Ages will hardly believe what we see with our own Eyes These Gentlemen would fain perswade the World that the Persecutions in France have not been so violent as we have been informed and that the French King hath now chang'd his mind and is become another man But what can be more idle ridiculous and impertinent than this stuff of theirs Would they with a Brazen brow give the lye to so many Thousands of Witnesses and to our own eyes too But what new varnish can they find to put upon this last Persecution Truly if the French King hath now changed his mind he must have been exceeding violent indeed since the very dregs of his Fury are still so terrible For what more Cruel can be imagined than to put a Gentleman to a vile and infamous death to send so many others to the Gallies and to condemn others to shameful Punishment upon the bare pretence that they have met together to Pray to God notwithstanding his prohibition If so hard treatment may not be call'd a Persecution I do not know then what may deserve that name and on the contrary if this be meekness and gentleness I cannot imagine what that is which we call Inhumanity I would beg leave to ask our Murmurers only two questions 1. How is it possible that a Tyrant who has so cruelly persecuted the Protestants in his own Kingdom who has pulled down so many of their Churches put to death so many men upon account of Religion only who further yet boasts That he himself hath almost rooted out the Heresie and who still continues his Rage and Fury against all the Protestants that are found in his Dominions I say How is it possible that such a man can ever be the Protector of the Church of England as our Grumbling Crew call him Perhaps they will answer That the French Hugonots have not been used with so much severity upon the account of their Religion merely but because the French King found them dangerous to his Grandure and his State having strong suspicions of their Fidelity but let them prove what they say I would fain know what Publick Act or Declaration they can instance in and whether they have any Witnesses that will say the Booted-Missionaries have ever required from the Hugonots a greater Test of their Fidelity than they had before but only their forcing them to go to Mass Every body knows that this French King owes his Crown to those very Protestants he has so cruelly used and consequently that their Fidelity could not be in the least called into question But if the French King aimed not at the extirpation of the Protestant Religion why doth he say in his Letters and Memorials against the Emperor and the King of Spain that it was his intention Why hath he destroyed the Churches of Orange and forc'd his Majesty's Subjects as well as his own to forsake their Religion and to go to Mass And why hath he compelled the Duke of Savoy 10 destroy the Vaudcis as his Royal Highness has publickly declared The French King having then declared War against all the Protestants of the World I thought the Church of England had not been excepted and I was induced to that belief by the Measures the late King had taken with him effectually to destroy it but being now assured by some that he is the Protector of it I am surprized at such a wonderful Change and this is the first Phoenomenon the Solution of which I humbly desire of our Learned Mutmurers I ask 2dly If it be possible that a true English-man that is one living free under Their Majesties most Gracious Government and making use of his right Reason can wish a Tyrant for his King an Oppressor who has made his Subjects the most miserable Wretches and Slaves in the world tho Inhabitants of one of the most plentiful Countries of the earth who sucks their very blood and marrow from them to satisfie his vast Ambition or his impure Lusts and Pleasures and who sacrifices them to his least Interest or Vanity The Enemy of Mankind the Invader of his Neighbours A Prince if I may call him so who has ever yet scorned to be a slave to his Oaths or Treaties and on whom the Religion be professes and all that is sacred amongst men has no manner of Force or Power to use the very words of the King of Spain in his Letter to the Pope In a word If it be possible for an English-man who loves the Interest of his Nation to wish for a man of the Character of this French King to be his Absolute Lord and Master Till these Gentlemen will be pleased to answer me these two questions I shall make bold to deliver my own thoughts upon them And as to the first I say That the French King is not the Protector of the Church of England and that his Idolaters who give him that magnificent Title prevaricate and make use of some equivocation for they must mean another Church far different from that here established by the Laws of this Kingdom Ours needs no other Protection than that of Their Majesties and sure I am the Gentlemen I speak of are Papists in their hearts notwithstanding their so much affected outward shew of Protestantism if they have any Religion at all As to the second Query If it be possible for an English-man who loveth the true Interest of his Nation to wish his Master might be a man of the Character of this French King I answer No And therefore by the reasons contained in the Query I conclude That the Murmurers are either Fools or Enemies of this Countrey Now to say they are the former I confess it would seem a little too hard a Censure and I should wrong several of them whom I know to be men of Parts They are so fond of themselves that sure I am they would much rather be called Enemies to this Nation And tho Complaisance is opposite to my temper yet for their sakes I must upon this occasion force my natural inclination and agree with them that this last Character is more suitable to their proceedings than that of Fools Having given an exact Parallel between the Ancient and Modern Persecutors my Design would be imperfect should I omit saying something of the Tragick Death that commonly attends the Enemies of the Church God has in all ages made manifest the severe Judgments he exercises upon them The Relation of the Deaths of the Primitive Persecutors written by Lactantius which I have so often quoted is so frightful that the consideration of their miserable end ought one would think to deter any man from Persecuting for the future and had the French King but reflected upon their Fate and the Tragick Deaths of his own Ancestors I doubt very much whether he would have taken so dangerous a course King Henry the 2d who had sworn to see Ann Dubourg a Protestant burning at the stake received a mortal wound in
one of his eyes a few days before from the Earl of Montgomery of which he dyed 11 days after Francis the 2d who was very severe upon the Hugonots dyed suddenly Charles the 9th who caused the said Hugonots to be so barbarously murthered at the Bloody and Memorable Massacre at Paris at last drowned himself in his own blood Henry the 3d. no less cruel than his Brother was killed by a Monk Henry the 4th who renounced the Protestant Religion to turn Papist and withal a Bigot was first wounded by a Disciple of the Jesuits and afterwards murdered in his own Coach and in his chief City And Lewis the 13th having endeavoured to extirpate the Protestants died miserably as some say being eaten up by Vermin Lewis the 14th is not yet dead and so I cannot tell what will be his sate but I would advise him to consider the dreadful Death of Galerius Maximian he was visited by God with an Ulcer in his secret Parts and dyed afterwards in a most miserable manner The French King is extremely like to that Ancient Persecutor let him fear lest his Fistula does not presage to him the same Fate FINIS BOOKS Printed for and Sold by Richard Baldwin EUrope's Chains Broke Or a Sure and Speedy Project to Rescue Her from the Present Usurpations of the Tyrant of France Christianissimus Christianandus Or Reason for the Reduction of France to a more Christian State in Europe By Marchimam Needham Truth brought to Light Or the History of the first Fourteen Years of King James the I. In Four Parts I. The Happy State of England â—t His Majesty's Entrance The Corruption of it afterwards With the Rise of Particular Favourites and the Divisions between This and other States abroad II. The Divorce betwixt the Lady Frances Howard and Robert Earl of Essex before the King's Delegates authorized under the King 's Broad Seal As also the Arraignment of Sir Jervis Yelvis Lieutenant of the Tower c. about the Murther of Sir Thomas Overbury with all Proceedings thereupon and the King 's Graceous Pardon and Favour to the Countess III. A Declaration of His Majesty's Revenue since he came to the Crown of England With the Annual Issues Gifts Pensions and Extraordinary Disbursments IV. The Commissions and Warrants for the Burning of two Hereticks newly revived with two Pardons one for Theophilus Higgons the other for Sir Eustate Hart. A True Relation of the Cruelties and Barbarities of the French upon the English Prisoners of War being a Journal of their Travels from Dinant in Britany to Thoulon in Provence And back again With a Description of the Situation and Fortifications of all the Eminent Towns upon the Road and their Distance Of their Prisons and Hospitals and the Number of the Men that died under their Cruelty With the Names of many of them and the Places of their Deaths and Burials With an Account of the great Charity and Sufferings of the Poor Protestants of France And other Material Things that hapned upon the Way Fathfully and Impartially performed by Richard Strutton being an Eye-Witness and a Fellow Sufferer A Project of a Descent upon France by a Person of Quality A New Plain Short and Compleat French and English Grammar whereby the Learner may attain in few Months to Speak and Write French Correctly as they do now in the Court of France and wherein all that is Dark Superfluous and Deficient in other Grammars is Plain Short and Methodically supplied Also very useful to Strangers that are desirous to learn the English Tongue For whose sake is added a short but very exact English Grammar The Second Edition by Peter Berault
true God If they say with them That the Son is dead for our Sins do not they say also That he rose again from the dead Had the French King been so canticus as Dioclesian that is had he consulted the holy Word of his God he would have seen how contrary the Meekness and Charity of that is to his Cruelty and Persuecution And I dare say that if he had consulted Innocent the XI who was to have been his God upon Earth I doubt very much whether he would have advised him to be so barbarous towards his own Subjects I 'll add but a Reflection about the Books of the Holy Scripture which have been burnt by the Ancient and Modern Persecutorss and I say that the Maximians the Dioclesians c. looking upon those Books as Impious and Blasphemous against their Gods they were less criminal in condemning them to the fire than the French King who if he be a Christian cannot look upon the Protestant Bibles without some Respect and Reverence being the Law and the Will of his God notwithstanding the few in considerable Alterations they pretend we have made in our Translation The Persecution of the French Protestants having been so violeâ—t as we have seen according to this Vulgar Axiom Nihil violentum est diuturnum it should not have lasted a very long time and yet it hath continued some five and twenty years or more but especially since the late King Charles's Death without abating any thing of its Rigour and Cruelty It was thought also that the French King being so taken up in defending himself against so many Enemies might have cool'd his Anger for a while but we were mightily mistaken for he every day increases his Rage and Fury against them because he looks upon them as his nearest and so worst Enemies believing that after the many Persecutions and Hardships he hath made them suffer they would soon joyn with the English in case of any Descent Every new year affords new Barbarities and especially this for the Protestants have been dealt with more severely in all parts of France this last than they had been the three or four years before It seems however that the Lower Aquitaine has been the Scene of their greatest Inhumanities and a true Relation thereof being come into my hands I am desired to publish it and as willing to gratisy so reasonable a Request The Account is as follows A Faithful Account of the Renewed Persecution of the Protestants in Lower Aquitaine Collected out of several Letters written by known Persons from that Province and taken from the Deposition made by a Gentleman newly arrived from those Parts who for his Religion sake has had his House pulled down and razed to the Ground and himself hung up in Effigy SAintefoy and Gensac are Two Towns scituated upon the River Dordoigne and Duras upon the little River Drot This last is not so considerable as the other Two for the Number of the Inhabitants but it is no less in all other points being a Dutchy and the principal seat of the Duke of Duras Brother to the Earl of Feversham Saintefoy had before the repealing of the Edict of Nants a Church of about Three thousand Communicants Gensac Two thousand and Duras only but Five hundred but these were the most considerable of the Town Those Churches with the others fell under the Merciless violence of the Dragoons and for three or four Years together shewed a very weak fearfulness but since that time it hath pleased God they have recovered their Spirits as many others have done in that Province and have denied going to Mass Being however unsatisfied in their Consciences and weary of being longer withhold from their spiritual Devotions of praying to God together they made the last Year several Assemblies in some private Houses where they performed all the exercises of their Religion with one of those couragious Ministers that were sent thither to Preach undâ—r the Cross And they continued their Meetings for some time but in a very peaceful way and with a mind as far from all sedition as the Witnesses against them have since testified and declarâ—d though after this discovery they have been dealt with as Criminals of State The Assembly of Duras was the first discovered whereupon Mr. ' Duquesne Lieutenant Criminal of Nâ—â—as was sent thither by the Intendant of the Province Many Informations were brought in before that Magistrate and Warrants Issued out against the most considerable Inhabitants who wisely foreseeing what was like then to besal them endeavoured to make their escape Three men however were unhappily taken viz. Messieurs Constans Bescete and la Roche who was formerly the Reader and Schoolmaster of the said Church with Three Gentlewomen viz. Mrs. Elizabeth and Mary Gentillot Sisters and one Mrs. Barbote These Six Prisoners were brought into the Prison of the Town-house of Bordeaux and thence into the Gaol of the Parliament where that la Roche being a fearful man in his Temper was easily frighted by the Judges insomuch that under promise of Pardon he was prevail'd with to discover all those who had been in those Meetings Whereupon so many Warrants were issued out that the Town of Duras was almost become a Desert by the flight of the Protestants who were to be seized The Intendant with the Seneschal of Aquitaine Condemned the said Constans and Bescete to the Gallies the first for his Life and the last for Five Years only But before both of them were to make as they call it L'amende honnorable the Three Women were Condemned to this last Punishment To be shaven by the Hangman and afterwards shut up for their Lives in the Manufacture which is a kind of Bridewell Messieurs Constans and Bescete made their Honourable Amend at Bordeance but because this Punishment is unknown here in England I think it not amiss to relate the manner of it These poor Gentlemen bare headed and bare feeted and almost Naked having but a course linnen Shirt upon their back having besides a Halter on their necks a burning Torch in their hands the Hangman at their heels were lead in that Garb from the Jail of the Palace through the streets as far as the Square of St. Andrews Church which is as far as from Charing-Cross to Ludgate the Hangman telling them that he was to Hang them at his return Notwithstanding these hard usages and the rigors of the Season they shewed nevertheless an humble modest and chearful Constancy and Patience which made so great an impression upon the very Enemies of their Religion that they could not for bear their Tears and some of them said they are called to Glorifie God by their Martyrdom Mr. Constans seemed still more firm than his Fellow-sufferer for being asked by the Judges Whether he had not been in those unlawful Assemblies He did not deny it but answered undauntedly That he had been there many times and that he would go again if he could which was the
occasion of one increasing of his Punishment I have said that the Judges had promised la Roche his pardon and therefore he was dismissed A little while after the taking of these Prisoners at Duras several Persons of Saintefoy and Gensac were seized for the same account and the 21st of February last they were removed from the Prisons of those places into the Jail at Bordeaux Amongst them were Monsieur Pages de Margueyron and his Lady He was a Gentleman very Judicious Pious and Charitable mightily beloved by the People and by the Persons of Quality with whom he lived very honourably he had but one Son who being escaped from the Dragoons was kill'd in Ireland in Their Majesties Service being an Officer in one of the French Regiments of Foot Commanded by Brigadeer la Meloniere His Lady had a great deal of Wit Piety Zeal and Charity and they were a mutual comfort one to the other as long as they were together in the same Prison but though they were separated about the time of their Jugment that sad affliction did not lessen their Constancy Nothing was forgotten to shake them and they were tryed both with promises and threatnings but always in main This obliged their Persecutors to fall upon other methods and knowing how dear Monsieur Margueyron was to his Wife they endeavoured to abuse her tendernes to win him Therefoâ—e they promised her the life of her Husband if she would solliâ—itâ— him to renounce his Religion but instead of doing it she sent a Friend to animate him to stand out firm and not to bely the Character of a Christian adding withal that she should certainly dye with Grief if he had any weakness A Roman Catholick her Friend being present did blame her for so desperately advising her Hâ—â—â—â—nd but she answered him That she would rather see her Husband tho very dear to her burning in a fire than hear that he had been so weak as to change his Religion As soon as her Husband was condemned she was told of it and that he likewise had notice to prepare for it thereupon she inquired only how he had received that advice and hearing that it was with a great deal of Courage and with an undaunted sirmness she shewed an extream Joy and falling on her Knees returned her thanks to the Almighty beseeching him with a Christian fervency to inflame more and more his Resignation and Courage to the very end of his Life She declared besides That her Tears did not proceed from any natural Weakness 〈◊〉 only from a deep Sorrow that God had not thought her worthy to suffer for his Glory unto Blood and to be the Fellow sufferer of her Husband that she would have lodged on it as a great happiness to her had we been to dye with him for the Glory of him who had given his Life for their Salvation that nevertheless she was satisfied to giveth the Saviour of her Soul the Life of the Husband he haâ— given her for the comfort of her own knowing that if they were separated for a while they should be rejoyned for ever in the fellowship of the Glory where they should neither have Enemies to four nor Tribulation to undergo The Husband on his side sâ—ewed the Constancy and the Resignation of a Marter and answered stoutly That with God's Grace he 〈◊〉 to fight and to stand 〈…〉 The Judges were not a little perplexed at this Gentlemans Tryal because they were told that he was not to dye the King's Declaration condemning to death only those that were taken in the Fact that is in the Assemblies and not those who as Monsieur Margueyron were indicted for having been there The matter was plain and the Judges had nothing to say against it but on the contrary they confessed That according to the Written-law be was not to dye but that according to the Oral Order they had received thereupon and which was stronger than the Law it self he ought to suffer death Truly the Judges were in the right to speak of that Oral Order for we are certainly informed that he was condemned by an express Order of the King's Council The very morning he was removed from Bordeaux to Saintefoy the place of his Execution all devout Persons gave him a visit in the Prison and we are told that many Letters could hardly contain the good things he told them as to the Profession of the Christian Religion and as to his Resignation to the Will of God They were so much affected with his admirable Discourses and so passionately moved by his smiling Countenance that none could speak a word to comfort or incourage him but truly he had no need of it having had the Holy Ghost for his Comforter to his end When he was brought out of the Prison of Bordeaux there was above two thousand Persons about him some weeping some admiring his firm and chearful Countenance and some others saying See how he out-braves the King with his smiling Face A Priest observing his placid looks under the heaviness of his Chains could not forbear his Tears nor saying to those that were about him The Hugonots can boast that they have a Martyr in him And indeed had not that Gentleman and his Lady shewed such Constancy and Patience they would have degenerated from the Piety of their Ancestors who have been always zealousâ— for their Religion and of whom two have suffered Martyrdom formerly as may be seen in the French Martyrology That Glorious Confessor going out of his Prison gave his Blessing to all he met in his way saying to those he saw compassionately weeping for his Sufferings Don't weep for me but Weep for your selves and take care to live better hereafter than you have done hitherto adding That his life was not at all dear to him provided he could run out his Race with Joy as he hoped he should do Tho his Chains were exceeding heavy yet one might see in his face a pleasant chearfulness like that we may observe in other men when they are advanc'd to some high and noble Dignity The Three Gentlewomen of Duras we before spoke of who were Condemned to make their Honourable Amand in their own Town and in the sight of their Relations that so their Punishment might appear the more infamous were brought out of Jail at the same time with Monsieur Margueyron being fastned one to another and sent along with him to Saintefoy attended by several Bailiffs and the Hangman Their design in this was to frighten those Gallant and Christian Souls from their first Constancy by making them spectators of the Death and Sufferings of that Gracious Martyr but God be praised they were rather the more strengthned by what those Miscreants thought would be so frightful a spectacle to them than any ways terrified as we shall see in the sequel of this Relation Several Persons went from Bordeaux to Saintefoy to be witnesses of the undaunted Courage and Constancy of our nâ—w-going to be glorysied