as put a difference between the Rights of a Prophane and a Christian Magistrate Specanus a stiff Presbyterian in the Belgick Provinces makes a distinction between potestas Facti and potestas Iuris and then infers upon the same That the Authority of determining what is fit to be done belongs of right unto the Ministers of the Church though the execution of the Fact in Civil Causes doth properly appertain to the Supreme Magistrate And more than this the greatest Clerks amongst themselves would not give the Queen If she assume unto Her self the exercise of Her farther Power in ordering Matters of the Church according to the lawful Authority which is inherent in the Crown She shall presently be compared unto all the wicked Kings and others of whom we read in the Scriptures that took upon them unlawfully to intrude themselves into the Priest's Office as unto Saul for his offering of Sacrifice unto Osias for burning Incense upon the Altar unto Gideon for making of an Ephod and finally to Nadab and Abihu for offering with strange fire unto the Lord. 33. According to these Orthodox and sound Resolves they hold a Synod in St. Iohn's Colledg in Cambridg taking the opportunity of Sturbridg-Fayr to cloak their meeting for that purpose At which Synod Cartwright and Perkins being present amongst the rest the whole Book-Discipline reviewed by Traverse and formally approved of by the Brethren in their several Classes received a more Authentick approbation insomuch that first it was decreed amongst them That all which would might subscribe unto it without any necessity imposed upon them so to do But not long after it was made a matter necessary so necessary as it seems that no man could be chosen to any Ecclesiastical Office amongst them nor to be of any of their Assemblies either Classical Provincial or National till he had first subscribed to the Book of Discipline Another Synod was held at Ipswich not long after and the Results of both confirmed in a Provincial and National Synod held in London which gave the Book of Discipline a more sure establishment than an Act of State It is reported that the night before the great Battel in the Fields of Thessaly betwixt Caesar and Pompey the Pompeyan Party was so confident of their good success that they cast Dice amongst themselves for all the great Offices and Magistracies of the City of Rome even to the Office of the Chief-Priest-hood which then Caesar held And the like vanity or infatuation had possessed these men in the opinion which they had of their Strength and Numbers Insomuch that they entred into this consideration how Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors Deans Cannons Arch-Deacons Commissaries Registers Apparitors c. all which by their pretended Reformation must have been thrust out of their Livings should be provided for that the Commonwealth might not be thereby pestered with Beggars And this they did upon the confidence of some unlawful Assistance to effect their purposes if neither the Queen nor the Lords of the Council nor the Inferior Magistrates in their several Counties all which they now sollicited with more heat than ever should co-operate with them For about this time it was that Cartwright in his Prayer before his Sermon was noted to have used these words viz. Because they meaning the Bishops which ought to be Pillars in the Church combine themselves against Christ and his Truth therefore O Lord give us Grace and Power all as one man to set our selves against them Which words he used frequently to repeat and to repeat with such an earnestness of spirit as might sufficiently declare that he had a purpose to raise Sedition in the State for the imposing of that Discipline on the Church of England which was not likely to be countenanced by any lawful Authority which put the Queen to a necessity of calling him and all the rest of them to a better account to which they shall be brought in the years next following 33. In the mean time we must pass over into France where we find HENRY the Third the last King of the House of Valoise most miserably deprived of his Life and Kingdom driven out of Paris first by the Guisian Faction and afterwards assassinated by Iaques Clement a Dominican Fryar as he lay at St. Cloud attending the reduction of that stubborn City Upon whose death the Crown descended lineally on HENRY of Bourbon King of Navarre and Duke of Vendosme as the next Heir-male For the excluding of which Prince and the rest of that House the Holy League was first contrived as before is said There was at that time in the late King's Army a very strong Party of French Catholicks who had preferred their Loyalty to their Natural Prince before the private Interest and Designs of the House of Guise and now generally declare in favour of the true Successor By their Assistance and the concurring-Forces of the Hugonot-Faction it had been no hard matter for him to have Mastered the Duke of Maine who then had the Command of the Guisian Leagues But in the last he found himself deceived of his expectation The Hugonots which formerly had served with so much cheerfulness under his Command their King would not now serve him in his just and lawful Warrs against his Enemies Or if they did it shall be done upon Conditions so intolerable that he might better have pawned his Crown to a Forreign Prince than on such terms to buy the favour of his Subjects They looked upon him as reduced to a great necessity most of the Provinces and almost all the Principal Cities having before engaged against HENRY the Third and many others falling off when they heard of his death So that they thought the new King was not able to subsist without them and they resolved to work their own Ends out of that Necessity Instead of leading of their Armies and running cheerfully and couragiously towards his defence who had so oft defended them they sent Commissioners or Delegates to negotiate with him that they may know to what Conditions he would yeeld for their future advantage before they acted any thing in order to his preservation and their Conditions were so high so void of all Respects of Loyalty and even common Honesty that he conceived it safer for him and far more honourable in it self to cast himself upon the Favour of the Queen of England than condescend to their unreasonable and unjust demands So that in fine the Hugonots to a very great number forsook him most disloyally in the open Field drew off their Forces and retired to their several dwellings inforcing him to the necessity of imploring succours from the professed Enemies of his Crown and Nation Nor did he find the Queen unwilling to supply him both with Men and Money on his first desires For which She had better reason now than when She aided him and the rest of the French Hugonots in their former Quarrels And this She did with such a cheerful
blood of others After a long and bloody War which ended in the year 1250 they were almost rooted out of the Country also the residue or remainders of them having betook themselves into the mountainous parts of Daulphine Provence Piemont and Savoy for their greater safety By means whereof becoming neer Neighbours to the Switzers and possibly managing some traffick with the Town of Geneva their Doctrines could neither be unknown to Zuinglius amongst the one nor to many Inhabitants of the other of best note and quality 2. The rest of France had all this while continued in the Popes obedience and held an outward uniformity in all points with the Church of Rome from which it was not much diverted by the Writings of Zuinglius or the more moderate proceedings of the Lutheran Doctors who after the year 1517 had filled many Provinces of Germany with their opinions But in the year 1533 the Lutherans found an opportunity to attempt upon it For Francis the First favouring Learned men and Learning as commonly they do whose Actions are worthy a learned Pen resolved to erect a University at Paris making great offers to the most Learned Scholars of Italy and Germany for their entertainment Luther takes hold of that advantange and sends Bucer and some others of his ablest Followers who by disputing in such a confluence of Learned men might give a strong essay to bring in his Doctrines Nor wanted there some which were taken with the Novelty of them especially because such as were questioned for Religion had recourse into Aquitaine to Margaret of Valois the Kings Sister married to Henry of Albert King of Navar who perhaps out of hatred to the Bishop of Rome by whom her Husbands Father was deprived of that Kingdom might be the more favourable to the Lutherans or rather moved as she confessed before her death with commiseration to those condemned persons that fled to her protection she became earnest with her brother in defence of their persons so that for ten years together she was the chief means of maintaining the Doctrines of Luther in the Realm of France Nor was the King so bent in their Extermination as otherwise he would have been in regard of those many Switz and Germans that served him in his Wars against Charles the Fifth till at last being grievously offended with the contumacie of the men and their continual opposition to the Church of Rome he published many Edicts and Proclamations against them not onely threatning but executing his penal Laws until he had at last almost extinguished the name of Luther in his Kingdom 3. But Calvins stratagem succeeded somewhat better who immediately upon the Death of Francis the First whilst King Henry was ingag'd in the Wars with Charles attempted France by sending his Pamphlets from Geneva writ for the most part in the French Tongue for the better captivating and informing of the common people And as he found many possessed with Luthers opinions so he himself inflamed them with a Zeal to his own the Vulgar being very proud to be made Judges in Religion and pass their Votes upon the abstrusest Controversies of the Christian Faith So that in short time Zuinglius was no more remembred nor the Doctrine of Luther so much followed as it had been formerly The name of Calvin carrying it amongst the French The sudden propagating of whose Opinions both by preaching and writing gave great offence unto the Papists but chiefly to Charles Cardinal of Lorrain and his Brother Francis Duke of Guise then being in great power and favour with King Henry the Second By whose continual sollicitation the King endeavoured by many terrible and severe executions to suppress them utterly and did reduce his Followers at the last to such a condition that they durst neither meet in publick or by open day but secretly in Woods or Private-houses and for the most part in the night to avoid discovery And at this time it was and on this occasion that the name of Hugonots was first given them so called from St. Hugoes Gate in the City of Towrs out of which they were observed to pass to their secret Meetings or from a night-spirit or Hobgobling which they called St. Hugo to which they were resembled for their constant night-walks But neither the disgrace which that name imported nor the severity of the Kings Edicts so prevailed upon them but that they multiplyed more and more in most parts of the Realm especially in the Provinces which either were nearest to Geneva or lay more open towards the Sea to the trade of the English And though the fear of the danger and the Kings displeasure deterred such as lived within the air of the Court from adhering openly unto them yet had they many secret favourers in the Royal Palace and not a few of the Nobility which gave them as much countenance as the times could suffer The certainty whereof appeared immediately on the death of King Henry who left this life at Paris on the tenth of Iuly Anno 1559 leaving the Crown to Francis his Eldest Son then being but fifteen years of age neither in strength of body nor in vigour of Spirit enabled for the managing of so great an Empire 4. This young King in his Fathers life-time had married Mary Queen of Scots Daughter and Heir of Iames the Fifth by Mary of Lorrain a Daughter of the House of Guise and Sister to the two great Favourites before remembred This gave a great improvement to the power and favour which the two brothers had before made greater by uniting themselves to Katherine de Medices the young Kings Mother a Woman of a pestilent Wit and one that studied nothing more then to maintain her own greatness against all opposers By this confederacie the Princes of the House of Bourbon Heirs in Reversion to the Crown if the King and his three brothers should depart without Islue-Male as in fine they did were quite excluded from all office and imployment in the Court or State The principal of which was Anthony Duke of Vendosme and his brother Lewis Prince of Conde men not so near in birth as of different humours the Duke being of an open nature flexible in himself and easily wrought upon by others but on the other side the Prince was observed to be of a more enterprising disposition violent but of a violence mixed with cunning in the carrying on of his designs and one that would not patiently dissemble the smallest injuries These two had drawn unto their side the two Chastilions that is to say Gasper de Collignie Admiral of the Realm of France and Monsieur D' Andilot his brother Commander of the Infantry of that Kingdom to which Offices they had been advanced by the Duke of Montmorency into whose Family they had married during the time of his Authority with the King deceased for whose removal from the Court by the confederacy of the Queen Mother with the House of Guise they were
been executed both on him and the King of Navar who was then also under a Guard if the death of the young King had not intervened on the fifth of December which put the Court into new Counsels and preserved their lives For the Queen wisely took into consideration that if these two Princes were destroyed there could be no fit counterpoise for the House of Guise which possibly might thereby be temped to revive the old pretensions of the House of Lorrain as the direct Heirs of Charles the Great For which they could not have a better opportunity then they had at the present the Eldest of her three Sons not exceeding ten years of age none of them of a vigorous constitution and therefore the more likely to want Friends in their greatest need Upon these apprehensions she sends secretly for the King of Navar and came at last to this agreement viz. that during the Minority of her son King Charles the Ninth the Queen-mother should be declared Regent and the King of Navar Lord-Lieutenant of France all supplications from the Provinces to be made to the Lord-Lieutenant but all Ambassadors and Letters of Negotiation from Forreign Princes to be presented to the Queen that the Prince of Conde the Visdame of Chartres with all other Prisoners of their party to be set at liberty and the sentences of their condemnations to be so declared null and void that the Queen-Regent should make use of her power and interest with the Catholick King for restoring to the King of Navar the entire possession of that Kingdom or at the least the Kingdom of Sardinia as a recompence for it And at last it was also yeilded though long first and published by the Edict of the 28 of Ianuary That the Magistrates should be ordered to release all Prisoners committed for matters of Religion and to stop any manner of Inquisition appointed for that purpose against any person whatsoever that they should not suffer any disputation in matters of Faith nor permit particular persons to revile one another with the names of Heretick and Papist but that all should live together in peace abstaining from unlawful Assemblies or to raise scandals or Sedition 13. By this Edict the Doctrines of Calvin were first countenanced in the Realm of France under the pretence of hindring the effusion of more Christian blood which carryed an appearance of much Christianity though in plain truth it was to be ascribed to the Queens ambition who could devise no other way to preserve her greatness and counterbalance the Authority of the House of Guise But the Hugonots not being content with a bare connivance resolved to drive it on to a Toleration and to drive it on in such a manner and by such means onely by which they had extorted as they thought these first concessions For thinking the Queen-Regent not to be in a condition to deny them any thing much less to call them into question for their future Actings they presently fell upon the open exercise of their own Religion and every where exceedingly increased both in power and numbers In confidence whereof by publick Assemblies insolent Speeches and other acts the like unpleasing they incurred the hatred and disdain of the Catholick party which put all places into tumult and filled all the Provinces of the Kingdom with seditious rumours so that contrary to the intention of those that governed and contrary to the common opinion the remedy applyed to maintain the State and preserve peace and concord in the Kings minority fell out to be dangerous and destructive and upon the matter occasioned all those dissentions which they hoped by so much care to have prevented For as the Cardinal informed the Council the Hugonots were grown by this connivance to so great a height that the Priests were not suffered to celebrate their daily Sacrifices or to make use of their own Pulpits that the Magistrates were no longer obeyed in their jurisdictions and that all places raged with discords burnings and slaughters through the peevishness and presumption of those who assumed to themselves a liberty of teaching and believing whatsoever they listed Upon which points he so enlarged himself with his wonted eloquence that neither the King of Navar nor any other of that party could make any Reply And the Queen-Mother also being silent in it it was unanimously voted by the Lords of the Council that all the Officers of the Crown should assemble at the Parliament of Paris on the thirteenth of Iuly there to debate in the Kings presence of all these particulars and to resolve upon such remedies as were necessary for the future At which time it was by general consent expresly ordered upon complaint made of the insurrection of the Hugonots in so many places that all the Ministers should forthwith be expelled the Kingdom that no manner of person should from thenceforth use any other Rites or Ceremonies in Religion that were not held and taught by the Church of Rome and that all Assemblies of men armed or unarmed should be interdicted except it were of Catholicks in Catholick Churches for Divine performances according to the usual Custom 14. The Admiral and the Prince of Conde finding themselves unable to cross this Edict resolved upon another course to advance their partie and to that end encouraged the Calvinian Ministers to petition for a Disputation in the Kings presence to be held between them and the Adversaries of their Religion Which Disputation being propounded was opposed by the Cardinal of Tournon upon a just consideration of those inconveniencies which might follow on it the rather in regard of the General Council then convened at Trent where they might safely both propose and dispute their opinions But on the other side the Cardinal of Lorrain being willing to imbrace the occasion for making a general Muster of his own Abilities his subtilty in Divinity and his art of speaking prevailed so far upon the rest that the suit was granted and a Conference thereupon appointed to be held at Poyssie on the tenth day of August 1561. At which time there assembled for the Catholick party the Cardinals of Tournon Lorrain Bourbon Armagnac and Guise with many Bishops and Prelates of greatest eminencie some Doctors of the Sorbon and many great Divines from the Universities The Disputants authorized for the other side were of like esteem amongst those of their own party and perswasions as namely Theodore Beza Peter Marâ—yr Francis de St. Paul Iohn Raimond and Iohn Vizelle with many other Ministers from Geneva Germany and others of the Neighbouring Countries But the result of all was this as commonly it happeneth on the like occasions that both parties challenged to themselves the Victory in it and both indeed were victors in some respects For the King of Navar appeared much unsatisfied by noting the differences of the Ministers amongst themselves some of them adhering to the Augustane and others to the Helvetian Confession in some points of Doctrine
be admitted to any office charge dignity or magistracy whatever if he did not profess and live conformable in all points to the Roman Religion And for a Preamble hereunto the King was pleased to make a long and distinct Narration of the indulgence he had used to reduce the Hugonots to a right understanding and of the ill requital they had made unto him by the seditions and conspiracies which they raised against him their bringing in of forraign forces and amongst others the most mortal enemies of the French Nation putting into their hands the strongest places and most flourishing parts of the Kingdom to the contempt of his authority the despising of his grace and goodness and the continual disquieting of his Dominions and the destruction of his subjects To counter-poise which terrible Edict the Princes and other Leaders of the Hugonots which were then at Rochel entred into a solemn Covenant or Association by which they bound themselves by Oath to persevere till death in defence of their Religion never to lay down arms or condescend to any agreement without the general consent of all the Commanders and not then neither but upon sufficient security for the preservation of their lives and the enjoying of that Liberty of Conscience for which they first began the war 30. But the Admiral well knowing that the business was not to be carried by Oaths and Manifests and that they wanted mony to proceed by arms advised the Rochellers to send their Navy to the sea which in a time when no such danger was expected might spoyle and pillage all they met with and by that means provide themselves of mony and all other necessaries to maintain the war Which Counsel took such good effect that by this kind of Piracy they were enabled to give a fair beginning to this new Rebellion for the continuance whereof it was thought necessary to sollicite their Friends in Germany to furnish them with fresh recruits of able men and Queen Elizabeth of England for such sums of money as might maintain them in the service And in the first of these designs there appears no difficulty the inclination of the Prince Elector together with the rest of the Calvinian Princes and Imperial Cities were easily intreated to assist their Brethren of the same Religion And the same spirit governed many of the people also but on different grounds they undertaking the imployment upon hope of spoil as Mercenaries serving for their Pay but more for Plunder In England their desires were entertained with less alacrity though eagerly sollicited by Odet Bishop of Beauvais a younger Brother of the Admiral who having formerly been raised to the degree of a Cardinal therefore called most commonly the Cardinal of Chastillon had some years since renounced his Habit and Religion but still kept his Titles By the continual sollicitation of so great an Advocate and the effectual interposing of the Queen of Navar Elizabeth was perswaded to forget their former ingratitude and to remember how conducible it was to her personal interest to keep the French King exercised in perpetual troubles upon which Reason of State she is not onely drawn to accommodate the Hugonots with Ships Corn Arms and Ammunition but to supply them with a hundred thousand Crowns of ready money for the maintaining of their Army consisting of fourteen thousand Germans and almost as many more of the natural French And yet it was to be believed that in all this she had done nothing contrary to the League with France which she had sworn not long before because forsooth the Forces of the Hugonots were raised to no other end but the Kings mere service and the assistance of the Crown against the Enemies of both and the professed Adversaries of the true Religion But neither this great lone of money nor that which they had got by robbing upon the Seas was able to maintainâ— War of so long continuance For maintainance whereof they were resolved to sell the Treasures of the Churches in all such Provinces as they kept under their Command the Queen of Navar ingaging her Estate for their security who should adventure on the purchase 31. I shall not touch on the particulars of this Warâ— which ended with the death of the Prince of Conde in the battel of Iarnar the rigorous proceedings against the Admiral whom the King caused to be condemned for a Rebel his Lands to be confiscatedâ— his Houses plundred and pulled down and himself executed in Effigie the loss of the famous battel of Mont-Contour by the Hugonots party Anno 1569 which forced them to abandon all their strong holds except Rochel Angoulesme and St. Ieanâ—d Angeli and finally to shut themselves up within Rochel onely after which followed such a dissembled reconciliation between the parties as proved more bloudy then the War The sudden and suspected death of the Queen of Navar the Marriage of the Prince her Son with the Lady Margaret one of the Sisters of the King the celebrating of the wedding in the death of the Admiral on St. Bartholomews day 1572 and the slaughter of thirty thousand men within few days after the reduction of the whole Kingdom to the Kings obedience except the Cities of Nismes Montauban and Rochel onely the obstinate standing out of Rochel upon the instigation of such Preachers as fled thither for shelter and the reduction of it by the Duke of Anjon to the last extremity the raising of the Siege and the Peace ensuing on the Election of that Duke to the Crown of Poland the resolution of the Hugonots to renew the War as soon as he had left the Kingdom and their ingaging in the same on the Kings last sickness In all which traverses of State there is nothing memorable in reference to my present purpose but onely the conditions of the Pacification which was made at the Siege of Rochel by which it was accorded between the parties on the 11 of Iuly Anno 1573 that all offences should be pardoned to the said three Cities on their submission to the King and that it should be lawful for them to retain the free Exercise of their Religion the people meeting in the same unarmed and but few in numberâ— that all the inhabitants of the said three Cities should be obliged to observe in all outward matters except Baptism and Matrimony the Rites and Holy-days of the Church that the use of the Catholick Religion should be restored in the said Cities and all other places leaving unto the Clergy and Religious persons their Houses Profits and Revenues that Rochel should receive a Governour of the Kings appointment but without Garrison renounce all correspondencies and confederacies with Forreign Princes and not take part with any of the same Religion against the King and finally that the said three Towns should deliver Hostages for the performance of the Articles of the present Agreement to be changed at the end of every three months if the King so pleased It
the chief Church of Heidelberg the principal City of the lower Palatinate and the chief Seat of his 〈◊〉 The news whereof encouraged all the rest of the Protestant Princes to congratulate with him and to desire him to embrace the Confession of Ausberge to which he readâ—ly accorded and setled all things in his Countries by the Lutheran Model as well for Government and Doctrine as for Forms of Worship In which condition it continued during the residue of his life and the short Government of otho-Otho-Henry who succeeded him in those Estates and was the last of the direct Line of the House of Bavaria After whose death Anno 1559 succeeded Frederick Duke of Simmeren descended from Steven Palatine of Zuidbrook or Bipont younger son of the Emperour Rupert From whom the Princes of the other House had delivered their Pedigree Which Prince succeeding by the name of Frederick the Third appeared more favourable to the Zuinglian then the Lutheran Forms animated thereunto by some â—eedy Courtiers in hope to make a prey of â—lebe and Tythes and other poor remainders of the Churches Patrimony 2. For the advancing of this Work Gualâ—er a very moderate and learned man is desired from Zurick and cheerfully undertakes the Service in which he prospered so well that he took off most of the Princes from their former opinions and brought them to conform their judgements in all points of Doctrine to the Confession of the Switzer or Helvetian Churches The Discipline of which Churches differed at that time from Calâ—ins Platform as appears clearly by some passages in a Letter of Bullingers bearing date Decemb. 13. 1553 when Calvin was necessitated to beg some tolerable approbation of his new Device For there it is expresly said that though their Discipline at Zurick and the rest of the Cantons agreed not in all points with that of the Consistory which had been setled at Geneva but was accommodated to the temper of their own Dominions yet they desired not the subversion of Calvins Model which seemed so necessary at that time for the Town of Geneva that they advised not to have it altered But more particularly it appears by Beza in the life of Calvin and by the Letter of Ligerus before remembred that Excommunications were not used in any of the Reformed Churches whether they were of Lutheran or Zuinglian judgement But scarce had Gualter so setled Zuinglianism in the Church of Heidelberg and those which did depend upon it when a bold Challenger from Geneva deâ—ies them all and undertakes to prove this Proposition in the publick Schools That to a Minister assisted with the help of his Eldership doth appertain the power of Excommunication by the Law of God Hereupon followed that famous Disputation in the Schools of Heidelberg the substance whereof we finde drawn up in Vrsines Catechism from pag. 835. to pag. 847. of the English Edition By which it doth appear that the name of the Respondent was George Withers a Native of England and that one Peter Boquine was the Moderator and therefore Withers must be taken to have made the Challenge The Theses then maintained by Withers were these two that follow viz That to the sincere preaching of the Word and the lawful administration of the Sacraments is required an Office or Power of Government in the Church 2. That a Minister with his Eldership ought to enjoy and exercise a Power of Convicting Reproving Excommunicating and Executing any part of Ecclesiastical Discipline or any Offenders whatsoever even on Princes themselves 3. The Arguments by which the Respondent was assaulted together with the answers which were made unto them were taken by the pen of Vrsine a Divine of Heidelberg who was present at the Disputation and by his means transmitted to the use of the Church the Title of his Abstract this viz. 〈◊〉 Arguments assoyled whereby some in a publiâ—k Disputation held in Heidelberg 1568 June 10. Dr. Peter Boquine being Moderator and Mr. George Withers English man Respondent endeavoured to abolish Ecclesiastical Discipline Which Arguments and their solutions were taken word for word from the mouth of Dr. Ursine at the repetition of this disputation on the next day privately made in Colleg. Sapient For further satisfaction I refer the Reader to the Book it self and shall now onely add this note viz. that as the Arguments were not found sufficient to beat down that power which Christ had left unto his Church for excommunicating scandalous and notoriâ—us sinners so neither were the Answers strong enough to preserve Lay-elders in the possession of a power that belonged not to them Which was in time the issue of the disputation which afterwards was so hotly followed between Theodore Beza on the one side and Dr. Thomas Erastus whom Calvin mentioneth in his Epistle to Olerianus Doctor of Physick on the other Beza evincing the necessity of Excommunication in the Church of Christ and Erastus proving nothing to the contrary but that Lay-elders were not necessary to the exercise of it Which disputation lasted long and effected little managed on both sides in Printed Tractates the last of which was that of Beza first published at Geneva reprinted afterwards at London An. 1590. But in the mean time the Genevian Discipline was admitted in both Palatinates the Country divided into Classes and Synodical meetings those Classes subdivided into their Presbyteries and each Presbytery furnished with a power of Excommunication and exercising such Church-censures as the Fact required But then we are to know withal that those wise Princes being loath to leave too much Authority in the hands of the Elderships with whose encroachments on the power of the Civil Magistrate they were well acquainted appointed some Superiour Officers of their own nomination to sit as Chief amongst them without whom nothing could be done and they were sure that by them nothing would be done which either might intrench upon their Authority or their people's Liberty A temperament for which they were beholden to the said Erastus who being a Doctor of Physick as before was noted devised this Pill to purge Presbytery of some Popish humours which secretly lay hid in the body of it 4. The like alloy was mixed with the Genevian Discipline in the Churches of Hassia Nassaw and those other petite Estates and Signories which make up the Confederacie of the Wetterâ—vians Which having once received the Doctrine of Zuinglius did shortly after entertain the Calvinian Elderships but moderated and restrained in those Exorbitancies which the Presbyterians actually committed in the Realm of Scotland and in most places else subjected unto their Authority But in regard the Palatine Churches are esteemed as a Rule to the rest the rest of Germany I mean in all points of Doctrine and that the publick Catechism thereof is generally reckoneâ— for Authentick not onely in the Churches of the Higher Germany but in the Netherland-Churches also it will not be amiss to take notice of them in such Doctrinal Points
Friends and Followers they could finde in Edenborough but they found that place too hot for them also the Captain of the Castle did so ply them with continual shot that it was held unsafe for them to abide there longer From thence therefore they betook themselves to the Town of Dumfreis not far from the City of Carlisle in England into which they might easily escape whatsoever happened as in time they did For the King leaving his old Father the Earl of Lenox to attend them there march'd with his Forces into Fife where the party of the Lords seemed most considerable which Province they reduced to their obedience some of the great Lords of it had forsook their dwellings many were taken prisoners and put to Ransome and some of the chief Towns fined for their late disloyalty Which done they march to Edenborough and from thence followed to Dumfreis On whose approach the Lords unable to defend themselves against their Forces put themselves into Carlisle where they are courteously received by the Earl of Bedford who was then Lord-Warden of the Marches from thence Duke Hamilton the Earls of Glencarne and Rothes the Lord Vchiltry the Commendator of Kilvinning and divers others of good note removed not long after to New-castle that they might have the easier passage into France or Germany if their occasions so required The Earl of Murray is dispatched to the Court of England but there he found so little comfort at the least in shew as brought the Queen under a suspition amongst the Scots either of deep dissimulation or of great inconstancy The news whereof did so distract and divide the rest that Duke Hamilton under-hand made his own peace with his injured Queen and put himself into her power in the December following The falling off of which great person so amazed the rest that now they are resolved to follow all those desperate counsels by which they might preserve themselves and destroy their enemies though to the ruine of the King the Queen and their natural Country But what they did in the pursuance of those counsels must be reserved for the subject of another Book The end of the fourth Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB V. Containing A further discovery of their dangerous Doctrines their oppositions to Monarchical and Episcopal Government their secret Practices and Conspiracies to advance their Discipline together with their frequent Treasons and Rebellions in the pursuance of the same from the year 1565 till the year 1585. 1. AMongst the many natural Children of King Iames the Fifth none were more eminent and considerable in the course of these times then Iames Pryor of St. Andrews and Iohn Pryor of â—oldingham neither of which were men in Orders or trained up to Learning or took any further charge upon them then to receive the profit of their several places which they enjoyed as Commendators or Administrators according to the ill custom of some Princes in Germany Iohn the less active of the two but Father of a Son who created more mischief to King Iames the Sixth then Iames the other Brother did to the present Queen For having took to Wiâ—e a Daughter of the House of Hepbourn Sister and next Heir of Iames Hepbourn Earl of Bothwel of whom more anon he was by her the Father of Francis Stewart who succeeded in that Earldom on the death of his Unckle But Iames the other Brother was a man of a more stirring spirit dextrous in the dispatch of his business cunning in turning all things to his own advantage a notable dissembler of his love and hatred and such a Master in the art of insinuation that he knew how to work all parties to espouse his interest His preferments lay altogether in Ecclesiastical Benefices designed unto him by his Father or conferred upon him by his Sister or the King her Husband But that all three conjured to the making of him appears by the Kings Letter on the seventeenth day of Iuly upon this occasion At what time as the Marriage was solemnized between Francis then Daulphin of France and the Queen of Scots he went thither to attend those tryumphs where he became a Suiter to the Queen his Sister that some further Character or Mark of Honour might be set upon him then the name of Pryor But the Queen having been advertised by some other Friends that he was of an aspiring minde and enterprising nature and of a spirit too great for a private Fortune thought it not good to make him more considerable in the eye of the people then he was already and so dismist him for the present 2. The frustrating of these hopes so exceedingly vexed him as certainly some are as much disquieted with the loss of what they never had as others with the ruine of a present possession that the next year he joyned himself to those of the Congregation took Knox into his most immediate and particular care and went along with him hand in hand in defacing the Churches of St. Andrews Stirling Lithgow Edenborough and indeed what not And for so doing he received two sharp and chiding Letters from the King and Queen upbraiding him with former Benefits received from each and threatning severe punishment if he returned not immediately to his due obedience Which notwithstanding he continues in his former courses applies himself unto the Queen and Council of England and lays the plot for driving the French Forces out of Scotland Which done he caused the Parliament of 1560 to be held at Edenborough procures some Acts to pass for banishing the Popes Supremacie repealed all former Statutes which were made in maintainance of that Religion and ratifies the Confession of the Kirk of Scotland in such form and manner as it was afterwards confirmed in the first Parliament of King Iames the Sixth Upon the death of Francis the young French King he goes over again And after some condolements betwixt him and the Queen intimates both to her and the Princes of the House of Guise how ill the rugged and untractable nature of the Scots would sort with one who had been used to the compliances and affabilities of the Court of France adviseth that some principal person of the Realm of Scotland might be named for Regent and in a manner recommends himself to them as the fittest man But the worst was that his Mother had been heard to brag amongst some of her Gossips that her Son was the lawful Issue of King Iames the Fifth to whose desires she had never yeilded but on promise of Marriage This was enough to cross him in his present aims and not to trust him with a power by which he might be able to effect his purposes if he had any such aspirings And so he was dismist again without further honour then the carrying back of a Commission to some Lords in Scotland by which they were impowered to manage the affairs of that Kingdom till the Queens return 3. This second disappointment
against the Laws might very well afford them all his best assistances when Law and Liberty seemed to speak in favour of it But being there was nothing done by them which was more than ordinary as little more than ordinary could be done amongst them after they had betrayed their Countrey to the Power of Strangers We shall leave him to pursue their Warrs and return for England where we shall find the Queen of Scots upon the point of acting the last part of her Tragedy 13. Concerning which it may not be unfit to recapitulate so much of Her story as may conduct us fairly to the knowledg of her present condition Immediately on the death of Queen MARY she had taken on her self the Title and Arms of England which though she did pretend to have been done by the command of her Husband and promised to disclaim them both in the Treaty of Edenborough yet neither were the Arms obliterated in her Plate and Hangings after the death of that Husband nor would she ever ratifie and confirm that Treaty as had been conditioned On this first grudg Queen ELIZABETH furniâ—heth the Scots both with Men and Arms to expel the French affords them such a measure both of Money and Countenance as made them able to take the Field against their Queen to take her Prisoner to depose her and finally to compel her to forsake the Kingdom In which Extremity she lands in Cumberland and casts her self upon the favour of Queen ELIZABETH by whom she was first confined to Carlisle and afterwards committed to the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury Upon the death of FRANCIS the Second her first Husband the King of Spain designed her for a Wife to his Eldest Son But the Ambition of the young Prince spurred him on so fast that he brake his Neck in the Career The Duke of Norfolk was too great for a private Subject of a Revenue not inferior to the Crown of Scotland insomuch that the Queen was counselled when she came first to the Throne either to take him for her Husband or to cut him off He is now drawn into the Snare by being tempted to a hope of Marriage with the Captive-Queen which Leicester and the rest who had moved it to him turned to his destruction Don Iohn of Austria Governour of the Netherlands for the King of Spain had the like design that by her Title he might raise himself to the Crown of England To which end he recalled the Spanish Soldiers out of Italy to whose dismission he had yeelded when he first came to that Government and thereby gave Q. ELIZABETH a sufficient colour to aid the Provinces against him But his aspirings cost him deer for he fell soon after The Guisards and the Pope had another project which was To place her first on the Throne of England and then to find an Husband of sufficient Power to maintain her in it For the effecting of which Project the Pope commissionated his Priests and Jesuits and the Guisards employed their Emissaries of the English Nation by Poyson Pistol open Warr or secret practises to destroy the one that so they might advance the other to the Regal Diadem 14. With all these Practises and Designs it was conceived that the Imprisoned Queen could not be ignorant and many strong presumptions were discovered to convict her of it Upon which grounds the Earl of Leicester drew the form of an Association by which he bound himself and as many others as should enter into it To make enquiry against all such persons as should attempt to invade the Kingdom or raise Rebellion or should attempt any evil against the Queen's Person to do her any manner of hurt from or by whomsoever that layed any claim to the Crown of England And that that Person by whom or for whom they shall attempt any such thing shall be altogether uncapable of the Crown shall be deprived of all manner of Right thereto and persecuted to the death by all the Queen 's Loyal Subjects in case they shall be found guilty of any such Invasion Rebellion or Treason and should be so publickly declared Which Band or Association was confirmed in the Parliament of this year ending the 29 th of March Ann. 1585 exceedingly extolled for an Act of Piety by those very men who seemed to abominate nothing more than the like Combination made not long before between the Pope the Spaniard and the House of Guise called the Holy League which League was made for maintenance of the Religion then established in the Realm of France and the excluding of the King of Navarre the Prince of Conde and the rest of the House of Bourbon from their succession to the Crown as long as they continued Enemies to that Religion The Brethren in this case not unlike the Lamiae who are reported to have been stone-blind when they were at home but more than Eagle-sighted when they went abroad Put that they might not trust to their own strength only Queen ELIZABETH tyes the French King to her by investing him with the Robes and Order of St. George called the Garter She draws the King of Scots to unite himself unto her in a League Offensive and Defensive against all the World and under colour of some danger to Religion by that Holy League she brings all the Protestant Princes of Germany to confederate with her 15. And now the Queen of Scots is brought to a publick Tryal accelerated by a new Conspiracy of Babington Tichborn and the rest in which nothing was designed without her privity And it is very strange to see how generally all sorts of people did contribute toward her destruction the English Protestants upon an honest apprehension of the Dangers to which the Person of their Queen was subject by so many Conspiracies the Puritans for fear lest she should bring in Popery again if she came to the Crown the Scots upon the like conceit of over-throwing their Presbyteries and ruinating the whole Machina of their Devices if ever she should live to be Queen of England The Earl of Leicester and his Faction in the Court had their Ends apart which was To bring the Imperial Crown of this Realm by some means or other into the Family of the Dudley's His Father had before designed it by marrying his Son Guilford with the Lady Iane descended from the younger Sister of K. HENRY the Eighth And he projects to set it on the Head of the Earl of Huntington who had married his Sister and looked upon himself as the direct Heir of George Duke of Clarence And that they might not want a Party of sufficient strength to advance their Interest they make themselves the Heads of the Puritan Faction the Earl of Leicester in the Court and the Earl of Huntingdon in the Countrey For him he obtaineth of the Queen the command of the North under the Title of Lord President of the Councel iu York to keep out the Scots and for himself the Conduct
Kingdom Normandy was in no small danger of being wilfully betrayed into the hands of the English who therefore were to be removed or at the least to be expulsed out of Rouen before the Kings Army was consumed in Actions of inferiour consequence The issue of which War was this That though the English did brave service for defence of the City and made many gallant attempts for relief thereof by their men and shipping from New-haven yet in the end the Town was taken by assault and for two days together made a prey to the Souldiers The joy of the Royalists for the reduction of this great City to the Kings obedience was much abated by the death of the King of Navar who had unfortunately received his deaths wound in the heat of the Seige and dyed in the forty fourth year of his age leaving behind him a young Son called Henry who afterward succeeded in the Crown of France And on the contrary the sorrow for this double loss was much diminished in the Prince of Conde and the rest of his party by the seasonable coming of four thousand Horse and five thousand Foot which Monsieur d' Andelot with great industry had raised in Germany and with as great courage and good fortune had conducted safely to the Prince 22. By the accession of these Forces the Hugonots are incouraged to attempt the surprizing of Paris from which they were disswaded by the Admiral but eagerly inflamed to that undertaking by the continual importunity of such Preachers as they had about them Repulsed from which with loss both of time and honour they were encountred in a set battel near the Câ—ty of Dreux in the neighbouring Province of Le Beausse In which battel their whole Army was overthrown and the Prince of Conde taken prisoner but his captivity sweetned by the like misfortune which befel the Constable took prisoner in the same battel by the hands of the Admiral who having drawn together the remainder of his broken Army retires towards Orleance and leaving there his Brother D' Andelot with the Foot to make good that City takes with him all the German Horse and so goes for Normandy there to receive such Monies as were sent from England But the Monies not coming at the time by reason of cross windes and tempestuous weather the Germans are permitted to spoil and plunder in all the parts of the Country not sparing places either Profane or Sacred and reckoning no distinction either betwixt Friends or Enemies But in short time the Seas grew passable and the Monies came an hundred and fifty thousand Crowns according to the French account together with fourteen pieces of Cannon and a proportionable stock of Ammunition by which supply the Germans were not onely well paid for spoiling the Country but the Admiral was thereby inabled to do some good service from which hâ— had been hindred for want of Cannon In the mean time the Duke of Guise had laid Siege to Orleance and had reduced it in a manner to terms of yeilding where he was villanously murdred by one Poltrot a Gentleman of a good Family and a ready Wit who having lived many years in Spain and afterward imbracing the Calvinian Doctrines grew into great esteem with Beza and the rest of the Consistorians by whom it was thought fit to execute any great Attempt By whom commended to the Admiral and by the Admiral excited to a work of so much merit he puts himself without much scruple on the undertaking entreth on the Kings service and by degrees became well known unto the Duke Into whose favour he so far insinuated that he could have access to him whensoever he pleased and having gained a fit opportunity to effect his purpose dispatched him by the shot of a Musket laden with no fewer then three bullets in the way to his lodging 23. This murder was committed on Feb. 24. an 1562. and being put to the Rack he on the Rack confessed upon what incentives he had done the fact But more particularly he averred that by the Admirall he was promised great rewards and that he was assured by Beza that by taking out of the world such a great persecutor of the Gospel he could not but exceedingly merit at the hands of Almighty God And though both Beza and the Admiral endeavoured by their Manifests and Declarations to wipe off this stain yet the confession of the murtherer who could have no other ends in it then to speak his conscience left most men better satisfied in it then by both their writings But as it is an ill wind which blows no body good so the Assassinate of this great person though very grievous to his friends served for an Introduction to the peace ensuing For he being taken out of the way the Admirall engaged in Normandy the Constable Prisoner in the City and the Prince of Conde in the Camp it was no hard matter for the Queen to conclude a peace upon such terms as might be equall to all parties By which accord it was concluded that all that were free Barons in the Lands and Castles which they were possessed of or held them of no other Lord then the King himself might freely exercise the Reformed Religion in their own jurisdictions and that the other which had not such Dominions might doe the same in their own Houses and Families only provided that they did not the same in Towns and Cities that in every Province certain Cities should be assigned in the Suburbs whereof the Hugonots might have the free exercise of their Religion that in the City of Paris and in all other Towns and places whatsoever where the Court resided no other Religion should be exercised but the Roman Catholick though in those Cities every man might privately enjoy his conscience without molestation that those of the Reformed Religion should observe the Holy Days appointed in the Roman Kalendar and in their Marriages the Rites and Constitutions of the Civil Law and finally that a general pardon should be granted to all manner of persons with a full restitution to their Lands and Liberties their Honors Offices and Estates Which moderation or restriction of the Edict of Ianuary did much displease some zealous Hugonots but their Preachers most who as they loved to exercise their gifts in the greatest Auditories so they abominated nothing more then those observances 24. After this followed the reduction of New-haven to the Crown of France and the expulsion of the English out of Normandy the Prince of Conde and some other leading men of the Hugonot faction contributing both their presence and assistance to it which had not been so easily done had not God fought more against the English then the whole French Armies for by cross winds it did not only hinder all supplyes from coming to them till the surrendry of the Town but hastened the surrender by a grievous Pestilence which had extreamly wasted them in respect of number and miserably dejected them
excited him with many Captains and Commanders who for the most part lived upon spoil and plunder to raise an Army of seven thousand Horse and four thousand Foot with which they made foul work in France wasting and spoiling all Countries wheresoever they came for being joyned unto the rest of the Hugonots Army they found them brought to such a poor and low condition that they were not able to advance the least part of that sum which they had promised to provide against their coming Somewhat was raised by way of Contribution to keep them in some present compliance and for the rest they were permitted to pay themselves in the spoil of the Country especially Churches Monasteries and Religious Houses But the Queen offering termes of Peace none were more forward then these Germans to imbrace the offer and Casimir more forward in it then all the rest The King had offered to disburse a great part of the money which belonged to the Souldiers for their pay which to those mercenary spirits was too strong a temptation to be resisted or neglected 8. These Germans were scarcely setled in their several Houses when the Hugonots brake out again and a new Army must be raised by the Duke of Zudibruck whom the French call the Duke of Deuxponts a Prince of the Collateral Line to the Electoral Family who upon hope of being as well paid as his Cozen Casimir tempted with many rich promises by the Heads of the Hugonots and secretly encouraged by some Ministers of the Queen of England made himself Master of a great and puisâ—ant Army consisting of eight thousand Horse and six thousand Foot With this Army he wastes all the Country from the very edge of Burgundy to the Banks of Loire crosseth that River and commits the like outrages in all the Provinces which lye between that River and the Aquitain Ocean In which action either with the change of Air the tediousness of his Marches or excessive drinking he fell into a violent Feaver which put a period to his travails within few days after Nor did this Army come off better though it held out longer for many of them being first consumed with sickness arising from their own intemperance and the delicious lusts of the Strumpets of France the rest were almost all cut off at the Battail of Mont-counter in which they lost two Colonels and twenty seven Captains of Foot and all their Horse except two thousand which saved themselves under Count Lodowick of Nassaw But the love of money prevailed more with them then the fear of death For within few years after Anno 1575 we finde them entring France again under Prince Iohn Casimir in company with the young Prince of Conde who had sollicited the Cause The Army at that time consisting of eight thousand Horse three thousand French Fire-locks and no fewer then fourteen thousand Switz and Germane Foot joyned with the Hugonots and a new Faction of Politicks or Male-contents under the Command of the Duke of Alanzon who had revolted from his Brother became so terrible to the King that he resolved to buy his Peace upon any rates To which end having somewhat cooled the heats of his Brother he purchaseth the departure of the Germane Souldiers by ingaging to pay them their Arrears which came in all to twelve hundred thousand Crowns on a full computation Besides the payment of which vast sum he was to gratifie Prince Casimir with the Siguory of â—hasâ—eau-Thierry in the Province of Champagne the command of one hundred French Lances and an annual pension of fourteen thousand Crowns as before was said 9. In the mean time the flames of the like civil War consumed a great part of Flanders to which the Prince Elector must bring Fewel also For being well affected to the House of Nassaw and more particularly to the Prince of Orange and knowing what encouragements the Calvinians in the Netherlands had received from them he hearkned cheerfully to such Propositions as were made to him at the first by Count â—odowick his Ministers and after by the Agents of the Prince himself But those small Forces which he sent at their first ingaging doing no great service he grants them such a large supply after the first return of Prince Casimirs Army Anno 1568 as made them up a Body of French and Germans consisting of seven thousand Foot and four thousand Horse with which he sent Prince Christopher a younger Son to gain experience in the War and to purchase Honour And though he might have been discouraged by the loss of that Army and the death oâ— his Son into the bargain from medling further in that quarrel yet the Calvinian spirit so predominated in his Court and Counsels that another Army should be raised and Casimir imployed as Commander of it as soon as he could give himself the least assurance that the French required not his assistance During the languishing of which Kingdom between Peace and War the War in Flanders grew more violent and fierce then ever which moved the Provinces confederated with the Prince of Orange to enter into a strict union with the Queen of England who could not otherwise preserve her self from the plots and practices of Don Iohn of Austria by which he laboured to embroyl her Kingdom By the Articles of which League or Union she bound her self to aid them with one thousand Horse and five thousand Foot the greatest part whereof she raised in the Dominions of the Prince Elector or indeed rather did contribute to the payment of so much money for his Army which was drawn together for the service of the Prince of Orange as might amount unto that number And that they might receive the greater countenance in the eye of the World she sends for Casimir into England where he arrived about the latter end of Ianuary 1578 is Royally feasted by the Queen rewarded with an annual Pension and in the next year made Knight of the Garter also By these encouragements he returns to his charge in the Army which he continued till the calling in of the Duke of Anjou and then retired into Germany to take breath a while where he found such an alteration in the State of affairs as promised him no great assurance of employment on the like occasion 10. For Lodowick the fifth succeeding Prince Elector in the place of his Father and being more inclined to the Lutheran Forms did in time settle all his Churches on the same Foundation on which it had been built by the Electors of the former Line so that it was not to be thought that either he could aid the Hugonots or the Belgick Calvinists in any of their Insurrections against their Princes if either of them possibly could have had the confidence to have moved him in it But he being dead and Frederick the Fourth succeeding the Zuinglian Doctrines and the Genevian Discipline are restored again and then Prince Casimir is again sollicited to raise a greater
Palatinate crossed over the Mose an Army of the French Hugonots should fall into Artois to give the Spaniards the more work by this treble invasion But the French Forces being followed at the heels by some Troops of Horse whom the King sent after them were totally defeated neer the Town of St. Vallery their Chief Commanders brought to Paris and there beheaded Count Hostrat with his Forces had the like misfortune first broken and afterwards totally vanquished by Sancho d' Avila one of Alva's Generals Onely Count Lodowick had the honour of a signal Victory but bought it with the death of his brother Adolph whom he lost in the Battail though afterwards encountring with the Duke himself he lost six thousand of his men besides all his Baggage Ordnance and Ammunition hardly escaping with his life And now it is high time for the Prince to enter who having raised an Army of eight and twenty thousand Horse and Foot increased not long after by the addition of three thousand Foot and five hundred Horse which the French Hugonots out of pure Zeal unto the Cause had provided for him takes his way toward Brabant which he had marked out for his Quarters but there he found the Dukes whole Army to be laid in his way whom he could neither pass by nor ingage in fight the Duke well knowing that such great Armies wanting pay would disband themselves and were more safely broken by delay then battail onely he watched their motions and ingaged by parties in which he always had the better And by these Arts so tired the Prince that in the end he was compelled to dissolve his Forces and retire once more into Nassaw But whilst the Duke was thus imployed in securing the passages of the Country which lay next to Germany he left the Ports and Sea-Towns open to the next Invadour Which being observed by William de March Baron of Luma who with few Ships kept himself upon the Seas out of Alva's reach he suddenly seized upon the Brill a Port of Holland where he defaced such Images as he found in their Churches omitting no irreverence unto any thing which was accounted Sacred but otherwise so fortified and intrenched the Town that it proved impregnable This hapned on Palm-Sunday Anno 1570 and on the Sunday following being Easter-day the Spanish Garrison is turned out of Vlushing the chief Port of Zealand by gaining of which two places it might not be unfitly said that they carried the Keys of Holland and Zealand at their Girdles and were inabled by that means to receive succours from all Parts and Nations which lay towards the Sea as they after did 40. The loss of these two Ports drew along with it a defection of most of the strong Towns in Holland which at the instigation of the Baron of Luma put themselves under the command of the Prince of Orange and at his motion took the Oath of fidelity to him from him they received their Garrison Shipping and Arms and to him they permitted the disposing of all places of Government making of Laws and the distributing of the Revenues which belonged to the Clergy To him such multitudes repaired out of France and England besides Auxiliary Scots that within less then four months a Navy of one hundred and fifty Sail lay rigged in Vlushing and from thence spoiled and robbed all Merchants of the Spanish party Nor were the Dukes Affairs in much better order in the parts next France in which Count Lodowick with the help of some French Hugonots had made himself Master of Mons the chief City of Haynalt which seemed the more considerable in the eyes of Alva because the French King openly but for different ends had avowed the Action By whose permission Gasper Colligny the great Admiral of France and one of the chief Leaders of the Hugonot party had raised an Army in the Borders consisting of six or seven thousand men which he put under the command of the Lord of Iâ—nlis who had before conducted the French Succours to the Prince of Orange But Ienlis being defeated by Don Frederick the Dukes Eldest Son and the Prince of Orange wanting power to relieve the besieged the Town was re-delivered into the hands of the Spaniards upon terms of honour and Lodowick retires to Dilemberg the chief Town of Nassaw 41. The Prince of Orange in the mean time animated by the General revolt of almost all the strong Towns in Holland raised a new Army of no fewer then eleven thousand Foot and six thousand Horse with which he entred into Brabant possest himself of some of the principal Towns and suffered others to redeem themselves with great sums of money with which he satisfied his Souldiers for their pains and hazard in the obtaining of the rest Dendermond and Oudenard two strong Towns of Flanders which had made some resistance he both stormed and plundered the Souldiers in all places making spoil of Churches and in some tyrannizing over the dead whose Monuments they robbed and pillaged But none fared worse then the poor Priests whom out of hate to their Religion they did not onely put to death but put to death with tortures and in some places which fell under the power of the Baron of Luma hanged up their mangled Limbs or Quarters as Butchers do their small Meats in a common Shambles which spoils and cruelties so alienated the affections of all the people that his power in those parts was not like to continue long and having failed of his attempt in relieving Mons crossed the Country into Holland as his surest receptacle on whose retreat the Duke recovers all the Towns which he had taken in Brabant and Flanders follows him into Holland and besiegeth Harlem in which the Souldiers to demonstrate of what Sect they were made a meer Pageant of Religion for setting up Altars on the Bulwarks they dressed them with Images and representations of the Saints and being attired in Copes and Vestments they sung Hymns before them as if they were offering Devotions After which mockery they brought out the resemblances of Priests and Religious persons made of straw whipt them and stabbed them into the body and finally cutting off their heads flung them into the Leaguer Sometimes they also placed the Images of Christ and many of the Saints against the mouth of the Cannon with many other Arts of the like impiety for which they were brought to a dear reckoning when the Town was taken at which time most of them were either put to the Sword or hanged or drowned 42. Frederick the Prince Elector Palatine had hitherto ingaged no further in the Belgick troubles then the rest of his Neighbours But now he doth more cordially espouse the quarrel upon some hope of propagating the Calvinian Doctrines which he had lately introduced into his Dominions And being well affected to the House of Nassaw and knowing what encouragements the Calvinian Faction in the Netherlands had received from them cheerfully hearkened to such
pardon And when men once are brought unto such a condition they must resolve to fight it out to the very last and either carry away the â—arland as a signe of Victory or otherwise live like Slaves or dye like Traytors But this was done according to Calvins Doctrine in the Book of Institutes in which he gives to the Estates of each several Country such a Coercive Power over Kings and Princes as the Ephori had exercised over the Kings of Sparta and the Roman Tribunes sometimes put in practice against the Consuls And more then so he doth condemn them of a betraying of the Peoples Liberty whereof they are made Guardians by Gods own appointment so he saith at least if they restrain not Kings when they play the Tyrants and want only insult upon or oppress the Subjects So great a Master could not but meet with some apt Scholars in the Schools of Politie who would reduce his Rules to practice and justifie their practice by such great Authority 54. But notwithstanding the unseasonable publication of such an unprecedented sentence few of the Provinces fell off from the Kings obedience and such strong Towns as still remained in the hands of the States were either forced unto their duty or otherwise hard put to it by the Prince of Parma To keep whom busied in such sort that he should not be in a capacity of troubling his Affairs in Holland the Prince of Orange puts the Brabanders whose priviledges would best bear it to a new Election And who more fit to be the man then Francis Duke of Anjou Brother to Henry the Third of France and then in no small possibility of attaining to the Marriage of the Queen of England Assisted by the Naval power of the one and the Land-Forces of the other What Prince was able to oppose him and what power to withstand him The young Duke passing over into England found there an entertainment so agreeable to all expectations that the Queen was seen to put a Ring upon one of his Fingers which being looked on as the pledge of a future Marriage the news thereof posted presently to the Low Countries by the Lord Aldegund who was then present at the Court where it was welcomed both in Antwerp and other places with all signes of joy and celebrated by discharging of all the Ordnance both on the Walls and in such Ships as then lay on the River After which triumph comes the Duke accompanied by some great Lords of the Court of England and is invested solemnly by the Estates of those Countries in the Dukedoms of Brabant and Limburg the Marquisate of the holy Empire and the Lordship of Machlin which action seems to have been carryed by the power of the Consistorian Calvinists for besides that it agreeth so well with their common Principles they were grown very strong in Antwerp where Philip Lord of Aldegund a profest Calvinian was Deputy for the Prince of Orange as they were also in most Towns of consequence in the Dukedom of Brabant But on the other side the Romish party was reduced to such a low estate that they could not freely exercise their own Religion but onely as it was indulged unto them by Duke Francis their new-made Soveraign upon condition of taking the Oath of Allegiance to him and abdicating the Authority of the King of Spain the grant of which permission had been vain and of no significancie if at that time they could have freely exercised the same without it But whosoever they were that concurred most powerfully in conferring this new honour on him he quickly found that they had given him nothing but an airy Title keeping all power unto themselves So that upon the matter he was nothing but an honourable Servant and bound to execute the commands of his mighty Masters In time perhaps he might have wrought himself to a greater power but being young and ill advised he rashly enterprised the taking of the City of Antwerp of which being frustrated by the miscarriage of his plot he returned ingloriously into France and soon after dyes 55. And now the Prince of Orange is come to play his last part on the publick Theatre his winding Wit had hitherto preserved his Provinces in some terms of peace by keeping Don Iohn exercised by the General States and the Prince of Parma no less busied by the Duke of Anjou nor was there any hope of recovering Holland and Zealand to the Kings obedience but either by open force or some secret practice the first whereof appeared not possible and the last ignoble But the necessity of removing him by what means soever prevailed at last above all sence and terms of Honour And thereupon a desperate young Fellow is ingaged to murther him which he attempted by discharging a Pistol in his face when he was at Antwerp attending on the Duke of Anjou so that he hardly escaped with life But being recovered of that blow he was not long after shot with three poyson Bullets by one Balthasar Gerard a Burgundian born whom he had lately taken into his service which murder was committed at Delph in Holland on the 10 of Iune 1584 when he had lived but fifty years and some months over He left behind him three Sons by as many Wives On Anne the Daughter of Maximilian of Egmont Earl of Bucen he begat Philip Earl of Bucen his eldest Son who succeeded the Prince of Orange after his decease By Anne the Daughter of Maurice Duke Elector of Saxony he was Father of Grave Maurice who at the age of eighteen years was made Commander General of the Forces of the States United and after the death of Philip his Elder Brother succeeded him in all his Titles and Estates And finally by his fourth Wife Lovise Daughter of Gasper Colligny great Admiral of France for of his third being a Daughter to the Duke of Montpensier he had never a Son he was the Father of Prince Henry Frederick who in the year 1625 became Successor unto his Brother in all his Lands Titles and Commands Which Henry by a Daughter of the Count of Solmes was Father of William Prince of Orange who married the Princess Mary Eldest Daughter of King Charles the second Monarch of great Britain And departing this life in the flower of his youth and expectations Anno 1650 he left his Wife with Childe of a Post-humous Son who after was baptized by the name of William and is now the onely surviving hope of that famous and illustrious Family 56. But to return again to the former William whom we left weltring in his bloud at Delph in Holland He was a man of great possessions and Estates but of a soul too large for so great a Fortune For besides the Principality of Orange in France and the County of Nassaw in Germany he was possessed in right of his first Wife of the Earldom of Bucen in Gelderland as also of the Town and Territories of Lerdame and Iselstine in Holland
Pastimes and that the afternoon was spent in such imployment as was most suitable to the condition of each several man Nor was the morning so devoted to Religious uses but that in some of their good Towns they kept upon that day the ordinary Fairs and Markets Kirk-Masses as they commonly called them which must needs draw away a great part of the people to attend those businesses to which their several Trades and Occupations did most especially oblige them What alterations hapned in the change of times we shall see hereafter 64. Nor was that portion of the day which they were pleased to set apart for Religious Duties observed with much more reverence by those in the Church then it was by others in the Market the head uncovered very seldom and the knee so little used to kneeling as if God had created it for no such purpose And whereas once Tertullian did upbraid the Gentiles for their irreverence in sitting before some of those Gods whom they pretended to adore so might this people be reproached for using the same posture in all acts of Worship but that they do it purposely to avoid all outward signes of Adoration even in the Sacrament of the Supper in which it cannot be denyed but that our Saviour is more eminently present then in any other Divine Ordinance of what name soever they are so fearful of relapsing to their old Idolatries if by that name they may be called that they chuse rather to receive it in any posture sitting or standing yea or walking then reverently upon their knees For so they have ordained it in another Synod mentioned by Daniel Angelocratur in his Epitome Consiliorum By the decrees whereof it was left at liberty to receive that Sacrament standing sitting or walking but by no means kneeling And kneeling was prohibited Ob 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 periculum for fear of falling into a new kinde of Idolatry which was never thought of in the world till they found it out that is to say Bread-worship or the Adoration of Bread it self The Conference at Hampton-Court hath told us somewhat but obscurely of these Ambling-Communions but I never understood them rightly till I saw this Canon For Canon they will have it called though most uncanonical More of the like stuff might be produced from the Acts of their Synods but that this little is too much to inform the Reader how different they are both in their Discipline and Doctrine in point of speculation and matter of practice from that which was most countenanced by the piety of the Primitive times and recommended to them by the constant and uniform tradition of the ages following 65. As is their work such is the wages they received and as the reverence is which they give to Christ in his holy Sacrament such is the honour which is paid them by the common people They had abolished the daily Sacrifice of Praise and Prayer which might have been continued though the Mass was abrogated disclaimed the hearing of Confessions the visitation of the Sick and Sacerdotal Absolution as inconsistent with the purity of their Profession took away all the annual Festivals with their Eves and Vigils and in a word reduced the whole Service of their Ministry to the Sunday-Morning Which hardly taking up the tenth part of time expended formerly by the Priests on Religious Offices they were so conscientious as to rest contented with little more then the tenth part of those yearly profits which by the Priest had been received They had besides so often preached down Tythes as a Iewish maintainance improper and unfit for Ministers of the holy Gospel when they were paid unto the Clergy of the Church of Rome that at the last the people took them at their word believe them to be so indeed and are spurred on the faster to a change of Religion in which they saw some glimmering of a present profit Of these mistakes the Prince of Orange was too wise not to make advantage giving assurance â—o the Land-holders and Country-Villagers that if they stood to him in the Wars against the Spaniard they should from thenceforth pay no Tythes unto their Ministers as before they did The Tythes in the mean time to be brought into the common Treasury toward the charges of the War the Ministers to be maintained by contributions at an easie rate But when the War was come to so fair an issue that they thought to be exempted from the payment of Tythes answer was made that they should pay none to the Ministers as they had done formerly whereby their Ministers in effect were become their Masters but that the Tythes were so considerable a Revenue to the Common-wealth that the State could not possibly subsist without them that therefore they must be content to pay them to the States Commissioners as they had done hitherto and that the State would take due care to maintain a Ministry By means whereof they do not only pay their Tythes as in former times but seeing how much the publick allowance of the State doth come short of a competencie thoughby that name they please to call it they are constrained as it were out of common charity if not compelled thereto by order to contribute over and above with the rest of the people for the improvement and increase of the Ministers maintainance But as they Bake so let them Brew to make good the Proverb And so I leave them for the present till we have traced the Presbyterian practices and positions both in England and Scotlâ—nd but in Scotland first to that point of time to which we have deduced their successes in these Belgick Provinces and then we shall hear further of them as they come in our way The end of the third Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB IV. Containing Their beginning Progress and Positions their dangerous Practices Insurrections and Conspiracies in the Realm of Scotland from the year 1544 to the year 1566. 1. CRoss we next over into Scotland where the Genevian Principles were first reduced into use and practice In which respect the Presbyterians of that Realm should have had precedencie in the present story not onâ—ly before any of their Brethren in the Belgick Provinces but even before the French themselves though nearest both in scituation and affection to the Mother-City For though the Emissaries â—f Geneva had long been tampering with that active and unquiet people yet such a strict hand was held upon them both by Francis the First and Henry the Second his Successor that they durst not stir till by the death of those two Kings they found the way more free and open to pursue those counsels which by the industry of those men had been put into them before which time the Scots had acted over all those Tumults Riots and Rebellions in which not long after they were followed by the French and Netherlands But howsoever I have purposely reserved them to this time and
to wonder and much more marvelled that the Bishops had not yet suppressed the Puritans some way or other Pandocheus is made to tell him That one of their Preachers had affirmed in the Pulpit That there were One hundred thousand of them in England and that their Number in all places did encrease continually 10. By this last brag about their Numbers and somewhat which escaped from the mouth of Paul touching his hopes of seeing the Consistorian Discipline erected shortly it may be gathered That they had a purpose to proceed in their Innovations out of a hope to terrifie the State to a compliance by the strength of their Party But if that failed they would then do as Penry had advised and threatned that is to say they would present themselves with a Petition to the Houses of Parliament to the delivering whereof One hundred thousand Hands should be drawn together In the mean time it was thought fit to dissemble their purposes and to make tryal of such other means as appeared less dangerous To which end they present with one Hand a Petition to the Convocation in which it was desired That they might be freed from all Subscriptions and with the other publish a seditious Pamphlet entituled A Complaint of the Commons for a Learned Ministry But for the putting of their Counsels in execution they were for the present at a stand The Book of Discipline upon a just examination was not found so perfect but that it needed a review and the review thereof is referred to Traverse By whom being finished after a tedious expectation it was commended to the Brethren and by them approved But the worst was it was not so well liked of in the Houses of Parliament as to pass for current which so incensed those meek-spirited men that they fell presently to threatning and reviling all who opposed them in it They had prepared their way to the Parliament then sitting Anno 1586 by telling them That if the Reformation they desired were not granted they should betray God his Truth and the whole Kingdom that they should declare themselves to be an Assembly wherein the Lords Cause could not be heard wherein the felicity of miserable men could not be respected wherein Truth Religion and Piety could bear no sway an Assembly that willingly called for the Judgments of God upon the whole Realm and finally that not a man of their seed should prosper be a Parliament-man or bear rule in England any more 11. This necessary preparation being thus premised they tender to the Parliament A Book of the form of Common-Prayer by them desired containing also in effect the whole pretended Discipline so revised by Traverse and their Petition in behalf thereof was in these words following viz. May it therefore please your Majesty c. that the Book hereunto annexed c. Entituled A Book of the Form of Common-Prayers and Administration of Sacraments c. and every thing therein contained c. may be from henceforth put in use and practised through all your Majesty's Dominions c. But this so little edified with the Queen or that Grave Assembly that in the drawing up of a General Pardon to be passed in Parliament there was an Exception of all those that committed any offence against the Act for the Uniformity of Common-Prayers or that were Publishers of Seditious Books or Disturbers of Divine Service And to say the truth the Queen had little reason to approve of that Form of Discipline in which there was so little consideration of the Supreme Magistrate in having either vote or place in any of their Synodical Meetings unless he be chosen for an Elder or indicting their Assemblies either Provincial or National or what else soever or insomuch as nominating the particular time or place when and where to hold them or finally in requiring his assent to any of their Constitutions All which they challenge to themselves with far greater arrogancy than ever was exercised by the Pope or any Bishop or inferior Minister under his Command during the times of greatest Darkness But the Brethren not considering what just Reason the Queen had to reject their Bill and yet fearing to fall foul upon her in regard of the danger they let flye at the Parliament in this manner that is to say That they should be in danger of the terrible Mass of God's Wrath both in this life and that to come and that for their not abrogating the Episcopal Government they might well hope for the Favour and Entertainment of Moses that is the Curse of the Law the Favour and loving-Countenance of Jesus Christ they should never see 12. It may seem strange that Queen ELIZABETH should carry such a hard hand on her English Puritans as well by severe Laws and terrible Executions as by excluding them from the benefit of a General Pardon and yet protect and countenance the Presbyterians in all places else But that great Monster in Nature called Reason of State is brought to plead in her defence by which she had been drawn to aid the French Hugonots against their King to supply the Rebel Scots with Men Money Arms and Ammunition upon all occasions and hitherto support those of the Belgick Provinces against the Spaniard Now she receives these last into her protection being reduced at that time unto great Extremities partly by reason of the death of the Prince of Orange and partly in regard of the great Successes of the Prince of Parma In which extremity they offered her the Soveraignty of Holland Zealand and West-Friesland to which they frame for her an unhandsom Title grounded on her descent from Philippa Wife of Edward the third Sister of William the third Earl of Heynalt Holland c. But she not harkning to that offer about the Soveraignty as a thing too invidious and of dangerous consequence cheerfully yeelded to receive them into her protection to raise an Army presently toward their defence consisting of Five thousand Foot and One thousand Horse with Money Ammunition Arms and all other necessaries and finally to put the same Arms so appointed under the Command of some Person of Honour who was to take the charge and trust of so great a Business The Confederates on the other side being very prodigal of that which was none of their own delivered into her hands the Keys of the Countrey that is to say the Towns of Brill and Flushing with the Fort of Ramekins And more then so as soon as the Earl of Leicester came amongst them in the Head of this Army which most ambitiously he affected for some other Ends they put into his hands the absolute Government of these Provinces gave him the Title of His Excellency and generally submitted to him with more outward cheerfulness than ever they had done to the King of Spain It is not to be thought but that the Presbyterian Discipline went on succesfully in those Provinces under this new Governor who having countenanced them in England
Arch-Duke Leopold Bishop of Passaw and one of the Emperor's younger Brothers Which Invitation he obeyed entred the Countrey with an Army of Twelve thousand men makes himself Master of New Prague and attempts the Old But he found such resistance there that K. Matthias with a powerful Army came time enough to their relief and dislodged the Besiegers Which Aid he brought them at that time not out of love to their Religion or their Persons either but only upon some Advertisement which had been given him of Duke Leopold's purposes of getting that Kingdom to himself as formerly Matthias had extorted the Realm of Hungary in despight of the Emperor But meaning to make sure work of it he prevailed so far that the Emperor resigned unto him that Kingdom also to which he was cheerfully elected by the Estates of the Countrey before the end of this year Anno 1610. And within two years after was raised to the Imperial Dignity on the death of his Brother Advanced unto which Power and Height he governed his Dominions with great Moderation till the year 1617. When being Himself and all his Brothers without hope of Children he cast his eyes upon his Cousin Ferdinand then Duke of Gratzi a Prince wholly acted by the Jesuits whom he adopted for his Son declared him for his Successor in all the Patrimony and Estates belonging to the House of Austria and in the year 1618 put him into the actual possession of the Realms of Hungary and Bohemia but not with any such formality of Election unto either of them as in his own case had been observed 29. This gave encouragement to some of the Catholick Party to take offence at some Churches lately erected by those of the Reformed Religion â—â—d either totally to deface them or to shut them up Complaint hereof is made unto the Emperor but without any remedy So that being doubly injured as they gave it out they called an Assembly of the States that order might be taken for the preservation of Religion and their Civil Rights both equally endangered by these new encroachments The Emperor disallows the Meeting commanding them by Proclamation to dissolve the same Which so exasperated some hot spirits that the Emperor's Secretary and two of his principal Councellors were cast headlong out of the Castle-Windows And though all three miraculously escaped with life yet the Conspirators conceived the Fact to be so unpardonable that they could find no means of doing better but by doing worse For hereupon they set a Guard of Soldiers on the Baron of Sternberge Governour of the Castle and Kingdom they secure Prague displace all the Emperor 's old Councellors and totally clear the Kingdom of all the Jesuits and presently as well by Letters to Matthias himself as by a publick Declaration scattered in all parts of the Kingdom they justifie themselves and their actings in it Which done they nominate Two and thirty persons of their own Perswasion to have a superintendency over all Affairs which concerned that Kingdom whom they called by the name of Directors and enter into a Solemn League or Covenant to defend each other against all persons whatsoever without excepting either King or Emperor For punishing these Insolencies on the one side and preserving the Malefactors on the other from the hands of Justice a terrible Confusion first and afterwards a more terrible Warr breaks out amongst them In the first heats whereof the Emperor Matthias dyes and Ferdinand is lawfully elected to succeed in the Empire To stop the course of whose good Fortunes the Bohemian Confederates renounce all Allegiance to him proclaim him for no King of theirs nor so to be acknowledged by the Princes and Estates of Germany 30. But their new Governours or Directors as they called them being generally worsted in the Warr and fearing to be called to a strict account for these multiplyed Injuries resolve upon the choice of some Potent Prince to take that unfortunate Crown upon him And who more like to carry it with success and honour than Frederick the fifth Prince Elector Palatine the Head of the Calvinian Party Son-in-law to the King of England descended from a Daughter of the Prince of Orange and by his Wife allyed to the King of Denmark the Dukes of Holstein and Brunswick three great Lutheran Princes These were the Motives on their part to invite him to it and they prevailed as much with him to accept the offer to which he was pushed forward by the secret instigation of the States United whose Truce with Spain was now upon the point of exspiration and they thought fit in point of State-craft that he should exercise his Army further off than in their Dominions And unto these it may be added He had before incurred the Emperor's Displeasure on a double account first for projecting the Confederacy of the Chiefs of the Calvinists whom they called the Princes of the Vnion for defence of themselves and their Religion And secondly for demolishing the Fortifications which were raised at Vdenhaine though authorized by the Placart of Matthias himself for which he was impleaded in the Chamber of Spires Upon which Motives and Temptations he first sends forth his Letters to the Estates of Bohemia in which he signified his acceptance of the Honour conferred upon him and then acquaints K. IAMES with the Proposition whose Counsel he desired therein for his better direction But King IAMES was not pleased in the precipitancy of this rash adventure and thought himself unhandsomely handled in having his Advice asked upon the post-fact when all his Counsels to the contrary must have come too late Besides he had a strong Party of Calvinists in his own Dominions who were not to be trusted with a Power of disposing Kingdoms for fear they might be brought to practise that against Himself which he had countenanced in others He knew no Prince could reign in safety or be established on his Throne with Peace and Honour if once Religion should be made a Cloak to disguise Rebellions 31. Upon these grounds of Christian Prudence he did not only disallow the Action in his own particular but gave command that none of his Subjects should from thenceforth own his Son-in-law for the King of Bohemia or pray for him in the Liturgy or before their Sermons by any other Title than the Prince Elector At which the English Calvinists were extreamly vexed who had already fancied to themselves upon this occasion the raising of a Fifth Monarchy in these parts of Christendom even to the dethroning of the Pope the setting up of Calvin in St. Peter's Chair and carrying on the Warr to the Walls of Constantinople No man more zealous in the Cause than Arch-bishop Abbot who pressed to have the News received with Bells and Bonfires the King to be engaged in a Warr for the defence of such a Righteous and Religious Cause and the Jewels of the Crown to be pawned in pursuance of it as appears plainly by his Letters to Sir