he went out of the Kingdom he went into his Parliament where by an excellent discourse he recommended to them to have a great care of the Kingdom in his absence and declared that he left the Regency to the Queen his Wife but She would not let them verisie the Commission because he had too much limited her Power and had made the Chancellor Bertrandi almost equal in authority a creature of the Dutchess of Valentinois The first thing he did was to seize upon Lorrain and the young Duke Charles Son of the Deceased Duke Francis and Christierne Sister to the Emperor He brought him into France to be bred with the Dausin and gave the Government of the Country to the Count de Vaudemont then he took the Cities of Mets Toul and Verdun who little suspected such a surprize It was noised that the Year of our Lord 1552 Emperor had the same Design and that the King had only prevented him Ever since this time those Cities have been under the French and they owe that obligation to the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal his Brother who did all that lay in their power to facilitate these Conquests not regarding the inconvenience it would be to the head of their House for the raising and setling their fortunes in this Kingdom made them have an interest quite different from his The Kings design was to have seized also upon Alsatia his Army entred upon it and refreshed themselves there but the Citizens of Strasburg more jealous then those of Mets stood upon their Guards and sent him Provisions to take away all pretence for his coming into their Town Haguenau and Visburg opened their Gates to him In the mean time Maurice who had restored almost all the Cities and Princes of Germany to their Liberties fearing for his Father in Laws Head which the Emperor threatned to send to him if he accepted not of the conditions offer'd him was obliged to hearken to a Peace It was concluded by the Treaty of Pashaw where besides the releasing of the Landgrave many other things were allowed and agreed in favour of the Protestants They may very justly call that Treaty the true Foundation of their Evangelick Liberty which they have fully enjoy'd ever since that time but shewed so little acknowledgment to the King that there was not the least mention made of him at which Albert of Brandenburg shewed himself very much concern'd and angry for some time that he might have the better pretence to plunder and pillage At first the King could not believe that Maurice had any thoughts of treating without him but he was soon confirmed by an Envoy from that Prince himself who came to make his excuses The Electors of Ments and Triers and some other Princes of Germany finding him penetrate so far sent to entreat him since he had no other design but to be the Protector of the German Liberty and that they had recover'd it not to undertake any thing against the Empire nor to advance any further He was a little surprized at this Compliment and yet dissembled his displeasure he answer'd them that he was very well content since they were so and that his Arms had the effect they desired Wherefore at the same instant that he might not distast them and also having information that Mary Queen of Hungary Governess of the Low-Countries ransack'd and burnt the Frontiers of Champagne he took his way towards France but first to have his revenge for the mischiefs that Queen had caused he Marched into Luxemburg where he took Rochemars Danvilliers Yvoy and Montmedy and the Mareschal de la Mark the Castle of Bouillon which the Emperor had taken from his Grandfather one and thirty years before After these exploits and towards the end of July he lodged his Men in Garrison on the Frontiers of Picardy to refresh them and put them in a condition to withstand the great Effort for which the Emperor prepar'd himself Whilst he was yet in Germany he had intelligence that his Agents had made a Truce for two years with the Pope which assured the possession of Parma to the House of Farneze The greatest affront the Emperor could receive was that in his time and when he appeared to be most potent the three Cities of Mets Toul and Verdun should be dismembred from the Empire It concerned his reputation to regain them within the very same year and to that end he went about to raise the greatest Forces that ever he yet had in all his life without considering so
prosecution for three years Before the Peace the People of Toulouze had Mutinied against the Parliament upon occasion of some wall which they were making to enclose the Palace Their thundring Decrees could not stop the Insolency of those whom themselves had nursed up in Blood and Licentiousness by letting loose their rage against the Huguenots Divers of their Members ran great hazard of their Lives in those furious Tumults which afforded a specious pretence to the Cardinals d'Armagnac and de Strossy to Teraide Negrepâ—lisse and Fourquevaux to make a League by which they were engaged amongst themselves after they had Communicated the thing to the Lord de Joyeuse to stand united for the defence of the Religion of their Ancestors against all Rebels Sectaries disturbers of the publick quiet and that in each Seneschaussâ—é or Jurisdiction of a Seneschal they should take an Account of what Arms there were and how many fit to bear them The Articles were drawn with consent of the Solicitor-General and by a Decree month December made the Chambers being Assembled entred into the Register of the Court but yet with this Clause according to the good pleasure of the King This was in my opinion the first League that was openly made amongst the Kings Subjects for the business of Religion By this example divers others were formed in several Provinces and out of all these at least from the disposition this Imprinted in the minds of the People that great League was framed which gave Henry III. his death and infinite troubles to his Successors During this apparent calm the Chancellor labour'd in contriving most excellent Reglements for Polity and Justice All Curates were declared exempt from Lodging and Providing or quartering of Soldiers There was an Edict that such as were Plaintiffs in Law should lay down a certain Sum before they were admitted to plead but the Parliament made great opposition and in fine Year of our Lord 1563 whether it were that this Tax hindred Law-Suits and Process or whether on the contrary they thought it scandalous and unjust in the King to turn the Obligation he had to do Justice freely into a toll this Edict was abolished by Non-usage though it were never repealed Another in the Month of December established a Court of Judicature for Merchants composed of one Judge and four Consuls who were chosen out of a Hundred Citizens called together by the Prevost des Marchands and the Eschevins to determine upon the place and without any formal and tedious proceedings all disputes or demands concerning Trade and Commerce to the value of Five Hundred Livers absolutely and Soveraignly and above the said Sum by way of Provision upon giving Security The Appeal to be made to the Parliament After this Example of Paris Ten or Twelve of the chiefest Cities in the Kingdom would needs have the like Jurisdiction and found it to be very good and useful In effect if there were one in every City and the Soveraignty of their Power extended to give Judgment as far as a Thousand Crowns it would prevent frauds dry up deceit at the Root and rid them of all those paltry Splitters of causes who long so much to have a finger in the rich Merchants purse and to taste of that fruit of Trade month December The Fourth of December the Council of Trent was closed where the Cardinal de Lorraine who Composed and Sung their Acclamations though according to ancient Custome it was rather the Office of a Deacon then of a great Archbishop seemed not to have regarded the Honour of France as he ought forasmuch as I know not upon what considerations he named only the Emperour in particular and in gross the Christian Kings and Princes although in the Address of the Bulls for convocation the King of France was by name express'd as well as the Emperor The one and Thirtieth of the same Month which was the last day of the Year was so likewise of the Mareschal de Brissac one of the greatest Warriours of his Age. Year of our Lord 1564 In another Edict given the year after at Paris amongst many Rules contained therein to prevent delayes in Suits of Law and reform their Decrees and Judgments it was ordained that the year which till that time in all Civil Affairs had still taken its beginning at Easter should from thenceforward be changed and begin upon the first day of January according to the usage in the Church This was observed the following year in the Kings Council and the Chambre des Comptes but the Parliament which is as it were Guardian of the Ancient Orders of the Kingdom opposed it and could not be perswaded to follow this Reformation till after the Assembly at Moulins to wit in the year 1567. By vertue of an Edict given at the Instance of the Queen at Saint Maur des Fossez bearing that the void places in the City of Paris namely that of the Palace des Tournelles should be sold for the benefit of the King She caused that Palace to be pulled down together with that of Angoulesme very near the other under colour of abolishing the very Memory of that fatal place where her Husband was wounded to death but in truth to avoid I do not know what sinister accident with which she seemed to be threatned there She gave part of it to the publick for a Horse-Market and sold the remainder to private Persons to build Houses and then began to Erect the Palace of Tuilleries Although the Factions seemed to lye asleep notwithstanding the Heads of both Parties turned every Stone under-hand to keep their Friends firm to them to maintain the Zeal and Courage of their Parties and to strengthen themselves with Forreign assistance The King of Spain was privately courted by several of the Catholick Chiefs who were very willing thereby to support themselves that he should have some hand in the management of the Affairs of France Upon their Solicitations he sent a Solemn Embassy to the King amongst whom were likewise Deputies from the Duke of Savoy and the Duke of Lorraine to perswade him to depute some in his behalf at Nancy where the Assembly of Christian Princes was assigned to consult about the most necessary means and wayes to make the Council of Trent to be received and owned and to extirpate all Heresies out of Christendom but the Queen Mother who foresaw the consequences of this demand illuded it by many delayes and sent the Ambassadors back again with an ambiguous and indeterminate answer Year of our Lord 1564. June c. Upon this occasion Master Charles du Moulin the most profound of all the French Lawyers put forth a Consultation wherein he undertook to prove that the said Council was Null and Vicious in all its parts contrary to the Ancient Decrees prejudicial to the dignity of the Crown and the Liberties of the Gallican Church The zealous Catholicks would not let this attempt of so profane a Fellow escape unpunished but having
in peace telling him That he had not lâ—v'd four score years without learning to die a quarter of an hour At his Funeral Pomp Year of our Lord 1567 they carried his Effigies which is an honour done to none but to Kings and to the Sons of France The Queen very glad to be ridd of him who alone did in a manner limit her power within bounds of reason would not fill up that Office of Constable but that she might retain the general Command of the Armies in her own hands gave it to her Son the Duke of Anjou who was not yet fourteen years of age and placed trusty people about him to dispose both of his person and that great Command as she directed The fifth day after the Battel the Huguenots fearing they might be overwhelmed by those of Paris took their March towards Montereau to meet John Casimir Son of Lewis Elector and Count Palatine who brought them an Army from Germany The Royal Army did not pursue them but kept within Paris there being since the death of the Constable no General as yet appointed The Queen Mother had by Lansac and Bochetel Bishop of Rennes her Ambassadors declared to the Protestant Princes of that Country that in this War Religion was not at all concerned since the Huguenots were allowed all manner of liberty but the Regal Authority which they directly opposed so that the Electors William Duke of Saxony and Charles Marquiss of Brandenburg had denyed the Prince to make any Levies in their Territories but had allowed it to the King The Palatine being also prepossest had for a while kept back those Forces his Son was to command but being afterwards otherwise informed by an Envoyé who accompanied Lansac to the Court of France and who upon his return saw the Prince of Condé he exhorted his Son to go on with his March Year of our Lord 1567. September and October They sojourned at Montereau fifteen days to wait for the Troops which their Chiefs were raising in several Provinces as the King had likewise ordered his part to encrease his Army Those that were raised for them in Poitou Angoumois and Saintonge had for Commanders Francis de la Rochefoucant Claude de Vaudré-Mouy Giron de Luzignan Bessey and Francis de la Nouë whose wisdom and probity was held in admiration amongst the very Catholicks In their favour the City of Rochel by means of Truchard their new Maire and perhaps by the connivance of Guy Chabot Jarnac who was Governor for the King entred into their party whereof it hath been as it were the strongest Tower and Asylum for sixty years together In their March la Nouë being detached to get Orleans for them managed the Business so well that with the help of the Inhabitants who were of the Religion he made himself Master of it the eight and twentieth of September and forced out the Governor who had cantoned himself at the Porte-Baniere From Orleans they Marched towards Montereau and forced Ponts Sur-Yonne The Admiral having joyned them there with a gross of Cavalry would try the City of Sens but he there found the young Duke of Guise who having season'd his courage in the War of Hungary endeavour'd to let him see that he should find in him an Enemy as brave and more dangerous then his Father Those of Languedoc were employ'd by James Crussol d'Acier in taking the Castles of Nismes and Montpellier they having the Towns already by means of the Inhabitants Those of the Countries of Foix Albigeois and Lauraguais conducted by the Vicount those were seven Gentlemen bearing that Title having joyned him assisted him in the taking some places about Avignon and in Daufiné From thence they went to Orleans where by their Arrival they freed the Princess of Condé and the Wives of the other Chief Commanders from the great fear and trouble they were in who having but few Soldiers were every hour under some apprehension of being taken with the Town it self As for the Forces of Auvergne Forez and Beaujolois led by Poncenas and Verbelay they received a check in the Country of Forez from Terride la Valette and Monsalez who were bringing some Levies out of Guyenne to the King but however they made a shift to get clear Poncenas upon another occasion in the night was kill'd by his own Men. The Duke of Newers who had an Army of twelve or thirteen thousand Men six thousand being Swiss and the rest made up in Piedmont and Italy took as he was on his way the City of Mascon whereof la Loüe was Governor but as he was passing thorough his own Dutchy of Nivernois he met with some Huguenot Horse of the Garrison of the little Town of Antrain he charged them and pursuing them in their retreat was wounded in the knee with a Pistol-shot which made him lame all his life after and much exasperated against the Huguenots Year of our Lord 1568 The Huguenot Army at their departure from Montereau took their March thorough Champagne by Chaalons passed the Meuse and went into Lorrain They were five or six dayes in great pain that Prince Casimir appeared not and no less afterwards when upon his first Arrival he demand d an Hundred Thousand Crowns the Prince had promised to pay him when he could joyn him At this time hapned what had never till then been known the Princes Soldiers even to the very Snap-sack boys freely disbursed to make up part of the said Sum and thus one Army paid the other which consisted of six Thousand five Hundred Horse and about three Thousand Foot Year of our Lord 1580 With this considerable Re-inforcement the Confederates returned into France They took the Garrisons of Joinville and Chaumont passed the Marne and crossing the Bishoprick of Autun came to the head of the Seine the Forces under the month January Duke of Nevers not being able to hinder their passage over it From thence they steer'd their Course by Auxerre Chastillon and Montargis whence they extended into la Beausse The Prince having been at Orleans to receive those Troops were brought him from Guyenne marched Twenty Leagues in one day to lay Siege to Chartres He thought when he should have taken this Town he might promise to himself it being one of the Granaries of Paris that he might return to Block up that City its self so deep the Imagination was imprinted in him that he should never attain the ends he designed but by mating that great City by Famine and other inconveniences attending War The enterprize proved more difficult than he expected Antony de Lignieres was got into Chartres with a Strong Garrison and had put all things in good Order If nevertheless he had at first which he did not till the latter end turned the River another way which wrought their Mills the Besieged would soon have wanted bread During this Siege the Conferences for a Peace were again set on foot the Cardinal de Chastillon going to Longjumeau treated a
The Duke of Alenson out-braved by the Favourites had plotted to get away the King having notice of it causes both him and all those that were suspected to have given him such advice to be seized but the next day upon the Queen-Mothers intercession pardon'd him and to compleat the favour did likewise set the other prisoners at large That done as if he had nothing more to fear he gave himself wholly up to idleness passed the Night-time in Feasting and Balls the Morning in adjusting his Cloaths or placing his Furniture to the best advantage and invent new modes the Afternoon in divertisements amongst the Ladies and the Evening in Gaming While he lived in this great security the Duke his Brother deceives those that were commanded to watch him and slipping away one evening the Fifteenth of September reached the City of Dreux where Bussy who had forsaken the Court brought him a great deal of company At his going away he declared himself an enemy to the House of Guise and openly protested to revenge the death month Septemb. of the Admiral and of Molle his Favourite Amongst the Cloaths in his Wardrobe he kept a Doublet belonging to the last and had sworn he would wear it on a day of Battle If the Duke of Montpensier would have joyned with the Duke of Nevers or have lent him his Forces he might have hindred from passing the Loire and getting into Berry For all Montpensiers refusal he had a great mind to charge them and marched with great speed to intercept him but the Queen-Mother sent a Courier with an express Order under her own hand which commanded him not to pursue them any further she fearing her Son might perish in the Fight Upon the noise of the Duke of Alensons evasion great numbers of the Nobility flocked to him from all parts amongst others Ventadour Turenne and the wise La Noüe In the mean while the Prince of Condé had finished his Treaty with Casimir who raised him Eight thousand Reisters and Six thousand Swiss upon this conditition Year of our Lord 1575 amongst other things that they should make no Peace without his consent nor until they had obtained of the King the Government in chief of Mets Toul and Verdun for him Toré having contributed Fifty thousand Crowns towards these Levies they could not refuse to let him have Two thousand Reisters and Five hundred Foot to carry the Duke of Alenson by way of advance but the Duke of Guise Governour of Champagne charged and defeated them near Chasteau-Thierry He was there wounded in the left Cheek with a Musquet-shot the scar remained all his life-time a very Glorious mark of Honour to the Catholiques and very becoming in a Ladies Eyes also who believe that such as are brave in the Field of Mars are ever so in the Camp of Venus too Toré made his escape to the Duke of Alenson in Berry by the swiftness ☜ of his Horse and thither his Infantry got safely by a brave retreat of above Thirty Leagues It was suspected that the Duke of Alensons evasion was contrived by the Queen-Mother thereby to keep up two parties in the Kingdom and render her self necessary between both The Huguenots growing every day more suspicious imagined she had sent him amongst them to divide and so to ruine them However it were most of the great ones were very well pleased with it and she had employment enough cut out for her self as she desired She therefore presently hies after him taking along the Mareschals of Montmorency and Cosse whom she had released from their imprisonment to make use of that credit they had with him Montmorency prevailed so far by his interest as to bring the Duke to the Castle of Champigny belonging to the Duke of Montpensier where she cajoled him so finely that he consented to a truce of Six Months beginning from the Two and twentieh of November That done she returns to Court leaving the said Mareschal there to dispose him to a final accommodation It was agreed by this Truce that the King should give to the Duke by way of security the Cities of Angoulesme Niort Saumur Bourges and la Charite and to the Prince of Conde Mezieres The Governours of Bourges and Angoulesme having refused to be diseised of their places the Queen-Mother returns again to her Son month Decemb. and managed him so well that she obliged him to accept of Cognac and St. Jean d'Angely in exchange after which the Truce was published the Two and twentieth of December There was however nothing as yet that tended to a Peace the King made great Levies both of Men and Money but the City of Paris instead of furnishing him with the sums he desired paid him with Remonstrances which relished of reproaches and did but too evidently let him know the little esteem they had of his Government Some Bourgeois however paid Taxes not so much out of good Will as the fear they had of the Reisters and to exempt their Countrey-houses from quartering of Soldiers wherewith they were menaced month January The Negotiations for Peace continued still this stopt the Prince of Conde and Casimir in Lorrain all the month of January at the end whereof being tired with the variety and uncertainty of such Propositions as were made them they descended into Bassigny crossed over Burgundy within sight of Langres Dijon and Beaulne passed the Loir at Marsigny les Nonains and extended themselves between that River and the River of Allier having gained the Bridge de Vichy Auvergne avoided that month February inundation which would have destroy'd it by a Present of Fifty thousand Crowns and by ordering Markets to serve them with Provisions where-ever they passed The Duke of Mayenne who commanded the Royal Army durst not approach the Princes any nearer then within two days march When the King perceived they were resolved to come directly to Paris he recalled his own and quarter'd them about it but this remedy which he thought sit to provide against their fears excited the Parisians complaints they fall a crying out that they ought not thus pursue the only Brother of the King and that it was a high piece of cruelty to drive a Son out of the House To these out-cries were added the Duke of Montpensiers refusal to take upon him the Command of the Royal Army the little zeal the Grandees express'd to serve the King in this occasion and a much more surprising accident then all these which was the evasion of the King of Navarre about the end of February This Prince having a long while suffer'd himself to be flatter'd with the hopes of the General-Lieutenancy and the deluding charms of some Court Syrens escaped at last from Senlis whither he was gone under pretence of a Hunting-match and retired to Poissy from thence to Alenson afterwards to Vendosme Two hundred Gentlemen month February coming there to meet him he travelled by long journeys into Guyenne where his quality of Governour and
from Rome he resolved to go thither himself to negociate this Affair with the Pope imagining that the splendour of his favour and the gallant propositions he would offer for the exaltation of the Pontifical Authority would obtain all he desired He was magnificently received at Rome Lewis Cardinal d'Est presented him to his Holiness he respected him as the Favourite of a very potent Monarch but for the rest did not comply with any of his demands except a Cardinals Hat for the Archbishop of Narbonne his younger Brother The King stiling him his Brother in his Letters of Recommendation the Venetians upon his return rendred him as much honour as if he had been a Son of France the Dukes of Ferrara and Mantoua treated him in the same manner and all the Cities of France where he passed made him their Compliments as they were ordered to do nevertheless the vexation of mind he brought home with him for the Popes denial or as some others will have it an unfortunate trick of youth cast him into a long fit of Sickness which made him so lean and so ill-favour'd that it was some time ere he durst appear before the King with whom during this interval his Rival had gained so much advantage that he might easily have quite supplanted him had he not feared Year of our Lord 1583 some other might come into his place whose more auspicious favour might perhaps have thrust him out likewise Queen Margaret was then at Court where she could not forbear making feuds and practising her wonted malice A Courier whom the King sent to Joyeuse in Italy month July being kill'd upon his Journey and his Letters rifled the King suspected it was by her contrivance and resolved to be revenged by defaming her as she endeavour'd to vilifie him He reproached her publickly of her familiarity with James de Harlay Chanvallon said she kept certain Ladies about her that were her Confidents whom he called precious Vermine then some few days after commanded her to go to her Husband and upon the Road sent a Captain of his Guards who searched her very Litter pull'd her Masque off her Face and seized upon two or three of her Domestick Servants and brought them before the King with two of her Dames He examined them each apart concerning the manner of Life and Conversation of his Sister then sent them to the Bastille The King of Navarre could easily not resolve to receive his Wife thus defam'd he pressed the King to chastise her himself if she deserved to suffer such Indignities if not to clear her of those Scandals the King without offering to make out any month August c. thing repeated his absolute Commands and the Mareschal de Matignon having invested him in Nerac by privately conveying Garrisons into all the places thereabout forced him to receive her The Expences of the Favourites were excessive and the depredations of the Finances even by those very Men that managed the Treasury much greater yet This ill Husbandry begot such an extream scarcity of Money that often times there was not enough to furnish the Kings Table and if we may so say the Pottage-Pot stood often topsey-turvey His Flatterers pretended the People loved him so infinitely that whenever he did but signifie his wants all 〈◊〉 untie their Purse Strings to assist him It was for this purpose but under 〈◊〉 â—our of redressing the present Disorders that he the precedent year had sent to visit the provinces by Persons of Credit and Probity who with smooth and fine Harangues concluded always with a touch upon that String but to very little purpose Year of our Lord 1583 When he found that Project would hot take he called an Assembly of Notables to St. Germain en Laye thinking thereby to gain the good will of the People and let them know that if he had sent Commissioners it was not so much for his own Interests as to hear their Complaints and do them Justice month Septemb. c. The Assembly was divided into three Chambers each of them having a Prince of the Blood for President The Affairs were all distributed which they reduced to certain Heads as well for the Reformation of the Clergy the Nobility and the Judges as for the Administration of the Government and regulation or dispensation of the Finances There were very excellent Propositions tendred as to set aside all sale of Offices and Employments to assign punishments for all such as should invent any new Imposts or Creations to purge the Kings Council of those that had any Combination with the Parties belonging to the Finances and to prevent all under-hand villanous dealing therein Chiverny had introduced that fraudulent practise amongst them ever since he had had the Seals endeavouring thereby to procure both Employment and Authority to himself as not having so much 〈◊〉 he desired in Affairs of State The Clergy were not forgetful in demanding the re-establishment of Elections and the publication of the Council of Trent as to the first point all those that thought it much easier to acquire favour and interest then merit and learning stood up against it and for the second the Chapters Parliaments and the Kings Council made Head and opposed it so that they obtained neither the one nor the other As for the rest the King established four Councils i. e. the Council for Foreign Affairs the Council of State the Council de Finances or the Treasury and the Privy-Council They were composed of Men of the Sword of the Church and of the long Robe to whom he prescribed even the fashion of their Garments both for Winter and Summer and assigned them two thousand Livers per Annum Wages The remaining part of the year was spent in setling these Regulations and divers ☞ other Orders the multiplication whereof in France hath never had any other effect but the multiplying of Abuses and Grievances In the mean while the Three and twentieth month November of November died the Cardinal Rene de Birague aged Seventy four years who said of himself That he was A Cardinal without a Title a Priest without a Benefice and a Chancellor without the Seals for in the year 1578. he had given them up to Chiverny One might have added A Judge without knowledge in the Law and a Magistrate without any Authority because in truth he had no learning and bowed his Head like a tall Reed to every blast of Court wind having more respect for a Valet in favour then to all the Laws of the Kingdom A famous Ingenier named Louis de Foix Native of Paris but Originally of the Country whose name he bare began this year to build the Phare at the mouth of the Year of our Lord 1583 River of Bourdeaux near the ruines of another Tower which was named the Tower of Cordouan Two years before he had done great service towards the Trade of Bayonne The Sea had brought such vast quantities of Sand into the old Boucaud of the
Cities belonging to the Low-Countries to be put any more into the hands of the French and aid the Catholick King to reduce Cambray and the Rebel Cities Reciprocally the Spaniard should furnish the French Princes with fifty thousand Pistols per Month and should advance them four hundred thousand from six Months to six Months for which the Cardinal de Bourbon should be accountable if he attained to the Crown Year of our Lord 1585. January Besides this Sum the Agent of Spain caused several others to be paid to the Duke of Guise which he scatter'd about with a free hand to gain those of whom he stood in most need There were few yea very few indeed in all France that were not to be bought could he have paid down but the price demanded but as all the Gold of India had not been sufficient to purchase and satisfie all that were Venal there hapned to be multitudes who enraged that they had been neglected or less valued then others whom they esteemed much beneath themselves turned the other way and became sworn Enemies to this Guisian Faction After the States of Holland had wasted a great deal of time in deliberating under whose Dominion they should seek a shelter that might be able to guard and secure them from the oppression of the Spaniard having lost the Cities of Bruges and Ghent and the Duke of Parmâ— holding Antwerp invested they sent some Deputies to the King to intreat he would accept them for his Subjects The Spanish Ambassador employ'd all his Efforts to hinder them from being admitted to Audience however he could not the King heard them received their Propositions in Writing and promised to return his Answer Then did the Spaniards press the Duke of Guise to declare himself and could have no more patience with him till he had thrown his Masque aside When therefore he had put the Cardinal de Bourbon the best Card in his Hand into month March a place of security the Nobility of Picardy having been to fetch him at Gaillon whence they carried him to Peronne he put forth a Declaration the Eighteenth of March not Signed by any one then observing little credit was given to it because it had no name he put forth a second bearing that of the Cardinal de Bourbon together with the Year of our Lord 1585 names of those Princes Prelats and Officers whom he said to be his Assistants Many faults were found with this also and having to deal with People of various minds they changed and alter'd it again and again so that there were hardly twenty Copies to be met with that were alike At the same time the Duke plaid his Game Verdun and then Toul were surprised by Guitaud but they failed at Mets where the Duke of Espernon had put things in good posture Himself secured Chaalons and Mezieres the Duke d'Aumale most of the Cities in Picardy Brissac that of Angiers Entragues secur'd himself of Orleans the Duke of Mayenne of Dijon and some others in Burgundy by himself and of a great many Cities and Castles in Daufine by the Nobility of the Country whom he had charmed with his magnificence and civility The City of Bourdeaux barricado'd her self to drive out Matignon but that wise and prudent Lord making use first of his Intreaties till he had drawn his Men together then of his Commands when he found himself the stronger caused the Barricado's to be pull'd down and so seized upon some of the most Mutinous whom notwithstanding he pardon'd Some few days after he craftily allured Vaillac Governor of the Castle Trompette to come thither and forced him to surrender the place Dariez second Consul of Marseille had promis'd in the absence of the first to make himself Master thereof the Duke of Nevers was to have had that Government and to faciliate the Enterprize had sent four of the Duke of Florences Galleys thither crowded with Foot-Soldiers who had cast Anchor without the Chain of that port expecting the Signal for execution Now Dariez by means of one certain Boniface month April had raised a great Tumult in the City and seized upon the Castle of Nostre-Dame de la Garde yet did not carry the business on or follow his first blow with vigour but kept up the Commotion for three days without compleating his design In the mean while a notable Man named Francis Bouguier who had great credit with the Marseillois having got all his Freinds together besets him in a Court of Guard and carries both him and Boniface away Prisoners to the Town-Hall so that the Grand Prior coming the next day with the Count de Carces they brought them forthwith upon their Trial. In one day they were Examined Condemned and Hanged by Torch-light The Duke of Nevers came to Avignon as was conjectur'd to encourage in the Enterprise yet some have thought his Voyage had another motive Being of a tender Conscience he desired say they before he engaged farther in the League to Year of our Lord 1585 know whether it were truly the work of God and that he might be certain would try whether the Pope would give it his approbation Father Matthew the Jesuit called the Courier of the League made two or three Journeys one soon after another to Rome to obtain a Bull for it in default of a Bull he demanded a Brief and in default of a Brief a Letter only that the Duke of Nevers might have a sight of it in the Vice-Legats hands This was the occasion as some believe of that Princes going to Avignon but Father Mat hew lost all his labour he could neither obtain Brief nor Bull. Nevertheless there is a Letter to be seen lately made publick making mention that the Pope did not think good they should attempt upon the Life of the King but only secure his Person to seize upon his Places under his Authority whence two things may be deduced if at least it were not an Imposture of that Couriers to engage the Duke the one that the Pope at the bottom did not discountenance the League although he durst not declare himself for fear of the consequence and because of the uncertainty of the success the other that the League had made some proposition against the Person of the King and that the Duke of Nevers was not ignorant of it However it were the Enterprise of Marseilles failing he made a Journey to Rome and from that time as some write or within a year afterwards utterly renounced the League and thus having offended his Brother in Law the Duke of Guise he necessarily became his Enemy month April The Kings Council did not proceed all upon the same foot Espernon and his Partisans would have them attaque the League without intermission and without any quarter on the contrary such as did dread the Duke of Guise or hated Espernon were of opinion to temporise The King at first followed Espernons advice but soon after falling into his natural softness and persuaded by his
in the Marishes But the advantage which the Duke of Montpensier Governor of Normandy gained over the Leaguers was much more considerable He had besieged Falaâ—se Brissac brought four thousand Gautiers to its relief he marches out to meet them and cut them all off near the Village of Pierresite which is within two leagues of Falaise and afterwards went and rooted out the whole Nursery of them at Vimoutier Bernay and la Chapelle-Gautier where part of them were knock'd on the Head part scatter'd and the rest constrained to lay down their Swords and fall to the Plough-share These were all Peasants that for two years had held those places not for any particular Party but to defend themselves from the robbing Soldiery and from the Tax-gatherers greater Villains yet then the Men of the Sword Their first place of meeting was in the Parish of la Chapelle-Gautier whence they had their name they were to the number of ten or twelve thousand Happy if they had not admitted two Gentlemen amongst them who did engage them in the quarrels of the Grandees for which they had not the least concern At parting from Chasteaudun the Duke of Mayenne did not go directly to Tours as it seems he ought to have done but turns himself to some other Enterprizes The one was upon the City of Vendosme he took it by the treachery of Francis Maille Benehard to whom the King of Navarre had given the Government and in the same draught of his Net caught all the grand Council who lodged there He had another to surprize the Duke of Espernons Cavalry who were quarter'd about St. Ouin and to have taken Prisoner Charles de Luxembourg Count de Brienne his Brother in Law that he might exchange him for the Duke d'Elboeuf For we must know that the Duke of Espernon was come back to the King with a good Party of Soldiers and had quarter'd his Foot at Blois to defend it from the fury of the Duke of Mayenne who threatned to lay it level with the ground and sow it with Salt in revenge of the death of his Brothers The Cavalry of the Count de Brienne were wholly cut off and he hemm'd in and then made Prisoner in St. Ouins but the King left him there not much caring to exchange him This hapned some few days after the Enterview of the two Kings The King of Navarres absence made way for the Duke of Mayenne soon after to attempt upon the City of Tours Perhaps the secret correspondence he held with Year of our Lord 1589 some of the Inhabitants who were Leaguers or even the Kings own Officers invited month May. him He parted about Evening on the Seventh of May with his Army and after a march of thirteen Leagues got the next day by Ten of the Clock in the Morning so near the Suburbs that the King who was gone out to walk towards Marmoustier did narrowly miss of being surprized by some light Horsemen The Duke a great Temporiser lost half the day in light Skirmishes it was near four in the Afternoon when having felt their pulses he roundly attaqu'd the Fauxbourg St. Symphorien and carried it in less then half an hour Which made it seem probable that if he had done so at the very first he might have taken the Town wherein he had a great Faction but towards the Evening Chastillon arrived with the King of Navarres Forces who lay not far from Tours and intrenched himself in an Island right over against the City Upon this the Duke reflecting that he had but few Horse and that his Foot were all new raised Men that the King of Navarre would soon return in Person with that part of his Troops who were remaining at Chinon judg'd it safest to make a retreat and dislodged without noise at the first break of day taking his march towards Anjou to gather up in that Country and in Perche and Mayne those Companies which the Gentlemen of the League had raised there This first Effort of the League having succeeded so ill the Nobless who before gave the King for lost perceived now he would be able to defend himself and hastned to come to him with great diligence Then having room to march into the Field which way he pleased he desired the King of Navarre to draw his Forces to Boisgency to make an essay upon Orleans sent the Count de Soissons into Bretagne to secure the City of Renes and himself made a Cavalcade to Poitiers thinking to confirm that City to his own Service which as yet did vacillate betwixt both Parties But Orleans stirred not for the approach of the Navarrois Army the Count unfortunately sell into the hands of the Duke of Mercoeur who made him Prisoner in Chasteaugiron within three leagues of Renes and the King did not find in Poitieres that kind disposition they had given him hopes of He returned therefore to Tours where he began afresh to fall into his wonted idleness still flattering himself with some accommodation with the League when the King of Navarre took the liberty to wait upon him and rowzed up his sloath by so many arguments of danger and honour that he forced him to mount on Horseback desiring of him but only two Months labour and activity to set him at rest all the remainder of his life Two messages of good news did likewise help to awake and spur him forwards one the defeat of the Lords de Saveuse and de Brosse the other the gaining of a Year of our Lord 1589 Battle at Senlis Saveuse and Brosse were Brothers and of the bravest indeed month June amongst all the Picards and the most zealous Leaguers who as they were bringing two hundred Lanciers to the Duke of Mayenne were charged by Chastillon in that part of la Beausse near Bonneval where yet the Cross of Saveuse is to be seen He slew a hundred of them and took fourscore Prisoners whereof the most part died of their Wounds Amongst others Saveuse who refusing any manner of help or consolation let his Soul sally forth together with his Blood detesting the Murther at Blois and spending his last breath in praising the heroick vertues of the Duke of Guise As to the affair of Senlis Tore who had great influence over that City because of the Voicinage of Chantilly having reclaimed them to the Kings service the Duke of Aumale would needs set upon it with some Parisian Forces and four thousand Men brought him by Balagny who called himself Prince of Cambray Now the very same day they had capitulated to surrender la Noue and the young Duke of Longueville who had drawn together some Ten thousand Men to go and meet the Swiss raised by Saney and some Lords of Picardy whose Houses Balagny had ruined resolved to succour it They briskly attaqued that Citizen-Camp and found no great resistance for they defeated and routed themselves upon the very first sight of their Army There fell about two thousand of them upon the
that were due and to receive the English succours but he first accompanied the Corps of his Predecessor to St. Comille de Compeigne and in his way took Creil upon Oyse Meulanc on the Seine Clermont in Beauvoisis and Gisors He was after this forced to give his Nobility leave to go and take care of their Harvest but he sent part of his Troops with those of Picardy commanded by the Duke of Longueville another with those of Champagne conducted by the Mareschal d'Aumont and even some Companies into Angoulmois with the Duke of Espernon that it might be thought he went not into those Countries but by his Order The more affectionate to the publick Liberty said it belonged to the Estates General to decide a Question so important and indeed the King had assigned them at Tours in the Month of October and the Duke at Paris in the Month of November though neither the one nor the other did it out of any other end but to amuse the People They did not forget on either part to give notice to all the Princes their Friends of what had hapned and to seek their assistance They were both of them near the same Age both very valiant the Duke of Mayenne till then in reputation as the better Commander but he soon lost it wanting celerity which is one of the main qualifications In effect he was slow in resolving much slower yet in execution negligent in pursuing his advantages heavy of Body a great sleeper and a huge Trencher-man His Secretaries and Officers were stupified with the same Laziness There were Pacquets of great importance lay oft-times two or three days on his Table and never open'd Those that managed his Moneys were prodigal and ill Husbands so that he never had enough at a time of need His sloath tired the more active and his sullen gravity not to say pride distasted his most zealous and faithful Partisans as his suspicions and eternal jealousies disgusted and offended such by whom he might have been very much assisted The King on the contrary was not sparing of caresses Year of our Lord 1589. August and fair words shewed a great deal of confidence in those Princes from whom he received any help was affable and familiar quick active and vigilant not lying so long time in Bed as the Duke was sitting at Table with this sparing and srugal even to excess yet handsomly bestowed what he could not well refuse As for the two Parties that of the League was much the greater for they had the generality of the common People most of the biggest Cities all the Parliaments except Renes and Bourdeaux and this last did not own him till a year after the better part of the Ecclesiastical Order the assistance of Spain the encouragement of Rome and all the Catholick Princes but the Republick of Venice and the Duke of Florence yet there was no union amongst their Chiefs nor Authority sufficient in their General to fasten and hold all these different untackt pieces together who were more opposed by each other then by the King himself The Royalists Party had almost all the Nobless the Officers belonging to the late Court all the Protestant Princes to Friend and the Huguenots with their old Soldiers enured to hardships and trials ready to expose all that they might get a King of their own Religion and indeed they did render him most signal service and would have done him much greater yet if a suspicion of his Conversion had not tied up their hands As for the Nobility having no pay they served him as it were by turns a Month or six weeks together was the most then they returned to their own homes month September and those of some other Province came and supplied their places He had but three thousand French Foot left two Regiments of Swiss and twelve hundred Horse with these he descends into Normandy along the Seine N. le Blanc-Rolet a Man of courage and judgment Governor of Pont de l'Arche was the first that declared and came to meet and bring him the Keys of the place Emar de Chates gave him the same assurance for Diepe and Gaspard de Polet la Verone for the City and Castle of Caen. These favourable successes engaged him to the Siege of Rouen Aumale and Brissac were within with twelve hundred Horse nevertheless the People beginning to waver and not knowing how to rely either upon their conduct or their valour the Duke of Mayenne judged it necessary to go thither himself He had near four thousand Horse and fifteen thousand Foot for Henry Marquiss de Pont Son of the Duke of Lorrain after the taking of Jamets was come to joyn him with a thousand Horse Christopher de Bassompierre with four Cornets of Reisters Year of our Lord 1589. September the Duke of Nemours with three thousand Foot and fifteen hundred Horse Balagny with two thousand Men and the Duke of Parma had sent him as many The King did not believe this Army could have been ready so soon nor that they would march this way When he found they came directly to him he decamped from before Rouen and went and took the City of Eu but he was much astonished when they came and told him they had pass'd the Seine at Vernon He then perceived he had no other course to take till he could get his Nobility and Friends together but to retire under the Walls of Diepe and perhaps he might not have had time to do this if the celerity of the Duke of Mayennes Army had not been retarded by the absence of their Chief for he was gone post from Mantes to Beins in Haynault to confer with the Duke of Parma When he return'd he designed to coop the King up in that corner and to that purpose took all the little places round about it By this means he thought first to invest him and afterwards wholly overwhelm him which appeared so feasible and undoubted that he sent word every where even into Spain that he held the Bearnois pent up in a place from whence he could not escape him unless he would leap into the Sea The Parliament of Tours had so great a dread of it that they sent Deputies to propound to the King to associate the old Cardinal de Bourbon to the Crown and the King himself startled by the timerous Councils of such as were about him and apprehending lest the Barks that descended from Rouen and those Vessels the Duke of Parma was preparing at Dunkirk should invest him by Sea as he was already by Land took it into consideration whether he ought not to go away for England while the Coast was clear The plurality of Votes had carried it on that side if the bold Remonstrances of the Mareschal de Biron who could do every thing with him had not made them reject that mean-spirited Advice He lodged himself therefore at Arques which is a Burrough with a Castle situate upon a rising ground within a League
they paid him with the very same evasion In this manner being all jealous of each Year of our Lord 1589. November other and employing their greatest care the one to usurp the other to defend themselves they in this mean while let slip the opportunity of destroying the common Enemy and continuing to act in the same manner still they labour'd only to the advancement of his Affairs and the destruction of their own The Duke sensibly touched with the reproaches of the Parisians for having kept his Army three weeks about the Town without doing any thing takes the Field the Two and twentieth of November He gains the Bois de Vincennes and some other Castles upon Composition laid Siege to Pontoise which defended it self but very poorly this was in the beginning of January then went to attaque Meulanc He promis'd himself after the taking of this last place to do the same by Pont de l'Arche and by that means keep the River of Seine open from Paris even to Rouen It was Year of our Lord 1590. January easie enough for him to gain the Town of Meulanc the difficulty was to take the Fort which is an Island joyned to the two Shoars by two Bridges As then the King was in Normondy where he had reduced almost all the places Alencon Argentan Domfront Lisieux Bayeux Falaise and Honfleur There were none but the two last that sustained a Siege the first was taken by assault from the Castle the Mote which was its chiefest strength being frozen up and was miserably sacked the other capitulated as soon as the King had block'd up their Harbour by which they daily received refreshment sent them by Villars from Rouen Now when he was informed the Duke was before Meulane he hastens thither with part of his Men puts relief into the Fort then some few days after comes again with his whole Army Now the Duke being well lodged in the Burrough and he much incommoded in the Field by the great Frosts resolved to draw him out thence by attaquing Poissy which lies a League above it He immediately gains the Town by Escalado and falls a battering the Bridge The Duke runs thither upon the noise of the Cannon and could no way stop their fury but by breaking down two Arches of the Bridge The King having done what he desired went and laid Siege to Dreux During this the Legat was arrived at Paris He there received the Compliments of the Magistrates and all the distinct Bodies Corporate of the City presented his Bull in Parliament who verified it without any modification and went afterwards thither himself in great pomp believing there remained nothing more for him to do but to take possession of the Soveraign Authority But as he would have placed himself in the Kings Seat which is in the corner under a Canopy the first President pull'd him gently by the hand as if to shew him respect and sat him on the Bench below him The Parliament of Tours having seen his Bull and observ'd it was directed to the Kings Enemies forbid he should be owned for Legat that of Paris Year of our Lord 1590. January on the contrary damn'd their Decree and thus these two Companies often fought with the points of their Pens The King making much ado with his demanding a Conference to be instructed writing however quite contrary to the Protestant Princes many of the Leaguers month February and March began to grow cool and even some Preachers were so bold as to speak in favour of him The Faculty of Theology made a Decree of the Tenth of February wherein they condemned these Propositions That it was lawful to agree with the Bearnois to own him upon condition he became a Catholick and to pay him Taxes and Subsidies The Legat at the same time wrote his Circular Letter the first of March to all the Bishops forbidding them to appear in any Assembly for that purpose and withal took a new Oath of the Prevost des Merchands Eschevins Quarteniers Diziniers and Captains of each Quarter or Ward to persevere in the Holy Union to the last moment of their lives This was done in the great Augustins after solemn Procession The Ambassador of Spain was not so discouraged upon their first denial to own the King his Master for their Protector but he would needs attempt it a second time which had no better success then the former He likewise offer'd the Duke a very great supply but he who would readily have accepted it in the beginning apprehending it might be to stifle his Authority by a greater told him he should be satisfied with five or six thousand Men and the remainder he would rather have in Money During the difficulties created by their Agents on this Subject he goes to the Duke of Parma and procured of him fifteen hundred Lances and five hundred Arquebusiers on Horseback Armed with Breast and Head-piece they were called Carabins all commanded by Philip Count of Egmont a young Man growing in Reputation but who as yet was more rash then valiant With this Re-inforcement having no less then four thousand Horse and ten thousand Foot he marches to the relief of Dreux and passed over the River Stine at Mantes The King having notice of it raised the Siege and came to post himself at Nonancour The same night he arrived there his Council resolved to give Battle though his Army were less in number by a third part then the Enemy It was not the Dukes design to engage him but only to put some Men into Dreux as he might with ease all the Avenues being left open but the King decamping from Nonaâ—cour to draw somewhat nearer the River Eure towards Yvry that so if the Enemies attempted to pass over he might fight them separately the Leaguers imagined he was flying Then Egmont presses the Duke to follow and fall upon him and while the Duke knew not what to resolve brags he would attaque him with his own Party Year of our Lord 1590. March alone and beat him These Huffings and the vain discourses of the Parisians who reproached his sloath constrained him to pass the River Eure and engaged him in Combat Those that call'd â—olowd for Battle fell into a sudden consternation when they saw the Kings Forces who far from running away came directly towards them but there was now no way left them to avoid it The next Morning being on Wednesday the Fourteenth of March the two Armies ranged themselves in Batalia right against Yvry in that great Plain which lies in the midst of a Peninsula between the Rivers Aure and Iton and the Eure which receives them both In less then half an hour the Army of the League was utterly defeated the great Squadrons of their Lancers broken with the others Swords and Pistol Shot their Lansquenets cut in pieces and most part of their Frenchmen kill'd upon the place The Swiss only stood their ground but when they saw they were about to break their Batalions with
with quite contrary Sentiments Thus a private Interest often or twelve thousand ✚ Francs between particular Men defeated the King of an infinite advantage the ill success whereof brought him into a most troublesom Labyrinth month November On St. Martins day Birons Forces approached near Rouen He had besides his French three thousand Englishmen commanded by the Earl of Essex Favourite to Queen Elizabeth whom he had been to meet by Sea as far as Boulogue They would at first needs shew some little bravado and fired their small Guns but they were soon beaten off by a stout Salley and the Mareschal being as yet too weak went and took Gournay and Caudebec That done he comes again before Rouen and endeavoured to turn the little Rivers of Robec and Aubete another way on which the Town Mills were placed he succeeded as to the former but not the latter In the mean time the Citizens of Rouen intending to shew themselves more brave then those Year of our Lord 1591 of Paris made many great Sallies to let the Besiegers know it would be no easie month November task to approach their Walls and that they would rather chuse to fight then to fast The Duke of Mayenne found himself at this time in the greatest distress that ever he was in during his whole Life Having no Forces to oppose so powerful an Army as the Kings he saw the loss of Rouen before his Eyes afterwards that of all Normandy then of Paris and by consequence of all France Those that were to help him gave him most trouble the Duke of Nemours diverted one part of his Forces to erect a Soveraignty about Lyonnois the Duke of Guise labour'd to make himself Head of the Party as his Father had been and the young Nobless did already run after him as the Seize owned him for their Chief Above all this he dreaded the Spaniards who told him plainly they would let him perish if he employ'd not his Interest and Credit to make the Crown fall to the Infanta They bragg'd withall they had a way to attain their ends in despite of him which was to divide and share the Kingdom amongst the Grandees and the most renowned Captains and draw the chiefest Cities to them by giving them their liberty so that France had been reduced to the same condition as Germany a tempting bait both for the Lords and for the People But nothing lay so heavy upon him as the Seize he hated them to the utmost and was in the same measure hated by them Nor did they let slip any opportunity to decry his Conduct sent frequent Complaints Remonstrances and Deputations to him regarded not his Orders no more then he did their Memorials wrote of their own Heads to the King of Spain to offer him the Crown had engaged their Cabal to take a new Oath of Union which did exclude all the Princes of the Blood from the Throne and forced all those that would not take it amongst others the Cardinal de Gondy to depart the City Nothing was left to make them Masters but to rid their hands of a part of the Parliament who observed them night and day and cross'd their designs The Duke of Mayenne was no less afraid then they were foreseeing clearly enough that sooner or later that first Parliament of the Kingdom would return to the King and draw the People after them he was therefore well enough pleased the Seize diminished their Authority and hoped that by dashing so fiercely against each other they would both be destroy'd to his advantage The thing hapned as he wished but with a Consequence quite different from his intention The Parliament had absolv'd one named Brigard whom the Seize had accused of holding intelligence with the Royalists the most zealous of that Faction resolved upon revenge To this end they created a secret Council of ten amongst Year of our Lord 1591 themselves by whose advice all things of importance was to be dispatched This month November Council concluded they must make away the President Brisson Larcher Counsellor in Parliament and Tardif Counsellor at the Chastelet who broke their measures and who besides were particular Enemies to some of them They first attempted to do it by some Assassins but those Hirelings as it frequently happens having discover'd this Plot to the Parties themselves to gain a double Reward they resolved to act more openly They drew up therefore a Sentence of Death against those three and wrote it above the Names and Signatures of several eminent Citizens which they had got upon another pretence With and by vertue of this Warrant they seized on them in divers places carried them to the little Chasteles and Hanged them all three in that Prison The President Brisson was the first A Catastrophy unworthy so excellent and so learned a Man yet ordinary to such as float betwixt two Parties All the remaining portion of that day they scatter'd divers odious Reports about the Town to blast their Memories the following night they caused their Bodies to be carried to the Grewe where they hanged till the next night But observing the People gazed on the sad Spectacle rather with the Eyes of pity then indignation they began to consider the horror of the Fact and apprehend the Revenge Some of them were of opinion to seize the Dutchess of Nemours that she might be security for them against the Duke her Son Others to compleat the Tragedy would rid themselves of him if he came towards Paris and after that elect a Chief that depended wholly upon them The Spaniards did believe they would have gone thorough with this last Act and if so would have supported them but cared not to be the first should approve an attempt the justification whereof depended on the event ☞ Now as there are but few great Crimes carried on to the highest pitch no more then Heroick Vertues these People that had begun this first without necessity did not know how to act a second which was necessary to cover the former The Parliament the Princesses the Royalists themselves who pretended to be zealous Leaguers earnestly sollicited the Duke who was at Laon to hasten and deliver them from that Tyranny crying out the Knife was at their very Throats Divers Considerations kept him a while in suspence he feared lest despair should force the Seize to cast themselves upon the Spaniards lest the Duke of Guise should support them or lest their Cabal should be strong enough to shut up the Gates against him nevertheless perceiving their courage failed that they did not put themselves into a posture Year of our Lord 1591 to maintain their Roguery with vigor but forsaking themselves were openly month November protected by none he took three hundred Horse and fifteen hundred Foot and marched directly to Paris One Band went out to meet him having at their Head Boucher Curate of St. Benoist who was to deliver the Message but the Duke passed on and would not hear them
Circumvalation which retarded the Siege near three weeks The Mareschal de Biron was slain in the approaches by a Cannon Shot which took off his Head He had been Chief Commander in seven Battles or great Combats in each of which he had received some Wound A Man very considerable in the Cabinet Council as well as the Campagne who would be ignorant of nothing had a hand in every thing and fenced with the Quil as dexterously as with the Sword As soon as the Battery had made a breach the Besieged Capitulated Provins Year of our Lord 1592 did the same upon the third day Meaux being much stronger the King did not month May. attaque it but to cut off those Provisions the Parisians drew from thence by the Marne he built a Fort in the Island of Gournay which lies upon that River within four Leagues of Paris and gave the Government thereof to Odet de la Noue whose incorruptible fidelity answer'd his favour with most exactly guarding the said Passage Upon the Frontiers of Bretagne the Princes of Conty and of Dombes being joyned received a very Signal loss they had besieged the City of Craon situate upon the River of Oudon the Duke of Mercoeur came to its relief assisted by Bois-Dausin month May. who brought the Nobility of Mayne and by the Marquiss de Belle-Isle Son of the Mareschal de Rais. Now the Princes for want of good Intelligence had let the Duke pass the River and get into a very advantageous place for Battle whilst they chose a very bad one for themselves then not able to resolve to fight they made their retreat in the open day and committed many other oversights which occasioned their defeat This hapned the Five and twentieth of May. They lost twelve hundred Men all their Cannon which was left by the way for want of Harness and afterwards the Cities of Chasteau-Gontier Mayenne and Laval The Mareschal de Rais after the death of Henry III. not seeing clearly into the depth of Affairs nor knowing which Party to side with was retired to Florence and had advised his Son to joyn with the strongest which made him take part with the Duke of Mercoeur to secure the great Estate he had in Bretagne though others imagined it was a fancy he had for the Dutchess that engaged him to it month June The Fourth of June Henry Prince of Dombes lost his Father Francis Duke of Montpensier Aged Fifty years he inherited his Name his vast Estate and the Government of Normandy which the King bestow'd on him as he did that of Bretagne on the Mareschal d'Aumont This last regained the City of Mayenne after a fifteen days Siege but lay two Months before Rechefort with the loss of a great many Men and not able to take it the inconveniencies of the Winter and the Duke of Mercoeur coming to the relief of the place Rochefort was a Castle upon a Rock of Slat on the bank of the River Loire five Leagues beneath Anger 's right against the Rock de Gausie a place remarkable in former days and ruined during the War with the English Two Brothers Surnamed de Hurtaud who held it for the King put it and themselves into the Party for the League that they might be justified for making Sardiny a rich Partisan their Prisoner and screwing a Ransom of Ten thousand Crowns from him though he were a Royâ—â—â—st It was about the same time that Rene de Rieux Sourdeac being invested in Brest by the Nobility and Commonalty of the Country after a four or five Months blocade beat them so in several Sallies partly by stratagems partly by courage as forced them to dislodge and even to buy a Truce which he sold them at the rate of Eight Year of our Lord 1592 thousand Crowns per Annum Within a Month after he gained a Victory at Sea month June over seven Ships of Normandy which were come from Fescamp to seize upon the Harbour of Cameret from whence they would have annoyed that of Brest These advantages did hugely contribute to the keeping that Country under obedience of the King All Guyenne was so excepting that Emanuel Desprez Marquiss of Villars Son of the Duke of Mayenne's Wife and Henry Lord of Montpâ—sat Brother of Emanuel held some small places in Perigord in Limosin and in Agenois Agen Villeneuve and Marmande These Brothers the foregoing year had been beaten near the Abby de Roquemadour in Quercy by Anne de Levis Ventadour and Ponts de Losieres Temines this Governor of Quercy the other of Limosin who slew them seven hundred of the four and twenty hundred they had got together and took their Cannon and month June July c. Bagage The Mareschal de Matignon commanded in this Province when there hapned a dangerous division by means of Paul d'Esparbez Lussan This Gentleman had purchased Blaye of Guy de Sainct Gelais Lansac a great Waster of his Estate The Mareschal said it was with his Money and that Lussan was but his Agent therein but when he would have come in Lussan flatly denied him entrance and offer'd to repay him his Money The Mareschal not able to bring him to Reason renders him suspected of holding Correspondence with the League and retrenched his pay Lussan did not much value that but begins to raise Contribution upon the River with four great Vessels which he made Men of War Whereupon the Mareschal having excited the Complaints of the whole Province against him obtained an Order from the King to drive him thence by force and laid Siege to Blaye Lussan withstood it three Months after which finding himself hard beset he calls in the Spaniards to his aid and with their help defended himself so well that he kept possession of the place They missed but little of getting some footing in the Province by Bayon upon an Enterprize they had contrived against that City by means of a Merchant of the Franche-Compte named Chastean-Martin who inhabited there and a Physician named Rossius It was very near succeeding when la Hilliere who was Governor of the place discover'd it luckily surprizing an ill instructed Footman who brought Letters from Fontarabia The Merchant and the Doctor were Hanged Amidst the confusion of three or four Parties in Provence that for the King began to be predominant especially when the Duke of Savoy was defeated at Vinon After that la Valete pursued him roundly to the very Gates of Aix and destroy'd all the Farms round about it Then to draw him out into the Field he laid Siege to Roquebrune month February a filthy place and no way considerable unless for streightning the City of Frejus which lies within a League Now as he was ordering the repair of some Year of our Lord 1592 Buttress of a Battery he was kill'd by a random Shot in his Forehead the Eleventh day of February a great loss both for his singular Virtues and the Affairs of the King That part of the Parliament who were retired to
in Soveraignty His Brother the Duke of Nemours was become very absolute in that Government having begirt and over-aw'd that great City by five or six places he held about it but by the same means and by reason of certain new Imposts which he laid by Advice of a Ferrarese a Fellow of a seared Conscience he became most odious to the People In so much that the Archbishop of Lyons sent thither by the Duke of Mayenne having underhand heightned their Discontents and blown the Coals carried it on so far that the Citizens took up Arms and seized on the Person of the Duke of Nemours confining him to Pierre-Encise but he got nothing by it for they afterwards stood Neuters not submitting to any Orders but their own till their entire Reduction although for form-sake they owned him as Lieutenant to the Duke of Mayenne People of honest Principles judged Nemours worthy to be so used for his having followed the cursed Policy of Machiavel which makes Princes become Tyrants and the People Miserable but all the Heads of the League perceiving by this President what usage they were to expect from the Duke of Mayenne did now study nothing but the best methods to secure their own Places and to surprize others to make the better Accommodation with the King month November He was then gone into Normandy to receive Bose-Rose who commanded the Fort of Fescamp to his obedience While he was at Diepe the Wife of John de Montluc Balagny Governor of Cambray came to him by night to demand a prolongation of the Truce till the Agreement with her Husband should be declared He Treated upon these Conditions That he and his should have Cambray and Cambresis in full Soveraignty That the King should take him into his Protection and should allow him certain Pensions and for this Balagny should acknowledge him only by kissing his Hand The joy this brought him was soon disturbed by those bloody Reproaches the Queen of England made him for his change of Religion When from Diepe he went to Calais thinking to find some Agents from that Queen to begin a Treaty he met nothing but Letters from her full of bitterness and found she would recal her Forces out of Bretagne He had much ado to pacifie her but much more to endure the presence and over-free Discourses of the Deputies from the pretended Reformed Churches whom he had allowed to hold a General Assembly at Mantes whither he returned at his departure from Calais He looked kindly upon them received their Memorial named Commissioners to examine it and offer'd them satisfaction upon some Articles such or very near as they had already had under Henry III. But they could not be contented with so little a Reward for so great Services as they had rendred him they demanded much more so that not to exasperate them by an absolute denial Year of our Lord 1593 he only dismiss'd them and permitted them to hold Provincial Assemblies and afterwards to Convocate a National Synod and Politick Assembly month December His Conversion undermined the League to the very Foundation It was now look'd upon if we may so express it only as a Castle in the Air supported but by one single Stone viz. the Popes denial to give him Absolution In effect his Holiness would not suffer the Duke of Nevers to enter into Rome which was in November month November December and January but in Quality of a Prince of Italy not of Ambassador and upon condition he should remain there but two days that he should receive no Visits nor make any to the Cardinals This Prince however contrived it so that the Term was prolonged and he had Audience twice of the Pope the first time in December the other in January but brought thence no satisfaction for the King though as to his own Person they gave him as much and more then he desired The Duke of Mayenne failed not to talk high upon this refusal of his Holiness However this was not a reason strong enough to with-hold such as were already inclining towards the King and falling off from the League Lewis de L'Hospital Vitry was discontented for that the said Duke detained four and twenty thousand Crowns due upon Musters to his Company of Gentsdarmes This Man was the first who return'd to his obedience as he had been the first that left the King after the death of Henry III. When he forsook that Party formerly he was Governor of Dourlens which place he left to them and made a shew as if he would have done the like by Meaux now to the League telling the Inhabitants whom he expressly called together that he freely left them to their own liberty only his Advice was they should follow his Example This said he went forth with his Troop of Horse but had so well disposed of Affairs before-hand that they deputed some to him the same day to desire he would come back put on their White Scarfs and turned away Five hundred Men much amazed whom the Duke of Mayenne had sent thither Vitry had Twenty thousand Crowns Reward of the King the Office of Bayliff and Governor of the City with the Reversion of both for his Son and the Bourgeois the confirmation of their Priviledges and an exemption from Tailles for nine years All other Governors bargain'd for more or less according to the importance of their Places or the quality of their Persons Most of the Cities got likewise several Advantages accordingly as those that directed them were Politick or Affectionate Year of our Lord 1593 but every one almost would have it inserted in their Treaties That there should be month December no Exercise of the Pretended Reformed Religion allowed within such a certain distance of their Territories Year of our Lord 1594 The design was laid and a great Party made to receive the King into Paris and to this purpose he came to St. Denis The Duke of Mayenne having got some hint of month January it took the Government from the Count de Belin and gave it to Brissac whom he believed the most faithful of all his Partisans The Parliament finding by this their Measures broken and apprehending the Duke would make the Spaniards Masters of the City spake warmly to him that they might keep Belin the Duke urged some Reasons to the contrary but those satisfied not and they continued their Assemblies The business grew hot to such a degree that the Duke made his Soldiers and Friends take up Arms whence would have followed most grievous Slaughter in the Streets and perhaps the utter loss of Paris to the King had not the wisest of that great Body temporised and persuaded the rest to give way yet for a while The Third day of the Month of January hapned the Reduction of the City of Aix The Duke of Mayenne did not think there had been any place more assured to his Party then this same because the Count de Carces had Married a Daughter of his Wives
an Affront to all Crowned Heads and a violation of the Security due to every Ambassadour month Decemb. Going to the King to redemand himb he was at first but ill received Sometimes he talked high as representing a great Monarch then chang'd his tone into a softer note as knowing his Secretary ran the hazard of being put upon the Rack The King without appearing overmuch concern'd shewed him what Crime his Secretary had committed and made him sensible that such who debauched and Year of our Lord 1606 corrupted his Subjects to commit Treason against his State were those that violated the Rights of People not he who only secur'd a man that had so visibly abused it The Ambassador having no reply to make to so just a reproach fell upon great Complaints and instanced that the King sent Men and Money to maintain the Hollanders and had attempted to stir up the Morisco's in Spain whereof there was proof said he in the Confessions of divers Criminals that had suffer'd Death in those Countries To the first point the King made the same answer he had formerly given upon the same Subject To the second he said it was an Artifice of the Council of Spain who by the extremity of Tortures had forced those Suppositions from the mouths of some unhappy wretches Executed for other Crimes or had thrust them into their forged Wills and Testaments thereby to have matter to recriminate with some appearance of Truth After divers Replications on either part the King assured the Ambassador that his Secretary should have no wrong done to him and that he would send him the whole result of the Process to see whether he would own it or not month Decemb. During all this Month the Entertainment of the Politicians in their Conversations and the subject of their Writings was to discuss to what Latitude this Security of Ambassadors and their Servants did extend and in what cases they ought to be subjected to the justice of that Country wherein they did reside In the mean while the two Prisoners were interrogated the Secretary confessed all and when they had clearly Convicted him and gotten sufficient proof from him to Convict Merargues the King forbad the Parliament to proceed any further with him and some few days after sent him back to the Ambassador with a Copy of the whole Process But as for Merargues they went thorow with him for an Arrest or Sentence of the Nineteenth of the Month made him lose his Head in Greve and Condemned his Body to be cut in four Quarters which they set up over the four principal Gates of Paris and sent his Head to Marseilles to be there planted upon one of their Gates month February Amidst the Divertisements of the Court to whom the Birth of a second Son of France administred new cause of Festivity the King was seriously minded to restore the Duke of Bouillon upon his entire and not conditioned submission It was nigh upon four years he had been out of the Kingdom and by his Apologies Negociations and the intercession of divers Princes of his Religion had contended with the King not as to his Duty which he said he was ever ready to pay but his Innocency and Honor which he was obliged to maintain In effect they could not Convict him of any Conspiracy not even of the last though there was some reason to suspect him guilty of all The King knew he had stopt his ears at the instant Sollicitations of the Spaniards He remembred the eminent Services he had rendred him in his most pressing Necessities and he desired he might do him more yet hereafter in the shock he intended to give the House of Austria On the other hand he well knew that this Mareschal so long as he was absent from Court would ever keep the Huguenot Party in suspition and it somewhat concerned his Honor to make all Europe see they being well informed of this Affair that it was not without good ground he had so used him Now the only way to satisfie together both his Reputation and his Clemency was to engage him to come and crave his Pardon and Surrender his City of Sedan into his hands which he would needs have in his Power at least for some days that the whole world might understand the Mareschal held both his Life and Fortune from his Bounty The Mareschal did at length resolve to acknowledge he had failed he named his faults however Imprudence and Precipitation rather than Infidelity And though he expressed an impatient desire to wait upon the King yet he excused his coming till all those Clouds and Foggs of Crimes wherewith he had been charged were utterly dispersed it being as shameful for a Master to make use of any Servant while under such ill-favour'd Circumstances as for the Servant to have been wanting in his Fidelity due to so great a Monarch He apprehended no hurt from the King but only from the Counsels of Sully for as he believed him his Capital Enemy he imagined he would persuade the King to keep Sedan and that the apparent Benefit of the State would excuse and cover the Venial Sin of breaking his word Year of our Lord 1606 Him whom we have hitherto named Rosny shall be henceforward called the month February Duke of Sully because at the beginning of this year the King honour'd him with the Title of Duke and Pair which he annexed to the Lands of Sully purchased by this Lord since his favour The Letters Patents were sealed the Nineteenth of February and verified the last day of the Month in Parliament whither the new Duke went to be received accompanied as one who had both the King's Treasury and favour to befriend him and invite them The Business was brought to that pass that the King finding himself in Honor absolutely engaged to have Sedan and the Mareschal obstinately bent not to be dis-seized nothing remained but force that could determine the Controversie In the Council Villeroy and Sully were of different Sentiments concerning this Enterprize Sully openly persuaded the King to go in Person to Sedan Villeroy endeavour'd to hinder it but by more private ways To this end he made the difficulties appear very great the Consequences worse the place impregnable the Mareschal's Correspondence both without and within the Kingdom very dangerous He represented how all the Huguenot Party was ready to rise all Germany ready to take up Arms all England to put to Sea to support it that he had numerous Levies in Swisserland and the Low-Countries who would begin their March upon the first beat of Drum But the King slighted all these Apparitions as vain and airy Fantosmes and if month April they had been real Bodies he ought to have hastned to prevent them When he was gotten to Donchery which is within a League of Sedan with his Forces and had himself taken a view of the place the Mareschal who had still kept his Negociation on foot demanded to confer with Villeroy before
the cause felt in himself the Symptomes of that unhappiness which threatned him One would have said he had the Dagger already in his bosom He was often heard to send forth doleful sighs and words of ill presage the Heavens and Earth if we may give faith to such things did also afford him some very sinister ones It was observed that some days before the May which had been Planted in the Court-Yard of the Louvre was faln down of it self A Star appeared visibly at Noon-day in the Year 1609. the year preceding that a great Comet had been seen and the Loire over-flow'd most furiously as it had done a while before the violent deaths of the two Kings Henry II. and Henry III. The same year likewise the Inhabitants of Angoulmois both Gentry and Peasants affirmed they had beheld a frightful prodigy it was a fantastique Army which seemed to consist of about eight or ten thousand Men with Ensigns party-colour'd of blew and red Drummers ready to beat and a Commander of great appearance at the head of them who having Marched upon the Earth for above a League together lost himself in a Wood. It was about two years past that a Priest found upon an Altar at Montargis a Ticket which gave notice the King would be Assassinated And about the same time two Gentlemen of Gascogny of different places and of different Religions came expresly to Court to advertise him of the doleful and pressing Visions they affirmed to have had upon the same subject Of three or four of his Horoscopes terminated his life in his fifty seventh year Divers Prognosticators amongst others he who had otherwhile foretold the Duke of Mayenne the Murther of the Duke of Guise his Brother and the loss of the Battel of Ivry advertis'd him of an approaching and very sudden danger There was one so bold as to tell the Queen that Festival would conclude in Mourning and in Tears and that Princess starting one night out of her sleep weeping told the King she dreamt they were stabbing him with a Knife Himself was not ignorant that the number of the years of his Reign according as a Magician had computed to Queen Catherine de Medicis were even almost accomplished and he had some kind of confused knowledge of divers Conspiracies which were hatching against his person He in his life time had discovered above fifty many contrived or fomented by Church-men or some of the religious Orders such pernicious effects does indiscreet zeal produce but he could not avoid this last his hour was come and it seems all the former warnings which Heaven gave him were not so much to save him from the fatal blow as to make men certainly see and understand that there is a Soveraign Power ☜ which disposes of futurity Since it so certainly knows and fore-tells it month May. It had been a long time this execrable Monster named Francis Ravaillac had formed this resolution to Murther him He was a Native of Angoulesme Aged about two and thirty years Son of a Man belonging to the Law living at that time In the beginning he had follow'd the Trade of his Father then ran into a Convent of the Fueillans and was a Novice there but they thrust him out Year of our Lord 1610 for his extravagant whimsies Some while after he was imprisoned for a Murther of which notwithstanding he was never convicted being freed from thence he began anew to sollicite Law-Suits of which he had lost one in his own name for an Estate and Succession insomuch as he was reduced to turn Pedant and teach the poor peoples Children in the City of Angoulesme The austerity of the Cloister the obscurity of his Prison the loss of his process and the extreme necessity whereunto he was reduced confounded his judgment and irritated more and more his atrabilary humour From his early youth the Frenzies of the League their Libels and the Factious Sermons of their Ignivomous and Sanguinary Pulpiteers had imprinted in his mind a very great aversion for the King with this belief That it was lawful to kill those who brought the Catholick Religion into danger or made a War upon the Pope He was so very hot in these matters that he could not so much as hear any body pronounce the name of Huguenot but he fell into a fury Those that had premeditated to ridd themselves of the King finding this instrument so proper to act their Design knew very well how to confirm him in his Sentiments they had people at their beck who haunted him eternally though he knew not their intents who caused him to be instructed by their Doctors and enchanted him with supposed Visions and the other the like diabolical Arts. There are proofs that they carried him as far as Naples where in an Assembly at the Vice-Roy's Palace he met with many others who had all devoted themselves to the same end They made him come from Angoulesme to Paris two or three times in fine they managed and guided him so well to their liking and purpose that by his sacrilegious hand they perpetrated the detestable resolutions of their own wicked and accursed hearts The day after that of the Queens entrance the King was to have made the Marriage of Mademoiselle de Vandosme the eldest of his natural Daughters and the following day the Feast then the next Morning to mount on Horse-back and go to his Army But on the Evening of the Day of Entrance which was a Friday a little before four of the Clock as he was going to the Arsenal without Guards to confer with the Duke of Sully an Embarrass of certain Carts having stopt his Coach in the midst of the Street de la Feronerie and his Valets or Foot-men passing under the Channels of Sainct Innocents this Devil incarnate stept upon a spoak of one of the hind Wheels and advancing his Body into the Coach gave him two stabbs in the Breast with a Knife the first glanced along the fifth and sixth Ribb and did not enter his Body but the second cut the Arterial Vein above the Ventricle of the heart so that the Blood bursting forth with impetuosity choacked him in a moment he not being able to utter one word It had been foretold him he should die in a Coach so that upon the least jolt he would cry out as if he beheld the Grave open'd ready to swallow him But yet imagin'd he had escaped the effect of that prediction after two great hazards he run thorow the one at his going to visit the Dutchess of Beaufort the other in the Ferry-boat of Nully whereof we have made mention So strange an amazement and terror seized upon those who were present at this Tragical Accident that if Ravaillac had but dropt his Knife they could not then have discover'd him but being taken holding it yet in his hand he owned the Fact as boldly as if he had performed some Heroique Action There were two things then observed
Church resumed their secular Habits as they did during this Age in many other Cathedrals The desire of a Reformation made him lean too much towards the Party of the pretended Reformed Lewis Moulinet his Nephew was his Successor It is observed of him a rare example of a true Pastor that during his holding that See for Twenty seven years together he was never but one Six Months absent from his Bishoprick or Diocess shewing by this example that a good Bishop takes delight in his residence as the evil one both esteems and finds it his Pain and Punishment ☞ There were none that signalized themselves more during the League than Peter d'Espinac and Reinold de Beaulne the first Archbishop of Lyons and the second of Bourges both Men of great Eloquence and far greater intrigue Espinac of the Party for the League and Beaulne of that for the King they both lived a good while in the Reign of Henry IV. Under whom neither must we forget Alfonso d'Elbene Bishop of Alby nor Arnold de Pontac and Nicholas l'Angelier generous Defenders of the Rights and the Liberty of the Church this being Bishop of Saint Brieuc the other of Bazas nor René Benoist who being Curate of Saint Eustache at Paris greatly contributed to the Conversion of King Henry IV. and the bringing him into the pale and bosom of the Church without staying for any Orders from Rome The said Prince chose him for his Confessor and named him to the Bishoprick of Troyes It is true he could not obtain the Bulls for it but we may boldly say he deserved them were it but only for those very reasons for which they were denied him We ought not to give the Name of Bishops to those who fell into the Errors of the Sectaries and whom by the Pope were excommunicated for the same as we have before mentioned Yet was there but one of those Ten that embraced Calvinisme namely John Caracciol Son of John Prince of Malfy Bishop of Troyes who Anno 1565. abandoned his Bishoprick to take a Wife It is true that about Six years before viz. in the year 1559. James Spifame had quitted his Episcopal See of Nevers to Marry and retire to Geneva but if his example did shew the way to Caracciol certainly his unfortunate end ought as much again to have deter'd him for upon I know not what suspition they had of him in that City he was accused of Adultery and they caused his Head to be cut off for that pretended Crime Even from the Fourteenth Age Learning did begin to re-flourish and as we may say to emit some Infant yet lively beams principally in Italy In proportion as they discover'd its beauty and lustre it inflamed the Love and Curiosity of the Ingenious who being nauseated with the Barbarity of the Schools and the Fopperies and Ergotismes wherewith the Authors of those times were stuffed applied themselves to search after the Greek and Latin Authors of the more polite Ages in the select and best furnished Libraries and rescuing them out of the rubbish and dust wherein they had been so long Buried made them more Publick and communicable to the World by the help of Printing They then studied to speak Greek and Latin as exquisitely as in the times of the Republick of Athens and the Empire of Augustus Those that were inclined to the Study of Holy Writ endeavour'd likewise to attain some Knowledge and Perfection in the Hebrew Tongue without which it is almost impossible thorowly to understand the Books of the Old Testament and at the same time the curiosity of such as travelled into the Countries of the Levant brought back with them an itch or desire of learning the Oriental Languages especially the Arabian of which the Turkish is an Idiom True it is that these Learned Men though able to attain to the greatest purity of Foreign Tongues could not give it to the French on the contrary they made it more harsh and more obscure than it was before perplexing it with a multitude of tedious Allegations false Phrases Transpositions and broken Latin from all which Sophistication the Age we now live in hath had much ado to Purge and to refine it King Charles VIII loved all the Noble Arts but had not time to Cultivate and to improve them Lewis XII favour'd them had an esteem for and generosity towards the Learned and caused search to be made after the Manuscripts of ancient Authors whereof he gathered and made up a curious Library Francis I. surpass'd him very much in that noble Passion as he surpassed all the Princes of his time in Magnificence and in liberality His Reign to say all in a word was the Reign of Men of Learning he had an incredible multitude of them and those truly accomplished and Skilful in the Tongues in the Knowledge of Antiquity in the Law in Philosophy and Physick as also in the Mathematicks and Astrology And indeed that great Prince did so generously favour them with his Gratifications with the noblest Employments in all his Affairs and his personal familiarity that it seemed as he would share his State and Grandeur with them A Volume would not suffice to contain but the names only and almost all of them were so excelling each in his way that whosoever should undertake to select some particular ones out of those Miriads must run the hazard both of doing wrong to his own Judgment and to the Merits of those whose Names he should omit I shall observe only that the Universities abounded with very learned Professors in Philosophy in Humanity That as much may be said of the Facult Medicina which till then had but an imperfect knowledge of the Doctrines of the Divine Hippocrates That that of Theology had more learned Doctors than ever before though not perhaps so clear and so enlightned for the Positive as we find now in our dayes That all the grand Magistracies were supplied and filled with Persons both profound in Science and most of them of singular Virtues and that there never was more of Jurisprudence in the Parliaments and at the Bar nor greater Capacity and solid Reasonings amongst the Advocates I shall only add that the French Poesie which till this time was almost nothing but a gross gingling paltry way of Rhiming without either much of Art or Fancy began to be stripp'd of its Pyed-Coat and to deck it self with the real Ornaments of Antiquity But yet even those who labour'd to restore it to that Harmonious Composition invented for no other end but to elevate the Mind and Thoughts to things Noble and Sublime did most unhappily pervert the same by the ill use they made thereof For studying by a Criminal complaisance to flatter the Vanity and lascivious Passions of the Court they Metamorphosed if I may so speak the Muses into Sirenes and debased that Noble Off-spring of Heaven to somewhat of more shameful and sordid than either Mendicity or Slavery FINIS A