and destroy them The same Council was again held in the house of Hieronimo de Gondy at S. Clou and the time and order of the bloody Marriage Banquet to be served in at the Nuptials of the King of Navar with the Lady Margaret the French Kings Sister almost in the same manner and order as it was afterwards put in execution on Bartholomews Day Anno Christi 1572. In which were most inhumanely murthered of men women and children many also of them being great and honourable Personages of either Sex about thirty thousand And while the Duke of Guise was prosecuting that most inhumane Butchery a Cabinet Council was held in the Queen-Mothers Chamber whether it were not necessary that both the Duke and the rest of his Family who were then present should not be dispatched at the same time in that disorderly tumult King Charles himself never saw good day after this bloody Massacre though the Court-Sycophants had promised him that it should prove the first happy day of his absolute Monarchy For though he had been long drenched in Lust a sin seldom separated from a Persecutor by his ordinary Adultery with a mean Wench of Orleance of whom he begat Charles of Engolism afterwards Earl of Auvern And though he had been trained up by his Mother to see the slaughter of Beasts and ever in his Chases had been accustomed to bath his hands in the Blood of the slain Game which might have served to stupifie his Conscience as they did inflame his fierce and cruel nature yet a very stinging remorse in his Conscience did ever pursue and haunt him after that merciless slaughter brought about chiefly by his own swearing and forswearing by which the King of Navar and the Admiral Coligni were deceived His eyes ever rolled up and down uncertainly in the Day-time with fear and suspition and his sleep was usually interrupted in the night with dismal Dreams and Apparitions like our King Richard the Third of England after he had murthered his two Nephews in the Tower Nay though he survived that Massacre not fully two years yet had he in that time plotted the death of the said Henry Duke of Guise and the removal of the Queen-Mother and her Instruments from the Helm of State But as he a little before the Massacre had poisoned that incomparable Princess for Learning and Piety Joan Queen of Navar So did his Mother or the Duke of Guise by way of prevention or anticipation minister to him his fatal sharp Phisick of which after many and grievous torments he deceased upon Whitsunday Anno Christi 1574. being not full twenty five years old 150. The Queen-Mother the Kings two Brethren the Cardinal and the Duke of Guise that had not only joined with him in his Persecution but encouraged him to it they still survived and for ought men saw were firmly setled in Peace and Prosperity Though Guise might have taken warning by the Death of Claude Duke of Aumal his Brother slain with a Musket-Bullet from the walls of Rochel as he lay in Siege before it Anno Christi 1573. 151. Henry his Brother who succeeded King Charles was not long before chosen King of Poland where he then was but hearing of the Death of his Brother he clandestinly stole away from that Kingdom to return to France In his return the good Emperor Maximilian the Second and the Venetian State earnestly advised him to maintain the former Edicts of Pacification inviolably and not force the Consciences of men in matters of Religion Of the same Opinion also were all his wisest Councellors who saw plainly that the encreasing of the Protestants was the only means now left under Heaven to draw the Pope and his Conclave to yield some Reformation of the Church which it needed exceedingly But his Mother advised him by all means to root out the Professors of the truth by Fire and Sword And others there were of loose and Atheistical Lives as Henry Duke of Guise Lewis the Cardinal of Guise Renalt Villoclare A man saith the incomparable Monsieur de Thou fatally preferr'd to be an attendant upon this King by his Mother and diverse others who perswaded the King to break the aforesaid Edicts for Pacification and never to sheath his Sword till he had utterly ruined all the Protestants in France And the King being of a weak and degenerate Spirit the House of Guise being the Arch-enemies of the Gospel became at length so potent and triumphed so notoriously over the impotency of the King that at last they forced him to seek to those very Protestants for support against whom he had taken a Solemn Oath for their utter destruction Infinite almost were the Treasures which he spent upon his Minions and Pleasures His expenses upon his Dogs only amounted in those times to twenty thousand pounds yearly at the least but most was exhausted in the prosecution of his Wars against the Protestants 152. Guise and his Faction now grown strong and assured of support from King Philip the Second of Spain after he had expelled his King out of Paris and heaped a world of other insolent affronts upon him was drawn by him Anno Christi 1588. to the Assembly then held at Blois He came thither with his Brother Lewis Lorainer Cardinal of Guise and Charles Prince of Ionvile his Son upon the same Royal Assurance of safety with which Charles the Ninth had by his advise deceived the Protestants before the abhorred Massacre in the year 1572. But during this Assembly this Duke of Guise was slain against the Publick Faith given him not only within the Castle of Blois but in that very room wherein sixteen years before he had advised the bloody Massacre of Paris to be executed Two circumstances also do add much horror to the punishment it self One was that he was but newly risen from the bed of his adulterate Lust having not been able before this night to conquer the chastity of a Gentlewoman that waited on the Queen-Mother and therefore was so eager in reaping the fruits of his long Siege that he came not to the Council Chamber till he was oft sent for and even then scarcely ready The other was in the manner of his first wound which was given him in his Throat and immediately caused the Blood so abundantly to stream out of his Mouth as he never had time so much as to call upon God for mercy or forgiveness but spent his last minute in endeavouring to revenge himself upon his Murtherers 153. A while after the Cardinal of Guise his Brother who had been a great Gamester at Cards and Dice perished also in the same Castle of Blois by a violent Death Katherine de Medices the Queen-Mother who had been the chief cause for thirty years together of the shedding of so much innocent Blood being present at the same time in the said Castle stormed secretly that so great an action should be entred into and effected without her advice And when she heard that
hand and trampled it under his Feet and overthrew the Chalice For which by most exquisite torments in a horrible manner they put him to death by degrees and then burned him a Spark of whose Fire was driven by the wind a great way into one of the Kings Ships lying in the Haven and quite consumed it and within half a year after the new married Prince dyed and the year after the King himself dyed also 108. Cardinal Woolsey after much opposition against the Light of the Gospel which brake forth in his time and much cruelty used against the Professors of it fell into disgrace with King Henry the Eighth who sent for him up out of Yorkshire and in his journey suspecting the issue he took such a strong Purge as his rotten Body not being able to bear he dyed at the Abby of Lecester His dead Body was as black as Pitch and so heavy that six men could scarcely bear it and it stank so intollerably that they were fain to hasten the Burial of it in the Night at which time there was such an hiddeous Tempest as blew out all the Torches and the Storm was accomponied with such a stink that they were glad to throw him into his Grave and so to leave him 109. Judge Morgan who passed Sentence of Condemnation upon the incomparable Lady Jane Dudley shortly after ran mad and in his raving fits cryed out continually to have the Lady Jane taken away from him and so he continued till he dyed 110. Morgan Bishop of S. Davids in Wales who condemned the Blessed Martyr Mr. Ferrar and unjustly usurped his Bishoprick not long after was stricken by God in a most strange manner For his food would not go down but pick up again sometimes at his Mouth sometimes blown out at his Nose most horrible to behold and thus he continued a Spectacle of Gods displeasure till he dyed 111. Mr. Leyson also who was Sheriff at the burning of Mr. Ferrar having fetched away his Cattle and put them into his own Grounds diverse of them would never eat any meat but continued bellowing and roaring till they dyed 112. Dr. Duning Chancellour of Norwich who was a Bloody Persecutor in the Reign of Queen Mary was stricken suddenly as he sate in his Chair and dyed 113. Berry Commissary of Norfolk another Bloody Persecutor as he was walking with one of his Concubines fell down suddenly with a heavy groan and never stirr'd after 114. A persecuting Suffragan of Dover having been with Cardinal Pool for his Blessing coming out of the Cardinal's Chamber fell down the stairs and brake his Neck 115. Bishop Thornton another cruel Persecutor as he was looking upon his men at Bowls upon a Sahbath-Day fell suddenly into a Palsie and being carried to his Bed and willed to remember the Lord yea said he So I do and my Lord Cardinal too and so he dyed 116. Dr. Jeffery Chancellour of Salisbury a wretched Persecutor who had appointed to call before him ninety godly Persons and to examine them by Inquisition the Day before as he was looking upon his Buildings fell down suddenly and dyed 117. Thomas Blaver a Privy Counsellor to the King of Scots was a great Persecutor of the Faithful in that Land But being by God struck with sickness he fell into Despair crying out That he was damned and a Cast-away That he was damned without remedy In which miserable condition he dyed without any sign of true repentance 118. Henry Arch-Bishop of Mentz a godly and religious man was accused as being guilty of Heresie to the Pope who sent two of his Cardinals to examine the matter and they most unjustly deposed him and cast him out of his place whereupon he said unto them If I should from your unjust Sentence appeal unto the Pope 't is like I should find no redress from him wherefore I appeal to the Lord Jesus Christ that just and righteous Judge of all the world and cite you to answer me before his Judgment Seat for this unjust act of yours To which they scoffingly answered Go you first we will follow after Not long after this the good Arch-Bishop dyed which when the Cardinals heard of they said jestingly one to another Behold he is now gone before and we must follow after according to our Promise And indeed shortly after they both dyed upon one day The one sitting upon a Jakes voided out his Entrails The other gnawing his own Fingers and having made himself deformed with devouring himself he dyed miserably 119. About the year 1507. there was at Chipping Sadbury a godly woman convented before the Chancellour Dr. Whittington by whom she was condemned to be burnt And against the day of her Execution multitudes of people flocked to the Town and among the rest Dr. Whittington came to see her burnt At the same time there was a Butcher in another part of the Town that was killing a Bull But the Butcher somewhat missing his blow the Bull broke loose just as the people were coming from seeing the Execution of the Martyr The people seeing the Bull coming divided themselves and made a lane for him to pass through the Bull went through without hurting man woman or child till he came to the place where the Chancellour was against whom he ran very furiously and with his Horns hitting him on the Belly ran through it and tearing out his Guts with his Horns trailed them about the Streets to the great astonishment of all that beheld it 120. At the burning of Alexander Goug and Alice Driver Martyrs there was one Bate a Barber that was a very busie man about burning them but presently after Gods severe Judgment fell upon him so that within three or four weeks after he dyed in much misery 121. In the Reign of Queen Mary one of the Sheriffs of London called Mr. Woodrose used Mr. Bradford very churlishly at the time of his Execution as he had dealt with Mr. Rogers before He used also to laugh and make himself sport at the sufferings of these innocent persons and used to beat away the people who were desirous to shake them by the hand before their Death but the Lord who usually punisheth such bloody Persecutors shortly after struck him with lameness upon one side that he could never after turn him in his Bed He had also a Dog-like Appetite that could never be satisfied with Food and in this misery he continued by the space of eight years even till he dyed 122. Adam Foster of Mendlesham in Suffolk was apprehended by one Thomas Mouse and George Rivet for not coming to Mass and by them was carried before Sir John Tyrel who sent him to the Bishop of Norwich But it pleased God that Mouse was immediately after stricken with a grievous disease whereof he shortly after dyed And Rivet not warned thereby but persevering in his persecuting ways had a great swelling that rose in his Legs which grievously vexed and tormented him and at last falling into a
in Prison And God paid him home in his own coin For according to his Imprecation his Body rottted away by piece-meal till he dyed 133. One Lever of Brightwel in Barkshire jeeringly said That he saw that ill-favoured Knave Latimer when he was burned at Oxford and that he had Teeth like an Horse But the Lord suffered not this profane scoff to go unpunished For about that very same Hour wherein Lever spake those words his Son hanged himself 134. All ages have cause to admire and adore the Exemplary Judgments of God poured out upon Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester in Queen Marys days who upon the day wherein Reverend Latimer and Learned Ridley were to be burnt at Oxford though some great Peers came to dine with him that day yet would not sit down to dinner till one of his Servants about four a Clock in the Afternoon coming Post from Oxford brought word that Execution was done upon them Then did he hast to Dinner and was very merry but ere he had eaten many bits a sudden stroke of Gods hand fell upon him so that he was carried immediately to his Bed in which he continued for fifteen days in intollerable anguish and torments rotting above ground during all which time he could void nothing that he received neither by Stool nor Urine his Tongue also hung out of his mouth swoln and black and so he languished and pined away in great anguish and misery 135. King James the Fifth of Scotland by the instigation of the Popish Clergy was a great Persecutor of the Truth that then brake forth in that Kingdom and for that end he gave Commission to Sir James Hamilton natural Brother to the Earl of Arran who was his Treasurer to call and convent all that were suspected of Heresie and to inflict upon them the punishment which after tryal they should be found to deserve In Execution of which Commissiion he was most fierce and cruel not sparing some that were of his near Kindred But when he was in his greatest heighth and made it his work to suppress the Gospel one of his own Friends whom he pursued upon the account of Religion accused him of Treason and notwithstanding the mediation of the Popish Clergy for him as their greatest Patron he was arraigned condemned executed and quartered in the streets of Edenburg This King James also was heard to say that none of that way should expect any favour at his hands nay nor his own Sons if they should be found guilty But shortly after War breaking forth with England he found his Nobility averse to those Incursions which he intended to make into England which much vexed him These thoughts and some fearful Visions which he had by Night terrified him exceedingly For at Linlithgow on a night as he slept it seemed to him that Thomas Scot Justice Clerk came unto him with a company of Devils crying Wo worth the day that ever I knew thee or thy Service For serving thee against God and his Servants I am now adjudged to Hell torments Hereupon awaking he called for Lights and told his Servants what he had heard and seen The next morrow by the light of day news was brought him of the death of the said Justice Clerk which fell out just at the same time when the King had this Vision and almost in the same manner For he dyed in great horror often reiterating those words By the righteous Judgment of God I am condemned And this manner of his death answering so exactly to the Kings Dream made it the more terrible The King also had another Dream in the same place a few nights after which did more affright him Whilest he lay sleeping he thought that Sir James Hamilton aforesaid came unto him with a naked Sword in his Hand and therewith cut off both his Arms threatening to return within a short time and to deprive him of his life With this he awaked and as he lay musing what this Dream should import news was brought him of the death of his two Sons James and Arthur the one dying at S. Andrews the other at Strivling at one and the very same hour The next year which was 1542. being overwhelmed with grief he dyed at Falkland in the two and thirtieth year of his Age. A little before he dyed word was brought him that his Queen was delivered of a Daughter whereupon he brake forth into a Passion saying It came with a Lass meaning the Crown and will go with a Lass. Fie upon it 136. One Friar Campbell in Scotland did bitterly rail upon that man of God Mr. Patrick Hamilton whilest he was burning at S. Andrews to whom Mr. Hamilton said with much earnestness Thou wicked man thou knowest the contrary and hast sometime made a Profession of the truth I appeal thee to answer it before the Judgment Seat of Christ A few days after Campbel fell sick and in great horror of Conscience dyed distracted 137. Anno 1568. There was in Breda one Peter Coulogue a godly man who by his Popish Adversaries was cast into Prison and his Maid-servant daily carried him his Food confirming and comforting him out of the word of God as well as she was able for which they imprisoned her also Not long after Peter was put to the torment of the Rack which he endured patiently After him the Maid was fetch'd to be racked whereupon she said My Masters wherefrre will ye put me to this torture seeing I have no way offended you If it be for my Faith-sake ye need not torment me For as I was never ashamed to make a Confession thereof no more will I now be at this present before you but will if you please freely shew you my mind therein Yet for all this they would have her to the Rack whereupon she again said If I must needs suffer this pain pray you give me leave to call upon my God first This they assented to and whilest she was fervently pouring out her Soul unto God by Prayer one of the Commissioners was surprised with such fear and terror that he fell into a swoon out of which he could never be recovered by which means the poor Maid escaped racking 138. In the Reign of King Henry the Second of France there was a godly Tailor condemned to be burnt for Religion and some about the King would needs perswade him to be present and to see the Execution himself And God gave the Tailor such strength and conrage in the fire as astonished the King to behold it And the poor Tailor having espied the King in a window where he sate fixed his Eyes so stedfastly upon him as they were never off and the King was thereby constrained to leave the window and to retire into his Chamber and was so affected therewith that he confessed the shadow of the Taylor followed him whither soever he went and for many Nights after he was so terrified with the Apparitions of the Taylor that he protested with an
Oath that he would never hear nor see any more of those Lutherans burned 139. In the late Rebellion and Persecution of Ireland John Nicholson and Anne his wife were received into the Protection of one Fitz-Patrick who would have perswaded them to change their Religion and to go to Mass But they professed that before they would do that they would dye upon the Swords point Then he laboured to prevail with the woman to burn her Bible but she said that before she would do it she would dye the death whereupon the Sabbath morning following they were both of them cruelly murthered But he that acted that villany was so tormented in Conscience and dogged with their Apparitions that he pined away and dyed 140. In the late Irish Massacre wherein the bloody Papists spared none of what Age Sex or quality soever O! how visibly did the Judgments of God follow them And for that savage Blood-shed gave them Blood to drink in great measure For Mac-Guir Mac-Mahun and Sir Philem Oneal being taken Prisoners were publickly executed Most of the rest were consumed by the Sword either in their own Countrey or in Foreign parts and their spirits were generally so debased and their courage emasculated that a few English or Scottish Soldiers would chase multitudes of them and Gods Judgments did so eminently follow them that within a few years most of that cruel Generation were rooted out Of Gods Judgments upon Persecutors in Germany Spain and France 141. The Electoral House of Saxony upon the devesting of that brave and pious Prince John Frederick the true Heir by the Emperor Charles the Fifth and the investing the younger House to usurp that Honour hath ever since proved a greater Friend to the Popish Party than to the purer Church of the French and Helvetick Confession Maurice that usurped the Dutchy and Electorate upon the captivating of the said John Frederick his Cousin first ruined the Princes of the Smalcaldick Union to which himself had subscribed and then casting an ambitious eye upon the Empire it self broke his Faith with the Emperor that had raised him and having patched up the defection by the help of Ferdinand of Austria King of Bohemia afterwards Emperor he lastly perished by a violent death in a pitch'd Battel fought against his Fellow-Protestants A just Judgment of God upon him 142. Charles the Fifth having obtained the Empire by the help and monies of our King Henry the Eighth was the most potent Emperor that ever Germany had as long as he maintained the peace of Religion But having yielded to the Popes instigations and prospered a while in his intended extirpation of the Truth he found at last by sad experience what his brave and valiant General Castaldus had foretold him that these violent proceedings would in the end prove fatal to himself For having first fled away at Midnight in a cold and rainy season from Onspurch for fear of the Protestant Army he was afterward instead of setling his Son Philip in his Imperial Throne as he had intended forced to surrender the Empire to his Brother Ferdinand who diverse years before had entred into a secret League with the Protestant Princes of Germany and so having lived a few years in a despised and disconsolate condition he at last ended his life most ingloriously in a Monastery 143. His Son Philip the Second King of Spain the most inveterate Enemy of the Gospel that ever lived did not only erect Shambles for Gods Saints in most of his large Dominions by his bloody Inquisitors but still aided the Rebels in France England and Ireland against their lawful Sovereigns and plotted to invade all other Protestant Dominions in Christendom so at last by one general Carriage of them all he and his holy Father the Pope might have shared the Christian World by a double Monarchy of the Church and Empire between them But did this bloody Prince prosper in these his ambitious and cruel Designs Nothing less For what got he by his invading France by Land and England and Ireland by Sea and by his large Pensions conferred upon the Traitors and secret Enemies of either States Truly nothing For having wasted about thirty millions of Money upon those fruitless Designs and not gained a Foot of Land in any of those Realms but the loss of a great part of the seventeen Provinces with whom having broken his Oath solemnly sworn to them in his Inauguration they by the Aid of England and France freed themselves from his unjust Oppression and Tyranny Neither did the Divine Justice suffer him so to escape but raised a Fire in his own House For whereas he had Issue by his first Wife Mary the Daughter of John the Third King of Portugal one only Son called Charles a Prince of admirable towardliness He during the Life of our Queen Mary his second Wife treated a Marriage for his Son with Elizabeth the eldest Daughter of Henry the Second King of France during which Treaty our Queen Mary dying he himself married her who was designed for his Son a Lady of admirable Beauty and Parts They often in private never forgetting their old affections lamented their unhappy loss each of other The Son also detested his Fathers cruelty and butchery by the merciless Inquisitors This so enraged his jealous Father that he imprison'd him and delivered him over into the Inquisitors Hands by whom he was condemned Anno Christi 1568. and a few days after he sent to him to choose his own Death who in a warm Bath caused his Veins to be opened and so dyed A while after though she was great with child he caused his Queen to drink a Cup of poison which soon dispatched her 144. King Philip's fourth Wife was Anne the Daughter of Mary the Empress his own natural Sister by whom he had Issue Ferdinand and James both cut off by Death in their Infancy and Philip who being the only surviving Issue of this incestuous match succeeded his Father in his Dominions but not altogether in his cruelties 145. Rodulph the Second Emperor of Germany not following the steps of the wise Maximilian his Father but of the aforesaid Philip his Brother in Law sought by all secret and hostile means to enervate and root out Religion in the Empire What got he by it but to have Gods curse denounced in Scripture fulfilled upon him That the elder should serve the younger For Mathias the Arch-Duke of Austria raising an Army in the year 1608. and joining his Forces with those of the oppressed Protestant in Bohemia hem'd up his Brother Rodulph in Prague got the Kingdom of Hungary from him in present possession and the Empire in reversion leaving him nothing but the complement of Majesty which he did not long survive and could never revenge that affront 146. We need not look into ancient Histories of Gods Judgments upon Heathen persecuting Emperors we may see the sad successes of the Princes of the house of Valois in France King Henry the
Charles Lorainer Duke of Main was escaped being the younger Brother to the murthered Duke of Guise she presaged to the King her Son the sad Issue of that rash attempt which he as it seems interpreting to be rather the expression of her wishes than her fears and having by many woful experiences seen the effects of her revengful Italian Spirit took a course to pacify her wrath For not long after she there ended her unhappy Life by poison saith Elias Reusner in the same Castle also where she held the first secret and bloody Council for the execution of the aforesaid bloody Massacre Francis her youngest Son dyed before her June the tenth Anno 1584. in the one and thirtieth year of his Age of a violent poison probably ministred to him by some of the Hispaniolized Guisards so that it caused very much Blood to issue out of his Body in several places the sight of which purple streams might well call upon him to remember with what inhumane Pride he trampled upon the bloody streets of Paris in the great slaughter committed upon Gods Saints and Martyrs about twelve years before 154. There now only remained Henry the Third the French King alive of all the first contrivers and principal Executioners of that inhumane Massacre which no Age no Time no Action of the most Barbarous Nations of the world could ever parallel till that horrid Massacre of the bloody Irish upon the English Protestants in the year 1641. October 23. wherin above one hundred and fifty thousand perished in one of the four Provinces of that Kingdom after the most savage and barbarous manner that ever was read of 155. Charles Lorainer Duke of Main was presently upon the death of his Brother made General of the Holy League as they stiled it And Paris it self and in a manner all the Popish Cities beyond the Loiâ— giving up their Names and Forces to that Faction supported from Rome by Pope Sixtus the Fifth and from Spain by Philip the Second 156. When the King saw that neither his acting the Monk with the Flagellators nor his playing the Devil against the Prostants could secure him from a speedy ruine by the violent hands of Rebels He sent to the victorious King of Navar his Brother in Law and to the Protestant Army before whose known valour the Popish Forces hastened back from the Loyer to the Seine Henry the Third pursued them and pitched his Royal Pavilion at S. Clou not far from the Gates of Paris But his former cruelties and persecutions of the godly were doubtless the hinderances of his new expected Victories and the Divine Providence so ordered it that in the very place where the last resolution was taken by himself his Mother his Brethren and others for the speedy Execution of that brutish Massacre about seventeen years before nay in the very same House of Jerom de Gondy and in the very same Room and Chamber saith John de Serres was murthered by James Clement a Jesuited Monk Anno Christi 1589. and in the nine and thirtieth year of his Age. This Assasination was promoted by Pope Sixtus the Fifth by the seditious Sermons of Jesuits Priests and Friars and by the persecution of Katherine Mary Duchess of Mompensier Sister of the slain Duke of Guise who was so horribly transported with malice against the Protestants and with desire of revenge upon the King as she prostitued her Body to that Jesuited Goat to encourage him the more to that horrid murther and by that means to stupify and harden his Soul by his filthy Lust that it might not startle at any other wickedness whatsoever Yet as this King some Months before his Death had altered his former bloody resolution against the Protestants so did the Divine Providence at his Death afford him some hours of Repentance after the bloody knife had been sheathed in his Belly in which time he acknowledged his sin and his error in having been so long miss-lead by his ambitious and malicious Counsellors and his sin in having persecuted his Protestant Subjects and for having enforced the Conscience of many to submit to Popery against the known Truth by threats and cruelty 157. Our Queen Mary began her Reign with the breach of her Publick Faith For whereas the Crown was set upon her head by the Gentry and Commons of Suffolk although they knew her to be a Papist which shews that the godly Protestants whatsoever is suggested to the contrary by Lustful Prophane and Popishly affected Persons are the best Subjects that any Sovereign can be happy in yet she in one of her first Acts of Council took order for their restraint long before the Mass and Latine Service were generally received in London and caused that Diocess to tast the sharpest Inquisition and Persecution that raged during her Reign which was happily shortened by her Husbands contemning her Person and her Enemies conquering her Dominions neither of which she had power either to recover or revenge So that though she dyed not by any outward violence yet was her end as inglorious and miserable as her Reign had been turbulent and bloody She might have taken warning by the sudden and immature Death of King James the Fifth of Scotland her Cousin German who raising a persecution there against his Loyal and innocent Subjects that were Protestants Anno Christi 1539. burning some exiling and imprisoning others and forcing many to blaspheme in abjuring the known truth and all by advice and procurement of James Beaton Arch-Bishop of S. Andrews and David Beaton Abbot of Arbroth his Brother never saw good day after For two brave young Princes his Sons were the year following cut off by untimely ends in their Cradles Wars to his great disadvantage and loss were raised between him and our King Henry the Eighth his Uncle and all things fell out so cross to his haughty and vast mind as that it hastened his Death which fell out Anno Christi 1542. See more of him before Many also are the Examples of Gods severe but righteous Judgments of God upon Popish persecuting Prelates whereof you have store of instances in my two Martyrologies and in my two Vollumes of Examples I shall content my self for the present with two or three which though briefly set down there yet here more largely 158. Thomas Arundal Arch-Bishop of Canterbury having been the successful Traytor by the help of his Reverend Follow-Bishops to estabish Henry the Fourth in the Throne of King Richard the Second his Liege Lord and Cousin German pressed the new King whose broken Title needed the supportments of his Prelates to use his temporal Sword for the destruction of the Disciples of John Wickliff whose numbers at that time were so encreased that they even filled the Kingdom The King assented and having by their cruel instigation shed the blood of many of Gods Saints his Reign proved neither long nor prosperous 159. King Henry the Fifth his Son a brave and marshal Prince succeeding him
the Protestants began to meet more publickly and to profess the Truth more openly than before The Arch-Bishop thereupon renews his former Suit to the Son as he had before successfully pressed upon the Father In particular he first aimed at the destruction of Sir John Oldcastle See his Life in my second Volume of Lives who had most affronted him He by reason of his great Alliances and the favour of his King who called him His Knight might have expected exemption from their Tyranny But they prevailed with the King as saith Arch-Bishop Parker Rex virum clarum sibique familiarissimum Episcoporum potestati carnisioinae permisit The King gave up this famous man and who was dear to himself to the power and destruction of the Bishops And yet it pleased God that he outlived this persecuting Arch-Prelate two years at least For the Arch-Bishop having murthered many godly Saints in King Henry the Fourths time and being a great stickler in state affairs having long before procured himself to be made Lord Chancellour of England and lastly in a Synod held by himself at Rochester having forbidden the reading of the Scriptures in English and limited Preachers under an heavy censure what they should treat of in the Pulpit was soon cut off himself by the immediate hand of God after he had condemned that warlike Kinght Sir John Old-Castle Lord Cobham before he could see him executed For his Tongue was so swoln and benummed that he could neither swallow nor speak some days before his Death It being saith one the just Judgment of God upon him and may be a warning to all other wicked Popish Prelates that as he had muzled up the mouths of Preachers and kept the Scriptures from the knowledge of the people being their spiritual food So he should neither be able to swallow nor speak from that very minute that this Judgment fell upon him and so he dyed within a few days after in great torment and extremity by a languishing silence and famishment A later Example we have in the admirable punishment of James Beton Arch-Bishop of S. Andrews in Scotland who was also a member of the purpurated Conclave at Rome He had for diverse years been an inveterate Enemy to the Gospel and the Professors of it in that Kingdom under King James the Fifth And after his Death taking the advantage of the infancy of the Princess Mary the Hereditary Queen of that Realm he thought it a work worthy of himself to double die his Purple Robes in the Blood of the Saints And to make a full and clear way for that his sanguinary Project he forged a Will of the deceased King whereby he was established the chief Regent there during the young Ladies incapacity to Reign From which yet his false play being discovered he was removed and for a while imprisoned Yet was he no sooner delivered but he presently endeavoured to raise a new and a fatal war between England and Scotland and to root out the Professors of the Truth by a violent and bloody Persecution And among others whom he cited imprisoned or exiled in the year 1545. he seized upon Mr. George Wiseheart a very eloquent and learned Preacher who by the Latin writers of that age is called Sophocardius and contrary to their own Popish Canons adjudged him to present death himself which is never done except by the hellish Inquisition of Spain but by delivering the Martyrs into the power of the Civil-Magistrate And in his Court before the Castle of S. Andrews caused that bloody Sentence to be executed the said Mr. Wiseheart being first strangled and his Body afterwards burnt to Ashes The Cardinal in the mean time had a Chamber prepared for him with Carpets and Cushions in the Windows out of which he was a Triumphant Spectator of this godly mans Martyrdom From which window he departed not more delighted than as himself thought secured and presently he began to fortify his Castle against all Assaults But Gods Judgment from Eternity awarded against him for this later as well as former cruelties exercised upon his faithful Servants slep'd not For within a few weeks after the Cardinal having falsified his Promise to the Lord Norman Lesly Son of the Earl of Rothsay a zealous Romanist He upon the thirteenth day of May the same year with about fourteen resolute Gentlemen in his company entred the said Castle of S. Andrews where the Cardinal lay having had a whore with him all that night and having first assured himself of all within and the Gates without he slew the bloody Prelate by his Bed-side without Law or Justice who had but a little before most unjustly condemned and murthered the aforesaid Mr. Wiseheart and being willing to expose the dead Carcass of that cruel Persecutor all weltring and besmeared with blood unto the view of the People who abhorred his Butcheries and rejoiced at his fall casually they laid it along to be seen of all men in that very window out of which a little before leaning at his ease upon rich Cushions he had proudly beheld the death of that precious Martyr 161. It s very observable which Historians take notice of that generally the greatest Persecutors are most drenched in the sin of uncleanness and Epicurism What was Escovedo that great Instrument of the King of Spain's cruelties against the Evangelical Party in the Low-Countries but a a very Lump of Lust which in the end proved fatal to him 162. Peter Espinac A Bishop of Lions in France was a great Persecutor and one that lived in incest with his own Sister 163. John Arch-Bishop of S. Andrews in Scotland spent the greatest part of the Revenues of his See and the seisure of the Protestants Estates whose mortal Enemy he was upon his Whores and Revellings 164. The Cardinal of Granvels Veneries were so manifest and numerous as when Anno Christi 1574. the Kingdom of Tunis and the strong Fort of Gulette formerly esteemed impregnable were won by the Turks the Spaniards made a jest of it said openly That the Cardinals Breeches had occasioned that loss meaning thereby that King Philip the Second relying chiefly upon his advice in that and in most of the rest of his important affairs the Cardinals Lusts so took him up that he had not leisure to advise the King for the best 165. Cardinal Beton aforementioned wallowed at home with pollution among his Harlots and raged abroad with the blood and slaughter of the innocent Servants of Christ. 166. In that Hellish Massacre on S. Bartholomew's Day in Paris it self The Murtherers there were for the most part brutish and lustful Soldiers or profane Varlets of the scum of the City and though their Leaders were more noble yet less virtuous The Duke of Guise and Aumale Albert Gondy Earl of Rets Tavanne and others of them that were bred up in Lust Revellings and all manner of Debaucheries 167. The next place that came nearest to the cruelties exercised at Paris was the
in disguising himself he was slain in that Battle verse 33. 34. 11. Jesabel his Wife slew the Prophets of the Lord 1 Kings 18. 13. and persecuted Elijah But Jehu being made King when he was come to Jezreel Jezabel painted her Face and tired her Head and looking out to Jehu said Had Zimri peace that slew his Master Jehu seeing her commanded her to be thrown down out of the window which was accordingly done by some of her own Servants By the fall she was slain and trampled under Horses feet and her Body was torn and devoured by Dogs 2 Kings 9. 30 33 35. 12. Manasse persecuted the Ancient and Noble Prophet Isaiah who probably was of the Royal Blood for his free reproofs for all his wickedness who thereupon caused him to be sawn in sunder with a wooden Saw as Josephus saith But not long after the Lord brought upon him the Captains of the Host of the King of Assyria who took Manasse among the Thorns and bound him in Fetters and carried him to Babylon where he was cast into a Dungeon 2 Chron. 33. 11. 13. The wicked Jews grievously persecuted the Prophet Jeremiah First they smote him with the Tongue Jerem. 18. 18. Come say they Let us devise devises against Jeremiah Come and let us smite him with the Tongue and let us not give heed to any of his Words Afterwards Pashur the Priest smote him and put him in the Stocks whereupon Jeremiah denounced this Judgment against him The Lord hath not called thy Name Pashur but Magor-missabib For thus saith the Lord I will make thee a terror to thy self and to all thy Friends and they shall fall by the Sword of their Enemies and their Eyes shall hehold it And thou Pashur and all that are in thine House shall go into Captivity and thou shalt come to Babylon and their thou shalt die Jerem. 20. 2 3 4 6. Which grievous threatnings were without all question performed 14. After this the Priests and the Prophets and all the People took Jeremiah and said Thou shalt surely die Jer. 26. 8. To whom Jeremiah said As for me Behold I am in your Hand Do with me as seemeth good unto you But know ye for certain that if you put me to death ye shall surely bring innocent Blood upon your self and upon this City and upon the Inhabitants thereof c. verse 14 15. 15. When Jerusalem was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar's Army King Zedekiah caused Jeremiah to be cast into Prison for foretelling the destruction of Jerusalem the Captivity of Zedekiah Jer. 32. 2 3. c. But God suffered him not to go unpunished For not long after the City according to Jeremiah's Prophecy was taken Zedekiah was in his flight overtaken and carried to the King of Babylon who slew his Sons before his eyes that that dreadful sight might be the last thing that he should ever see he immediatly put out his eyes and bound him with Chains and carried him to Babylon Jer. 39. 5 6 7. And Zedekiah's Princes Nobles who had smitten Jeremiah and put him into Prison Jer. 37. 15. did afterwards cast him into a Dungeon where he did stick in the mire Jer. 38. 6. When the City was taken they also being over-taken were carried to the King of Babylon who slew them all Jerem. 38. 6. 16. Afterwards when the People were carried into Captivity Jeremiah being according to his own desire left in the Land of Juda he with the rest of the People was carried perforce by Johanan and some other wicked Captains into Egypt unto whom he foretold that they should their perish by the Sword and by the Famine and by the Pestilence for which plain and faithful dealing they stoned him to Death as Josephus reports But it was not long before Nebuchadnezzar came and overcame the Egyptians and plundered the Country at which time those Predictions of Jeremy were fulfilled upon his Persecuting Enemies Jerem. 43. 6 7. and 44. 11 12. c. 17. And that the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonish Captivity which continued seventy Years was in a special manner inflicted upon them for their crying sin of persecuting the Ministers and People of God appears plainly 2 Chron. 16. 17. Where it is said They mocked the Messengers of God and despised his words and misused his Prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his People till there was no remedy Therefore he brought upon them the King of the Chaldees who slew their young men with the Sword in the House of their Sanctuary and had no compassion upon Young Man or Maiden Old Man or him that stooped for Age c. 18. During the Captivity Haman the Agagite a deadly Enemy to the Church and People of God had got a Decree from King Ahasuerus upon a certain Day to destroy to kill and to cause to perish all Jews both Young and Old little Children and Womon and to take the spoil of them for a prey Esther 3. 13. But God wonderfully defeated this design preserved his People and turned the Mischief intended against them upon their Enemies Pates For this wicked Haman was himself hanged upon the Gallows fifty Cubits high which he had prepared for Mordecay Esther 7. 9. His ten Sons also were slain Esther 9. 10. And all others that rose up against them 19. Sometime after the return of the Jews from the Babylonish Captivity Antiochus Epiphanes or the Vile rather was a cruel and merciless Persecutor of the Godly among them But being in straits for want of mony he went into Persia to gather up some And being there he heard that in a wealthy City called Elymais there was a very Rich Temple dedicated to Diana Thither therefore he went and besieged it But the Inhabitants sallying out drave him away with great shame and loss And when he came back to Babylon he heard of the overthrow of his Captains and Armies in Judaea Which News together with his late defeat so wrought upon him that he fell sick and finding no hope of recovery he called his most familiar Friends unto him and told them that his Disease was violent and desperate and that he was justly Plagued by God with this grievous Sickness for that he had tormented the People of the Jews destroyed their Temple and committed horrible Sacrilege and for contemning the Majesty of of God But now he Vowed that if it would please the Lord to receive him he would become a Jew and do many great things for the People of God As also that he would go through all the known World to declare the power of God Notwithstanding which the Lord knowing his Hypocrisie continued to plague him after a very grievous and terrible manner For he had a remediless and incessant pain in his Bowels and intollerable torments in all his inward parts His Body bred abundance of Worms which continually crawled out of the same Yea he so rotted above ground that whole flakes of flesh fell from
his Body which was accompanied with such an intollerable stink that none were able to come near him neither could he himself endure the same which forced him to say It is meet to submit to God and for man which is mortal not to set himself in competition with God Thus this vile Person who formerly in a proud and insolent manner had Protested that he would make Jerusalem a common burying place and the Streets thereof to run with the blood of God's People by God's just Judgment ended his life in extream misery in a Strange Land upon the Mountains of Parata near Babylon 20. Probably under him it was that the Saints endured most of those Persecutions which are mentioned by the Apostle in that little Book of Martyrs Heb. 11. 36 37 38. Others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of Bonds and imprisonment They were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the Sword They wandred about in Sheepskins and Goatskins being destitute afflicted tormented Of whom the World was not worthy They wandred in Desarts and Mountains and in Dens and Caves of the Earth Of God's Judgments upon Persecutors under the New Testament Herod surnamed the Great hearing by the Wise men that came out of the East that there was one who was born King of the Jews and being informed by the Chief Priests and the Scribes that the place of his Birth should be Bethlem of Judah he sent forth his Soldiers and to make sure work he slew all the Children that were in Bethlem and in all the Coasts thereof from two years old and under hoping thereby to have destroyed Christ. But presently after the Lord gave him over to a Spirit of Phrensie that he slew Maryamne his Beloved Wife and his Children which made Augustus Caesar say That it was better to be Herod's Dog than his Son and his nearest Kinsfolk and familiar Friends And shortly after God's terrible Judgment fell upon him by a grievous Disease which was a slack and slow Fire in his inward parts He had also a greedy and Dog like appetite after Food which yet was insatiable He had also a rotting in his Bowels and a grievous Flux in his Fundament A moist and running humor in his Feet and the like Malady vexed him about his Bladder His Privy Members putrified engendring abundance of Worms which continually crawled and swarmed out of the same He had a short and a stinking Breath with a great pain in breathing And through all the parts of his Body such a violent Cramp as no human strength was able to endure Yet longing after Life he sent for Physicians from all parts by whose advice he went to the hot Baths at Calliroe But finding no ease by the use thereof and his torments still encreasing he endeavoured to lay violent Hands upon himself had he not been prevented by his Friends about him and so at last having had some foretastes of the torments of Hell in extream anguish he ended his wretched Life 22. Herod the Less surnamed Antipas having married the Daughter of Aretas King of Arabia after a while put her away and took Herodias who had forsaken her Husband Philip Herod's Brother For which Incestuous and Adulterous Marriage John the Baptist plainly reproved him saying It is not lawful for thee to have her Matth. 14. 4. Hereupon at the instigation of Herodias he first cast John into Prison and afterwards cut off his Head But the Lord suffered not this wicked Murther to go long unpunished For Aretas raising an Army against Herod for his ignominious dealing with his Daughter in a pitch'd Battle wholly overthrew him and cut off his whole Host. And not long after Herod falling into disgrace with Augustus the Roman Emperor he together with his Incestuous Herodias were banished to Vienne in France where they ended their wretched lives with much shame and misery 23. After this there arose a third Herod surnamed Agrippa who not taking warning by his Predecessors calamities fell to Persecuting the Church of Christ and conventing James the Brother of John before him he condemned him to be beheaded And seeing the Death of James pleased the Jews he took Peter also and delivered him to four Quaternians of Soldiers to keep him in Prison intending after the Passover to put him to Death Acts 12. 1. c. But neither did this Bloody Persecuting Herod escape any better than his Predecessors had done For upon a great Festival day he being arraied in glittering and Royal Apparel Sat upon his Throne and made an Oration to the People which being ended the People gave a shout saying It is the Voice of a God and not of a Man Whereupon the Angel of God's Immutability smote him and he was eaten of Worms and gave up the Ghost in the fifty fourth year of his Age and the Seventh of his Reign under Claudius Caesar. 24. Now the Sins of the Jews being ripe especially that heynous Sin of Persecuting the Prophets and Messengers of God cried aloud for Judgment according as Christ had foretold them Matth. 23. 34 35 36. c. Behold saith he I send unto you Prophets and Wise men and Scribes and some of them you shall kill and crucifie and some of them ye shall scourge in your Synagogues and persecute them from City to City that upon you may come all the righteous Blood shed upon the Earth from the Blood of the Righteous Abel unto the Blood of Zacharias Son of Barachias whom ye slew between the Temple and the Altar Verily I say unto you all these things shall come upon this Generation And that you may know more particularly what those Judgments were our Saviour Christ sets them down Matth. 23 38. Your House is left unto you desolate And more plainly Chap. 24. 21 22. Then shall be great Tribulation such as was not from the beginning of the World to this time No nor ever shall be And except those Dayes should be shortened their should no Flesh to wit of the Jews be saved But for the Elects sake those Dayes shall be shortened 25. These Predictions of our Saviour were fulfilled by the Roman Armies under Vespasian and Titus his Son For besides the Afflictions which befel them in divers other Countries being tossed up and down by the Roman Deputies there were slain in Caesarea twenty thousand in one day At Alexandria fifty Thousand another Day At Zabulon and Joppa eight Thousand and four Hundred At Damascus ten Thousand had their Throats cut In the Siege of Jerusalem they were so miserably pinched with Famine that Oxen's Dung was accounted good meat Others fed upon old Leather and some Women boiled their own Children and did eat them Many hoping to save their Lives by flying to the Romans had their Bowels ript up to search for Gold and Jewels in their Stomacks and Guts Two Thousand of them thus perished in one Night Ninty seven Thousand of them were taken Prisoners besides what fell