incensed the Pope against him Thu. l. 94. For the Pope had agreed with Guise in secret to marry his Niece to the Prince of Jonvil Guise his son and heir and to depose the King thrust him into a Monastery and compel him by the Popes authority to renounce his right to the Kingdom and to set up Guise the father King in his place But how zealous and jealous he was for the Dignity and Authority of the Holy See is worth our further notice in an instance related by a good Catholick the learned Civil Lawyer William Barclay in his book De Potestate Papae dedicated to Pope Clement VIII None of all the writers of the Popes part saith he hath either more dilig ntly collected or more ingeniously proposed or more smartly and subtilely concluded their reasons and arguments for the Popes Authority than the Eminent Divine Bellarmine who although he attributed as much as with honesty he could and indeed more than he ought to have done to the Authority of the Pope in Temporals yet could he not satisfie the Ambition of that most Imperious man Sixtus v. who affirmed that he held a Supreme Power over All Kings and Princes of the whole Earth and all People and Nations delivered to him not by humane but Divine Institution In so much that he was very near by his Papal Censure to have abolished to the great detriment of the Church all the works of that Doctor which at this day oppose heresie with very great success as the Fathers of that Order of which Bellarmine was have seriously told me cap. 13. But enough of Sixtus By whom for example we may guess by these fruits what likelyhood there is that he and such as he whereof there hath been no small number Popes since the tenth Age especially that Seculum Infelix when with a great Eclipse of Learning the Popes of Rome as even Bellarmine noteth degenerated from the Piety of the Ancients were partakers of and directed by that Holy Spirit which God giveth to them that obey him to conduct them in all truth or rather the Spirit of the world the Spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience whose works they have done 35. The three next succeeding Popes Vrban 7. Gregory 14. and Innocent 9. did not all of them live out half three years from the death of this and therefore we cannot expect to hear of any attempts or design of theirs against this Kingdom But after Clement VIII who was elected Pope 3. Feb. 1591 2. was settled in his seat the like practises soon began again wherein those agents whom we have mentioned before Hesket Lopez and Complices his Cullen York and Williams who confessed some others and Squire were imployed to raise rebellion poison or assassinate the Queen Lopez by the King of Spain's Ministers of State not without the privity and consent of himself all the rest incited and encouraged by the Jesuites who for the like practises at the same time against the most Christian King though then become Catholick too Thu. l. 111. were exterminated out of all France and a Pyramid erected for their perpetual Infamy But from all these God still preserved her the Emissaries being discovered taken and Executed Nor did he only preserve her from their attempts but shortly after blessed her with happy successes in an Expedition against the Spaniards then preparing again to Invade England Bacon Observ wherein the King of Spains Navy of 50. tall Ships besides twenty Gallies to attend them were beaten and put to flight and in the end all but two which were taken by the English burned only the twenty Gallies by the benefit of the Shallows escaping the town of Cadiz manned with 4000. foot and 400. horse taken sack'd and burnt but great Clemency used toward the inhabitants Camd. an 1596 and at last the English returning home with honour and great spoils besides the two Gallions and about 100. great brass Guns and great store of ammunition and provisions of war taken in the town and with very small loss and but of one person of quality the Spaniards having lost in all first and last 13. of their best men of war and 44. other Ships of great burden and in Ships great guns and military provisions by the estimate of the most knowing persons above 3000000 ducates And when the King of Spain not long after that he might repair this loss in a heat had from all parts gathered together all the Ships he could and manned even the strangers Ships which were in the Ports of Spain and set out this Navy to Land upon the Coasts either of England or Ireland the Heavens fought for her and so favoured her that by a horrid tempest which arose most of those Ships were either sunk by the waves or broken against the rocks in so much that she sooner heard of the destruction of her enemies than of their setting out to Sea to assault her The year ensuing great preparations were made on both sides but the Heavens not favoring any further proceedings of this kind both the Fleets were so dispersed by storms that neither came within sight of the other And now the King of Spain became well inclined to a peace with England which though proposed by the French he lived not to see brought to effect for he died the 13. of Sept. after 36. But the death of the King of Spain did not dissolve the Combination no more than the deaths of so many several Popes before had done For it still survived in his son Phil. 111. with Clement VIII Only so many former attempts having proved altogether unsuccessful against England there was now with the persons some change also of their Counsels and all their Consultations against England were afterward so directed as to depend for their execution upon the death of the Queen Yet in Ireland there seemed some hopes that something might be effected at present by assisting the Robels there and therefore for their encouragement and assistance the King of Spain by his Agent Don Martin de la Cerda sends them money and Ammunition and the Pope by Mathew de Oviedo whom he designed Archbishop of Dublin Promises of Indulgence with a Phoenix plume to Tir-Oen their General and the year after he sends them his Indulgence it self to this effect That whereas of long time being led on by the Exhortations of his Predecessors and himself and of the Apostolick See for the recovery and defence of their Liberty against the Hereticks they had with Vnited minds and Forces given aid and assistance first to James Fitz-Girald and lastly to Hugh Onel Earl of Tyron Captain General of the Catholick Army in Ireland who with their Souldiers had in process of time performed many brave atchievements fighting manfully against the enemy and for the future are ready to perform the like that they may all the more cheerfully do it and assist against the said Hereticks being willing after the
of the window Felinius his son-in-law with other persons of quality and all the rest that had relation to him This done Monsieur d'O Colonel of the King's Guards calls out the principal Protestants that were in the Louvre one by one who being come into the Court were all killed by the Souldiers that stood in two long ranks with their arms ready for that purpose there died divers Noblemen and persons of great quality and others to the number of 200. At the same time the bell gave the sign and those who were prepared for the deed having received order what to do fell a killing the Protestants throughout all the lodgings and houses where they were dispersed and made an infinite slaughter of them without any distinction of age sex or condition and of many of the Papists among the rest And those who fled were pursued by the Duke of Guise with a great many horse and foot and being overtaken some without shooes some without saddles some without bridles but all more or less unprovided were scattered and cut off There were killed in the City that day and the next above 10000 whereof above 500 were Barons Knights and Gentlemen who had held the chiefest employments in the War and were now purposely met together from all parts to honor the King of Navar 's Marriage Thu. l. 52. A sad time it was what through the noise and clatter of those who every where ran to killing and carrying away of their prey and the doleful groans and sad cryes of those who were slain and murthered without mercy young and old rich and poor men and women women great with child and others with their little children sucking at their breasts and in the dead time of the night plucked out of their beds and houses what with the horrid spectacle of dead bodies thrown out of the windows and trod about the streets and the channels running down with streams of bloud into the River And yet so little moved were the Court Ladies with all this that without either fear or shame in an impudent manner they beheld and stood gazing upon the naked bodies of the Noblemen and Gentlemen which lay on heaps before the Court The day after the Admirals death Da. 375. the Duke of Anjou with the Regiment of the Guards went through all the City and Suburbs causing those houses to be broken open that made any resistance but all the Protestants were either already dead or else being terrified had put white crosses in their hats the general mark of the Papists endeavouring by that means and by hiding themselves to save their lives but being pointed at in the streets by any one or discovered any other way they were without mercy torn in pieces by the people and cast into the River The day before this terrible execution the King dispatched Posts into divers parts of the Kingdom commanding the Governors of Cities and Provinces to do the like And the same night at Meaux and the days ensuing at Orleans Rouen Bourges Angiers Tholouze and many other places but above all at Lyons there was a most bloudy slaughter of the Protestants without any respect of age sex or quality of persons Most sad and lamentable stories says Davila might be here related for this cruelty was prosecuted in so many several places with such variety of accidents against people of all conditions as it was credibly reported that there were slain above forty thousand Protestants in few days The King himself as In vita Greg. 13. Cicarela relates told the Pope's Nuncio that seventy thousand and more were slain Some days after the King dispatched his Grand Provost with all diligence to seize upon Colinius his Wife and Children but his eldest Son with the widow-Lady his Mother-in-law and others being already fled secretly to Geneva the younger children both male and female were condemned to death in their tender years About two days after the Massacre was finished at Paris a Jubilee was there appointed and a publick Thanksgiving kept by the King the whole Court and a great confluence of the people for the business so happily managed according to their wish and desire Thu. l. 52.53 In memory whereof St. Bartholomew's day was by a decree of the Parliament of Paris appointed to be observed as an Anniversary Thanksgiving-day 46. Thu. l. 51.53 This horrible act of most barbarous and inhumane cruelty is highly extolled by the Italian Writers as a good and laudable deed and the politick contrivance of it as most worthy the subtil wit of a magnanimous Prince And certain it is that the news of its being effected was received at Rome with triumphant joy by the new Pope and his Cardinals but how far his predecessors were concerned in the contrivance and promotion of it in regard of the great secrecy wherewith all was managed would be very difficult fully to discover as to all the particulars and circumstances yet that they had a great hand in it Thu. l. 36. Da. p. 189. is evident enough in many passages of the story For when after the first Civil War the King instructed by the Queen-Mother had dismissed the Ambassadors sent in the joynt names of the King of Spain the Pope and the Duke of Savoy with thanks to their Masters for their wholsom counsel and proffers of Forces and Aid to expel and extirpate Heresy out of his Dominions assuring them that he would live according to the rites of the Church of Rome and take care that all his people do the like and that he had concluded the peace to that end to expel his enemies out of his Kingdom and promising by Ministers of his own to acquaint the Pope and other Princes particularly with his resolutions they resolved under pretence of a Progress among other things Da p. 190. to come to a Parly with the Duke of Savoy in Dolphine with the Pope's Ministers at Avignon and with the King of Spain or the Queen his Wife upon the Confines of Guienna that so they might communicate their Counsels to them without the hazard of trusting French-men who either through dependence or kindred might be moved to reveal them to the Protestants And having sufficiently informed and fully satisfied Savoy with their intentions and way Da. p. 194. designed to free themselves without noise or danger from the trouble of the Protestants at Avignon they confer with Ludovico Antinori one of the Pope's trusty Ministers and a Florentine being according to the Queens desire come thither and give that Answer to the Pope's Embassy which they would not trust to the Ambassadors concerning their purpose to extirpate Calvinism by secret stratagems without the danger or tumult of new wars And here no doubt was some matters of no small moment transacted Thu. 36. for the King having gone by Arles and Aix as far as Marseilles returned again to Avignon immediately under the Pope's Jurisdiction But what-ever they were in
Guards that stood near the Castle then railed upon and reviled lastly they were beaten the first blow being given by a Gascoign and one of them having received a blow the rest fell upon them Which the * She lived to prosure the extirpation of all her Posterity and to see the death of all her sons but Anjou who survived her but few months being after a furious rebellion against him by Guise and this faction murdered by a Fryer August 24th Queen understanding being impatient of all delay she thence took occasion to tell the King that the Souldiers could not now be restrained that he should command the sign from the Palace presently to be given for it was to be feared that if it were delayed any longer all would be in a confusion and things would fall out otherwise than he desired Therefore by his command the Bell of St. Germans Church is tolled before break of day ix Kal. VII br which day is the Feast of St. Bartholomew and fell upon a Sunday And presently Guise with Engolesme and †He was slain in March following before Rochel l 55. Aumale go to Coligny's house where Cosserius kept Guard Mean time Coligny being awakened he understood by the noise that they were risen into sedition yet being secure and even sure of the good will of the King whether through his own credulity or through the perswasion of his Son-in-law Teligny he thus thought with himself that the people were stirred up by the Guisians but as soon as they should see the King's Guards under the command of Cossenius for the defence of him and his as he supposed they would immediately fall off But the tumult growing on when he perceived a Gun discharged in the Court-yard of the house then at last but too late conjecturing what the thing indeed was he rose from his bed and putting on his night-gown he raised himself upon his feet to his Prayers leaning against the wall La Bonne kept the keys of the house who being commanded by Cossenius in the King's Name to open the Gate he suspecting nothing immediately opened it strait-way * He was slain 8 Apr. following before Rochel l. 56. Cossenius going in la Bonne meeting him is stabbed with daggers which when the Switzers who were in the Court-yard saw they fly into the house and shutting after them the next gate of the house they barracado it up with Chests and Tables and other houshold-stuff one only of the Switzers being slain in that first conflict by the Cossenians by a Musquet discharged At last the Gate being forced open the Conspirators strive to get up the stairs They were Cossenius Abinius Corboran Cardillac Sarlaboun chief officers of the Companies Achilles Petruccius of Siena all clad in Coats of Male and Besmes a German educated from a child in the Family of Guise for Guise himself with the rest of the Nobles and others remained in the Court-yard In that noise after Prayers ended by Merlin the Minister Coligny turning to those who stood about him who were for the most part Chirurgeons and a few of his retinue I see saith he with an undaunted countenance what is doing I am prepared patiently to undergo that death which I never feared and which I have now long since embraced in my mind Happy am I who shall perceive my self to die and who shall die in God by whose Grace I am raised to the hope of eternal life Now I need not humane helps any longer You my friends get ye hence with all the speed that may be lest you be involved in my calamity and your Wives hereafter wish evil to me being dead as though I were the cause of your deaths The presence of God unto whose goodness I commend this soul which shall shortly fly from my body is abundantly sufficient Which as soon as he had said they go into an upper room and thence through the roof every one his way Mean while the Conspirators breaking open the Chamber-dores rush in and when as * He was killed about two years after l. 60. Besmes with his sword drawn asked of Coligny who stood by the dore Art thou Coligny He with an undisturbed countenance answered I am he but young man reverence my gray hairs whatsoever thou doest thou canst not make my life much shorter Whiles he said so Besmes thrust his sword into his breast and drawing it forth struck him with a back-blow over the face whereby he quite disfigured him then with repeated blows he fell down dead Some write that these words shewing his indignation fell from Coligny as he was dying If at least I had died by the hand of a man not of a scullion But Atinius one of the Assasines repeated it so as I have written and adds that he never saw man in so present a danger bear death with such constancy Much otherwise did Guise bear the sense of his less apparent approaching death For when after his conspiracy and rebellion in the H. League against the next King he was with such like arts as had been here used brought into the snare which the King had laid for him and having before neglected the warnings of his friends at last began to be suspitious of his danger though nothing visible appeared his vehement fear so prevailed over his dissimulation whereby he endeavoured to conceal it that his whole body though he sate by the fire shaked and trembled and to immind him of this present fact a stream of bloud flowing plentifully from his nostrils as he called for a napkin he was fain to call for some Cordials to comfort his spirits but yet nothing of danger visible when in the midst of this his fear and languishing he was by one of the Secretaries who knew nothing of the design called into the Kings Privy Chamber whereupon having saluted each of the company as if he took his last farewell of them going directly thither he was no sooner entred but the dore was boulted and one of those who were appointed for the business struck a dagger through his throat downward into his breast whereby his mouth was presently filled with bloud and stopped that he could not speak but only fetch so deep a groan as was heard with horror by those who stood by This stroke was seconded by many others upon his head breast belly and groyn And to this end he came not as Colinius from his Prayers but after all his other wickedness from his whore with whom he had indulged the night and therefore came later than the rest this morning into the Counsel Thu. l. 93. It was their different lives and actions which made this difference in their deaths for otherwise Guise was a man of great courage as well as Colinius Then Guise asking Besines out of the Court-yard whether the thing were done when he answered it was done he could not perswade Angolesme unless he saw it Therefore Guise replying and bidding him throw
the Massacre had been held This we may not without reason look upon as the just judgment of God upon him for his wicked dealings in that barbarous Massacre Again when we see his Popish Subjects every where break faith with him and all bonds and oaths of Obedience and Fidelity to him and teach and hold it to be their duty so to do when we see them through whose importunity he had violated the publick faith given to the Protestants to rage and storm and furiously exclaim upon his breach of faith with themselves when we see him brought to need and desire the assistance of the King of Navar and his Protestants with whom he had broken faith against those for whom to comply with their perfidious and rebellious humours he did it and by them notwithstanding thus brought to his end and murthered with whom he had so basely complied in that perfidious dealing this we may likewise with great reason look upon as a just judgment of God upon him for that his perfidious dealing with the Protestants And certainly if all the circumstances of the History from that barbarous Massacre of the Protestants at Merindol and Cabriers under Francis 2. to the death of this his Grand-son Henr. 3. the last of his race for almost 50 years be duly considered it will be hard to find in any History a more eminent example of Divine Vengeance prosecuting a Family to the utter extirpation of it than this an example wherein the judgment of God is more conspicuous and remarkable or the causes of that judgment more manifest and apparent wherein the sin and the punishment do more exactly agree or of a more remarkable distinguishing providence if with this the hapy reign and actions of their neighbour Prince Queen Elizabeth be impartially compared This was a judgment not upon one person alone nor upon a Family so as to involve all in one sudden destruction as is sometimes seen but a continued prosecution of vengeance against a whole Family for three generations without intermission V. Sect. 39. the Grand-father Fran. 1. not long enjoying himself or his life after he had authorized that fatal persecution His Son Henr. 2. having time to repent and reform and admonished so to do by his dying Father but persevering in his Fathers sin cut off by a violent death in the height and heat of his persecutions against the Protestants and upon his consummation of an agreement for a War against them His four Sons all living to be men but not to half the age of men three of them coming successively to the Crown but so as rather only to wear the Crown than by a just and peaceable exercise of their authority to sway the Scepter being at first over-ruled by the deceitful and pernicious counsels of their Mother and her Italians and the violent courses of the Guisian Faction to destroy their subjects and at last necessitated by the bold attempts of the Guisians and fury of the Leaguers to fight for Crown Liberty and Life against them whereby they and their Kingdom were continually embroiled in Civil Wars and miserable confusions each of them succeeding other as in their access to the Crown so in their unhappy reign if they might be said to reign while so obnoxious to the wills of others and continually imbroiled in such confusions and exit and catastophre of it the first Francis 2. cut off by a death remarkable though not for the kind yet for the time and season of it both in respect of his years and of those who were preserved by it V. Sect. 40. p. 63 64. the next Charles 9. living some years longer and thereby more capable by his own personal management of the affairs of the Kingdom to derive the guilt of his Ancestors miscarriages upon himself and increase it by his own which accordingly he did in no mean degree being likewise cut off by a death every way remarkable in respect both of the time and all other circumstances and lastly the third Brother Hen. 3. coming likewise to that unhappy end which hath been but now related all of them with their Brother Alancon dying without issue to succeed them Nor did this fate attend only the succession but light also upon those who were incapable to succeed in the Government their bastard Brother Angolesme who had been a forward actor in the Massacre being also as hath been said cut off by a violent death and of their Sisters Elizabeth the eldest * V. Sect. 39. p. 60. married to Phil. 2. of Spain a Marriage concluded with an agreement between him and her Father of a War against the Protestants but solemnized with the otherwise untimely death of her Father and by Philip her Husband first employed in the * V. Sect. 42. p. 74. Consultation at Bayonne and at last brought to that †V. Sect. 44. unhappy end when great with child and in the 23 th year of her age which hath been mentioned before and is more fully related in the late French History of Dom Carlos and Margaret the youngest first forced by her Mother and Brother Charles to a Marriage with the King of Navar that unhappy Marriage which was made the introduction to the Massacre afterwards for her * V. Busbeq ep Aug. 27. 1583. Da. p. 599. Thu. l. 80. lewdness and incontinency reproachfully turned from the Court by her next Brother Henr. 3. and at last divorced from her Husband when King of France without issue by him unless she had any by any other which was kept secret as her Brother objected to her If their other Sister Claud married to Charles Duke of Lorain was less unhappy in this respect she seems less to have merited the like misfortune for we meet with no mention of her in all the story of these confusions in France Thus were five Kings in a continued succession cut off besides three others of the same line the youngest son of Francis 1. in few months after the beginning of those persecutions at his age of 23. and the second and youngest of Hen. 2. who never came to the Crown and their whole line and posterity extirpated in France while they sought the extirpation of the Protestants there whereby the Crown at last notwithstanding all opposition and endeavours to hinder it descended to a Protestant Prince and all this by a constant course of Divine Vengeance upon that Family for about 44 years for so long it was from the execution of the Decree of the Parliament of Province Apr. 1545. and the death of the King 's youngest son Sept. 8. following to the murder of Henr. 3. Aug. 1589. the very same space of time which Queen Elizabeth happily and prosperously reigned in England and most of it contemporary Wherein it is very plain and observable a triple difference between her and them viz. a different cause or end and aim of their actions a different manner of proceeding and a different success As
was in confession and therefore not to be revealed and the Jesuite upon examination protested that God had given him the grace that as soon as any thing was revealed to him in confession be presently forgot it The Jesuites were generally suspected and censured as guilty and several suspitious passages in their Sermons lately preached particularly by F. Hardy and F. Gontier were called to mind and thereupon the Parliament ordered the Jesuite Mariana's Book de Rege Regis Institutione to be burned by the common Executioner Continuat of Serres p. 1295 Foul. p. 646. and afterward condemned a Book of Suarez Defensio Fidei Cath. as containing many Seditious and treasonable Principles and after this another of another Jesuite Ant. Sanctarellus de Haeresi Schismate c. Foul. ibid. Moul. ubi sup printed at Rome with the approbation of the General and at the same time questioned F. Cotton and other chief men of their Society about their Doctrine in this respect but this was many years after the murder But that the History is so sparing in this particular of the accessories it self gives us a good reason the Judges themselves who examined him says Perefix durst not open their mouths and never spoke of it but with a shrug of their shoulders and that some grand thing was hushed up may be supposed from the publick complaint of the Prince of Conde and others five years after that the discovery of this murther was stopped and not fully prosecuted It should seem domestick and foreign jealousies conspired in it But that it was not done without the privity of others is further confirmed from the Predictions of it the general bruit which fore-ran it and the King's enemies confident expectation of it His enemies says Perefix were then in a profound silence which possibly was not caused by their consternation and fear of the success of his arms but for the expectation they had to see some great blow which was all their hope It was foretold in an Almanack brought to Peirescius out of Spain printed November before which Gassendus though he doubts not but the Artist might have some dealing with an evil genius yet thinks he might foresee by other means as being privy to the conspiracy which indeed is the more likely because it was composed by a Beneficiary or Beneficed man of Barcellonia or Barcinonia from whence the Spanish Emissary above mentioned came to Paris to Father Cotton by whom he was recommended to the King Perefix And perhaps of the same kind with this was that Prediction of his approaching death by a determinate blow Continuat of Serres which was found written in a paper upon the Altar at Montargis The Provost of Pluviers who 't is said was a Jesuite in Faction and had a Son a Jesuite being accused to have said the same day that the King was murthered that he was slain or wounded that day strangled himself in prison And indeed such and so many were the predictions and reports of it at the time and before it was done which are mentioned by * Li. 2. de vita Peireskii Gassendus Perefix and others as make it very apparent that it was generally fore-known both in Spain and Italy or at least that there was then many emissaries sent out to do it and that it was confidently expected that it would certainly be done Only it is somewhat strange that those circumstances at his next Solemnity in his Coach and the very day of the month should be so precisely foretold as it seems it was in that manner that he gave credit to it though no credulous person and was so sad and dejected that he was like one condemned to death though by nature neither fearful nor melancholy He had advertisements to this purpose by his Embassadors and namely by Jo. Bochartus from Venice and by others from twenty several places But it seems it was decreed the Decree was gone out and it must be executed This end had Henry le Grand in the height of his Grandure much like the fall of some stately structure deceitfully built upon an infirm foundation when just raised to its height He was frighted in his youth into a change of his Profession for the saving of his life the first but bitter fruit of his being unequally yoked but that being only through teror and constraint he returned again when he found a convenient opportunity to the open profession of his own Religion It was about the eighteenth year of his age when his youth might make his yielding to so extraordinary terror heightned by the sad spectacle of the horrid murthers of all his friends the more excusable About eighteen years after when he was grown up to maturity about the thirty sixt year of his age and had given some testimony of his constancy in his Profession and for his encouragement had received no small testimonies of Divine favour not only preserving and conducting him safe through many dangers and difficulties but leading him by the hand to the possession of the Kingdom and making way for him by the extirpation of a whole Family another Trial was assigned him by the great Agonothetes V. Ecclesiasticus 2.1.2 3 c. who never ceaseth to provide new matter and occasions of trial and exercise for all those who once apply themselvs to his service till either by many mutual experiments given and received of their fidelity and constancy to him and of his admirable Providence never failing them but ordering all for their good they become more than Conquerors and well setled and confirmed in his service one great reason of the difficulties and adversities wherewith good men are frequently exercised or on the other side after many acts of unfaithfulness whereby their courage and resolution is more and more broken and abated they become easily affrighted or allured from their duty and at last either wholly deserting or little regarding the same are accordingly by him abandoned to the deceitful and pernitious courses of their own lusts and devices The former was a trial whether he would be frighted or forced from his fidelity this rather whether he would be allured from it In the former he failed and now having had time to repent and resume new courage and resolution he is again called upon the stage and in the first assault he behaved himself not much amiss For who can mislike his referring all to the determination and advice of a lawful General or National Council had be been sincere and continued constant in this resolution V. Thu. l. 98. 101 103. Nor did he want encouragement in this respect from the forward and couragious opposition which on his behalf was made against the Pope's Bulls by his Subjects even of the Roman Communion and not only by the Civil Power but the Clergy also concurring therein who moreover gave him a fair opportunity and kind of invitation either by setting up a Patriarch in France
by the Plague in the flower of his age Thuan. if his heart was not broken as was thought Raleigh by the disappointment of his ambitious designs after he had fouly by the Popes Dispensation falsified his Oath taken to observe the Treaty made with the States General And we might here likewise take notice not only of what some may think observable in the Death of the King of Spain Thu. l. 120. if not devoured yet in a great measure wasted and consumed by Lyce bred in his own body which in so great quantities issued out of four several tumours in his breast as that it was as much as two men by turns could do to wipe them off from him with napkins and cloathes but of that which others may think more remarkable in his Life which is that having twice most solemnly Sworn to the States General of the Low-Countries over which he held only a kind of Seigniory to Maintain their Ancient Rights Raleigh Priviledges and Customes which they had enjoyed under their thirty and five Earls before him and afterwards obtained from the Pope a Dispensation of his Oathes which Dispensation says Sir Walter Rawleigh was the true cause of the war and Blood-shed since when he sought contrary to his Oathes and all Right and Justice not only by new devised and intolerable Impositions to tread their National and Fundamental Laws Priviledges and Ancient Rights under his feet and both by Arts dividing their Nobility and by Force to enslave their Persons and Estates and make himself Absolute but moreover by introducing among them the Exercise of the Spanish Inquisition to Tyrannize also over their Consciences and in pursuance hereof had committed many barbarous Murders and Massacres among them by the Just Providence of God he was thrown out of all and those Rights and Priviledges which he sought to abolish and that Religion which he sought to oppress were by that people retained and enjoyed with greater freedom and liberty than ever so that in conclusion the recompense of that oppression and cruelty which he exercised upon them was the loss of those Countries which says Raleigh for beauty gave place to none and for revenue did equal his West-Indies besides the loss of an hundred millions of money and of the lives of above four hundred thousand Christians by him cast away in his endeavours to enslave them If besides this we reflect upon his many and various attempts against the Queen of England Thu. l. 120. some of them with so great study and vast expense of his Treasure his unhappy Wars in aid of the Rebels in France which his ambitious hopes had no less devoured than they had England all of them unsuccessful and remarkably blasted and himself at last so weary of them that he was glad to desire peace with both his fruitless wasting of 5594. Myriads of Gold as himself confessed without any other profit than the acquest of Portugal which he thought might be as easily lost as his hopes of the Kingdom of France had suddenly vanished and however was sufficiently ballanced with his loss in Africa and elsewhere the death of his eldest son by his own command as the lesuite * 9. Ration Temp. 12. Petavius saith expresly and the less of all his other sons save only Phil. 111. who succeeded him and was the only son of all his four wives who survived him If we seriously I say reflect upon all these we may look upon the prolongation of his life in respect of himself but as a continuance of trouble and misery to him and in respect of this blessed Queen to have been designed by God for an Exercise of her Faith and Virtue and a necessary means to render his Favour and never failing Providence over her the more Manifest Conspicuous and Exemplary to encourage others to Fidelity to him and Resignation to his most Wise Powerful and Gracious Providence But though these things do well deserve our notice yet that which I call a Distinguishing Providence is yet more admirable and remarkable in her nearer neighbours in France 39. When Queen Elizabeth began her Reign in England Henry 11. was King of France His Father Francis 1. who in the beginning of his Reign which was about the time of Luthers first appearing against Indulgences had unhappily entred into a league with the Pope Leo X. which in the judgment of many says Thuanus brought destruction upon his affairs and family though in many things unhappy throughout his whole Reign yet certainly was he in nothing more unhappy than in the guilt of so much innocent blood as was shed in the barbarous and horrid murders and slaughters which were made upon the Protestants of Merindol and Cabriers condemned meerly for their Religion Thu. l. 6. by a most rigid and severe Sentence of the Parliament of Provence after which he never enjoyed himself says Raleigh nor indeed his life long after his approbation of that Execution wherein their towns and villages to the number of two and twenty were burned and themselves without distinction of age or sex most barbarously murthered But being touched with remorse of Conscience and repenting of it upon his death bed he charged his Son that the injuries done to that people should be enquired into and their murtherers who in the cruelty of their execution had exceeded the severity of the Sentence to be duly punished threatening him with Gods judgments Thu. l. 3. Davil p. 14. if he neglected it And among other Admonitions which he then gave him this was one to beware of the Ambition of the Guises whom he foresaw if admitted to the administration of the Kingdom would reduce both his Children and the People of France to great miseries But Henry II. no sooner came to his Fathers throne but he presently began to practise the contrary to his directions Davila p. 15. 19 displacing those that before had any part in the government and substituting in their room the same men whom his Father had discharged and Guise with the first and at length the three brothers of Guise got into their hands all the principal governments and chief dignities of the Kingdom together with the super-intendancy of all affairs both Martial and Civil the Consequence of which did afterwards make good the truth of his fathers prediction Nor did he much better perform his fathers charge in doing Justice upon the bloody offenders Thu. l. 6. for though he gave the cause a long hearing yet did not the issue of the judgment answer the great expectations which the so many horrid crimes whereof they were accused did raise in mens minds one only of the offenders for want of friends at Court being executed but the principal actors of that wickedness restored to their former dignity and places so that instead of that Justice which if duly executed upon the offenders might possibly have averted or mitigated the Divine vengeance which hath since prosecuted